Page 23 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

They hadn’t gone far before a figure stepped out of a doorway ahead of them. Crow prepared for a fight, then realized that the figure was smaller than the guards, armorless and unarmed. It was Callias. His hair was mussed and his eyes were heavy-lidded, like he’d just awoken. And he was in their way. Crow slowed.

He turned toward their running footsteps and blinked at their shadowy appearance. “Lady Mage?” he said. “Is that you? Why are the bells…”

Then he saw the shape behind her and realized who it was. His eyes went wide and his jaw snapped shut.

Crow put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Nothing you need to worry about, Callias,” she said gently. “Go back to bed, all right?”

He stared at her dumbly, then nodded. His eyes went to Vaara. He pressed himself back against the wall as they passed. Crow glanced back to see him hurriedly retreating back into his room, and was relieved. He wasn’t such a bad kid. That, or he was just too terrified to even cry for help.

They rounded the next corner and nearly ran into a guard.

The man’s eyes widened. It took him a moment to find focus on the shadowy blur in front of him. Then he brandished his sword.

Crow felt Vaara’s rush of adrenaline as he prepared to fight, weapon or no.

“Wait,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “Play along.”

She didn’t wait for his assent before making a show of jerking away from him. “Help!” she cried to the guard. She tore her arm away from a confused Vaara, and the spell over them broke, leaving them both fully visible. Vaara looked between her and the guard, wide-eyed.

She darted toward the guard, pointing in Vaara’s direction. “He’s trying to escape!”

The guard glanced suspiciously at both of them, then turned toward Vaara. As soon as his sword had moved away from her, Crow darted forward and clasped a hand around the man’s jaw. Exerting her will with all her strength, she mentally commanded him to obey her.

She felt his mind buckle and collapse under the raw power of her own. He slowly lowered his sword. His expression went blank.

“Take us to the back door,” Crow demanded, blasting him with another wave of her will as she did so. His eyelids fluttered in a wince at the onslaught. As they should. She was giving him all she had. It wasn’t easy to completely take over someone’s mind and get them to do something they absolutely did not want to do.

The guard hesitated, then turned and started down the hall toward the door.

Crow turned to Vaara, motioning for him to follow. “Come on.”

He stared at her, looking disturbed by what had just happened. “I thought you weren’t a mage,” he said cautiously.

“It’s an enchantment I bought in Valtos,” she lied—a spell that could be stored in an object for use by non-mages. Like the soulbinder. “It won’t last very long. Come.”

Vaara gave her a lingering look, but followed.

The guard walked in a slow, blank daze, like someone sleepwalking. Alarm bells and running feet echoed in the halls all around them.

“Can you make him move faster?” Vaara said.

“Hurry up,” Crow urged the guard. He stumbled along a little faster, but seemed to be holding back. Some deep part of him was probably resisting. They didn’t have much time.

Crow kept expecting to see Alexei around every corner they came to, but they made it to the back of the building without running into anyone.

They rounded a corner, and finally they came face to face with a pair of guards at the heavy wooden door on the back wall of the building.

Both of the guards looked up in surprise as the three of them rounded the corner. “What in the world—?”

Crow grabbed her brainwashed guard’s sword and held it to his throat. He didn’t react. “Open the door and step aside,” she said to the other two.

“Like hells.”

“I’ll kill him,” she warned. An empty threat. She wasn’t yet desperate enough to kill him by using empathy to render him helpless. She still had to be able to sleep at night.

But the guards looked nervous. “You’ll never escape,” one of them said. “Even if you get outside, there’s only one exit on the wall, and there’ll be a dozen more of us waiting for you there.”

“That’s for me to worry about, isn’t it?” Crow said. She motioned with her sword. “Step aside if you want this fool to see tomorrow’s sunrise.”

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