Page 60 of Forged in Fading

Alvara lightened her pressure and let the repetitive motion of her hand grind down her residual fear and anger, shaving them bit by bit.

Vorianta would be, or already was, under attack. Kat and Boden had forced her out, against her will. And, on top of that, had made Pyry her responsibility—Pyry, who required an absurdly high payment just to spend a few days with her. The most infuriating fact was that she may have been the main reason King Einar’s elves had been able to track them down. Boden had probably been right about the need to cut her hair.

“Stealing my ideas now, are we?” Boden leaned against the wall, his hair and body clean of any sign of battle.

“I was invited to come anytime, isn’t that right?” Alvara looked to Isathir, who shook his head.

“Don’t drag me into this.”

Boden gently dislodged the handles of a pot from her cramping fingers and slid it onto the counter. “Working through something?”

“Something like that.” Alvara dangled a towel in front of him, and he accepted it, drying each dish she handed him. They both needed a distraction, anything other than a reminder of what they had endured. “How did you end up here?”

He pointed to himself. “In the kitchen?”

She tossed a handful of water at him. “In Malva. Ilmanir. Helping the humans and demi-elves.”

His movements slowed as he rubbed the towel over a plate. “I’m a demi-elf.”

The mug Alvara held slipped from her fingers and tumbled back into the washbasin. “Sorry,” she mumbled. Boden was a demi-elf? He looked undeniably elven with pointed ears and all. Though his features held little imperfections here and there, a dimple on one side and not the other, a subtle crookedness to the bridge of his nose. They were minute enough changes from the smooth and severe beauty of most elves that many might not notice.

Yet Alvara had noticed. She dove into her task with renewed vigor.

“You don’t need to apologize. It’s nothing I haven’t experienced before.”

His mother was clearly an elf so… “Your birth father is human.”

“He was.”

Was. That one word told her enough about how their story ended.

“What happened?” Alvara asked quietly.

Boden stared down at the counter as he spoke. “My mother traveled to the human realm when she was younger, perhaps just to see what was different there. I’m not sure even she knows why. She met my birth father, they fell in love, and eventually she became pregnant. She preferred for me to be born in her birthplace in Nyr, so she brought him with her, a few months before I was due to arrive.” He squeezed the towel until his knuckles turned white. “Her father, my grandfather, refused to allow his daughter to have anything to do with a human man and knew she would never willingly leave, so…he killed him.”

What his mother had been through, what it meant for Boden—Alvara couldn’t swallow past the lump forming in her throat. “That’s why you grew up away from Nyr, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Boden.”

He looked at her, his lips turning up for a moment only to crumple. “My mother fled out of fear of what my grandfather might do when I was born. She couldn’t travel far in her condition, especially through Dalvi’s rougher terrain, so she went to Ela instead. She showed up on the doorstep of a close friend from her youngling years who had settled in Tasírath. That friend knew Tam’s stance against the king’s treatment of non-elves and introduced the two of them. He helped my mother when she needed it most, becoming my father after I was born. Over the years, they grew to love each other, and eventually Lilja arrived.”

Alvara lowered the bowl she had imprisoned in her hands. “But why work for King Einar? If you’re a demi-elf…”

All the life evaporated from his eyes, and a haunting vacancy took its place. “My father worked in his court. I would have been killed without him. And when the king eventually learned what I was, he alerted everyone in the city. I was barely admitted into the academy, miserable as it was, and when I left, no one was willing to give a demi-elf like me a job. It isn’t like that in every kingdom, but in Ela, the elves either agree with King Einar or are too afraid to say otherwise. Some even leave altogether.”

“And your father helped you get a position in the palace.”

“The king learned I could shapeshift and became interested in utilizing me as a spy. His pet.” He spat the last word as if it tasted foul on his tongue. “I had no other choice. I know part of him did it to keep an eye on me and to force me to hurt other demi-elves and humans. To remind me how little I’m worth to the elves around me.”

How could any person think of a response to that? A life spent stewing in others’ hatred of him, and yet somehow Boden still managed to emanate light. Joy, even.

He saved her from fumbling over her words by filling the weighted silence. “It always turns out to be a bit of a conversation killer, though I can’t imagine why. Your turn.”

“What?”

“I divulged something personal.” Boden flicked her in the arm with his towel. “Now it’s your turn.”

Alvara submerged another dish in the water. “I most definitely did not agree to that.”

“I’m not asking for your darkest secrets, Alvara. Even your favorite color will do. It is normally how people carry on conversations.”