Page 29 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

Crow frowned, pulling back. He was awfully private, wasn’t he? “I wasn’t going to.” After a moment, she went back to the pack and pulled out a pair of gloves. She put them on before she sat down again. Vaara stared at the gloves, then up at her.

“Do you want to ask me about it?” she said, testing the material of the gloves by rubbing two fingers together. They were thin, but warm. A little itchy.

“About what?”

“Empathy.”

He chewed silently for a long time.

“What did you do to me?” he asked finally. “At the prison. When you touched me.”

“I read your emotions a little.” She looked away. “I listened to see if you were being honest. To see if your intentions toward me were good. It seemed like they were, mostly.” She arched an eyebrow. “Guess I wasn’t entirely correct about that.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Then you’ve been reading my mind? All those times you were touching me?”

“Not exactly. Not ‘reading.’ I’m not hearing your thoughts, unless they’re very loud. It’s mostly feelings and… impressions of things. Vague things. It’s hard to explain.”

“You can’t see any more detail than that?”

“I can, if I choose to.”

He looked dissatisfied, but perhaps a little relieved. Probably he’d imagined she’d dived into his head and taken out whatever she pleased. “Where are we going?”

“West, toward Valtos. And Kuda Varai.”

“Because?”

“Like I told you before. I want you to help me kill my master.”

“Who is this master?”

“His name is Patros.”

“What do you do for him?”

She hesitated, wondering how much she should tell him. But he was under her control now, and he was probably going to need to know some of these things, anyway.

“Things an Ashara is good at. Infiltration. Spying. Thieving. Gathering intelligence. Sending messages.” She glanced up. “But mostly, reading minds.”

Vaara frowned, his visible disapproval of her deepening. She almost scoffed aloud. Was he too good for her, then? A lowly criminal like herself was good for breaking him out of prison, but nothing further?

“Did it ever occur to you to use your empathy onhim?” Vaara said dryly.

“Contrary to popular belief, empathy is not a catch-all solution to every problem. He knows what I am. And he knows I don’t like him. He has defenses against my abilities.”

“Then what is your plan?”

“To get you a sword and have you put it through him.” In truth, she hadn’t worked out the details yet. This had all been a rather spur-of-the-moment thing. “Right now, we just need to worry about getting there.”

“And keeping out of Alexei’s sight,” he reminded her.

“And that,” Crow agreed.

Vaara suddenly went stiff, then looked behind them. “Did you hear that?”

Crow listened. After a few seconds, she heard the echo of a distant dog’s bark.

She grabbed the packet from Vaara’s hands and shoved it back in the pack, then threw the pack on her back. “Let’s go.”

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