[This post is from Thordin’s point of view.]
“They’ll need you out there.”
The hammer rang off-key, striking the anvil instead of the metal on it. Thordin’s shoulders tightened and he stared silently at the glowing metal. He took one breath, then another before asking, “For what?”
“Something’s coming,” Sif said, not budging from where she stood in the forge’s doorway, staring at him in the dim even as the light from outside threw her face into shadow. “I know you feel it.”
He stood there in silence, fingers tightening around the haft of the hammer—Matt’s hammer. He stood in Matt’s place, because the younger man wasn’t here, because he was gone, because he’d been taken.
Taken by one of them.
Thordin had felt whoever was out there coming, true enough—and the feel of it shook him down to the very core of his being.
He hadn’t dared to wonder if it was all of Olympium that had declared war on them or only a few—or if whoever it was came in peace or not. The latter was the distinct possibility and he feared that it would be the whole of that Otherland’s population.
It always felt like war with them anyway, even when it wasn’t. His lips thinned.
“Why are you hiding in here?” she asked. It came as a question, not a demand, which surprised him. Thordin finally looked up, meeting her shadowed gaze.
“I’m not hiding,” Thordin murmured, knowing the words were a lie the moment they left his lips. He turned away from her gaze, from her judgement of him, and started to bank the forge fires. “And you’re right. I felt it.”
“They need you,” Sif said softly. “The Dragon isn’t here to help them. If Marin and Neve try to join the line, you can bet I’m going to toss them both over my shoulder and tie them up somewhere so they can’t get hurt. But the others? They’ll need you.” Sif paused for a moment, then added, more softly, “I need you.”
