Elara Rime's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Rowan's boots were still fresh in the snow outside when Elara barred the forge door. Rosa sat up in the straw, hair flat on one side, and watched her work. The four new strips of pass steel lay on the bench where Rowan had left them. Elara had hours, not days. The butcher had already sent word down every lane in the village. A crowd would come before the metal was ready. "Who was that," Rosa said. Not a question. A demand. "The sentinel. He gave me the steel. He also gave me until the mob shows up." Rosa was on her feet before Elara finished. The girl was small in her patched hoodie, chin already up. "What do you need." "I need time I don't have." Elara pulled her gloves tighter and set the first strip in the coals. "The golem in the square is telling people I hide my hands because I hurt that old man. She'll bring them up the ridge." "Then I go down." "Rosa." "I'm not asking." Rosa was already at the door. "You finish. I'll slow them." Elara caught her sleeve. The girl did not pull away, but she did not soften either. Elara let go. "The peat longhouse," Elara said. "The old man at the door there. Stand near him and tell the truth. Tell them you were with me the whole climb down. Tell them I never touched the wound. He won't move, but people listen near him." Rosa nodded once and went. Elara worked. The frost climbed her wrist inside the glove and pushed against the boiled hide. She hammered fast and ugly. She did not need beauty. She needed a shell. She folded the first strip over the cuff of the left gauntlet, quenched it, and set the second. The fox sat by the anvil and watched the door. She heard them before she saw them. Voices on the ridge. A woman shouting about the butcher's word. Then Rosa's voice, sharp and small, cutting under the rest. Elara could not hear the words. She heard the crowd stop moving. She hammered the last strip onto the right cuff as the shouting started again, closer. The lining inside was still her old hide. It would not hold a full minute. It did not have to. It had to hold long enough to walk into the square with her sleeves up. She pulled the gauntlets on over bare hands. Cold bit through the lining at once. She counted. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. The pass steel did not shatter. Her fingers moved. She opened the door. Rosa was backing up the path ahead of a dozen villagers. Sable stood among them, coal eyes fixed on Elara's wrists. Elara raised her hands. The steel caught the morning light. She rolled her sleeves back to the elbow and walked down to meet them.