Page 33 of Invocation

They moved in shadow, Kashava casting her shadow spell over Zara, and Aruna casting over Novikke. The roads had quieted since the earlier scuffle. Some time must have passed. Novikke expected to meet another guard around every turn, but Kashava guided them through the tunnels without incident.

The cavern they ended up in was the most crowded and run-down that Novikke had seen so far. It looked like the kind of place people came when they didn’t want to be found. People like herself and Aruna.

They dropped their shadow spells as they approached an unassuming building on a side street. A sign hanging out front bore a picture of a cup and a bed.

Novikke reflexively tightened her hold on Aruna as they entered a crowded bar. He glanced over at her, his eyes checking her over like a healer examining a patient. He hooked his arm a little tighter around her waist, and she resented the spike of affection she felt.

A few people looked up, but none were interested enough for their gazes to linger. It wasn’t the type of establishment where someone who looked disheveled and nervous would look out of place.

Zara leaned closer to Kashava when someone in the crowd bumped into her, and Kashava’s hand came to rest lightly on Zara’s shoulder. It made them look almost like a mother and daughter, if you didn’t look too closely. Novikke stared, curious again about how close the relationship between a night elf and a human in Vondh Rav could be.

Kashava spoke to the woman behind the bar, then handed coins across the counter. She turned to Aruna, shooting him an ugly look as she did so. She still held a grudge.

“You have a room for the night, upstairs at the end of the hall,” she said. “Try not to cause any more trouble than you already have. The world will still be here tomorrow. We’ll figure this out and deal with it—the right way.”

“I hope you’re right,” Aruna said, sounding like he had little confidence that she was.

Aruna started toward the stairs, but Novikke held back, looking at Zara. She leaned closer, then pulled the translator off her neck.

“We could take you with us,” she said into Zara’s ear, her voice lost to outside listeners in the noise of the bar. “When we go back to Ardani.”

The girl looked up at her in surprise.

“We have a plan to get out of Kuda Varai safely,” Novikke said, not wanting to divulge too much information. “You wouldn’t be caught. We could take you to Valtos.”

But even as she said it, she wondered how a foreign teenage slave girl would make a life in Ardani. She had no family there to take care of her, no money. Novikke didn’t know what skills or education she had, if any. And she’d be a stranger in her own lands. She knew nothing of Ardanian culture or law. The more Novikke thought about it, the sadder she was for the girl.

“I—Thank you, but no,” Zara said in heavily accented Ardanian. Zara gave her a soft smile. “I have a home here. I could not leave them.”

“Couldn’t?”

“Do not want to,” she amended. “Maybe someday I will find a way to visit Ardani. But not today.”

Novikke nodded. “If you’re sure.”

“I am sure.”

She hesitated, then put the translator back on. Kashava gave her a suspicious look, putting a hand on Zara’s shoulder. They started to leave, but Zara faltered again.

“I didn’t know that you were… in love,” she whispered to Novikke. Novikke stiffened. “I’ve never seen a Varai and a human together before now. Not like that. It makes me...” She shook her head, not finding the right words. “I’m just glad that I met you.”

A painful lump was growing in Novikke’s throat. She didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded.

As Kashava and Zara left the establishment, Aruna found Novikke’s hand on his shoulder and grasped it gently. He looked like he’d guessed what Novikke had offered to Zara, and what the girl’s response had been. Novikke shrugged tiredly.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Try to be inconspicuous,” he replied as he started toward the stairs. He’d pulled his cloak close around his shoulders, shielding the blood on his clothes from view.

“There’s blood on your face,” she said. In the light of a lantern above them, she could see speckles of it on his cheek. She couldn’t tell if it was his or hers or someone else’s.

“Where?”

She reached up, ignoring the soreness in her arm, and wiped it away with her thumb. “I think I got it.”

Aruna swallowed. He moved toward the stairs.

Up the stairs, down the hall, and in their own tiny, bare room with the door locked behind them, Novikke’s nerves finally started to settle. Aruna carefully unhooked her arm from him, and she leaned heavily against the wall.

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