Chapter 3 #2
He wasn’t like she thought he’d look. She expected a monster, but was met by a young elf, probably around her age, or perhaps older. His face was agreeable; no, that wouldn’t do him justice. He was handsome, despite the dangerous aura about him, or perhaps, because of it.
It was the sort of face young girls dreamed about, the one with the dashing, handsome rogue. And it was the kind of handsome highborn ladies risked everything for, be it their rich husbands or social status.
A face that looked like it could spread legs just as easily as slit throats.
Elegant yet sharp, refined yet dastardly, like a noble fallen from grace.
His eyebrows were dark despite his white hair, and his eyes were closed, but she’d already noticed them, red as bloodstone.
Dark Elf eyes were red, their hair white, and their skin varying shades of gray, and his skin was an even cool-toned gray color.
There was a strange longing she felt while looking at him, asleep and peaceful with a slight curl formed on the side of his mouth. Like he was lost in a dream and blissfully unaware of the life she was going to cut from him.
But this was it; his end had come. Time to have her revenge.
Try as she might though, her dagger did not leave her side.
Her inner voice screamed back at her in protest. His life meant nothing. He meant nothing. Lindana was dead because of him!
Breathing in deeply and forcing her hand back up, the dagger once more found his neck. Her eyes closed instinctively, thinking this would make it easier to go through with. But that would also be what a coward did.
Taking a deep breath in, she placed her dagger back into its sheath and stood up after.
This was no way to go for revenge. It wasn’t a fair kill.
He couldn’t fight back and … he had saved her life.
He could’ve pushed her off him and to her death when they rode on the tail of the wyrm, but he didn’t.
He had held on to her and bore the weight of their fall for the both of them.
Did she owe him for that?
A frown appeared on her face as did an uncomfortable feeling creeping through her heart that she wanted to shake away and pretend wasn’t there because …
it disgusted her. He disgusted her. But …
She would’ve been dead now if it wasn’t for him, and his …
reluctance to kill her when by all accounts he should have.
“Just this once,” she whispered, looking down at him, hopefully for the last time. “I’ll kill you should I ever find you again.” It was a threat but also a warning, as if somewhere, somehow in his slumber he could hear her.
As much as she wanted her revenge, she also never wanted to see him again.
Besides, if she killed him in cold blood, his face would be forever etched in her memory.
She’d never killed another elf before, and she didn’t want his face to be more prominent in her memories than Lindana’s.
If anything, she wanted to forget him. Replace the face she looked down upon now with the masked assassin who’d held her at knife point.
He would probably come after her later, when he woke up.
And she would defend herself then. But as far as she knew, he had no other weapons.
He lost his twin daggers on the wyrm. And she still had a dagger and her wits about her.
It would be better if he came for her, then she would have reason to kill him and have her revenge.
But now wasn’t the time to dwell; she needed to assess her surroundings. Stepping cautiously to the cliff’s edge, her eyes swept the vast chasm below. The descent had been too chaotic to take in much, but now, with a moment of stillness, she began to piece together the terrain.
Far below, jagged cliffs jutted from the cavern and shadows pooled in the depths, swallowing everything beyond sight. Her elven eyes adjusted to the gloom—to the left a faint bluish glow pulsed from within an opening in the rock wall.
A tunnel?
She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the dim light. It was her only way out as the alternative was jumping into the chasm to see what happened to the wyrm, and she didn’t care to learn where its depths led to.
Peering down the cliffside, she could see no clear trail, but the rock face was rough with climbable grooves and below was another cliff that looked stable enough to land on.
Was this an exit? Only one way to find out. She began her decent.
It wasn’t as dark as she thought it would be in the Evergloom. Purple lights were everywhere, coming from crystals embedded into the walls of the cavern and rock ceiling above like violet stars. This was Dark Elf magic.
Long ago when the Dark Elves were forced to go underground, they found the dark unsightly and unbearable.
It was a constant reminder of their defeat after the war.
All elves love light whether it be sunlight or starlight, even Dark Elves, so when they were trapped in the gloom, even though there were many injured from the war with them and they were at their weakest, they pooled their magic together to create their own stars.
That is why the Evergloom was illuminated by these purple light giving crystals, and the darkness was only reserved for the deepest caverns and caves where ancient evils were said to live.
The world beneath the surface was mostly made of layers of dirt and rock, but huge pockets opened up under the mountains, a vast network of caverns that were connected by a series of tunnels and underground rivers called the Evergloom where the Dark Elves built their homes.
Other places in the underworld were either too dark or small to be inhabitable.
Myrkheim was the great Dark Elven city. And, as far as she knew, Dark Elves only lived in the city or the manor homes of the Dark Elven Houses because the Evergloom didn’t afford them much living space, unlike the above ground world.
Navigating this Evergloom blind was going to be a challenge.
But her feet touched the bottom without much trouble. This cliff had a path that was a straight shot around the chasm, headed for that bluish light which she now made her way to.