Page 32 of Dark Elves of Ardani

He was taking her to his home. He and the others would use her as bait to lure the Paladins to their death. He knew they would come for her. All he had to do was tell them where to find her. For once, he would have the upper hand. He could engineer a situation where the Varai had all the control, rather than endlessly running. He was beginning to hope that one day soon, they would not have to live every waking moment in fear. Perhaps they would not have to run forever.

There was still the Witch-Paladin to contend with. They had no solid plan yet for dealing with her. They would have to get close to her and kill her before she had a chance to fight.

But that would all have to wait. Somehow, he and the human woman were still farther away from home than when they’d started, and they wouldn’t get much farther today.

He stopped at the next safe place he found—another shallow cave hidden high in the mountains. There were no animal skins or stacks of firewood here, but now that he’d recovered Changa, he had everything he needed to camp for a few nights.

He helped the woman down from Changa and watched her limp unsteadily into the mouth of the shallow cave before sorting through his supplies. When he’d gathered everything, he gave the behelgi another pat on her long neck, pressing his forehead to her cheek. She huffed in response. The time without her had been nerve-racking. He’d been afraid she had been lost or hurt. But of course, she had turned out to be as sturdy and dependable as always.

The woman had wrapped herself in his cloak and blanket and was sitting on the floor, a mass of black and brown that almost blended in with the stone. She watched him as he worked. The look in her eyes put him on edge. She didn’t speak much, but her eyes were always watching, always studying.

She was deceptively fragile-looking, her skin and hair pale in a way that made her seem vaguely ill, and her body was tall but narrow. But if you looked closer, she was more wiry than waifish, and her blue eyes were sharp and observant and mistrustful rather than dreamy and innocent. She had a pretty face, youthful and feminine, but her eyes had the look of a patient, intelligent killer waiting for her opportunity to strike.

It was the look of a Varai woman. He didn’t like that look. He stared her down until she shifted nervously and looked away.

By the time he’d set up their camp and gotten a fire going, she was shivering again.

“Your clothes and armor are drying,” he said, jerking his chin toward the line he’d hung them on. There was no sun to shine on them.

“That will take ages.”

He didn’t disagree. “We will stay here until they dry.”

They were mostly dry when he went to check on them the next morning. The woman, however, was still shivering and coughing. She put on the clothes, but went straight back to her bundle of blankets afterward.

“We’ll stay here until your chills stop,” he said with a frown, adding more scavenged wood to the fire.

The chills hadn’t gone away by the day after that.

Nero approached the woman, who had hardly left her spot on the floor in two days. She wheezed slightly with every breath.

“You’re unwell,” he decided, reluctant though he was to admit it. This was another setback he didn’t need.

She frowned at him, saying nothing. When he raised a hand to her forehead, she shrank slightly, as if his touch frightened her. He wasn’t surprised. It was hardly the first time a human had recoiled from him as if his race were contagious.

Her skin was hot and damp with sweat. They couldn’t travel while she was like this.

“We’ll stay here until you’ve recovered,” he said, but he wondered how long that would be.

When he awoke the next day, the woman was motionless, deep in sleep. He no longer heard wheezing.

He went to the bundle of blankets and nudged her. She didn’t move. He nudged her again, and still she did not wake.

Fear gripped him.

He scanned her for signs of life, his gaze darting to her purplish lips and motionless eyelids. She could not be dead already. Her sickness couldn’t have progressed that quickly. Could it?

He realized that if she had died under his care, he would not be able to live with himself. It was one thing to kill an enemy in a fight. It was quite another to take one prisoner, render them helpless, and then, through negligence, let them slowly wither away.

He grasped her shoulder, shaking her a little harder. “Zara?”

After a long delay, her eyes cracked open and looked up at him, unfocused and tired.

He let out a breath. She was alive, but she looked worse than ever. She took a deep breath, and he could hear the wheeze in her throat. “How do you feel?” he asked.

She hesitated. “I am…” She was interrupted by a bout of coughing. He put his hand to her forehead. She was still hot.

He went to his pack and retrieved a packet of herbs that Hashna had told him would reduce a fever and dull pain. It was all the medicine he had. He mixed them into a cup of water, which he held out to her. She eyed it warily.

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