Death Wind (Elven Alliance #3) - Tara Grayce Page 0,33

as the tall, graceful warriors continued to march from the train. There was a deadly beauty to the way the elven warriors moved, their long hair flowing over their shoulders and down their backs.

While she had seen Farrendel leave for war, she had never seen him fully battle ready. Every time she had seen him fight, it had been during ambushes when he was not wearing his full armor. He must be an impressive sight when going into battle.

She did her best to try to send an image of what she was thinking to him. All she got was a puzzled feeling. Guess her imagination didn’t exactly translate across the heart bond.

When the last elven warrior stepped from the train, Averett and Weylind strode forward so that they stood between the two armies facing each other.

Averett gestured. “I know this is an unusual sight. Our two kingdoms were enemies not that long ago. Yet today, we are allies. From this day forward, we will fight alongside each other, and we will claim victory together.”

Weylind waved back and forth and repeated the speech in elvish. He must have added to the speech because after several minutes, he switched to Escarlish. “When my brother married an Escarlish princess, I was doubtful such a union would promote anything besides more bitterness. Instead, their union has drawn our two kingdoms together. They proved that we do not have to be enemies. Through this war, our alliance will be tested. But it is my hope that it will prove as strong and enduring as the love my brother has formed with his princess.”

Essie smiled and gave a little wave as some of the Escarlish soldiers gave a cheer. The elven warriors didn’t so much as twitch.

It was a good sign the Escarlish soldiers were cheering the elven king. Surely his own soldiers were cheering internally, even if they didn’t show any outward emotion.

Seeing the two armies together gave Essie hope. Not just that they would get Farrendel back, but that they would get him back as quickly as possible.

FARRENDEL CLOSED his eyes, the better to block out his pounding head, his aching body.

Essie was chattering again.

He could not tell what she was saying, but he knew that, somewhere far away, she was talking to him. If he held still and closed his eyes, he could almost imagine they were back in their rooms in Estyra, the moonlight streaming through the windows as they sat on the cushions on the floor. Her head resting on his shoulder, her hand in his, as she sleepily chattered about nothing and everything until the words silenced into deep breathing.

And yet, even as she chattered and he strained to remember the feel of her at his side, her presence became more distant, more dreamlike, by the day.

Five days. That was how long he had been captured, as near as he could figure. Time lost all meaning, with no sunlight, no way to track its passing besides the daily visits of the troll prince bringing food and water and the troll king bringing torture.

Five days. That was how long he had been captured last time. Five days, with rescue on the sixth night.

A part of him almost believed he had never been rescued. That the last fifteen years of his life had been nothing but the fevered dream of a mind long tortured.

Yet, his father’s death had been all too real. The blood on Farrendel’s hands could not be dreamed away.

And Essie was real. Even without the heart bond existing, warm and taunting him with the life now out of his reach, he would know she was real. Because he never would have dreamed a talkative human princess with her flaming red hair and freckles. He did not have enough of an imagination to have conjured her.

She was real. But so very far away. A wisp slipping from his grasp with each passing day.

But, perhaps, he never had truly escaped. He had returned again and again in his nightmares. The nightmare had just become reality.

Five days. And so many more to go before he could even begin to hope for rescue.

Would there be a rescue? Even if Weylind and Essie’s brothers rallied the armies of Tarenhiel and Escarland and the armies cooperated together enough to fight a war, would the trolls let him live long enough for rescue a second time?

No matter. Essie was out of their reach. Even if that meant she was out of his reach as well. Not