Elfhome

36: BETWEEN A STONE AND AN IRON MACE

Somehow Oilcan managed to escape without being immediately loaded onto the gossamer and hauled back to Easternlands, kicking and screaming. He quickly explained that he had a household and frantically pointed back toward Sacred Heart.

All the while the back of his brain screamed reminders that this man had built a massive palace to trap his heart’s desire in — endlessly painting — until she agreed to become his lover. The male was relentless. Suddenly the story seemed creepy instead of sweetly romantic.

Forge nodded without glancing toward the enclave, his focus wholly on Oilcan. “We were told nothing except that my son’s orphan had been found in the middle of the war zone and there were no clansman here to protect him. We came as quickly as we could.”

“We?” Oilcan had the sinking feeling he was about to be outnumbered.

“Your grandmother’s brother came with me.” Forge waved a hand upward toward the gossamer. “Iron Mace against Stone.”

“Against” implied violent force. It seemed an ill-omened name to Oilcan, especially if the force was applied to him. As if summoned by name, the elevator started to descend again.

“I am just an architect,” Forge said. “While being methodical and exacting makes me excellent in my craft, I react too slowly for battle. Mace would not hear of me going into a war zone alone.”

The elevator reached the ground. The door rattled open and a lone male stepped off. He was all that Oilcan expected in a high-caste elf: tall, elegantly beautiful, and ornately dressed. He wore gold-hued wyvern armor, rich green breeches tucked into tall gleaming boots, and a duster of green fairy silk painted with dragons. Beside him, Forge was short, rough, and earthy. Was that why Forge had felt like he had to court Amaranth so cautiously?

“Mace.” Forge put an arm about Oilcan’s shoulders. “This is my grandson, Oilcan Wright.”

“He’s human.” Mace frowned down at Oilcan.

“Yes, I am.” Oilcan felt the need to underscore that. Not an elf. Not a child. Not to be taken from Pittsburgh. “Unbounded Brilliance was my great-great-great-grandfather.”

The look on Mace’s face made Thorne Scratch shift forward. “He can call the Spell Stones. He is still domana-caste.”

Forge squeezed Oilcan’s shoulders. “He has Amaranth’s eyes and smile, and that’s all that matters. Besides, what is one generation or five to our cruel overlord’s work? We breed true whether we like it or not. Look at him. Is he not all wood sprite?”

“Wh-what?” Oilcan asked.

“The clever little spirits of the woods.” Forge gave Oilcan another half hug. “My mother was part of a new caste that the Skin Clan were creating. Small and clever.”

“Dangerously clever,” Mace said.

Forge grinned at his brother-in-law. “Yes. We are. We remind people of mythical forest guardians, especially after we escaped en masse and set up the first Spell Stones.”

The elevator spilled out Mace’s Hand, and there was a subtle shift of sekasha.

“Come.” Forge gently tugged Oilcan toward the enclaves. “Tell me about my son.”

Forge did not ask “How did my son die?” but clearly that was what he wanted to know.

Mace’s First, though, was asking Thorne Scratch what had happened to the domana and sekasha that came to Pittsburgh. His questions were in High Elvish, and polite, but implied “Why are you still alive when you should be dead?”

Oilcan resisted Forge’s pull to look back at Thorne Scratch. She was squared off against Iron Mace’s First. He didn’t want to leave her having to face all the assembled alone, but he wouldn’t know what was safe to say. His defense might damn her in their eyes.

As Oilcan wavered, Forge’s First noticed him, and his look softened. He minutely shook his head and gave one pushing motion with his hand.

Forge tugged again, and this time Oilcan didn’t resist.

Still, it felt like he was betraying Thorne Scratch as he let Forge lead him away.

At first Oilcan was too distracted to panic.

It was one thing to tell someone that their son was dead and quite another to tell him that his son was beheaded in front of a jeering crowd. To be kind, Oilcan focused on what little he knew of Unbounded Brilliance’s life at the French court. His elfin beauty and knowledge of advanced biology had made him a favorite of the queen. Unfortunately, it also made him a target when the nobles fell. While other commoners were overlooked, the elf had been hunted down and put to death. Oilcan merely said, “A civil war broke out, and he was killed in the fighting.” Unbounded’s son, Etienne, had been as slow to mature as Blue Sky and was still very young. “His wife brought their child to this continent to keep him safe. He became a jeweler and watchmaker.”

