Page 76 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

He still wasn’t clear on the exact details surrounding how she’d obtained it. He didn’t want to know.

He wasn’t sure why he bothered talking to Crow about this. He didn’t care what she thought. But having another person to talk to felt like a luxury. He’d spent too long alone, in his own head, rarely speaking at all, being treated more like a mannequin or an animal than a person.

“We never got along well,” he said. “Ever since we were children. We were both too willful and too angry. We fought a lot.”

Crow didn’t look about to make some sarcastic quip, or like she was tiring of the conversation, so he went on.

“Our parents died some years ago. We were closer after that. We were each all that the other had. He was my only remaining family.”

He realized, with a pang of guilt, that he felt sorrier for himself than he did for Zaiur.

He’d lost something beyond just Zaiur. His loss meant that Vaara was really alone in the world, now.

In the prison, when he’d imagined what it would be like to finally return to Kuda Varai, he’d thought of how good it would feel to be home. To be among familiar faces, in a familiar place. To not be alone.

“A few months ago,” he said, “I suddenly passed out for almost a full day. I was in a deep sleep, almost dead. There was no apparent cause, and nothing could wake me. Callias was the only one who bothered to mention it to me afterward, otherwise I’d never have even known it happened.” He might have died alone there, if he’d never woken up. No one would have known or cared.

Crow looked down at her hands as they fidgeted against the surface of the water. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone, but I know how it feels to be alone.”

She had never really had family to begin with. Maybe that was worse. “What was it like there, living with him?” he asked. He was morbidly curious.

Her face went dark and tired. “I’ll show you, if you want.” He might have thought that was a threat, if he hadn’t seen her expression.

He pushed off from his side of the pool and slid onto the bench beside her, not quite touching her. Her gold-tinged skin stood out against the dark stone of the pool, highlighting the shape of her body beneath the ripples.

Her face smoothed as her expression softened. She watched him with large, clear eyes, and her lips twitched as she clenched and unclenched her jaw.

He felt a small, mischievous smile curving his lips. If she had no problem teasing him, why shouldn’t he do the same?

He rested the tips of his fingers on her bare knee. He saw her draw in a sharp breath.

“Show me,” he said.

She nodded. And then, suddenly, he was in her memories again.

Not long after she’d first arrived at the house, Patros watched her as she knelt on the floor in the parlor. She rested a hand on the head of a dog that sat in front of her, and she focused, hearing its thoughts, seeing the world through its eyes. She commanded it to pace figure eights around the room, and it obeyed. Crow glanced up at Patros, searching for approval. He merely nodded impassively.

He saw flashes of her in the house as time went by in chunks of months and years. The furniture changed as seasons passed. She scrubbed floors, shook out rugs, dusted tables, cooked meals that she served to Patros and then ate by herself. The house was always empty. Cold. Quiet.

Another vivid memory surfaced. There was shouting. The argument itself was indistinct, because Crow couldn’t remember it in detail. But he felt her rage in perfect clarity. A rough hand grabbed her arm and hauled her across the house. She dragged her feet, sending her mind out toward Patros’s as she struggled. It was like groping at a wall searching for a door that wasn’t there. There was no way in.

He pulled her toward that door at the back of the house—the one that led to the cellar. A shiver of dread went through her.

“No,” she said. She struggled harder. “Don’t—”

Patros threw open the door and shoved her inside. She stumbled down a few stairs before she caught herself. A shaft of light from above illuminated the steps, but below, there was only darkness. She turned in time to see him at the top of the stairs, looking down at her.

“Wait!” She scrambled up the stairs.

He shut the door. There was a click as it locked from the other side. Crow pounded her fists against it. She shook the door handle. The darkness closed in on her. There was no light but the tiny sliver of a glow that crept beneath the door. Her cries grew more desperate, and no one answered. Panic whirled through her.

The vision abruptly disappeared, and Vaara snapped back to the present. Crow looked jarred, as if she’d gotten lost in the memories and shown him more than she’d meant to.

“He left me down there for two days,” she said. “The time after that, it was a week. He never opened the door in all that time. I ate and drank whatever I could find in storage down there.”

Vaara’s fingers had frozen on her leg. The stone and soil, the darkness, the fear—it was all far too familiar.

“That’s how you knew about the back door,” he guessed.

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