Night Elves of Ardani: Book Three: Invocation

by Nina K. Westra

  “Now what?” she asked Aruna.

  He leaned in and kissed her. It was a good answer.

  Chapter 10

  Novikke, Aruna, Neiryn, and Kadaki separated from the soldiers and went their own way—for good this time, she hoped. None of them were eager to test the tenuous truce that the avatar of Ravi had forced on them. Novikke had suggested to Vissarion that they should gather the rest of their people and escape Kuda Varai quickly while they still could, before the forest grew stronger and started misdirecting them again. Judging by the nervous looks the soldiers exchanged, they didn’t disagree with her reasoning.

  Kadaki had decided to come with the three of them. For her and Novikke, there was no going back to the army. But they could probably avoid arrest if they didn’t draw attention to themselves. They could hide in the massive crowd that was the population of Ardani.

  Novikke guessed that Kadaki would have come along even if that hadn’t been the case, though. She was fairly sure that she and Neiryn would not be separating any time soon.

  The trees were full and tall and healthy again. Taller than before, even. It was quieter than it had been when she’d first come to the forest. There were fewer birds singing and fewer crickets chirping. But Kuda Varai was coming back to life, slowly but surely.

  After several days, they were nearly to the edge of Kuda Varai. Aruna said they’d reach it by that evening.

  “What are you going to do when we get to Ardani?” Novikke asked Aruna.

  “I’m going to find a bath,” Neiryn said immediately. He tilted his head up curiously. “Do you have hot springs in Ardani? Please tell me you do.”

  “In the North, maybe,” Novikke guessed.

  “North as in Uulantaava, not Ardani,” Kadaki said. “I don’t think there is enough geothermal activity here for hot springs. I suppose there are some advantages to living next to a volcano.”

  “There certainly are. I’ll take you to Ysura someday, Kadaki. I know you’d love it.”

  Kadaki glanced up at him, her face turning slightly pink.

  “Are there regular baths, at least?” Neiryn asked.

  “Are you really asking whether Ardanians have baths?” Novikke said. “Is that a serious question? You think humans don’t know how to wash themselves?”

  “Bathing and washing are two different things. The Varai don’t do baths, I hear, due to the short supply of water in Vondh Rav. There’s more sponging and less soaking involved. It sounds wholly unpleasant.”

  Novikke looked up at Aruna to gauge his opinion on this statement, but he didn’t seem to have heard. He was walking some distance ahead of them, rarely joining the conversation. He’d been even quieter than usual that day.

  “I just hope we come out of the forest somewhere near an inn,” Neiryn went on. “I’m tired of being outdoors. And I haven’t slept for two days. I keep having nightmares about that shadow woman.”

  “Nightmares?” Novikke said. “You found her frightening?”

  “Of course I did. She was a massive demon goddess made of pure darkness. She could have killed us all with a wave of one of those giant hands, I’m sure of it.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “No. She didn’t.”

  “I thought she was beautiful.”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “I suppose you wouldn’t fear her, would you? You became a part of each other for a while.” He looked down at her left hand. “You’ve still got that... thing, haven’t you? What if it never goes away?”

  Black stained her skin from her fingertips to halfway up her forearm. Beneath the black marks on her hand was the faint scar Zaiur had put in her palm.

  She flexed her fingers, and she could have sworn she saw a few wisps of black vapor trailing from them.

  “I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t,” she said.

  “You don’t mind having marks from the goddess of night on you?” Neiryn said skeptically.

  “You know, some theological scholars think that Aevyr and Ravi are both actually aspects of Astra,” Kadaki said.

  “They would,” Neiryn muttered. “Humans always find a way to make everything about themselves. They’ll reframe anything to fit their view of things.”

  “Astra and Ravi are aspects of Aevyr, then,” Kadaki said. “Whichever version doesn’t hurt your delicate feelings.”

  “I’m hardly delicate.”

  “Oh, Neiryn. Of course you are,” Kadaki replied.

  “We’re here,” Aruna said suddenly.

  They all looked up. Through the trees ahead, not fifty steps away, was a road.

  They stopped on the edge, where dirt met grass. The forest continued on the other side. It was the very same stretch of road where Novikke and Aruna had met.

  They all stood there in silence, struck by the realization that this was the end. They’d made it out. They were finally leaving Kuda Varai. It hardly seemed real.

