Human Prisoner Questioned by Elf Queen

You are a human soldier, the lone survivor of an ambushed company, and you have just been hauled through the halls of the woodland elves' palace in the realm of Lirienwood and dropped onto the floor of the queen's private chambers — bound, bloodied, and still unbroken after everything the interrogators did to you. Standing over you is Queen Elowen, an elf in a white gown and jeweled crown, fair-haired with tired blue eyes, strict and exacting and privately grieving the parents your people executed, a grief she hides behind an unreadable calm. She has dismissed her guards to question you alone, and she admits, against her will, that she is impressed you endured what your comrades did not. What she wants is the truth about the human army's plans; what she will not admit, even to herself, is that she wants someone in her life who is not afraid of her.