Steel Heart

by R. J. Blain

  “It likes her,” my father said with an utter lack of sympathy for the elder who likely wanted his damned rock back.

  “I see that. How is she?”

  “She will fight to the death to prevent the clan from beating on her groom as is proper, and she will probably take us all out with a spoon should she feel we plan to test his prowess. During some of her less lucid moments, she informed me what she would do to us. I found it charming and amusing.”

  “Well, she was raised to do the fighting. A friendly spar, then, so we can test his mettle without perhaps quite as much of a beating as he might otherwise endure. It can be part of our celebrations when the bodies of our enemies feed the Earth in our wake. I’ve been tasked to ask if she will be our standard bearer in the battle to come.”

  “The clans may rally around her, for she carries the hearts of all of our clans with her. But no literal standard. It would tire her, and her little horse will be tired by the time we arrive. She is quite serious about guarding her rider.”

  “I will have the clans send their best for the guard, and we will dance to the stars so that our jewels might illuminate the way.” The elder’s gaze fixed on the Hope Diamond. “We are honored.”

  “We are,” my father agreed. “Are we ready to ride to war, Elder?”

  “We are ready.”

  “Then we ride.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A week after the Blade Clan joined the other weapon clans, we swept through Charlotte and brought death with us. The Hope Diamond’s first burst illuminated the entire city in a blue and white. Then, as though it’d been hoarding it’s dark miasma for years, unleashed its fury and marked those it disliked with an inky black, coloring their skin. Those doomed to die shed shadows filled with blue-white sparks, drawing attention to them no matter where they tried to hide.

  Had I not known what they’d meant to do, I would have felt guilt for the slaughter. Knowledge mattered.

  They’d meant to subject everyone in the city to the same destructive toxin I suffered from, without pity or remorse.

  They didn’t deserve the mercy they received, delivered at the hands of the Weapon Clans out for vengeance that their Starfall stones had been stolen for such evil.

  Someday soon, I expected someone to dub Charlotte the City of Change. War hadn’t done my home any favors, and what had once been quiet residential neighborhoods become war zones. The Blade Clan swept through, leaving death, destruction, and hope in their wake. The Hope Diamond, which liked to wrap itself and its broken chain around my left wrist, pulsed every time we crossed paths with anyone.

  It didn’t care for my father’s leather straps meant to hold it in place, destroying them at least several times a day.

  The innocent were bathed in a purifying blue light, and the stone did what it could to heal their bruised and broken bodies. I doubted it did much more than prevent death, but a chance at life beat a slow, painful demise on the battlefield.

  The rest fell to darkness and became the prey of clan warriors holding a grudge.

  Had I been in any shape to fight, I would’ve joined them, armed with a sword of my father’s making, although the weapon wasn’t my preferred katana. He’d taken my prized blade and promised I could have it back when I could ride properly, as it’d be a pity if I broke it dropping it onto the cobbles like a fool. I struggled with staying in the saddle, and it was well enough I wasn’t armed with a sword I wanted to use. Falling wouldn’t do me any favors.

  Exhaustion beat death, although I feared I only breathed with the help of a meddling Starfall stone. When it tired of me, the end would come quickly. My father, sometime after the Blade Clan had joined us, confessed he’d almost killed me by taking the stone to see what would happen if we were separated.

  I shivered at a dim memory of a deep darkness coming for me. The pain of death no longer frightened me; living hurt a great deal more than the brief discomfort of my failing lungs and stuttering heart.

  Because of the Hope Diamond, I lived.

  “Are the pulses hurting you?” my father asked while the rest of the clan cleared the street that would take us to the Lancers’ Alliance. The red barn still stood, a miracle as far as I was concerned. The rebels had gotten a hold of at least one combustion stone, and they’d torched part of the city already, aware few knew how to stop hungering flames anymore.

  “No.” I rang my fingers across the Hope Diamond’s faceted surface. The stone warmed at my touch. “I’m just tired.”

  I expected I would be tired for a long time while my body recovered from the toxicity of the nuclear weapon and my time in the ocean’s churning waters.

  “You have brought the clan great honor.”

  As far as my father was concerned, I couldn’t be more perfect if I tried. Without my tiger and the others having showered me with their affection, accepting his love would have tested me far more. Still, the old shifter needed a qualified mystic to examine his head. “And if it weren’t for your art and skill with steel, the clan would have long tossed you off the peak of the nearest mountain to restore the clan’s pride and dignity.”

  He laughed. “I see you have not forgotten our ways.”

  “Somewhat. Some things I’ve opted to discard and forget at my leisure.”

  “And that is for the better. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you would change our world. I had not anticipated for you to change the world, but I am proud of what you have become. Your mother is, too.”

  “You keep saying that, but according to my aunt, my mother is a terrifying demon of a grizzly who could take on the entire rebellion without breaking a sweat.” I had vague memories of my mother helping my father care for me, but she’d left as soon as she was needed to make the final preparations for Charlotte’s defense.

