“Aerion!” I snapped, finally getting her to regain her wits. Upon realizing our predicament, she lithely jumped off me, assuming a defensive stance with Aurora already drawn.

  I was a bit more unceremonious, but in the next second both of us had our backs to each other, warily eyeing the encirclement.

  My initial thought was bandits—and if so, they’d be in for a really bad time. With the long shadows of the late-day sun, however, I hadn’t noticed one critical, pointy detail.

  “Er, Aerion?”

  “They’re elves,” Aerion confirmed.

  “The very elves your kind are here to eliminate, in fact,” one of them spat.

  That was odd. Incredibly odd. The intel we were given said the elves never strayed from their forest. That it was a sacred land to them—a place they, at least, believed offered them protection.

  We were still two days from the Sylvanglades. What were they doing so far from home?

  And what were the chances they just happened to come upon us here?

  Were we being watched? Did they have scouts we missed? Or was there an informant in our group?

  A thousand questions flitted through my mind, and not a single answer.

  “Can we take them?” Aerion muttered.

  “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” I replied, gazing warily at them.

  They were all mounted, for one. That didn’t bode well for our chances of escaping. Our horse was tied up nearby. By the time we got to it and got it going, we’d have taken heavy damage. While I might be able to dodge anything they threw at us, the same couldn’t be said for Aerion. Besides which, I didn’t have any idea how strong these guys were.

  Could be they were all laypeople with ordinary weapons, or it could be that the armor they wore under their robes and arrows in their quivers were mythril. Could be that every one of them had a Boon or Blessing of some kind. In that case, we’d be well and truly fucked. Even assuming I could take out half of them with my opening salvo of Siege bolts, what about the rest? With their weapons trained on us, we’d have no choice but to take that salvo head on.

  “Stall them while I think of something,” I whispered.

  “Tell me,” Aerion said, raising her voice. “Is it customary for the people of the forest to accuse strangers before introducing themselves? Where I was raised, your behavior would be nothing short of criminal.”

  The elves glanced at one another, clearly taken aback.

  “You’re an elf?” the man who spoke earlier said. “Yet you seek to destroy us?”

  “Again,” Aerion replied, sounding somewhat irked. “Why do you accuse us so? Do you not have eyes? Can you not see you just ruined a romantic moment between us? Rather, I’m inclined to think you all brigands.”

  Aerion glanced at me, and I nodded. I could guess what she wanted to know.

  As always, she was a natural at dialogue, and she was playing this situation beautifully. Her mother must’ve taught her all sorts of stuff before she passed.

  If we were lucky, maybe I wouldn’t even have to do a thing this time. Even still, betting solely on Plan A was a good way to get your party wiped. In this case, a ‘game over’ didn’t just mean reloading and trying again.

  No, we needed a fallback or three. Fleeing with the horse was out, which meant fleeing at all was a no-go. Even with Aerion stowed in my inventory, I had no hope of outrunning galloping pursuers. My Grace stat made me fast, yes, but not that fast. At least, not yet.

  Aerion’s words caused more of a stir as some among their number shouted curses.

  “We are not the aggressors here!” the elf said, sounding offended. An odd reaction for a band of criminals.

  “Actually…” Aerion’s eyes narrowed, then widened, as though she’d just come to some epiphany. “You must be the elves said to prey upon the caravans passing through here? You are brigands!”

  “We’ve been forced to attack convoys, yes,” the elf mumbled before becoming defensive. “But only because we’ve had no other choice. I’ve no need to explain myself to the likes of you!”

  The man gave a signal and the elves sighted down their crossbows and positioned themselves to launch their spears.

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  “I’ll have you know we’re no easy prey. I am a Divergence-Ranked Blessed with two Blessings, and my friend here is a Boonworthy of the same rank. Perhaps you might defeat us. But know that it will not be without loss!”

  The elf frowned, gesturing to stay the impending attack. My eyes darted from one to the next. Aerion rank-dropping was a worthwhile gamble. While it partially robbed us of the element of surprise, it might just be enough to make our would-be attackers reconsider.

  “You don’t say?” the elf said, giving us an appraising look. “Intriguing. Intriguing indeed. Good thing we came prepared, then. You would be best served not to underestimate us.”

  Not at all the reaction I’d hoped for. The fact that none of the elves stiffened or otherwise looked worried was not a good sign. Chances were high they had Blessed or Boonworthy of their own.

  “Advanced scouts, Sylrithar,” another elf said. “Likely scouting a location for their camp for the night. They do this every night.”

