Page 46 of The Ashborn

You weren’t kind, Little Flame. Kienna sat straight and scooted away from Ruva. Ruva whined. I am on your side, always, but Connak deserves better, too.

“Tislin says Connak’s fine, if it helps,” Moira said, putting her hand on Kienna’s knee.

Kienna only shook her head. It didn’t help because if he was fine, it meant he wanted to keep her out. Kienna shouldn’t have turned on him when he brought up the dungeons, but he put so much pressure on her to fight against Vaerin’s poison, against the nightmares, and it suffocated her. All she wanted was to learn how to stand for herself and move on her own for once. She hadn’t meant to hurt him.

Connak will come back. Ruva sniffed at Kienna’s legs. You know that.

“I need to get to the workshop,” Kienna sighed, standing up from the alley. She brushed her pants and helped Moira up. “Calder wants to go home today.”

Moira pursed her lips. “Well, it’s a shame. He’s been great company the last few days while you and Tislin were out.”

“Do you think he’ll drink again?”

“I think you’ve given him a pretty good reason not to.” Moira pulled Kienna into a hug, then hurried her away.

Calder went to the shipyard first. The Blades arrived with Tislin earlier and needed all the instructions they could get. Kienna dipped into a shop and bought a few bowls of strawberries and an assortment of nuts and seeds. Ever since agreeing to stay sober, the woodcarver turned to snacking. He liked the sweet treats the best, but the seeds would keep him busier for longer.

When she had enough to last Calder through the day, she hurried along to the workshop and waited. At first, she resumed her normal duties of cleaning. It’d been a moment since they’d been at the shop since Calder destroyed his private station. Kienna needed to stain the table and prepare it for pick up later in the week, but the shattered wood on the floor called to her. She wanted Calder to return to a place he could love again.

She righted the shelves on the wall, picking up the wooden trinkets from the floor as she placed them strategically back where they belonged, then swept. Dust coated the inside of her nose, forcing a sneeze here and there, but she was finally glad to clean for him. He got sober for her. It was the least she could do.

“Almost missed this one,” she said to herself as a carving lay in the corner of the room. Kienna picked it up, her eyes widening with realization. It was the dragon she’d seen before, the one with an ember sparked in the heart. It still pulsed with the same beat, a golden flicker of light emanating from the center. Kienna ran her thumbs over the grains, but she couldn’t figure out how he did it aside from the breath of magic. Calder wasn’t magical by any means, so who did he have in his life that was? Who could have breathed light into the object and left it feeling so pure that even Kienna’s mood shifted into a serene state?

She held the dragon carving close to her heart for a moment longer. When the shop door creaked open, she jolted and put the dragon back on the shelf where it belonged, heading out to the main showroom. Calder stepped inside carrying a heavy load of lumber over his shoulder. His breath was ragged from the climb, but he didn’t complain. He simply grunted as he lowered the stack of planks with a thud that rattled a few carvings on the nearby shelves.

Kienna rushed to him. “Let me help you with that.”

He waved her off at first, but he didn’t stop her from stacking a few pieces properly by the wall. “These are extras from the shipyard. Someone ordered double.” He laughed. “Those men your friends sent…well, they are doing good work at the shipyard, though people are up in arms that there are Elvish folk down there.”

“It’ll be good to see it take form,” Kienna said, brushing sawdust off her apron and ignoring the topic of the Blades. It didn’t stop her thoughts from wandering back to Connak; if he ventured to the shipyard also or sent his Blades alone. Her heart squeezed inside her chest as her eyes fell to the table near her. There was a carving sitting there that she’d been working on for days. She’d almost finished a rendition of Ruva, but she couldn’t figure out how to mimic the same ember inside Calder’s dragon.

The woodcarver glanced at it as well as he reached for a bowl of walnuts, his eyes sharp but not unfriendly. “You’ve got a decent hand for shaping wood. Better than most I’ve trained.”

Kienna blinked in surprise, mainly because she desperately needed to hear something kind. “Was that a compliment?”

“No,” he said flatly, then added, “but don’t ruin it.”

She laughed under her breath and returned to her bench. Picking up a carving knife, she traced delicate lines across her work. Her strokes were slow and measured while they sat in the quiet of the afternoon.

Calder stood behind her, arms folded. “Your grip’s off by half a finger width.”

She adjusted and kept going.

“Good, Kienna,” he grunted, then paused. “Carve in layers. You’re sculpting the face. Stop digging.”

“I know,” she replied.

He grunted again, then said nothing for a long time. Only watched.

It took a minute for her to catch up to what he’d said to her. Her mind returned to Connak and their poor interaction. She was hardly able to focus on Ruva’s encouraging voice. Kienna’s lips pushed against her cheeks. “I appreciate you calling me by my name. No more ‘girl.’”

Calder huffed. “I think you’ve earned it and proved you can do more than sweep.”

Kienna didn’t look up, but amusement danced in her heart. “You were the one who made me sweep, Ash.” She paused, remembering the first time she had called him Ash. He hated it then. “Sorry, I can go back to ‘Master Calder’ if you prefer.”

“No,” he said, and his voice dropped softer. “Ash is fine.”

He didn’t meet her eyes, but the way he stood said enough. For the first time, Kienna had done something right in her journey. She could have given up on him. Left him to rot in his own sorrow while she moved on. Clearly, he wasn’t the woodcarver Maren wanted her to find, so she’d be justified in it. Yet, leaving him to drown alone went against her instincts.