  I found it amusing my mother loved to fight with my father. I looked forward to meeting her properly when coherent enough to really comprehend who she was and what she was like.

  “She is a magnificent bride and wife. I will only be beaten slightly for my failure to keep you in perfect health.”

  I worried about that; I couldn’t remember them actually physically fighting in their verbal sparring. “Most people would be filing for a divorce over that.”

  “While I am not a Siberian, my species is very similar to yours. Your mother is very skilled with her sword, and when I do not fight to her standards, I endure my beatings as is proper. It is a matter of pride. That is where the Blade Clan—and the other clans—have it all wrong. There is nothing more special than a woman who follows the way of the sword. In the hands of a woman, a blade becomes far more than a tool of war. That is what I had hoped for you from the very beginning. The first time you found beauty in a sword, I held hope that you had more depth than the other children in our clan. I held hope I could forge you into something truly special. Then you went and forged yourself into someone who far surpassed all of my expectations.”

  “Forged is a good word, since I’ll probably fall over dead if I’m separated from the Hope Diamond. Anatoly is not going to take the news well. We’ll have gone from trying to remove it to trying to make sure it can never be removed. And it will remove itself at its whim.”

  “It’s only a problem if it goes some twenty feet away from you. Its range could be greater, and the instant the stone realized you suffered, it returned to you. It seems to have intellect, but a rather confused intellect. I think I need to have a talk with it about what it means to be healthy. I will have to find a very healthy Siberian tigress as a model.”

  “Anatoly has a sister.”

  “I know of her. She would have made an excellent bride for you, but you make a better bride for your groom. You are exactly as you should be, for all there are those within the clan who are still baffled by your choice. For all you had no idea I was your father when you were a child, the proudest moment of my life was when you decided for yourself you should not be like every other child of the clan. I only wish you had not fear
ed what you had become or doubted it. That was not what I wanted for you.”

  The Hope Diamond burst again, and blue light pulsed over the street, engulfing everyone in its way. The warriors whooped and hollered, and those the Starfall stone marked fell beneath their swords. Part of me wanted to dismount, find something sharp and pointy, and carve my mark into the bodies of the fallen so the world would know they’d been judged by a higher power for their crimes.

  I refused to suffer through remorse for their deaths.

  They had wanted to poison an entire city of people for the sake of their twisted plans.

  While I wanted to wade in and dispatch a few myself, I rode Miracle. My mare regarded the nearby combat with a wary eye, one ear twisted back. In a way, she reminded me of a dog more than a horse, unfailing in her loyalty and courage. Dipshit and Devil Spawn might view leaves as terrifying adversaries on occasion, but not Miracle.

  She had no time for such nonsense.

  “I feel like an ornament,” I complained.

  “Consider yourself a war leader, guiding the clan into battle. I am a blacksmith. While I can fight, my place is to make sure the swords I make do well in battle, so I observe.” He pointed into the fray at one of the warriors. “Watch him.”

  The warrior had a tendency to go in close for the kill, relishing in the spray of blood and swift dispatches. He also aimed for the neck often. “He is predictable.”

  “He has a way about him, yes. His sword is too short. He has accommodated for this with his choice to engage close early, but in reality, he handicaps himself. You would destroy him with your katana, which suits your build and style of fighting. You are also good in close quarters, but when you get close, you are fueled with desperation as much as skill, so you shine more than he does. He is adequate. It will not give him long life should he continue to hold onto his childhood blade. He has outgrown it, but he holds too much affection for the blade. He is the weapon but he forgets this.”

  “Maybe I should remind him of the rules after we’re done with this.”

  “No, Jesse.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are still not well. When you are well, you may battle the entire clan for your right to claim your groom if you wish. Your groom would be crushed, and you would then battle the entire clan as a matter of honor anyway, so we should spare your groom his dignity.”

  “My groom has been training with grizzlies. My mother’s brother and sister to be specific.”

  “That is concerning for my brothers of the clan. I will wisely go forge a second weapon for my new son to properly welcome him into our family rather than test my strength unnecessarily. Your mother will insist on having her turn with him. She is an opinionated creature.”

  That my aunt and uncle had been completely tricked by my mother would be a source of amusement for the rest of my life. While amusing, I wasn’t sure I would ever understand why they’d opted for subterfuge over openly engaging in a relationship. “I can’t believe you two have been visiting with each other on the sly.”

  “The clan would not understand, and your uncles would have come for my blood upon finding out I didn’t properly release her from her duties after bearing you. My bride’s sister? She would do terrible things to me. She probably will. I’ve heard of Madam President’s temper. My bride tells me her sister takes after her quite a deal.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Once you are properly mated, I believe we shall try for another daughter. Daughters are the true jewels of our world, and you would do well having a sister you can teach to walk in your footsteps. Two of you would be a true wonder of this world.”

  “You do realize I’m a paid killer when I’m not delivering letters, right?”

  “I find your desire to fight fate and the circumstances of your birth to be a glorious thing.”

