Page 25 of Sun Elves of Ardani

He shook his head. “They were all right when we first fell. But the pillar could have hit them.”

She let out a tight breath, putting her head in her hand.

Watching her struggle not to cry made Neiryn’s chest ache. He searched for something to distract her with, which wasn’t difficult. He looked up at the caved-in ceiling. “How long do you suppose that will hold?”

She took a few long breaths before she looked up again. “I wouldn’t trust it with my life. Can you get up?”

She held out a small, pale hand. He looked at it for a moment, suddenly reminded of the first time they’d met, when he’d watched her hands carefully dance over him as she wove spells into him.

They had become friends after that. He hadn’t meant to at first, but they had. It had been so easy at the time. They’d been united by unprecedented circumstances, brought together against common enemies, defending each other from common threats. They had come together to save the world. It had been easy to forget their differences when there were so many bigger things to worry about.

It had been a long time since she’d offered her hand to him like that. He’d thought she might never do it again.

She frowned. “What?” She dropped her hand. He belatedly reached out to take it.

“Nothing. Let’s get out of here.” He sat up, and pain spiked through his ribs. He hissed. “Ah—gods—mother of—shit!”

“I told you, you’re only partially healed. Try not to move too quickly. Or breathe too much.”

“I’ll do that,” he said icily. With her help, he gathered his strength and slowly got to his feet. His arm throbbed, but it was worse when he moved it. He pulled off his belt and looped it around his arm and over his neck to make a sling, which held it relatively steady against his chest.

They went down the hallway in tense silence, his small flame lighting their way in a sphere of warm light. Beyond the light, there was only darkness—the kind of darkness that only existed deep underground, where no sunlight could hope to penetrate.

He refused to admit to being afraid of the dark. But there was something uniquely unnerving about that gloom. The only thing keeping that darkness at bay was his little flame. They had no mage torches, and apparently Kadaki had limited power for such things. If something happened to him and he was unable to cast, they’d be plunged into blackness again.

“Am I correct in assuming you won’t be able to just magically shift us back to the surface the way you did in Kuda Varai?” he asked.

The corners of her lips twisted downward. “Yes.”

“Then we will have to find another exit. The people who lived here had to have had some way to access the surface.”

“I think thatwasthe exit,” Kadaki said. “In the sinkhole by the house. That looked like the front door.”

“Then there must be a back door. They wouldn’t build an underground city with only one door; it’s a hazard.”

“The Auren-Li were mages. Maybe they used magic to shift themselves in and out. You don’t need doors if you can do that.”

“You’re an absolute ray of sunshine.”

“I’m not here to comfort you with useless platitudes, Sair Neiryn. Get your emotional support somewhere else.”

“The least you could do is not pull me down while I’m trying to make the best of the situation.”

“No, the least I could do is save your miserable life and then heal you enough for you to walk, so that you can get out of here and get your life back to normal as soon as possible. You know, so you can continue subjugating my people.”

“Shall I be offended or flattered that you think I am somehow personally responsible for your people losing a war?”

“You’ve certainly benefited from it. You seem to be doing just fine. Commander’s second-in-command and all. You seem quite comfortable having your boot on the neck of all of Ardani.”

“When have I ever had my boot on your neck, Kadaki? Tell me.”

“Are you going to pretend you already forgot about last night? That kind of thing isn’t rare, Neiryn, it happens all the time. Ysurans hurt us all the time. That’s when they’re not busy pushing into our cities and disrupting our lives and making new rules to control us with.”

The fire in his hand flared a little bigger at the reminder of the previous night, and Kadaki shrank back, giving him a cautious look. Shame washed through him. He hated that she looked at him that way.

It took some effort to bring the flame back down. The events of the previous night had made him furious. He kept thinking about what would have happened to her if he hadn’t been there. He kept thinking about what he wanted to do to those soldiers.

“Look,” he said, “you should try to think of the new treaty as a mutually beneficial partnership rather than subjugation. Ysura has a lot to offer Ardani. There is a great deal we can teach you, if you let us—about democratic leadership, engineering, economics, justice, science—”

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