Page 127 of Forged in Fading

“I need to speak with you.” His quiet voice was unusually strained. “Alone.”

Rav raised his brows in a silent question, and Alvara nodded. She had nothing to fear from Erun. He had proved to be kind and caring, and the furthest thing from dangerous.

“What is it, Erun?”

His nervous energy calmed somewhat as Rav granted them space. “With the battle coming, I…I needed to apologize.”

“What could you possibly need to apologize for? You’ve done nothing but help us.”

Erun swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. “It was me, Alvara. I killed your father.”

Alvara’s lungs collapsed. Her chest squeezed so tight she could barely manage her next words. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t want to. The king threatened my son. He claimed he knew where my wife was and he would…”

His words faded into a distant hum. “What was his name?” Alvara whispered. She leaned into her spear, her limbs suddenly weak. Maybe it was all a cruel joke. Gods, she hoped it was.

“Alfris. Alfris Himren.”

It didn’t mean it was true. Her father had been well known in Dalvi and likely the other kingdoms too. Anyone could have known his name. “How did you do it?”

Erun was shaking now. “A dagger. At his home in Vorianta, and it has haunted me ever since. I am so sorry, Alvara…”

Her father. He killed her father.

Cold crawled up each of her limbs, and her stomach churned so hard she thought she might be sick.

Before her stood the reason her last family member had faded, had been ripped from her without thought or reason.

She had to get out.

She stumbled away, crashing into warriors left and right as she ran. Anywhere. She needed to go anywhere away from that man. Who knew what she might be capable of if she had to bear his presence for one more moment.

Frost swallowed her fingertips and crept up her skin. Her father’s corpse, drenched with blood. Drained of life. And Erun, his murderer, that twisted man, had spent weeks watching her, getting to know her. He had even asked about him, the very soul he had stolen from this earth.

Footsteps sounded behind Alvara, and ice slithered out of her body, forging a slippery path that led directly to the chief’s meeting hall. Boden. Kat. Someone, anyone needed to be there who could help calm her growing tide of emotions.

She yanked the door open, flung herself inside, and threw the weight of her body backward to pin it shut. If she held out long enough, maybe Erun would leave. If he didn’t…she didn’t want to think of the things she might do.

“Alvara?”

Her body sagged. Boden.

The wood vibrated against her back with repeated knocks, and Boden pushed through gawking humans, his eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

Breathe. You have to breathe. Alvara inhaled, but the rush of air did nothing to slow the lethal shards of ice forming in her gut. “He’s here. I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I tried to leave…”

“Who? Did someone hurt you?” Boden spoke in a rush as he knelt in front of her.

“No. But I want to hurt him.” But a piece of her also didn’t. She wanted someone to suffer for destroying her family, but she knew Erun had been forced to do it, and it was eating him alive. She had seen his scars, the years of his life King Einar had taken.

But her father’s blood was on his hands…flurries swirled from her fingertips, and Boden’s brow knitted as he watched her. He lifted her to her feet, placed her behind him, and opened the door, his muscles coiled tight enough to snap.

Erun stood outside the hall. The guilt dragging down his features, that face Alvara had come to trust over the past month and a half, they hammered crack after crack into the walls caging her magic, the powers that were only growing more turbulent with each passing second. Boden’s hand found hers, and he squeezed with an intensity that confirmed he knew Erun.

Boden had known.

“Please,” Erun said, his voice trembling. “I cannot live another day knowing what I have done without making it right.”