Chapter 9 Weapons
WEAPONS
Itried to go about my days after the encounter with the stranger in the woods, but I couldn't shake the sense that he had some unnatural power—power that posed a threat to me.
I was not a silly girl, easily rattled by shadows or the rustling of leaves, yet something about the way he had slithered into my thoughts left me unsettled for days.
When the man had vanished into the hills, Caius gave chase, disappearing into the shadows after him, while Dani remained at my side.
I had never been so grateful for my gentle bear of a friend—broad-shouldered, steady as an oak, his sheer size enough to make even the boldest foe, mortal or otherwise, hesitate before daring to cross him.
When Caius caught up with us on our ride home, his face dark with frustration, he reported nothing more than the faint tracks of the stranger's horse pressed into the soft, damp soil of the forest floor.
It was a few evenings later, after supper, that Buna and I were startled by a soft, hesitant knock at the door of the cottage.
We looked to one another, uncertain if we'd truly heard it—then it came again, slightly firmer this time, a hollow thud against the wood.
I rose and crossed the room, heart thudding in rhythm with the sound, and pulled the door open.
There stood Dani, his head bowed, eyes lowered to the flat stone that laid on the ground in front of our stoop. In his hands he cradled a parcel, wrapped carefully in heavy fabric and lashed in leather.
“Dani—come in,” I said in surprise, stepping aside to let him pass through the door.
He ducked beneath the lintel as he entered, his great height forcing him into a bow that might have seemed humble had it not been so ungainly. The sight was almost comical, and I caught myself pressing my lips together to stifle a laugh.
Dani's mother was one of our own, a Romani, and when she married the village metalsmith, fortune had lifted her from the lowest rung of our people's hierarchy into something nearer to respectability.
Their family had a larger cottage than most, with timber walls and a proper floor and colorful rugs to shield them from the cruel winters, so unlike our hard-packed dirt floor.
A barn housed their animals, and her husband's forge burned hot through every season.
Dani apprenticed at his father's side, his hands blackened with ash long before most boys were trusted with such work.
It often struck me as cruel, the fickle turns of marriage, how a woman could climb one rung higher with the right union, but never leap from beggar's daughter to noble's wife in a single bound.
The rules of our world did not allow such miracles—only slow ascents, step by weary step, if fortune favored her at all.
“Hello, Dani,” my grandmother said as she crossed the room to embrace him. She stretched her stooped frame as far as it would allow, while he bent low—a giant folding himself down to meet her.
Buna was always fond of Dani. She liked to recall the night he was born—the biggest baby she'd ever delivered, she would say with a shake of her head—though his mother had brought him into the world without struggle, despite his size.
“Doamn?…Magda,” he said with a respectful nod to each of us, giving Buna the most formal address.
“What brings you by?” I asked, curious about the reason for his visit. Despite knowing Dani my entire life, he'd never stepped foot inside our cottage.
He cleared his throat, and only then did I notice how pale he looked, his face drained of color.
Without warning, he thrust the parcel into my hands, as if afraid he might lose his nerve if he hesitated another breath.
“I made these—for you—I can teach you how to use them…” The words tumbled out in a rush, clumsy and earnest.
I carried the bundle to the small table in the center of our cottage, the same worn wood that bore our suppers and served as our workbench.
Setting it down, I felt the weight of it drag at my arms—heavier than I had expected.
Buna and Dani drew close behind me, their presence crowding the air as I unrolled the rough-woven fabric.
The parcel contained two weapons, sheathed in leather.
I pulled each away from their housing and the polished metal gleamed in the dim light: a small knife with a wickedly curved blade, and a slim dagger nearly two-thirds the length of my arm.
They were smaller versions of the hunting blades the men carried, but no less deadly for their size.
I reached first for the curved knife. Its grip, fashioned from antler, had been carved and burnished until it seemed alive in my hand—warm and smooth, a stark contrast to the cold gleam of the steel. Reluctantly, I slid it back into its leather sheath, meant to ride snug against my belt.
My gaze shifted to the dagger, and I let one finger trail along its edge. A shiver coursed through me—not fear, but the thrill of a power I had never known. These were, I realized, the costliest gifts I had ever been given.
“You made these?” I asked, still amazed—almost incredulous that weapons so finely wrought, with inlaid antler and decorative flourishes etched into their hilts, had been forged for me alone.
