preferred tall hairstyles or thick braids. It fell onto her forehead in an ash-gray fringe, and was cropped short on the back of her head and the temples. She was dressed in the dark green costume of a scout, and hanging at her back, instead of a s’kash, she had two short, curved swords with jade handles like the one on Elodssa’s sword. He himself had given her the pair of swords at a time when life had seemed simpler. How young they had been then!
“That depends on what you are doing here,” Elodssa replied as distantly as possible.
“What could a scout from the House of the Black Flame possibly be doing here but protecting the crown prince?” she asked with a crooked smile. The crown prince. Those cursed words had come between them two years earlier, shattering their happiness forever. “The head of the house has ordered me to be your shadow.”
“That cannot be! My father would never have sent you.”
“Have I ever lied to you? Unlike you, I have no right to do so.” She, too, could not forget what had happened.
“I did not deceive you,” Elodssa blurted out. “What happened between us was not a lie!”
“Of course not.” Another bitter smile. “It was all the fault of your father and stupid prejudice.”
“I cannot contravene the law, and you know it! It is not my fault that we cannot be together. The son of the head of a house cannot commit his life to . . .”
“Carry on, Elodssa,” she said in a gentle voice when the prince broke off. “To whom? To one who brandishes swords? To one who wanders round Zagraba in search of units of orcs who have invaded the territory of our house? To one who teaches young elves to hold the s’kash or fire a bow? Or simply to one who has no noble blood flowing in her veins?”
“This conversation will come to nothing, like all those that have preceded it.”
“You are right,” Midla agreed sadly.
“You may go back to my father and tell him that all is well with me.”
“Do I look like a messenger?” There was a glint of poorly concealed fury in the yellow, almond-shaped eyes.
He knew that expression well. When they were still seeing each other, he had seen similar rage in her eyes a few times. But now, for the first time, it was directed at him.
“I have enough guards,” Elodssa snapped.
“Your guards are up there,” said Midla, jabbing one finger toward the ceiling. “A league above us. Long before they could get down here, the heir of the House of the Black Flame would be lying dead and still.”
“Who is going to attack me here? The dwarves and the gnomes?”
“I am carrying out the orders of the head of the house,” she said with an indifferent shrug.
“And I order you to go back to Zagraba!” Elodssa declared furiously.
“You do not yet have your father’s authority,” she said with a triumphant smile.
The elf gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, then turned and walked away, cursing Midla’s obstinacy.
The young elfess watched Elodssa go, trying to hold back her tears. Her eyes were clouded with pain.
That week dragged on forever.
Elodssa changed his mind about going higher up. Midla would only follow him, and the elf did not want anyone talking about him behind his back. Everyone still remembered how close they had been and how Elodssa’s father had forbidden the marriage. And so the heir of the House of the Black Flame spent most of the time sitting in the accommodation allocated to him by the dwarves, only occasionally strolling through the nearby halls, admiring the beauty and magnificence of these subterranean places. At such moments he was accompanied by the silent Midla. Somehow or other she always knew that he had left his room, and immediately appeared beside him.
They both behaved with emphatically cool politeness. And they both felt awkward. Every stroll concluded with Elodssa losing his temper, mostly with himself, and returning to his quarters alone. And so the elf was relieved when the deadline he had set for the dwarf craftsman finally arrived.
This time he was lucky and managed to get away without disturbing Midla, although her room was opposite his own. But that was most probably because the elf had deliberately not warned his dwarf guide that he was planning to visit Frahel: Elodssa suspected that Midla knew about his strolls from this little informer.
He found his way to the lift with no difficulty, and