by Lisa Daniels
The Star Rose has been stolen. The papers screamed the news. Helga knew it to be the largest gem ever discovered. She remembered how it looked on display. A huge thing, bigger than a human's head, faceted to such perfection that staring into it was like gazing into infinity. Helga couldn't hope to replicate such a cut in her entire lifetime.
“What the news doesn't report,” Zaine snarled, fist hitting the table, “is that one of my kind, and an iceblood, was killed during the heist. They were helping to guard it with the human security. But last night... while I was sleeping...” his mouth twisted bitterly, “they died, and the biggest gem in the world was stolen.”
“This is Gorchev's work,” Quentin said, still skimming the news. “It has to be. There's no other competitors who has enough magicians to potentially start a conflict. And if it's an independent, well, they'll probably sell the gem and it'll end up in Gorchev's grimy little hands.”
“Most likely,” Zaine snapped, “one of his pet killers will have it. Free pass to assassinate all the diplomats.” He was in such a foul mood all morning that no one wanted to cross him.
It didn't make sense to Helga. Why would this Gorchev character desire war? He sounded like a man after profit, not after igniting the fires of war. Or did he just not care about the consequences of dragon fury? Did he believe himself capable of rebuffing the wreath of destruction that would surely follow?
Either way, whatever the reason, it sent Zaine into such worry that he'd made arrangements to be elsewhere. And it sent Helga to her shop, thinking about getting on with the weapons. If the enemy had the Star Rose, then Mia needed a way to fight back.
Inside the workshop, Helga set everything ready. Her jugful of water, some snacks, the order of gems, the wiring and varnishing by the staffs. Everything else was shunted to the side, reducing the amount of distraction while she worked on her new project. Through the partly open workshop door, she heard footsteps.
“I'm telling you,” Mia was saying outside, “you'll be next. You're a prime target, Zaine. I simply can't let you out of my sight.”
“But if the killer has the Star Rose,” Zaine said, voice suffused with the same worry as Mia's, “they'll blast through you like paper. No matter how skilled—how amazing you are—you'll die.”
“That's okay.” Mia's voice was fierce. “As long as you live. Then I've done my job, and done it well, haven't I?”
Helga had hesitated to listen, heart giving little pangs. How did someone like Mia get so devoted to another person? How did she talk to Zaine with that ferocious, protective love? The thought swirled through Helga like the snows of a wintry morning. Just as the cold penetrated her organs, words popped out of the past.
I know it's hard to feel like you're not alone. To be carried when the world presses upon your back, and you don't know where else to turn.
But remember—you have an inner, unquenchable fire that no one can douse. Let it temper you when needed. Let it guide you when lost. Let it be channeled into beauty, like the creations your hands shape. Let it protect those who come into your life.
And don't be afraid of any affection you might feel. That's what gives your inventions their edge.
Old Tam's words. An ancient dragon's wisdom, slipping through the cracks of time. Not that Helga ever understood how someone like him ended up in a small shack in the Ark Sector.
Mia and Zaine's conversation quietened as they moved to the other side of the garden.
I need to finish the prismatic gems. Spurred by fear and passion, Helga scurried back to her padded-out workshop. The small stack of incredibly expensive prismatic gems lay, waiting to be fully cut and fused with staffs and necklaces. With the bruting machine, she could grind much faster than a hand could ever manage.
It's her only chance. A superior quality gem, a metal and wood staff. Sure, she might not be attacked for weeks, but Helga didn't want to take the chance. Feverishly, Old Tam's words still working their way through her, she prepared the first two uncut prismatic gems, sticking them to the arm and preparing to turn the wrench for bruting. Ready to perfect her lapidary skills. Intending to form the grooves of a rose cut when she eventually reached the polishing stage. Internalizing the light, so the dimensions the rose provided yielded maximum potential.
At least, according to gemologists.
Hours and hours Helga worked, cranking the lever, with the rumbling grind shaping the gems. Harder than diamond, the prismatic required work. Maybe too much work.
The forge fire, currently warming the feeble white dragon egg, caused Helga to pause to drink often and roll up her sleeves to manage the heat. Her stomach growled, but she didn't stop.