  Well, that confirmed my theory about spies. It would seem we’d been watched. Perhaps for a lot longer than any of us knew.

  Aerion turned, eyes glancing at me with concern. She was warning me—a correct decision, but ultimately unneeded. I’d reached the same conclusion.

  I shook my head. Attacking them was suicide.

  “We bear you no ill will,” I said, studying the elf the other one had called Sylrithar. Like Aerion, he was fair skinned and had pointy ears, though his were shorter than Aerion’s.

  He wore a green and burgundy robe that covered a suit of full plate armor beneath. The armor spanned head to toe, including a helm, and was a bit shinier than the plate I’d seen. The elf looked rugged, though, with small scars and cuts all over his face. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d go polishing his armor for shits and giggles.

  Which meant it was likely not steel, but something more exotic. Maybe even the fabled Mythril.

  I cleared my throat when nobody replied. “How can we come to an agreement here? If it’s gold you want…”

  Sylrithar scoffed. “Will gold save our forest? Will gold stop this merciless slaughter of our kind? I think not.”

  I frowned. “We were under the impression your kind were the ones doing the slaughtering. Since you know so much about us already, let’s drop the pretense, shall we? Yes, we’re with the caravan approaching your forest. The one armed to the teeth with soldiers coming to stop you. All of which is your doing. Had you not raided those merchant caravans, none of this would have happened.”

  To my surprise, the elf laughed. “You really don’t know, do you? What did they offer? Coin? Fame? You would never have seen the first of it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Poor child, they sent you to die. Tell me, how many do you think we number?”

  My eyes shifted uncomfortably among the many weapons aimed at me. For them to have scouts? For them to send an advanced party this far out? We couldn’t be dealing with a band of just fifty.

  “A couple hundred?” I ventured.

  Sylrithar pursed his lips. “As I suspected. You lot weren’t sent here to subjugate us. You were sent as sacrifices, to give Dominium the reason they need to mobilize their army in earnest to wipe us out.”

  “That… makes no sense,” I said. Sinclair would never put us in danger like that. Not after having paraded…

  Oh, shit.

  I glanced at Aerion. What if that whole damned parade had been to drum up sympathy for us? Sinclair had never mentioned it, but it was pretty obvious he was acting under orders to have us paraded like that.

  What if the higher-ups in Dominium had no intention of recognizing our efforts? What if they knighted us knowing that land they gave us would soon return to them?

  For the first time since coming to Axius, I lamented the fact that my Passion stat was so low. Or that I didn’t have a Passion-specialized Armor Set. Maybe with a silver tongue, things wouldn’t have to be this way.

  As it was, I committed to the best path that I could see. There was more here than met the eye, and blindly attacking these elves seemed unwise. I doubted we'd win, and I was no longer even sure they were as bad as everyone made them out to be.

  “We surrender,” I said, sheathing Light of the Fearless. With a defeated look, Aerion did the same.

  “It’s clear there’s something more going on here,” I said. “Something we probably would not have agreed to. As you can see, my, uh, partner, is an elf like you. I bear none of you any ill will. Now, can we talk this out? Or do people have to die for no reason today?”

  Sylrithar stared at me for a good long while. I made sure not to avert my eyes, and just when I thought we’d be doing a staredown, he broke his gaze and called out to his troops.

  “Bind them and blindfold them. We’ll take them as prisoners. Surely Blessed of their status will have some worth. Mayhap we can use them as bargaining chips.”

  Buddy, you have no idea, I thought. Setting us up as heroes cut both ways.

  “And if they don’t?” someone called.

  “Then we kill them,” Sylrithar said, glancing down at me. “I pray to Order that it will not come down to that.”

  Order worshipers, huh? Sounded like I had at least one Ace to play, should it come to that.

  And so it was that Aerion and I allowed ourselves to be searched, bound and blindfolded, before being unceremoniously strapped onto the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes. Our own horse, if I was right.

  I groaned. Couldn’t they at least have allowed us to sit on the damned thing? Though I supposed I couldn’t complain too much. They’d at least kept us together. Probably out of necessity.

  “The journey will take two days,” someone announced. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

  It wasn’t quite the outcome I’d hoped for, but this was certainly one way out of our mess. Maybe we’d find an opportunity to escape while everyone was sleeping. It was nearly impossible to remain vigilant at all hours, after all.

  I took a deep breath and braced myself as our horse started moving, bucking and jostling us with every step. Come what may, this was going to suck.