Night Elves of Ardani: Book Two: Sacrifice Read online

  Night Elves of Ardani

  Book Two: Sacrifice

  Nina K. Westra

  Copyright © 2021 Nina K. Westra

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Story Continues

  Want to see more of Ardani?

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  They didn’t stop moving until several hours and many miles had passed.

  Aruna led them to the bank of a river and finally came to a halt. Wobbling on his feet slightly, he looked up at Novikke as if to ask for her approval. She nodded, stopping beside him.

  By then, they had all been awake for an entire day and night. Aruna looked like he was trying to catch fragments of sleep when he blinked. Neiryn was hanging on to Novikke for support. But they’d left the Varai outpost far behind.

  They were free. But where did they go from here?

  The river was wide and deep, with a small beach running along the side. The day was sunny and warm. Some diurnal birds, who must have been visiting from outside Kuda Varai, sang nearby. It was an idyllic setting for a depressing situation.

  Novikke and Neiryn sat in the sun beside the water while Aruna collapsed in the shadows under the trees. No one spoke. No one made eye contact.

  It was difficult to imagine what they would do next. Novikke was sure the others were thinking the same thing. Neiryn could hardly walk, thanks to his injury. They had no supplies. No food, water, shelter, or medicine. The outlook was bleak, and they all knew it.

  Aruna had nowhere to run to, anyway. He had crimes to answer for now. Novikke was sure he couldn’t stay in Kuda Varai, but she could not think of anywhere outside of the forest that would welcome a night elf.

  She looked over at him. He was sitting in the shadows with his head in his hands. He hadn’t said anything since they’d left the outpost.

  She got up and went to him, stopping in front of him. After a moment, he dragged his head up to look at her, as if it were an effort. His face was empty.

  She thought about asking for the notebook, if he still had it. But then she would have had to figure out what to say, and at the moment, she had no idea.

  She sat beside him instead, hugging one knee. They sat in silence. It felt strange. She didn’t know what they were to each other now or how she should act around him. Were they friends? Allies, at least?

  After a while, Neiryn got up and limped to the river. He unceremoniously stripped naked, slowing when it came to peeling the bandages off his leg, then slumped into the water. He dunked his head under and scrubbed at his hair, then sank in up to his neck and closed his eyes.

  Novikke touched Aruna’s arm and made a writing motion. He reached into a pocket and pulled out the notebook and pencil. She was relieved he hadn’t left it behind.

  “Is that safe?” she asked.

  He gave an uncertain shrug. “Anything in the water that might want to eat him is probably asleep during the day.”

  As he stopped writing, his gaze caught on her arm. Her sleeve had burned off up to the elbow, exposing the circle of twisted pinkish scars. There were scabs and raw, red skin in a few places. Novikke could still feel a constant mild burning. She wondered how long it would last.

  She felt a twinge of anger, watching him study it and remembering how he’d just stood there while it happened. “I’m sorry,” he’d said in that note he’d given her. What was he apologizing for? For bringing her there? Or for this?

  He tentatively reached for her arm. When she didn’t stop him, he grazed his fingers over the marks. She wasn’t used to the scars—the numbness in some parts and hypersensitivity in others, and the strange look of them. It was like watching him touching someone else’s skin.

  Even the best healers weren’t particularly good at fixing scars. She’d have them for the rest of her life.

  His fingers crossed a spot that was painful enough to make her hiss and recoil. He jerked back, blinking in surprise, then abruptly got up and walked away.

  Novikke watched him go. She sighed, then got up and went to the river.

  She stopped on the banks, watching Neiryn float in the water. She was in dire need of a bath, and this might be her only opportunity for a while. She frowned over at her current traveling companions—her male companions. But Aruna had already seen her naked, and Neiryn didn’t seem concerned about nudity.

  She quickly stripped and jumped into the water. Cold took her breath away. She gasped a curse, shivering.

  Neiryn had closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if he meant to go to sleep right in the water. He winked one eye open to peer over at her.

  “How’s your leg?” she asked.

  “As good as can be expected.”

  “Will you be able to keep walking on it?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “The river water isn’t going to help it.”

  “Not likely to make it worse than it already is.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, combing out tangles. The swelling in his face had gone down. He looked completely different without all the blood and dirt coating his skin. In fact, he looked familiar.

