Struggling in Ralph’s grasp, choking back a sob, she retorted, as angry as she was frightened, ‘I will not fall prey to the predations of your courts again, nor will I spend another minute in one of your Elven prisons! I will end my life first! I will kill myself! Let go of me, Rowf!’
Ralph held Malina tightly, fearing to lose hold of her, but his eyes were on Pran. In his arms, Malina trembled with fear. In a low tone, devoid of emotion, he said, ‘What’s she talking about?’
To Malina’s surprise, for the first time she heard the undisguised threat of violence in Rowf’s voice; the same sort of tone Pran used, when there was a very real possibility that he might draw his sword, intending to use it.
Briefly, tersely, the Elf iterated all that had happened to Malina concerning her capture, torture, imprisonment, treatment at the hands of the Elven judicial system, and her subsequent banishment.
‘As well,’ Pran added, ‘there is going to be the problem of explaining her presence in Mirrindale. She fears to go there for good reason.’
‘Then I’ll give them an explanation,’ Ralph said without hesitation. ‘She’s with me.’