Page 119 of Forged in Fading

Alvara buried herself in her work the week after the ships embarked on their mad journey. She didn’t want to think of the lives lost, both elf and human. Such senseless carnage.

Gerdavir, the fierce human warrior from their first day of training, tilted her head of red braids in Alvara’s direction after felling yet another poor demi-elf. At least she proved humans could fight against weaker wielders. She prattled off something in the human tongue akin to, “Something something something festival something something feel better.”

Of course, the festival. The first day of ela was approaching, which Alvara had discovered meant a huge celebration with food, alcohol, and gods knew what else. With each passing day, more boughs of greenery adorned every available surface in the town, and tantalizing smells wafted from the homes. They had also increased the number of people on watch around the city at all hours of the day. With King Einar’s past attack on Dalvi during the Jolval holiday, they couldn’t assume the humans’ holiday was any safer.

A scrunched brow and a cursory look up and down Alvara’s drab figure told her enough of what Gerdavir uttered next. She would need to find something more refined to wear if she wanted to join the festivities.

“No money,” Alvara said lamely. She had some left over from what she had entrusted Lilja with before the battle of Ilmanir, but it had slowly disappeared with her and others’ needs for clothing and supplies the humans couldn’t or didn’t want to spare.

Cold metal pressed into Alvara’s palm. A handful of coins. She smiled in thanks but returned the money. As much as she would love to find a breathtaking dress to fall in love with, it wasn’t practical. There were hundreds of other better uses Gerdavir could spend her generosity on.

She and a decent number of the other more talented warriors had stayed behind in case they needed to defend the town, thankfully giving Alvara something to focus on other than the outcome of the humans’ raid on Valo. At least the chief had known enough to not send the majority of his men on his foolish errand.

She watched one of the stronger warriors with interest, who wielded his dwarven-made weapon against his companion. Most, but not all, of the weapons had found a master they approved of, and it had been a welcome diversion to witness the metal’s hidden powers coming to life. This particular axe flew to the wielder’s hand whenever he summoned it, no matter how far the distance.

Alvara had spent time when she could experimenting with her own dwarven spear, practicing the most advantageous ways to utilize the weapon’s smaller point in combat. She had never wielded a spear designed to channel her Dalvian powers, but she had come to relish the feel of her ice emerging from its points at each strike and now couldn’t imagine fighting with a different weapon.

“They have learned much from your teaching,” Erun said as he joined her. He and Gerdavir had both proven invaluable in facilitating the trainings and soothing any tension between the humans and demi-elves.

“We couldn’t have done it without your help.” Alvara glanced at Erun’s face, the scars he bore from years of service in King Einar’s nightmare. He might know the answer to the question that had been hovering at the back of her mind since meeting him. With the threat of battle and fading moving ever closer, she wasn’t willing to wait another day to ask.

“Erun…” She let the words pour out of her before she could lose her nerve. “Do you know who killed my father?”

He stilled. “Your father?”

“He was killed by a human, someone sent by King Einar.” As she spoke, the color leached from Erun’s features, and guilt clawed at her conscience. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories of your time in the palace, but…it’s so hard to move on without knowing what exactly happened. Who took his life.”

Erun’s shoulders rose and fell in a quick rhythm with each of his shaky breaths. “I understand, Alvara. But I do not have the answers you seek. Humans arrived and disappeared often, and I was not privy to what the king did with them.”

Her stomach sank. “Of course. Sorry I asked.”

“Your father.” His voice was so quiet it was almost impossible to hear above the clashes of metal around them. “What was he like?”

Alvara usually avoided unlocking her memories of her father when she could, but it seemed an innocent enough question to answer. Especially since she had just reminded Erun of his terrors in Tasírath for her own selfish reasons. “Quiet and kind. He loved books more than anything. Well, not more than anything. He loved us, his family the most. And your…”

“Wife,” he whispered. The humans’ version of a seluri, she had come to learn. A commitment chosen by two people who loved each other beyond all measure, though it lacked the magical bond of a seluri, the shared pathway of emotions.

“Your wife, what was she like?”

Erun’s blinked, his eyes misty. “She was…incredible. Unlike anyone I have ever met. Intelligent, kind, selfless. I still hope to find her one day. But I must think of my son.” He focused on a figure off in the distance and drew a sharp breath. “If you will excuse me.”

He scurried away in the opposite direction of whoever had caught his attention.

“Alvara!”

Boden. His voice alone set her skin aflame.

“Their ships have been spotted off the coast.”

Since the kiss—well, not the kiss, that made it sound much more important than a fake kiss really was—Alvara had done her best to avoid him. Though each time they interacted, the swarm of bees in her stomach acted up again, despite her best efforts to convince them to find another person to bother.

But there was always a chance he might notice her intentional distance and think he had done something to cause it. Hopefully his work repairing the wall and trenches and calming small skirmishes that had broken out in the chief’s absence had been enough to keep him oblivious to her predicament.

“Alvara?” He bent down and met her eyes. A small smile formed on his lips that sent those damn bees into a frenzy. “I’m not quite sure where you went, but we should probably meet with the chief as soon as we’re able to.”

“Of course.”

Gerdavir waggled her eyebrows behind Boden’s shoulder and said something that Alvara didn’t understand a word of. He guffawed, and Alvara shooed her away.