Ch.1 A storm is coming
A storm was raging outside. The wild rumble of thunders echoed through the landscape.
The bright glow of lightning turned night into day.
Raindrops drummed on the window. Iris was asleep in the kitchen.
The smoldering embers glowed softly, competing with the purple glow of the lightning.
She flinched with every rumble of thunder.
She never liked storms. Once, as a child, she had seen lightning cut a tree trunk in two and didn't want to end up the same.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. It jolted Iris out of her shallow sleep. A faint spark of fear gripped her stomach. Who could have come to their house in the middle of the night, with all the chaos going on outside? And why was the knocking on the back kitchen door?
"Iris?" a familiar voice called her name. "It's me, Jace. Please open."
She picked herself up from the ground and quickly opened the door.
She found her best friend Jace, and sometimes maybe a little more, standing behind them.
He was completely soaked. Water was dripping off him.
His clothes were stained with blood - his own blood.
It seeped through his fingers as he pressed on the wound.
"What on earth happened to you?" she almost screamed in horror.
"Can I come in?" he gave her an uncertain smile. Concern reflected in his eyes.
He looked back as if expecting the nightmares waking up with the night to jump out at them at any moment.
"Of course."
She let him in from the heavy rain into the dry and warm.
A chill ran down her spine at the sight of so much blood.
What the hell did he get himself into? Jace's step was hesitant.
One, two, he staggered, his knees buckled and he fell, hitting the table.
The cup, which still had the remains of chamomile tea in it, standing on its edge, fell to the floor and shattered.
The shards clanged unnaturally loudly in the silence between the claps of thunder.
"Quietly. Stepmother mustn't find out you're here."
"I didn't know where else to go, Iris. The only one I could think of was the magical seamstress."
She took off his soaked shirt and carefully examined the wound on his side. He flinched at her gentle touch.
"It's deep. I'll have to sew it up."
"Do what you do best. I entrust myself to your capable hands."
Iris cleaned the wound of all the blood, revealing its full depth.
More and more fresh blood kept flowing from it.
It stained her hands and clothes. He was bleeding too much.
She took a needle and thread and stuck it into his flesh, with a plead to save him.
He flinched with each passing of the thread. His face twisted in pain.
"You call yourself a man?" Iris teased him. "Can't you stand even a little pain?"
"It would be better with a bottle of wine," Jace said with a mischievous smile.
"It seems you're out of luck. You'll be sober tonight," Iris told him. "Stepmother counts every bottle."
"Too bad." They laughed together.
Iris tightened the last stitch. The thread glowed with a soft light as if burning into his skin. The wound healed and the thread merged with it, leaving only a scar as a reminder of the mortality of his human body.
"Apparently, dresses aren't the only thing you can sew perfectly."
"You were lucky the wound wasn't deeper," she chided him. "Why weren't you wearing the shirt I made for you? No one would have hurt you."
His recklessness was well known to her. She knew there was no point in trying to talk him out of his stupid ideas, but she could at least help him mitigate the consequences.
"I underestimated the situation," he said.
"What have you gotten yourself into again, Jace?" Iris sighed.
Troubles became his best friend, a confidant companion walking faithfully by his side. Ever since he joined the rebels, supposedly fighting for freedom, he was always covered in bruises and cuts. She was afraid for him. One day he might not come back at all.
She brushed the wet strands of hair from his forehead, hiding a small slash gracing his hairline. She gently wiped away the trickle of dried blood running down the side of his face. Jace took her hand in his, drawing symbols on it with a more than friendly touch.
"Don't worry," he told her.
"Jace." she gave him a stern look.
"The last action went a bit wrong."
"I can see. I've probably told you a million times not to play Robin Hood."
"I just can't stand the sight of that snobbish nobility looking down on ordinary people. Without their gold, they're just as nothing as we are."
"What did you do this time?" Iris shook her head. A sigh escaped her lips.
"Don't worry. Okay?"
"Then don't give me reasons to worry."
They were sitting so close to each other, she could hear their hearts beating in different rhythms, his so powerful and strong while hers was so quiet, trying to hide its existence as if she had an empty hole in her chest. They stared into each other's eyes.
Jace leaned in a little closer, their lips almost touching.
He wanted to make the distance disappear completely, trying to kiss her, but Iris dodged. She threw a towel over his head.
"You should warm yourself by the fire. I won't take care of you when you get sick."
Jace laughed. He laughed from the bottom of his heart.
"Still so unconquerable."
"Don't ruin our friendship, Jace," she told him.
Jace gently grabbed her by the wrist and sat her on his lap. He held her around the waist, holding her close to him.
"I want our friendship to last forever," he said. "But you know there's more between us."
"It only happened once and we were both drunk."
"I wasn't."
He kissed her, and this time she didn't pull away. She kissed him back, fleetingly. There was something fragile about it. A line she didn't want to cross, but at the same time, she was getting dangerously close to it.
?
The bell in the kitchen was ringing wildly, announcing that the stepmother and stepsister were impatiently waiting for their breakfast.
"I think I'll grab the bell and throw it into their heads," said Jace, sleepily.
"You have no idea how many times I've wanted to do so, but I can't," Iris said, hastily trying to make breakfast for her stepmother, because she had overslept.
"Then don't be their slave anymore. Do they have their own hands? Yes. In that case, they can make their own breakfast." Jace told her. "They can't abuse you like this."
"This may surprise you, but they can," Iris said. "She's my stepmother. She became my fosterer after my father died."
Jace approached her from behind and hugged her around the waist. He kissed her on the neck.
"You're eighteen now. You can leave."
"And where would I go? This is my home."
