Elvirund | ✔️

Chapter Forty Eight

I found the cabin easily enough. Situated not more than one hundred meters from the gateway, the simple two room cottage was clean, if sparsely decorated, and bore a single fireplace in the larger of the two rooms. Not much else besides a table and chair graced my presence, but I felt an odd sense of comfort in the place. The smaller room became a makeshift bedroom; I had managed to fit a sleeping mat into the bottom of my bag. That was no issue. What I found odd was the fireplace. Angels were hardly susceptible to cold, and our only immediate weakness was fire. What was the need?

Slightly confused but too unfocused to think about it, I slipped into the trees around the cabin in search of a tree branch. I needed one of a height almost equal to mine, and width of about five centimeters. If I was lucky, I would find one on roughly the shape I needed. At first my search yielded nothing. Most of the sticks that were long enough broke easily, and only a few were thick enough anyway.

"How hard is it to find a decent sized broken branch?"

I was tempted to just break one off a tree, but Elvirund would throw a fit. So, on I went, stumbling through the woods. One or two came close to my requirements; a couple nearly were perfect, but I found they snapped when I put pressure on them. After an hour of scrambling to find a suitable branch, I came across one. At around a meter and a half in length, it stood up to my shoulder and curved gently in the shape of a large crescent. At its widest the branch was a good four centimeters, which would work for the purposes I needed it for.

Back at the cabin, I started working, scraping off one layer of bark to reveal the smoother wood underneath. Shaping it was a breeze, refining the curve and curling the ends outward. I ripped off the edge of my shirt and wrapped it around the middle of the branch, holding it in place with a dab of honey from the food stores Sibriel had packed.

"Not bad."

I found that I had just enough deer sinew for to finish my project. Stringing the bow with a grunt, I drew back and sighted the door frame. Perfect. Arrows would be a trickier task, as hard as the bow had been to perfect. I could have whittled any stick into a bow; arrows had to be straighter than straight, or they would not fly.

"That can wait. No it can't."

I had to do it now. Counterintuitively, the search for twigs would be rather easy. Making the arrows would be the difficult part. In no time I had a bundle of twenty potential arrows; knowing myself I would ruin at least three of them. Hopefully I could finish with a good twelve or fifteen good arrows. Indeed, in carving out the first arrow my hand slipped and cut too deep. The second was more successful, producing a fairly high quality arrow. It became easier as I absorbed myself in the task, narrowing my eyes in concentration.

I lost all sense of time, startled as I looked out the window to a dark sky illuminated only by the faint glowing of the gateway. The stars winked at me and I blinked back. Eighteen fully fletched arrows sat in a heap next to me on the floor.

"One day done. Time for another."

Sleep came gently and seamlessly. For once, I did not dream. Peaceful slumber was quite the feeling, I realized.

Caphriel paced quietly, footsteps soundless on the floor from decades of stealth and secrecy. Her hands were shoved deep in her pockets, tightened with tentative worry. She wasn't worried about Alethia's safety, not by a long shot. She was worried for Alethia's mental health. Alethia had survived many things in the past month, but she had also been there for her through a lot of it. There was much that Alethia was exceptionally capable of; being separated from her was not one of them.

"She'll be fine."

"I know, but will it be too much for us to be away from each other for so long?"