Page 35 of Forged in Fading

“You feel bad? You almost took Kat from us!” Aurilena’s voice was rising, slapping Alvara with each sound. “She only ever helped you and look what your careless actions did to her!”

Alvara flinched but didn’t back away. She deserved every bit of rage and wouldn’t cower from it. “I know. I’ve apologized to Kat, and I’m doing whatever I can to control my magic, so it never happens again. I hate myself more for it than you could even begin to, Aurilena.” That memory—Kat bleeding, fading at her hands—it would haunt her for the rest of her life. “I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself.”

The heat in Aurilena’s eyes receded, and she touched a small tan and white spotted shell hanging around her neck. So small, Alvara hadn’t noticed it until now. “I’m angry, Alvara. Angry because I wasn’t able to prevent this, no matter how hard I tried. Angry because you could have. Angry because you remind me of myself.” She squeezed her hand around the shell. “I lost someone precious once because of my magic, because I was blind to the risks it brought. If Kat hadn’t survived—” Aurilena cleared her throat. “Promise me, you’ll never let anything like this happen again. For all our sakes.”

Alvara nodded, and Aurilena’s eyes flared in response.

Gods, every one of her movements held the authority of someone much older and wiser. And taller. “I promise,” Alvara said quietly.

It seemed to finally satisfy Aurilena, who leveled one last scorching look before marching back toward the meeting hall, leaving Alvara to hurry after Boden. Presumably reassured that she would live to see another day, he had resumed his path toward rows of houses with chimneys coughing out plumes of smoke.

But he had said nothing about what Ilmanir would do to stop King Einar’s orchestrated human attacks in her kingdom. In fact, no one had.

“Boden!” Her breaths were short and hot as her legs struggled to catch up with his long strides. He walked even quicker, as if he was hoping to outpace her. “What are we going to do about Dalvi?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“We can’t just let King Einar continue to kill my people.”

Alvara almost slammed into him as he came to a sudden stop outside a quaint house that reminded her of the spiced biscuits she and Eloisa used to decorate around Jolval. The roof, the color of dark caramel, curved like a bird swooping toward the ground to catch its prey before taking back to the skies. Smoke puffed out the side, a scent that sent Alvara back decades to nights splayed out in front of her family’s hearth.

Boden was watching her drag herself out of the depths of the past—she could feel it.

“The attacks are small, Alvara. It doesn’t warrant the use of our forces, especially if Dalvi has no interest in our help. We have to be strategic. You said yourself that your queen wouldn’t take kindly to any assistance from us.”

“I understand.” Far from it. What little of Alvara’s calm logic remained had been reduced to ashes after Aurilena’s berating.

Boden rubbed a hand over his face. “Why do I feel a sudden sense of foreboding that this conversation is going to take a turn for the worse?”

“It makes sense. When humans or demi-elves are attacked or killed, it’s an issue. But when it’s your own people, it’s none of your concern.”

A dangerous fire ignited in his eyes, one that could have almost convinced her he hailed from Valo instead of Nyr. “None of my concern? Everyone and everything are my concern, at all hours of the day. And yet this is coming from someone who didn’t bother to think twice about how her actions in the palace might affect anyone else.”

Noma. Ylva. But they had willingly helped. They wanted to. “I didn’t force Noma and Ylva to do anything they weren’t already considering.”

“And yet they’re gone. Made examples of to scare the others into further submission.” He scoffed. “And what about the other servants, Alvara? The ones who suffered unimaginable atrocities because of their actions? Your actions. Did you consider them?”

No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t thought of anything other than getting herself and Pyry to safety. What had happened to Noma and Ylva, the other humans, what they had all gone through…

Boden rapped on the door to the house. “Now, unless you would prefer to take my place in escorting someone to their certain execution, I have things to attend to.”

Execution? What in the nine realms was he talking about?

An elderly elf with white hair opened the door. As she took in Boden, her wrinkled face fell along with her frail shoulders. “It’s time?”

“I’m afraid so,” Boden said, and the female retreated inside. He turned his back to the door and folded his arms across his chest. “I can already feel a question forming on your lips, so I’ll go ahead and answer it for you. In order to keep the king’s trust, I have to deliver. My choices are to either take unsuspecting elves who may or may not have anything to do with his fears or ask who here is willing to make a sacrifice by giving their own lives and offering threads of false information.”

Alvara’s heart leapt into her throat. He was turning that poor elf in. Offering her up like an animal to be butchered. “You can’t do that. He’ll kill her!”

“She’s only a few decades, if not years from fading, and her own seluri has long since passed. She says she’s ready to meet Vitharen. I will do what I can to make it quick and painless.” His voice had gone quiet, his gaze seeing something in the ground beneath their feet she couldn’t. “The information I learn and distort by keeping the king’s trust has saved thousands of lives, entire families. It’s a necessary evil.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

Boden brushed his fingers over the fawn on his wrist. “Maybe both.”

The carved wooden statues that crowded the porch, the scratches and stains on the entryway floor of the female’s home. So many memories, and so much life, however short, left to live. And he was asking her to throw it all away.

But Eloisa had been willing to give everything to protect others; she had stood that firmly in her beliefs. Boden seemed to be the only one escaping unscathed.