Page 157 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Elara abandoned any pretense of disinterest. She sat down to watch the sparring, listened to the huff of breath and faint snore from Kalaetzu’s corner. To admire the people she had come to love, each in their own way. To sit within something that, in the most unexpected of places and far from Jarovina, felt like home. Whatever waited ahead, she knew she would not face it alone.

Still, the ache beneath her ribs refused to leave her, and she became keenly aware of the empty space in the cave where Lorrain should have been.

Chapter 73

Njall

In the long stretches of boots crunching snow, between Elara’s clumsy slips and Kalaetzu’s quiet humming against the cold, Njall was left alone with his thoughts. His mind returned to the same wounds, carving them deeper with every step toward Lunnholm.

Loken rose in his thoughts again.

Njall halted on the slope and glanced back.

“Did you know Kalaetzu is six hundred and seventy-three years old?” Elara called as she and Kalaetzu closed the distance. “Six hundred and seventy-three. I am only nineteen.”

“Fae can live to be a thousand,” Njall said, looking past them to where Gavriel moved along the ridge behind, focused on the simple act of placing one foot before the other. He began walking toward him. “Kalaetzu likely has many years yet.”

“Many?” Kalaetzu scoffed. “I have barely reached my prime. Most of my former companions still consider me the reckless one. Imagine what that says of the rest.”

Elara laughed. The sound seemed to lift the thin air. “How old are you, Njall?”

“Two hundred and fifty or so. I do not keep careful count.”

“It equates roughly to twenty-five in human years,” Kalaetzu offered. “The comparison is imperfect, but close enough.”

Njall gave a low sound of assent. “However one measures it, I have lived long enough to tire of this journey,” he said, adjusting his pack as he stepped past them. The dry note in his voice surprised even him, and Kalaetzu barked a laugh.

Then Elara slipped.

The sound of her boot sliding reached him first, then her small gasp. He turned without thinking, chest tightening, ready to lunge for her.

Kalaetzu caught the edge of her cloak before she fell.

Njall forced himself forward again, though the pull inside him did not ease. Protectiveness tangled with guilt. Guilt with something less manageable.

He had no explanation for it. Only that when she hurt, a fierce heat rose in him. When she laughed, something rigid loosened. When she pressed on through wind and snow that would have broken others, the boundaries he kept with everyone else blurred. She occupied too much space inside him, and he did not know how to carry it.

“Is something the matter?”

Gavriel had drawn level with him. He looked past Njall toward Elara, who was laughing while Kalaetzu adjusted her cloak, then back to Njall’s face.

Njall gave a flat, dismissive grunt and held out a hand.

Gavriel’s brows lifted, a smirk at his mouth. He slipped the pack from his shoulders. “If you insist on brooding at my side like an offended gargoyle, yes, you may as well carry my things.”

Njall swung the pack onto his back and fell into step beside him, forward again. He glanced at Gavriel once. “How are you feeling after the spar?”

“Sore,” Gavriel admitted with a faint wince. Then a hint of brightness returned. “But it is a good sort of sore. Encouraging to know my muscles have not abandoned me entirely.”

“Strength returns more quickly than you expect.”

“I hope so.” Gavriel eyed the pack now resting on Njall’s frame. “And if not, I assume you will carry me as you do that. Strap me to your back and drag me over the peaks.”

Njall huffed a reluctant laugh. Snow crunched for several steps. He opened his mouth, shut it, then forced the words out. “I am not angry with you.”

“No?” Gavriel’s brows rose. “That is not the impression I gathered.”

“I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me,” he admitted. “That is what hurt.”