Night Elves of Ardani: Book Three: Invocation

by Nina K. Westra

  “All land is alive.”

  “But we don’t have a god living in ours.”

  He tilted his head as he thought about that. “I suppose not.”

  Novikke ducked her head as they passed a trio of men and women in sleek, gleaming armor. Their matching uniforms made Novikke think that they were part of the city’s official guard. They weren’t the only ones who were armed, though. Nearly everyone in the city carried a knife or sword of some kind.

  “So, you don’t have a home here?” Novikke said, her eyes tracking a shop with cages full of black birds out front, and then another selling colorful blown glass lamps.

  “No. I spend all my time out in the forest. I move from outpost to outpost on patrol. I don’t have a permanent home.”

  “We’re both nomads, then.”

  He looked down at her. “You don’t have a place to go home to?”

  She almost laughed. “I haven’t had a home for a long time,” she said.

  He noted the bitterness in her voice, and gave her a faintly concerned look.

  She shrugged, and evaded the question his eyes were asking. “I take letters and news from town to town on horseback. Half the time I don’t even stay in towns. If it’s not convenient to my route, I’ll camp in the woods between destinations.”

  “Horseback?” he repeated slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not translating.”

  “Oh. Horses,” she said. “Those big animals that carried the army’s supplies, remember?”

  “Oh.” His eyes widened a little. “You ride them? I was afraid to even go near them. I tried to keep my distance.”

  “That’s probably wise,” she said, thinking of all the people she knew who’d been thrown or kicked or bitten. “But they can run a lot faster and farther than people can.”

  “They don’t fight when you try to get on their backs?”

  “No. They’re pretty docile once they’ve been trained.”

  He shook his head. “You’re braver than I am,” he decided.

  They came to the other side of the cavern, which opened into a wide balcony over the forest. As they broke away from the crowd and stepped up to the balustrade, Novikke stopped, staring.

  They were standing on a cliff face. Not at the top of a cliff, but on the side, sticking out of the middle of a vertical slope. An impossibly high wall of stone stretched above and below them, dropping down into the valley.

  The city had been hewn from the side of the cliff. It was like it had been carved by the gods, a single sheet of stone intricately cut into a thousand balconies and spires and windows, all connected with delicate and precarious stairs and ramps and bridges. Firelight and mage lights glittered in windows and on pathways all along the wall.

  It was astonishingly beautiful.

  What was it Neiryn had said? Something about huts and caves? Novikke laughed aloud, stunned. He couldn’t have imagined this. She’d have a lot to tell him when she got back.

  If she got back.

  When she looked over again, Aruna was grinning with uncharacteristic youthful excitement as he watched her react to the view. When she looked over at him, he pressed his lips together, suppressing the smile. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, and lingered there. She swallowed, trying to think about anything other than kissing him.

  It was only then that she realized how much he’d wanted her to not hate Vondh Rav. He wanted her to be impressed, to see the beauty in it, especially after what had happened earlier. He wanted her to see it the way he saw it. He wanted her to believe it was worth protecting.

  “It’s… impressive,” she admitted. “There’s nothing like this in Ardani.”

  His smile crept back up.

  Even with everything that bothered her about Vondh Rav, she found herself growing more curious about it the longer they stayed. She wanted to know everything about it.

  “I wish we could have come here without a time limit,” she said. “I wish you could show me all of it.”

  He came to take her hand, looking up at the city above with her. “Maybe someday,” he said. He gave her a sad smile. “We should keep moving. It’s this way.” Reluctantly, he turned toward a set of stairs descending from the balcony.

  The stairs ran along the side of the cliff. Beyond an iron railing that did not feel sufficiently large or secure, empty air stretched down farther than she could see through the darkness.

  “Gods above,” Novikke murmured, peering over the edge. “Isn’t this dangerous?”

  Aruna looked amused and pointedly set a hand on the railing. “Are you afraid you’re going to fall?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good. This is not the city for people with a fear of heights.”

  He brought her down the stairs and around the corner into another cavern, this one smaller and much quieter.

  The buildings there were bigger and covered in detailed reliefs and ornaments. People were dressed in expensive-looking clothes. It was the only place so far where she’d seen people wearing brightly colored fabric, which must have been either carefully bleached and dyed or illegally shipped in from outside the forest. There were no shops. A residential area.

  She spotted more guards, too. She made a note of where they stood so that she could keep away from them.

  She paused as they passed someone pinning a sheet of paper to a large bulletin board on the side of a building. It was lined with flyers covered in an alien curling script. Apparently the translator only worked on spoken words, not written ones.

