Page 10 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“To know it,” she replied. “So we can speak like civilized folk. Most meetings begin with introductions, where I’m from.”

He gave her a dull stare. “Vaara.”

“Vaara the Varai?” She would have thought it was a fake name if she hadn’t felt from his own mind that it was the truth. He tilted his head and gave her a withering look.

She glanced up at the clip that held his hands to the chain above him. He could have reached it if he tried, but not without effort and probably pain.

“Are you going to attack me if I let you down, Vaara?” she asked.

She felt a twinge of relief go through him. Perhaps it was a stupid question. He was so exhausted and pained that he could hardly move, let alone attack anyone. The spell fever from the magical healing would be kicking in soon, too.

“No,” he said. Crow felt no dishonesty in him. She hadn’t expected any.

She stood and held his wrist as she unclipped the chain. Immediately his body weighed her down. He didn’t have the strength to hold himself upright. She lowered him to the floor, and he collapsed in a heap.

He rolled to his back, which made him wince. Crow could see him grinding his teeth to keep from making a sound.

“Doesn’t it hurt less if you lie on your other side?”

He took short, strained breaths. “The cold of the stone numbs pain and speeds healing,” he said after a while.

Of course. He’d been here a long time. He’d developed his own ways of dealing with it.

“I wish I could do more to help, but…” She made a vague gesture.

“Why would you wish that?”

Why, indeed?

Don’t fret on his behalf,Alexei had said. The sad truth was, she frequently found herself fretting for lots of people she shouldn’t fret for, not when she barely even managed to look after her own welfare. That was what happened when you could feel other people’s feelings like your own.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said.

He sighed quietly. “What do you want?”

She tilted her head at him. “Want?”

“Humans always want something.”

“You can rest easy. I want nothing from you.”

He didn’t reply to that, but he obviously didn’t believe her. He took a few seconds before asking his next question, perhaps wondering how much curiosity he could get away with. “Who are you, really?”

“You can call me Crow.”

“What are you doing here if you’re not really a mage?”

“Come now. I can’t tell you that. Think of it this way—the less I tell you, the less there is for the warden to try to torture out of you later.”

“He’ll do that anyway.”

“I suppose you’re right. But I still can’t tell you.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, watching him thoughtfully. “I’ll tell you this much. I’m a prisoner, too. We have that in common.”

He gave her a vaguely dismissive look.

“You don’t believe me?”

He took a long breath before saying slowly, “If you call yourself a prisoner, but you are not chained down or put behind a locked door, you’re not a prisoner. Just a fool. We are not the same.”

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