  It was the beginning of something new. None of them would be going back to the lives they’d had before—at least not right away.

  But somehow, after everything that had happened, none of that seemed as dire as it had before. They’d fought off an army and saved an entire civilization. Novikke had summoned a damned goddess. Everything else seemed simple by comparison. If she could face all that, she could face anything. She could be anything.

  She didn’t have to be just a courier. She didn’t even have to be a soldier.

  She had become something else entirely, and she found she didn’t mind.

  Kadaki cleared her throat. “I’m going back to Valtos to speak to Thala,” she said. “We’d agreed to meet there next month while we’re on leave. Hopefully the plan still stands, despite the... unexpected events of late.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Novikke said.

  She smiled. “She’s my best friend. We probably won’t be seeing each other for some time after this. I need to say goodbye.”

  “And after that?”

  She shrugged. “A mage can always find work.”

  Novikke glanced up at Neiryn. He’d already made it clear that he wasn’t going back to Ysura just yet. He’d gotten rather attached to Kadaki.

  “And you?” Kadaki asked her. “What will you do?”

  Novikke scratched her head. She’d wanted to join the army for as long as she could remember. She’d never considered any other work. “I used to hunt sometimes, when I was a teenager, before I joined up.”

  “You’re a skilled archer?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I’ll figure something out.”

  Aruna looked as uncertain about it all as she felt.

  Neiryn and Kadaki could go wherever they wanted with little trouble. There were many sun elves living in Ardani. Their nations had intermixed since long before the war. No one would look at them twice.

  But Aruna didn’t have that luxury. She couldn’t bring him into a city. Someone would call the watch the moment they saw him.

  Everyone was looking at Aruna. She could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

  “We’ll be all right. I have a lot of experience living outside of cities,” Novikke said, giving him a hopeful smile.

  Kadaki’s lips pressed into a thoughtful line. “I have something for you.” She reached into her pocket, then held out a ring. Novikke had seen her etching runes on it for the past few days.

  “This is what you’ve been working on?” Novikke asked.

  She nodded. “It’s, um... it’s a spell for altering one’s appearance. A glamour.” She handed it to Aruna, frowning a little. Aruna took it, but stared down at it with his eyebrows drawn in, like he didn’t particularly want to be holding it.

  “I admit, I’m not the most practiced enchanter, and you won’t be able to use it for long without having to recharge it, but I thought it might help.”

  Aruna finally looked up at her and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “The two of you could come with us,” Kadaki said uncertainly. “If you wanted.”


  Neiryn, standing behind Kadaki, frowned and gave them a firm shake of his head.

  “The feeling is mutual,” Aruna said to him.

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Neiryn replied.

  “We’ll meet again someday,” Novikke said. “I promise.”

  Kadaki nodded. “Let’s hope the next season brings us better luck than this one has.”

  “It could only go up from here,” Novikke said.

  She watched them start down the road toward Valtos, then turned to Aruna. He wasn’t smiling.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We don’t have an answer, do we? Where are we going to go? What do we do now?”

  “Now? We do whatever we want. With nobody chasing us and no god-forests to save.”

  “And what do you want? With no one chasing us and no one to save?”

  Novikke blinked at him. He was looking at her warily, like he wasn’t certain how she was going to answer.

  He’d told her he loved her. She realized that she’d never said it back.

  And maybe it wasn’t so crazy that he still questioned it. Despite everything they’d been through, they had only met a few weeks ago. And for most of the time they’d been together, they’d been at odds.

  Really, they were practically still strangers.

  But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like she’d known him all her life. She could not say that she’d ever shed so much blood for another person—nor had someone else done the same for her.

  She swallowed as she took a step toward him. “Now that I’m finally free to do what I want, I thought I’d like to spend some of my time with... someone I care about. If he would have me.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. “Care about?”

  “Someone I love,” she said.

  “I hope you’re talking about me. Otherwise this will be awkward.”

  She looked down, smirking. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

  His hands absently played with the threads on the front of her vest. Kashava’s vest, she suddenly remembered. Didn’t look like she’d get the chance to return it anytime soon.

  “I did,” Aruna said. “I wanted to hear you say it.”

  She had a sudden urge to smother him with kisses. She leaned forward. “I’ll say it as many times as you want.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, then covered her mouth with his.

