Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Over the next three days, Alvara and Pyry rode as fast as their horses could handle, the increasing distance steadily burning through the fear that whispered in Alvara’s ear to constantly peer over her shoulder for a sign of the king or his elves.
They did their best to stay in larger cities in Nyr and Dalvi, blending into the crowds to avoid unwanted attention and escaping the freezing bite of the season in local inns as long as they dared.
Despite countless hours spent in each other’s company, they barely exchanged more than a few words, the space between them strained with things unspoken and memories—nightmares—that would never leave them as long as they lived.
When they finally arrived in Vorianta on the third night, the air hung heavy with snow, so thick Alvara could barely make out the city below her. She had never been so happy to see a place delightfully devoid of plants.
“Thank you again, Pyry.” She searched his exhausted face, tinged pink from the cold. “If you need anything—”
“Go home. I’ll take the horses.”
She dismounted, tucked her gloved hands into her pockets, and set off toward her house, her boots sinking ankle-deep in the powder.
Pyry had never been one to acknowledge his issues or past. Why Alvara had thought their experience together in Ela might alter that, even a fraction, she had no idea. He would never change.
Alvara clacked her boots together to remove as much snow as possible and paused in the doorway of her home. What few possessions she owned hadn’t budged since she had left. Everything was the same…yet nothing was.
Her eyes settled on a small painting of Vorianta on her bookshelf, one Eloisa had given Alvara for her birthday the year before she passed.
The textured brushstrokes, the blurred patches of blues, grays, and whites that somehow captured the pure force of the mountains while still accentuating their otherworldly beauty…
it all seemed colder than before. Almost foreign.
Everything with Eloisa—every memory, every conversation—had been transformed by what she learned in Tasírath. She would have preferred to live the rest of her life in ignorance of the truth. The stakes felt too high and the consequences too great.
Alvara laid the painting face down on the shelf, letting her touch linger on the edges of the canvas one more time before turning in for the night.
She rubbed her eyes as she entered the forge the next morning, much later than she had hoped. Her sleep had been even worse than usual, and Jalomir was already hard at work honing a longsword. That old elf woke at an ungodsly early hour.
“Good morning, young one. Tea is in the back.”
Thank Vitharen. It was generous to call anything in Dalvi a tea, when really it was a mixture of potent plants and herbs, but the bright and often tart nature of the ones she tried on rare occasions was enough to wake anyone up for the day.
She poured herself a steaming cup and gazed at the stone walls of the building, so similar to the dungeon’s.
So much blood. Drowning her. Drowning Pyry.
Her sweaty hands clenched around the mug she held, the heat searing her flesh.
“Alvara. Alvara. Alvara.”
A hand touched her shoulder, and her heart leapt into her throat. The mug slipped from her quivering fingers and shattered into pieces on the floor.
“Alvara, are you all right, my dear?”
She forced herself to focus on Jalomir’s face, tight with worry. “Just tired.” She swept up the mess with a broom, cursing herself for even thinking about Ela and the palace. Better to tuck it into the neglected corners of her mind to gather dust.
Jalomir watched her, his eyebrows drawn together. “If you feel too tired from the journey, you can head home. There’s nothing pressing that needs to be done today. You came back much earlier than I had expected.”
“I’m fine. I just missed being at the forge. It really was a nice break from Dalvi.” She didn’t want him to feel guilty for sending her to Ela when he had hoped it would fix her. If only it were that easy.
“I’m very glad. I hoped it would remind you that there is an entire world to see. A life to be lived.” Jalomir shuffled away and tossed his next comment over his hunched shoulder. “How is Pyry?”
She knew it. He had hoped her and Pyry would renew their connection again while they traveled. But the image of his blood-soaked body, moments from fading, wiped any humor from her face. “He’s alive.”
“Ah. I hope you weren’t too rough on him. He does care for you, you know.” Jalomir chattered away about advice on love that Alvara didn’t need and likely never would, so she busied her hands and entered the mind-numbing trance of forging weapons.