  “I saw you,” Novikke said suddenly, and Neiryn gave her a questioning look. She could picture the memory so clearly now. She didn’t know how she hadn’t recognized him before. Maybe it was because those yellow eyes had looked so sharp and frightening then, and now they just looked tired. “Aruna and I saw you and some other Ysurans in the forest on our way toward the outpost.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You passed right by us the other morning. We hid and you came within feet of us. I was sure you were going to see us.”

  Neiryn looked disturbed by this revelation.

  “I was terrified,” she said quietly. “I was sure you’d kill us if you saw us.” Like he’d killed that night elf at the outpost. The memory of the smell of burning flesh still made her shudder.

  He frowned. “I don’t know about that,” he said evasively, which wasn’t a denial, Novikke noticed. “Anyway, we share the same interests for now. Let’s just appreciate that for the moment and not worry too much about the past.”

  “Yes. You still need someone to carry you out of here, after all,” she said wryly.

  His face pinched. He grazed a hand absently over the surface of the water. “Care to explain the night elf?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “He gave me the key to your collar.”

  “I guessed. Do you trust him?”

  She shrugged. “He’s the reason we escaped,” she pointed out.

  “He’s still a night elf. Civility is a foreign concept to them and they’re loyal to no one but each other. They’ll shake your hand just to get close enough to stab you.”

  “I don’t think this one is like that.” As she spoke, her mind provided her with a vivid memory of Aruna stabbing Zaiur.

  Neiryn turned to the shore. Aruna had reappeared and
was leaning against a tree as he watched them. Neiryn shouted a few words to him in the Varai language. Aruna frowned, but said nothing. Neiryn snorted.

  “What did you say?” Novikke asked.

  “I asked him if it bothered him that I killed three of his friends back there.”

  “And what possessed you to say something like that?”

  “It’s not as if they didn’t deserve it.” He laid back in the water, closing his eyes again.

  Deciding that she’d had enough of his company for the moment, Novikke crawled out of the water. She glanced self-consciously at Aruna, but he wasn’t looking in her direction. She dressed. It was a shorter process now that she was missing both her cloak and her jacket, which she’d left on the floor of the mage’s office. It was going to be a cold night.

  This time, Aruna watched her a little suspiciously as she approached. She glanced around for the notebook. He handed it to her without her having to ask.

  She turned to a blank page and held the pencil against the paper, but didn’t write.

  She was holding the book at her waist and her head was down. As she lifted her eyes slightly to glance at Aruna’s body, she was suddenly remembering him above her, unclothed, and couldn’t get the image out of her head. Not that she tried very hard.

  She took a breath. “When we—” she started, then stopped. “At the ruins—”

  Aruna made a loud sound that might have been coughing or choking. He took the notebook and pencil from her hands.

  “That won’t happen again.”

  She frowned at the words.

  “Shouldn’t have happened,” he added.

  He held the book out for a few seconds so she could read it. When she didn’t take it to write a response, he went to put it away. She grabbed for it, then wrote, trying to look like she cared less than she did.

  “Why not? We both enjoyed it, didn’t we?”

  He made a small sound of annoyance. He took the pencil and scribbled impatiently, “You wanted me to free you.”

  She raised an eyebrow as she tried to decipher that. He was accusing her of… what? Trying to seduce him to trick him into helping her? And even if she had been, he’d have no right to be offended by it. He was the one in the wrong in all of this.

  “Should I have not wanted you to free me?” she scoffed.

  He jabbed a finger on the open page, then pointed to his ear and made a rather passive-aggressive gesture of not understanding.

  She huffed a breath through her nose. “That’s not why I did it.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, still looking annoyed for some reason. Novikke waited.

  He took the book from her and wrote again. “I can never go home. Because of you.”

  An uncomfortable emotion settled heavily on her chest, and she wasn’t sure whether it was guilt or indignation. The potent sting of rejection was heavier than either.

  “I guess you should have just let your kinsmen burn me to death, then,” she scrawled, and tossed the book at him as she walked away. He didn’t try to catch it, and it fell to the ground.

  Neiryn had gotten out of the water and was dressing. Novikke’s eyes went to the ugly wound on his leg. It wasn’t bleeding, but his skin had turned dark purple and red in a larger area around it. It was worse than she’d thought.

