Elara Rime's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Elara left Rosa asleep in the straw and went down the ridge at first light. The fox came with her. She meant to find the healer at the timber hall and ask what lined the woman's gloves. She did not get that far. The village square was already awake. A butcher's cart stood by the well, and beside it stood the golem Sable Norn in her stained apron, coal eyes fixed on every passing hand. Elara had met her once before, and once had been enough. Sable had cornered her over the injured man and demanded to see her bare palms. Elara turned to cut around the square. "Blacksmith." The voice was grinding ice. Sable did not move from the cart. "I've been asking after you. Three women this morning. A boy last night. Nobody's seen your hands." Elara kept walking. Sable spoke louder to her back. "I sent word up the pass. The sentinel should know what walks his village." Elara stopped. Water dripped from Sable's sleeve onto the packed snow. The threat was already spent. Rowan would hear before noon. He would come down, and he would find Rosa in the forge, and the locked crate, and the stolen off-cuts Lena had left on the bench. She turned back up the ridge at a run. The fox ran ahead. She was hiding the off-cuts under the floorboard when Rowan's shadow filled the door. He had not knocked. His plate was dusted with fresh snow. He looked at the crate. He looked at the mended jamb. He looked at Rosa, still asleep, and then at Elara's gloved hands. "The butcher says you won't show your hands," he said. "Says you carried a wounded man and never touched him skin to skin. Says that's a trick." "It isn't a trick." "I know." He stepped inside. "Show me anyway." Elara peeled the left glove off and laid her bare hand on the anvil. Frost bloomed under her palm and spread to the horn in three counts. Rowan watched it climb. He did not step back. "That's what I supplied steel for," he said. "That's what you're trying to fix." "Yes." "Then stop hiding in the village. Sable will keep talking. Others will listen. I can hold the pass. I can't hold a rumor." He set a small canvas roll on the bench. Inside were four fresh strips of pass steel, longer than Lena's. "Finish the gauntlets. Fast. When they hold, wear them in the square with your sleeves up. That ends her." He left before she could answer. Elara pulled her glove back on. The frost on the anvil was already melting into dark rings. She had lost her cover in the village and gained the steel to end her problem. She had no lining that would last a minute against it. The healer's door was closed to her now. Sable would see her come and go.