Page 69 of Dark Elves of Ardani

“It’s something,” he corrected her, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Heat rose to her face, and a deep, almost painful emotion stirred in her heart. Being kissed on the cheek almost felt more intimate than anything else they’d done. It was a thing family members and spouses did.

Zara glanced over at Vaara. If he found the kiss offensive, he didn’t show it, which was unusual for a Varai. But he also kept the company of a half-human, so it was probably safe to assume he was not as prejudiced as most of his kin, despite his chilly demeanor. He nodded to her as they slipped back into the woods, which was probably the closest she would get to a thank-you.

Chapter 22

Zara worked hard in the inn that morning, out of guilt, and in an attempt to thank Basira for gifting her the panacea and keeping her secret.

She skipped her morning exercise and instead hurried around the inn. She finished the pot of stew Basira had begun cooking, cleaned all the dishes remaining from the previous night, refilled their water stores, stripped all the beds of their sheets and replaced them with clean ones, and was serving food in the common room when the Paladins arrived.

Theron walked in, accompanied by Naika and a half dozen other Paladins. Zara hardly looked up at them at first. There were more of them than usual—Theron didn’t usually bring an entire entourage with him except when they went out hunting—but their presence was not unusual. But then she realized that they weren’t coming in to sit at the table. They’d stopped in the doorway. Theron was watching her.

She looked back at him, slowly setting down the jug of water she’d been filling cups from. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

“Sit down, Zara,” said Theron.

Fear crept over her skin. The room went quiet at the cool tone of his voice. Everyone watched them. The other diners at the table edged sideways. Some of them got up and moved away, but none of them left. They all wanted to see whatever was about to happen.

“Can I help you, Paladin?” she asked, not particularly kindly. It occurred to her how different Theron looked now compared to when they’d first met. She saw none of the same friendliness now. There was a coldness in his eyes. The change had been gradual, but the end result was startling.

“I want you to sit down,” he said.

She felt her lips tighten against her teeth. “I am not a slave to be ordered around,” she said. Theron actually flinched a little at the word, to her satisfaction. “Tell me what you want, or do not.”

Zara’s eyes darted to Naika’s. The mage looked even unhappier than usual. Her brows pinched, and she signed slowly, subtly:Danger.Zara swallowed a lump in her throat. Naika was trying to warn her. As if she didn’t already know she was in danger.

There was no back door in the inn. There was nowhere to run.

“All right,” Theron said, coming closer. He stopped across the table from her and looked straight into her eyes. “I want to know why you’ve been giving aid to night elves.”

There was a gasp from one of the diners. A few of the others shifted nervously.

“What makes you think I would give aid to night elves?” Zara asked.

“You defend them at every opportunity. You keep telling us they’re merely misunderstood. You sulk when we hurt them.”

Zara shrugged. She could hardly argue against that. She could not be someone she was not, and she could not pretend to agree with their ways when she did not.

“You were seen,” he said, the final nail in the coffin. “One of my men claims he saw you letting someone out of your house this morning. Someone shrouded by dark magic. We believe it was one of the elves we fought during the night, and that you hid him from us.”

Perhaps she could have claimed that they’d forced their way in and made her help them against her will. It seemed pointless to try. There was no escaping this.

“I have done nothing wrong,” she said coolly. “And you have no authority to make laws and punish people. You are a religious order, not the army, not the city watch, not judges.”

The corners of his lips turned sharply downward. “We have been granted that authority by the queen. We are permitted to do whatever we deem necessary to protect Ardani.”

“You deem it necessary to hunt down a man who is so injured he can barely walk? This is your great threat to Ardani?”

He squinted at her. “Is this a game to you? Do you think that aiding those murderers is a laughing matter?”

She actually did laugh. It was too ridiculous. “It is the other way around! You are like a child pretending to be a knight fighting monsters. Your imagination and your hate have so much power over you that you can no longer see what is real.”

He shook his head, looking her up and down as if seeing her for the first time. “You’ve changed. There is something dark in you. I don’t know why I never saw it before.”

The way he looked at her made her furious. He’d judged her to be beneath him because she was not the biddable girl he’d wanted her to be. “I imagine you call many things you do not understand ‘dark.’”

Theron turned to the others. “She laughs when confronted with her evils, instead of asking for forgiveness. She scoffs at the idea of goodness.”

The other Paladins nodded in agreement. Zara seethed.

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