He halted, attempting to swallow past a raw throat.
Stonehands' smithy stood before him. Smoke twined up from its chimney, and the steady, comforting clang of a hammer rang within. Heat and the smell of iron billowed from it. The posts, tables and roof had been scrubbed clean—Krayr wouldn't abide disorder or messiness—but grime coated them despite his efforts.
Irreor dismounted, but he hesitated as Graelina's voice called out in a weak, sickly tone.
"Get yourself back to work and stop hovering over me. I'll be fine."
A squat shack sat beside the smithy. Before he'd left, this area had been wide and open. Now tents and shacks filled it, forcing people to stumble over tie-lines and fallen planks.
Bran ambled out of the shack, heaved a great sigh, and stomped into the smithy.
The Stonehands now lived in that shack. Only a single, narrow window lined the front wall, and the interior brimmed with shadows. Krayr had once taken such pride in his family's home, but this was little more than four decrepit walls.
In the smithy, a stocky boy held a heavy hammer, waiting for Bran. The blacksmith snatched it up and smashed it into a sliver of red-hot iron. Sparks rained. The boy pumped the bellows.
Again, Bran lifted his hammer.
"Like a singed prick, eh?" Irreor said, remembering one of the last things Krayr had said before he'd left.
Bran whirled. His knees shook as he stumbled to Irreor, slack-faced and mouth working.
"Who that be?" the boy asked.
Irreor smirked as his friend neared, readying a sarcastic retort to the big lug's first question—why are you here? Instead, the other man's fist shot out, crushed Irreor's chin, and launched him from his feet.
Sparks—now imagined—rained.
King's cock! He's not so gentle anymore.
"Get up," Bran ordered.
Irreor's jaw ached as if an army had stampeded across it, but he struggled to his feet, brushed off his tunic, and looked up at his old friend. The blacksmith grinned, and Irreor struggled to return the expression.
"Was that necessary?" Irreor said.
"Yes," Bran said. He swept his friend into a massive hug that lifted Irreor from the ground, then plopped him down. "I've missed you, you bastard. We've all missed you."
For the first time in a full day, the voice returned. It was quiet, as if it focused its attention elsewhere, but it spoke with a soft, loving tone:
-Oh, how they'll miss my general. Everyone but the woman, Kipra. She'll despise him. She'll always despise him. I'm so, so sorry.-
"I know," Irreor whispered.
***
Irreor stepped into the candlelit shack. He dropped his saddlebags at the entrance, waiting as his eyes adjusted, squinting at the blurry images—a shadowy table and chair, a floor made of rough-cut stone, and two beds crammed in the room's corners. It smelled of sickness, like a lemon left too long in the sun.
Someone groaned beneath the bedcovers. "That boy isn't ready, Bran," Graelina said. "You can't leave him alone. We can't afford it. Go back—"
"Mother, someone's here," Bran said.
The bed creaked as blankets tumbled over one another. An arm poked out, pallid and splotchy despite the dimness. It drooped from the bedside, fingers grazing the ground, before an equally pallid face emerged.
"Who is it?" Graelina croaked. "Get out of the blasted light, boy."
Bran nudged his friend forward.
Irreor's heart thumped in an erratic rhythm. The air inside the shack was hot, as if the Stonehands had somehow trapped the forge beneath its roof. As he moved closer it grew hotter, and a bead of sweat dribbled down his temple.
And that smell!
Bran gripped his friend's shoulder. "We'll sit at the table. She doesn't want anyone close to her."
-How lucky the blacksmith will be to know his parents. Many will envy him. Not all children will know their parents. Not all will feel the love a parent can provide. No. Some of those young ones will never know these things.-
This isn't the time.
-And that eagle. What will happen when he must give it up? Ah, what indeed?-
Not now!
Irreor shook his friend's hand off and lurched forward. His fingers trembled as he reached out to grip Graelina's hand. She returned the pressure as he squeezed, but her clammy palm felt slick.
"Ah," she whispered. "It's been too long, it has."
He pressed his forehead against her mattress.
He'd never known his own mother, only stories told from a father who understood swordplay but little else. To hear his father say it, his mother had swung a blade better than any man in Kiln. She'd practiced from sunrise to sunset, until her hands blistered and those blisters burst.
