Page 71 of Sun Elves of Ardani

“That’s not the way the law works,” she growled. “We do not free dangerous criminals on the basis of a single good deed.”

Kadaki took a step back, and someone grabbed her by the back of the neck, wrestling her into submission. A hand laced into her hair and pulled, and she gasped in pain. She was bent toward Rhian, held there, and then the collar clicked around her neck.

The hands on her disappeared, and she stumbled sideways. For a terrifying moment, she thought it was Neiryn who had grabbed her, but no, he was pulling another soldier away from her. She watched as Neiryn shoved away the other soldier and slammed him against a tree. He held him there, glaring, as if daring him to fight. The other soldier looked bewildered.

“That’s enough!” Rhian said, her voice cutting the air. Neiryn stopped, glancing over at her. The crowd was staring at them. For once, Rhian seemed at a loss for words. After a moment, Neiryn slowly released the man, backing away.

Speaking in Ysuran, Rhian issued a series of orders, and the soldiers began to disperse. Neiryn’s opponent spat a single, hateful word at Neiryn before following the others.

* * *

Neiryn gave an unusuallylong prayer of thanks to the sun goddess that evening. He was standing at the window in his room, watching the sun set, when the door to his room opened behind him. He looked up, smiling, knowing there was only one person in the house rude enough to barge in on him in his private room. His smile disappeared when he saw who was waiting for him.

Make that two people who were rude enough to barge in. Rhian stood in the doorway, not Kadaki.

Rhian eased the door shut behind her, but she looked like she wanted to slam it. “What in the hells was that?” she hissed.

“Good evening, Commander.”

“Don’t ‘good evening, Commander’ me. I should send you back to Ysura.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, that got your attention, didn’t it?” Rhian drawled. “You can’t leave or there’ll be no one left to play white knight for your little human friend.”

“My—” He hesitated, narrowing his eyes. “She’s not my—”

“Oh, do stop. Do you think I’m blind? Eliyr thinks I don’t notice him traipsing around with Roshan, too.” She sat down heavily in a chair in the corner of the room, rubbing her temples. “Why does everyone here seem to think I’m incompetent?”

He arched an eyebrow. “No one thinks you’re incompetent.”

She gave a tired laugh. “Some people do. The Ardanians here won’t give me the time of day. They don’t have any females in high ranks in their military. The only women they answer to are their mothers and their queen. I’ve had farmers sneer at me and ask for my superior when I try to speak to them, as if I couldn’t possibly be someone of importance.” She gave him a mirthless smile. “But your brand of insubordination has nothing to do with sexism. How nice for me. I guess I should be grateful.”

He folded his arms. “You shouldn’t have made her put on the collar again. In front of everyone, no less, after what she did.”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t be so embarrassing for her if she didn’t resist. She put it on willingly in the ruins. For a moment, I thought things between us might go smoothly going forward.”

“You’re asking her to submit again and again. The collar is painful and humiliating. Of course she doesn’t want to wear it.”

“I don’t care what she wants.”

“You and I both know she’s trustworthy. She won’t hurt anyone.”

“Speak for yourself. I know nothing of the sort. She’s unpredictable at best. She’s too rebellious and too strong. If she were a sun elf, I admit, I would like her quite a lot, but as an Ardanian, she poses a threat. She’s going to do what she wants, and occasionally that may coincide with what we want, but it won’t always be so. And judging by what she did today, she’s much more powerful than we realized. She must be kept under control.”

He realized his fingers were digging into his arms. He dropped them to his sides. “You can’t keep her in that thing forever. It’s inhumane.”

“I don’t plan to. But I’m not going to release her mere days after she attacked one of us. I hardly think that’s unreasonable.”

“Perhaps not. But you should know that the longer you keep it on her, the angrier she’ll be. Right now, she is as close to being on our side as she’ll ever be. You’ll only make an enemy of her if you continue to treat her like one.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you? I take it you know her well?”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes.” There was a pause. Rhian was looking at him thoughtfully. “Are you really going to send me home?”

She exhaled slowly. “Relationships between us and them are problematic. You know it as well as I do. Had you chosen someone else in town, someone we weren’t working closely with, I wouldn’t have cared. With Lady Kadaki, it’s different.”

He wasn’t certain what he’d do if she tried to send him back. But he wouldn’t leave; he knew that already.

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