Page 1 of Invocation

Chapter 1

Novikke flickered in and out of consciousness, catching only flashes of sound and light in brief moments of lucidity.

Shouting. Rough arms on her, and then gentler ones. Voices in languages she didn’t understand. Whispers that were far away, like someone trying not to wake her, and others that were murmured directly into her ear.

The pain in her stomach was always there—sometimes dull, sometimes sharp and piercing.

She awoke very slowly, to the sound of distant voices that she didn’t recognize. She cautiously opened her eyes.

She was in a dark room. And she was in a bed. Gods, how long had it been since she’d slept in a real bed?

There was a jolt of pain in her stomach, rudely reminding her of what had happened before she’d passed out. She brought a hand to the spot where the sword had gone through her. A thick bandage was wrapped around her middle beneath a thin robe.

She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t alone in the room. Someone stood facing a dresser in the corner, fussing with something inside it. Novikke saw dark hair, dark skin, and she was flooded with relief. He was alive.

“Arun—” she began, her voice hoarse from lack of use, and then she saw the streaks of silver running through the figure’s hair. The figure turned to her, and Novikke froze.

It was a Varai woman. Novikke’s mind went to the mage who’d burned her at the outpost, and her heart raced and her skin prickled as she began to sweat in panic.

But this was not that woman. That woman was dead. And this one was older. It was hard to tell the ages of elves, but there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and faint creases framing her mouth.

The woman gave her an unimpressed look. “Tuh,” she spat dismissively, and Novikke couldn’t tell if it was a word or just a sound of annoyance.

The woman finished folding the blanket in her hands, shoved it into the dresser, then exited the room, closing the door behind her.

Novikke lay frozen on the bed. Had they been captured? This didn’t look like a prison. She wasn’t tied down. And they’d bandaged her.

Groaning softly, she sat up, swung her legs off the bed, and unsteadily stood. Her head spun and black spots dotted her vision. She went to the room’s sole window, leaning heavily on the sill. All she could see was forest. Deep blue light of late evening filtered through the trees. When she looked closely, she saw another structure in the trees, and several more dark figures standing outside it. More night elves.

Tendrils of Panic pulled at her head, quickening her breaths. Holding an arm around her bandages, she scanned the room for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, unless bedsheets counted.

The door opened again, and she tensed, putting her back against the window.

Aruna stood in the doorway.

He looked her up and down, then stepped inside, letting in light from a fireplace somewhere beyond the door.

Images of him on the ground, bleeding and almost dead, flooded her mind, and she could have cried. He was all right. He looked better than ever, even.

Zaiur’s sword was belted at his hip. He wore new clothes and his hair was freshly washed and braided. There was no sign of the injury he’d had before. Novikke wondered if she’d dreamed all of it. She couldn’t understand what had happened, how they had both survived, how she’d gotten to wherever this was.

She watched him uneasily, waiting for an explanation. Perhaps he’d finally lost patience with her and the other Ardanians after what had happened. He’d tried to kill Theros—maybe Thala, too. Theros had nearly unleashed irreparable harm upon Kuda Varai, after all. It was unforgivable. Aruna had tolerated everything else they’d done, but not this.

Maybe he had decided that a night elf and a human could not be friends, after all.

She watched him cross the room toward her. He stopped in front of her, his mouth half opening as if to speak and then snapping shut again. She still couldn’t tell if he was about to denounce her or praise her.

As if he sensed her nervousness and wanted to calm her, he put a hand on her arm. For a moment, she thought he would kiss her. He seemed about to lean in, but then, to her disappointment, he pulled away, gesturing toward the bed.

She nodded toward his ribs, where Theros’s sword had gone through him, and gave him a questioning look.

He smiled a broken sort of smile—the kind that was only moments away from a grimace. He shook his head and gestured to the bed again.

She sat obediently on the edge of the bed, then motioned a request for writing tools. The gesture had been simplified to the point of being unrecognizable to anyone other than themselves by then, hardly more than a twitch of the hand. Aruna was already pulling a notebook from his pocket—the same notebook they’d been using before. He’d held onto it through his entire time with the Ardanians.

When he handed it to her, it was open to a page that he’d already written something on.

“We’re safe. At a village called Rameka, not far from the Auren-Li ruins. Kadaki sealed the magic leak at the ruins.”

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