By then they had reached Sacred Heart, and Oilcan was beginning to realize that compressed down, his family history was one long tragedy. Unbounded Brilliance had died in the Reign of Terror. Etienne had been killed by jewel thieves. Etienne’s son drowned in the Johnstown Flood. Of all Unbounded Brilliance’s descendants, only Oilcan’s grandfather had died peacefully in bed.

A full Hand of sekasha swept into the school building ahead of them, and all thoughts of past tragedies vanished.

“Wait!” Oilcan cried, dashing after them. “Forgiveness, but please wait.”

The children had gone back to painting. Still clutching dripping paintbrushes, they fled toward the safe room.

Oilcan managed to get between them and the sekasha. “Forgiveness. The children have been through much. They frighten easily.”

With smiles that seemed almost shy, the warriors backed off.

“Sama?” Merry tucked close to Oilcan, ignoring the fact that she was pressing a wet paintbrush into his side.

“This is Forge of Stone.” Oilcan pried the paintbrush out of her hands. “He is my ancestor.”

“Call me Grandfather.” Forge shook his head as he studied the five doubles. “I’ve never seen so many children together in one place before. What are they doing in this war zone?”

Oilcan hoped that Forge wasn’t counting him as one of the children. “Earth Son offered sponsorship to anyone that came to Pittsburgh, but he’s — he’s dead.” Oilcan skirted around explaining how Earth Son had ended up dead. “The children broke ties with their households — they can’t go back.”

Forge continued to shake his head. “I had not heard — but I’m not privy to most clan business. I work too closely with the Fire Clan to be trusted by most of our clan. Still — what was he thinking? Laedin I could understand in a war zone, but naelinsanota?”

“Naelinsanota?” Oilcan had never heard the term before. If he was translating the word correctly, it meant “unclean blood.”

“Forgiveness, the habits of your youth are the deepest ingrained. It’s been nae hou, and yet the old words are the ones that come easiest. Our cruel overlords each had their own breeding projects. Just as my mother’s people were clever, the naelinsanota were just as gifted, although more artistically inclined. After the liberation, the naelinsanota were absorbed into the taunlae.”

“My parents were naelinsanota,” Merry whispered, blushing brightly. “But they let people believe they’re taunlae.”

Rustle took her hand and squeezed it tight. “So were mine.”

“Mine, too,” Cattail said.

“I’m not sure,” Barley said. “I think my father may have been. He wasn’t nivasa caste, and that was all my mother’s household talked about — like she’d lowered herself.”

“Quiee.” It clearly distressed Baby Duck that she didn’t know what she was.

Oilcan frowned. It was one thing if Earth Son had put out a general summons. If he had selectively tapped only the children of a certain caste, then the domana had definitely been working with the oni greater bloods. But to what end?

“Where will Grandfather be staying?” Barley reminded Oilcan that there was a more important problem at hand. “Grandfather” was here on a mission. The young male added with a mix of hope and dread, “With us?”

That seemed too close. “In the house” seemed like it would lead directly to “in control.”

Oilcan shook his head. “We don’t have extra beds.”

“We don’t have any beds,” Cattail Reeds pointed out.

“We won’t be here long.” By “we” Forge probably meant himself, Oilcan, and the children.

This was Oilcan’s life without brakes. “Wait here a minute.” Oilcan backpedaled into the kitchen. He was running by the time he hit the back door. He ran out the back gate and down the back alley, praying that Windwolf was at Poppymeadow’s.

He nearly careened into the male halfway down the road. “Windwolf!” He caught hold of the tall male.

“What is wrong, cousin?”

“Forge of Stone is here. He is the father of Unbounded Brilliance — my ancestor. He is claiming me as his child and wants to take me to Easternlands.”

“I will not allow it,” Windwolf snapped.

Oilcan breathed out in relief. “So, you can stop him?”

Windwolf looked angry. “I am not sure, but I intend to try.”

Apparently it was the arrival of the gossamer that triggered the gathering of domana. Prince True Flame was on the edge of the faire grounds, already exchanging introductions with Iron Mace. Forge’s First and Thorne Scratch weren’t with the knot of elves: apparently they’d gone on to Sacred Heart.

Oilcan was glad to note that Iron Mace introduced himself to Windwolf, meaning that he was lower ranked. Prince True Flame, though, in the end would be the one that decided Oilcan’s fate.

