Pure (COMPLETED)

Chapter 43: The Beginning

Finten stood in the doorway of Alvie's old workroom for a long moment before he walked in swinging a heavy axe by his side. He went over to the worktable and stopped again. He stared at the worn leather bindings attached to the table and swallowed.

Did I really do the best I could have?

Faces of the many people who had suffered the last thirteen years passed over his mind's eye. He squeezed his eyes shut. I'm sorry.

Maybe he would have done things differently now, but at the time he had done the best he could. He had given his people everything he had. He had kept them alive. It was the only thing he knew to do.

He remembered Maigred being dragged into the manor. The way she strained at the men holding her arms, trying to get to Hadeaon, demanding that her brother be set free. Begging him to hold her until the presentation ceremony so that Cathal could go home. 'You can cut off as many pieces of me as you want, just let him go, please!' That had been the moment he thought of every time he felt like he couldn't put up with Hadeaon's greed or Alvie's fire magic anymore. The young human woman willing to put herself at Hadeaon's mercy to protect the brother she loved. Her bravery had given him courage for years. She and his memories of Caevah. His hand automatically reached up to touch the stone and found only the front of his shirt.

He'd gone back to the sacred grove and gifted his wedding stone to the earth sister.

He didn't need it any more. Caevah was dead and he had promised himself to Maigred. He swallowed and remembered the way she had stalked up to Hadeaon so fearlessly, stripping out of her clothes, offering herself in place of her daughter.

Finten hadn't really been surprised, it was what she had done all those years ago, given herself in place of her loved one. He had only been afraid that she had lost faith, lost hope and was going to throw away her life in a desperate bid to protect her children. A hearth maiden should not have had the power to drown out a wyrm's fire like that. But Maigred had ever never fit into the categories of 'supposed to' or 'shouldn't be able to'.

He frowned at the table, then raised his axe. He brought it around in a swinging motion and slammed the bit deep into the wood. He loosened the axe head, brought it back and swung again.

After Hadeaon had been killed, both he and Maigred had been afraid that Hadeaon's tarasque would come looking for them. They never came. It turned out he had sent all of them out looking for any children he might have fathered. Whatever had happened with his tarasque after Hadeaon had died, they hadn't come back to avenge their lord.

He swung the axe again and the solid wooden top cracked, splitting down the middle. Finten put his axe down and shoved the two halves of the table away from each other, then arranged one of the halves so that he could start chopping it apart.

He picked up his axe again and swung it.

Alvie had bled out on the carpet while they were dealing with Hadeaon. Maigred had checked on her almost as soon as Hadeaon had expired. Hadeaon had gutted Alvie with his claws. She had been holding herself together with her hands when she was begging him for her life.

Finten swung his axe steadily, the bit chopping away at the fist half of the table, little by little. Soon it was nothing more than a pile of fire wood. He turned to the other half and arranged it so that it was as stable as he could get it and began swinging his axe again, slowly chopping up that half as well.

It had been about a week since Hadeaon had died. Finten hadn't seen much of Maigred in that time. He and his men still ate breakfast and dinner at the inn, most of them ate lunch there too now. But Maigred always seemed busy when he was at the inn. When Finten wasn't there, he was busy cleaning the town and the manor up.