Page 14 of Captive

He just gave her an impatient look—suddenly the serious one again. Novikke raised the stick again and scratched quickly, distorting shapes in her angry rush. “Not a spy,” she wrote, and underlined it.

He glowered. It was only then, when his hatred showed on his face again like it had the day they’d met, that Novikke realized he’d begun to look at her in an almost kind way over the past day.

She tensed when he reached toward her. He stopped and held out his upturned hand instead of touching her. She placed the stick in his hand.

“Ardanian army,” he wrote next to her writing.

“I didn’t do anything. Not a fighter. Not a scout.”

Looking unmoved, he pointed to the word “Ardanian” again.

“We didn’t hurt you,” Novikke wrote.

Now he looked insulted. He reached into his jacket and produced a folded paper with a broken wax seal across the front—one of the letters she’d been carrying when they found her. He held it up accusingly, as if it were a bloody murder weapon.

Novikke stared at it. She still didn’t know what information the letter contained. She moved to take it from his hand, and he jerked it out of her reach. She frowned and turned to the rock again.

“What does it say?” she wrote.

He hesitated, as if trying to decide whether she was deceiving him, then unfolded the paper and held it up for her to read at a careful distance away. She lifted her mage torch near it and scanned the inked writing.

On the first day of the harvest… at the west end of the forest along… force of at least one hundred… will lead them into Kuda Varai… expect strong resistance from the night elves… establish a base within the forest…

Her eyes glazed in shock as she read it. Ardani was invading Kuda Varai.

She looked at him with less righteous anger now. He was watching her closely.

He held out his hand for the stick. She handed it to him, still dazed.

“Ardanians attacked an outpost and a village. Twelve days ago. People wearing the same colors you wear.”

That couldn’t be right.

But why would he lie?

She wasn’t kept abreast of every movement the army made. Those things were above her head, far out of her control. But now, with Aruna looking at her like this and holding that letter in his hand, guilt and shame swam in her chest, as if she were the one responsible for it.

It was an act of war. There had always been small skirmishes between the Varai and Ardanians, but not like this. Not a full assault on the other’s territory. She supposed Aruna and Zaiur had been perfectly in the right when they’d stopped the wagon on the road.

The war between Ardani and Ysura had undoubtedly caused difficulties for Kuda Varai. The forest was geographically caught between them, with Ysura to the west and Ardani to the east. But now, Kuda Varai was being forcefully drawn into the war itself.

“I didn’t know,” she wrote. Aruna seemed to relax a fraction.

She wondered if anyone he’d known had died. There was another uncomfortable clench of guilt in her chest. She put the tip of the stick to the stone, meaning to write I’m sorry, but stopped. Then she started to write Thank you for helping me, and stopped again, sighing.

“Irresponsible not to keep a panacea with you,” she wrote instead, glancing at his freshly scarred arm.

“Had one. Gave it to you when Zaiur knocked you out.” He looked at her for a moment, then added, “You were bleeding a lot.”

She lifted her eyebrows, alarmed to find out that she had been so badly injured and hadn’t even known it. And she was surprised that he’d gone out of his way to help her—again. She might have felt grateful if she’d thought he’d done it for any reason other than to make sure she stayed alive long enough to be interrogated.

She tossed the stick to the ground and returned to her spot by the fire.

Before they slept, Aruna unbuckled his belt, looped it through Novikke’s tied arms, and re-buckled it around his waist on the side opposite her—a security measure that she found annoying but didn’t complain about. She couldn’t exactly claim that she wouldn’t try to run.

He settled on his back and she curled up on her side with her arms stretched toward him. After a beat, he sat up again, unsheathed the sword and knife at his belt, and tossed them out of reach. He shot her a warning look.

“Wasn’t going to do that,” Novikke said, closing her eyes. “I’m a runner, not a fighter.”

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