Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Stop gawking and get back to work,” Sithuren barked the next afternoon. The blacksmith had only warmed up to Alvara marginally, if that, in their time working together.
She jolted at his words but didn’t tear her eyes from the two elven females that had stumbled into the city only moments ago, escorted by guards. Tears streaked down the bronze face of the younger one, her eyes so reddened and puffy, it was impossible to tell their color.
Though the copper eyes of the older female prodded at something Alvara’s mind wanted to keep locked away. Before Alvara could dig into the feeling to see where it led, Kat landed in front of the pair in her falcon form, shifted, and pulled them into a tight embrace.
“I wasn’t gawking,” Alvara grumbled as she picked up the blade she had stopped sharpening at some point.
“You were, and you know it,” Sithuren said.
When Alvara had finished for the day, she ripped her apron off and tossed it over the anvil before tugging on her coat. Maybe she could catch Kat at the food hall during dinner to find out who those two elves were. For some reason she couldn’t quite place, she needed to know.
Alvara heaved the door open, and for the first time since she had arrived, looked around the room for familiar faces she could join for a meal—never mind that her reason for doing so bordered on nosy.
Kat sat in the far corner, huddled with the two females that had found their way into the city that morning. Plate of food in hand, Alvara approached the group, who all spoke in hushed tones.
“Can I join?”
Instead of the usual bright smile from Kat, Alvara’s words only garnered a subtle nod. She had never seen her…friend, she supposed she should call her now, so solemn. Before she could ask what had happened, the younger elf spoke.
“You’re the one my parents helped. And now he’s gone.” Her sweet, melodious voice dissolved into shuddering sobs.
Alvara took a seat and looked to Kat, whose thick lashes hung heavy with tears. “It’s all my fault. It was my idea to involve your family. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for the actions of a madman.
Tam always knew this day would come, one way or another.
” The older female rubbed the younger elf’s back in slow, soothing motions.
“We’ll find a way forward, I promise.” She turned to Alvara, her eyes rimmed with red.
“Glad to see you made it out safely. I only hope we can say the same for my son.”
“Son?” Alvara asked.
“Alvara,” Kat said quietly, “this is Boden’s mother, Sylvi, and his sister, Lilja. They’re the ones who helped you after escaping the palace.”
Oh gods. That had been Boden’s family? Their home? “Your seluri healed Pyry. He’s…gone?”
“One of our servants made the connection to who you were once the king sent his guards to search the city,” Sylvi said.
“We use the size of our property and orchards to employ as many demi-elves as we can, and they can get nervous, understandably so. He didn’t want to be caught helping a fugitive, so he turned us in to the king’s forces.
Our housekeeper found out his plan and was able to warn us so we could leave just in time.
Tam, the stubborn bastard, refused.” Her hand paused on her daughter’s back, her fingers clawing the fabric.
“He said he needed to do what he could in the council to defy the king. We’re not sure what happened to him. ”
That would seem plausible, except that forming a soul bond opened a communication pathway for emotions. If Sylvi’s seluri had faded, she would know without a doubt.
Alvara’s confusion must have become apparent on her face, because Sylvi answered her unspoken question.
“He wasn’t my seluri. The only one who could ever fill that role has long since passed.
Tam knew that, and he still chose me. That sentimental fool.
” Her voice splintered, leaving a stifling silence in its wake.
Most people would craft beautiful words about love and loss, the light that would eventually shine through the pain.
But those words had done nothing to make Alvara feel less alone when her world came crashing down around her, the condolences failing to even make a scratch in the wall of grief that still surrounded her.
Good thing Alvara wasn’t most people. “It hurts worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.
And people will try to tell you it gets better, and you’ll want to shake them.
Tell them how much it hurts and how things will never be the same.
” Boden’s sister, Lilja, quieted her cries as she looked at Alvara.
Who saw a younger version of herself, losing more than anyone should so early in life.
