Page 73 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“A hotel.”

“But why are we here?”

“I make a point to take a vacation every few months. It’s only been a month since my last one, but I could damn well use one right now.”

He lifted his head to stare at her. He’d assumed that this place was somehow related to their hunt for Patros. “You’re not serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. What, you don’t want a rest after everything that’s happened this week?”

“This is a waste of time. We have work to do.” And he would rather be on his way back to Kuda Varai than sitting around in Valtos with Crow.

“Ash and blood, just be quiet and enjoy it. It’s impossible to put you in a half decent mood, isn’t it?”

Vaara took a tight breath, resigned. “How can you afford to stay at a place like this?” he said.

She smiled. “Patros is a bastard and a perpetual thorn in my side, but he’s not poor.”

He could think of only one place in all of Kuda Varai that was even close to this level of luxury. He’d never seen the inside of it. “No one in Kuda Varai lives like this,” he said. He wasn’t sure whether he meant it as a critique or as an expression of envy.

“Then this should be a treat for you. Come, let’s see how the Ardanian elite live. Let’s pretend we’re rich and powerful for a day.”

“You have quite the imagination.”

“It doesn’t take much, in a place like this.” She opened a door with the key the man at the front desk had given her.

Their room was large and stuffed full of an unnecessary amount of furniture. A set of stairs went up to another floor, and another set led down.

Crow dropped her pack in the middle of the floor, then collapsed into a plush chair. She looked as if she intended to remain there for quite some time.

“What are we supposed to do here, exactly?” Vaara asked.

“Nothing. That’s the point. Oh—there’s a private bath downstairs, if you want it.” She closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the chair.

Vaara shook his head in annoyance. Resigned, he went to see what was upstairs.

It was a bedroom, split into two sections. There were two beds. Thank the Goddess.

He went to the window in the corner of the room. The people walking by outside cast long shadows. The sun was slanting over the city, casting golden light on the stone masonry. He squinted toward the horizon, though it made his eye burn and tear up. The sky was magenta and amber, set ablaze by the setting sun.

At least there were some things that were the same in Ardani as they were in Kuda Varai. Even if everything else—everythingelse—was different.

He’d felt that keenly when they’d first burst through the door of the prison and run onto the grass outside. He’d looked up and seen stars. The night sky. Endless black dotted with flecks and smears of ethereal white and blue and violet.

It had felt like home, for a fleeting, precious moment.

He almost turned to go back downstairs, but something kept him at the window. He leaned against the sill, watching the movement of the city. From this vantage point, hidden in safety with a bird’s eye view, he was almost able to enjoy watching it.

There was something about the place that drew you in and made you want to peer down every alley and side road, to look into windows and through hidden doorways. It felt like he’d walked all over the city already, but he’d really only been to several neighborhoods out of dozens.

He had never been the sort of person who dreamed of travel and adventure. He left those fantasies to the less practical-minded among his peers. But now that he was here, witnessing the intense size and variety of Valtos for himself, he could not deny that there was something about it that begged to be explored and experienced.

He supposed that being locked in a room for a year would awaken anyone’s appreciation for novelty.

He still reveled in every small, seemingly insignificant sensation that had been denied him this past year. The dry heat of a fire. The bitter, earthy taste of hot tea and the scent of bread baking. The blinding brilliance of the sky at sunrise or sunset. The silken warmth of another person’s skin against his own.

He’d taken so many things for granted, before.

There were footsteps on the stairs. He turned as Crow appeared at the top of them. She looked around the room.

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