I wander the forge slowly. The right side is immaculate, every tool in its place and every finished piece set with deliberate care.But the left bench is different. The craftsmanship is competent but rougher, still learning its own language. I run my finger along the edge of an uneven knife guard on the table.
"Don't touch that. That's not my work," Hrolf warns.
"Your apprentice?" I ask.
"Yes, took to the metal faster than I expected," he says flatly. "He's a vampire and he doesn't like people touching his things."
My heart stumbles. I step aside and look away.
Svenn.
"He learns slowly," Hrolf continues. "But he learns."
I debate telling him. That the vampire hammering beside him is my husband. But something fragile lives here between them, something that looks almost like peace. It's beautiful. I will not be the one to break it.
My mother's campaigns carved through dwarven holds like wildfire. Hrolf lost a wife and child to her war. If he learns I am her daughter, this careful truce might shatter. And if he learns Svenn married me...
I let the silence hold.
"I came to give you something," I say quietly after a while.
I unwrap the honey cake from its bundle and set it on the edge of his workbench.
Hrolf looks at it. He wipes his hands on his apron and picks up two metal spoons from a tin cup near the water basin.
"Eat," he says, handing one to me.
We sit on opposite sides of the workbench with the honey cake between us. He digs his spoon into one side. I hesitate, then do the same.
We eat in silence. I'm glad Blaire told me to take the cake. Someone made this with care.
"You're a good person, little elf,” Hrolf suddenly says.
I look up sharply, startled.
He doesn't meet my eyes. “Coming here to visit a prisoner on Isolwen's Eve, when ye could be anywhere else.”
I’m the furthest thing from good,I almost tell him.
"I wanted to bring you cake,” I say instead.
"Aye. That's what good people do.” He grunts. “They think of others. But good people are the first to die too.”
My chest constricts.
"I've seen it,"he continues, still not looking at me. "Every war and every battle, the merciful ones go first. They hesitate when they shouldn’t, they try to save everyone. It’s foolish.”
We stareat each other across the workbench.
"When ye steppedin to save me at Tavan I thought ye'd lost your mind."
I had to do it.Rainer would have killed Hrolf in his Asterdust madness. “You could have died.”
“Better me than ye,”he says quietly. “My hands are red with innocent blood, little elf. That elf was right to want me dead. I deserved it.”
A knot lodgesin my throat. “You don’t deserve—”
“I do.”Now he looks at me. His expression softens. There’s almost a smile there, but not quite. “But thank ye for being foolish enough to save me.”
