Chapter 5
A elrie whipped her body toward the Dark Elf. “Don’t you dare patronize me, Dokkálfar! Your kind wouldn’t understand purity and honor. You killed innocence itself when you murdered the high priestess.”
“Oh, a high and mighty Ljósálfar speaks of honor,” the Dark Elf replied sarcastically, leaning in closer. She stared back at him, standing her ground against his intimidating presence. “What if I told you a Light Elf paid me to kill your precious priestess?”
“You lie,” she gasped.
If only she could believe her own words.
He shrugged. “Believe what you want, I care not. The truth remains regardless of your ignorance.”
She narrowed her eyes on him as he left her and walked closer to the pool of water that formed underneath the waterfall.
Her inner thoughts tried to make sense of this.
A Light Elf ordered Lindana’s murder? Loath as she was to admit, that did make sense.
Lindana had attracted the ire of many in the Elven Council, especially recently when she opened a wing of the temple as a shelter for Wood Elf and Dark Elf refugees.
But to stoop so low as murder, and hire a Dark Elf assassin to do the job? That was not the Light Elf way.
A member of the Elven Council did not have to assassinate Lindana to get what they wanted.
Manipulation, bribery, and corruption were rife in the Council.
There were ways to make a high priestess, or any other Light Elf in a position of power, step down from their position.
Public humiliation and a loss of status were enough to doom any elf.
Besides, a public murder would cause too much attention.
It couldn’t have been politically motivated. Lindana’s murder was personal.
“Ah!” she then screamed and tried hiding the sight from her view by ducking away. The Dark Elf was taking his clothes off, and she’d seen his muscular arms and back and the top part of his butt cheeks just before he’d pulled his pants all the way down.
Burn the memory away —his lean, toned, perfectly chiseled body.
“What are you doing?” she yelled with her back still turned to him.
His insatiable laughter followed. “Taking a bath. You won’t find a better place than this.”
“No, I mean, why? Why did you take your clothes off right in front of me? Without telling me!”
“Oh, you want to join me?” There was splashing as his legs cut through the pool of water. “The water’s lovely. A bit cold for your standards, perhaps.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Ah, I forgot about your prudish Ljósálfar manners. Forgive me. ”
She growled a little under her breath. “I am not prudish!”
“Then prove it,” he said, his voice turning deeper. “Take off your clothes and come and join me.”
He was trying to seduce her. She had heard all about the tales of Dark Elf seduction. They were masters of the spell and would lure unsuspecting elves with their seductive powers, only to lie, cheat, steal, or do unspeakable things, like murder.
“Your seduction spells won’t work on me, Dokkálfar,” she bit back.
He snorted a laugh. “It’s not that. It’s just …”
“Just what?” she demanded.
“Just … trying my luck on a beautiful Light Elf maiden.”
She frowned, not knowing how to respond to that, always feeling uncomfortable around the male gaze.
She’d dealt with males during her soldier training.
How they boasted and bragged and tried whispering sweet words in her ear.
Lies, all of it. She had held her head up high and ignored every whistle or wink that came her way.
The only encounter she’d had with the opposite sex came just before she left home for soldier training, twenty years ago.
She met an elf her age in the forest, a hunter.
He was handsome, and she liked talking to him.
What they did together didn’t break her maidenhood, but it did involve other things.
But when she became a personal guard to the high priestess and took a vow of chastity along with Lindana, she told herself that what happened in the forest was a one-time occurrence and prepared herself for a lifetime of solitude, sacrificing whatever joys love, marriage, and bearing children brought for her service to the high priestess.
“Flattery won’t get you far with me either,” was the only response she could come up with to dissuade his flirtations.
Water splashed behind her, and her back got soaked.
“You!” She pivoted around to face him. The Dark Elf stood in the pool of water that came up only to his hips, giving her that salacious grin of his again.
There was also a twinkle in his eye, probably doing his best to seduce her, pulling out all his best tricks.
“Come, join me.” His hand motioned for her to join him in the pool of water.
She tried to keep her eyes off him and everything else as his hips drew her eyes down to what lay below the crystal-clear water.
He was unfairly beautiful.
His gray skin glistened in the light against the starkness of his white hair like a full moon on a cold winter’s night. If roguishly handsome had a look, it would be him.
“No,” she replied with a glare.
He looked down. “I see. Well then, I’m about done here.” He started to walk out of the pool of water. She immediately covered her eyes.
The pixies returned.
“What is it?”
“It’s a snake!”
“It’s a big snake.”
She hid her face further.
“Oi, is she scared of the snake?”
“I want to see the snake eat her!”
“Does it have a mouth? I don’t see one.”
“Scram,” the Dark Elf snarled. “Before I have you for dinner.”
The pixies yelled and then laughed as they blinked away.
She cautiously glanced over at the Dark Elf to see if he was decent. He had his pants on, so it was safe to face him. He was still shirtless, though. She steadied her eyes to focus only on his face, not daring to let them travel down to his chest.
“I know that look.” He eyed her with a smirk before turning back to finish dressing.
Her face grew hot. Did he notice her staring at his body?
“You have something you want to say to me.” He dressed himself in his black shirt and then picked up his leather bracers to tie them on.
Oh, he was just talking about that, and not the other thing. “Of course I do,” she replied, relieved that he hadn’t caught her staring. “I have much to say.”
“Well, get on with it.”
Her lips tightened, and she paused before “getting on with it.”
Instilling trust in the Dark Elf who assassinated the high priestess in front of her very eyes?
It was madness. But she would get nowhere in her investigation of who ordered Lindana’s assassination unless he helped her, and if she'd killed him back on the cliff, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity.
