Edria
When I've got the morning fire going, Oxwood has already decided what happened yesterday was either the bravest or the stupidest thing anyone in this village has done in recent memory.
Probably both.
Old Perrin tells the Henley boys I spat at a dark elf's feet. By midmorning, the miller's wife has it that I challenged Nyrius to a duel over a horseshoe. Aldric stops in to collect his repaired plow blade and spends ten minutes staring at me like he's trying to figure out if I've lost my mind.
"You're still breathing," he finally says.
"Noticed that myself." I hand him the blade. "Two copper."
He pays and leaves fast, like trouble might be contagious.
The actual story travels too, eventually, in pieces—how I dropped the shoe at the guard's feet, how Nyrius, what they’re calling the elf lord, laughed instead of ordering me flogged, how he paid double and rode off making promises about coming back.
That part worries people more than the insult did.
Any lord with a reason to return is a problem with no clean solution, especially a dark elf.
By afternoon, I can feel the anxiety in every interaction. The farmers who come for their tools are quieter than usual. Nobody lingers.
Papa waits until supper.
He sets down his spoon, which means it's serious, and looks at me across the table with the exhaustion that says he’s been rehearsing this conversation all day.
"You could have been arrested," he says.
"I know."
"You could have been beaten in the street."
"I know, Papa."
"Instead he paid you double and told you not to leave town." He picks his spoon back up, then sets it down again. "That's not better, Edria. That's worse."
"He was entertained." I tear a piece of bread in half. "Rich men get bored. It doesn't mean anything."
"Dark elf lords don't ride back to places that bore them."
I don't answer that, because I don't have a good answer.
Finn waits until Papa gets up to bank the fire before he slides across the bench toward me, shoulders already shaking. He raises one hand, palm flat.
I stare at him.
"You dropped the shoe at his guard's feet," he says, barely containing it. "In front of the whole village."
"It was stupid."
"It was incredibly stupid." He's grinning so wide it looks like it hurts. "It was also the best thing I've ever heard."
I press my palm to his, just once, and pull my hand back before Papa can turn around. "It wasn't brave. It was reflex."
"Still counts."
"It doesn't count if it brings trouble down on the whole town." I glance toward Papa's back, lowering my voice. "People are nervous. Aldric could barely look at me."
Finn's grin fades slightly. "You think Nyrius will actually come back?"
"No." I say it with more certainty than I feel. "He's a border lord with territories to manage. He's not riding back to Oxwood over a smart remark from a blacksmith."
Finn tilts his head, unconvinced. He's fourteen and already better at reading people than most adults I know. "He said he was looking forward to it."
"They say things." I stand and start clearing the bowls. "Arrogant men always say things. It's how they remind you they're in charge."
Finn watches me for a while. "I don't know. He didn't sound like he was reminding anyone of anything."
"Eat your bread."
Malrec arrives in Oxwood the following afternoon.
I see his horse first—a clean grey animal too well-fed for the roads out here, attended by two men who stand at a careful distance from everything around them.
Malrec himself moves through the village with unhurried ease, eyes surveying everything.
Narrow-faced, thinning blond hair, robes that cost more than most families here earn in a season.
He stops at doorways, asks questions, listens with his head tilted and his grey eyes moving.
Sorella catches my eye from across the lane and gives me a look I know well. Watch yourself.
He gets to me eventually. I'm fitting a new handle to a mattock when his shadow falls across the forge entrance.
"You're the blacksmith's daughter." Not a question.
"And you're the magistrate." I don't stop working. "What can I do for you?"
He steps inside uninvited, glancing around at the tools and stock with the mild interest of someone cataloguing rather than admiring. "I'm asking after yesterday's visit. The dark elf hunting party."
"They needed horseshoes. I repaired them. They left."
"Lord Nyrius spoke with you directly?"
"He did."
"That's unusual." He folds his hands in front of him, patient. "What did you discuss?"
"He threatened to punish me for back-talking his guard." I set the mattock down. "I told him to go ahead. He laughed and left. There's nothing interesting there."
Malrec's expression doesn't change, but his eyes move to my hands, then back up. "You don't seem concerned about the interaction."
"Should I be?"
"Most people would be."
"Most people would have kept their mouth shut to begin with." I pick the mattock back up. "I didn't, so here we are."
He's quiet for a moment. The fire pops behind me, and outside someone's cart wheel squeaks past on the lane.
"You're annoyed," he observes.
"I'm busy."
"You're annoyed that I find your reaction to him interesting." He says it lightly, pleasantly even, which is worse than if he'd said it sharp. "That's telling, don't you think?"
I tip my head back to see him through the smoke. "I think you're a magistrate asking questions about the dark elf party’s horseshoe stop, and I think you're wasting both our time."
He doesn’t look away and shrugs one shoulder. Then he smiles—thin, polished, reaching nowhere near his eyes—and dips his chin.
"Thank you for your time," he says, and leaves.
I stand very still until I hear his horse move off down the lane. Then I set the mattock down a second time and roll my shoulders back.
The forest is cold and windless when I make the drop.
Velis is already there with three men instead of two, which puts me on edge before he opens his mouth. The bundle I've brought is larger than last time—ten blades instead of six. I spent two extra nights on them, and my hands show it.
He counts them fast. "I need fifteen next time."
"I need more time for fifteen."
"Then start earlier." He passes me a heavier purse. "Demand's up. Word is spreading about unrest near the elf borders. People are arming themselves."
I turn the purse over in my hands. The weight of it should feel like relief. "What kind of people?"
"The nervous kind." He glances up. "Same as always."
"Velis." I sigh and weigh the coin purse in my palm. "If I'm making blades for people planning to start a war—"
"You're making blades." His voice is flat, uncomplicated. "What people do with them after isn't your problem."
"It's somebody's problem."
"Not yours." He nods toward the path. "Fifteen next time."
I walk home with the purse in my pocket and Velis's logic sitting badly in my stomach.
I know what I'm telling myself. I know how well it works, right up until it stops working entirely.
The medicine cost went up last month. Finn goes through two vials before the cold season breaks.
The numbers in my head don't balance any other way.
It doesn't make the unease go away. It just makes it easier to carry.
I'm cutting back through the lower field path when I see the firelight.
Nyrius's camp is set on the flat ground past the mill creek, half-screened by tree line. Four or five tents, horses picketed in a line, a fire burned down to coals. I stop walking. My first instinct is to go wide and around, but the detour adds twenty minutes and my feet already ache.
I move slower. The camp is quiet—a single guard walking the perimeter, the others still. I keep to the shadow of the fence line and watch the guard's pattern before I move across the open stretch.
I'm nearly past when I feel it.
Not a sound. Not movement. Just the pressure of being watched.
I turn my head without stopping and find him standing in the shadows of the firelight, separate from the tents. Nyrius. Still dressed, arms loose at his sides, pale violet eyes catching the last of the coals. He's looking directly at me.
I face forward and keep walking.
He doesn't call out. He doesn't move. After I reach the lane and put the first row of buildings between us, my pulse is louder than my footsteps.
I tell myself the dark was too deep for him to see clearly. I tell myself he doesn't know who I am away from the forge, in the dark, with my braid down and mud on my boots.
I tell myself that twice more before I get home, and I almost believe it.