"The world is big," he said. "We can explore it together."
"Iris!" the stepmother screamed. "What's taking you so long?"
"We're hungry!" Anastasia exclaimed.
"I'm coming!" Iris shouted back.
She pushed Jace away from her, put the scrambled eggs on a plate and poured tea into the cups.
"That's a nice idea, but we're both broke if you haven't noticed," she told him.
"If I can save up enough money to start a new life, will you come with me?" Jace asked her. "I will give you everything you desire. You won't have to sew for anyone anymore. We'll live in a big house where we'll be our own masters."
"Stop being delulu, Jace. With your talent for tempting fate, the Kingsguard will execute you before you have a chance to prove you're serious."
"Iris!"
"I'm coming!"
She took the tray and brought them their breakfast. Her stepmother and stepsister were already waiting impatiently in the dining room.
"Finally," said the stepmother, annoyed. "I thought I'd have to go and cook breakfast myself."
She had no idea how much she wanted to tell her, that she would like to see it. Her burned fingers and some burnt holes in her dress. She would like to see her stepmother trying to cut off the chicken head, when she can't stand even a drop of blood.
"I'm sorry, stepmother. I fell asleep."
"I'm starving," Anastasia complained.
"I'm sorry," Iris repeated, placing a plate of scrambled eggs and a cup of tea in front of her.
Anastasia drank it immediately and burned her tongue.
"Ouch!"
"It's still hot," Iris warned her too late.
Anastasia spat. She was panting like a dog to cool her mouth. "I noticed," she said irritably.
"What is this?"
Stepmother was digging through the scrambled eggs. She pulled out the smallest piece of the eggshell possible. Disgust was reflected on her face.
"Just a little eggshell," said Iris. "I must have dropped it there by mistake."
"I won't eat it anymore," said the stepmother in disgust. "Take it away!"
"But it's just one small eggshell. I'm sure there aren't any more."
"I'm saying I won't eat that again!"
Stepmother threw the plate off the table.
The china porcelain shattered. Eggs were all over the floor.
Iris clenched her fists, controlling her anger.
Her nails dug into her skin, almost drawing blood.
She suppressed the cursed words that wanted to escape her mouth, wanting to stab them like a dagger a million times.
Instead, she fell to the ground and began to collect the shards in her apron.
She cut herself. The sharp edge penetrated her skin, allowing the blood to flow freely.
"You're dirtying the floor."
"Is it that hard to pick up a broom?"
Iris threw the shards back to the ground, shattering into even smaller pieces.
"Stop making a mess!" her stepmother and stepsister scolded her.
Iris turned her back on them and left without a word.
They all wanted to surface, stained with the crimson of her blood, but they remained unspoken.
The truth buried in her eyes, carrying all the emotions she had suppressed for years.
All the anger burning as bright as the sun.
The sadness deep inside her, woven through her entire being.
It was destroying her. She didn't want her father to worry about her and she couldn't afford to show weakness in front of her stepmother.
Sometimes she felt like she was taking it as a challenge, to awaken the worst in her. How far can she go before breaking her?
She went back into the kitchen and dipped her hand into the bucket of water.
Blood swirled inside like smoke billowing from a chimney.
It stung a little, but it was fading in comparison to the way her heart bled, barely beating, weak and breathless.
She suppressed the scream that wanted to escape her lips, the urge to break everything, to burn those walls to ashes.
How much she wanted to take one of those shards and stab her stepmother in the eye.
Jace gently took her hand in his. He tended to her wound, just as she had done to his that night, except for the spell. He bandaged her wound. She twitched gently as he tightened the bandage.
"Sorry," he said. "Sometimes I'm too rough."
"That's okay."
He saw her inner fight. He saw into her. How she fought day after day. Fight with a fate she was losing. But at the same time, she willingly surrendered to it.
"Are you planning on leaving this mess here?" her stepmother called out from the dining room. "Don't make me come there!"
Iris sighed deeply. She picked up a broom and dustpan, intending to clean it up, but Jace stopped her.
"Don't do it! Let them sort it out themselves. Don't let them control you."
"I have no choice."
But did she really not have it or did she just give up?
She slipped out of his gentle grip and returned to the dining room to clean up her stepmother's mess, maliciously poking into it with her foot as she did so.
"Who were you talking to in the kitchen?" she asked her. "We could hear voices coming from there."
"I didn't talk to anyone," she lied easily. She was used to lying. "I found an injured crow in the storm. It flew into the window. I talked to it."
"She must have gone crazy," Anastasia laughed. "She's talking to a crow."
Stepmother gave her a suspicious look as if she didn't believe her words. But finally, she did.
"Go to the market!" she ordered her. "Today a ship was supposed to bring new fruit from faraway lands. Hurry up. I don't want people to buy it all."
"Yes, madam."
?
"You can't stay here," Iris told Jace as she prepared to head to the market.
"I know you wouldn't kick me out into the street, Iris. Not when I'm hurt," he persuaded her, making puppy-dog eyes. "Let me stay for a few days at least. I need to hide for a while."
"If my stepmother finds you here, I'll have a problem," she told him.
"I'll be as quiet as a mouse. I swear."
Iris rolled her eyes. "You could stay in the garden house," she finally agreed.
She had a soft spot for him, and he knew it. She would never leave him in need.
"Stepmother and Anastasia never go there. They shouldn't find you."
"Thank you, Iris. I knew I could always count on you."
"But my stepmother must not find you. Do hear me?" she repeated sternly. "Otherwise I will be your biggest problem, Jace, not the soldiers. Do you understand?"
"I always like to get into trouble with you." He grinned.