“All right,” Novikke said, scowling back at him. “Then I defected. Out of everyone in the entire army, I was the only one wise enough to realize that we should have a truce, so I took the initiative and made one.”
Vissarion snorted. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m less of an idiot than the idiot who tried to march a bunch of soldiers into Kuda Varai!” She sat back, resting her hands on the ground behind her. “Ash and blood, who cares anymore, anyway? We’re probably all going to die here. The rest of them will be dead soon, if they aren’t already. That dark fog will probably come back and finish off the rest of us before we can leave. Aruna can’t protect us from that, and even if he could, I don’t see why he would want to.”
Vissarion just shook his head. “Of all the nations you could have chosen to try to form ill-advised alliances with—the night elves? Even the Ysurans are preferable. At least they won’t sacrifice you to Moratha when they kill you.”
Aruna’s eyebrows tipped up in surprise, then down in annoyance. “We don’t practice mortal sacrifice.”
“All right,” Thala cut in abruptly. “This conversation has overstayed its welcome, I think. Why don’t we all just try to get some sleep?”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Aleka said to Vissarion, ignoring her. “Among other things. My aunt saw it in person, when the war was first beginning and there were skirmishes around the border of Kuda Varai. She said that out of all her time in the army, the things she witnessed the few times they clashed with night elves made everything else pale in comparison. She said they…” He glanced nervously at Aruna, then away again. “They executed the Ardanian prisoners they’d taken and… dismembered the bodies. They put the pieces on pikes along the edge of the forest,” he finished quietly.
Everyone looked at Aruna. He looked unimpressed. “Are you suggesting that Ardani doesn’t execute foreign prisoners?”
“Of course they do, sometimes, but—” Aleka made a face, lowering his voice with discomfort. “Why cut them up like that?”
“They would have already been dead when they were dismembered. Executions here are done by beheading.”
“It’s not about that,” Aleka said. “It’s about respect for the dead and—and—common decency.”
Aruna’s annoyance came to a head as it mingled with confusion. “They were already dead. What does it matter what happened to their bodies afterward?”
The entire group made audible sounds of disapproval. Even Novikke gave him a skeptical glance.
Aleka looked up at Novikke. “Night elves are the most cruel people on the continent. Don’t you know that, Novikke?” His voice was gentle, like he thought maybe she hadn’t heard the stories, or that she really had been brainwashed into forgetting them.
“We’re the cruel ones?” Aruna said, raising his eyebrows incredulously. “You spend a week keeping me on a leash and beating me bloody every chance you get, and then you call me cruel?”
They all had the decency to look a little guilty at that.
Aruna scoffed, disgusted. “You’re the ones who continually invade our land, assault our villages, kill our people in their own homes. We keep to ourselves. We just want to be left alone. Why is that so difficult a task for you?” He stood up, putting a hand to his head, looking torn between anger and bewilderment. “Why do you keep coming here? Why must you be so fixated on what you can’t have? Your country is enormous. Why do you need to possess our tiny bit of land as well? What drives this obsession with owning everything you see?”
“What about the raids on towns near the forest?” Vissarion said. “And the ambushes on the roads? Is that what you mean when you say you keep to yourselves?”
“That’s…” He glanced down at Novikke, then looked away. “There are benefits to keeping people afraid,” he said, though he sounded less self-assured in this statement than he had before.
“Cruel,” Vissarion summarized.
Aruna glared around at all of them, looking cornered. When no one else spoke, he turned on his heel and walked into the forest. When he showed no signs of stopping, the others began to look alarmed. They still needed him. Maybe they’d forgotten that until that moment.
“Is he going to come back?” Thala asked.
Novikke got up. “Wait here,” she muttered, and went after him.
Chapter 10
The light from the fire was extinguished the moment Novikke stepped beyond Kadaki’s barrier. She looked behind her, where the others should have still been sitting around the fire, and saw only dark trees.
She followed the sound of Aruna walking through brush for a short while until he outpaced her and she could no longer hear him.
“Aruna?” she called softly. No answer.
The night was chill. She shivered. She squinted, and a patch of moonlight appeared in the trees far ahead of her. She headed toward it, hoping it was a short enough distance that the forest’s magic wouldn’t have time to lead her astray.
The patch of moonlight turned out to be an open valley. Just ahead of her, the trees stopped, and the ground dropped away, giving way to a tall cliff. She could see the Auren-Li ruins in the distance, glowing soft white in the moonlight.
She stopped short, realizing that the cliff edge was much closer than she’d thought. It had been difficult to see in the dark. At the same time, a hand darted out to stop her.