“Wolf Who Rules Wind.” Windwolf growled out his name and then turned to his cousin. “True, I will not have my territory plundered while I’m dealing with a common enemy. If they are not here to help, they are not welcomed.”

“They just arrived.” True Flame shifted the conversation to High Elvish and made a motion for Windwolf to stay calm.

For reasons that eluded Oilcan, the more polite the conversation, the faster the elves talked.

Windwolf’s response was machine-gun fast but courteous. “I will not stand by and let them take what is mine. It was agreed that humans would be considered neutral but under Wind Clan rule.”

“What is this?” Iron Mace noticed Oilcan and frowned. “You would deny us our own blood?”

Windwolf nodded. “If he does not want to leave Pittsburgh, then yes, I would deny you. He is not yours to take.”

Iron Mace waved a hand toward Oilcan. “He is — what? Thirty? Forty years old? He is not old enough to choose his clan. He is the clan of his birth.”

“I was not born into a clan,” Oilcan pointed out as calmly as he could in High Elvish. “Nor was my mother or my grandfather or his father.”

True Flame looked at him with surprise clear on his face. He glanced to Windwolf. “How is it that the one that is human speaks High Tongue better than the one that is an elf?”

Iron Mace plowed through any answer from Windwolf beyond a spreading of hands. “My sister’s son was lost to us. His children were born to the Stone Clan regardless if they knew it or not.”

Windwolf shook his head. “One’s clan is a personal choice. Loyalty must be freely given.”

“As I said.” Iron Mace raised his voice and talked faster. “He is not old enough to choose.”

None of the elves seem to be considering Oilcan as part of the conversation. They were like dogs fighting over a bone.

“Forgiveness.” Oilcan fought to stay civil. “I am a human, not an elf.”

Iron Mace didn’t even glance in Oilcan’s direction. “If he is domana enough to tap the Stones, then he must be considered an elf.”

Oilcan shifted closer to Prince True Flame. He wasn’t sure what it said that none of the prince’s sekasha considered him threat enough to block his move. It did not help his cause that he only came up to mid-chest on them.

“Honorable one, the question is not how much an elf I am, but if I’m an adult and can determine my own fate. By human reckoning, I reached my adulthood years ago. My mother gave birth to me when she was only a few years older than I am now.” Actually, she had been over a decade older, but it was close enough in elf years. “My grandfather died before he reached his triples. If you don’t consider me adult now, then I will never live long enough for you to see me as an adult.”

“Your grandfather died a double?” Forge joined the fray without bothering to introduce himself.

“He was ninety-eight,” Oilcan said. “His heart gave out.”

At least, that was what the coroner ruled. His grandfather had been fighting pneumonia for a week before he died. It was possible that if he had let them take him to the hospice and use magic to battle the illness, he would have survived.

“He was no taller than I am now. I am full grown.” Oilcan hammered home on the fact that he had a human lifespan. “I will not live to see my triples. The average lifespan of a human male is only mid-seventies.”

Only then did he see Thorne Scratch behind Forge. Her warrior’s mask slipped, and her eyes filled with sorrow. He wished she was close enough to reach out and take her hand, but he would have had to go through Forge’s Hand to get to her.

“How old are you now?” Forge dragged Oilcan’s attention back to the debate.

Oilcan sighed, hating to answer. “Humans reach maturity in less than two decades.”

“I realize that. How old are you?” Forge pressed for an answer.

“Twenty-two.” Judging by the dismayed looks all around, he had just reduced himself back to a five-year-old in their eyes. “Pittsburgh is my home and if I had to choose a clan, I would choose the Wind Clan. Because of the children, though, it would be best if I could merely stay neutral.”

“Wind Clan?” Iron Mace cried. “What idiocy is that? You are Stone Clan!”

“He is not!” Tinker pushed her way through Windwolf’s Hand to stand between Oilcan and the Stone Clan domana. She was wearing shorts, a Team Tinker T-shirt, and tennis shoes. She had her right arm in a sling and was snarling in Low Elvish. “He’s old enough to decide his clan, and he decided to be neutral, so back off!”

“Who is this?” Iron Mace demanded.

“This is Beloved Tinker of Wind.” Prince True Flame gave Windwolf a look that clearly demanded his cousin to take control of his child bride. “She is the Wind Clan domi.”

The Stone Clan continued to look confused.

