"The Dawn that Rose from Fire"

Day 20 of Novel November- Alenyah and Kaelen grow closer

Continuance of Chapter 11

Alenyah’s shoulders relaxed, and her muscles trembled. Valka licked her bloody face, panting, and she pushed her snout away, smiling faintly.

For the first time, Kaelen reached out and scritched Valka behind the ears, peering to look at her injuries. She gave him a few licks as well.

“Is anyone hurt?” Tavren was all business, cleaning and sheathing their knives. Alenyah shook her head, and Foxran was helping the Rhea scramble down from their tree.

“Where are the horses?” Seth demanded, “All our supplies.” Alenyah glanced around, brows furrowed. She could see the path the horses had torn into the distance, snapped limbs and trampled ferns.

Kaelen followed her gaze and sighed heavily. Then his eyes dropped to hers, and he stepped forward, close enough for her to see flecks of amber in his eyes.

“You alright?” He murmured. His large hand circled her wrist, and he raised her arm up and down. She hissed in pain, “I saw you take that hit.” His lips quirked in a small smile. “You did well recovering so quickly.”

Heat of mining forges ran up her arm from his touch, and she flushed. He gently put his other palm on her shoulder, checking the joint.

“It doesn’t seem to be dislocated,” he told her, unaware of how her heart was pounding, drawing out any hint of the sound. She swallowed and pulled her wrist from his grip, stepping back.

“I-” she couldn’t seem to speak for a moment. “I brought my people through this forest after the Fall. It was smaller then, but I remember those.” Her eyes drifted to the clearing. “They’ve grown faster…and bigger. I couldn’t slow them.”

“You did enough,” he bent towards her, intense eyes looking the rest of her over. Then, he barked.

“Tavren!”

The red-headed Stoneborn nodded and called out, “Berin! You still got that salve I lent you? Or was it with the horses?” Berin reached into his coat and triumphantly pulled out the medicine before tossing it at them. They opened it, and their eyes narrowed.

“You’ve been slacking on using this,” they told him reproachfully. Berin shrugged.

“It’s a good thing too, since obviously other people need it.”

Althea whacked him. “Don’t complain about being sore then!”

“I’ve never complained a day in my life!”

“Liar!”

Tavren rolled their eyes and tossed the salve to Kaelen. Business-like, he started pulling down the shoulder of her tunic, exposing her pale skin.

“I-I-I-” Alenyah backed away. “I can do it.” She snatched the salve from his surprised hands and strode away for privacy. She settled herself in a small space of pine and tall ferns before sliding her bare arm out of her tunic. Her bicep and shoulder mottled with bruising, and she dipped her fingers delicately into the cream before slathering the medicine into her skin.

Her hands trembled- but not from the fight. Focus, she told herself.

Footsteps approached, soft but unmistakable.

“Alenyah?” Berin’s voice, gentle and a little hesitant.

She didn’t turn. “I’m fine.”

“I know.” He eased around the log and sat beside her, far enough to give space, close enough to be present. “But fine people sometimes run away from the group clutching medicine like it’s treasure.”

Despite herself, she huffed a laugh.

Berin picked up a pine needle, twirling it between his fingers. “Seth’s organizing a search party for the horses. Foxran thinks they’ll stick to the game trails. Kaelen’s…” He paused. “Well. Kaelen’s pacing.”

She blinked. “Pacing?”

“Like a caged bull that thinks it might’ve scared off the only person who knows where water is.” Berin shrugged. “He’s… intense. You know that.”

“I do.”

Silence fell between them, companionable.

A moment later, branches rustled, and Foxran appeared, bow in hand, hair still disheveled from the scramble up the tree. “Found tracks. Seth wants you two.”

Berin stood, offering a hand. She ignored it and pushed herself up, but he didn’t take offense.

As she stepped back into the clearing, Kaelen’s head snapped toward her. Relief flickered across his face.

“We’re moving,” Seth called. “We’ll follow the horses’ trail before the light fades.”

Kaelen approached her, slower this time. “Shoulder better?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Good,” he said, eyes lingering on her for a moment too long. “Stay close.”

Valka bumped her hip, as if seconding the order.

It took them the rest of the day to find the horses. Seth turned out to be an effective tracker, crouching and inspecting the ground and surrounding bracken. When he seemed lost, he asked Alenyah to reach out and see if she could feel their Songs.

When she did so, she could often pinpoint the location, though she hated the screeching fear bleeding into the tune. At dusk, they found an unoccupied clearing, but no horses. Still, Seth sensed they were close.

At this, Alenyah dismounted and began unsaddling Valka. She felt eyes on her and the bulk of a Stoneborn and tensed, in case it was Kaelen. The obsidian giant, Foxran, spoke behind her.

“What’re you doing?” He asked. She glanced behind and almost jumped. He was holding his knives.

“What’re YOU doing?” She gasped almost hauling herself bareback on Valka.

His face twisted in confusion before relaxing.

“Ah,” he spun the blades effortlessly in his hands. “After our last encounter, I wanted to be safe while we are setting up camp.”

