Page 22 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“She has not.” Elara thrust a violet ribbon toward him. “You see this? Lorrain tied it in her hair every day.” Then she fished a silver ring from her pocket and held it up. “And this. She wore it on her pinky and toyed with it whenever she was nervous.” She nearly thrust them into his face. “Lorrain would never abandon these. Not ever.”

The captain barely glanced at them. “She’ll come back.” He shrugged. “Or she won’t.”

Elara stormed to the moot hall, where the reeve met her appeal with even less concern.

Even Lord Avelric, who held Jarovina in his thin grasp, offered little more than idle curiosity when Elara confronted him in his keep. “A beauty, gone missing?” he mused, inspecting her over the furs at the collar of his cloak. “Troubling.”

By the last dismissal, reality settled upon Elara. There was only one path left: she would search for Lorrain herself. A sharp stitch of fear pierced her chest. She had never set foot beyond the village boundary. But the moons knew she would not let that stop her.

Her plan started in the tavern.

Woodsmoke and spilled ale struck her the moment she pushed through the doors. Blonde braid swinging, she marched across the room toward the corner where Leonid lounged, head bowed over his cups.

At the first sight of him, Elara’s heart stuttered. There he was: her best friend’s brother, golden-haired and beautiful beyond reason—the boy she had adored since girlhood. Heat rose to her neck as she remembered the single night they had shared. A night that had left her with little more than the fragile hope he might notice her again.

Any such longing shattered the moment she took in his state. Drink clung to him in the loosened fall of his shirt, the boots crusted with mud, the hair in careless disarray. That he could give himself over to such indulgence, now of all times, twisted something sharp in her gut.

Her hand flew out and struck him.

The slap cracked across the tavern, stunning conversation into silence. Leonid’s head snapped up, grey eyes unfocused yet flashing with wounded pride. “You dare—”

“Yes,” Elara cut him off, trembling with anger and nerves. “Your sister is missing, yet you drown here in ale while she may be suffering a moons-know-what fate!”

His crooked smirk wavered. “And what would you have me do?” he shot back, slurred. “March into the forest alone and fight phantoms with my fists?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

He scoffed, bitterly. “Why not trouble one of your own brothers to join this noble quest of yours?”

Elara’s jaw tightened. “You know very well my father needs every hand just to keep the farm standing through the next day. But you… you hide here like a useless, cowardly—” She stopped herself just short of something worse. “Fool.”

Leonid glared at her, color creeping into his face as all eyes in the tavern fixed on him. Something in her fury—or the watching crowd—pierced through the armor of his vanity. He swore, shoved back his chair, and lurched to his feet.

“Fine,” he growled. “If only to silence you.”

Elara groaned. “Not the oath of a hero. But it will do.”

They left Jarovina at dusk, entering the forest as the last light drained behind the mountains. Pines rose around them, tall black silhouettes, and night’s hush settled into the air. Elara’s nerves skittered, but she pressed on, searching the damp undergrowth for any sign: a broken twig, a scuffed heel-mark, a place where the ground had been disturbed.

Leonid followed in sullen reluctance, his cloak snagging on brambles. He stumbled often, cursed loudly, and with every complaint, the last traces of Elara’s affection thinned.

“Quiet,” she hissed.

Leonid scoffed and made a show of collapsing onto a log. “We’re going in circles,” he said, rubbing his ankle. “There are wolves out there, Elara. Wolves.”

“Yes,” Elara said, scanning the dark between the trunks. “Which is why we don’t announce ourselves.” She nudged his boot with her own. “Get up.”

A branch snapped to their left and Elara’s breath caught. She listened, every sense drawn tight, until the forest stilled again—then forced herself forward.

Leonid did not move. He stretched his legs stubbornly before him. “We are done for the night,” he declared. “I will not sleep in the woods. I will freeze.”

Elara hesitated, then nodded once. Reluctantly, urgency yielded to reason. Whatever fate had met Lorrain would not be undone by two exhausted fools stumbling in the dark—nor by inviting the notice of whatever moved beyond the treeline.

Chapter 13

Elara

They found lodging at a modest inn in the next village. Leonid promptly secured another mug of ale, his golden smile finding easy purchase on the serving girl, who laughed readily at his every word. He seemed at ease again.