Page 4 of Invocation

“Unethical like experimenting with Kuda Varai’s magic?” Novikke asked, without venom, because she guessed Kadaki needed no more chastising.

She nodded slowly. “Yes. Like that.”

“Thank you. For healing me.”

Kadaki dipped her head, letting hair fall in her eyes. “Thank you for protecting Aruna. I saw what happened. He didn’t deserve that.” She paused. “And thank you for protecting Neiryn when he was injured. I’m glad he got to us in time for me to help him.”

Neiryn arched his eyebrows regally and gave Novikke a dubious look, making sure she knew that he had no part in this expression of gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” Novikke said, smirking at Neiryn. “So, uh, why are we in a Varai village? And why have they not killed us?”

“Because this is the closest place we could hide and rest,” Neiryn said. “You had both passed out by the time we left the ruins. We had to carry you here.”

She imagined what a strange sight that must have been—a Varai and an Ysuran bringing two unconscious human women to a Varai village. It sounded like the beginning of a joke.

“It was Aruna’s idea, obviously,” Neiryn said. “I was skeptical. I still am.” He cast his mistrustful gaze into the growing dark around them. “The people here were close enough to feel the disturbances from what happened at the ruins.” He nodded to a house in the distance whose roof had collapsed, presumably from the earthquakes. “He explained to them about how we saved all their sorry lives, and that seems to have placated them. For the moment.”

The looks the other Varai were giving them made Novikke nervous. Some of them looked merely curious. Many of them looked like they were waiting for the chance to put a sword through them. She picked up the notebook.

“Are we safe here?” she wrote.

Aruna hesitated longer than she would have liked. “Don’t go too far without me,” he wrote eventually.

“Do they know what you did at the outpost?”

“I don’t think they know. By the time they find out, we’ll be gone. We’ve been waiting for you to heal and for Kadaki to recover after overexerting herself. You both seem well enough for us to leave in a day or so.” He paused, then continued, “I don’t want to get in any more fights with anyone.”

That seemed like a monumental task. “Where will we go?”

He just shook his head.

After a beat, she wrote, “Can I have the sword back?”

Aruna looked down at the paper, then up at her, solemn. He hadn’t said anything about what she’d done back at the ruins, which seemed intentional at that point. He was avoiding the subject.

When he balked, she thought he was going to refuse. But then he took the sword, still in its sheath, off his belt, and handed it to her. She fastened it on her own belt, glad to be armed again.

“The two of you never spoke to each other before the captain gave him the translator?” Kadaki asked, squinting. “You just wrote in that book?”

“We didn’t even have a book for a long time. The book is a luxury. Before that, we wrote in sand with sticks.”

“Why talk at all?” Kadaki said. “He was holding you hostage, wasn’t he? Why would he need to communicate anything other than ‘walk where I point’?”

“There were other things,” Novikke said, shrugging.

“Because they wanted to shag,” Neiryn supplied.

Kadaki raised her eyebrows, as if that had never occurred to her. “Oh.”

A flash in the distance caught Novikke’s attention. A collection of glowing eyes shone out of the darkness behind a house, making her tense in alarm. It took her a moment to realize that they were probably Varai and not animals, and that they were definitely too low to the ground to be grown elves.

It was kids. A bunch of kids staring at the strange visitors. She smiled, cautiously amused.

“When was the last time there were non-Varai in this village, do you think?” she said.

“Not for as long as anyone here remembers, according to Aruna,” Kadaki replied. “And elves remember a great deal.”

Something moved in the corner of Novikke’s eye. She turned to see an indistinct shadow hovering beside her. No sooner had she turned than the shadow solidified into a humanoid shape—a small boy with indigo hair and luminous violet eyes. Novikke jumped.

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