  The person moved away, and Novikke’s attention was drawn to the paper they’d just posted. It had a trio of portraits drawn on it. A trio of familiar portraits. She ventured closer, filled with dread.

  There was an etching that was a surprisingly accurate likeness of Aruna. Below it were two smaller etchings of a sun elf man and a human woman that did not particularly look like Neiryn and Novikke, but they could not have been anyone else.

  Aruna had wandered ahead, and came back when he realized Novikke wasn’t following. He began to speak, then saw what she was looking at. He frowned, his eyes flicking over the words. “That isn’t good,” he murmured.

  Novikke looked up to see if anyone was watching, then tore down the paper, folded it, and tucked it into her pocket. “Maybe we should do whatever we’re going to do here quickly.”

  He cast an apprehensive glance down the street and pulled his hood closer around his face. “This way.”

  They went down a series of remote streets. Aruna stopped on the doorstep of a tall, narrow house. He sighed. “I was going to ask you to stay outside for this part. But I don’t want to risk you being seen while I’m not here, so you’d better come in with me.” He knocked on the door.

  “All right,” she said uncertainly. “What’s going to happen in there?”

  “Nothing good, probably. Maybe you should be ready to run, just in case.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and before she could inquire further, the door opened.

  A tall night elf woman who looked a lot like Aruna stood before them. As soon as she saw him, her expression soured. Then she noticed Novikke, and it soured even more as she looked her up and down.

  “Avan,” Aruna said after a long silence. His weight rested on the balls of his feet and he was already half turned away, like he was indeed getting ready to run.

  Avan drew herself up straighter, tilting her nose up in a way that reminded Novikke of Neiryn. She wore a flour-dusted apron that felt at odds with her regal bearing.

  “Aruna,” she said in a cold greeting, crossing her arms. “Here I was thinking I’d never see you again. Or that you’d be in the custody of the guard if I did.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”

  “I’ve heard a lot.” She lifted her eyebrows, disapproving. She looked over their shoulders at the empty street, then stepped back. “I suppose you should get inside before someone sees you,” she said grudgingly.

  Aruna l
et out a quiet breath of relief. He wordlessly entered, watching the woman as he passed, and Novikke followed.

  They were in the entryway of a narrow but high-ceilinged red stone house with tapestries and cloth draping over the walls and intricate rugs on the polished floors. Novikke’s eyes widened. She didn’t know what the economy nor interior design fashion were like in Vondh Rav, but she was fairly certain this was the home of someone with a significant amount of money.

  A few lanterns lit the room and the hall beyond. It was brighter than the road, to Novikke’s surprise, as if it had been lit for human eyes. She caught movement in the corner of her eye. Down the corridor, a human girl peered timidly from a doorway. She wore a collar like Novikke’s and a floury apron that matched Avan’s. Her eyes widened when she spotted Aruna, and she shrank a little farther behind the wall.

  Avan shut the door behind them and crossed her arms, still scowling at Aruna. She glanced over at Novikke again, then back at Aruna.

  “I didn’t know you were so desperate for a woman that you would resort to slaves, Aruna.”

  Aruna’s eyes dulled. “This is Novikke,” he said flatly. “Novikke, this is Avan. Second High Priestess of the Temple of Ravi and also my sister.” Novikke’s eyes flicked to the woman in surprise.

  “Also, yes,” Avan said, mocking. “Good to know you haven’t forgotten.”

  “I know you didn’t want to see me,” Aruna said. “We can make this quick. I wouldn’t have come, but I need your help with something important.”

  “Yes. You want something. That’s the only reason you’d come to me. So what is it?”

  “It’s a long story. But I can explain—”

  “Might it have something to do with what Kashava told me the other day? That you abandoned your post and are aiding the Ardanian soldiers that have been encroaching on our borders?”

  He closed his eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

  “Is it not? Is my wife a liar? Are all the other witnesses to your betrayal liars, also? They’ve seen you leading groups of humans around the forest. Why?” By the time she reached the last word, she sounded more hurt than angry.

  She’d cornered him against a wall. Novikke took a half step back. Her eyes went to the sword on Aruna’s hip, but his hand had not moved near it.

  She got the sense that it would have been better for her to keep quiet. But Aruna wasn’t saying anything to defend himself.

  “He was taken prisoner,” she said, and Avan’s head jerked up toward her. “He didn’t have a choice.”

  “There is always a choice,” she said, her lip lifting with disgust. “Any Varai worth the air they breathe would put a knife through their own heart before helping your people.”

  Aruna’s expression darkened. He looked away.

  Novikke struggled to hold her tongue. He had been willing to die. Until Theros had threatened her. She was the reason he’d done it. It was her fault if it was anyone’s.

