Chapter 18
—Kienna—
He’s not there anymore. Kienna sat outside their apartment with Ruva, her face buried in the wolf’s side. Moira sat next to her, clearly uncomfortable with the constant shifting, but Kienna didn’t press her to leave. I don’t feel any connection at all. Why would he leave?
You weren’t kind, Little Flame. Kienna sat straight and scooted away from Ruva. Ruva whined. I am on your side, always, but Connak deserves better, too.
“Tislin says Connak’s fine, if it helps,” Moira said, putting her hand on Kienna’s knee.
Kienna only shook her head. It didn’t help because if he was fine, it meant he wanted to keep her out.
Kienna shouldn’t have turned on him when he brought up the dungeons, but he put so much pressure on her to fight against Vaerin’s poison, against the nightmares, and it suffocated her.
All she wanted was to learn how to stand for herself and move on her own for once. She hadn’t meant to hurt him.
Connak will come back. Ruva sniffed at Kienna’s legs. You know that.
“I need to get to the workshop,” Kienna sighed, standing up from the alley. She brushed her pants and helped Moira up. “Calder wants to go home today.”
Moira pursed her lips. “Well, it’s a shame. He’s been great company the last few days while you and Tislin were out.”
“Do you think he’ll drink again?”
“I think you’ve given him a pretty good reason not to.” Moira pulled Kienna into a hug, then hurried her away.
Calder went to the shipyard first. The Blades arrived with Tislin earlier and needed all the instructions they could get.
Kienna dipped into a shop and bought a few bowls of strawberries and an assortment of nuts and seeds.
Ever since agreeing to stay sober, the woodcarver turned to snacking.
He liked the sweet treats the best, but the seeds would keep him busier for longer.
When she had enough to last Calder through the day, she hurried along to the workshop and waited.
At first, she resumed her normal duties of cleaning.
It’d been a moment since they’d been at the shop since Calder destroyed his private station.
Kienna needed to stain the table and prepare it for pick up later in the week, but the shattered wood on the floor called to her.
She wanted Calder to return to a place he could love again.
She righted the shelves on the wall, picking up the wooden trinkets from the floor as she placed them strategically back where they belonged, then swept.
Dust coated the inside of her nose, forcing a sneeze here and there, but she was finally glad to clean for him.
He got sober for her. It was the least she could do.
“Almost missed this one,” she said to herself as a carving lay in the corner of the room.
Kienna picked it up, her eyes widening with realization.
It was the dragon she’d seen before, the one with an ember sparked in the heart.
It still pulsed with the same beat, a golden flicker of light emanating from the center.
Kienna ran her thumbs over the grains, but she couldn’t figure out how he did it aside from the breath of magic.
Calder wasn’t magical by any means, so who did he have in his life that was?
Who could have breathed light into the object and left it feeling so pure that even Kienna’s mood shifted into a serene state?
She held the dragon carving close to her heart for a moment longer.
When the shop door creaked open, she jolted and put the dragon back on the shelf where it belonged, heading out to the main showroom.
Calder stepped inside carrying a heavy load of lumber over his shoulder.
His breath was ragged from the climb, but he didn’t complain.
He simply grunted as he lowered the stack of planks with a thud that rattled a few carvings on the nearby shelves.
Kienna rushed to him. “Let me help you with that.”
He waved her off at first, but he didn’t stop her from stacking a few pieces properly by the wall.
“These are extras from the shipyard. Someone ordered double.” He laughed.
“Those men your friends sent…well, they are doing good work at the shipyard, though people are up in arms that there are Elvish folk down there.”
“It’ll be good to see it take form,” Kienna said, brushing sawdust off her apron and ignoring the topic of the Blades.
It didn’t stop her thoughts from wandering back to Connak; if he ventured to the shipyard also or sent his Blades alone.
Her heart squeezed inside her chest as her eyes fell to the table near her.
There was a carving sitting there that she’d been working on for days.
She’d almost finished a rendition of Ruva, but she couldn’t figure out how to mimic the same ember inside Calder’s dragon.
The woodcarver glanced at it as well as he reached for a bowl of walnuts, his eyes sharp but not unfriendly. “You’ve got a decent hand for shaping wood. Better than most I’ve trained.”
Kienna blinked in surprise, mainly because she desperately needed to hear something kind. “Was that a compliment?”
“No,” he said flatly, then added, “but don’t ruin it.”
She laughed under her breath and returned to her bench. Picking up a carving knife, she traced delicate lines across her work. Her strokes were slow and measured while they sat in the quiet of the afternoon.
Calder stood behind her, arms folded. “Your grip’s off by half a finger width.”
