Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
After another agonizing few hours in the saddle traveling back to the Eskenti settlement, Alvara plopped herself on the nearest bench and gave her leg a much-needed rest. Boden had spent the better part of an hour convincing Chief Frigar to allow them to leave Gosibik so soon after arriving, and now he updated the Eskenti.
They flocked to him as soon as he stepped foot in their boundaries, while Heila hurried off toward the refugees.
“A blood oath? That was quite…” the Eskenti leader, Bryn, trailed off as she eyed Alvara, who busied herself with tightening her bandages.
“Brave,” Boden finished, and warmth bloomed in her cheeks. “Because of her, we have somewhere to seek refuge. Anyone who is willing needs to help train the demi-elves. That has to be our first priority. Until they’re under control, they are a danger to everyone around them.”
“We’ll start sending our people into the town and bring what supplies and livestock we can,” Bryn said. She didn’t bother with a farewell before strutting into the crowds with her underlings in tow.
“Go,” Alvara said. “I know you have a thousand things to do. I’m more than happy here. I just need to sit awhile.”
Boden eyed her. “As long as you do your best to avoid any further injuries while I’m in Gosibik. Otherwise Heila may run out of bandages.”
“Yes, Mother.” Alvara rested her head against the wall of whatever building they had stopped outside and closed her eyes, letting her mind drift away from shore into the peaceful, lapping waves of slumber.
“Planning on sleeping out here?”
Alvara stirred at the sound of Ravanel’s voice, which oddly brimmed with much less weary annoyance than usual.
“I’d prefer a bed.” She rubbed her eyes and groaned to her feet. Gods, she sounded like she was five hundred years old.
His gray eyes tracked her movements with what she would almost dare to call interest and…a trace of concern? “Have you eaten?”
“Have I eaten?” she repeated dumbly.
Her stomach grumbled in answer, which seemed enough for Ravanel, who turned without a word, leaving Alvara to limp after him through the busy streets. People young and old had begun to pack their belongings, their entire lives, ready to migrate to the human lands.
Ravanel led her into a small wooden building, where she stopped two steps past the doorway.
Worn tables and benches, demi-elves and elves sharing food and each other’s company, just like the food hall in Ilmanir.
She couldn’t help but think of Isathir and the other cooks there, the kitchen that had revealed to her so many unexpected truths about Boden.
The place where their friendship had started on wobbly legs and slowly gained its footing.
“Are you coming or not?” Ravanel sat at the farthest table from the other chattering voices in the hall, where a jug of water, cups, and two steaming bowls of food waited.
Alvara scooted onto the bench across from him, unable to decide which was the more unexpected event of the past few days—King Einar’s destruction of the magic barrier or Ravanel inviting her to eat with him.
The sight of his missing arm still startled her, so she focused on his pale forehead instead. “You look…great.”
Ravanel leaned back and arched a dark brow. “Really? You too?”
“Fine.” She was rarely one to mince words, and neither was he. And she had a feeling Ravanel was tired of everyone dancing around the topic, too afraid to tiptoe closer. “How much does it make you want to suffocate everyone?”
“It’s damn infuriating.” His fingers curled into a fist around the spoon he held. “And everyone pretends like nothing’s changed.”
“What kind of shifter was it?”
His only reaction to her question was a few, long blinks. It was the closest she had ever seen him to showing even a hint of surprise.
Maybe she had gone too far. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”
“A wolf.” He rolled his shoulder where his arm should have been. “You’re the only one who’s asked.”
“Not even Kat?”
“She’s focused on staying positive. As always.”
Alvara spoke in between bites of food, each taste breathing small bits of life into her battered body. “She means well. She just doesn’t know how to help. And your father? Did he…?”
Ravanel scoffed. “Alive.”
“And your mother?” Alvara had never seen her, but she must have traveled with them to the settlement.
“Faded.”
“Oh gods, I’m so sorry.”
He pushed his untouched bowl away with a scrape. “Don’t be. She passed giving birth to me, as my father often reminds me. Hard to miss someone you never met.”
Alvara found that difficult to believe but took a slow sip of water instead of voicing that opinion out loud.
“This”—he gestured to the space between them—“I wanted you to know, you earned my respect.”
She almost choked on her next bite. Respect? It wasn’t a word she had ever expected to leave his lips, at least not around her.
