demands, dropping his half finished weapon and striding towards me. His hands are clenched into fists and he looks torn between shock and anger. I throw my hands up in front of me in a gesture for him not to come any closer, my eyes wide. I have no idea what just happened or why he’s so furious.
Did I just break some elven rule I didn’t know about?
“I—” I start, my brain trying to scramble an answer together.
“How did you do it?” He makes a gesture through the space between us, cutting me off.
“Do what?” I demand, thoroughly confused. He seems to be working himself up the longer I fail to explain, and I get the feeling he’s not actually angry at me. With a low growl in the back of his throat, he finally understands I don’t know what’s happening, and he pulls his intense gaze from me, starting to pace.
“You touched my spirit,” he tells me, his expression frustrated. “No human should be able to do that.”
“Your spirit?” Everything he said makes no sense to me. I touched the connection between us, not his…spirit? I track his movements with wide, confused eyes. Realising he’s lost me, he lets out a frustrated sigh and turns back to face me.
“I think you people call it a soul? The essence that makes up a person.”
I ignore the ‘you people’ part of his comment, since I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to insult me and I’m used to far worse comments, so I simply shrug it off. That is until I realise what he just said.
“Oh.” We’re silent for a couple of seconds, and the implications roll around in my mind.
I touched his soul!
“Wait, how did I touch your soul?” My voice is loud, and I wince as it echoes off the walls. The last thing we need right now is for the guards to hear us and investigate.
“That’s what I want to know!” He turns away from me, and I think he’s about to start pacing again, but instead he stares into the fire. When he begins speaking, it’s more to himself than to me. “Even among my people, it’s almost unheard of, and only those who are—” He suddenly stops and his eyes widen as he quickly looks at me. “It doesn’t matter,” he blurts out, and I glare at him, knowing he’s keeping something from me.
“Wait, tell me what you were going to say.”
“No.” He’s completely shut down with his arms crossed over his chest, and I know he’s not going to tell me anything. All of a sudden, a thought comes to me.
What if it’s something to do with his culture and he can’t share it with an outsider? What if I’m asking him to betray his people by telling me?
“Vaeril…is this something I can’t know because of your culture? Something that outsiders can’t know?” I ask delicately, unsure if I’m even phrasing this right. I don’t want to unwittingly insult the one person who can help me get out of here. “If you say yes, then I will drop it and won’t ask again. But if not, I deserve to know.”
He watches me with a strange expression on his face, like he’s seeing me for the first time. I feel naked under his gaze and shift from foot to foot nervously, but I don’t look away.
What’s taking him so long? Why is he looking at me like that?
“Yes, it’s part of my culture.” His gaze stays steady on mine as he speaks. It’s the truth, I can feel it, but something about it feels off. He’s not telling me the whole truth. I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for this connection between us, where I can reach out and…touch his soul.
“Okay. I won’t ask again,” I say with a nod, and that strange expression crosses his face again, like I’ve surprised him.
“Thank you.” It’s my turn to blink at him in surprise. I never thought I’d have an elf thanking me. We watch each other, our fragile truce between us still so new. “You’re not what I expected a human woman to be like.”
That makes me chuckle, a sound that causes him to tilt his head to one side as he observes me. The gesture reminds me of the cats I sometimes see around the castle, the way they watch a mouse if they’re trying to decide if it’s prey or not.
“I am no normal woman, trust me,” I joke awkwardly, feeling strangely exposed under his gaze.