Page 132 of Forged in Fading

After checking the docks, Alvara headed to the chief’s meeting hall, where Rav lingered outside the building, deep in conversation with a few members of the new council.

“Rav, where is he?” she asked, averting her gaze from the other elves who looked about ready to toss her into the nearest river.

“You’ve done enough.” Rav turned his back to her and addressed the council members. “The Eskenti settlement is our only option. Find Aurilena, she’ll know what to do.”

“Please. I need to make it right, all of it. I’ll do anything.”

“There’s nothing any of us can do now.” Rav opened the door and stepped inside, but he paused. “The forest on the southside of town. He deserves more, Alvara. More than what this life has given him.”

Boden deserved the world. It was a fact like the air she needed to breathe. “Thank you. I’m sorry. For everything.”

Rav slipped into the darkness, and Alvara ran.

The forest was quiet and calm, with the exception of a few chirping birds that squawked upon Alvara’s arrival. Soft green moss covered the ground, and rays of sunlight pushed through the leaves of the trees, but it was the massive bear resting at the base of a trunk that caught her attention.

“Boden,” Alvara said. The creature’s ears twitched, but it didn’t turn, and her heart lurched into her throat. Please be him and not a real bear. A strong possibility she should have considered with ela being at its peak, but it was a chance she was more than willing to take.

The scent of the forest cleared the last of the mead from her mind and settled her breathing into a slow and strong rhythm. “You were right.”

Its head snapped up, and the full force of the creature’s gaze settled on her. At least if it wasn’t Boden, she would be able to unload her guilt and apologies before it ate her for breakfast.

“I spend my time focusing on my own pain, instead of thinking of the people around me. I think it feels like if I stay stuck in my grief, I don’t have to move on and leave them behind.” She inhaled a shaky breath. “It’s easier for me to live in the past than risk getting close to someone, knowing I might lose them too.”

As she spoke, the bear transformed. Boden stood before her, muscles tensed as if he might shift back and leave at any moment.

“I’m afraid,” Alvara said. “I’m afraid of losing more than I already have. I let my pain consume me, so I didn’t have to feel anything else. I didn’t have to worry about feeling a connection with anyone that I might break one day because I’m broken.” Her voice cracked. “I’m afraid of losing you, Boden.”

Her walls fractured, and every emotion, every drop of grief she had shunned for three years rushed into her body, in a torrent she could no longer control. And she didn’t want to. “It feels wrong to live when they don’t get the same chance. And my own parents stopped living as soon as my sister was gone. As if I wasn’t worth living for. But you are, Boden, you’re worth living for. The world you want to build is worth living for.”

He had stepped closer now, his stony features softening back into the demi-elf she cared for so much.

“I know I’ve ruined our only chance at winning this war,” Alvara said quietly, “but I will find a way to fix it. No matter the cost.”

Even if it meant forfeiting her own life, she would do it for the survival of hope. Such a fragile thing, but it held more power than a hundred armies. Tears pricked at her eyes as she looked at the person who had changed her so completely, but she held them back. This wasn’t about her—this was about Boden and everything he had given, not only to her, but to countless others.

The sound of his voice alone was almost enough to make her crumble right then and there. “I’m still furious with you for what you did, but I need you to know something.” He was close enough to touch now, and every part of her wanted to. “You are worth every fight, every sleepless night, every bruised knee. You are and always have been utterly irreplaceable. And no one will be able to convince me otherwise, not from now until the day I fade.”

Alvara let out a shaky breath, and the snuffed flame within her ignited. She became molten metal, the blaze separating the things that served her and those that no longer belonged.

Boden wrapped his arms around her shaking body and tucked her head into his chest, where his steady heartbeat hammered into her own. She would forge something new. Something stronger. And she didn’t have to do it alone—not anymore.

She pulled her head back to look him in the eyes. “I’m so sorry. For all of it. The things I said⁠—”

“I know.” He skimmed his thumb over her wet cheek, and warmth bloomed from her head to her toes. She could never tire of his touch. “I’m sorry, Alvara. I should have told you the moment I suspected Erun had killed your father. You had come so far, and I didn’t want to risk losing you to your grief. I was selfish.”

“I understand, I really do.” She grinned in spite of everything. “And I didn’t exactly prove your fears wrong, did I?”

Boden chuckled. “No, not exactly.” He trailed his fingers up her back, leaving an all-consuming fire in their wake. “I’m afraid of losing you too, Alvara,” he murmured. “Even when you smell so strongly of mead, I think it might make me drunk.”

It was hard to think with her body pressed against his, that woody scent washing over her. If anything, she was drunk on him, intoxicated by his very soul. She had told herself it was better not to cross that line, that it risked too much, but that line wavered with each breath they shared, each touch.

But those thoughts were for a different time, not when she had almost murdered the chief’s brother, broken a blood oath, and exiled her people, weeks before a major battle. Those probably took precedence. Though the thought of kissing Boden’s lips threatened to change her mind.

She cleared her throat and stepped back. “I need to speak to the chief. I know I broke the blood oath and more than deserve the consequences, but we need to mend our alliance.”

“I wish it were that easy, but blood oaths are sacred. When you break one, it’s nearly impossible to come back from.”

Sten’s words echoed in her mind. An oath made before gods cannot be broken without consequences.