Page 114 of The Ashborn

Connak and Tristian moved the rubble along with everyone else, though their movements were not as fluid as they once were. Kienna didn’t press them for urgency. She didn’t deserve that from them. When the rubble cleared enough, the woodcarver’s private workshop stood perfectly upright, though it threatened to tumble as soon as they pulled it open. Kienna held her breath without realizing it, the moment stretching before she crossed the threshold.

She pulled the door, ducking as the framing crashed around her. Inside, the private workshop stood in pristine condition. The air smelled of cedar and old dust, a preserved world untouched by the ruin outside. Lamplight cast warm shadows over stacks of wood shavings and tools. In the far corner, Ash sat hunched on a stool, holding the dragon carving in one hand and inspecting a tiny ring engraved with intricate patterns in the other.

“It’s about time someone dug me out of here,” he grumbled and glanced up. “You look like you’ve had fun.”

Kienna’s breath caught, and she pushed forward, wrapping her arms around the old man. She knew she reeked of battle and dead things, but he deserved it for what he put her through. “You damn fool of an old man,” she sobbed, squeezing with her entire body.

Ruva padded in behind her and, with a soft whine, nudged Ash’s arm before licking his cheek. The old man flinched, muttering incoherently, but his hands instinctively reached to pat the wolf’s head.

In that moment, Kienna collapsed, her body shaking from the fever and everything that broke inside her. The warmth of Ash’s chest, the steady thud of his heart, the smell of carved wood and oil… It all wrapped around her like a balm. She sobbed deeply. Part of her was being rinsed clean, as if her grief finally found its place to land.

“It’s okay, little Ashling,” Ash grunted. He laid his carvings down and held her until she let herself fall asleep, the fever wracking her already fragile body.

—Tristian—

Tristian sent Connak and Danek to get horses. They hovered over Kienna too much, and she needed space to rest. His heart remained neutral, where he needed it to be. He couldn’t unleash it again. Not for her. Not for anyone. He swallowed hard, staring off into the distance. His brother’s death threatened to destroy Tristian’s very existence.

“Will I see her again?” Calder Ashfell’s voice broke him from his trance as the old man held Kienna close to him.

Tristian didn’t know how to respond. The weight of that question would be up to Kienna, but her body needed healing, and Dove Port couldn’t give that to her. The woodcarver—Ash, as Kienna liked to call him—set Kienna’s heart on the path she was bound to follow. Keeping him away now would be tricky. The moment Elira found out, they would do everything in their power to dismantle it. They would want to avoid the fallout of whatever this could mean for the rebellion that once bore Vaerin and Avenna Ashfell.

“You’re the first family she’s met that welcomed her warmly.” Tristian cleared a path in the rubble outside Ash’s workshop to ready transportation to Trinity.

Ash chuckled. “I wouldn’t say it was a warm reception.”

“But she won your heart?” Tristian’s brow rose, the menial conversation weighing heavily on him.

“We Ashfells are stubborn and persistent when we want to be.” His voice was low and carefully weighted. “You know, she’s the spitting image of my daughter, with hints of the Elvish man sprinkled in there.”

Tristian paused, squinting. There was heavy truth in Ash’s statement. Her ears poked lightly through her hair like Tristian’s. Hardly pointed enough to call oneself Elvish but not round enough to be human.

A half-breed, like him.

This was why Elira treated her so coldly, quick to push Kienna to the sidelines without discarding her completely. She still needed Kienna on their side.

Being bred by both human and Elvish descent was uncommon and meant fighting for everything in the Elvish community while being handed everything in the human community. Tristian knew all too well how disorienting it was to be treated as a god in one realm but like dirt in the other unless he could prove his worth.

His mind wandered back to Tislin. His brother struggled with the way things were in Trinity. He didn’t want to fight for any of it. When the judgmental stares were unbearable, Tislin resolved to hide. He left Tristian fighting on his own. Now, he would fight alone for the rest of his life.

Kienna stirred faintly in Ash’s arms, her brow twitching with dreams. Ruva slept curled nearby, one ear flicking as if still listening.

“I heard you talking with your soldiers about the Elvish man on the bridge,” Ash said, barely above a whisper. His eyes didn’t meet Tristian’s but stayed fixed on the grain of cedar beneath his hand. “May the heavens keep watch over him wherever the river carries his soul.”

Tristian nodded, the weight of Tislin’s absence tugging on him once again. He tried to keep busy for as long as he could to not think about it, but the mere mention of him made him feel like the bridge in the Goldmere—unstable and ready to crumble into darkness. Tislin would have rolled his eyes at how tightly Tristian wound himself. The thought almost made him laugh.

Almost.

“It helps to talk about it,” Ash admitted. “I can’t speak from experience since I drank myself into a hole for twenty-five years after I lost my children, but it’s what I heard.”

“Technically, you only lost one child,” Tristian stated bluntly, continuing to busy himself with moving cedar out of his path.

“I lost Vaerin the day he turned on his sister. Whoever is in the kingdom up north is not the man I raised.”

“Perhaps you could talk about it now,” Tristian mocked.

Ash’s brows furrowed deeply into the center of his forehead, brown eyes sizzling. “I buried more truth in sawdust than you’ve faced in your whole life. I knew you when you were a child. So, hush your tongue and show some damn respect, boy.”

“Apologies, I’m…exhausted.”