Page 28 of Forged in Fading

Just hearing Boden’s name set Alvara’s organs aflame and threatened to burn her from the inside out. She couldn’t have this conversation now. The walls had started to shift closer and shrink the space around them. “Kat, please just leave me alone. I’ll talk to them later.”

Kat bit her lip, and her hazel eyes skimmed the floor. “The thing is, Lena isn’t exactly patient. She wants it dealt with now. I know things are still fresh from your father’s fading⁠—”

“This has nothing to do with him.” Alvara tugged on her collar, now soaked with cold sweat. It was so unbearably hot in here. Had the forge fire grown out of control?

Kat continued, seemingly unaffected by the suffocating heat. “Either way, Eloisa was so good at magic, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it in no time…”

Eloisa. Alvara’s tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. She needed air. Her chest pinched from the effort to breathe, and she tried to step past Kat, but she couldn’t get by. Magic…Lena…Eloisa…

Eloisa. Mother. Father.

Smoke clogged her nose, and her breaths quickened. Kat’s voice faded to a whining buzz as her lungs struggled to fill. The edges of the room faded to darkness. All she could see was the door, too far away.

Out. She needed out.

“Please,” she whispered, scrunching her eyes shut.

The noise wouldn’t relent. Alvara pinned her ears with her palms, and tears gouged her cheeks. She needed it to stop.

“Just leave me alone!”

A strangled scream.

Silence.

Alvara drew a wobbly breath. And another. And opened her eyes.

Across from her, Kat sat slumped against the wall, mouth open and gasping for air. Long shards of ice ruptured her skin, and cherry red liquid leaked down her spasming body.

Time slowed to an excruciating trickle. Not again. Not again. It was Pyry before her, crying out in agony as they tore his flesh apart. Bile rose in her throat, and the world twisted in sickening circles.

A tide of bodies surged into the room, and still, Alvara couldn’t move. What had she done? Kat. Was she…

Someone spoke to her, but the sound was muffled, like her ears were stuffed with cotton.

Amber eyes drilled into hers, and strong hands braced her shoulders. “What happened?”

Alvara blinked rapidly. “I don’t…I don’t…”

Everything had blurred into a potent mixture of colors and sounds. What had happened?

Boden pulled her to her feet, and his grip didn’t leave her for a second as he wrenched her through the streets. “This is exactly what I feared from the start. What have you done, Alvara?”

“She was talking, and it was too much. I was just trying to leave. When I looked at her again, she was—” The words clogged her throat and cut off any remaining air. Her chest crumpled. Alvara slammed to her knees, her nails raking at her neck as her vision dimmed. A Malvan elf stood over her, his face twisted with rage.

“Rav, stop,” Boden said. The Malvan didn’t loosen his magic that had stolen the very air from her lungs. “Ravanel Vendari, stop this instant! I mean it. NOW!”

Alvara struggled for another breath, but this time, a rush of air filled her body. Two blurry figures hovered above her, their forms sharpening with each passing second.

“She killed her!” the dark-haired elf snarled, and the ability to breathe deserted her once again.

“Boden,” she wheezed. Her eyes flicked to his rigid features.

He stepped over her like a puddle he didn’t want to dirty his boots in and placed his hands on the other male’s shoulders. Boden’s voice was soft and steady, like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “We need to discuss this with the king’s council. Kat may still survive, so go. Stay by her side. I will see to it that Alvara is placed in a cell until the council reaches a decision.”

The elf might as well have murdered Alvara with his stare, but another rush of air, and he was gone.

For all she cared, they could and probably should toss her into a freezing river. The image of Kat’s body, her dripping wounds, circled her mind like a vulture. No different from the faded corpse of her father.