He carefully gathered the unconscious girl into his arms and started toward the door—just as he reached it, it swung open and Marcus's satisfied face appeared in the doorway. Dorian raised a questioning eyebrow, to which the other man merely gave a short nod. He had taken care of the guard with ease.
"Let's go. We need to find the horses," Marcus said, drawing his sword as he moved ahead, leading the way down the corridors. Dorian focused entirely on casting an illusion over the three of them so that any passing guards would see nothing more than a strange night shadow slipping by. Thanks to this, they reached the stables with relatively little disturbance, where Marcus brought their horses forward.
Dorian passed the girl over to his friend long enough to swing himself onto his own horse, then gently took Leonie back into his arms, trying to arrange her limp body as comfortably as possible. He wrapped her in the thick blanket he had brought from the room so that she would not grow cold.
"Let's go," he ordered, urging his horse into a trot, Marcus close behind.
Marcus lifted one hand and muttered something under his breath, tilting his head toward the sky. A moment later a violent windstorm tore through the city, and the darkness of the night deepened over the streets, as though every flame in every torch had gone out—even the stars' light seemed to vanish. Soldiers ran about like disturbed ants, shouting and stumbling, while the horses that thundered between them were perceived as nothing more than another gust of savage wind.
"Marcus!" Dorian called as they drew closer to the closed gates.
Marcus lowered his hand from the sky, raised it before him and shouted in the ancient tongue, his face tightening with effort. The two massive gate leaves burst open with a deafening crash, and the soldiers scattered in panic, shouting as they fled. None of them noticed the two riders as they thundered out onto the road, straight toward the forest.
They pushed their horses at a gallop between the trees for nearly half an hour, without stopping and without a word, before Dorian finally slowed to a walk. He looked down, worried, at the motionless bundle of blankets in his arms. The hard ride had surely rattled the girl's bones badly, but they had needed to put as much distance between themselves and their enemies as quickly as possible.
"She still hasn't woken up?" Marcus asked, his face worn as he brought his horse alongside.
"No. But we have to keep going. I want at least a full day's ride between us and that cesspit. How are you holding up? How much strength do you have left?" Dorian glanced at his friend, who looked thoroughly exhausted. It was hardly surprising; using that much magic on human soil would have knocked most elves flat on their backs. Marcus, however, was one of the strongest warriors among their people, which was exactly why he sniffed in disdain at the question.
"I've got more than enough strength left to break your nose if you bring it up again," he grumbled.
Dorian smirked and scanned the trees ahead. "Let's move," he said, and urged his horse into a gallop again.
They drove their mounts hard for an entire day, stopping only a few times to water the animals and to check that the girl swaddled in blankets was still alive. With growing concern, both of them watched as Leonie showed no sign of wanting to open her eyes. She lay senseless in Dorian's arms the entire day.
At last, when evening fell again, they decided to make camp. Marcus lit a fire, and Dorian laid the girl down beside it, then settled himself with his back against a tree.
"Should we try to wake her?" Marcus asked, a note of worry in his voice. "We should find a healer for her. She's got no color in her at all."
Dorian had noticed it too—over the course of the day her face had grown paler and paler. In his seven hundred years of life he had rarely felt truly helpless, and now the storm raging in his chest seemed impossible to calm. At that moment there was only one thing that could have soothed him: to see those pale green eyes open again.
"Hey, little one. Time to wake up," he said, kneeling beside her. "Wake up."
He uncorked his waterskin, poured a little cold water into his palm and dabbed it gently over Leonie's face. He repeated the motion again and again until at last the girl's eyelashes fluttered. Behind him Marcus let out a huge breath of relief, and Dorian himself might have sagged to his knees from the tension if he had not already been kneeling.
"Welcome back," he murmured, wiping a little more water from her face as she came to.
Leonie finally regained consciousness and found herself staring into the deep blue of Dorian's eyes. For a moment she did not recognize him at all. She blinked, dazed, trying to understand what was happening around her. Who was this man? Why was he here? Where was here, and what had happened?
A thousand unanswered questions formed out of the formless fog of her thoughts. Her gaze flitted over the treetops, then over the two men. Something began to flicker in the back of her mind… the dinner, Esthelle, being shoved into Dorian's room, the moment he tore her dress off—
She jerked upright in terror, trying to defend herself, and at that movement an entire universe exploded inside her body. Pain flooded every limb, darkness washed over her eyes for a heartbeat, and she toppled sideways and began to retch.