The next evening, Alvara’s back complained endlessly about its heavy load as she walked, her muscles still grumbling about days spent being jostled on a horse. She hadn’t even bothered to attend her morning trainings or run through Mikavar’s drills on her own since returning to Dalvi.
And she had left her father on his own for too many days already, who had likely subsisted on what little food he could find in his bare cupboards, not nearly enough to keep him healthy.
The absurd number of warming dishes she packed was the only way she could appease the guilt nibbling on her conscience.
Alvara would stay late tonight and let him lecture her for hours about some mythical figure that had probably never existed. It was the least she could do.
Before her, the front door of her youngling home whipped back and forth, battered by the ruthless wind. Her father must have left it open. It would take hours to clean up the blizzard that likely ravaged the inside of the house.
A figure sat beneath the frosty shroud, the pure white tarnished with crimson.
Her father.
She stumbled through the snow and let her pack fall to the ground, casting prayer after prayer to the gods she so often ignored. Not him. Don’t take him from me. Please. This was only a nightmare. She would find her father reading as always.
A sob broke free from her lips. His body. His favorite chair. She wiped the flakes from his pallid skin with shaking hands. A dagger, unlike anything she had ever forged or seen in the elven kingdoms, punctured his chest. The blood.
She laid her ear to his grisly tunic, even though every piece of her knew no heartbeat would echo her own. Alvara buried her face in his neck and screamed until her very lungs threatened to give out.
Why?
The rage and grief claiming her body hacked the walls around her Dalvian magic to bits, and it emerged from its deep hiding place for the first time since Eloisa’s fading.
Ice slithered across the floor and up the walls, devouring everything in its path, but she didn’t care.
Let it ravage her life force. Let her fade alongside the last member of her family.
Gone.
She drew back for a breath. His warm eyes, closed forever. He was gone.
Her magic only spiraled out of her faster with each passing minute, gobbling up her very spirit. It would bleed her dry until only her corpse remained.
“Alvara.”
She lifted her head, and the edges of her vision started to dim.
An elf. The Nyrian elf from the palace. Why was he here, right after her father…
had he done this? Or maybe he had been sent here to take her to King Einar again.
Either way, it didn’t matter. Soon there would be nothing left, sacrificed to the Dalvian powers she despised.
Alvara wobbled on her knees, and the world tilted on its axis. His arms caught her before she collided face-first with the floor, though she could do nothing to stop her ice from swallowing him too.
“You need to sever your connection with your magic.” He laid her down on something soft, his movements gentle. “If you fade, their sacrifices will all be for nothing. You can choose to live and make them worth something.”
Eloisa. Mother. Father. Maybe she was ready to join them, to leave this life that ripped everything she loved away from her. She was the least of them. What good had she ever done that had spared her from the same fate?
A blurred figure crossed her vision and knelt beside her. Her eyes strained to bring clarity to the person’s features: sparkling blue eyes, a delicate nose, long golden hair that hung in gentle waves. But it was that sunny voice—Eloisa’s voice—that took Alvara’s breath away.
“You have to get up.”
She was just as beautiful as Alvara remembered. “I’m too tired. It’s too hard.” Her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t even sure she had spoken.
Eloisa’s rosy lips stretched into a breathtaking smile that shredded Alvara’s heart into a thousand mangled pieces. “It’s meant to be hard. A life free of pain is a life without love. I love you. But you need to get off your ass and start living. Go.”
A broken laugh left Alvara’s lips as her sister vanished.
Eloisa was right, as always. Her family’s memory deserved to live on through Alvara’s life, through what she chose to do with the time she had left.
She closed her eyes and deepened her breathing, letting the long inhales and exhales calm her thundering pulse.
A sigh broke through her haze. The Nyrian elf. He stood at the hearth, frost clinging to his eyelashes and the stubble along his tan jaw.
“Are you taking me back?” She closed her eyes for one long blink to block everything out, as if that would prove none of this was real.
“Would I be building you a lovely fire if that were the case?” He stacked the last pieces of wood in the hearth.
Alvara said nothing. She could only focus on forcing air in and out of her lungs.