“No. We cannot live in a country ruled by orcs,” said Hafindel. “They are savage beasts. We are better than that.”
Aerhril felt something shift uncomfortably inside her at Hafindel’s pronouncement, and she strove not to allow it to show on her face.
“I will not fail you, my lady,” said Hafindel, getting up from the bed. “I will not fail our people. I will not fail the country of Lothnehil.”
Aerhril did not know what to say to that.
She did not think she had ever had such loyalty to this country.
She had never been loyal to anything at all in that way.
Except perhaps him.
And look how that had turned out.
18
WHEN AERHRIL LEFTthe barn, her palm still sticky with the remnants of Dathor’s release on her flesh, the memory of his fingers against her sex like some kind of promise that had been written into her core, she was not yet sure of him.
She had thought she would be.
She wondered if she would have been if she had convinced him to put his cock into her, if they had been truly joined, but she was happy enough not to have the worry of his getting her with child, so she did not think she would ever attempt to convince him to do such things to her, not unless things were different.
She did not know, then, how she could be sure of him.
She supposed that what Flaihir spoke of, the kind of love that made men desperate, it was not love that went both ways, because part of the sweetness of love was its risk, was its sense of being uncertain about the other person. Not all of it, of course, for there was something different about surety, different about knowing someone would be loyal to you, come what may.
That sort of love, though, the sure kind, it could never be desperate, she did not think.
Desperation and risk went together. They were a pair.
She was desperate for Dathor and always had been, and it was partly because she could not quite ever be sure of him. Even in the beginning, he had scoffed at the idea of theireven being friends. When he came back, he had acknowledged that they found each other attractive, but he had not seemed to think they could ever truly care for each other. He had always held her off, frightened of truly loving her, she thought.
He did not trust her.
Therefore, she could never trust him.
And so, she sort of lied to him. Not entirely, she supposed, because she was willing to wait for him if he showed any sign of making himself worthy of her. But until that time, she would be foolish not to put her plan into motion with Flaihir.
Of course, she could not have his input, but perhaps she could simply observe him.
What had she done to catch his eye in the beginning, she wondered? Had she been kind to him first?
No, she realized. He had protected her from Celedin, and she had no notion why he’d done that.
One day, she asked him. They were finding ways to meet each other at night. Sometimes—though this could not be too often, perhaps once every two weeks or so—he could leave a ladder that she could climb up and spend time with him in the stables. Sometimes, they risked sneaking him up the stairs in the keep. Sometimes it was the barn. Sometimes they walked off to find a little cavern under a rocky ledge, out behind the Peak. She would bring blankets. He would build a fire. But soon it would be too cold for such things.
“Why?” he said. “What kind of person would I be if I let a little blond slip of a thing like you be tormented by him?”
“So, it was just out of the goodness of your heart?” she said. “It didn’t have anything to do with me?”
“I suppose not.”
“There wasn’t anything you liked about me?” she said.
“You were a pretty little girl,” he said with a shrug. “But I had long ago learned that pretty little elf children tended to be cruel to me. You had those light-colored curls, I supposed. Maybe I thought that might make you different enough.”
No, she realized, that was not it. Well, perhaps being pretty did not hurt matters when it came to men. The reason he’d protected her, though, was because of shared cruelty. People had been cruel to him, and now someone was being cruel to her. He knew what cruelty felt like, and he wished to protect her from it.