She paused again to check how the staff-wood was warping as it dried out. The claw on the top, which Helga planned to hollow, would contain the gem. Maximum contact. Maximum strength.
From bruting came the first polish, and then the blocking. So many other processes before the final faceting...
Quentin came in once, holding a plate of food, but Helga barely registered him. The fire burned inside her, propelling her forward, taking her skills to new heights. He stayed to watch, and she let him, never taking her eyes off the gems. Groping with one hand to stuff a warm, meaty pasty into her mouth.
He left and came back later, to exclaim something in surprise. Have you been working all through the night?
Maybe. Couple of bathroom breaks. To get the perfect faceting, Helga needed twenty to forty hours.
“You need to rest,” Quentin's voice came back. Smooth. Reasonable.
“I can't rest,” Helga said, though her eyes watered, and exhaustion pounded her brain like a hammer. “I need to make Mia's weapon. Something better. Better than the Star Rose.”
She sensed Quentin's doubt. The Star Rose was the largest cut gem in the city. Maybe even the world. But at least one of Servalan's prismatic gems looked promising. Still nowhere near the size of the Star Rose, that monstrous gem.
But with the perfect cut, the perfect container... maybe the power could at least withstand whoever wielded the biggest gem in the known world.
“Should give this a name,” Helga muttered, now gulping down her sixth coffee mixture. Sludge. Poison. “Nothing fancy like that Star Rose.”
She expected Quentin to leave, to continue protesting that she was staying up too long.
Of course she was.
“The Helgem.” Quentin's voice rippled through the stifling heat of her shop. “Pretty catchy, no?”
Helga barked a laugh. “Naming it after me? Isn't that pretentious?”
“It's your creation. Inventors name things after themselves all the time. You could do it for all your stuff. Helgun. Helbow. Helstone, Helsword. It's a brilliant brand name. Why, I bet I could market it and get them all selling in droves within months...”
She laughed again, finally taking her focus away, stopping the faceting process to smile at the dragon. He might be free of his family, but he still held some of their business sense—that fervor to strike deals and sell. “You're going to stay here, aren't you? Suggesting stupid names for all my products.”
He smiled back. “Not stupid at all. Anything I can help with? Since you're so determined to kill yourself staying awake?”
She waved him over. He reached for her hand before she'd registered the motion and didn't fancy mustering the energy to let go. “Listen. I need you to help me with the staff. It's not difficult. It needs this thing...” she indicated a gold-painted metal wire, “placed into the grooves that are already there. It's tedious and boring. Just like you.” She managed a smirk and a wink.
“Hey!” he said but didn't seem offended at Helga's lie. No. Quentin wasn't boring at all. Couldn't go wrong with turning into a humongous dragon. Among other things.
“And then it needs varnishing with the tung oil. Do you know how to do that?”
He didn't, so she quickly demonstrated with a sponge, until she felt sure he wouldn't mess it up. The memory of his warm hands in hers lingered,
like an imprint of friendship. An alliance between themselves.
She worked on the gems, even as Quentin began coiling the wire. More and more, as Helga neared completing her gems, her mind drifted off. Sometimes to warm places where sleep called, and sometimes to the noticeable presence of Quentin in her shop. Quentin with his strong, delicate hands. Crafting hands, Old Tam would have said. Sign of a beautiful heart and mind.
What would her mother think if she ever ended up with a dragon? Might be entertaining to find out. Maybe she'd just come riding in on him, crash in front of the house. She almost giggled at the idea, before scrubbing the thoughts out of her brain.
No. Don't think of Quentin like that. Don't find the fact that working with her, helping her to help her friends, was a massive turn-on.
Everyone talked about wanting dominant males. Proper alphas, people who knew how to crush others. Everyone wanted to be alpha, with their pick of the women. No one wanted someone loyal. Loyal, kind, and unwilling to bow when it really mattered. Like her dad when the choice came between his broken daughter and a new, better life.
And I called him a coward.
Her dad should have been perfect husband material. But his kindness led him to be exploited by vultures like her mother. To turn him into a shadow.
