Page 17 of Forged in Fading

She knew it. He had hoped her and Pyry would renew their connection again while they traveled. But the image of his blood-soaked body, moments from fading, wiped any humor from her face. “He’s alive.”

“Ah. I hope you weren’t too rough on him. He does care for you, you know.” Jalomir chattered away about advice on love that Alvara didn’t need and likely never would, so she busied her hands and entered the mind-numbing trance of forging weapons.

The next evening, Alvara’s back complained endlessly about its heavy load as she walked, her muscles still grumbling about days spent being jostled on a horse. She hadn’t even bothered to attend her morning trainings or run through Mikavar’s drills on her own since returning to Dalvi.

And she had left her father on his own for too many days already, who had likely subsisted on what little food he could find in his bare cupboards, not nearly enough to keep him healthy. The absurd number of warming dishes she packed was the only way she could appease the guilt nibbling on her conscience.

Alvara would stay late tonight and let him lecture her for hours about some mythical figure that had probably never existed. It was the least she could do.

Before her, the front door of her youngling home whipped back and forth, battered by the ruthless wind. Her father must have left it open. It would take hours to clean up the blizzard that likely ravaged the inside of the house.

A figure sat beneath the frosty shroud, the pure white tarnished with crimson.

Her father.

She stumbled through the snow and let her pack fall to the ground, casting prayer after prayer to the gods she so often ignored. Not him. Don’t take him from me. Please. This was only a nightmare. She would find her father reading as always.

A sob broke free from her lips. His body. His favorite chair. She wiped the flakes from his pallid skin with shaking hands. A dagger, unlike anything she had ever forged or seen in the elven kingdoms, punctured his chest. The blood.

She laid her ear to his grisly tunic, even though every piece of her knew no heartbeat would echo her own. Alvara buried her face in his neck and screamed until her very lungs threatened to give out.

Why?

The rage and grief claiming her body hacked the walls around her Dalvian magic to bits, and it emerged from its deep hiding place for the first time since Eloisa’s fading. Ice slithered across the floor and up the walls, devouring everything in its path, but she didn’t care. Let it ravage her life force. Let her fade alongside the last member of her family.

Gone.

She drew back for a breath. His warm eyes, closed forever. He was gone.

Her magic only spiraled out of her faster with each passing minute, gobbling up her very spirit. It would bleed her dry until only her corpse remained.

“Alvara.”

She lifted her head, and the edges of her vision started to dim. An elf. The Nyrian elf from the palace. Why was he here, right after her father…had he done this? Or maybe he had been sent here to take her to King Einar again. Either way, it didn’t matter. Soon there would be nothing left, sacrificed to the Dalvian powers she despised.

Alvara wobbled on her knees, and the world tilted on its axis. His arms caught her before she collided face-first with the floor, though she could do nothing to stop her ice from swallowing him too.

“You need to sever your connection with your magic.” He laid her down on something soft, his movements gentle. “If you fade, their sacrifices will all be for nothing. You can choose to live and make them worth something.”

Eloisa. Mother. Father. Maybe she was ready to join them, to leave this life that ripped everything she loved away from her. She was the least of them. What good had she ever done that had spared her from the same fate?

A blurred figure crossed her vision and knelt beside her. Her eyes strained to bring clarity to the person’s features: sparkling blue eyes, a delicate nose, long golden hair that hung in gentle waves. But it was that sunny voice—Eloisa’s voice—that took Alvara’s breath away.

“You have to get up.”

She was just as beautiful as Alvara remembered. “I’m too tired. It’s too hard.” Her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t even sure she had spoken.

Eloisa’s rosy lips stretched into a breathtaking smile that shredded Alvara’s heart into a thousand mangled pieces. “It’s meant to be hard. A life free of pain is a life without love. I love you. But you need to get off your ass and start living. Go.”

A broken laugh left Alvara’s lips as her sister vanished. Eloisa was right, as always. Her family’s memory deserved to live on through Alvara’s life, through what she chose to do with the time she had left. She closed her eyes and deepened her breathing, letting the long inhales and exhales calm her thundering pulse.

A sigh broke through her haze. The Nyrian elf. He stood at the hearth, frost clinging to his eyelashes and the stubble along his tan jaw.

“Are you taking me back?” She closed her eyes for one long blink to block everything out, as if that would prove none of this was real.

“Would I be building you a lovely fire if that were the case?” He stacked the last pieces of wood in the hearth.

Alvara said nothing. She could only focus on forcing air in and out of her lungs.