Page 72 of The Faceless Mage

He didn’t move. She wasn’t sure whether he even breathed.

She pulled his hood back.

And gasped. A quick breathy sound that made him freeze, as if trying not to startle her further.

“No,” she said quickly. “Don’t. Please. I’m not afraid. Just surprised.”

And he couldn’t call her a liar, because their link made it plain that she told the truth.

She was very surprised indeed. Shocked, and more than a little intimidated. Leisa had never felt so small and grubby and helpless as she did when she realized that hood had been hiding the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

No. Not a man. Not a human anyway. His face was sculpted with a breathtaking precision that drew her gaze at the same time it reminded her that he was entirely other. His shoulder-length hair was braided away from his face on both sides to reveal his delicately pointed ears, and its strands glowed white in the light of the flames. The pale, silvery gray of his skin should have looked strange, but in the moonlight, it simply looked right. As though this were where he belonged.

And it was.

Her Raven was a night elf.

The most powerful and mysterious of all Abreia’s magical races. Shapeshifters. Hunters. Feared and avoided.

And his eyes had begun to glow brighter now, with the banked glow of his magic rising from within.

“How are you even here?” she asked softly. “I have heard stories all my life, but to my people, you are barely more than a terrifying legend.”

His hands dropped from her shoulders.

“I am here because I was a prideful young fool,” he said, holding himself still and tense, as though he expected her to run from him any moment. “I was… traveling. A few days from here. In Eddris. Melger was also there. I sensed his interest—even a form of obsession—but I ignored him. Whenever my people travel outside our borders, humans behave similarly, so I judged him no danger to me. I was wrong.”

“How did he capture you?”

His hands clenched on his knees. “I recall hunting in the forest. Fleeing through the snow with blood running down my arm. I must have been hit by a poisoned arrow, because my next memory is of waking in Garimore, encased in that spelled armor, with no recollection of the time between.”

Leisa hissed a curse. “He ambushed you. The same way he does human mages.”

The Raven shrugged. “I let down my guard among humans. Perhaps I deserved what came of it.”

“We aren’t all evil-minded bastards,” Leisa argued, feeling stung.

“No?” One elegant eyebrow rose. “I was enslaved for ten years. In plain sight. How many of your people walked on by, choosing to ignore the proof that was right in front of them because it would be inconvenient to admit what Melger had done?”

It was not an unfair question.

“Maybe they were afraid. Maybe they didn’t think there was anything they could do.”

“Maybe they never tried.”

“Becausethey were afraid.”

“Is that how you humans allow so many atrocities between you? By convincing yourselves that fear absolves you of responsibility?”

She wished she could deny it. But she’d seen the proof.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply. “You’re right. We’re not that great sometimes. We lie and cheat and steal and do other terrible things because we act out of our fears. We will do almost anything to make ourselves safe, even trample on others. But I believe some of us are trying. Trying to be better and to do better and to make the world safer for those around them.”

His silence suggested he was unconvinced, and she could not blame him. He’d endured too much at the hands of an evil man, and now he remained at the mercy of yet another human. Forced to rely on her to set him free.

“I’ll find a way to free you,” she said suddenly. “I swear it. Just… come with me to Farhall. I have to warn them, or Garimore will do to our mages what they forced you to do to theirs.”

He stood up, so suddenly she fell backward in surprise.

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