Page 6 of Sun Elves of Ardani

Hair like strands of white gold framed a face with amber skin and poisonous-looking yellow eyes. He wore the same style of long vest she did, which exposed his slim but well-muscled arms and strong, defined shoulders. The symbol of Ysura, a golden sun half hidden behind a red horizon, was garish on his chest, and the fabric that poured down from the sun past his narrow hips, all the way to the tops of his tall boots, looked to her like a waterfall of blood.

She’d thought that maybe she had idealized him in her memories. She’d thought no one could really be as beautiful as the way she’d remembered him. Surely it had only been nostalgia making embellishments in her mind.

But now she realized she had misremembered nothing. He was, without question, the most attractive person she’d ever seen. He could have passed for a prince from a storybook. An evil prince, maybe.

Gods, she hated him.

“Kadaki,” Neiryn said. His easy smile hit her like a dagger in the gut.

A wave of memories came flooding back. Bits and pieces she’d long forgotten now returned, triggered by the sight of him here. And suddenly she was thinking of all the long conversations they’d had late into the night. All the times they’d slept side by side but not quite touching. All the small, secret looks he’d given her when no one was looking, that had betrayed a warmth no one else had thought him capable of.

Suddenly, she was thinking about how hard she’d fallen for him.

And then she was thinking of the note he’d left for her to find when he’d left. She’d read those words over and over again.

Thanks for the good times. Got to go. —Neiryn

Two sentences. That was all. As if she wasn’t even worth the ink it would take to pen an explanation.

She didn’t know what he was doing here, and she didn’t care.

“Get out,” she said.

His smile wavered. “That’s all you have to say? After all this time?”

“Get. Out.”

He stared at her for a long time as his smile shrank. His eyes went slightly colder and sharper. He tucked the metal rod into a sheath at his side. “I think you’ll find I can go where I please. ‘Private property’ doesn’t mean much when it’s a human who owns the property.”

Bottled-up rage overwhelmed her. “You asshole,” she breathed.

He shrugged. “It’s nothing to do with me being an asshole. That’s just the way of things when you lose a war, isn’t it? Best get used to it.”

Before she could really consider what she was doing, there was a flame in her hand, and then that flame was flying toward Neiryn’s face. His hand jolted up to block it, and the flame bounced away and fizzled out. He whirled toward her, aghast. “Kadaki!”

She was already throwing another fireball, which he again knocked aside with his own magic. The sun elves’ power over fire meant that using fire spells against them was fairly useless, but gods, it felt good to do it.

“Kadaki, that’s dangerous! Stop this!”

By then, she was already reaching the limits of her meager power, but she threw another one. Neiryn stepped back, slicing his hand defensively toward the ball of flame. It exploded into smoke and heat, disintegrating just before it hit him.

Kadaki stopped when he started batting at his thighs. A stray lick of flame had caught on his vest. Startled, she ran to help pat the flame until it went out. It had eaten through the edge of the fabric, leaving a singed hole behind.

“Are you all right?” she gasped, then looked up at him and met his eyes. Suddenly remembering that she was angry at him, she pulled back, glowering.

There was a shout behind her. She looked over her shoulder. Other sun elves in uniform, all of them with swords or flames in their hands, were approaching, drawn by the sounds of fighting. They’d been on the other side of the house, out of sight. Farther down the path, Roshan had come running out of the house as well. He watched Kadaki with alarm as the Ysurans surrounded her.

Abruptly, Neiryn’s arms wrapped tightly around her and drew her against him, pinning her arms to her sides. She struggled to extricate herself from his grasp.

“Be still, fool,” he hissed in her ear.

She stiffened at the buzz of his voice against her skin, but stopped moving, feeling like a cat caught by the scruff of its neck. The difference in height between them was so great that her cheek rested against his chest, and she could hear his racing heartbeat beneath his clothes.

The elves hesitated, looking like they were trying to decide whether to attack.

The fireballs, admittedly, had been foolish. It had been a moment of weakness. She’d only done it because she’d known he would knock them aside easily, and because there had been no one else around to witness it. Or so she’d thought.

“It’s only me, Kadaki,” Neiryn said, loud enough for the rest of them to hear. “It’s been so long. I suppose you didn’t recognize me.”

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