“She is my cousin.” Oilcan added the High Elvish term that clearly mapped out how they were related. He shifted back to Low Elvish as Tinker wouldn’t be able to follow the conversation otherwise. “But we were raised as brother and sister.”

Forge instantly grasped Windwolf’s reasons. “You returned her immortality!”

Iron Mace, though, focused on the negative. “You spell-worked one of our clan’s children?”

“I am not a child,” Tinker snapped. “And I’ve never been Stone Clan. I have always considered myself Wind Clan.”

“It is all we’ve ever known,” Oilcan added.

Iron Mace shook his head. “Clearly Unbounded Brilliance’s children lost all memory of who they really were along with their immortality.”

Tinker shook her head. “Our grandfather knew that we were once Stone Clan, and he chose not to have any communication with them.”

Their grandfather had viewed almost everything connected to elves with faint distrust. Oilcan had always attributed their grandfather’s wariness to the fact that Tooloo seemed incapable of telling the truth. Perhaps he knew that contacting the Stone Clan meant they would be scooped up and forced to be children the rest of their lives.

“Why didn’t he send word?” Forge asked. “I’ve been searching for nae hae for my son.”

“It does not matter.” Iron Mace snapped. “The Wind Clan has no right—”

“Wolf Who Rules offered, I accepted — there doesn’t need to be anything more than that!” Tinker shouted.

“Enough!” Prince True Flame roared. “We are at war. We do not have time for this petty bickering. Humans are considered adult at eighteen, so he can choose to be Stone Clan or not, if he wishes.”

“Forgiveness,” Oilcan said to Forge and to Thorne Scratch. “But I choose not to be Stone Clan.”

Oilcan fled back to Sacred Heart while Prince True Flame dragooned Iron Mace into the war effort and dragged him off for a war council. Forge begged off, pointing out that he could lay defenses but was generally a noncombatant. Prince True Flame allowed it, maybe seeing it as payment for losing his grandchildren, or maybe so he could babysit the two baby domana cousins.

Oilcan wished he didn’t feel so guilty for protecting himself. But if his mother’s death had taught him anything, it was that you couldn’t live your life ignoring your own heart for the sake of someone else’s happiness. He’d watched his mother die a little bit at a time for years before his father landed the killing blow. She should have fled to Elfhome, following her love of elf culture, instead of worrying about making his father unhappy. Her leaving his father wouldn’t have been as bad as his father rotting in a prison cell, knowing he’d killed the only good thing in his life.

Tinker walked beside Oilcan, occasionally bumping shoulders with him and giving him worried looks.

“Oh, oh, what’s the look for? You’re the one with the broken arm.”

Tinker bumped him a little harder and stuck out her tongue. He laughed; it made him happy that despite all the madness of her change and the war, they were fundamentally the same. He could understand Forge’s immediate obsession. In Tinker, Oilcan heard echoes of his mother’s voice and grandfather’s sharp humor. If he lost Tinker, it would be like he lost his mother and grandfather all over again. He couldn’t bear the loss.

It didn’t surprise him that Forge followed them up the steps to Sacred Heart. Oilcan wasn’t sure how to deal with the elf that reminded him of his grandfather. Would the elf obey Prince True Flame or would he steamroll over everything to drag Oilcan back to the Easternlands?

Tinker turned to glare with suspicion at their great-grandfather. “What do you want — besides the obvious? You can’t have Oilcan.”

Unstoppable force met unmovable object. If Oilcan wasn’t sandwiched between the two, it would be entertaining.

Forge stared back at Tinker, seemingly fascinated by her. “You were as human as your cousin? Before Wolf Who Rules spell-worked you?”

“Yes,” Tinker growled. “Most people thought we were brother and sister, not cousins. I won’t let you take him away. This is his home — not some huge sprawling palace with a bunch of strangers.”

Forge nodded slowly. “Forgiveness. Of course. I–I didn’t think. .” He faltered to a halt, and then sudden hope dawned on his face. “Are there more of you? They say humans are more prolific—”

“No,” Oilcan said, and then to soften it added, “Grandfather. Most of Unbounded’s descendants had only one child to carry on the bloodline. Tinker and I are the only ones left.”

