Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Ragnhild began by preparing the items Lyssa and Alderic had collected together.
The water from the lake and the ash twigs from Lyssa’s childhood home, the dirt from Eddie’s grave and the nails from Desmond’s coffin, the photograph of Lyssa’s family, and that fucking leaf—all of them were passed through heady clouds of incense smoke while the witch chanted in a language Lyssa didn’t know.
After that, Rags chanted over the billet of Valdalian steel, the Beast’s claw, and the materials Lyssa planned to use for the quillons, hilt, and sheath, so that everything being used in every stage of the sword’s construction was imbued with magic.
By the time she was finished, the air in the smithy was syrupy with spellcraft, hard to breathe and acrid on the tongue, and the heat of the forge was already becoming unbearable in the enclosed space.
“Hammer true,” Ragnhild said, patting Lyssa’s shoulder absently as she stumbled out of the smithy.
Lyssa knew that look on the old witch’s face—she was sapped of strength, in dire need of fresh air and a cup of tea—and knew, now, that it was because of the aelf-blood in her veins, the iron poisoning her the longer she was around it. Luckily, her work was done.
Lyssa’s was only just beginning.
Setting up her workspace held a magic of its own, a ritual that grounded her in a way nothing else could.
She fetched the tools she would need from the wooden rack beside her worktable, arranging them so that they would be close at hand.
Then she stripped down to her underthings, tied up her hair, and got to work.
She fed the twigs from her childhood home into the forge-fire, followed by the leaf that Alderic had pulled from her hair and the photograph of her family.
When they had burned down, she scraped the ashes into her annealing bucket and stirred it all together with a stick.
Next, she prepared her quench-tank, pouring the water Alderic had collected at the lake into the water she had drawn from the well out back and swirling it with her hand.
Making magical weapons required a patience that Lyssa rarely had for anything but this.
After she heated the Valdalian steel and the coffin nails, she had to keep them in the forge for the right amount of time until they could be plunged into the ash-bucket.
After that, they had to cool for hours before the softened metal could be worked—hours that Lyssa spent sketching the handle for the sword, braiding and oiling the leather she planned to use for the grip, and drilling a hole in the base of the Beast’s claw so that it could act as a pommel.
Every step required focus, concentration, and precision, offering blessed relief from having to think about anything else, for a little while.
When the steel and nails had cooled, it was time to begin shaping the blade.
Sweat dripped down her skin as she heated it all again and began to hammer the metal from the nails into the end of the billet that would become the sword’s tip—so that the iron could be driven straight into the Beast’s glyph.
She inspected it and, satisfied that the weld was good, began to draw out the sword’s tang, which would eventually fit into the handle she had started making.
Ragnhild had told Lyssa to channel her intentions with every hammer-strike, to maintain the anger they had built up during their initial spellwork so that the energy of vengeance could be infused into the blade itself.
It was easier to be irritated in the heat of the forge, at least, the itch of sweat collecting on her scalp and rolling down her temples, the temperature almost unbearable even for someone who craved warmth like she did.
That irritation lent itself to sudden bouts of rage, when she accidentally burned herself or dropped her hammer.
But it was hard to hold on to hate when the intrusive doubts continued to nag her.
Whenever they manifested themselves, Lyssa gritted her teeth and pounded harder with her hammer, trying to force Alderic’s voice—and whatever sympathy she’d had for him—out of her head.
There was no place for forgiveness, here.
But they were relentless, those thoughts, throwing Alderic’s words back in her face whenever she let her guard down.
Why do you want to kill the Beast? she’d asked him when he hired her.
Because it deserves to die.
She scowled, gripping her hammer tighter. He did deserve to die, for all the innocent lives he had taken. Didn’t he?
As much as I loved them and thought that they loved me in equal measure, there was always that moment when my true self came out …
His true self. He thought of the Beast as his true self.
She gritted her teeth. Well, maybe it was his true self. Clearly, she hadn’t known him like she thought she had.
I paid for that headstone—I paid for all of those headstones, like I’ve done for every one of the Beast’s victims. And I paid for your brother’s burial, too, since there was no one else to do it.