  A door at the other end of the hallway opened, and another Varai woman entered the house. As she lifted her face, brushing hair behind a pointed ear, Novikke realized, with a pang of apprehension, that she recognized her. It was the woman from the ambush—the one Aruna had spoken to after they’d killed the rest of the Varai.

  She froze when she spotted Aruna. Then her expression twisted. “Son of a hishveh,” she hissed, and strode toward them, drawing the sword at her hip. This time, Aruna’s hand went to his sword.

  Avan put a hand out as the woman approached, stopping her a few steps away from them. “Hold your fury please, Kashava.”

  “To the hells with that. I’m going to kill him,” Kashava snapped, pushing at her arm.

  “I think you’ll want to hear what I came to say before you do that,” Aruna said—rather calmly, considering the circumstances.

  “Why is that?” Avan said.

  “Have you been to the heart recently?” Aruna said, making Avan’s brow tick downward. “Have you noticed anything awry?”

  Kashava’s eyes shifted to Avan.

  “What is it you think I should have noticed?” Avan said testily.

  Aruna went to a chair in the corner of the room and sat down. “That the forest is dying,” he said, resting his chin in his hand.

  Kashava scoffed, but lowered her sword. “What are you talking about?”

  As Aruna started explaining everything that had happened in the past week, the girl down the hall cleared her throat. When Novikke looked over at her, the girl jerked her head, beckoning her over. Novikke glanced up at the elves, who were paying her no mind, then slipped down the hall toward the girl.

  The girl pulled her into the next room, a kitchen. There was a ball of dough on the counter and heat pouring out of an oven—the reason for the aprons.

  “I’m Zara,” the girl said. She looked perhaps fifteen, with plain but very neat hair and clothes and a nervous smile.

  “Novikke.”

  The girl looked at her for a moment. “You haven’t been here long. In Vondh Rav, I mean.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You have that look about you. You can always tell.” She bit her lip, then lowered her voice. “Avan is—she can relocate slaves who are in bad situations. There are people she knows. Places you can go where people won’t hurt you. She could get you away from him. You can trust her.”

  Novikke’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, that’s not… I’m here voluntarily.”

  Zara at her skeptically for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.” Finally speaking to one of the slaves in the city made her slightly nauseous. She was already thinking of ways to take her with them when they left the city. Would Kadaki’s device transport an extra person, or would that be too much strain on the spell?

  “Um. How long have you been in Vondh Rav?” Novikke asked. She looked Ardanian. She’d probably be curious about news from the outside world, from her home country. She probably had family there.

  “I was born here,” she said, to Novikke’s shock.

  “There are humans born in Vondh Rav?”

  “Of course. It… happens sometimes. You know.” She shrugged, self-conscious. “You speak Varai very well. Most humans don’t.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was an awkward pause. Novikke could hear Aruna still explaining things she already knew in the other room.

  “Um, maybe we should sit down,” Zara said. She slid into a chair and looked down at her hands as she folded them in her lap. “It seems like this might take a while.”

  Novikke sat stiffly across from her. She’d never felt so uncomfortable in her life. What would this girl think if Novikke told her that she was trying to save the people who had enslaved her?

  Gods. Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this after all. She hadn’t been thinking straight when she’d agreed to this.

  “Aruna told me that Avan was some kind of advocate for humans here in Vondh Rav,” Novikke said. “I didn’t expect her to have slaves of her own.”

  She nodded quickly. “She is. That’s why I’m here. She rescued me from a very bad place. I owe her everything.” Zara gave her another hopeful look. “She could do the same for you.”

  Her praise of Avan seemed genuine. Novikke could sense no resentment at all. It struck her as sad that someone could come to have affection for her captors. “But you still wear a collar.”

  Zara shrugged uncertainly. “Yes. I’ve worn one my whole life.”

  “Doesn’t it get a little tight?”

  “No. I’m just used to it, I think.”

  Novikke stared at her.

  Zara mistook her dismay as self-pity. She smiled sadly. “I know this must all be very frightening for you, but you’ll get used to it, too. It’s possible for humans to live good lives in Vondh Rav, I promise.”

  Novikke wanted to protest further, to ask if she wouldn’t rather be in Ardani—or anywhere other than Kuda Varai, really—but held back. It seemed like there was no changing the girl’s mi
nd. “Can you tell me—Avan is Second Priestess? What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s the second highest-ranking person at the temple. The First Priestess is one of the most important people in the city. And the Second Priestess…well, she’s quite important, too, as you can imagine.”

  “Could she make requests of the Goddess, then?”

  Zara raised her eyebrows. “If anyone could, it would be her. Did you have a request?”