I watched my neighbors raise her on a chair made entirely of branches and vines, purple flowers sprouting along each leg. It was a part of the celebration reserved for someone the village deemed remarkable, used only once every year. For Daella to have won it meant something, something that stirred my heart in a way I wanted to ignore.
Especially with Gregor on the hunt. With a frown, I started toward the merchant stalls. It didn’t matter if he’d fled. I would do whatever it took to track him down, and I could tell by the smile Daella had given me—the fake smile—he’d said something that had troubled her.
But before I made it halfway across the meadow, Odel blocked my path and latched her hands on my arm. She dragged me behind a tent without a word, to where Haldor was pacing and scratching at his horns. That wasn’t a good sign.
I looked from one tense face to the next. “What’s wrong? Is it Gregor? Has he done something else?”
“Riv, my friend,” Haldor said with a wince. “There’s a rumor going around, you see, that you had a stash of weapons in your forge.”
My stomach dropped, and I tried to school my expression into something neutral, something smooth like stone. “Where did you hear that?”
“An anonymous note was left in the Village Hall. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but I found it this morning,” Haldor said quietly, flicking a tense gaze at the nearby crowd. But with the cheers and the laughter, our conversation would be hidden well enough, even from prying elven ears.
I frowned. “An anonymous note?”
“Yes, on a piece of parchment stamped with your wax seal in fact, which is why I thought it might be some kind of prank. Though, since you have never been a jester, that makes little sense.”
I looked at Daella. She clutched the arms of the chair, but a ridiculous smile lit her face. My stomach twisted as I tried to shove down the first thought that rose to the surface of my mind. She had been digging around in my drawer the night of the attack. She’d confessed to taking a sheet of parchment to send a letter to Isveig’s sister. At the time, I’d thought it was strange. Thuri was likely dead.
“She wouldn’t,” I murmured.
“Who wouldn’t what?” Odel asked, her wings twitching behind her. They only did that when she was feeling extraordinarily distressed.
“Someone came into my house the other night, attacked me, and burned the lot of my parchment,” I said grimly, pointing to the faint scar on my forehead. I healed fast, but there was still a small mark left. “They gave me this.”
Odel’s wings twitched faster. “You were attacked? Why didn’t you say anything?”
I looked from her wide-eyed face to Haldor’s. My old friend knew me too well. His expression hardened.
He said, “Because of the damn swords. It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve been forging them all this time.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “I never intended to use them.”
Haldor looked pained. “You broke the laws, Riv.”
“I’ve been carrying a sword or dagger with me everywhere I go. For fourteen long years. No one has ever said anything, or tried to stop me. I don’t see how this is any different.” I patted the dagger I currently had strapped around my waist, to emphasize my point.
“This is true.” Odel glanced from me to Haldor, her lips a flat pink line. “We named him Defender of Wyndale. Perhaps we can say he was merely doing his duty.”
Haldor paced beside the tent, his fiery skin and hair a stark contrast to the emerald green linen. He was my oldest friend here, and he understood me in a way very few did. And he understood the violence in my past, something I’d fought hard to leave behind.
To him, it might seem as if I planned to return to those ways.
“Where are the swords now?” he finally asked.
“Gregor has hidden them away somewhere. I searched for him in the Ashborn Forest but came up empty. He showed up just before the ceremony, though, and said something that upset Daella. He can’t be far.”
“You think it was Gregor?” Odel frowned.
“It doesn’t make much sense, Riv. Why would he steal your swords? Especially if he left that note,” said Haldor.
“I…”
I had no answer for that. Because Haldor was right. It wasn’t logical. And while Gregor wasn’t the brightest elf I’d ever met, he wasn’t that much of a fool, was he? Once again, my gaze drifted toward Daella, but the tent blocked my view of the celebration. The cheers had yet to die down, however, which meant she was still on that chair.
Daella clearly didn’t steal the swords that night, but had she stolen my parchment so she could leave Odel and Haldor that note? No, I couldn’t think that way. Perhaps this was Gregor’s true game. He wanted to turn us against each other.
“He’s clearly not thinking straight, or he’s playing a game he’s not smart enough to win,” I argued. “No one else in this village has a grudge against me the way he does. I got him kicked out of the Midsummer Games, remember?”