She faltered, slamming the edge of the anvil at a weird angle and breaking the head off her hammer. She roared in frustration, throwing the splintered handle at the wall before storming out of the smithy and practically running into the woods.
But she couldn’t run from her own thoughts.
Lyssa leaned against a tree and closed her eyes, remembering the look of devastation on Alderic’s face when she had killed the Hound-wardens.
His reluctance to hit her when she was trying to teach him how to protect himself.
It’s not because you’re a woman, he’d insisted. I don’t want to hit anyone.
He’d been upset when she stabbed her father.
Had seemed taken aback that she’d punched someone’s teeth out over a coat.
All he had ever done was do his best not to hurt anyone.
She was the violent one, the brute, the beast. A living weapon whose entire life was devoted to destroying things.
And yet Alderic was the one who turned into a monster and murdered innocent humans whenever the seasons turned.
It didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t fair.
“Fuck!” she shouted, startling a crow into flight.
“Having second thoughts?” it said when it landed and turned into Nadia.
Lyssa scowled at the apprentice. “Go away.”
But the little witch put her hands on her hips, standing her ground. “Ragnhild was right, you know. You see the world as black and white. Good and evil. It’s a childish way of looking at things. No wonder you’re so ill-prepared for this.”
“I said go away.”
Nadia shook her head, her dark eyes defiant. “Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“I don’t care what you have to say.”
“You will when you see this.” The apprentice lifted her dress, exposing her stomach—and the Hound-glyph carved into her skin.
Lyssa stumbled backward, falling on her ass, shock tumbling away from the swift strike of anger that followed. “Is everyone a fucking faerie around here?” Her face darkened at the apprentice’s smirk. “Does Rags know?”
“Of course she knows.” Nadia plopped down on the ground beside Lyssa. “Did she ever tell you what brought me to this place?”
“No.” Ragnhild hadn’t told her and Lyssa hadn’t asked.
Hadn’t cared, if she was being honest. She’d come back from hunting ogres to find that Rags had a new apprentice—a sullen, bitter girl who refused to speak to anyone for the first few months after she came to the cottage.
There had been more important things to worry about at the time.
“It didn’t matter to me then, and it doesn’t matter to me now. ”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Nadia spat.
“You think your pain is the only thing that matters? That you’re the only one with a past that rules you?
No,” she said when Lyssa started to get up, yanking her back down by her belt, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so small.
“Ragnhild told you her story, and now I’m going to tell you mine, whether you like it or not. ”
“Why?”
“Because, if you’re going to kill Alderic, I want you to know exactly what you’re doing.” She took a breath and studied Lyssa with her dark eyes. “I came here because I accidentally killed my whole family.”
Lyssa gaped at her. “You what?”
“My glyph showed up when I was twelve. It was my grandmother’s, I guess, and when she died it got passed down.
There’s no immortality, with ours—not like a lot of the other curses.
Instead, it goes from generation to generation, seventh daughter to seventh daughter.
Nana only had three children, trying to stop the curse from spreading, but my parents loved each other too much.
” She wrinkled her nose. “The knowledge of what it meant died with Nana. She never bothered to tell Mama, thinking that she would be the last to bear it—not knowing it could skip a generation if need be. So, when it showed up, I had no idea what to expect. That if I couldn’t control my emotions, I would … change.”
“Into a monster?”
The little witch nodded. “I got into a fight with Mama. A really bad one. I had just become a woman, officially, and I was all over the place, crying one minute, angry the next. She said something to me and I just … snapped. And the next thing I knew, I was covered in blood, and everyone was dead.” She let out a long, shaky breath.
“I ran outside, and showed up in these woods. Ragnhild said that she would try to help me—”
“But she’s the one who wanted to kill the Hounds to begin with,” Lyssa argued. “Why would she help you?”
Nadia shrugged. “I was a child, and she is merciful. You were away on a job, thank the Lady, and Ragnhild told me not to tell you what I was. That you would kill me on sight. Since I am very much capable of being killed, I listened to her.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”