Page 38 of Soul Forge

She thought of giving some grand speech about how she was a wielder, and nothing would deter her from the future the Spirits had chosen her for. It would have been dramatic, impactful, perhaps even enough to convince him that the demon didn’t bother her. But it would also have been a lie.

“Yes, I am.” She took a seat on the bench beside him, setting the bowl, vials, and cloth down between them. Her eyes scanned the furniture, noticing the roses painstakingly carved into the dark wooden drawers and the painted vines climbing the armoire. “I am frightened of you. Of the thing hiding inside you.”

“Nobody is forcing you to be here.” His face was turned away, but the fist resting on his knee was clenched. “You can go to your own room any time you like. I didn’t ask you to help me.”

“You didn’t ask anyone to help you, even though you needed it,” Elda noted. “On our wedding night, you didn’t take from me when you had the chance to. You didn’t let the ground crush mewhen I fell. And the demon didn’t slit my throat the moment it surfaced.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that you keep helping me when I don’t ask for it.” She uncorked the vial and poured some of it into the steaming bowl, dipping the cloth in the water. “Now I’m going to do the same for you, whether you like it or not.”

She reached out with the cloth, her hand moving towards the closest wing when he grabbed her wrist, gloved fingers closing around it lightly. Her heart skipped a beat, waiting for him to snarl and snap her hand off. But when he looked at her, there was no anger.

“Just… only touch feathers.” The furrow between his dark brows was deep. No, it wasn’t rage dampening the flames in his eyes. Something inside her twisted, a pang of sadness running through her at the expression.

She realised then why he wore gloves all the time. Why he’d been so eager to put her onto Reiner’s mount the moment she caught up with them. Every touch was fleeting, more evidence that he’d rather not be in contact with her at all.

“You have a touch phobia, don’t you?” she asked quietly. He nodded, fingers slowly uncurling to release her wrist. She let out a breath, then rearranged her features into a smile, pushing back all thoughts of the demon for the moment. “I’ll only touch feathers. The salve will soak through them to heal the damage.”

For a second that dragged on forever, neither of them moved. Then, he put his back to her, turning his face towards the rain pattering against the window. Elda dipped the cloth into the bowl once more, and this time, the water reached his feathers, wiping away the mud that had begun to dry on them. She smoothed down any crooked ones, careful not to harm the damaged limb underneath.

“Tell me about your demon,” she pleaded quietly. “Why aren’t you like that all the time?”

The Soul Forge sighed. “Half of my soul is demonic. The other half is whatever I am now. And no, before you ask, I have no idea what this part of me is.”

“Does it come out often?”

“He,” Sypher corrected quietly. “Notit. He’s not like the creatures you’ve seen in the forests. He’s what I become when I’m too hurt or too weak to get myself out of a scrape.”

“He talks.” She fought to keep her voice even between the gentle wipes, pausing to rinse the cloth in the bowl before starting on the other wing. “He spoke to me.”

“You can’t treat him like me. He’s angry. Dangerous. And hehateswielders.”

“Why?”

The Soul Forge shook his head. “You’ll find out, but not tonight. This is about all I can handle right now. All you need to know is that if he ever gets free, and if you can’t kill me, you’ll be the first to die.”

The warning hung in the air between them, filling the room until the familiar grinding of stone started to haunt Elda’s senses. She focussed on the feathers, studiously cleaning away flakes of mud until it became too much. When the walls started to shift closer in her periphery, she panicked.

“Tell me about this other wielder,” she blurted.

“Gira lives in Saeryn. He was my wielder just over six hundred years ago. He’s in tune with his vestige and his Spirit in a capacity none of the others have ever managed. Training with him will benefit you in more ways than just learning how to kill me. It’ll teach you how to speak to Irileth.”

“I’ve interacted with Irileth already,” Elda replied, finishing up the last of his feathers and dropping the cloth into the bowl. “She calls me her friend.”

“It’s not enough,” he shrugged, flinching when it pulled his broken wings. “With the right connection between us, your vestige will become a part of you. Irileth will feel like an extension of your soul.”

A beat of silence passed. And then, “What do you mean by the right connection betweenus?”

Sypher sat up a little straighter, realising his mistake. Elda folded her arms across her chest, daring him to stay quiet when he turned to face her. He sighed, running a hand through his muddy hair and scowling at the floorboards.

“One of the reasons I can’t stand the wielders is because I’m forced to link with them. It’s an invasion of privacy and… dangerous for me.”

“How?”

“It’s a channel between your consciousness and mine. When it grows, it becomes strong enough to communicate through. We can sense thoughts and feelings from one another.” His tone soured. “No secrets.”

“I don’t have secrets to keep.”

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