Page 165 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

She wasn’t sure that she herself had reached that point, yet.

“Is there someone else?” he said suddenly.

She looked up.

His eye narrowed slightly.

She couldn’t help but laugh. “No.”

He was visibly relieved. “What’s funny?”

She piled logs on the fire and waited to make sure it had caught, then sat down on the floor beside him. “It’s the last thing I’ve had on my mind.”

“What has been on your mind?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

The fire crackled as it grew. Flickering orange light bathed them both.

“So you made it back to Kuda Varai,” she said, watching the fire.

“Yes.”

“You must have been overjoyed to see it again.”

He paused a long time before answering. “It wasn’t all I’d hoped it would be.”

She glanced over at him, surprised. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the happy ending you deserved. Sometimes we have a goal in mind, and we think if we can just reach that goal, then we’ll finally be truly happy. That’s almost never the case, I think.”

“Has that been your experience?”

“I gave up trying to find happiness a long time ago.”

He frowned. “You deserve happiness as much as anyone else, Crow.”

“It’s not a matter of who deserves it. It’s not something that’s doled out by the gods based on who is worthy enough. It just doesn’t work out most of the time.”

“So you’ve given up? That’s your sage wisdom?”

“I didn’t say it was wisdom. I just live in the real world, that’s all.”

“The reason I wasn’t happy in Kuda Varai was that I had been working toward the wrong goal. That wasn’t where I was meant to be. I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”

The impact of that statement made her pause. Shaking her head, she said, “You made the right decision, going back. You would have felt a piece of yourself missing if you had never gone home.”

“I feel a piece of myself missing right now.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I am not anyone’s missing piece, Vaara.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

“Because that’s what they told you?”

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