From Ashes and Snow

Content

Unedited. 

Chapter 32: Content. 

It was a cold, calm morning.

Haaling was rousing like a rumbling beast below me, workers and soldiers rousing as the bells tolled. There was a list of things that were to be done waiting for me. Places I needed to go, things I needed to sign. I was a cog in the machine that was the Legion and I relished the order and control it gave to my life.

Magin Beatrice would be waiting on me soon, ready to let her magic leech through my blood and bone to where the injury still smarted and burned. Even standing now, I felt the ache building and I knew, that no matter how long I lived, that pain would haunt me. In cold weather, in the wet.

The Captain found me standing on the steps outside Atoll, staring out over the walls of Haaling to where the river curved

"I found something in that dark place," His voice was low. "I recognised it, but I couldn't remember why. But now I know."

Blinking, I looked down to what he had outstretched to me. A freshly polished blade, the metal inscribed with old runes. A thousand memories clung to that one blade. Mostly happy ones- where I had earned my place in Dratlan. Earned my pride and earned a family.

"My Alelang." Without it, my waist had felt too light. I secured it, smiling gratefully at him. "Thank you, Mahon."

That dark gaze did not flicker. "And this."

He held out something smaller. My throat wired shut as I looked down at little Heslan's knife, fingers shaking as I outstretched them. "This belonged to the youngest Elf in Dratlan. Heslan had been rescued by us and I considered him...loved him as I would a younger brother."

"He was just a boy?"

"Just a boy. Who adored my greatest friend Kendon - a boy who tried to braid his hair like the older males. He made the collars for my hounds."

Mahon's expression softened, that stern mouth easing. "Aviana, I do not think I have ever said this before but I am sorry for your loss. To lose so much and to keep rising each morning, to keep fighting is an admirable trait. I don't know many people who could do that."

And there he went – breaking the chain of my cemented opinions on what kind of man Mahon Bryant was. Knowing that he would see through a castaway answer, I decided to answer as honestly as I could, "I have no choice."

"You always have a choice."

I scoffed. "That's very wise of you, Captain."

"You made your choice, Aviana. My soldiers found your battered body in that Keep, barely breathing. A weaker soul would have died. A weaker mind would have crumbled into nothing the moment you found out what had happened to your people."

"I still feel like I could falter." My smile was wane. "Or crumble into nothing. I feel their loss nearly every moment of my waking day. They haunt my dreams – but the Legion gives me purpose. Revenge won't bring them back to life, but it might curb my pain knowing that they got justice."

He watched me carefully but I couldn't turn back to him. Instead I turned back to watch the river, and the wild lands in the distance.

"Elves don't bury their dead, do they?"

I shook my head. "Not in the way you think. Our bodies are returned to the soil and a tree is planted. Death leads to life – we do not waste when we could continue to give. That's why our sacred forest Veusthyal is so vast and why it is an offence to cut down a tree."