Page 9 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

They exchanged a glance.

“Get out,” she repeated.

“Lady, are you certain—” one of them began, and Crow went to the door, resting her hand on the handle.

“For the gods’ sake, don’t make me repeat myself thrice.” She waved to the hallway. “And don’t hover. I don’t like being gawked at while I’m working.”

They exchanged another nervous look, but did as she asked. She closed the heavy door behind them, leaving her alone in the quiet with the night elf.

And suddenly, it was too dark and too enclosed. The air was too still. Her heart pounded a little faster. Places like this brought back bad memories.

It was only the fact that she was not alone that kept her from fleeing the room. Having someone, anyone, even if it was a half dead night elf, was enough to calm her nerves.

A sheen of blood covered his back. Her eyes followed his arms up to the iron cuffs around his wrists and the chain that ran from the cuffs to midway up the wall. Blood dripped down his arms from where the cuffs had dug into his wrists. The position looked painful, especially given his injuries.

She warily stepped closer until she was close enough to touch. He didn’t move, but she could see him breathing from here. Examining the cuffs, she found that they were attached to the chains with a simple clip.

“Are you really still conscious?” she asked. He’d been so still that she’d guessed he wasn’t.

But after a moment, he raised his head a little, trembling. He didn’t quite manage to look up at her before he gave up and leaned his head against his arms again.

She raised her eyebrows. It would have been more comforting to believe the oblivion of unconsciousness had taken him away from this.

She watched him for a few seconds while she decided what she’d do next.

Really, she already knew what she was going to do. She just didn’t like it, so she was putting off doing it.

By the Five, she hadn’t asked to get involved with all this. She was supposed to be getting that asshole Toreg out of the prison and then going home, and that was it. The more she got involved in things here, the more complicated everything got.

She knelt beside him, prompting him to open his one eye and glare at her from behind a tangle of inky hair. The color shocked her again—hideous, sickly yellow-green almost glowing in the dim. The other eye was covered by a strip of black cloth.

She rested the tips of her fingers against his bare knee.

The pain overwhelmed her. It wasn’t the physical pain she felt, but the emotional pain that came along with it. She gasped, drowning in a swell of anxiety, fear, and hopelessness.

Struggling, she surfaced on the sea of his mind, pushing the thoughts down until they grew quieter, a soft buzz of hate and misery. She choked on a sudden sob as she was coming out of it. Surprised and embarrassed, she swallowed hard. She hadn’t been so affected in a long time. But this was an unusually bad circumstance, she supposed.

“Are you listening, elf?” she said quietly. She felt his flicker of recognition through her fingers. He was listening. With her free hand, she reached into a pocket and retrieved a small bottle of panacea. “I hope you can keep a secret,” she said, “because the truth is, I’m not really a mage.”

He squinted sideways at her. He didn’t feel surprise, exactly, but suspicion. He assumed it was some kind of ruse. The beginning of another strange way to torture him, maybe. And why wouldn’t it be?

She uncorked the bottle and held it near his mouth. “So I suggest you don’t spit this out, as I have no other way of healing you, and this is the only panacea I’ve got.”

He looked down at the bottle, and his mind swam with mistrust. Anything could have been in the bottle. Poison. Drugs. Evil spells. The last mage had inflicted all three on him before.

Crow pulled the bottle back, nervous. The last thing she wanted was for him to spit it out or knock it from her hand. Then he wouldn’t get healed, Alexei would demand to know why she hadn’t followed his orders, and she’d be found out and killed or put in a cell of her own. Or worse, judging by what she’d seen of the warden so far.

“Would it make you feel better if I drank some of it first?” she said. He blinked slowly at her. She took a sip of the solution as he watched.

She felt a tingling of confusion from the elf, and… what was that? Interest. Curiosity.

She held the bottle by his lips. He gave a small nod and let her tip it into his mouth. Crow gave a sigh of relief.

When he’d drunk it all, he slumped again. Crow leaned over to watch the lines on his back slowly begin to shrink. They stopped bleeding. Blood coagulated and began to harden. Skin grew. After a minute or so, the marks looked a day or two old. Bruises darkened the flesh around the marks. The wounds weren’t healed completely, but the panacea had accelerated the process. They’d be merely sore now rather than excruciating.

Now she just had to convince him not to rat her out. “What’s your name?” she asked.

The elf took a breath. He tipped his head to glare up at her. “What do you want with my name?” he muttered.

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