Elara Rime's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The crowd broke apart before noon. Sable stared at Elara's bare wrists a long moment, then turned on her heel and walked back down the ridge. The others followed in ones and twos. Rosa stayed at Elara's elbow until the last of them were gone, then went home to sleep. Elara climbed back to the forge with the gauntlets still on. The lining inside was soaked. Her fingers ached from the cold, but the pass steel had held. She had two problems left. The lining still failed at thirty counts. And the gauntlets were rough — folded shells, not finished work. She needed a quiet afternoon at the anvil to draw the plates thin and set proper rivets. She banked the coals higher and pulled the first gauntlet off. The fox lifted its head. A shadow crossed the doorway. A man stood there in cracked black armor. He filled the frame. A small purple frog sat on his left pauldron, unmoving. Elara knew the face from stories more than sight — the war hero the old men still argued about at the longhouse. She had never spoken to him. He had never come up the ridge. "Show me your hands," Aldren Sorrow said. Not a greeting. An order. His voice was flat, the way a man speaks when he has stopped asking twice. Elara did not move. The bare gauntlet sat on the bench between them. The other was still on her right hand, frost creeping through the lining. She had counted to fifty already. She had maybe twenty left before her skin began to burn against the metal. "I've shown them," she said. "Down in the square. An hour ago." "I wasn't in the square." He stepped inside. The frog did not shift. His eyes went to the coals, the bench, the four scraps of pass steel curl where she had cut the cuffs. "The butcher says you freeze metal. The sentinel says you work it. I want to see which is true before I decide what you are." He was not shouting. That was worse. Men who shouted could be waited out. Elara pulled the second gauntlet off. Her right hand came free red and stiff. She set both gauntlets on the anvil, side by side, and laid her bare palm flat on the iron rim of the forge. Frost bloomed under her fingers in a white ring. The iron cracked with a small dry sound. Aldren watched it happen. He did not flinch. The frog blinked once. "Finish them," he said. "I'll stand at your door until you do. No one else comes up this path today." He turned and set his back to her, filling the doorway. The forge went quiet behind him. Elara looked at the rough gauntlets on the anvil. She had her quiet. She had lost her secret to buy it.