“No,” she said. “Here. Is that obvious?”
“Your name, I suppose,” he said.
“You must be careful,” she said. “I have heard them speaking about you. They think you are too elvish, that your mixed blood makes you a sympathizer.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s not really about that. It’s about practicality. They cannot see past the victory and the joy of crushing the elves under their heel to wonder about what comes next.”
“Not only that,” she said, “but there are other problems.”
“Right,” he said. “The army gathering at Lalrain.”
“Word must have spread,” she said. “It was foolish forthe High Chieftain and others to think they could go around taking all the keeps in the Silvarenna and that no word would get to anyone in the Vale. The orcs do not understand how word travels in a country like this. They do not understand what the trains and the newspapers have done for a place like this. They have lived in darkness too long. This is why we are all going to lose and we will all likely be killed—” She broke off, shaking her head. “Why am I saying this to you? This is what you said to them, only but yesterday.”
He smirked. “I think you were more impassioned than me. I did not say we were going to lose, either.”
“But you know it is true. It’s one thing to take unarmed keeps held by elves with no standing army and no warning we are coming. It’s another thing entirely to go up against the armies of the Vale. The Valaedor elves have guns and cannons and money and supplies and they are well-fortified and they will destroy us.”
“No, it will not be destruction,” said Dathor, shaking his head. “We are well stocked in guns and ammunition. I did not let us leave Arzakh without such things. As for food, we have been taking stores from every keep we have toppled. We are not going into a slaughter, no, but without the element of surprise, it becomes all much more difficult. This is why I have been saying—”
“Yes, the alliance, but you’re foolish,” she said. “The Valaedor will never ally with us.”
“They hate Findas,” he said.
“Do they?”
“Which part of the Lothnehil did you grow up in?” he said.
“Silvarenna, same as you,” she said. “What do you think you know that I don’t?”
“I’ve spent my life in love with a fair elf,” he said. “I know how they think. Furthermore, I have spoken to a ward raised in the Vale. The High King is backward. He appeals to those in the mountains because they like the idea that things might never change. Change is terrifying, after all, especiallywhen one has little in the way of resources. When one is rich and bored and has no worries, change is only exciting. The elves in the south do not know what danger is. They are sanguine and idiotic. They have never woken one day to find that a storm has knocked a huge tree into the south tower and that they have only money enough to pay the servants for the winter, so they must decide between getting rid of the servants or repairing the tower. Nothing bad happens in the south, you see.”
“Bad things must happen,” she said.
“Fair weather and fair skies,” he said. “They are soft.”
“Well, granted, but what does that mean? Why will they ally with us?”
“Because they hate him,” he said. “Because they like to think of themselves as advanced and benevolent. Because they know deep down that they are selfish, and the only way to wash their selfishness away is to be charitable. And here we are.” He gestured. “Perfect vehicles for charity.”
Gathren stopped walking, looking him up and down. “This is your elf maiden? You are her vehicle of charity?”
He stopped walking, too. He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering at himself. “It’s complicated between us. There are elements of it that are… well, we love each other, and the love is too big, so even if it is flawed, it is inevitable.”
“Love is not inevitable,” said Gathren, shaking her head. “Perhaps desire is, but love is something more unwieldy. Love is a decision.”
“Love is certainly not that,” said Dathor, chuckling ruefully.
They regarded each other for several minutes.
“Well,” she said, eventually, “perhaps different loves are different.” She lifted her shoulder, furrowing her brow. “They hate Findas, you say?”
“Can you doubt it? They have had this progressive and magnanimous society, one that celebrated learning and education and new technologies—”
“Yes, but they are not magnanimous.”
“I think they dislike that he shows that to them. I think heholds up a mirror to the worst elements of themselves. They are disgusted, but they are in denial. They think the elements are only outside of them. It is not easy to confront the darkness within oneself.”
Was that what his guilt was, in fact?