“You fought for Ilmanir, for our king. Survived King Einar. Negotiated with the humans. But it’s what you did for him.” Ravanel leaned to the side and stared pointedly at where her back brushed the wood of the bench behind her. “He won’t forget, you know.”
She knew what he meant—anyone would. But she still couldn’t help herself from feigning innocence. “Forget what?”
“You know what.”
Alvara spooned a healthy portion of stew into her mouth and chewed the tender mix of meat and vegetables slowly.
He stared back with no emotion, nothing other than the small downturn of his lips to betray his irritation with her antics.
“The lashing. I won’t forget either. And before you say that it meant nothing, let me tell you how full of shit that would be.
You mean something to him, and that means something to me. ”
That might have been the longest sentence he had ever said to her, but the contents of it weren’t something she was willing to dissect, at least not with him. “So, tell me more about life with one arm. How is bathing going? Because it looks like maybe it’s been a little difficult—”
A blast of air ruffled her hair. But even through the strands, she could see a flicker of amusement cross his face.
Content with a full stomach and a little bit of rest, Alvara wandered through the settlement, her nerves alight with newfound energy.
She was the one who had made the blood oath, represented their people, and yet she was sitting around doing nothing while Boden and so many others worked to prepare Gosibik for the refugees.
And no one was here to tell her not to ride back to the town.
“Going somewhere?” Aurilena asked as Alvara finished settling a saddle on one of the horses.
“I’m heading to the town to see where I can help.” Her hand stilled on the buckle she had tightened. “Want to join?”
“I might as well—I need to speak with the chief about Valo. I have information that might be useful.” She prepped another steed for herself while she spoke. “Forging an alliance with the human chief. Impressive, especially for someone with no court experience.”
“You would’ve done it much more gracefully, I’m sure.”
“Just take the compliment, Alvara.”
Alvara couldn’t fathom growing up in a palace, surrounded by nobility and hidden agendas. “Does it surprise you? That your king allied with King Einar?”
“He’s not my king.” Her words bore a sharp edge. “But I would expect nothing less. He will do what he needs to in order to keep his crown and kingdom. He has always looked down on humans and demi-elves.”
Well, the current Valonian king’s own brother had possibly been murdered by demi-elves, but Alvara wasn’t looking to be tossed onto a funeral pyre by Aurilena, so she let that thought go. “Do you miss it?”
Aurilena laughed, the noise so out of place with her stern demeanor. “There’s not much left to miss. I suppose it gave me a purpose, but this does too. And you?”
Missing Dalvi had become a part of Alvara, a piece of mourning woven into the fibers of her soul. “Of course. I don’t think you ever stop missing what you’ve lost.”
Aurilena made a small sound of agreement, one that left Alvara to wonder what exactly she had given up and who she might never see again.
Throngs of demi-elves paced outside the entrance to Gosibik, murmuring amongst themselves, though a few dissonant shouts rang out, shattering any illusion of peace.
The unrest only heightened as Alvara followed a wobbly path to the chief’s halls, where a small mob rippled with tension.
“This reminds me of the time the kitchen palace ran out of seafood,” Aurilena mumbled under her breath.
Alvara surveyed the crowd and spied windswept brown hair and white tattoos at the front. One look from her was enough to part the sea of bodies and reveal a horde of humans blocking the entrances to the two larger halls, weapons brandished and limbs trembling.
“What’s happening?”
Boden’s rigid body relaxed at the sound of her voice, though he continued to speak in hushed, curt tones with the man at the center of the demonstration.
He squeezed his eyes shut and loosed a long breath.
“Thank Vitharen you’re here. They refuse to let the refugees in and apparently want nothing to do with elves or demi-elves. ”
An unfortunate task for the person who spoke for the refugees, which, it seemed, would be Alvara.
The man at the head of the group of humans fixed his gaze on her bandaged hand, where the blood oath would likely leave a small scar.
Even if she had access to an elven healer, she wouldn’t let them heal the cut with no trace left behind.
The scar served as evidence—a reminder of what she had done and who she represented.
A gob of spit landed at Alvara’s feet. Lovely. Boden’s eyes flared, and as he stared down the human responsible, a fire kindled in her stomach. He had given everything for these people, and so had his father and the elves of Ilmanir.
She moved closer until she stood only two handsbreadths away from the leader’s reddened face, refusing to flinch as he spoke. His words were nothing but garbled gibberish, but they held a clear meaning: violence.