Maybe that was why she said, “I train with weapons before breakfast in the clearing. You’re welcome to join. It’s always helped me.”
Sylvi helped her daughter to her feet. “I should get her settled. It will be a long few days waiting for any news of Tam or Boden.”
Boden. Alvara hadn’t even considered what this would mean for him.
What the king might do after realizing Boden’s family had betrayed him and helped an ally of the humans, or so he thought, escape.
It would be generous to say Alvara worried for him, but he didn’t deserve to fade.
Already his father’s life lay on her conscience—she had no desire to add Boden to the list.
The day he returned, it felt like the entire city breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Alvara spotted him limping by as she finished up her last smithing task of the day. Angry cuts and bruises covered his tan skin, and his shoulders sagged with an unseen weight.
He was alone.
Before hearing about his family, Alvara had maintained some level of anger against him from their last conversation, when he whisked that poor elf away to her fate.
But now those frustrations seemed so small and foolish in the face of what had occurred because of Alvara and Pyry.
Just like the human servants, she hadn’t considered what involving others like Boden’s family in their escape might mean.
And now they were paying a steep price for her carelessness.
Boden shook off the guard who had brought him inside and paused mid-step to stare up at the sky.
His clothes, always muted in color and finer than most of the others’, lay wrinkled and stained with all manner of horrors.
But nothing compared to the pain pinching his features and the hollowness in his eyes.
Did he even know his mother and sister had survived? At least Alvara knew her family’s fate, though it wasn’t one she would have ever wished for. She couldn’t bear to live not knowing whether her family was alive or had faded without her being able to say goodbye.
Alvara set down the weapon she had been hammering and wiped her grimy hands on her apron. She rushed out of the forge, ignoring Sithuren’s comments about her sticking her nose in others’ business.
“Your mother and sister are here. Safe. I just thought you should know.” Alvara’s ineloquent words felt slightly ridiculous as she took in his battered frame.
Boden’s bloodshot eyes found her. It must’ve been days since he last slept. “Thank you.” He staggered, not toward the residential quarters where his family would be, but toward…the food hall?
She imagined he was hungry after his harrowing journey, but surely a bowl of stew could at least wait until he saw his loved ones.
“Boden, they’re not in there. It’s not even dinnertime yet!” Her words did nothing to slow him down, but she still couldn’t stop herself from following him inside.
He slipped into the kitchen at the back of the food hall, and Alvara wasn’t entirely sure how to react when she found him at the counter working beside the cooks.
“Did you miss me that much?” Boden asked, who had apparently lost his mind, because he was chopping a large pile of vegetables and cracking jokes like his father hadn’t just faded.
“Is that even sanitary? You’re covered in injuries.” That was undoubtedly not what Alvara had planned to say to him, but here she stood.
He peered at her over his shoulder, his knife hovering in mid-air. “Did you come here to critique my cooking skills? You wouldn’t be the first.”
This conversation had taken an odd turn, and Alvara did what she could to steer it back in the right direction, all the while reminding herself to skip dinner tonight. “Aren’t you going to see your family?”
If she had even one more chance, one more moment to see Eloisa, her mother, or her father, she would drop everything and run to them. So why was he here?
“I will.” He stared at her with pursed lips, as if that answer should be enough to prod her to leave. But the only thing Alvara did have these days was time. Boden sighed, picked up a second knife, and pointed the handle in her direction. “If you’d like to talk, you have to chop.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Kitchen rules,” one of the cooks called out. “If you’re planning on spending time in here, you have to be working.”
Alvara hadn’t expected to cook a meal, but to be fair, she hadn’t expected to have this conversation in the first place. She took the knife from his hand, but all she could think of as she stared at its sharp edge was her father, drained of all life. Covered in blood.
Boden gently removed the knife from her grasp and tipped his head toward a basket of vegetables.
“You can start by washing those. Now that I know my family is safe, it’s better for me to calm myself before I see them.