“I see. Oh, well.” He smiled sadly. “It is two more than I had ever hoped for. My son disappeared so suddenly, without a word to anyone, taking no one with him and seemingly without any of his things. He left behind his brushes and paints and lute. What was missing were things a thief would take. We were afraid he’d been killed and his body buried in some shallow grave. The not knowing what had happened to him: that was the worst.”

Oilcan understood all too well. When the oni kidnapped Tinker a few weeks earlier, they made it seem as if she had crashed into the river. For weeks, he hadn’t known if she was dead or alive. He had the prophecy, though, that Tinker would be the one to stop the oni from invading. Oilcan had clung to that hope despite all the evidence. He could not imagine three hundred years of nothing. He could imagine how overwhelming the grief would be. Just the glimmer of hope would keep fresh the wounds, and every day would be a cycle of sorrow.

“Amaranth had every foot of soil within a day’s walk overturned. We dragged all the nearby lakes. She endlessly questioned everyone that might have seen him those last days. In the end, she couldn’t take not knowing what had happened to our son. She killed herself.”

To lose first your child and then your wife. Gods have pity on the male.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Oilcan said.

“We came at all haste once we heard the news about his orphan being in the war zone. We only have our sekasha with us; we left behind the rest of our households. We’ll have to send my gossamer back to fetch them.”

“You’re staying?” Tinker’s voice was full of suspicion.

“Of course we’re staying. We can’t leave you two here defenseless. We have cots and blankets on the gossamer, and while we’re here, we can build your defenses for this enclave.”

Oilcan realized that when Forge said “staying,” he meant at Sacred Heart.

The children were ecstatic at the news. They saw it as a dry run toward opening an enclave. As Forge went off to collect gear from the gossamer and send it back for his household, the kids argued over what to do to prepare.

“We should paint the dining hall!” Cattail doggedly rolled as fast as she could.

“That’s pointless. We only have one table and six chairs.” Rustle waved his paintbrush at Oilcan’s small dinette table and mismatched collection of chairs.

“They can eat in shifts.” Barley had stopped edging and was cleaning his paintbrush. “But I need to start dinner now. We need food for what — nineteen people? How many Hands did they bring? A couple days of this and we’ll end up with nothing but keva beans.”

Baby Duck was trotting in tight circles, clutching her roller. “Where will they sleep? None of the guest rooms have been painted. Shouldn’t we be working on those instead?”

That brought them all to a complete halt, and they turned to Oilcan with pleading eyes.

“For now, we’ll put them in the finished rooms on the third floor.” Oilcan hated the whole plan. He wasn’t sure if he could trust Forge, but they needed funds if they were to stay neutral, and the domana did have sekasha to keep the children safe. “Only for a day or two until we can paint the rooms on the second floor.”

“And put up window dresses and artwork,” Cattail added quietly.

“And make them nice,” Oilcan promised. He wasn’t sure where they’d get fabric for the curtains, but artwork he could handle. “Beans will be fine. They know this is a war zone. I can see if they can have supplies from Easternlands brought across. I’ll chase down another table and some more chairs.” He caught Baby Duck by the shoulders and pointed her at the nearest unfinished wall. “Go ahead and finish this coat. You’re almost done, and then you’ll have to wait for it to dry anyhow. Merry, why don’t you take over edging for Barley?”

Tinker was watching him marshal his troops with amusement. “Grandpa would be proud.”

“He’d be happier if they weren’t elves,” Oilcan murmured in English to spare the kids’ feelings. He pulled out a tablet and started a new to-do list. If he wanted Forge’s gossamer to bring back food supplies, he’d better talk to Forge immediately. “Grandpa never really trusted elves.”

“Lately, I’ve been empathizing with him,” Tinker grumbled low but back in Elvish. She kept pace with Oilcan as he headed toward the distant gossamer. Apparently she intended to keep an eye on Oilcan while the gossamer was still close enough to whisk him away. “If you read between the lines in his codex, Dufae was hiding on Earth. He never comes out and says it, but I think he found out that someone in the Stone Clan was cooperating with the Skin Clan. It might seem like a long time ago for us, but most likely, all the parties except Dufae are still alive.”

Dufae and his mother, who’d been desperately trying to figure out what had happened to her son — searching to find what had made him disappear. He wondered how Amaranth had died. Had Amaranth actually killed herself?

If she hadn’t, then two households’ worth of possible killers were about to arrive.