"You really shouldn't be springing about like that," Dorian remarked, gripping her shoulders with steady hands as she heaved. Leonie gagged again and again, but there was nothing left for her body to give up.
"All right, little one. It'll pass in a moment," he said quietly, waiting until the waves of nausea slowly ebbed. Then he eased her back down and once more brushed the clinging strands of red hair away from her face. "They worked you over pretty thoroughly, so please don't move too much. I might be able to help a little, but only enough to stop you doing something foolish. You see…"
He took her hand and looked into her fear-bright eyes.
"…if a living being feels no pain at all, it's far too easy to forget it still has limits."
A pleasant, gentle warmth rippled through Leonie's body, which until then had felt like a throbbing knot of agony. Bit by bit she began to relax as the pain ebbed away in a few heartbeats, leaving behind only a dull ache. She looked at the man kneeling beside her with uncertainty.
"How did you… do that?" she asked, pulling her hand back.
"He's got a few pretty good tricks, hasn't he?" Marcus chimed in, joining the light conversation as he came to sit by the fire as well.
"Tricks," Leonie repeated slowly, still eyeing them both with distrust. With great care she tried again to sit up. She was determined to put as much distance between herself and her captors as possible. If it was that easy for Dorian to take her pain away, what else might he be capable of? According to the legends, the elves possessed fearsome magical abilities that no mortal human could ever hope to match. What could she possibly do against them?
"I'll help," Dorian said.
As if he had not heard her silent resistance at all, he slipped his arms under her again and gently lifted her, carrying her to the base of the tree where he had been resting earlier. He settled her there, sitting against the trunk, then stepped back a few paces and lowered himself onto the ground at a respectful distance. Seeing how frightened she was of them, he had at least enough decency to give her space before she worked herself back into another faint. He nodded at Marcus, silently asking him to scoot back as well. Marcus rolled his eyes, but dutifully shuffled about half a meter farther away.
"We're not going to eat you," Dorian told her. "I prefer meatier fare."
Leonie's eyes went wide.
"Marcus," Dorian said warningly, giving his friend a disapproving look.
"We're not going to hurt you," he told Leonie again, but he could see that his words alone were not enough. Her wary gaze darted back and forth between them, as though she were trying to determine which one of them she should fear more.
"If… if you don't want anything from me… then why am I here?" she asked at last, voicing the obvious question. The two elves exchanged a look.
"We kidnapped you," Marcus said bluntly.
Fear flared again in Leonie's eyes.
"Marcus," Dorian sighed, rubbing at his eyes. "You have all the tact of a chicken with a headache."
"What? We did kidnap her," Marcus protested, spreading his hands. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Leonie start to drag herself farther away. He huffed impatiently. "Listen, little girl. Those mongrels handed you over to us like some horse out of the stables and told us to go take you for a ride."
Leonie recoiled as if he had struck her, squeezing her eyes shut in shame. Painful as the truth was, he was right. But how would this be any better, here with these two brutes? At least she had known what to expect with the baron. These two towering, barbaric men… she doubted she would even live to see tomorrow. And if they sold her as a slave afterward? She had heard that the elves had never been opposed to keeping slaves…
"And we decided to take you with us," Marcus went on. "We didn't—"
Before he could finish the sentence, Dorian cut him off.
"We have a long road ahead before we reach our main encampment. About five days' ride, so you'll need your strength. You have to eat and drink." He tossed her the waterskin and some food. "It's not a request," he added in a tone that was much closer to a command than anything else.
Leonie stared at the unfamiliar food in her hand. What if it was poisonous? What if they had laced it with something to knock her out again? Who knew what they might do to her then…
"For the love of the spirits," Marcus muttered, exasperated, as she continued to glare at the food without taking a bite. He snatched it back, took a hearty bite himself, chewed, then tossed it into her lap again.
"See? It's just food," he said around a mouthful. "Eat," Dorian repeated.
The two men watched her intently until she finally put a small piece into her mouth and chewed. Once she swallowed, Dorian's shoulders loosened and he leaned back onto his elbows with a small huff of relief.
"Good. Now you're going to have to answer a few of our questions," he went on. No matter how exhausted she was, he needed answers. He had to measure the depth of the trouble they had gotten themselves into and see more clearly the risk he was taking by bringing her home.
At first Leonie did not understand what they wanted from her—then memory resurfaced… her ears. The blond elf had surely seen them last night when… when…
Without thinking she touched the tips of her pointed ears. The movement did not escape Dorian's notice.
