Page 59 of Forged in Fading

“What’s wrong with geese? They’re fierce and loyal creatures, and they were Delmis’s favorite animal. She even had a magical cloak made out of their feathers.”

“Delmis, Boden? Really?” The ancient and now extinct goddess of love and fertility, of all people.

He glanced sideways at her. “What?”

“No elf in the history of our kind wants to be associated with her! She’s the whole reason our seasons, magic, and immortality fractured.” Alvara held up a finger for each offense. “All because she lost her lovesick mind when Vitharen faded.”

“I hardly see how that’s the geese’s fault. And Delmis is revered by shifters. She was the first to ever exist. She could shift into a goose at will because of her cloak, and she clearly didn’t deem them offensive.”

“Well, geese smell. And they bite.”

He tilted his head and grinned. “You biting someone would hardly be a surprise at this point. And the smell…” A clump of snow burst over his face, and he sputtered. “I’m only joking.” Boden shook his hair, flinging moisture onto his horse, who grumbled. His eyes snagged on her wrists. “Are you all right?”

A few dribbles of dried blood ran down her arm where the thorns had pricked her. “It’s nothing.”

“Surviving an attack like that isn’t nothing.”

“Have you seen yourself? You look like a madman, covered in blood.” If she didn’t know him, the mere sight would send her running the other direction.

Boden lifted his makeshift bandage and peered underneath. “There are no clean ways to fight as a bear. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

His words bore the weight of something unspoken, some history that Alvara hadn’t earned the right to know, so she kept quiet. The horses’ pants and whinnies filled the space between them, carrying them all safely to Ilmanir by the time the sun bid its farewell that day.

As soon as they passed through the gates of Ilmanir, they went their separate ways without a word: Alvara begrudgingly walked Pyry to a healer, Boden headed likely to wherever his family stayed, and Kat? Gods knew what Kat was doing.

A quick introduction to the same female who had tended to Kat, and Alvara intended to flee, but Pyry’s voice stopped her at the door.

“Alva…”

Her arms tensed at her sides, but she forced herself to look at him. “Yes, Pyrymar?” His full name, the name she only used when she was deeply upset with him.

His face was still unnaturally pale; it had been since the attack in the woods. Like the shock had leached all the color from his body. “You saved me.”

And you didn’t, she wanted to say. Not when her mother and sister had passed. “Again.”

“Again,” he repeated, quieter. “And brought me to a healer.”

“If all you’re going to do is state facts, I have other things that need my attention.”

Pyry didn’t flinch at her venom. He had seen this side of her after her mother and sister’s funeral. It was nothing new. “I wanted to say⁠—”

It was her turn to cut him off, for once. “You utterly humiliated me, Pyry. Demanding payment from Jalomir just to spend a few days with me? I…” She shook her head. If she freed every sharp word, every sour thought that she had locked up over the years, she would never stop. “You’re safe here, and I need time to process this.”

And it was more than just the dagger. Pyry was the single reminder of her city that would soon be lost.

“Alva, please⁠—”

“It’s Alvara. Especially to you.” She turned on her heel and left, her veins humming with frustrated energy, the kind she could never ignore and only destroy through physical movement. The forge would be closed at this hour, and practicing her forms held no charm after the skirmish they had just survived. That left only one other place.

The tables in the food hall stood mostly empty, save for a few elves scattered throughout the room, engaged in hushed conversations between bites of food. She should eat too, but her stomach still simmered with nausea from the violence she had both engaged in and witnessed.

Alvara spied Isathir, the head cook, scrubbing a pot in the washbasin, while a few others scurried about and cleaned up the remnants of dinner. “Need any help?”

“Between the two of you, I’m going to be out of a job soon. Dishes,” he said, tipping his head toward the mountain on the counter.

After cleaning the grime off her hands, she took his place, settling the coarse cloth into her hand and beating it into the dish.

“Take it easy. I have no interest in replacing that pot anytime soon.”