much as the rest of them. Once they reached Estyra, he would have his wife Rheva to lean on.
Until then, he was more alone than Essie was. She had two of her brothers with her, currently standing by the stern peering over the rail as they tried to figure out how the magical propulsion worked.
Weylind had no one. His brother was captured by trolls. His sister Jalissa was returning to Escarland to help the war effort there. His other sister Melantha had turned out to be a traitor and was currently missing. Presumably she had either gone with the trolls or she had fled. She couldn’t have returned to Tarenhiel once her treachery was known.
That left only Essie, the sister-in-law he’d never really wanted.
With a deep breath, Essie marched over and leaned against the rail next to Weylind. For once, she couldn’t find the words to say anything.
Weylind let out a long, slow breath, the strands of his black hair falling to hide his face. “Your brother is a good man.”
That was not at all what Essie had been expecting. “Yes, he is. He will keep his word. The Escarlish army will fight on your side in this war.”
Weylind straightened, staring at the Tarenhieli shore, green with its deep forest. “For the past months, I have been wary, waiting for your brother to reveal that the marriage alliance had been a trick. And yet, it turns out it was my sister, not your brother, who dealt in treason and lies.”
Even Essie could hear the pain in Weylind’s voice. She remembered Farrendel telling her once that elves didn’t lie. She hadn’t been sure at the time if that was a custom they held to or if they were truly incapable of lying.
It turned out elves could lie. At least, Melantha had maintained lies for years.
Essie wasn’t sure how to comfort Weylind. What comfort was there to be had when a sister betrayed a brother to torture and death? There wasn’t a bright side. There wasn’t even a villain to hate. There was just a double loss, a double reason to mourn.
Instead, Essie decided to focus on her family, on the growing respect she’d heard in Weylind’s voice. “I know this might be hard to believe, given how he died fighting your people, but my father was a good man and a good king. He had great respect for elves, even as he went to war against you. While I don’t remember him much, I know Averett and Julien especially have always looked to his example.”
Weylind nodded, still staring at the shoreline of trees. “I wonder if his war might have been more justified than we elves would wish to believe. As the centuries have passed, we have lost some of the nobleness of character and mightiness in battle that made us worthy allies. There are stories of warriors of the past with magic much like Farrendel’s. It was not the rare thing back then that it is now.” Weylind turned to her. “And your brother has the making of the noble kings of old. He is young, but I believe he will be a worthy ally.”
“Would I be too human if I said I told you so?” Essie’s smile was brief and wobbly.
It felt wrong to joke and smile while Farrendel remained captured by the trolls. Yet, it would be weeks before they would be able to rescue him. If she spent those weeks in melancholy, she would break long before they got him back.
As hard as it was, she needed to figure out a way to live with this ache. To keep going, one step at a time.
Perhaps it would be easier in the morning, once she’d slept through the night on the train to Estyra.
Weylind’s shoulders slumped once again. “I am sorry, isciena. Farrendel would have good cause to tell me the same thing regarding you.”
Essie blinked at Weylind. In her exhaustion, had she heard him wrong? Surely King Weylind hadn’t just apologized to her? Again?
Sure, he had been hard on her at times, suspicious of her motives for marrying Farrendel and worried that she would break his brother’s heart. But she had never expected him to apologize.
“Thank you. It was hard there, at first, when everyone was so suspicious of me.” She shrugged. “But if all of you hadn’t been so hard on me, I’m not sure Farrendel would’ve dug in his heels as fiercely as he did out of sheer stubbornness to prove you wrong.”
“Farrendel does not