13. Chapter 13
Isla all but fell into the forge, flinching at the clanging of the brass bell that now sounded ominous instead of welcoming.
“You again. What now?” Oren drawled, his voice coming from behind her as he stepped out of the forge’s back room.
He was wiping his hands with a rag, fresh sweat beading his brow, as though he’d been working late at the bellows.
When Isla met his eyes, his easy smile fell from his face as though torn away, his posture growing tense. “What happened?”
Isla opened her mouth to speak but a sob tore out of her instead.
She clapped a hand over her mouth. Oren was across the room in a handful of strides, his arms wrapping around her.
His clothing was damp with sweat, but she hardly noticed.
She shuddered as though a permanent chill seemed to settle into her bones.
Gently, he steered her towards a bench, his large hand dwarfing her own as he sat next to her.
He squeezed once, and murmured, “Tell me.”
So she did. Staring at the dirty rag that lay forgotten on the floor, she told him how the illness was spreading faster than she expected and resisting treatment, and how the healers were run off their feet, exhausted.
She told him how the herbs were dying, healing supplies diminishing faster than they could be replaced, how she felt like she was pouring into a bottomless cup every time she treated a new patient.
Then she told him about Neve succumbing to the illness, how she’d looked like a distorted, wrung-out shadow of the young and vibrant girl they had known all her life.
She described Vera and Gerard’s grief, so potent it had seemed to make the air in the room harder to breathe.
And finally, she admitted - both to herself and to her friend - that there seemed to be no stopping this illness.
That more of those affected would die, maybe even all.
She finished, dragging her swollen eyes to Oren’s. He looked stricken, his face ashen, and Isla blanched - Oren’s father was one of the affected.
“Oren, I didn’t —”
He waved her off, attempting to clear his throat, a somewhat strangled noise catching in his chest. Isla bit the inside of her cheek. She had rarely seen him look so shaken as he stared at the stone floor at his feet. She squeezed his hand in a weak gesture of comfort, and he looked at her.
“My Dad—” he choked out, voice raw. A fresh batch of tears welled in Isla’s eyes, threatening to slip down her face, when a gruff voice rang clearly through the air, the wooden stairs creaking behind them.
“We're all dying, boy, from the day we're born,” Blake pierced Oren with a stern gaze, his brown eyes and earth-toned skin mirror images of his son’s. “Might be I just go faster than we once thought, is all. No point worrying about it.”
Despite his age, clear from the grizzled silver beard he wore, Blake was near as broad shouldered and muscled as his son. Having served as Rowanmere’s weaponsmaster for decades, and in the fae regiments before that, he too bore the scars and burns hard-earned from from his trade.
Oren swallowed, attempting a half grin and Blake turned, shifting his gaze now to Isla.
Having spent most of her life tearing through Blake’s forge and pilfering his steel for sparring practice with Oren, Blake was the closest thing to a father Isla had left in the world.
She met his eyes now, finding a mixture of sympathy and determination there.
“Neve’s death is no more your fault than any other patient you’ve lost to a fatal disease.
And when others die, those won’t be your fault either.
” Isla blinked back the tears that threatened, even as her stomach dropped at the casual mention of more inevitable deaths.
So many were ill already. And Neve had been so young. Could she have done more?
Blake made a rumbling noise deep in his throat, as though he’d heard her thoughts.
He stepped closer, gripping her chin lightly between his thumb and forefinger.
“A strong enough current will break any dam — you did all that could be expected of you and more, as you always do. Now let it lie, girl.”
Isla released a wobbly breath that was half sigh, half sob, and closed her eyes. More tears slipped down her cheeks and Blake wiped them away gently. He clapped a hand on Oren’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Now,” he announced, his tone commanding. “I’ve got something for you.” He jerked his head toward the counter and made his way across the room. Isla and Oren exchanged glances, and Oren shrugged before following.
Blake stooped, rifling through the shelves beneath the worn counter, scratched and uneven from decades of steel being exchanged across it.
Finally, he produced an old, worn scroll of parchment.
With weathered hands, he rolled it out flat, fixing it in place with a dagger on each side.
It was a map of the continent, stretching from coast to coast and detailing all the realms in between.
Isla ran a hand over it gingerly. “From your time in the regiments?” Oren asked beside her.
Blake grunted his confirmation. He didn’t talk about his time with the fae military very often, but Isla knew that was where he had learned to hone his skills as a weaponsmith. His skill with steel was what made the Rowanmere forge so widely known in Terravern, even among the fae.
