Page 1 of Dark Elves of Ardani

Chapter 1

As blood poured from the wound, Zara realized that her mother was going to die.

Kashava coughed, choking on blood. “Goddess damn them.” She lay on a bed of pine needles on the forest floor, her hand gingerly covering the gouge in her chest. The heavy sword had gone straight through her black leather armor as if it were paper. Human weapons, like the humans themselves, were strong, blunt, and brutal.

Zara fell to her knees at her side, dropping the dagger in her hand. She’d killed the human who had attacked Kashava, stabbing the dagger into his neck before he’d even seen her coming, but it had been too late. The damage was done. In the waning light of evening, Kashava’s blood was vivid, hideous red on her deep blue skin.

The humans had managed to surprise them, attacking their raiding party’s little camp in the woods just as the sun was setting. What followed had been terrifying but brief, and the fight was over as suddenly as it had begun. The humans had all either been killed or had retreated. Kashava wasn’t the only elf who’d been injured, but she was the only one Zara cared about.

She was not Zara’s birth mother, of course, as much as Zara wished it were so. Night elves did not give birth to humans. Like all humans born in the night elves’ homeland of Kuda Varai, Zara had been born into slavery. Kashava and her wife, Avan, had rescued Zara and taken her into their home eight years ago.

Zara loved them like they were family. More than family.

Zara looked up, searching for help. “I’ll get someone,” she said as she pressed her hands over the wound, as if there was any hope of stopping the flood of blood. She didn’t know what to do or how to fix this. Her thoughts were unwinding. This was a dream. It had to be. But it wasn’t. How could something so awful be real? And yet, it was. It was.

Kashava cringed when she pressed down on the wound. She shook her head. “Foolish girl.” She knew it was hopeless. She knew this was the end.

Zara had seen death before. But not like this. She had not been ready for this. Death was a thing that happened to other people.

Silent tears blurred her vision and spilled down her cheeks. “You’ll be all right,” she insisted, panic constricting her voice. “It’s all right—we’ll—I—”

Kashava’s hand shakily came to rest over hers. Zara could not imagine what she was thinking, but she did not look afraid. Angry, disappointed, but not afraid.

But then a spark of worry crossed Kashava’s eyes. “Don’t trust the others,” she said hoarsely.

Zara glanced over her shoulder at the other night elves—the Varai, as they were called in their own language—and realized that her situation was about to change dramatically. She was the only human in the group now. Her advocate, her protector, would no longer be there for her. Kashava had never seen her as a mere slave, but they all knew that was how the rest of them saw her, even if they mostly behaved themselves while Kashava was nearby.

Zara swallowed tightly. The fact that Kashava felt the need to warn her filled her with new dread.

“And don’t trust the humans,” Kashava said. Her hand clenched over Zara’s. “They may look like you, but that is all you have in common.”

It hardly needed to be said. Of course she wouldn’t trust any humans. Not after they’d killed Kashava.

“Who does that leave?” Zara asked, choking out a bitter laugh.

“Only the Goddess.”

Tears slipped down Zara’s cheeks. It seemed unfair that the last thing Kashava saw would be Zara’s weeping. She should have been better than this. She should have been offering some kind of comfort. That was the least she could do—try to make Kashava’s last moments as peaceful as possible. But it was all she could do not to sob. When she tried to speak, her tongue got twisted. This was all wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Tell Avan…” Kashava began, then paused, as if considering what to say. They’d been together for decades. They were deeply in love, almost one person instead of two. What could she say now that would do justice to the life they’d spent together? How could she express all that needed to be expressed in the few moments she had left?

“Yes?” Zara asked, eager to have a final command. A duty she could carry out for her. A way to help.

She waited.

Then she realized that Kashava had stopped breathing.

Zara sat back. Everything drained out of her.

She sat there for an indeterminable amount of time, her mind blank, before she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up and found Jura’s stony face looking down at her. He’d been the unofficial second-in-command. With Kashava dead, he would have final say in the group’s decisions now.

He looked at Kashava’s motionless body, then at the dead human a few steps away. His eyes paused on the dagger on the ground, then flicked up to Zara again. “You killed that one?” he asked, tilting his head toward the corpse.

Her hand went to the leather collar around her neck that marked her as a slave, a collar that had Avan and Kashava’s names on it. She eyed Jura cautiously, wondering whether he would punish her for picking up a weapon—a thing that slaves were never, ever permitted to do. The chances of him applauding her for avenging Kashava were slim.

“Yes,” she said hesitantly. She tried to keep her emotions in check, but the waves of shock and grief kept coming. Tears kept spilling down her cheeks. It was hard to breathe.

The others were already shooting her hateful looks, as if she was to blame for this attack. It was possible they would decide she wasn’t worth keeping alive.

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