They need me to be strong, so I came here to quiet my mind. It’s become a bit of a habit.”
Alvara poured a healthy dose of fresh water in the bowl and moved a handful of potatoes over to clean.
“That’s why I go to the forge. It helps me forget everything else.
” She wasn’t sure why she was speaking about herself, but she could feel the pain radiating off him in nauseating waves, and it sang a familiar song to her own shattered soul.
What would she want in this moment if she were Boden? Probably to be left alone to keep herself from dissolving into a useless mess. “I should go,” Alvara said, her fingers slowing where they rubbed at a spot of dirt.
The thwacking of his knife paused. “Stay.” Her head snapped up in surprise, but Boden only resumed his rhythmic chopping. “The company feels good.”
She doubted her presence felt that good, but she kept her mouth shut. In comparison to whatever had gone on with King Einar, this conversation was probably the best Boden had experienced in weeks.
“Your father?” The words felt heavy, as if they might not make it out of her mouth.
Boden’s hand tightened around the handle of his knife. “He’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry, Boden.”
“The king had”—his throat bobbed—“strung him up like meat in front of the palace for everyone to see what happened to traitors, especially those who betrayed their own kind in favor of humans. By the time I had arrived back in Tasírath, my father was minutes away from fading. The king had kept him alive, just enough so I would have to watch…I tried my best to save him, but—”
He set the blade on the cutting board and leaned his weight into the counter.
“I traveled all that way, brought someone to their certain fading, and it was all for nothing. My father’s gone, I’m a wanted traitor in Tasírath, and the treatment of the humans in the palace is horrendous.
My only use was in the information I could bring here.
It was the only way I was worth anything. ”
Boden laid his head in his hands, and Alvara bit her lip. This conversation felt far too deep for how little she knew him, but she could tell he needed to let it out into the open.
“I don’t know much, but I know you’re worth everything to the elves here.” Maybe not to her, but she kept that bit of information to herself.
“How were you able to do it?”
Alvara set her potato in front of him. “Do what?”
“Your father. You didn’t let it break you.”
She felt the urge to laugh but decided that would probably be better to avoid at a moment like this. “Denial works quite well.”
Only the shuffling of the other cooks filled the space between them, as if Boden was waiting for her to say more. Something real. She supposed she owed him that much after what his family had risked—and lost—for Pyry.
“As you reminded me,” Alvara said, “if I let myself fade too, it would all be for nothing. I live to make the king pay for everything he’s done.”
Boden stared at her, unblinking. Had she said the wrong thing? He took slow steps toward the door of the kitchen and paused, his back still turned. “I live to make him pay too.”
As soon as he was gone, his absence left Alvara to grapple with her own thoughts, which was something she’d prefer to avoid if she could help it, so she started to head back to the forge.
The same cook who had spoken earlier stopped her.
“You were right, you know.” He gestured to the pile of chopped vegetables Boden had left behind.
“I would never let him touch the food here in the dirty state he was in. Not in my kitchen at least. That’s why I let him work with the produce we can’t use. What we’ll feed the animals.”
She cocked her head. “Does he know that?”
“No, and you’re not going to tell him.”
“You’re telling me I was washing vegetables for livestock. Essentially wasting time.”
The older elf’s pale skin wrinkled at the corners of his gray eyes. “It’s not a waste of time, not if it offers even a few moments of peace. Sometimes we need the stakes to be lower than life or fading. Him especially.”
“Then why don’t you tell him the truth?”
“Sometimes lying to ourselves and the ones we care about is easier than facing what's in front of us, wouldn’t you agree?” He moved past her and swept the chopped bits of food into a basket.
“He needs to find meaning, a purpose in everything he does, that one. If hacking vegetables does the trick, who am I to take that away? Now you keep our little secret, or you may find your food even more unpalatable than usual.” He shook Alvara’s hand.
“The name’s Isathir. You’re welcome in my kitchen anytime. ”