Page 88 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

Sarna blinked sleepily at the three of them, her eyes moving first to Vaara’s face, then to Aruna’s, then to Vaara’s bleeding chest. Her eyebrows went up. She blinked again.

“We need some help,” Crow said.

“I see that.” She ushered them all inside without further discussion.

She brought them to a back room—not the one with all the mirrors, to Crow’s relief, but a small living space with a kitchen in one corner and a bed in the other—and sat Vaara down on a chair. She immediately started poking and prodding at him as she examined his injuries. He shot her a brief glare, but didn’t complain.

Sarna began channeling a spell onto him. The air between them glowed and sparked with magic energy. Crow sighed with relief when the cuts on his chest began to close.

Aruna hovered in the doorway, as wary as ever. He said something that sounded like a question, which Vaara ignored… or maybe just didn’t hear. His expression was oddly blank, and he hardly seemed to notice anything around him.

“Is there a way to stop it from scarring?” Crow asked, breaking the silence. Vaara’s eye flicked toward her.

Sarna’s hands paused in midair. She gave Crow a sympathetic look. “Not from me. A more skilled healer might be able to make them fainter, if you want to try to find someone else.”

If they took too long looking around for another healer, the wounds would start to heal on their own and the scars would be worse than if Sarna just healed him now. Either way, after the wounds healed, the scars would be immutable.

Sarna’s fingers twitched, holding the magic back from him while she waited for a decision.

“Just do it,” Vaara said.

Sarna’s head jerked back toward him, surprised. She gave him a nod and continued weaving her spell through his skin while he stared blankly ahead.

“Dare I ask how this happened?” Sarna said, not looking up from her work.

“No,” Crow said.

“All right then.”

Aruna’s eyes were on Sarna. Clearly he was wondering whether Sarna could be trusted and whether it was safe for them to be there. Crow supposed she should be relieved that his tendency was to fear rather than fight. When they’d first met, she’d thought he might be the type to put a sword through someone at the slightest provocation. Now, she was reconsidering that assumption.

Sarna, for her part, was remarkably unfazed by the presence of two night elves in her shop in the middle of the night. But Sarna generally wasn’t fazed by much, as far as Crow could tell.

“Finished,” Sarna said after all the cuts had closed, leaving behind faint lines. “Good as new. Apart from that, I suppose,” she amended, motioning to his hand. “Not much to be done about it. On the bright side, no one really needs their little fingers anyway. I always thought they were a bit useless.”

“Thank you, Sarna,” Crow cut in as Vaara’s glare shot toward the woman again. “How much is it?”

Sarna glanced up at Aruna, then at Vaara, pursing her lips with concern. “Don’t worry about payment,” she said at length. “Just take your leave before anyone notices you.”

Crow didn’t argue. “Thank you.”

“Although,” Sarna said, tapping a finger to her chin, “if one of your friends wanted to come by sometime and let me run some tests, I wouldn’t say no. I’ve never had the opportunity to study a night elf before. I hear their bodies carry some interesting magical properties. Maybe some tissue samples—”

“No,” Crow snapped, before Vaara could act on the violence she saw in his gaze. “No. Not that.”

Sarna shrugged. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

“We won’t,” Crow said as she pulled Vaara toward the door.

* * *

When they returnedto Akaia’s Haven, Nero was at the door waiting for them. He seemed surprised to see the three of them together—surprised Crow had been telling the truth about Vaara, or surprised that she had managed to rescue him, she wasn’t sure which. He gestured for them to follow as soon as he locked the door behind them.

The place grew quiet as they crossed the room toward the stairs in the back. Everyone in the room turned to stare. Crow spotted Aruna’s human companion sitting in a corner, back from wherever she’d been earlier. The woman watched them carefully as they passed.

Nero brought them to a private bedroom upstairs, and Crow pulled Vaara inside. Aruna tried to follow them in, but Crow blocked him at the door. She put a hand on his chest and shoved him back into the hall. He blinked at her in surprise.

“An irritating experience, isn’t it?” Crow said with a smile, then shut the door and turned the lock.

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