But pain couldn't stop her. She'd tear off the loose skin, rip her blades from their sheaths, and begin again. Hours on hours, days on days, just as Irreor had often spent with his father.
'I wish you could've seen it,' his father had told him. 'There wasn't a man or woman who didn't respect her. She stole their respect, didn't give them a choice. You could be better than she was.'
Bran's mother wasn't his own, but she was close. This woman, lying on a sickbed with, glassy eyes and quivering chin, had treated him like a son. Theirs hadn't been a parent-child relationship—he was too old, and he'd had his father there—but it had been close.
"Void take me," Graelina murmured. "I'm not going to clean the stains of your bawling. You take that outside, or I'll not have you in my home again."
Irreor smirked, and she squeezed his hand tighter before releasing it.
"Still," she said. "It's good to see you. Far, far too long."
"Yes, well, I—"
"Are a fool," she said.
He smiled, embarrassed. "Probably."
"Ain't no probably about it. You are." She coughed, a hacking expulsion that wracked her body. "You needed your own time, needed to find your place. Have you found it?"
"Aye," he said. "I've found it."
Her lips twitched as she closed her eyes.
"She's asleep," Bran said. "Does that a lot these days."
Irreor rose from her bedside and seated himself at the table, the very one from the Stonehands' old home, and the only thing that remained the same. He drew his fingers over the nooks and cracks that marred its surface, put there through decades of use by his friend's family.
In his pocket, the eagle figurine pressed against his leg.
"Your father?" Irreor said.
"Dead," Bran said.
The figurine pressed harder, and he pulled it out. It gleamed in the firelight, polished from weeks in his pocket. Yet that gleam wasn't merry and cheerful, not anymore.
"How?"
Bran gulped, and his voice shook. "Crest took control of the guards two weeks ago. Not a single sword patrolled for three days, not until he set up his own men. Well, my father thought he needed to protect the forge himself, so he'd stay here in the nights. He was killed on the third day. They stole everything."
Irreor frowned. "You don't know anything else?"
"Nothing." Bran barked a short, sarcastic laugh. "Nekaron Rellik took our house soon after that. He claimed that, without anything to sell, we couldn't pay our taxes. So we put up this thing—close enough to the forge that I can work during the day and keep watch at night. I pay that boy a copper a day, more than I can afford, but I'd not afford anything if I didn't have some help. And—"
"You guard the shop now? Have you ever actually, well, hurt anyone?"
"It's been a long time since I was that man, Irreor. Seems like forever. I... I cried for three entire days, not just for the loss of my father, but for what I'd done. For what I'll do." He scrubbed his cheeks. "Only my mother knows that. I don't know why I told you."
Two weeks wasn't enough to deal with something like this, and little more than that had passed since Irreor had left Rippon. A man's scream as steel pierced his neck curdled the blood. If Bran had killed a man, then he deserved his mo
ments of sadness.
Sorrow deserved sorrow.
"I've killed as well," Irreor said.
The admittance was harder than it should've been. Coming back to stop Kylen Crest should've made it easier. Instead, the sight of his old friend, the decay of the city, and the death of Krayr Stonehand reminded him of what he fought for, of how much was at stake.
Of how many more he'd have to kill.
"We do what we can," Irreor said. "Nothing more and nothing less."
"I've never admitted—"
"It's okay. It is."
Irreor waved away his friend's words and hefted the figurine. No longer was it something to remind him of this place, nor was it a gift to gain favor with the blacksmith. Now it was a symbol, bright and shining. He needed to be like this figurine—molded from steel, ready to tear into prey.
"And your mother?"
"She's been sick since my father died. She didn't know how to cope. Still doesn't."
I didn't know. I had no way to know.
-Loneliness.-
I'm begging you. For once just leave me in peace.
-Peace. A thing I can never find. Oh, how I see it on the horizon, like some glaring mirage that screams my name and beckons me on, but it's only a lie. It's all a lie. Peace!-
Irreor pretended to study the shack's cracked walls.
-I've been trapped here so, so long. The darkness. The whispers. My daughter will nudge the pieces along their path. And she'll tweak, oh, how she'll tweak them. But will she understand why? Ah, and my son, Fier, he'll betray her. I wish they knew how much I love them.-
I don't care! Irreor dug his nails into his forearms, jabbed them deeper, deeper, until the tiniest drops of blood trickled from his skin. I don't want you. I don't need you. Why are you inside me!
