Chapter 25 #2
Boden returned just as Alvara’s ice spear splintered a tree branch with a resounding crack. She stood a little straighter. Her skill in magic was now more than passable, and the ability to craft weapons with it had slowly grown her enthusiasm for wielding.
He wiggled two tomes in the air. “The runes were quite easy to find. The ancient and most likely cursed weapon? Not as simple.”
She wiped her hands on her coat before grabbing a book. “They let you take these outside of the library?” Her father would have panicked at such precious knowledge exposed to the elements.
“You’re more worried about the books than the fact that I mentioned a cursed weapon?
” Boden shook his head, quietly chuckling.
“You really are a tarinthúr’s daughter.” He placed his hand on the cover of the tome she held.
“Also, this may come as an immense shock to you, but some people do enjoy my company and find me rather charming.”
Alvara harrumphed and shook his touch away. “Then they clearly haven’t spent enough time with you.”
She thumbed through the pages and stopped on a depiction of a dagger. The dagger. Her fingers trembled at the corners of the image. Dagger of Helvati.
“The goddess of Helvahem?” Boden’s voice tickled her ear, and she jumped away from where he leaned over her shoulder.
“I was hoping for something less ominous.” She traced the outline of the dagger on the page. “The other weapons in this book, they’re all the original weapons of the gods. Forged by the gods.” Before even Vitharen’s Fracture and the creation of the dwarves. “How did King Einar get his hands on it?”
“A temple? I’ve seen other relics of the gods in the humans’ temples.”
“He couldn’t have found it in one of our kingdoms. We don’t have any temples.” Hardly a wonder, seeing as the gods had butchered their High King and tossed the elves out of their council when they were no longer deemed worthy.
“It’s possible when his father invaded the human realm, he decided to pillage a temple or two, and the blade somehow returned here without him,” Boden said as he flipped through the book on runes.
King Einar’s father wouldn’t have been the first elf to make rash decisions after the loss of a seluri. But none of it mattered if they didn’t know what the blade did or what power it offered the wielder.
She slammed her book closed, and it coughed up a cloud of dust. If anyone would have known, it would have been her father. But that knowledge had faded along with him.
“Here.” Boden tapped a group of symbols on the page. “This matches the runes most palaces use to block visitors from wielding their magic. I’ll bring it to Rav, and he may be able to help sway the council.”
After days of conversations Alvara hadn’t been a part of, though Boden had tried to admit her to the council meetings, they agreed to her plan with the stipulation that she proved its efficacy.
An easy task and a satisfying one, especially when it meant she could throw rocks at Boden’s head that he could do nothing with his magic to block.
Over the next few weeks, any Nyrian elves they could spare from the trenches focused their efforts on inscribing each stone of the wall with the magic-blocking runes, while the few Elan elves, Lilja included, grew what food they could to build up stores in case of a siege.
Though from Alvara’s limited knowledge of King Einar, she doubted he had enough patience for anything but razing the city to the ground.
Alvara continued to train others and toil away in the forge every second she could keep her eyes open.
With her and Sithuren’s late nights, they had produced an acceptable number of spears, blades, and the like, fueled in part by metal Pyry had convinced the blacksmith he worked with to contribute to their cause.
Meanwhile, more and more elves and demi-elves fled for the other kingdoms and the human realm, leaving the streets devoid of activity that didn’t involve preparing for war.
No younglings skipping about and arguing over whose turn it was with a toy.
No elderly elves hobbling arm in arm under the light of the lampposts.
Lilja was the only exception. She and Sylvi still lingered, a topic that choked the life out of the morning combat trainings whenever Boden found the time to join.
Even elves Alvara had only seen a handful of times sent her imploring looks to free them from the same conversation had day in and day out.
Boden dropped his training staff to his side. “It isn’t safe. If you have no desire to head to the human realm, I won’t force you. But you will not stay here.”
Alvara smacked him in the chest with hers. “Less talking, more training.”
He glared at her, while Lilja waved her own staff in his face. “We’re not leaving you, Boden. Not again. I know you think I’m not capable—”
“Weapon down, please. I don’t want to have to call a healer because you stabbed your brother in the eye,” Alvara said as she adjusted another elf’s grip on his weapon. Lilja tucked her staff behind her back but kept her gaze trained on Boden.
He lowered his head. “Of course I know you’re capable, Lilja. That’s exactly what scares me the most. The king himself may be coming, and if he knows you and Mother are here, Elamara knows what he might do to you.”
Alvara searched the crowd for Aurilena’s golden eyes, but the female only shrugged. They needed Kat. She had a talent for handling these kinds of moments with ease, but she had been patrolling constantly in the past few days for any sign of the Elan forces.
“They could stay at Havur’s,” Alvara said, raising her eyebrows at Aurilena, who nodded. “That way they’re out of the city, far from the fighting, but not gone.”
Boden thudded the staff against his thigh and grimaced. “It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do. But Lilja, don’t even think about approaching the city until I come find you.”
Lilja examined her training staff with an excessive amount of interest.
“Lilja,” he repeated with the reprimanding tone of a father.
“Yes, yes, I promise.” The wink she gave Alvara tied a tight knot in her stomach that wouldn’t come undone until the battle had passed.
If they all made it out alive.