Page 40 of Forged in Fading

She felt the urge to laugh but decided that would probably be better to avoid at a moment like this. “Denial works quite well.”

Only the shuffling of the other cooks filled the space between them, as if Boden was waiting for her to say more. Something real. She supposed she owed him that much after what his family had risked—and lost—for Pyry.

“As you reminded me,” Alvara said, “if I let myself fade too, it would all be for nothing. I live to make the king pay for everything he’s done.”

Boden stared at her, unblinking. Had she said the wrong thing? He took slow steps toward the door of the kitchen and paused, his back still turned. “I live to make him pay too.”

As soon as he was gone, his absence left Alvara to grapple with her own thoughts, which was something she’d prefer to avoid if she could help it, so she started to head back to the forge.

The same cook who had spoken earlier stopped her. “You were right, you know.” He gestured to the pile of chopped vegetables Boden had left behind. “I would never let him touch the food here in the dirty state he was in. Not in my kitchen at least. That’s why I let him work with the produce we can’t use. What we’ll feed the animals.”

She cocked her head. “Does he know that?”

“No, and you’re not going to tell him.”

“You’re telling me I was washing vegetables for livestock. Essentially wasting time.”

The older elf’s pale skin wrinkled at the corners of his gray eyes. “It’s not a waste of time, not if it offers even a few moments of peace. Sometimes we need the stakes to be lower than life or fading. Him especially.”

“Then why don’t you tell him the truth?”

“Sometimes lying to ourselves and the ones we care about is easier than facing what's in front of us, wouldn’t you agree?” He moved past her and swept the chopped bits of food into a basket. “He needs to find meaning, a purpose in everything he does, that one. If hacking vegetables does the trick, who am I to take that away? Now you keep our little secret, or you may find your food even more unpalatable than usual.” He shook Alvara’s hand. “The name’s Isathir. You’re welcome in my kitchen anytime.”

Chapter Fifteen

Ravanel led her in their usual silence to the meeting hall the next morning after a mildly successful training, and Alvara’s stomach sank. A meeting being called only meant terrible things.

Boden stood outside the door, still in the same damaged clothes from the day before, and deep rings of purple hung under his eyes. Ravanel clasped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, whispering in his ear as he helped him into the building.

Alvara once again tried to sneak to a quiet corner of the room, but Boden caught her eye from the main table and shook his head. Something heavy in his gaze twisted her insides until they threatened to split. It was Dalvi. It had to be. He pulled out a chair next to him, and she accepted it, trying not to focus on the bloodstains all over his shirt.

King Ulivar smiled tightly. “Take your time. Whenever you’re ready.”

Boden heaved a long breath, his gaze trained on the map lying before them. “Due to”—he paused and swallowed—“unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to gather as much information as I had hoped about the king’s movements. But what I do know is that if Dalvi refuses to give in to his demands for loyalty, he will move on the capital soon. The Dalvian monarchs have been taking care of the orchestrated human attacks on their own and ignoring any communication from Ela, which has only served to anger King Einar. He has grown even more impatient and erratic over the past few weeks, and I doubt he will wait long before taking the power he desires. He will send his forces to invade Dalvi.”

Ice glittered on Alvara’s fingertips, but she melted it with a series of steady inhales and exhales. King Einar was coming for her city. Her people. Her home. Or what was left of it.

“That makes no sense. It’s mid-dalvi. This is when their powers are at their strongest,” another elf at the table said.

“It does,” Alvara said, ignoring the instinct that told her this wasn’t her place to speak, especially not in the presence of a king. “Jolval is in a few weeks. It’s the most important time of the year for us, and it lasts twelve days. Everyone will be too busy preparing to worry about anything else.”

“What do you think the best course of action is?” Boden’s voice was rough, like someone had scraped away its smooth outer layer to reveal jagged pieces underneath.

“We have to warn them,” Alvara said. “I know the queen won’t want to ally with Malva, but if my kingdom is willing to try, we may stand a chance of surviving this. If Vorianta falls, what’s to stop the king from taking Ilmanir and crowning himself High King? Once that happens, there’s no hope left.”

Another elf scoffed—Kaurald, if she remembered correctly. The male focused on the city’s defenses at the first meeting she had attended in Ilmanir. “The effort would be futile. Dalvi has held a grudge against Malva for over three thousand years for something our ancestors did. They will never ally with us. We are better off spending our efforts preparing to defend our own city than wasting anything on theirs.”

“No effort spent trying to gain allies is ever futile,” Ravanel said. He avoided Kaurald’s gaze that might as well have hurled daggers through his forehead.

“And tell me, son, what experience do you have in war? Defending a kingdom?”

Well, that was one way to be introduced to Ravanel’s father. Ravanel stared ahead, his jaw clenched as his eyes bored a hole into the door.

Alvara knew nothing of war or strategy, but she couldn’t just sit by while her city fell. “I’ll go. I don’t know the royal family, but if I can speak as a Dalvian and someone who’s lived in Vorianta her whole life, maybe it will help. Even a little. Without any Dalvians present, the queen probably wouldn’t even let you into the palace.”

Ravanel’s father opened his mouth to speak, but Boden was quicker. “Alvara has a point. And what harm can it do to send a few council members with her to at least inform the queen, if nothing else?”

“We will spare three members from the council,” King Ulivar said, “and you will accompany them. The rest will stay here to prepare for inevitable war.”