Aruna was leaning against a wall of stone that rose above the cliff. “Be careful,” he said. His hand was on her wrist. He didn’t let go, even after she’d stopped.
She’d meant to either apologize or to censure him. With him, she was always torn between the two. She waited to see whether he’d be relieved or annoyed to see her.
But he didn’t look to be either of those. He just looked tired and frustrated and wary. The same way she’d felt for the past couple weeks, with a couple notable exceptions. And she didn’t know what to say, so she gave up trying to think of something, and just looked at him, and he looked back. Something silent and intangible passed between them—or maybe it was just her imagination.
He pulled gently. She let him bring her closer, holding her breath as his fingers played idly over her wrist and palm.
“I haven’t done anything like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Dismembered bodies.”
“Oh.” She’d almost forgotten about that. “I thought you said it didn’t matter what happened to them after they were dead.”
“It matters far less than the fact that they’ve been killed in the first place,” he said. “A point which seems to have evaded your countrymen. But I still wouldn’t do it. And we don’t practice mortal sacrifice. Our goddess doesn’t even ask for sacrifices of any kind, let alone… that. I don’t understand where they get ideas like this.”
“I believe you.”
He looked relieved. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. “Are you certain you want to save them?” he muttered. “You and I could go on without them. Ravi can decide their fate.”
“What about Kadaki?”
He began to speak, then stopped. He seemed less certain about her. “All right. I’ll take Kadaki, too.”
“I don’t think she’ll go without Thala. And Thala won’t go without Aleka and Vissarion.”
His expression soured.
Novikke gave a rueful smile. “I’m not saying you should be glad to be offering aid to the other side, but—”
“Do I even have a side anymore? I never chose, and now I’m everyone’s enemy.”
Novikke leaned against the wall beside him. “Not mine,” she said.
She was surprised when that seemed to offer him some solace. He turned to look at her thoughtfully. “Unfortunate that it’s not just you and me here, then.”
There was a flutter deep in her chest. She wanted to reach out and touch him. From the way he was looking at her, she guessed he wanted to, too.
But she still remembered the painful rejection she’d endured at
the river a week ago. It was still as vivid in her mind as it had been that day.
She looked away, then looked back at him. She drew a breath. “It’s just us right now,” she pointed out.
His eyebrows went up a tiny bit. He paused. “Yes.”
She had thought he’d looked almost like he was getting ready to do something, but then he merely stood stock-still against the wall. Maybe he was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what to say.
A bird chirped nearby as if to underscore the silence that dragged on. Novikke cleared her throat, folding her arms over her chest. The cold had begun to sink into her skin. She shivered.
“Are you cold?” Aruna asked.
She recalled reading those words on paper some time ago. “Yes.”
“Then come closer.”
She hesitated, processing the words. Before she could move, he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her against him, and kissed her.
She tensed in surprise, clutching the fabric of his shirt. It was unexpected, but anything but unwelcome, and already she wanted more. She felt like she’d been waiting for it for ages. Was this how he’d felt when she’d kissed him?
He took a deep breath, breathing her in, and his hand weaved into her hair. The gentle kiss quickly grew hungrier.
Novikke reached for his waist, and then under his shirt, savoring the soft warmth of his skin against the cold air—skin that she got to touch far too rarely. She felt his hands tense against her in response.
Suddenly he broke the kiss, and she felt an immediate sense of loss.
“Novikke—” he breathed. The way he said the word sounded almost like a protest, like he was rethinking doing what he was doing. He looked at the ground.
“Just kiss me,” she said, dipping her head until he looked up and met her eyes. “Please.”
His bright eyes bored into hers. He brought a hand to her face, caressing her cheek with a sweetness that she thought could have convinced even Vissarion of his gentleness if he’d seen it.
“Is this really what you want?” he murmured, frowning. The question caught her off guard. She’d thought it was beyond obvious.
“Gods, yes.”
He hesitated for another long moment. Then he turned to put her back against the wall of stone, and then his mouth was on hers again.
She pulled at the laces of his armor, and when he managed to pull himself out of the kiss, he moved to assist her. They worked rapidly, probably both sensing that the moment would pass them by if they waited too long. If they didn’t do this now, they might not get another chance.
He discarded the armor and pulled his shirt over his head, and Novikke immediately brought her hands to him, running her fingers over ridges of hard muscle. Her cloak and jacket and shirt and chest wrap all came off one piece at a time, and she was so distracted that she wasn’t entirely sure which ones she’d taken off and which he’d removed for her.
