Page 100 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

He looked up and realized Aruna’s human, Novikke, was coming toward them. Aruna gave him a warning look, which he ignored.

Zaiur’s sword wagged on her hip as she came to a stop. “Well met,” she said in Ardanian, her tone neutral.

Vaara stared at her, surprised she was speaking to him. “You enjoy pushing your luck, murderer,” he observed. “Maybe you overestimate my patience.”

Aruna looked nervously between them, presumably trying to follow the conversation through tone and facial expressions alone.

“You speak Ardanian very well,” she said lightly, crossing her arms.

“It’s not a complex language.”

She had the decency to look a little uncomfortable, finally. “Look, I thought you might… have questions. About what happened to him. Maybe I could help give you some kind of closure.”

She was nowhere near as beautiful as Crow was, with washed-out pale skin like a corpse’s, hair the color of dry dirt, weird tiny brown speckles all over her face. And she was annoying and dim-witted, from what he’d seen. He could not imagine what Aruna saw in her.

“What questions do you suppose I would like to ask you?” Vaara said. “‘What did it feel like when you killed him?’ ‘Did you enjoy it?’ ‘How many times did you stab him before he bled out?’”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

“Yes. Keep it closed.”

She scoffed. “You’re a lot like him, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You remind me of him.”

A flush of anger ran through him, and it was an effort to control the volume of his voice. “You don’t know either of us.”

“I know enough.” She held out her hand to show him her upturned palm before he could respond. “He got in some good hits before he died, if it makes you feel better.”

The first thing he noticed was that her hand was covered in strange black tattoos. But beneath the tattoos, in the middle of her palm, was a thick line of scar tissue. Like someone had stabbed straight through it. An oddly clean and precisely placed cut. It was not the sort of injury that resulted from any kind of fair fight. It was the sort of wound inflicted by someone who already had their opponent at their mercy. It was the sort of wound inflicted by torture.

Vaara looked away. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.” She gave him a disdainful glare, likehewas in the wrong. As if he’daskedher to come over and she wasn’t just forcing her unwelcome presence upon him.

“Vaara,” a voice interrupted. Nero had reappeared at the end of the bar. He looked disquieted. “There’s someone at the front door for you.”

“Crow’s back?”

“No. Someone else.”

He frowned. “I don’t know anyone else in Valtos.”

Nero looked as uncertain as Vaara felt. “You were asked for by name.”

“A human?”

“Yes.”

Vaara slid off his seat. “How did a human find this place? I thought you said it was spelled to ward off non-Varai.”

“I was hoping you’d offer an explanation for that,” Nero said, frowning.

There was a moment of quiet filled with tension as they all considered the implications of the situation. Nero went behind the bar and pulled a sword from beneath it. He jerked his head toward the door. “Come on.”

Vaara pictured Alexei waiting for him on the other side of the door, and he had the urge to turn and run. But he drew his sword and followed Nero toward the entrance.

---