Page 141 of Forged in Fading

She didn’t want to lose Boden, not when she’d already lost so many who meant what he did to her. But she had to let go. She couldn’t live life in fear of loss, and she shouldn’t stop those she loved from living, even if it meant they might fade. Fate would take who it wanted, and all she could do was enjoy the time she had been given with those that mattered.

Boden’s earthen shields splintered and started to crumble. He moved closer, blocking her from danger with his body.

“It has to be you.” Alvara’s voice cracked as she said the words she wished weren’t true, but it was the only way. She had just been too selfish to see it. “If you offer yourself up, make him think you’re vulnerable, he may come close enough to give you a chance to do it. Your betrayal, the years you worked under his nose to undermine him, he has to want revenge.”

The walls around them collapsed. Boden flinched and braced his hands on the ground on both sides of her. “I don’t regret any of it, not a single thing.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “Except one,” he said.

And crushed his mouth against hers.

Alvara let out a small gasp. The force of his kiss, the raw urgency. The warmth of his lips, the heat of his body on top of hers. It incinerated her hesitation, her fear, and she cupped his jaw in her hands and tugged him closer against her, more than willing to fade in his depths.

There was nothing gentle in it, only desperation of the purest kind, his lips frantic and fingers insistent as he gripped the back of her head and drew her in even deeper. He tasted of salt and tears and ice, her anchor to the rumbling earth beneath them as they collided in a few heart-stopping seconds of frenzied fire, saying everything they hadn’t in the time they no longer had.

Until Boden pulled back, panting as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Ek lanne thoch.” His words were a whisper, a breath on her lips. “Goodbye, goose.”

And he was gone. Charging into battle in his bear form and taking the most sacred part of her soul with him.

Alvara had no time to breathe, let alone think as orange flames flashed in the corner of her eye. She rolled to the side, the fire scorching the earth only a few hair’s breadths away from her body. She scrambled to her feet and came face to face with Aurilena, who stood over the flaming corpse of another Valonian elf.

“It’s not time to give up. Not yet,” Aurilena said, tossing Alvara her spear and shield.

She hefted them and took a shuddering breath. “When is?”

Aurilena looked down at the body she had destroyed. “When our hearts stop beating.”

A roar echoed through the town, strong enough to topple every building. Alvara clenched her spear and held her breath.

Boden had drawn him out, just like she knew he would. Because she had let King Einar do the same to her.

A mob of vines flanked the king, writhing in the air and on the ground and wriggling toward Boden, who choked each of them off where they sprouted. But new ones emerged at a dizzying rate, replacing each of those he strangled, and each chunk and rock flung in the king’s direction thudded into a woven green shield.

Solid rock smashed into Alvara’s ribs and knocked the air out of her lungs. She collapsed, coughing and wheezing as stabbing pain tore through her chest. Gritting her teeth, she staggered to face her opponent, whose white tattoos only reminded her of who she had risked to save everything and everyone else.

Instead of her family, this time she anchored what magic she had left in Boden. His laugh, that damn laugh, that could burst your eardrums when he was truly happy. The sound of her name on his lips, like it was something to be cherished, protected. How she had never felt safer than when he held her. Those arms that held the weight of the world, all the lives he had taken and the ones he couldn’t save.

She dodged the next tumble of rock and focused her power, not on the flesh of the elf before her, but his blood. She latched onto the water she could feel pumping through his veins and transformed it into lethal crystals of ice.

A roar. His roar.

The elf’s body hit the ground with a thump, and the very sight of Boden stamped the air out of her lungs.

He hovered in the air in his bear form, strung up by countless green binds, limbs thrashing. King Einar stalked his prey, and Boden shifted back, his body dropping to the ground in a crumpled heap. Before Alvara’s next heartbeat, the king restrained him upright once again. His dagger, Helvati’s dagger, devoured every ray of sunlight that dared touch its blade as King Einar lifted his arm behind his head to make the killing blow.

NO. The dredges of Alvara’s magic kicked and bucked as she ran as fast as her aching feet would take her. Something yanked on her powers, and every being near her froze in place. The effort of holding time itself drained what little energy she had left, and she tossed her spear and shield to the side to move faster. She would make it. She had to.

Alvara threw her body in front of the dagger just as time came back to life, and the metal stabbed deep into her shoulder, ripping itself free of King Einar’s grasp. Searing agony consumed her. Boden let out a strangled yell, but she could only focus on one thing through the pain: the king in front of her, eyes wide, full of fear.

He bent forward, hand outstretched toward the dagger, the only power he had left, and Alvara fumbled for the hilt of the weapon. With the scream of every life the king had ever taken, she tore the blade free of her blood-soaked skin and plunged it deep into his heart.

King Einar shuffled back a step, eyes bulging as he looked down at the dagger in his chest, as if he had never imagined he could be defeated. He slumped to the ground, and Alvara sagged.

The world blurred. Her body crashed into the ground. Her breaths shortened. The pain blinded her to everything but the king, whose body had gone still.

“Alvara!” Boden slid to the ground next to her. His warm hands pushed into her wound, but she could still feel the cherry-red blood gushing over her skin. Gods, she was so cold. Her arm tingled, each breath more labored than the last.

“We did it,” she whispered. She looked to the king one last time, to know it was all truly over. This wasn’t just a dream. The dagger disappeared before her eyes, and tendrils of black smoke left his body, swirling into the sky in the shape of what almost looked like⁠—

“A healer,” Boden said, his voice wobbling as he searched the battlefield. “A healer. We’ll find a healer and you’ll be all right.”