Chapter 2 #3
The town weaver likes to talk while she makes my clothing.
Listening gets me a discount. She claims she was once the personal tailor to a Great House heir, who wanted fabrics from all corners of Stormside.
So she traveled to almost every one, collecting fabrics for her boss as she went.
And for herself … she collected buttons.
She has a drawer of them, locked with a key.
Each button has a story. Over the years, she’s told me almost all of them.
I go to the drawer sometimes and pick one out.
Tell me this one again, I’ll say. That’s how I know about Helmspeak and the hawks that once lived there.
Helmhawks are said to be larger than people and congregate on the highest peak they can find, which on this side is Helmspeak. Rumor is that hundreds of years ago they allowed themselves to be ridden.
“They’re gone?” Kira says, so loudly a few passersby turn toward the alley.
Zane nods. “About a century ago, they left. Only a few giant feathers remain. The only proof they were ever there to begin with.”
It’s the story of this entire side. After the war, and the gates, all magic on this side faded. Nature withered. We rely on the magic that is brought back. These few years right before the next Questral are the hardest.
Maybe I should feel guilty for not having any intention of returning. Maybe I should be fueled by something more honorable than revenge.
The gods are the reason for our suffering, though. When they die, the gates will fall. Magic will not be hoarded on one side any longer.
Kira grips my elbow, and I nearly stab her through the chest on instinct. I’m glad I hesitate, though, because all she does is laugh and say, “Look at those fools. They’re going to be retching off their carts tomorrow.”
She’s staring at the group of ash-crowned challengers sitting on the dark platform, in front of a newly started fire.
They’re drinking wine they must have brought themselves, because nothing that nice is sold anywhere close to here, even at the carts.
Discarded bottles have gathered at their feet, over the blood-stained ground.
The glass itself is worth something. I bury the urge to collect it. To make it into something I can sell.
Some challengers sit with women in their laps. Some are already passed out in the mud. Some aren’t challengers at all.
Half the king’s guard is here, standing and celebrating as if they each managed to gain a spot on the platform when it counted. My fists lock when I see them. My skin prickles with long-held fury.
Their leader sits in front of them, his massive sword dug into the dirt beside him. It’s standing on its own.
It’s the most valuable weapon on this side of the gates. I instinctually contemplate how much it would go for in the desert markets …
Useless, really. For even if it wasn’t protected by knights, and Harlan Raker himself, I couldn’t claim it.
I would have to be more powerful than Raker. An ancient sword isn’t chosen; it’s claimed by both sides. Earned.
As if sensing my notice of his weapon, Harlan Raker’s head snaps up.
For a moment, the air seems to still. A chill licks down my spine.
Fear. A creature encountering its species’ greatest predator.
A ruthless killer. His hood casts his entire face in shadow, even the mask doesn’t glimmer.
He would slay me where I stand if it wasn’t against the rules. If it was worth his time at all.
My mind says to look away. To step back into the shadows of the alley.
But I remember that day in the rain. The day I begged him for mercy. I begged him to let me go.
He didn’t.
I don’t drop my gaze, even if I can’t see his eyes. Mine narrow as if they could convey even a fraction of my hatred for him.
The bastard doesn’t even look fazed. He doesn’t look anything. Of course he doesn’t. I can’t see his face, but his unbothered posture shows enough. Someone taps him on the shoulder, and finally he turns, as if I’ve already been forgotten. As if he doesn’t remember me in the first place.
“Chances are he kills one of us,” Zane says, almost casually, motioning toward Raker. He’s by my side now.
Kira gives him an incredulous look.
Zane only lifts a shoulder. “It’s true. No use in pretending it isn’t.”
He’s right. Harlan Raker once slayed an entire uprising himself.
A hundred people against him, and he is said to have emerged without even a drop of blood on his armor.
His movements were so precise, his blade so sharp, that it looked like he hadn’t been to battle at all, according to the few merchants who passed through town, leaving behind gossip.
But he’s not the only one with Starside steel going into the Culling. I’ll convince Stellan to let me bring his dagger. He’s angry … but he always promised that one day it would be mine.