Would the kids be safe? Someone in the Stone Clan had already betrayed them once. “I found something out,” Oilcan said. “All the kids are naelinsanota—a caste that the Skin Clan was developing. The weird thing was that it’s a bit of a stigma — families weren’t advertising the fact that they were naelinsanota.”

Tinker cursed loudly, looking like she wanted to hit someone hard. Frustrated, she settled for kicking at a clump of grass. “I bet the dead children were hiding the fact that they were naelinsanota, too. Lain says all the kids, the ones that lived and the ones that were killed, were related. It means they’re all the same caste — even Baby Duck, even though she can’t remember. All seven! This wasn’t a random call for sponsorship. Earth Son, or whoever was using his name, had to have all but hand-delivered his offer to specific families.”

“To specific children,” Oilcan said. “It can’t be a coincidence that all of them are still doubles.”

“Only doubles are free to change households without shame.” Pony’s voice echoed Tinker’s anger. “The only caste that waits until their hundredth year to choose their beholding are sekasha. But to find seven doubles of any one caste — that is not coincidence.”

“Do you think Forge has anything to do with this?” Tinker eyed Oilcan. He could almost see the little cogs and wheels in her brain spinning quickly, planning ways to kidnap him herself.

“No,” Oilcan said firmly. “Thorne asked me for our lineage. The news traveled to Forge, and he came to find us. Me.” Forge’s emotions felt too genuine to be faked. “He loved Amaranth beyond reason. There’s no way he could have killed her and stayed sane.”

“So maybe he’s crazy,” Tinker said.

“I–I doubt it.” Pony shook himself like a wet dog at the idea. “His Hand would know if he’s unstable enough for that, and if they suspected he was monster enough to kill his domi, then — no — he can’t be insane.”

It was comforting to know — assuming that the sekasha were as all-knowing as Pony thought. Certainly Pony had been the first to realize Tinker was slipping over the edge when Esme was invading her dreams. But what if Tinker had been twisted before Pony met her? Would Pony see past a mask of sanity? Thorne Scratch hadn’t.

There was chaos on the faire ground by the massive anchors. Apparently Earth Son’s and Jewel Tear’s orphaned households had heard of the arrival of a Stone Clan airship. They were gathered around Forge, carrying travel bags. Some stoically quiet. Some in tears. Some pleading and weeping loudly.

“Anyone that wants to go back to Easternlands can.” Forge must have cast an amplification spell, because his voice carried as if he were using a bullhorn. “Anyone seeking to join my household will need to stay here in Pittsburgh and wait until I can decide to accept anyone.”

Oilcan glanced to Thorne Scratch. He hadn’t even considered that she might leave completely. Certainly there was nothing he could offer to make her stay. He took comfort that she made no move to leave his side, collect her gear, and go back to the Easternlands on the great living airship. Did she plan to offer to Forge or Iron Mace? Surrounded by Tinker’s and Forge’s Hands, Thorne had her face set to warrior neutral, so he could glean nothing of her intentions.

Forge pushed through the throng to where Oilcan and Tinker stood. “Is something wrong?”

Oilcan realized then that they hadn’t actually talked about how much he’d charge Forge. Maybe the elf thought he was staying in exchange for the defensive spells he planned — but Tinker could probably do just as good a job. It was food that Oilcan couldn’t get easily elsewhere. “The city is under siege and running low on food. We’ll be happy to have you stay with us — but there’s no place we can buy enough food to feed everyone. I was hoping that part of your—”

He wasn’t sure what elves called it.

“Mau,” Pony murmured.

“Mau would be in supplies from Easternland. Flour, salt, sugar, keva beans.”

Forge nodded. “Of course, of course. If you need something, and if it is mine to give, you may have it.”

It was nearly the same thing that Tinker had said just days before. It touched Oilcan deeply that this male he had just met was so willing to commit completely. It reminded him of his own instant affinity to Merry because she had reminded him of his lost mother.

“Thank you, Grandfather.” He put his hand on the male’s shoulder, ignoring the slight snort from Tinker.

Forge swallowed him into a full hug. “Oh, my child, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear losing you so soon after finding you.”

“You can stay as long as you want,” Oilcan said. Really, they needed all the domana they could get.

Forge hugged him tighter. “I will stay to the end.”

For a moment, Oilcan thought he meant until the end of the war. Only when he caught sight of Thorne giving him a look full of understanding sorrow did Oilcan realize that Forge meant until Oilcan died of old age.