Page 54 of Dark Elves of Ardani

As the group began moving again, Zara took her usual place near the back of the line alongside Naika. The mage glanced down at her thoughtfully.

Asshole,Naika signed, glancing in Theron’s direction.

Zara bit back a surprised smile.Asshole,she signed in agreement. “They did not catch any of the Varai?” she asked, wondering about Theron’s bad mood.

Naika shook her head.

“So the mission was a failure.”

She nodded.

Zara glanced around the group. Two Paladins were missing. “And they lost some of their own?”

Naika hesitated, then shook her head and shrugged.

“Injured?” Zara asked.

Naika nodded.

Zara thought about how Naika had been treated in the Varai camp. No one but Zara knew about it. Zara wondered how often she’d suffered similar indignities and had been unable to tell anyone about it.

“Are you all right?” She wondered if any of the others had thought to ask.

Naika glanced over at her curiously, then nodded.

Zara looked around to be sure no one was paying attention to them, then showed her a sign that looked a bit like a snake’s bared fangs. “Poison,” she said as she demonstrated.

Naika watched her movements closely. Then she slowly tried the motion, replicating it with almost perfect accuracy. Zara corrected the placement of one of her fingers.

“Paladin,” she said next, drawing a shape on the left side of her chest. She actually didn’t know if there was a sign for Paladin yet, so she made one up. Naika copied her again. They continued on like that for most of the journey back to the village.

Chapter 18

Theron’s displeased mood had not gone away after a few days. The lack of progress lately seemed to be weighing on him. Zara didn’t mind, because it seemed to make him less inclined to strike up a conversation with her every time he came to the inn.

A caravan from Uulantaava passed through, and the inn was abuzz with activity for several days. Zara worked with Basira from sunrise to sundown to accommodate the brief influx of travelers. People were hurrying to do their traveling before the winter weather cut off the road through the pass.

Whenever she had the time, she would take walks alone into the mountains, even though Basira had tried to dissuade her. There was something about being on her own, going wherever she pleased and carrying her own weapons on her belt, that still held an irresistible thrill to her. The entire world was open to her.

Perhaps it was that same adventurous spirit that made her the only person in the village who routinely went out after dark, other than the several Paladins who kept watch each night. She simply could not muster up the same fear of the night that the others had. In fact, she found it to be the most peaceful time of the day. She liked being the only one awake. She liked the quiet. And she had been nocturnal for her entire life up until now. She might not have been a night elf, but the night was still hers.

So she didn’t feel nervous about creeping over to Tahir’s workshop for some late night work one evening. At least, she didn’t feel nervous until she got to the door and found it already cracked open.

Someone was already here. And Tahir wouldn’t have gone out this late. She glanced around at the darkened village. There would be Paladins standing guard here and there, but she couldn’t see any now.

She drew her daggers and crept to the door. She listened, then peered through the crack. It was totally dark inside, and no sound came from within. Perhaps whatever had opened the door was already gone. Or Tahir had just left it open by mistake.

She slipped inside. The moons were both bright that night, but little light found its way into the small building. She watched the shadows, searching for movement.

Zara knew the workshop well by then and could move through it by memory alone. It was a single-room structure with a long table in the center, and counters and shelves filled with alchemical ingredients lining each wall. Drying herbs hung from the ceiling, and the scent of old greenery mixed with the faint burnt scent of the fireplace. On a shelf across the room, she could faintly see the green glow of the pair of fire bugs she’d trapped in a jar the previous night.

“Hello?”she said softly in Varai.

Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.

She went to the table in the middle of the room and found the enchanted mage torch there. It lit up when she touched it, casting soft bluish light through the room. Immediately she noticed some things out of place. A number of bottles of finished mixtures were missing. Some of the jars of ingredients had been touched. One was still open on the counter.

Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She spun, raising her daggers.

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