Wasn't right. The gems sparkled under her eyes.
Wasn't fair. Her fingers throbbed from the effort, her arms screamed for rest.
Her father deserved better. Quentin deserved better. Old Tam deserved better. His own kind calling him weak just because he couldn't manage a proper dragon. Leaving him instead to collect willing children and teach his knowledge, all the while with that quiet throb of sadness clogged within.
All these kind, loyal, worthy people, mushed into dirt, only leaving the hard and the cruel behind. Bastards like that Gorchev, killing his workers without remorse. Bastards like what would have been her husband, happy to chain his wife to slavery.
She almost messed up the crown facet, stopping the faulty cut at the last second. Hands shaking, she took a moment to calm down her breathing, to gather everything together into perfect, unyielding dedication.
“Helga. Are you okay? Do you need rest?” A chair scraped behind her.
“No. I'm okay. I just need a few.” She waved him off, tensing when hands planted themselves onto her shoulders. Her eyes fluttered shut when he began working the knots, sending both stabs of pain and the bliss of unfolding tension.
“I've had some training as a physician,” he said, voice soothing, fingers teasing into every tight part of her shoulder and neck muscles. She could almost hear his voice kissing her ear, making sure that she realized just how much her body needed rest. “I know this may seem strange to you, especially if you're not used to close contact, but I promise this will help.”
“Mmm...” Her eyes fluttered shut. Pain mixed with relaxation, and it was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Now still, every ache of her tendons and fingers became acute, and Quentin made sure to move down there after he'd finished with her neck and shoulders, rubbing tension out of them. The way his hand touched hers carried a sacred presence to it, but she said nothing. Not until the massage finally stopped, and she opened her eyes to see him smiling.
“It's not much, but you've been pushing yourself hard. You need to step back every now and then.”
“My friends are in danger,” Helga said. “I'd hate them to die because I didn't put the time into protecting them.”
He nodded, a little sad. “I understand.” His right hand didn't leave her shoulder, and she let it rest there for a short while.
*****
Seeing Mia hold up the staff, Helga boasted a certain amount of pride. Hours after working, finally finishing the faceting and welding the staff and gem together, she'd collapsed in Quentin's arms. The hybrid took her inside to let her rest on the sofa, where she'd slept for most of the day—to be woken up by Mia and Zaine's arrival. Helga liked picturing the image of Quentin carrying her inside, cradled in his arms. She liked seeing in her mind's eye as he laid her upon the couch and draped a blanket to make sure she didn't catch a chill.
The short-haired iceblood grinned with the power clasped in her hands. “Wow, Helga. You outdid yourself here. This is masterly.” She sucked in an excited breath, almost sounding aroused by the weapon. Helga flushed, mind ducking back to how Quentin treated her. Joining her in the workshop, taking the dual burden of being alone and unsupported off her back. Just insinuating himself into her life with big ripples, then little ones.
“I can't wait to try this out. Oh, if you made more of these, Helga, I bet you could sell them for good coin. There's enough magicians around in the world to want something like this. And this gem... it's so big!” Mia tapped the prismatic gem, eyes shining with the light of power.
“Servalan unearthed that gem,” Helga said, not wanting to take all the glory for herself. “She sourced all my prismatics. Would have cost an arm and a leg otherwise.”
Mia nodded. “Ah, that sly witch. She's a good one. I've sometimes used her on some of my missions. Zaine has her collecting minerals usually. How about it, then? You'd make more of these?”
“I'm finishing one for Servalan, yes...” And I'll make another, she thought. In case I run into Yarrow again. “But if I'm honest... no. Not once I've crafted for acquaintances.” Helga folded her arms, and Mia stared at her in confusion.
“Why not?”
“I don't want my weapons falling into a potential enemy's hands. If I make these things, I'm making them for people I know. Can you imagine if I design a batch of powerful weapons, and Gorchev just snaps them up with his bottomless pockets and kills one of my friends the next day? I can't risk that.”
No matter how much money Helga might make from such a thing, she didn't want her friends' bodies to be the price of success. Swords, crossbows, maybe. But something like this in the hands of a magician, no way.
