Page 65 of Forged in Fading

“I thought you knew! It’s nothing. I haven’t even handed her a weapon yet.”

“A weapon?” It was almost a shout, the loudest she had ever heard him speak. Boden pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry for the outburst. But you will not be giving my sister a weapon. She’s not even seventeen. She’ll start to believe that she can fight in the coming battle, and I would rather fade than let that happen. Lilja won’t be training with you anymore.”

This was absurd. Alvara had been handling weapons since a much younger age, and she still had all of her fingers. Well, there was one chunk missing from her pinky, but that was beside the point. “I’m not training her for war, Boden. So far all she’s done is stood on quite uneven footing.”

“I may not have a say in what you do, but I do have a say in what she does. She will not be training with you.”

“She needs it⁠—”

“No!” His voice rang through the clearing, silencing the chatter of birds. “What she needs is to stay safe. Our mother has already lost enough, and so have I. I will not risk my sister’s life just so you can prove to everyone around you that you’re more than your clumsy magic.” Boden drew a long breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t mean that.”

But he had said it.

“Clumsy magic? I’m working my ass off training with you and that’s how you see me? She’s her own person, Boden. Whether you like it or not. If she wants to learn, that’s her choice, not yours. You’re not her godsdamned father!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she would have given her favorite spear to shove them back where they came from and pretend none of this had ever happened. But hurt flashed in his eyes, and she scrambled for something, anything to undo what she had done.

She came up empty.

“I am painfully aware of that fact, Alvara. Thank you for reminding me.” Any softness in his features had hardened into the stone he wielded. “Go to the forge. I’m sure they could use your help with preparations.”

He turned on his heel, and Alvara called after him. “Wait! Please.”

Boden’s footsteps halted.

“I’m sorry. I know how much you’ve lost. I understand. If I could have protected Eloisa—” Her voice quavered, and she took a slow inhale. “But Lilja is drowning, anyone can see that. The training gives her something to focus on, and you can’t shelter her from the world forever. What she’s learning might save her life one day.”

Boden didn’t speak, but he also didn’t leave. Maybe he wouldn’t even dignify her outburst with a response. Could she blame him?

Torturous seconds passed until Boden finally faced her, arms crossed. “She can train. But she will not be anywhere near the city when the Elan forces arrive.”

“Understood. I’m sorry about what I said. Everything with Vorianta…it’s still so raw.”

His arms relaxed at his sides. “You know I don’t think your magic is clumsy.”

“It is a little though, right?” She risked a small smile.

The stone disintegrated, leaving a familiar grin in its place. “Maybe a little.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

True to his word, Boden allowed Lilja to attend training the next morning. While Kat’s movements through the footwork were graceful and fairly accurate, Lilja’s almost seemed worse than the few days before.

They had even neared the end of their time together without Lilja pointing out a withered plant and describing what it would look like come ela. Alvara normally would have reveled in the quiet, but it was far from the comfortable kind.

“Have you had a chance to speak with the farmers about helping with the crops?” Alvara asked as she pivoted Lilja’s hips—she always managed to move them out of line with the rest of her body, leaving her unstable enough that Alvara could probably knock her over with a puff of air.

“No, but I will, I promise. It’s just…I’m afraid it will remind me too much of home. I’m not sure if it will be a good thing or not. And who knows if Boden would even let me.”

Alvara should have ignored how Lilja’s spark had dimmed to a dull pile of embers, but it pained her to see such life devoured by shadows. A small piece of Ela might give her something to cling to. “He would do anything to see you happy. He didn’t want you to train, but I talked it through with him. He’s easy to reason with.”

Lilja’s brow crumpled. “He didn’t want me to train? It’s like he thinks I’m not capable just because I’m young. I want to learn so I can help. I know I can.”

“It’s not that,” Alvara said. “He lost your father and doesn’t want to lose you.”

“Gods, he can turn into such a mother bear sometimes,” Kat grumbled. “Did you know that one time I strained my arm from flying too much, and he told me I shouldn’t fly for a month?”

That seemed…unreasonable, even for Boden. “A month?”