"Let's start simple. What's your name?" he asked, his tone more interrogator than nurse.
"Leonie," she said quietly. "I… I don't know my family name. The baron never told me. I suppose he doesn't know it either."
He had said once there had not been time to ask her mother; everything had happened too fast. Leonie, however, did not share that part. She had no intention of telling them more than she had to. She only wanted to drag things out a little until she could come up with some sort of escape plan. Her pain had eased enough that she might just be able to make it to the nearest village. There she could find a healer, and once she was a little better, she could run again. The elves merely saw her as entertainment; surely they would not chase her to the end of the world. The baron, however… he was different. He would be so furious now that she would likely be hiding from him for the rest of her life. But she would do it. She would never go back there. Never.
"When did you leave the land of the elves, and how?" Marcus asked.
Leonie blinked at him in confusion.
"I never… I… I didn't even know it existed. I was born in the baron's castle. I've lived there as long as I can remember, I… I've never been anywhere else," she said—if she did not count her stolen walks in the forest. But she did not consider that important information.
"That's impossible. That would mean your mother was already living among humans…" Marcus argued.
"Who were your parents?" Dorian cut in tensely. "Your mother and father?"
"I don't know."
"Were they elves?"
"I don't know."
"Friends of the baron?"
"I don't know."
"How did they end up on human soil?"
"I don't know!" she burst out, frustration flaring. Pain lanced through her ribs and she clutched her side, groaning. How could these two slow-witted men not grasp that she truly knew nothing? She knew so little about her own origins.
"All right," Dorian said, his voice softening.
"So you spent your life among humans. Who raised you?" he asked, changing the line of questioning to draw more out of her.
"The baron… he… he's like a father to me. He gave me food and a roof over my head. He kept me safe…" Marcus snorted loudly.
"Safe? Your broken bones say otherwise," he shot back.
Leonie let her head droop. He was right, of course. The baron had always been hard on her and did not always treat her fairly… but… the world was cruel, and she had long since learned that everything had a price.
"That's enough," Dorian said quietly, shooting his friend a warning look. Marcus never knew where the line was, and it was obvious he had just stomped all over Leonie's already battered heart.
"My name is Dorian, and his is Marcus. As you already know, we are envoys of the elven kingdom. Or at least we were… until yesterday," Dorian went on with a sigh. "Now we'll be lucky if we aren't disowned."
Marcus laughed. "Oh, please, my friend. We both know your father is only still king because you're too stubborn to take the crown from him."
Dorian nodded. It was true. To be precise, he had already been crowned three hundred years ago—he had simply never assumed the role properly. Back then he had felt utterly unfit to rule, and preferred to channel his power and endless grief into battle instead. So he had left the governing to his father as a sort of regent; after all, the old king moved far more easily among the tangled web of politics and personal ties.
"Regardless, we broke our oath, and my father will be furious when he finds out," Dorian said. He did not add that they would not exactly welcome Leonie with open arms either. Most elves considered anything that came from humans a blight, and it would be hard to convince them that a half-elven girl raised among humans was an exception.
"But we still have a little time to decide on an excuse," he added. "First we have to convince the others."
"What… others?" Leonie whispered.
"We didn't come alone, of course. In a few days we'll reach our comrades' camp. Four of them are waiting for us in a safe place in case we needed help," Marcus explained patiently.
"Will you… let me go?" she asked, barely audible, whispering a quick prayer in her mind.
Dorian and Marcus exchanged a flat glance, and then Dorian said firmly, "No. We can't do that. Not yet."
Leonie's heart plummeted into her stomach. So that was it. She would be elven prey. Escape from such creatures seemed impossible. Just a few days. Would they kill her then? Perhaps, if she was lucky, they would do it quickly…
Hopelessness crashed over her again, heavier than ever, and a bone-deep weariness settled into her. She longed for nothing more than to curl up and cry herself to sleep. With tear-filled eyes she turned her face away, shuffling a little farther from the tree so she could lie down with her back to the men.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and she no longer even cared whether she would try to defend herself if Dorian decided to repeat what had happened the night before—whatever that truly had been. Despair and helplessness dragged her under like a dark tide. As she had expected, a moment later she heard quiet footsteps approaching. Every hair on her body stood on end. She held her breath and repeated to herself that she only wanted it to be over quickly.
But the only thing she felt was the weight and warmth of a thick blanket being drawn over her.