She planned to make three, however. And no more.
“I'm not sure I'd have made the same choice as you.” Mia tested the strength of the staff by tapping it against the table, then taking a good swing at the wall. At least Helga anticipated that Mia might want to use it for more than just magic. “That kind of money isn't something to frown at.”
Money wasn't an issue. Especially not now. “I wanted to use another material in it, but I think the dragons might have complained. I wanted to test if dragon horn is a good focal point for the gems. Maybe make a whole staff out of it, or little rings if it's not malleable.”
The iceblood grinned. “I think you should probably avoid that.”
Helga grinned, and sat with Mia for longer, listening to some of the tales she told about her jobs. The dragons she'd killed and met. The notion of a trad fascinated Helga, and how they'd let Mia just walk into their caverns, how they'd taken the last white dragon to Zaine's homeland, but all the eggs they'd salvaged for the white dragon had died before hatching.
“Zaine said they're super fragile. More than other dragons. The shock from the temperature drop just killed them.” Mia's lip twisted as she said this. “I carried some of them.”
I killed them was the unspoken accusation in Mia's voice. Helga let out a small sigh. Her friend did try to do good. Perhaps nothing worse than doing it, only to have something die anyway. Helga knew the feeling, from the little starlings she'd tried to rescue from cats, or little corn mice, only to have them die of heart attacks because of stress and fear.
Helga didn't have hands for saving. Only for making. “What do these white dragons look like? Did you see?”
Mia spread out her hands. “Slender. Fluffy. Wings like a dove's, you know? Wonder if your egg's alive, even. The one you've got cooking in your fire.”
“I don't know. Quentin said it was unlikely it had survived, but he wanted it warm anyway. Just in case.” She thought now of that little white egg, hardly bigger than a chicken's. Undersized, Quentin said. Even for a white dragon. Hardly likely to contain
anything. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Speaking of sorry—how's your family doing? You said your ma didn't like you making things, I remember that.” Mia's jaw jutted out, along with the tip of her tongue, as she checked every inch of the staff and stroked it in a way that made Helga uncomfortable.
“I... I've not spoken to my mother or father since I've been here.” Small stab of guilt. Didn't her father deserve that much? To know how his daughter was getting on? Even her mother, though that woman had intended to sell all of Helga's belongings to pay for a wedding she didn't want, and a husband she'd almost certainly hate—Elma deserved something, after all. She wasn't evil. Just disappointed in Helga's life choices. She'd always been perfectly happy for Helga to cook with her, sew with her, and do proper feminine things.
“Oh. I thought you said you wanted to see your father, at least.”
“I do. I've just...” been putting it off, she thought. “I'll make some time. Just been a little busy. Dealing with my new circumstances and all.”
“Right.” An awkward pause swam between them, until they turned the conversation to other matters. Even when Mia needed to go in the end, and escort Zaine to another one of his meetings (“I swear, if I'm not with him, he'll get himself killed”), leaving Helga to contemplate whether or not she should make a visit to her family. Or just retreat right back into her workshop and spend another two days cutting the remaining prismatics.
She asked where Quentin was before they left, but neither knew. A little broody, Helga returned to her shop and sat with her crossgun for a moment. She examined the spring components she'd weaseled out of nowhere, sitting in a neat display upon her work table.
Well, if she was going to visit her father, she'd like to make sure that the weapon he'd saved actually worked. Grim and determined, Helga began dismantling her latest invention.
Chapter Six – Helga
Already, the street that her former home resided in felt like a ghost. The pathways and secret passages still embroidered themselves in her head, but without the constant repetition, some of the knowledge had already begun to smudge. Her crossgun lay belted to her side, smaller than the previous incarnation. The longest part, the butt, now coiled itself inside with springs, held in place by her trigger. A slider on the side existed to return the springs into place, as well as the string—and to slot the next bolt into place. Taken quite a bit of thinking to make all the mechanisms click together. She'd thought of dozens of other ways to make it, but ended up with this slender, forearm-length version, simple enough for even a child to use.