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A branch cracks behind us, and I whip around, claws out.
Itisa human. Another woman in ragged clothes who looks as if she’s just escaped the Dark Market. She puts her hands up defensively. “Please, wait –”
I’m about to lunge when Ariella puts a hand on my chest.
I look down to see her full emerald eyes. “Zyranth…”
She soothes the violence in me in a way no other creature could. But I’d rather not take any risks. “She is one of Everan’s agents.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” she counters. “Give her a chance.”
I can feel myself coil to strike, every fiber of my being calling for her death. One less lead for Everan to torture our location out of. One less witness.
“Please, forgive him,” Ariella says. “What is your name?”
The woman’s eyes flit between us as she swallows hard. “It’s… Mirose.”
“Mirose,” Ariella says with a smile, going to her like an old friend. “My name is Ariella. How did you get so far out here in these woods by yourself? We had to fly all this way.”
I want to pull her away from the human.
“I saw you when you left the manor, and I took flight before you did to avoid detection.” She warms to Ariella’s kindness. “I stopped one of the guards –”
“That was you!” Ariella throws herself around the woman in an embrace.
My jealousy reaches a fever pitch, and I yank her back to me. Where she should be apprehensive, she laughs. “Zyranth, it’s okay. She helped me escape. Don’t you remember?”
I shake my shaggy head, baring my teeth. “We can’t trust her.”
“Yes, we can,” she assures me, patting my arm. “She’s an ally.”
I don’t respond as they continue talking, my irritation silently building. I want to be the only one Ariella has eyes for, and this human is getting in the way.
“I wanted to help you,” the human, Mirose, says, going on as if I’m not here. “You want to be rid of Everan? So do I.”
Ariella takes her hands. “You know something.”
“There’s another dark elf. He’s ambitious and has been intent on taking over Everan’s manor and position in society for a long time. We could displace Lord Everan with him. He’s hiding in the open as one of Everan’s allies, but he’ll help us take him down.
“I know it.”
“How can you be sure?” My question comes before I realize I’ve spoken. “He is a dark elf, and an enemy to the humans and to…”Me.I chew on the fact that I have no kith or kin, a singular creature among the races.
“His name is Dirnyn Erlic,” Mirose confides in us, her gaze passing over me with wary curiosity. “Since he is so close to Lord Everan, he could help lure him out and take him down. He is a friend, and I have spent far too long under Everan’s thumb to permit him anotherbreath.”
Her fiery vitriol is enough to allay my suspicions of the human.
“I want him dead just as much as either of you.”
Ariella seems convinced. “If we can find this friend of yours, and hecoulddraw Lord Everan from the safety of his manor, it’s possible…”
“More than possible. Everan is vulnerable when he leaves his home, despite how he likes to flaunt his magic. If we could draw him away from his guards, he wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The truth of her words rolls over me.
My eyes go blind to the women, only seeing our inevitable victory, of tearing Everan’s throat open and watching the life bleed out of him. It fills me with a different sort of fire, one that would see the Lord torn to pieces under my claws.
“Zyranth?”