“It’s yours to take with you. Though you probably don’t need it with that memory of yours. Read it once and it’ll sit in your head forever, no doubt.”
Blake jerked his chin at Oren. “Now go fetch her steel, and be quick about it. She’ll need her rest before the dawn comes calling.”
Isla’s brow knitted, but Oren had already moved past her towards the back room, disappearing through the archway. She slid her gaze back to Blake, whose lopsided smirk was strikingly similar to his son’s. “You didn’t think we’d let you leave unarmed, did you?”
“How did you know I’d go?” she asked softly. How had he guessed that she would end up deciding to go on this fool’s errand? Because she had decided, she realized. The choice - or lack thereof - became clearer with each passing moment.
The flickering light of the lanterns in the forge cast a warm glow across Blake’s face, setting shadows deep into the lines that ran across it.
He fixed her with a stare, his gaze thick with understanding.
“Because I’ve known you your whole life, and your mother years before that. And she could never walk away either.”
Isla’s lip wobbled and she bit down on it, pushing back hard on the wave of loss that rose at the mention of her mother. Blake hummed sympathetically. “You’ve gotta let yourself feel it, girl. If you keep pushing it down, might be one day it comes over you stronger than ever.”
Isla pulled her eyes from Blake’s as the scrape of Oren’s boots across the stone signalled his return.
In his hand, he held a sword she didn’t recognize.
Grinning, he drew the blade from its brown leather scabbard, setting it on the counter before her.
Isla took in the gleaming steel, layer upon layer painstakingly folded over one another, honed to a deadly edge.
The hilt was simple, the pommel and relatively small crossguard crafted of steel and the grip wrapped in a soft brown leather that matched its scabbard.
“Made it just for you,” Oren said proudly.
Isla stared at him as he prattled on about the specifics of the blade.
He spoke as if this hadn’t taken him the better part of a day, as though she didn’t know exactly how much he had poured his sweat - and likely blood - into its forging.
“It’s light - easy to travel with. That’s why I went with leather for the scabbard and grip as well.
” He finished, beaming at the sword like it was his first-born child.
“So?” he prompted. “You like it?”
“Do I -” Isla choked, shaking her head. “It’s incredible, Oren. Thank you.”
He waved her off, but she could tell he was pleased. Isla swallowed the rising lump in her throat. Blake eyed her, tilting his head slightly. She shook her head.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” It came out as a hoarse whisper. She wasn’t one to admit weakness, and both Blake and Oren knew that.
Oren slapped a leather cross-body harness onto the counter, the metal buckles ringing against one another, surveying Isla. “See now, if I said that, you’d kick my ass.”
Isla attempted a weak smile, but her anxiety won out.
She began to pace. “I don’t know how to get to Dunovar.
I’ve never even been out of Terravern - not really.
I went to the market in the Pass once or twice with Mother when I was little, but it’s been years.
I can forage, but I don’t know how to hunt.
I can read a map, but I’ve never really travelled,” the words tumbled out of her like an avalanche, a litany of the reasons why she was bound to fail.
She halted abruptly, glancing between the two men.
Her voice came out small and strained, like she had to force it to cooperate, as she said, “I’m scared. ”
“Good,” Blake barked, without hesitation. “That means you’re not stupid.”
Oren frowned at his father, turning to Isla. “You won’t be going alone. You’ll be with that fae.”
Isla started, brow furrowed. “What? I don’t even know him.”
“True. Yet, it sounds like you’re about to trek halfway across the continent with him. You need a guide, a partner. And you can’t deny the two of you are both involved in this, somehow. So, do you trust him?”
Isla smiled sweetly, “Actually, I think I’m in love. Maybe we’ll elope along the way.”
Oren rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, it’s a lot of trust to put in a person you just met. And you hate the fae,” he added.
“I do not hate the fae,” she muttered. Both Oren and Blake raised an eyebrow in disagreement.
“I know you’ve been wronged by the fae, girl,“ Blake grunted, drawing her gaze back to his. “But I’ve known many. They’re not all like the one came through here the other day.
Nor the one that brought you word of your parents’ fate.
” Isla winced at the ember of grief that flared in her chest as he continued, “They’re strong, and they’re proud, and might be they come off like assholes as a result, but you couldn’t ask for a better guide on a journey like the one you’re about to take. ”
Isla released a shaky breath, nodding, as she brushed a shaking finger over a curling, frayed edge of the map, committing it to memory.