Page 39 of Forged in Fading

Alvara set down the weapon she had been hammering and wiped her grimy hands on her apron. She rushed out of the forge, ignoring Sithuren’s comments about her sticking her nose in others’ business.

“Your mother and sister are here. Safe. I just thought you should know.” Alvara’s ineloquent words felt slightly ridiculous as she took in his battered frame.

Boden’s bloodshot eyes found her. It must’ve been days since he last slept. “Thank you.” He staggered, not toward the residential quarters where his family would be, but toward…the food hall?

She imagined he was hungry after his harrowing journey, but surely a bowl of stew could at least wait until he saw his loved ones.

“Boden, they’re not in there. It’s not even dinnertime yet!” Her words did nothing to slow him down, but she still couldn’t stop herself from following him inside.

He slipped into the kitchen at the back of the food hall, and Alvara wasn’t entirely sure how to react when she found him at the counter working beside the cooks.

“Did you miss me that much?” Boden asked, who had apparently lost his mind, because he was chopping a large pile of vegetables and cracking jokes like his father hadn’t just faded.

“Is that even sanitary? You’re covered in injuries.” That was undoubtedly not what Alvara had planned to say to him, but here she stood.

He peered at her over his shoulder, his knife hovering in mid-air. “Did you come here to critique my cooking skills? You wouldn’t be the first.”

This conversation had taken an odd turn, and Alvara did what she could to steer it back in the right direction, all the while reminding herself to skip dinner tonight. “Aren’t you going to see your family?”

If she had even one more chance, one more moment to see Eloisa, her mother, or her father, she would drop everything and run to them. So why was he here?

“I will.” He stared at her with pursed lips, as if that answer should be enough to prod her to leave. But the only thing Alvara did have these days was time. Boden sighed, picked up a second knife, and pointed the handle in her direction. “If you’d like to talk, you have to chop.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Kitchen rules,” one of the cooks called out. “If you’re planning on spending time in here, you have to be working.”

Alvara hadn’t expected to cook a meal, but to be fair, she hadn’t expected to have this conversation in the first place. She took the knife from his hand, but all she could think of as she stared at its sharp edge was her father, drained of all life. Covered in blood.

Boden gently removed the knife from her grasp and tipped his head toward a basket of vegetables. “You can start by washing those. Now that I know my family is safe, it’s better for me to calm myself before I see them. They need me to be strong, so I came here to quiet my mind. It’s become a bit of a habit.”

Alvara poured a healthy dose of fresh water in the bowl and moved a handful of potatoes over to clean. “That’s why I go to the forge. It helps me forget everything else.” She wasn’t sure why she was speaking about herself, but she could feel the pain radiating off him in nauseating waves, and it sang a familiar song to her own shattered soul.

What would she want in this moment if she were Boden? Probably to be left alone to keep herself from dissolving into a useless mess. “I should go,” Alvara said, her fingers slowing where they rubbed at a spot of dirt.

The thwacking of his knife paused. “Stay.” Her head snapped up in surprise, but Boden only resumed his rhythmic chopping. “The company feels good.”

She doubted her presence felt that good, but she kept her mouth shut. In comparison to whatever had gone on with King Einar, this conversation was probably the best Boden had experienced in weeks.

“Your father?” The words felt heavy, as if they might not make it out of her mouth.

Boden’s hand tightened around the handle of his knife. “He’s gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Boden.”

“The king had”—his throat bobbed—“strung him up like meat in front of the palace for everyone to see what happened to traitors, especially those who betrayed their own kind in favor of humans. By the time I had arrived back in Tasírath, my father was minutes away from fading. The king had kept him alive, just enough so I would have to watch…I tried my best to save him, but⁠—”

He set the blade on the cutting board and leaned his weight into the counter. “I traveled all that way, brought someone to their certain fading, and it was all for nothing. My father’s gone, I’m a wanted traitor in Tasírath, and the treatment of the humans in the palace is horrendous. My only use was in the information I could bring here. It was the only way I was worth anything.”

Boden laid his head in his hands, and Alvara bit her lip. This conversation felt far too deep for how little she knew him, but she could tell he needed to let it out into the open.

“I don’t know much, but I know you’re worth everything to the elves here.” Maybe not to her, but she kept that bit of information to herself.

“How were you able to do it?”

Alvara set her potato in front of him. “Do what?”

“Your father. You didn’t let it break you.”