Buna kept quiet, watching me with narrowed eyes and a scowl that let me know a lecture was coming as soon as Dani was gone.
I ignored her stare as I lifted the dagger, testing its weight.
For a moment I imagined driving the blade into a straw dummy, the way I'd seen the boys practice a hundred times.
“These are beautiful, Dani,” I said, my chest warming at the thought of how long he must have spent shaping them, making sure they fit me so perfectly.
His eyes lit at once, the pale cast he'd worn earlier fading as color rushed back into his cheeks—the familiar, sun-warmed glow I'd always known.
Then he smiled, a grin so wide it seemed to fill the whole room.
“I wanted you to be able to protect yourself if Caius and I aren't around…” His words trailed off, the unspoken if the stranger comes back settling uncomfortably between us.
“I can come by tomorrow,” he went on. “In the afternoon.
I'll show you how to use them. You'll need to practice—until they feel natural in your hands.”
“No,” I cut in, too quickly to be casual.
Tomorrow was market day—and I had plans.
Plans no one but me knew of, and I intended to keep it that way.
For now. “But the day after would work,” I added, smoothing my tone, coaxing a brightness into it that felt almost convincing.
“If that suits you.” I held his gaze a heartbeat longer than necessary, willing him not to question the edge he must have heard beneath the lightness.
Dani studied me for a moment, his brow knitting just slightly, as though he'd caught the faintest wrong note.
His mouth opened—then closed again. “Of course,” he said at last, the words gentle, accepting.
But his gaze lingered a beat too long. “Okay, I'll see you then.” Dani tipped his head toward Buna in farewell and moved for the door.
As his hand touched the latch, I reached out and caught his arm.
When he turned back, I rose on my toes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you again,” I said, keeping it simple, pushing down the tangle of thoughts that wanted to surface.
Things I should have said—like how I loved Caius, which he probably already knew.
Or that I loved him too, though not in the way he wanted.
But I didn't. Instead, I said nothing more and left him with hope, watching the smile spread across his face before he stepped out into the night.
As much as I didn't want to, I couldn't ignore the pull of it—the way his affection gave me a sense of power.
And yet, the guilt of not feeling the same gnawed at me.
I shut the door behind him, sliding the metal latch into place with a sharp click, then turned to face my grandmother. As I expected, she was already glowering at me from across the room.
“What?” I snapped, her silent judgment cutting through my thoughts as I pictured myself cutting down phantom enemies with my new blades, fierce and sure as any warrior.
“You could do worse—far worse,” she said, her tone as pointed as the blades sitting on the table.
“I don't see the boyar's son leaving gifts at your door.
He could afford them a hundred times over…
yet it's Dani who spends what little he has on you.” Each word was meant to bite, flung like sparks to the fire already kindling in my chest.
I fumed at her words, wishing she'd stop and leave me alone, and I brushed past her, but she wasn't finished.
“Dani is no longer a boy—just as you are no longer a girl,” she said, her voice cold with certainty.
“He's a man now, and he wants a wife, even if he hasn't said as much. And he loves you…” She waived a hand dismissively, as though it were nothing.
“Despite your stubborn fixation on his best friend.”
She closed the space between us in two measured steps, raising a finger already bent with age and aiming it at me like a curse.
“He could give you more than this—more than these walls and this hard dirt floor.
A home. Children. Protection. Things most women like us never dream of having.
And you—“ Her voice sharpened, almost spitting the words, “You would throw it all away to chase the fantasy that Caius could ever truly be yours.”
“Stop it. Just stop it!” I cried, flinging my hands upward as if I could throw her words back at her.
“I don't want a small, suffocating life in this village—raising snot-nosed children, hauling water from the river until my back breaks, scrubbing diapers until my fingers bleed. And at night, lying in a bed with a man who only wants to put another child in my belly.”
I turned away, heat flooding my cheeks, ashamed of my outburst yet unwilling to face her scowl any longer.
“And then what, Buna?” I went on, my voice shaking now.
“I wither away, nameless and forgotten, and die?” I shook my head, the answer rising from a place I had denied for too long. “No. That is not my life.”
I swept a hand toward the cottage walls hemming us in—the rough timbers, the shadowed corners. “My life must be something more…more than this.”