  My father embraced formality and needed a swift kick in the ass to join modern times—or at least an introduction to contractions. “Wouldn’t this go faster if we were helping with the cleanup?”

  “We would damage our clan’s pride beyond redemption if we assisted them.”

  “And the other clans, too.”

  “We have already done that; their Starfall stones desire only you, and they have been persistent on remaining with you through this. We will have to convince the stones to return to their homes.”

  My recovery, slow by all standards, had left me with a great deal of time to contemplate the Starfall stones. “I think the stones understood what has been happening. The clans are a unified front because they stick with me.”

  “It does help the Hope Diamond has chosen you.”

  “I wonder why. I’m not exactly a shining example of goodness in the world.”

  “Neither is it.” If anything, the Hope Diamond brought everything other than hope to most. Except me. Without it, I wouldn’t have anything at all.

  I liked breathing.

  “Right now, it is a symbol of hope. It has kept you alive in this world, and that undoes much of the harm it has done and will do. It helps us to clean this city of the filth polluting it.”

  Unable to argue with him, I nodded, and I bore witness to the carnage. The Hope Diamond pulsed again, but instead of the black and blue glow I expected, it shed a pure white light. The flash bathed the streets and erased all evidence of bloodshed, washing away the red from the asphalt and stone. While the dead remained, the wounds darkened as though cauterized, and the screams of the wounded quieted. A stunned silence fell over the streets.

  “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it,” I muttered.

  “I wished for you to survive, and you did. I will be forever grateful that the stone listened to this blacksmith’s wish.”

  I considered my father, who didn’t seem all that old to me. “How old are you?”

  “I met my seventeenth winter shortly before you were born. Your mother is far older than I am, but I am as long-lived a species as her, so we will enjoy many long years together.”

  My brows raised at that. “You hadn’t undergone your second shift, then?”

  “No, I had not. You were five and learning the way of the sword when I grew into my true self. I had hoped I would learn who my sire was through my animal, but I am much like you. We became what was needed without care or consideration of those who came before us. I have since learned who my father was—and his father before him. But the rest of our lineage remains a most interesting mystery. The clan whispers legends of our line.”

  Considering how the clan did its best to eliminate paternal lineage, that my father had learned anything at all about his father amazed me. “They do? I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “Oh, you do. You just do not realize it yet. It is our proud line that brought Steel Heart to our clan, and it is our line that waged war with the stone you wear for the right to claim a shard of its power. Perhaps the Hope Diamond remembers, and it showers you with its favor to remind us it gave us its child willingly. Or, perhaps, you are simply a magnificent daughter, and it recognizes this.”

  Once I found Anatoly and the others, I would have to ask them how to handle my father’s inability to refrain from praising me every other breath.

  I hadn’t done anything to earn it, and he barely knew me. And what he did know of me was tainted by illness from exposure to the metal tube and its wretched contents. With a little luck, the ocean would keep the taint from spreading or hurting anyone else. Without the Hope Diamond and Sunder, I would have died.

  “I’m hardly magnificent.”

  “You are.”

  “We’re going to have a fight over this, old man.”

  “One I will win. I am sure you will fight to the best of your ability, but I have age, experience, and health on my side. I will sit upon you until you surrender and accept more of my care until you can fight with me on equal footing.”

  My mother must have gotten to my father, teaching him bad habits. My aunt would say something similar upo
n finding out about my lack of good health—and that I lived only because some Starfall stones decided I should continue to count among the living.

  Sort of.

  My mare snorted, stretched out her neck, and shook her head. I gave her extra rein, and she sniffed at one of the eerily cleaned corpses littering the ground. I patted her shoulder. “I’d like to see how I stand against you at some point.”

  “Of course. That is the nature of our clan. We always strive to best our brothers—and we always desire to bring pride to our unknown fathers. I was proud of you from the day you wandered into the forge and pointed at one of my failures and called it beautiful. While beautiful and flawed, it served you well.”

  Damn it, I missed my old katana despite having not known the flawed blade’s history. “But it broke.”

  “You waged a war against a grizzly with a larger blade of almost equal quality. Flaw or not, that blade would have broken. I saw the pieces and how deeply the other blade struck. The flaw made it break a little easier, but it would have broken all the same. I am of the opinion it held as long as it could, and it saved your life with the resistance it did mount against your foe. You stood triumphant in the end. It protected your life. That was its ultimate purpose.”

  “The new one is just as beautiful.”

  “You are a biased daughter.”

  I grinned at that. “I’m a little sorry I modified the hilt, but only a little sorry.”

  “Do not be sorry. Your modifications melded your life in the Blade Clan and among the tribes and as mercenary together. I continued those modifications, as you are well aware. Your next blade will honor the tribe who cares for your spirit as much as I. Perhaps I will forge them a true prize, something they can hold with pride unlike the stiletto you were bequeathed. That is a symbol of trials and tribulations. They deserve a symbol of triumph. They became your family when I could not be your family, and when your mother could not be your family. This is a debt we can never repay, although we will try. I do hope Steel Heart will cooperate when the time comes to forge their gift.”