Page 55 of Forged in Fading

“Give him some.” Undoubtedly hypocritical, but Alvara needed time to sort out the rest of this mess without having to manage him too.

“What?” Kat’s words were barely more than a squeak.

“Don’t make me say it again. And untie me right now or I’m going lose my godsdamned mind.”

Kat did as she asked, freeing Alvara and forcing more liquid down Pyry’s throat.

Vorianta. King Einar was about to crush her home, and she wasn’t there to stop it. Mikavar had a chance at survival with his weaponry and magic skills, but… “Jalomir,” she whispered. He would fade alone in the heat of battle when he deserved so much more.

“We did our best to convince him, but he refused. He said he would rather fade with his city than leave.” Boden’s tone was hollow, his head turned away.

“At least he had a choice.” Something they deemed unnecessary to offer Alvara. She could either stay with them and return to Malva and Ilmanir or attempt to travel back to Vorianta. But she had no idea where they were. And godsdamned Pyry was here.

Her life had become a series of choices someone was making for her, and for one moment, she wanted to choose her own path. “I’ll go to Malva. But I am not riding in the sleigh with Pyry.”

Kat handed her the reins to her own steed. “You can ride my horse. I’ll hop on the one pulling the sleigh.”

With nothing to say, or at least nothing productive to say, Alvara clambered on the beast and trotted away—again—from her home.

The ride did nothing to extinguish her rage, especially when she spent the entire time staring at the back of Boden’s aggravating head. He had veered off the path and dismounted, leaving Alvara to follow.

Kat climbed off her horse, her eyes bouncing between the two of them. “I’m going to find some kindling for the fire.” She jogged off into the forest, past a large number of branches in their immediate vicinity.

“I refuse to apologize for stopping you from killing yourself.” Boden’s smooth voice tugged at the frayed edges of Alvara’s mind.

“Then why did you say anything in the first place?” Something poked her in the back, and Alvara turned to face Boden, who held out a lengthy stick. She grabbed it and stalked past him, but not before whacking him in the thigh with a satisfying thud. Sparring with him wouldn’t fix her anger, but beating every shred of moonlight out of him would feel damn good. “You’re going to regret this.”

“Don’t worry, I already am.”

She stopped a few paces away, still within sight of Pyry’s unconscious form. One tap of her makeshift weapon against his, and Alvara charged. She snapped her stick down onto Boden’s with a crack and immediately cut upwards, clipping him in the chin. His quiet curse did make her feel a little better.

“Tell me,” he said as he steadied his weapon in front of his chest, the only part of his body he ever bothered trying to block. “Why are you so upset?”

“Do you enjoy asking questions you know the answer to, or are you truly that stupid?” She drove her weapon forward with a rush of swipes, and he stumbled. In a breath, Alvara jabbed her branch into his heart, harder than she needed to, but not as hard as she wanted to.

“Why are you so upset?” He winced, rubbing his shirt where she had poked him. It was like their first training session all over again. Why do I make you angry?

Her face aflame, she wrapped her hold even tighter around her weapon. A quick swing upwards and a forceful one downwards, and his landed in the snow.

“Why are you so⁠—”

“Because I trusted you!” she yelled and launched her stick into the trees. “I started to trust you, tolerate you, even a little, and you threw it away like it was nothing. What Kat did was unforgivable. But she didn’t get to know my home, my people. You did!”

Boden picked up his branch and pitched it into the forest. A bird squawked in response, and he cringed. “I really hope that wasn’t Kat.” He sank to the ground in a heap. “I’m sorry.”

“Two words won’t fix this, and you know it. I thought, on some level, you were beginning to understand me. Not much, but enough to think that you would at least see how important my kingdom is to me.” Alvara exhaled a long breath, and it dissipated into the night air. “But I’m just another piece in your game. Someone to be used and tossed aside when I’m not worth the trouble anymore.”

“That’s not true.” He gestured to the earth next to him, but Alvara ignored his invitation. “You have something special, Alvara. You are something special. I see you doing your best to fight it, but I know you’re meant for more than fading into oblivion.”

She huffed and flopped herself into the snow. “Has anyone ever told you your apologies are terrible?”

“It’s possible I’ve been told that before.” The start of a grin dimmed. “But I am sorry. It wasn’t our”—Alvara cleared her throat—“my place to choose what you do with your life. You are right, I’m no better than Pyry, as much as it pains me to say it. If you wanted to stay, we should have let you. Kat and I have both lost more people than we’d care to count, and every one of our instincts was screaming at us to save you.”

She stayed silent. Alvara had come to find he couldn’t stand uncomfortable lapses in conversation, and she would be lying if she said it didn’t make her a little happy to watch him squirm. As expected, he continued. “I admit, I would lose my mind if someone held me back from defending Ilmanir, even if it was hopeless. I’m sorry we took that from you. For what it’s worth, I felt like I was beginning to know you too. Well, both you and your obsession with those biscuits.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re just doing this now to encourage me to keep talking and make a fool of myself, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” She was only one person and would have surely faded at the hands of King Einar. Though she still would have liked to try, Boden had done more than most people in her life: apologized. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about your father and the part Pyry and I played in it. I never apologized for that.”

“You don’t need to. I’ve already decided to blame Pyry for it all,” Boden said with a chuckle. Any humor melted from his face. “I couldn’t save my father from fading right in front of me. The thought of not stopping you from facing a similar fate…”