Page 76 of Forged in Fading

King Einar stood before her at a stone altar, the Nyrian and Valonian royals unscathed on one side, the Dalvian queen and Malvan king manacled and beaten on the other. At least they were alive, but for what purpose, she didn’t know. King Einar needed them and their descendants gone if he intended to claim the title of High King.

And to bring all of them here to the Grove of Souls, to the altar…It bore no significance for coronations. In all her father’s stories, it had only ever been used once, over ten thousand years ago, when the elven kings of old swore their blood oath to the gods on the day of the Fracture. To stay at peace with the other newly formed races unless provoked.

King Einar’s own father had been the one to ignore that very oath. His father’s invasion into the human realm had raised the magic barrier in the first place, preventing elves from using their powers in other lands. And now his son was trying to destroy it? It simply couldn’t be done. Only the gods could alter oaths they had put in place—or a goddess.

Helvati. Gods, no.

A quiet moan tugged on her ears, and Alvara twisted toward the sound.

Boden.

He lay sprawled on the ground, blood running down his face in rivets. She wanted to reach out to him, touch him to convince herself he was really here, really alive.

“How kind of you to join us,” King Einar said as he sauntered toward them. “You have been quite the thorn in my side, just like your father.” His boot collided with Boden’s ribs, exposed now with no leather armor in sight. Boden squeezed his eyes shut, but no sound escaped his lips. “Ironic, don’t you think? The one thorn I was unable to bend to my will. Helvati has made it quite easy, you know. All she requires is the fresh blood of each kingdom’s ruler, and she will clear the way for the cleansing of the humans from this earth. The only way our people will ever be truly safe, free from their jealousy and rage.”

Another kick to Boden’s ribs. “Should I kill you now or let you live long enough to see them fade one by one? Perhaps I will give myself a moment to decide.” He gestured to one of the guards, who brandished a whip with a sneer that turned Alvara’s insides.

Primal fear flickered in Boden’s eyes before he schooled his face into a soulless mask, but all Alvara could think of was the hundreds of scars layered down his back. The stories of the lives he took in the king’s name. The thousands of lives he had saved.

A crack echoed through the air. The leather tore through Boden’s clothes, biting into his skin. He didn’t even twitch.

There was no reality in the nine realms where Alvara was willing to watch him endure this torture, not when she knew what King Einar had put him through for over a decade. The king’s elves no doubt thought her useless without her magic.

Time to prove them wrong.

The guard raised the whip again, and Alvara caught Boden’s gaze and gritted her teeth. His face paled as he shook his head. Sorry, she mouthed and leaned backward, swinging her metal-bound hands over her head and directly into the face of the guard at her back with a crunch. His dagger clattered to the ground, and she snatched it, only to hurl it into the side of the guard behind Boden, who stumbled backward and dropped his wretched whip.

Vines snaked around her ankles, squeezing so tightly her lifeblood might as well have stopped moving. The side of her head slammed into the frozen ground, and darkness hovered at the edges of her vision.

“My dear Alvara,” King Einar said. “You have given me an even better idea for my servant’s punishment.”

His words barely registered in Alvara’s muddy mind before a crack sounded through the forest. Her back lit with a raging fire that threatened to consume her.

Crack!

She was being ripped in two, her soul detaching from her withered body.

Crack!

Someone screamed her name.

Crack!

She spiraled toward unconsciousness, unable to stop the whimpers that fell from her mouth as white-hot agony wrestled her in its cruel hands, crack after crack.

“Get up.” A guard grabbed Alvara’s arm and hauled her to her feet, even as her body trembled and her knees threatened to buckle. She was surely going to fade.

The five monarchs circled the stone altar, just as they had on the day of the Fracture. They had lost. Maybe something even more precious than they had ever anticipated.

She should let go of her life force, let the injuries take her into a realm far away where she didn’t have to face what lay before her.

Starting with his allies, King Einar sliced their palms open, and their dripping blood mingled with the strange symbols inscribed in the stone. Smoke as black as midnight trickled out, gulping down the crimson liquid like a beggar in the streets. Something ancient stirred in the air, a malevolence that made the hairs stand up on Alvara’s arms. This wasn’t right.

King Einar stopped in front of Queen Myrithal and tipped her chin up with Helvati’s blade. “This is your final chance, Myrithal. Give your blood willingly, and I may spare your life.”

He would do no such thing, and every elf watching this atrocity knew it to be true. Alvara’s queen whispered a Dalvian prayer to herself, and King Einar plunged the blade into her heart. She collapsed into a pool of her own blood, the crimson spreading like a sickness over the gentle blue of her dress. Alvara’s kingdom faded before her eyes.

Alvara sagged in the guard’s grip, but he ripped her upright again. She retched on the floor from the pain, the searing acid in her throat a sweet relief from her flayed skin.