  He pulled on his dirty Ysuran military uniform, covering the wound. The gold sun on his chest had a large bloodstain over it. He looked over at her, taking in her frown and crossed arms.

  “Like I said,” he said. “Befriending a Varai will not end well. He’ll turn on you when he gets the chance.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stay out of it.”

  Aruna frowned at them, as if having guessed they were discussing him.

  “Are you going to try to find the rest of your group?” Novikke asked Neiryn.

  His face darkened. “No.”

  “You’ll return to Ysura, then?”

  He rested a hand on his hip, then dragged a hand over his face. “To the hells with Ysura.”

  Novikke raised her eyebrows. She’d never thought she’d hear an Ysuran speak ill of their country.

  Aruna abruptly snapped a string of words at them. Neiryn rolled his eyes and gave a brief reply.

  “What’s he saying?” Novikke asked.

  “He doesn’t like that we’re talking without him. He wants me to translate. I told him I’m not going to be his personal translator.”

  “You might have to be.”

  “I think he’s regretting letting us out, right about now.” He turned to Aruna, smiling in a distinctly patronizing way, and said something else to him.

  Aruna glowered. He snatched up the notebook to write, then glanced at Novikke, as if suddenly remembering that she was angry with him. He lowered the book without writing anything, picking at the wood of the pencil with his thumb.

  Neiryn said something else—Novikke was beginning to see that he didn’t know when to stop—and Aruna replied, and then there was a heated back and forth for another minute before Novikke cut in.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “He is unhappy with my presence. I told him he should be grateful for the opportunity to bask in the shadow of one from the great nation of Ysura, homeland of the purest line of elves, directly descended from the Auren-Li—”

  “You just said, ‘to the hells with Ysura.’ ”

  “Well it’s far preferable to Vondh Rav, if such a comparison can even be made,” he scoffed. “Do you know what their cities looks like? They live in huts and in caves and trees. They’re as primitive in culture as they are in mind. The only redeeming thing about them is the forest they happen to inhabit.”

  “I don’t care about any of that, Neiryn. You should probably stop worrying about things that are not directly related to your immediate survival.”

  “He said that he should have left me back there!” he said, bordering on petulant. “After what they did to me, he should be glad I haven’t lost my patience and melted his head off.”

  “He’s here because he killed one of them!” Novikke snapped. “He killed one of them to protect me.”

  She’d thought that had been obvious, but Neiryn looked surprised. His expression didn’t get any less surly, but he closed his mouth.

  “If you say anything like that again, I will leave you,” she said. “And Aruna will come with me. The part of our escape that you were useful for is over. You’re the one who needs us now, not the other way around.”

  He looked like he’d fully expected her to side with him, and now he didn’t know what to say. She could see the wheels turning in his head, like he was trying to figure out how best to turn the situation in his favor, since he hadn’t been able to manipulate her into turning against Aruna.

  Maybe she didn’t have a right to be offended by the way he was talking. She’d heard and thought and said similar things about the Varai before. It was only recently that she’d begun to rethink her opinions about them. About some of them, anyway.

  But at least she could tell when it wasn’t an appropriate time to argue about those things.

  “It wasn’t meant to be taken literally,” Neiryn said lightly, flashing a smile. “This is a mere cultural difference, I’m sure. You shouldn’t take things so seriously, Novikke.”

  “Ysurans often casually talk about melting people’s heads off?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Well, that certainly is a big cultural difference.” Novikke looked skyward, if only so she didn’t have to look at either of them. Was there any hope of them all actually getting through this at this rate? “You really aren’t going back to Ysura?” she asked Neiryn.

  He considered her for a moment, then gave a tired shrug. He looked as worn down as Novikke felt. Probably how Aruna felt, too.

  Aruna had said that they’d reach the edge of the forest in three days. She was confident they could make it that far. That was all they needed to think about r
ight now.

  “We should keep moving,” she said. “Do you need someone to help you walk?”

  He gave her a look that was difficult to interpret. “No, thank you.” He bent and picked up a stick—a piece of driftwood that was the right height to serve as a crutch.

  She looked over at Aruna, who was watching them doubtfully from the shadows.

  “Can you ask him to lead us?” she said to Neiryn. “And do it politely, if that’s not too much of a burden for you?”

  ◆◆◆