She adjusted and kept going.
“Good, Kienna,” he grunted, then paused. “Carve in layers. You’re sculpting the face. Stop digging.”
“I know,” she replied.
He grunted again, then said nothing for a long time. Only watched.
It took a minute for her to catch up to what he’d said to her. Her mind returned to Connak and their poor interaction. She was hardly able to focus on Ruva’s encouraging voice. Kienna’s lips pushed against her cheeks. “I appreciate you calling me by my name. No more ‘girl.’”
Calder huffed. “I think you’ve earned it and proved you can do more than sweep.”
Kienna didn’t look up, but amusement danced in her heart. “You were the one who made me sweep, Ash.” She paused, remembering the first time she had called him Ash. He hated it then. “Sorry, I can go back to ‘Master Calder’ if you prefer.”
“No,” he said, and his voice dropped softer. “Ash is fine.”
He didn’t meet her eyes, but the way he stood said enough.
For the first time, Kienna had done something right in her journey.
She could have given up on him. Left him to rot in his own sorrow while she moved on.
Clearly, he wasn’t the woodcarver Maren wanted her to find, so she’d be justified in it.
Yet, leaving him to drown alone went against her instincts.
Now, working with him in silence for hours, enough pride beamed through her soul to ease the aches of her other troubles. That is, until she realized that the first thing she wanted to do with this information was to tell Connak.
I’m hurt, Ruva whined.
I don’t have to tell you anything, Ru. You see it all.
Every dirty detail.
Kienna squirmed at the thought. She knew what thoughts coursed through her mind…
Calder moved slowly as he picked up some planks and moved them to the workbench. He took to peeling off the bark with his knife, and Kienna watched him, studying the rhythm of someone who’d done this his whole life.
“I used to build tiny boats for my daughter,” he said suddenly, voice distant and almost lost under the creak of the wood.
Kienna turned her full attention to him. “What was she like?”
His hands moved slower. “She loved the sea. Couldn’t keep her feet out of it. Wild like the wind.” He smiled faintly; an expression carved from grief. “She was fierce, my Avenna.”
Kienna’s heart exploded in her chest as Ash trailed away at the sound of her name. Avenna. His Avenna. How common was that name? Was it possible for there to be multiple Avennas in this city? Calder continued. “I lost her when she fell in with the Elvish, of course.”
Another moment passed before fury returned.
How dare Connak and Tislin keep this to themselves?
Even if they had good reason to let her find out on her own, she struggled with her morale, wondering if this man had wasted her time.
She had to find the woodcarver, and the old drunk reminded her she hadn’t. But she had!
She couldn’t deny it now. Not if his Avenna was her Avenna. Everything in her gut confirmed she was, and the ache in her heart grew. Kienna wanted to know Ash even more. Her hand brushed his, and he jolted out of a daze.
“I’ve lost people, too,” she said, gently setting the carving knife down. “I never met them, but I suspect you did.”
He didn’t answer at first. Just looked at her.
The lines on his face deepened. Since sobering up, Ash’s mind was quicker, and the deep recognition that built in his eyes was undeniable.
He only huffed. “I don’t know many people these days.
And definitely not anyone who would have had the likes of you. ”
“You probably wouldn’t have known by the time she went to live with the Elvish.” Kienna stared at him, waiting for the recognition to hit his heart as much as it did his mind. He could see her; she knew that.
His eyes frantically searched her, studying the shape of her face, the color of her hair.
Tears welled behind her eyes, her hands shaking. “My Avenna.”
Calder choked out a cry, grasping Kienna’s hands desperately. He squeezed them so tightly she could barely feel the blood pulsing, but her heart drummed furiously enough to compensate. “Oh,” he said. “She is in you.”
“I’d say I’m pissed that no one told either of us, but I’m so glad I don’t have to feel alone anymore.”
“No, my child. You’re not alone.” He said it so lovingly, but part of it reminded Kienna of Vaerin, as it should have.
Kienna saw bits of the King of River Storm sprinkled around him. The grayness hiding beneath his brown eyes. The shape of his nose. She’d have to ask about Vaerin eventually, but that was worth another day’s conversation. Knowing this, she no longer blamed him for turning to rum to ease his pain.
Ash looked out the shop window, and he didn’t seem so burdened anymore either. “Thank you,” he said. “For helping me remember.”
They sat there, no longer master and apprentice.
No, Kienna would go to the ends of the earth to preserve this man.
Though she was furious with Connak and Tislin, they could wait to feel her wrath.
And they would. She sat with Ash, so deeply connected to the world around her.
She found more than she thought she’d ever find.
That was enough to pull her out of the shadows.