Also, she might have ended up as prey for the nixie.
And what an embarrassing way to go that would have been.
But could she trust him?
He was an assassin, meaning he took payment for murdering others.
But if he wanted to kill her, he’d have done so already; he’d shown her that much.
Falling from the wyrm and fighting off the nixie, he’d saved her life twice now.
He also seemed to be sweet on her, if indeed that’s what it was and not some sort of ruse.
But she could use his lust to her advantage.
“You must know,” she spoke seriously, peering over at him to look him in the eyes. “I want you dead by my hands and my hands alone.”
He frowned as he knelt to pull up his boots. “I know. But you won’t do it.” He stood back up once he finished and looked her in the eyes. “Because I will never hurt you.”
Aelrie sighed and shook her head. His logic in who he chose to kill and who he spared was confusing. Was this Dark Elf culture, or something else?
“Why not?” It was strange to argue with a killer as to why they wouldn’t kill her. She realized the absurdity of this as she said it, but she desperately needed an answer before she could trust him, so she disregarded all absurdities for the moment.
“You had no problems killing the high priestess. What would killing another Ljósálfar be for you?” she continued, scowling, crossing her arms. “It should have been easy.”
“She was my mark, no more, no less.”
“Why did you let me live? ”
He froze.
Any assassin worth their merit would know that letting her live was a liability. She knew it, and he knew it too. And the way he hesitated in answering her was suspicious. The truth must be close.
“It would have been smarter to kill me and not leave any witnesses. But you chose to spare me, poisoning me instead. I am Light Elf; poison will not kill me. A Dark Elf would know that.”
It was a loaded question, but he pretended it was nothing and just shrugged. “I didn’t feel like killing you.”
“Didn’t feel like it? So, you got lazy?”
“Do I look lazy to you?”
“Then answer me! Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Because.” He gave a long, drawn-out sigh, sounding annoyed at her insistence on repeating this question, which he had already given her an answer to. “I took one look at you, and I didn’t want to kill you. It’s as simple as that, really.”
She couldn’t wrap her mind around this. Did he want to kill Lindana? Maybe he had to. She was his “mark,” as he so put it. There was more to this, but he was being obstinate.
“Who sent you?” She tightened her crossed arms and her assessment of him. She would at least get that out of him.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You owe me, for all you put me through! ”
“My life, and your life too, would be forfeit if I told you. I am bound by blood to secrecy. I refuse to tell you anything more unless you welcome death.”
Her frown deepened. She needed to know his contact, who they were, and why they sent him to kill the high priestess, and to do that, she had to slowly seep the truth out of him because a direct approach was too aggressive.
He would know her intentions and disregard her just like he was doing now.
Somehow or another, she would learn the truth.
And when she did, retribution would be in her hands.
“Well … can you at least help me get back to the surface? If you’re not going to kill me, leaving me to fend for my own down here would be just the same thing.”
“That I can do,” he answered. “We fell far from civilization. We’re in the ‘wilds’ as you would say.”
“The wilds? The Evergloom has a wilderness?”
“Of course it does. And it also has markets and towns like any other elven land.”
“Do you know where we are now?”
He was silent for a moment. He gave off a confident demeanor around her, acting like he had everything under control, but when he was unable to answer her question as to where they were, a crack appeared in his guarded persona.
His eyes fell, and he shook his head. “If we keep walking, we should find a town or manor along the way. That will show me where we are.”
A shudder rippled through her at the word “manor.”
The Dark Elves kept slaves, and manors were for the wealthiest Houses whose slaves worked the mines, mostly goblins taken from raids on goblin encampments.
But the Dark Elves have also been known to keep Light Elf, Wood Elf, and orc slaves too, if they were unlucky enough to get caught in the Evergloom.
That was what concerned her the most, seeing as how she was a Light Elf stuck in Dark Elf land.
But he’d noticed her discomfort and, in turn, decided to mock her for it. “Your Ljósálfar sensibility not inclined to slavery? Light Elves have their own form of slavery, I might add.”
She replied with a huff of disgust. His contempt made her uneasy because his sense of morality was so different from her own.
And not knowing where they stood on ethical issues, not having common ground on this made him hard to deal with.
“Slavery is banned in Alfheim. I don’t know what you’re talking about. ”
“Light Elves took Dark Elf land and forced us underground. Is that not a form of slavery for those non-Light Elf?” He questioned her, gesturing to his face as if to say, “non-Light Elf like me.”
“That’s…” she stuttered.
“Different, right?”
“Of … course…” That was because of the war, and the Dark Elves lost. Fitting, seeing as how they were the aggressors.
“If you can’t see your chains, that means your slavers are just more apt at hiding them. We’re all slaves to someone or something.”
That was a very dreary outlook on life. “I pity you see things so dismally. ”
“I pity your naivete.” He gave her half a shrug.
She responded with a withering glare.
“Nevertheless,” he continued despite her ire, “things are different down here, more than what you’re used to. Hopefully, you won’t be here for long to see it all.”
His concern for her sounded genuine. Why should he care so much about her?
“I could do without your false concerns for my well-being.”
He hiked up a brow at her.
“But…” she sighed, relenting in her cynicism of his character at least for now. “I do have to thank you for agreeing to help me find my way back home. That is a kindness I wouldn’t have expected from you.”
“My, your benevolence overwhelms me, fair lady,” he said, bowing to her theatrically, dipping his head down low in front of her.
He was a seducer. She didn’t like his kind. You couldn’t trust whether the honeyed words they spoke were true or not.
“Don’t misinterpret my words. I still want to kill you.”
He smiled devilishly at her. “That just makes it all the more fun.”