Stellan likes lists. He makes one every morning of all our tasks and orders. On my way home, I make one of all the reasons he should help me.
Revelers stumble through the streets. The ash arc earns me a few bowing heads, and compliments, and—mostly—bets on how long I’ll last in the Culling. Not long at all, apparently. No one tries to steal my dagger, though, which is a marked improvement from my typical walk home.
I don’t hear Stellan in his forge, even though he locks himself in there all night whenever we get in an argument.
Maybe he’s decided to forgive me, I think, hope flaring in my chest. Maybe he’s going to offer me the dagger.
Maybe I won’t need the list, which would be good, because it wasn’t all that convincing to begin with.
I don’t want to part on bad terms. I don’t want him to sit here in this house alone, hating me.
“Stellan?” I say, floorboards creaking as I inch through the house. The hearth has gone dark. I use the poker to brush a layer of cinder away, uncovering the few glowing embers. I add some kindling and blow softly, gritting my teeth like I always do whenever I’m near fire. The logs flame.
I turn around, thinking he must have already gone to bed, and gasp.
Stellan is lying in the center of the room in a pool of blood.
Roaring fills the world. I’m on my knees beside him, feeling around for where he’s hurt, my fingers finding gaping skin like screaming mouths. My hands slip in the blood. There’s so much of it. I need help, I—
His hand comes over mine. It’s cold.
“I—”
“Let me speak, child,” he says. His words are labored, as if he’s fought to stay conscious. How long has he been on this cold floor, in the dark? How long has he waited for me to come home?
Regret pierces me deeper than any blade could. I shouldn’t have left. I should have joined him in the forge. This never would have happened—
His arm shakes with effort as he reaches to tap my pocket, and the copper blade inside of it. It’s weak, nothing like his.
His. I look at his scabbard, only to find it empty.
No.
This is my fault. One of the challengers must have seen me use the dagger, seen how easily the glimmering steel cut through bone, and shattered steel. They knew it would be invaluable during the Culling. They came here to get it.
He hands me my own blade. I know what he means.
He wants me to kill him. He wants me to claim his dagger. If I don’t, the person who did this will.
But I can’t.
I shake my head. A sob rips from my chest, echoing through the room.
He takes my hand. It’s trembling. “Listen to me. Listen. Find Vander Evren.” His voice is so faint, I barely understand him.
“What?”
He doesn’t answer. All he does is curl my fingers around my dagger. All he does is drag both of our hands toward his heart. His eyes are pleading.
“Kill me,” he says, choking on the words.
I remember the figurine, still sitting on my bedside.
I remember the day he let me accompany him to a Great House to hand-deliver a sword.
I remember the village just outside the estate, and how he opened the tattered bag of metal scraps he kept in his front pocket and used one of his only copper ones to buy me a sugar-encrusted piece of fried bread.
How I looked up at him and smiled wide after the first bite.
How I stuffed half of it into his mouth, and he pretended not to like it, but I knew he did.
How he taught himself to sew to make me long-sleeved shirts that covered my marks up to my throat—that kept me alive—when I was too young to make them myself, and before the weaver set up her shop.
How, whenever I failed at something, he would tell me to rise from the ashes and call me a phoenix.
“I can’t,” I say, tears blurring my vision.
“Fool,” he says, and then he dies.
I stay with his body until dawn turns the floorboards scarlet. Until the sun sparkles in his lifeless eyes.
Until there is a single knock on the door, and a high-pitched screech.
Carts creak outside. There’s the murmuring of voices.
My tears have all been used up. They’re dried against my heated cheeks.
The dark pit in my stomach, the one where all my worst memories and emotions live, is churning.
I push it down. I push it all down, because if I don’t, I will never get up again.
I will lie beside Stellan and finally let the rage and agony extinguish me.
The only thing that keeps me from doing just that is the fact that Stellan would have hated it.
My voice is pure conviction. “I will find who did this, and I will kill them. I will use everything you taught me, everything you made me, and I will kill them all.” I press my lips to his cold forehead.
Then I take my things, get in a cart, and watch as my village becomes nothing more than a smudge of ash.