Elara Rime's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

Elara reached the village square by late afternoon with the old man still across her shoulders. Rosa dragged the cart behind, one wheel wobbling on the stones. A woman ran for the healer. Two men lifted the old man off Elara's back and carried him into a fur-lined doorway of the stone lodge at the square's edge. Elara stood in the street, gloves still on, and felt every eye turn to her. "That's the smith," someone said. "From up the ridge." "She never comes down." A boy pointed at her hands. She curled them behind her back. The fox pressed against her boot, watching the crowd. A man in a butcher's apron stepped forward. Not from around here. Elara had heard of the snow-and-bone thing that worked the slaughterhouse now, but she had not seen her up close. Sable Norn's coal-black eyes fixed on Elara's gloves. Water beaded at the golem's wrist and dripped onto the stones. "You carried him a long way," Sable said. Her voice ground like ice under a boot. "In leather. In summer." "He needed carrying." "Take them off. Let the healer see your hands. He'll want to know if you touched the wound." Elara did not move. Rosa stepped between them, chin up. "She didn't touch him bare. I was there." Sable looked down at the girl, then back at Elara. "Then show us." Elara heard boots on the stones behind her before she answered. Heavy ones. The crowd parted. Rowan Reik came through in his dented plate, the pale fox stitched across his chest catching the low sun. He had walked down from the pass. He never walked down from the pass. "The smith works for me today," Rowan said. Short. Flat. "Spear's not finished. She's needed at the forge." "She carried a dying man," Sable said. "And now she's done." Rowan looked at Elara. "Come." Elara did not argue. She followed him out of the square with the fox at her heel and Rosa trailing behind. A rainbow-feathered goose lifted off a low roof as they passed, its gray wing patch flashing. No one stopped them. At the treeline, Rowan halted. He did not look at her. "They saw the gloves," he said. "They'll ask again. Next time I won't be here." "You came down." "The spear was on the anvil. Door open. Anyone could have walked in." He turned his head a fraction. "I took it back to the pass. It's safe." Elara's chest went tight. "That was mine to deliver." "It's mine now. And the next piece of pass steel waits until I know your forge can be shut." He started up the path. "Fix your door, smith. Fix what the village saw. Then we talk." He left her at the trees. The fox sat in the dirt. Rosa stood beside her, still holding the cart handle, with nowhere else to go.