Elia stepped into the kitchen and ladled me some soup before walking it over to me.
“Still hungry?” She handed me the steaming hot bowl.
My stomach growled as if giving her the answer, but we never took seconds, so I paused, peering around the room at my siblings.
“The children are full, and this will just go to waste. Training will make you hungrier as you build muscle. That’s normal.”
I nodded and took the stew from her. “Thank you.”
This stew was different from breakfast. It had huge chunks of purple potatoes, carrots, and large cubes ofchicken in a creamy broth. “This is really good,” I told her for the second time as she gently instructed Renna on how to clean the pot while Mira fought over wanting to be Elia’s helper. Where had she gotten chicken? It must have cost a fortune.
“I wish they fought over chores all the time.” I drank the rest of the stew and handed Renna my bowl.
Elia smiled. “They’ve been getting rewarded for chores.”
Oh. Rewarded for chores, I had never heard of such a thing. You did a chore around here, or you got an earful and a possible smack to the bottom.
“I finished my stew! Can we hear the story?” Little Finn asked.
The story?
Elia caught my eye. “The reward.” She winked.
She glanced around the kitchen, seemingly making sure everything was tidy, and nodded. Once Renna was done with the dishes and Mira had laid them on the drying rack, they all piled into one of the two bedrooms we had, slipping into bunk beds, two of them in each, so that they could all hear the story.
Elia sat in the middle of the room, cross-legged on the floor. “So where did we leave off?” She rubbed her chin as if she didn’t remember.
“The great warrior fell in love with the wolf king!” Finn cried out.
Elia smiled. “Oh yes. So this warrior was the most beautiful woman that the wolfkin had ever laid eyes on. Every man wanted to marry her, but she only had eyes for one. For the king of the wolves. The alpha. Her leader.”
Isla gasped, scooching closer to the edge of the bed, and I smiled, taking a seat on the floor to listen. We didn’t do story time much around here. We had one book of fables, and it was torn to bits, and the children knew them all by heart.
“Did they get married and have babies?” Mira asked as if inwardly swooning.
Elia’s gaze flicked to mine as if there was more to the story. “They did. And they lived happily for many years… until the Betrayal.”
The children hushed. Even Finn, who was normally full of questions, sat upright and wide-eyed.
“One of the king’s closest warriors, a wolfkin man he’d trusted with his life, plotted in secret. He wanted the crown, the throne, and the wolf army. He struck in the dead of night and killed the true king with poison that he dripped into his open sleeping mouth.”
Mira gasped, clutching her blanket.
Elia lowered her voice: “The great warrior rose in the middle of the night and tried to avenge her husband, but she was struck down, too.”
A collectiveawwwent around the room.
“But her soul… it didn’t pass on like most,” Elia told them. “They say her fury was so strong it shook the heavens, pleading with the Creator. The Creator took pity on her and infused her soul into the greatest weapon known to man. A blade unlike any other.”
My fingers curled instinctively around Valkaryn’s hilt as shock rumbled through me. Elia met my eyes, something unspoken passing between us. This was Valkaryn’s story, the one that Kaelric had told me, but with more detail.
“And what happened to the bad guy?” Renna whispered.
Elia gave a tight smile. “He crowned himself alpha king. But no matter how many years pass, no matter how many lies he tells, the wolves remember the truth. One day, the real heir will return, and the blade will sing again.”
Tobben leapt off the top bunk, wielding a small stick he must have found outside and had been carrying all day. “I want a blade like that!”
“Me too!” cried the other children.
