“My name is Gathren,” she said, interrupting him.
“Gathren,” repeated Iahir. “You turned yourself over to the enemy in order to allow them to control your own father?”
Gathren held his gaze. “I am a daughter of Lothnehil. The orcs who invade are not. They would burn our country to the ground. I do not wish to see that. Neither does Dathor. When I spoke to him, and we agreed we want a world for elves and orcs together, that’s when I got the idea.”
“So, you’re volunteering to be a hostage?” said Marthlis.
Gathren took the knife out of her belt. She used it to clean her fingernails, shrugging. “You’ll find I can take care of myself.”
Iahir laughed again. “I like her.” He settled back in his chair and puffed on his pipe. “I like her a lot.”
Gathren raised her eyebrows. “You will provide safe passage for Dathor and Aerhril back to their home in the north. I know it is where they wish to be, not part of all of this.”
Dathor shook his head at her. “You can’t just cut me out of everything.”
“Apologies,” said Gathren. “You are very smart, Dathor, but sometimes you are so smart that you refuse to contemplate that you could be wrong. You are too good at talking other people into doing your bidding to be let loose on this. I cannot trust you to be part of this anymore. I needed your contacts. Thank you, but you should go home. Perhaps your inevitable love is enough to sustain you.”
Dathor’s expression was stony. “Just because I made one miscalculation—”
“Not just one,” said Gathren.
“You think you are smarter than me, then?”
“I do not, in fact,” said Gathren. “Your intelligence means you’re on no one’s side, only your own. As I say, I cannot trust you.”
“Well, here we are, then,” said Dathor. “I hope you can navigate all this by yourself.”
“So do I,” said the female orc.
36
AND JUST LIKEthat, they were on their way home.
The elves put them on a train in the middle of the city, and Aerhril was not sure how she felt about how quickly it was all over. Dathor spent the first hour grousing about how Gathren had tricked him, how he’d been sent back here, away from everything exciting, and how it was all going to happen without them. He paced back and forth in their compartment, unable to stop moving.
Aerhril was reeling. She could hardly believe they were on a train, headed north. She had no real desire to be in the middle of a battle between the orcs and elves, she supposed, but it did feel as if that was where things were happening, and they were going away from the action.
In the second hour of the journey, Dathor stopped pacing and sat down next to her. They were traveling in their own private train compartment, paid for by Marthlis, and this was as much to conceal the fact an orc was on the train as it was for anything else.
Dathor sighed, seemingly deflated. “I don’t know what I was thinking, actually. Why did I think I could fight to fix the entire world? All I’ve ever cared about is you. And Foxglove Peak.”
“Our home,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he said, “even though neither of us was ever supposed to own it. We will own it. And that means drivingthe orc army out.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, how could we do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The villagers, the elves who live there, would they not rise up against the orcs?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But not for your sake.”
“For yours, then.”
“No, not for mine, either,” she said. “I am a foreigner. I am Valaedor. Have you forgotten this?”
He sighed.
“Well,” she said, “there is someone whose sake they might rise up for. At least because they think he is the true steward of the place.”
