Page 128 of Forged in Fading
“If you value your life,” Boden said, “I suggest you leave and never come near her again. You were granted a second chance, free from the king. Don’t waste it, Erun.”
The words only spilled out of Erun faster. “I didn’t want to do it. The king threatened my family, and they mean everything to me.”
“And my father didn’t mean everything to me?” Alvara shook off Boden’s grasp and stepped around him toward the open door.
“Alvara—”
She ignored Boden’s warning and moved outside, closer to Erun, whose bulging eyes locked on her face.
“I didn’t know any better. To me, he was simply another elf, another of King Einar’s kind. But a part of me did want to do it. Wanted to make him bleed for what they had done to me.”
“Simply another elf?” Alvara choked on the last word. Her father had been so much more than that, and he had deserved so much better than what fate had decided for him.
She clenched the shaft of her spear and shut her eyes. This was too much, digging at a wound that had hardly begun to heal. She had spent month after month chasing after revenge on the king, conquering the man who had taken everything from her, yet here stood before her the one who had bled her father dry.
Who had wanted to do it.
Erun lifted his hands up and took a small step backward. “I needed to free myself of the truth, Alvara. Before we face a battle we may not survive.”
Alvara fought the urge to scoff and instead drew a blistering breath, dropping her weapon to the ground. Some of the darkest threads of her soul craved this man’s blood, and her spear would only provide the perfect means of revenge.
“Alvara.” Her name on Boden’s lips, so damn precious, calmed the blizzard raging inside her, if only for a moment. “It’s best to leave it alone. He shouldn’t have approached you, and as I’ve told you, he had no other choice. With what the humans have been through—”
“What the humans have been through? What about what I’ve been through, Boden?” She whirled on him and spat the words in his face as the hinges on the doors to her magic groaned under the weight of her rage. “This man, willing or not, took the last precious thing I had left in my life, and you want me to worry about what he’s been through?”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that—”
“You knew.” The words burned her throat, hurting more than she had ever imagined. “You knew who he was.”
Boden reached toward her before yanking his hand back and pinning his arms down at his sides. “I knew Erun in the palace, yes. But I knew nothing of his relation to the chief. No one mentioned him over the years when I came to Gosibik. They had all disowned him under the belief he abandoned his son and people for the elves.”
Pain radiated up her jaw as she clenched her teeth together. “You know that’s not what I was asking, Boden.”
He inhaled a breath in and out his nose. “I didn’t know which human had killed your father. Servants arrive and disappear regularly, and there were many the king could have sent. I hadn’t even realized Erun survived until the day the ships returned from the raid, when I saw him leaving your training.” Boden reached out again, this time taking her hand in his. “All I knew was it was a possibility he was responsible. What good would it have done to tell you something I wasn’t even sure of myself?”
She hated the warmth and comfort of his touch, the way her skin craved more. She hated the familiar scent of him, the life he breathed into her lungs every time he was near.
Most of all, she hated that he had kept this from her. Hidden it away like a dirty truth he didn’t think she was strong enough to handle.
Alvara wrenched her hand out of his and shook her head. “It wasn’t your right to decide what I’m worthy of knowing, Boden.”
“Alvara, knowing which human was forced to kill your father is irrelevant. King Einar was the one—”
“Irrelevant?” Alvara snapped. Her magic tingled throughout her body, coating every limb, every finger, every hair in a thin layer of ice. Fragile and ready to break. “How is it irrelevant—”
“Forgive me,” Erun said behind her, and she froze. “Please, Alvara. I cannot go into battle knowing I may fade without earning back that piece of my soul.”
Forgiveness? Alvara trembled head to toe, shaking so violently the world around her shuddered. This man wanted her forgiveness? She couldn’t, not yet. Not now. He had taken everything—
“Alvara,” Boden said, stepping forward gently as if any sudden movement might fracture her into a hundred pieces. “You need to breathe, calm your…”
Erun spoke over him. “Please tell me what I can do.”
Alvara turned slowly, her temperature plummeting. “What you can do?”
He lurched backward, hand to his chest. “Alvara, please…”
His pleas mixed with Boden’s, waves of relentless sounds crashing over her ears.
