Chapter 37 Magda and the Rubies #2
The cupboard door creaked on its hinges. The scent of iron and crushed herbs thickened the air. She withdrew a small bundle wrapped in cloth and placed it on the table beside the candle. The flame flickered, light trembling over the rough wood as though aware of what lingered between us.
With deliberate care, she began to unwrap it.
Inside lay two blades. Their leather sheaths were charred and split from the fire, blackened and brittle—but when I drew the longer one free, the steel beneath caught the candlelight and held it.
Untarnished. Untouched. As though flame had bent around it.
The smaller, curved knife was the same—its edge bright, keen, waiting.
For a heartbeat, I was no longer standing here with Buna.
I saw Dani's face instead—how proud he had been the night he placed them in my hands at this very table.
The way his eyes had shone when he said they were forged for me, balanced for my grip.
It had been just after I met Serban in the glade, when my only fear had been of a stranger.
“Did you clean them?” I asked quietly, turning the blades over, searching for soot, for warping, for any mark of what they had endured.
Buna shook her head. “No. We found them in the ashes when we searched for your body.” Her voice thinned, but did not break.
“The house was gone. The roof collapsed. Everything burned.” Her fingers tightened against the edge of the table.
“But these…” She looked at the steel as though it were something sacred.
“These lay beneath the wreckage, untouched.”
Her gaze lifted to mine. “Whether angels guarded them, or the old gods turned the flame aside, I cannot say.” She swallowed. “But Dani's love for you—and for Anca—was a living thing—fierce, protective.” She paused. “I believe some part of it lingers in these blades.”
The words settled deep.
Pain and certainty lined every crease of her face as she added, “I kept them for you.”
“Did you know I'd come back?” I asked.
“I saw this—all of it—in the smoke years ago,” she murmured, her hands lifting, gesturing toward the blades…toward me.
There was a heaviness in her eyes that only comes from knowing a storm will crest and being powerless to turn it aside.
She had warned me about Caius more times than I could count.
Warned me of pride. Of weakness. Of men who bend too easily beneath stronger wills.
Even if she had told me everything—every flame, every loss—I would not have believed her. Some fates must be walked into blind.
Her hands began to tremble. When she looked at me again, sorrow filled her gaze—but beneath it, stubborn and unextinguished, was love.
“There is something you are meant for, Magda,” she said, her voice roughening.
“Your life…and even your death…are not without purpose.” Her words were not comfort. They were her prophecy.
“I cannot see its full shape,” she admitted. “Perhaps it lies too far ahead for smoke to reveal. But it is there. I have seen enough to know that.” She drew in a steadying breath, mastering herself as she always did.
Then she crossed the room and took her cloak from its peg. The fabric rustled as she settled it around her shoulders. “Come,” she said quietly. “Let me take you to their graves.”
We walked to the small cemetery where I had so often visited my mother's grave. Just beyond the gate stood two new headstones—marble, gleaming even in the darkness. They were far grander than any others in the village, too fine for simple folk, no matter their standing.
No, these belonged among the resting places of the boyars, not here among paupers and farmers. I wondered what stories would be told, centuries from now, about how two monuments so proud came to stand in a graveyard so humble. Perhaps I would be around to hear them.
On Anca's headstone—smaller than Dani's—an unopened rosebud was carved beside a simple cross, with her name and dates below.
On the larger stone next to hers, the name Dani Veró was etched deep into the marble, his own dates beneath it. A cross adorned the top, and below it, the words: Husband, Father, Friend.
The sight made my blood burn. Friend? How dare Caius call Dani that now, when their last meeting ended with Caius striking him—bloodying the lip of the man who'd been like a brother to him.
I was sure Caius knew about Ivar, his father's right hand, being the one to kill my family. The way he deferred to his father, he may have known about the plan in advance. Maybe these fine graves were a display of guilt.
“He comes each day, Magda. He comes and he weeps,” Buna said, a warning in her voice that I didn't miss.
“Why are you protecting him?” I said bitterly.
“I am doing nothing of the sort,” she said heavily. “But you'd do well to remember that if all you look for is blame and fault, that is all you will find. Your life, or whatever this thing is you live now, will be filled with bitterness. Don't allow that to become your legacy.”