“I don’t hear anything,” she reassured him, still tense. She heaved her saddlebacks off Valka. The Fylgja shook her coat out happily and immediately began to scent the air. She barked and turned her unblinking eyes on Alenyah. The Fey’ri smiled.

“I’m getting our horses back.” She told Foxran. Then, she lifted her hand. “Valka-”

The hound was vibrating in excitement, lowering her weight close to the ground, ears perked up. Alenyah jerked her hand downward.

“Come by!”

And the hound was gone, a black arrow loosing into the trees.



A good half hour passed, Tavren teaching Althea and Berin how to quickly start a fire. Alenyah paced the perimeter of the trees, pointed ears straining for any sound. Just as the light of day failed, she heard the whinnying and tramp of hoofbeats. She backed away from the tree line just as the horses thundered into the clearing. They appeared no worse for wear after their adventure. A crouching Valka prowled behind, eyes set upon her charges. Alenyah whistled, and the hound corralled the horses into a side of the clearing, Kaelen, Seth, and Foxran jumping forward to tie down and secure the mounts.

She walked alongside her Fylgja and patted her fur. “That’ll do.”

A pant whooshed out, and Valka relaxed onto her haunches. Foxran gave her a rare smile.

“Good dog,” he praised before turning to Alenyah. “Now that- is handy!”

She was unused to Foxran showing any kind of positivity, and she tossed her chin up, proud.

“My people have always tamed the Fylgja, for battle, for hunting, for herding. I wish you could have seen them, in the reach. All different colors and breeds. Some were great cantering beasts, larger than those horses. We used them to haul the Ironwoods.” Her eyes grew distant, even misty. “Some were baby-sitters. We’d leave our children with them, come back hours later to find a puddle of cuddling pups and babes.”

The Fey’ri blinked and wiped her eyes. Valka’s dark brown eyes drifted to hers, and she whined. Alenyah patted her reassuringly.



“So why’s Valka the only one I’ve seen in the Vale?” Althea asked just as Berin gave a whoop; his spark had finally caught, sending a curl of flame licking up the kindling.

Her emotions were all over the place today, Alenyah told herself. She crossed to her saddlebags, pulling out some jerky which she fed to a grateful Valka.

Alenyah lowered herself beside Valka, fingers slipping into the thick fur at the hound’s neck.

“They faded,” she said softly. “Just like the Singers did.”

The fire crackled; Berin and Althea fell quiet. Even Tavren stopped fussing with the flame.

“When our people came to the Vale after the Fall… the Song was already thinning. We felt it in the air, in the riverbeds, in the roots of the trees. The Fylgja felt it too.” Her fingers slowed, tracing the warm rise and fall of Valka’s ribs. “They grew distant from it, and without the Song, something in them dimmed.”

Valka turned and pressed her large head against Alenyah’s hip, as if confirming it.

“Within a single century, not a single new litter was born. Not one.” Her voice grew hoarse. “One by one, the old ones passed. Some wandered into the woods and never returned. Others… simply lay down and didn’t rise again.”

The hound beside her gave a low, quiet whuff.

“Valka was never meant to be a warrior.” Alenyah managed a tired smile. “She was bred for herding livestock in the Reach. Gentle, patient, endlessly watchful.” She nudged Valka’s ear.

Kaelen crouched near the fire, brows knit with a rare softness. “How did she make it when the others didn’t?”

Alenyah hesitated long enough that the fire popped sharply.

“She didn’t,” Alenyah said finally. “Not all at once, anyway. I didn’t find her until she was half-starved, hiding near the border of The Vale. She wouldn’t even look at me. Whatever happened to the rest of her pack…” She swallowed. “She’d seen it.”

Foxran’s jaw tightened. Althea’s eyes glimmered with sympathy.

“So you healed her?” Althea asked.

Alenyah shook her head.

“No. She chose to follow me. That was all.” She stroked Valka’s cheek, voice a whisper now. “And I think… I think the Song chose her. Whatever’s left of it. She’s the last echo of what the Fylgja once were.”

Valka curled closer, tail sweeping over Alenyah’s boots.

“And as long as she remains,” Alenyah said, staring into the fire’s glow, “I know the Song isn’t gone. Not yet.”

Althea rose and went to Valka’s side before collapsing onto the soft fur. “I’m just glad she is with us.”

Alenyah smiled, “Me too.”



“Well, I’m glad she brought the horses back,” Seth said happily, sorting through their supplies by the light of the fire. “We’d have had a devil of a time rounding them up ourselves. Next time we won’t even waste time tramping through the woods after them. We’ll just send her!”

Alenyah stiffened slightly. She didn’t know how to make them understand.

“I would prefer to be with her,” she murmured carefully as Tavren took some of their rations from the slimmer Stoneborn and began prepping a meal. “She’s all I have, so I won’t separate us unless absolutely necessary.”

“All you had,” Berin corrected. Her brow furrowed.

“Sorry?”

“I think he means,” Kaelen plopped down on her right, reaching past her to pet Valka thoughtfully. “-is that you have us now. For as long as we are together, you won’t be alone.”

The Fey’ri didn’t know how to handle that, so she remained silent, as a companionable quiet fell around the camp.