His hands ran along her side and over her breast—finally getting more brazen. Novikke gasped softly. His face dropped against her shoulder, his mouth on her skin, his hands everywhere.
She hadn’t thought he’d wanted this as much as she had. He’d been so closed off after the ruins. He’d seemed determined not to fall into this trap again. The trap both of them had found themselves ensnared in, of longing for the enemy.
Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be a Varai that she was so enamored with?
And yet, she wouldn’t have had him be anything else but what he was.
She pulled at the waist of his pants, and he gave her room to push them down over his hips. She shimmied out of her bottoms as he stepped out of his.
His hard length poked against her stomach. She reached down, hesitated, then closed her hand around it. He went still as she slid her hand down the shaft. She looked up to watch him as she stroked it again.
When she couldn’t wait any longer, she lifted one leg around his hip.
His breath caught, then caught her hand mid-stroke.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said.
She pulled back, sighing with exasperation. “Why?”
He hadn’t backed away, as if he couldn’t fully bring himself to obey his own words. “I don’t want to… give you a baby. Last time, I got carried away...”
She relaxed, relieved. She directed his attention to a spot just below her navel. If you looked closely, you could see the tiny rune shimmering there.
Heat curled inside her as he bent close to her pale hips to look at it. His fingers brushed over it curiously.
He looked up at her, suspicious. “What’s this?”
“It’s a contraceptive enchantment.”
Aruna looked taken aback.
Novikke raised an eyebrow, suddenly very concerned for the well-being of Varai women. “Don’t tell me you don’t have them in Vondh Rav?” she said.
“Not like this.”
“You, uh, have to get them when you join the army. They can be removed by a healer later.”
“You’re sure it works?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly had a lot of opportunity to test it out, but yes, I’m sure.”
“Thank the Goddess for timely blessings,” he sighed, then lunged at her again.
Novikke’s lips curled up in amusement, and then he was pulling one of her legs up around his waist. Hot arousal traced through her as he lifted her onto her toes.
She stopped breathing as he slid into her. With a twitch of his hips, he pushed deep, and she made a small sound somewhere between surprise and elation. His body conformed to hers, pressing her against the stone. She hooked an arm around his neck. She wanted him closer still. She wanted him in and all around her. If only he’d had more than two arms.
Hot breath brushed her face, chasing away the chill of the air as he claimed her. She grasped aimlessly at him as he whispered something against her shoulder.
She saw white as the pleasure crested over. Her legs went too tense and then too weak, and only his firm hold kept her upright.
When his hips finally stilled, his chest heaved against her, his breath puffing over her shoulder. He let go of her leg, but his arms circled around her. She tightened her hold around his neck. The sooner she let go of him, the sooner this was over.
All the sooner that she’d have to remember all those bodies on the ridge. All the sooner that she’d have to remember the feeling of that dagger going through her palm. All the sooner that she’d have to go back to the other Ardanians, who thought that Aruna was dangerous and that she was a traitor or crazy or both.
The stone behind her was like ice. On the bright side, it was numbing the scratches on her back. Maybe one of these days they would find a place to do this that wasn’t outdoors.
Aruna let his arms fall away from her as he pulled away to look at her. His hair was attractively disheveled, his expression alluringly relaxed. She would have liked to have seen him like this more often. He studied her for half a moment, then frowned.
She hadn’t noticed how wet her eyes were until then. When she blinked, tears fell down her cheeks. Novikke looked down and hurriedly wiped them away.
Aruna’s eyes widened. “Did I… ?”
“A lot of… things happened today,” Novikke managed, embarrassed.
After another moment, he hesitantly pulled her against him. “I’m sorry,” he said, uncertainly but sincerely. It seemed to be a blanket apology for whatever unspecified things might have been bothering her.
The more time she spent with Aruna, the more she liked him. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Don’t be sorry. You’re the only one in this whole damned forest who shouldn’t be sorry,” she said.
He laughed sadly. “That’s not what you were saying a few days ago.”
That was true. He did have some things to be sorry for, now that she thought about it.
“Things have changed.” A beat passed. She licked her lips. “What happened to ‘that won’t happen again�
��?” she asked, with a teasing tone to cover up the hurt she still felt over that rejection. She was afraid to hear his answer. “‘Shouldn’t have happened,’ you said.”
His arms went stiff around her. He pulled back. “It shouldn’t have,” he said quietly. “Obviously.”
She drew back, unable to hide her indignation. “You still think I was trying to manipulate you?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.” He looked away. “I think you may have…felt pressured to…ingratiate yourself…”
Night Elves of Ardani: Book Two: Sacrifice Page 12
