Free An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear

oath. And more, that he had not merely avoided violating it in the narrow, legalistic sense that most svartalfar understood to be acceptable when maneuvering around uncomfortable promises, but had honored it as deeply as possible. But she also knew that while his first, accidental encounter with the svartalfar might have had no consequences for either race, the second, deliberate seeking-out, with other men in his company—and a konigenmother—meant that the secret simply could not be kept. Men and svartalfar would have to accept that they were known to each other, and they would have to decide how they wished that relationship to proceed.
    Some svartalfar (and, almost certainly, some men) favored war. She had heard arguments for svartalfar driving the men out of the North as both species had driven the trolls; arguments for setting garrisons beyond which men would not be allowed to go, and would be killed if they tried; arguments for simply butchering every man the svartalfar came across, in the sure belief that the men would do the same if given the slightest chance.
    Tin did not believe so. She believed, and indeed had proof, that Isolfr was both truthful and honorable, and even on days when Alfgyfa exasperated her to screaming-point, she remained grateful for the child’s presence in Nidavellir. The girl was a grubby, awkward, stubborn-minded proof that Isolfr had honor and would trust in the honor of the svartalfar. And she had liked the other men whom she had met, the wolfcarls and wolfless warriors who had fought with the svartalfar against the trolls. They could not sing, and she pitied them in their mostly deaf grubbing on the crust of the world, but they were honorable and fierce. She did not want to go to war against them, and she was not sure, for all the cunning and skill of the svartalfar, that it was a war the svartalfar would win.
    That was an ugly thought, and one she did not share with other smiths, other mothers, other craft-masters. No good would come of that particular speculation, and it might very well provoke her more nervous sisters into the very aggression she was trying to find a way to avoid. Instead, almost from the moment the trolls were defeated, Tin had begun trying to find ways to ensure that men and svartalfar never marched to war against each other.
    She had sought allies among her own people, even as she risked alienating all of them by fostering a human cub. The fostering of her own daughter Rhodium secured her the support, if not the approval, of her Kinship. She talked to the smiths of other alfhames. In Nidavellir, she talked to the craft-masters of other guilds. She suspected, though she would not for any price ask him directly, that Master Advocate Tourmaline had accepted her first cautious overtures less from goodwill and more from a desire to have a prime vantage from which to watch her comprehensive failure. If that was true, she had to admit that he had not held on to his petty motivations for long. Once he had understood the root of her concerns, once she had managed to convey something of what she had learned of men from marching to war among them, he had been quick to tease out the ramifications, including some Tin herself had not thought of, and quick to throw himself into the discussions of how the svartalfar could best navigate these narrow and twisting paths.
    Tourmaline was also a boon on the days when she and her other closest ally, Galfenol, could not keep from snapping at each other like a teething litter of snow foxes. They had known each other too long and too well, with too much bitterness as all those they loved in common died at the cruel-clawed hands of the trolls. It was dreadfully easy for them to bait each other into argument even when they were in agreement. Tourmaline had a quiet, unsinkable dignity, and he contrived to make it contagious. Tin wished she could fathom the trick of it.
    The svartalfar were weapons makers by nature, not weapons