Page 56 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

Vaara and Aruna sat directly across from each other, looking like images of each other reflected in a warped mirror.

Aruna’s hair was neatly combed and braided, pulled away from his face, which was youthful and unmarred—pretty, even. His clothes were dark and plain but well-fitted and durable. It was a contrast to Vaara’s unkempt shag of hair—the ends of which looked like they’d been clumsily lopped off with a knife at some point, she realized—and clothes that were unmistakably human-made, too short to reach his wrists and ankles and too baggy, with material that was too thin for the weather, like he was a straw doll dressed up with whatever scraps were at hand.

There was a contrast in their faces, as well. In their eyes. She had almost thought the hollow, bitter, dead-eyed way Vaara always looked was just the way all Varai looked, but clearly she was wrong. Aruna didn’t look like that. None of the other night elves in the room looked like that.

Not for the first time, Crow wondered what Vaara had looked like before the prison.

The conversation continued for some time, and then Vaara suddenly went very still.

She couldn’t see his expression. He was facing away from her. But she could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the way he grew so motionless that it looked like he had stopped breathing. For a long few moments, no one at the table spoke.

Crow was about to get up and see what had happened, fearing a violent explosion was imminent. But then he leaned back in his chair, almost imperceptibly. Nothing happened. She saw the others speaking. Vaara seemed to have little to say now.

To her surprise, the woman with the sword unsheathed it and carefully laid it on the table between them, almost as if offering it to him. He looked down at it, but didn’t take it.

The meeting went on yet longer. Crow chewed her lip. She was thinking of all the holes in the orders she’d given him. She was used to controlling a person via empathy, where all she had to do was think her desires upon someone. With the soulbinding, you had to be specific. You had to think about wording.

Stupidly, she hadn’t told him not to tell them about the binding. She hadn’t told him he couldn’t take their help if they offered it, only that he couldn’t ask for it. She hadn’t told him he couldn’t tell them who or what she was.

She kept realizing just how little control she had over him, binding or no.

She nervously smoothed her hair over her ears, turning her gaze to the other tables around her. A few people had turned to watch her surreptitiously, she realized. It was as if they’d sensed that she was an enemy.

She looked back at Vaara’s table, and stiffened. All four of them had turned toward her.

The three strangers looked suspicious. Vaara just looked tired.

The burn of their collective gaze became too much. Crow ducked her head slightly, averting her eyes. What was he telling them? That she was some heartless witch torturing an innocent man? He’d probably conveniently left out the part where she’d courageously rescued him from actual torture, imprisonment, and eventual death.

What in the world had she been thinking? Why had she let him speak to them alone? This was unlike her. She wasn’t naive. She’d normally never take a risk like this.

But she’d done it anyway, because she was tired of never trusting anyone, and for a moment, she had allowed him to convince her that she could lower her guard with him, because she’d wanted it to be true. She still wanted to believe they could be on the same side.

But of course they weren’t. She was alone. And nowhewasn’t.

They needed to get out of this place immediately.

She got up and strode toward the table. Aruna rose so quickly that his chair thrust out behind him, and started toward her to block her way.

Her steps stuttered. His expression was dangerous, but he didn’t unsheath any of the blades at his waist, so Crow kept going, loosening the fingers of her glove one by one as she went.

As he came within reach, she jerked her glove off and thrust her hand up under his chin to grasp his jaw. He began to push her away.

Stop, she thought to him, heaving the intention into his mind like a javelin.

He stiffened and stopped moving.

You’re calm. Everything is fine. You have no quarrel with me. You don’t know why you were angry.

She could feel him resisting the suggestions, questioning them. But when she shoved him away, he stopped a few steps from her and stared blankly into space, dazed. Out of the corner of her eye, Crow saw a few other people in the room already starting to move toward her to break up the confrontation.

The human woman at the table grabbed her sword and rushed to Aruna’s side, passing Crow at a careful distance.

The younger woman remained sitting as Crow approached. Her hand rested on Vaara’s wrist. Her lips were moving slightly as she murmured to herself. A sense of foreboding flipped Crow’s stomach.

She grabbed Vaara by the shoulder. “We need to leave now, friend.”

The girl kept murmuring a moment longer, then her eyes slid toward Crow, her gaze unkind. Crow tilted her chin up.

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