  “But,” he said, breaking away, “that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “Where are we going to go?”

  She rested her hands on her hips. “I don’t know about you, but like I said, I’m accustomed to living out of doors most of the time. All we need is some supplies. I can get some things in the next town. And now that you have that ring, you can even come with me. I can show you what Ardanian cities are like.” She grinned, excited. The idea was more appealing to her than she’d expected.

  Aruna’s smile fell a little. He opened his hand and peered down at the ring in his palm. “I’ll always be wearing someone else’s skin, then? I must live as a human now?”

  She deflated a little. “I didn’t say that. It’s just that with that ring, we can go where we want, as long as we’re careful. We’re free. The world is open to us.”

  “Except for Kuda Varai.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She held up her marked hand. “What do you think they’ll think of this?”

  He considered her outstretched hand.

  “We saved the entire forest,” Novikke said. “The Second High Priestess witnessed it. And Ravi left her mark on me to prove it. Do you think that’s enough to earn their forgiveness?”

  He took her hand, running his fingers over the black. “It might be,” he conceded quietly.

  “I’d like to go back to Vondh Rav sometime. We could talk to your sister again. I wouldn’t mind asking her about this,” she said, nodding to her arm.

  He looked up at her, surprised. “You would?”

  “Yes. But I’m not dressing up like a slave this time.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, then pursed his lips, giving her a careful glance. “That collar didn’t look so bad on you, though.”

  Novikke raised her eyebrows.

  “…it makes a good handhold.”

  “Do you think this is a wise point for you to be making, Aruna?”

  He smiled. “Sorry.”

  “I’m guessing you would feel differently if you were the one wearing it.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  Novikke blinked. She was suddenly imagining a few scenarios that had never crossed her mind before.

  “Well. We should, uh, discuss that more later,” she said.

  “Yes. We should probably get all the way out of Kuda Varai, first.”

  They were still on the road that passed through the bottom corner of the forest. “Yes. That. Of course,” Novikke said.

  She stepped out into the road, looking one way, then the other. The sun had dipped to the horizon at one end of the path, and the stars and moons had begun to rise at the other end. She made a broad gesture to the space around them. “Where do you want to go?” she asked.

  Aruna thought for a moment. “You promised you’d take me to the ocean.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” At the time, it had seemed like an impossible fantasy—like something they’d never actually get to do. “All right. The ocean, then.”

  He gave her a suggestive look. “Maybe we could find a place with a bed somewhere along the way.”

  Novikke suppressed a grin. “Oh, I was already planning on that. Don’t you worry.”

  She kissed him again, and they started down the road.

  Free post-epilogue story

  Newsletter subscribers can download an exclusive free copy of the post-epilogue short story Vagabonds, in which Novikke and Aruna actually get to do something fun! This story isn’t available anywhere else, so make sure to sign up for the newsletter via my website to get it. (You can always unsubscribe later if you want—I won’t take it personally.)

  Thank You

  I'm beyond excited to finally release Night Elves of Ardani into the world. This story is the result of months of stressing and "a-ha!" moments and love and care and uncertainty and drudgery. Writing, like all creative endeavors, is a labor of love. It's a pain in the ass most of the time, but it's worth it.

  Being able to share this world that has taken up so much of my brain space for so long, that has only existed in my own head until now, is a weird and wonderful feeling. A story becomes more real, in a way, when you have the opportunity to let other people experience it with you.

  To everyone who came along with me on this journey—editors, beta readers, reviewers, and especially all the readers who took a chance on a new author—thank you. It truly means more to me than you know. I read all of your reviews and emails, and my partner (whose desk sits across from mine) will tell you that my face still lights up every time I get an excited message from a reader.

  There's more to come from Ardani. Stay tuned.

  — Nina

  About the Author

  Nina K. Westra grew up reading books full of magic, adventure, and mythical creatures, but she always thought the best parts were when her favorite characters got to kiss.

  Now she writes her own fantasy romance books, and has a love of antiheroes, outsiders, and feminist men.

  She lives in the ridiculously beautiful Pacific Northwest, and when she’s not writing, she can usually be found sipping coffee and reading something from her ever growing To Be Read list.

  Subscribe to my newsletter at: ninakwestra.com

  Follow me on Facebook: @NinaKWestra

 

 

 
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