Page 2 of Forged in Fading

Alvara shouldered her bag once again and paused at the hearth to feed the fire with what little wood she could find. The crackling of the flames, the whiffs of smoke…so many dalvi nights they had spent as a family gathered around this hearth, listening to the endless tales her father wove while her mother knitted hats and scarves to keep them warm in the coming cold.

“Goodbye, Father. I love you.”

He didn’t respond, but that was no surprise. He mostly acted as if she had already faded too.

And sometimes she wasn’t completely sure she hadn’t.

Alvara sank to her knees in the freshly fallen snow and let her tears fall, blazing hot lines down her chilled cheeks. Today was the one day of the year she allowed herself to truly delve into the deep pool of grief where she had treaded water for years.

She could still feel the searing heat of the flames that consumed Eloisa’s and Mother’s bodies, the pungent smell of charred flesh and bone at their funeral. They had buried their remains here, where they would become one with the earth and all the elves that had gone before them.

Twenty-one. Eloisa should have had centuries left to live and yet…she was gone. And their mother, passed the same day. Sorrow over her daughter’s sudden fading had squeezed her heart so severely that it stopped beating altogether.

The forest surrounded Alvara in stillness, except for the breeze that seemed to whisper the lost dreams of the souls that had passed before their time. Trees towered above her like araugs waiting in the shadows, bone-white arms stretching out to her as if welcoming her home. Thankfully such creatures would never dwell here where corpses had been burnt to pieces—cursed souls required decaying bodies, not ashes, to inhabit.

Alvara breathed in the sweet and earthy aroma of the woods. Such a beautiful smell despite the lives that had been given to the dirt beneath her feet.

The snap of a twig rang through the air, and her fragile hope returned. Maybe her father had finally decided to come.

Oh, for Vitharen’s sake.

It wasn’t him, but an enormous bear instead, its brown fur marred by gruesome scars and speckled with fallen snow. She had no interest in adding a fight with a wild animal to her list of unfortunate incidents that day, and if she faded at the hands—paws?—of her own nickname, Eloisa would never let her forget it for the rest of eternity.

She had to admit—there was a small chance her father wasn’t completely insane for following his elven superstitions.

Alvara unsheathed her dagger from her side and cursed to herself as she palmed the weapon. It would only allow her to defend herself up close with the creature. The ground trembled as the bear journeyed to the center of the grove, leaving colossal prints in its wake that did nothing to bolster her confidence.

It lifted its nose to the air and sniffed. It was a miracle the thing couldn’t hear her heart striking against her ribs.

The bear swung its head in her direction, and its amber eyes settled on Alvara. What in the nine realms had dragged it out of hibernation? In her thirty-two years of life, she had never seen so much as a bird in the Grove. One time she had found a decaying moth carcass, but that hardly counted.

Her shallow breaths ravaged her throat. Outrunning the bear would be useless; it would catch her in mere moments. And fighting it with nothing but a dagger was a great way to get killed.

She could pretend she had faded…or was she supposed to try to scare it away? And why in Dalviri’s name did they not cover this in academy?

It bowed its head.

Oh gods, here we go.

And padded away into the woods.

Her muscles remained locked in place, even when the creature had disappeared. Maybe she had imagined it altogether. Or perhaps her pastry that morning had spoiled. Either way, she really needed to start limiting her intake of sweets.

Alvara closed her eyes, inhaling clarity through her nose and exhaling any residual fear out her mouth. This day. Tomorrow she would return to her routine, the reliable monotony she had clung to since losing Eloisa and Mother.

She sheathed her blade, wiped the snow from her pants, and began her journey back home.

She arrived back in Vorianta, making sure to stop by her father’s house once more to sit alongside him in silence as he read. He preferred it to sharing memories of her mother and sister, and Alvara knew better than to push the topic too far.

By the time she left, a thick white veil had covered the homes huddled together at the base of Dalvi’s breathtaking mountains, as if they too mourned her loss. Very few lights dotted the capital, likely due to the belief that doing so would call less attention from the supposed dangers drawn by the ominous moon darkening. The exception was Alvara’s dwelling, which boasted a glimmering lantern out front, much too small to make any impact in the vast darkness.

Jalomir would no doubt deliver her a scathing lecture on the topic at the forge tomorrow. She would need to bring him a spiced custard bun as a peace offering.

She knocked her boots on the icy doorframe and fumbled her key into the lock with shivering fingers. Her cramped space had never been much to look at—the cheapest table and chairs she could find, a small bookshelf that leaned a little too far to one side, and a lumpy bed barely big enough for one person. Well, and of course her weapons. She hadn’t minded the simplicity, but Eloisa had done her best to improve upon it just about every time she stopped by.

Alvara’s fingers brushed against the blue and silver embroidered curtains her sister had picked out. The hole in her chest twinged. Another year, another anniversary gone. At times it felt like she had lived two lives—one before their fadings, and one after.

Predictable. That was what she wanted life to be now. Nothing more, nothing less.