-To hide.-
To hide from what?
Seconds passed, then minutes. Minutes passed, soon half an hour.
Irreor's skull tickled as it always did in the voice's presence, but it refused to answer. So be it. The blacksmith also maintained silence, perhaps content to let Irreor process news of Krayr's death and Graelina's sickness.
"Where's Kipra?"
Bran smirked. "At her father's store, though it's not even half the size it was. I don't have the experience to pump out steel like my father did, and the rest of the merchants are afraid to come to Farren. She guards the place day and night."
"Is she any good?"
"Who taught her?" Bran snorted. "Of course she's good. After you left, neither of us had anyone to turn to. She remembered you too often. It may be a bad idea to see her so soon, though. Let me talk to her first. She's missed you—"
"I doubt it."
Kipra's imagined face scowled, just as she'd always done, and Irreor struggled to thrust the image from his mind. He couldn't think of how much she hated him.
How she'd never care for him.
"She's the best blade I know," Irreor said. "Better than most of Kinslek's Keepers, better than nearly any soldier. I need that. Bran, I can't wait until you've talked to her. There isn't enough time to—"
"Why?"
Irreor walked to his saddlebags and pulled out his Keeper armor. He tossed it onto the table, waited for the other man to understand what it was, then spoke in a soft, deadly tone.
"I'm going to kill Kylen Crest."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Irreor crept closer to Haral Steel's stall, keeping to the shadows.
Merchandise filled only a quarter of the tent, but that section contained a wide variety of swords and armor—two suits of platemail, three leather jerkins, an assortment of daggers and longswords and even a falchion. Other sections of the tent had been closed tight with a thick canvas, and torches hung from the tent's corner posts, their light flickering off the steel.
Irreor pressed his back to the baker's shop and peered into the stall. Kipra's father must've hired a guard, perhaps several, for no one could've been stupid enough to leave a shop unattended through the night. In addition, it was doubtful Haral would let his daughter stay there alone.
Yet nothing moved.
Irreor crossed his arms and waited, happy to observe the market courtyard and learn what he could. Groups of homeless children, men and women lay huddled in the gutters, as if they had collapsed where they stood. However, none were within the stall's torchlight, and a wide, empty circle surrounded it.
Three men sat at the outskirts of the torchlight, knees drawn to their chests. They whispered amongst themselves, frowning at the seemingly abandoned stall. The largest of them, with a jagged scar running down the side of his face, growled and thrust his finger toward the weapons. Another harsh whisper, another thrust of a finger. The scarred man grunted, glared at his companions as if unhappy with their answer, then leapt to his feet.
The others remained seated.
The scarred man stomped to a wide blade hanging from one of the stall's posts. He tossed a triumphant grin to his companions, latched onto the weapon with a gnarled, cracked fist and tore it free.
Silence.
Seriously? You've got to be kidding me.
Irreor tugged both longsword and Synien from their sheaths, ducked low and crept forward. Haral should've had four or five men guarding the stall, especially if things were as bad as Bran claimed. Plenty of folks would've worked the night for a copper or two.
Instead, Irreor got to do it.
At the far end of the marketplace, another shadow twitched and inched forward.
Irreor dropped to a crouch.
Silhouetted against the light of a window, a shadow moved, hips swaying as it neared the stall. Something flashed—a dagger or a sword or a fragment of steel—and Kipra's voice drifted across the courtyard.
"Drop it, Vren."
The scarred man pivoted. "I ain't thinking so."
"I'm not asking."
The man looked to his friends for assistance. They scrambled to their feet but didn't step forward. Vren hefted the blade, a weapon meant for a man twice his size, and pointed its quivering tip at Kipra. "And you'll give me two more, too. Me friends be needing something."
Kipra stepped into the light.
Tight, black leather armor hugged her body, accentuating hips and breasts with a sensuality Teel would've killed for. Two shortswords hung from her belt, and she rested her palms on their hilts.
"No." Kipra smirked, but her glare never left Vren. "You'll get nothing."
Irreor remained still. He didn't want to see her kill this man, but the island had become more dangerous than he'd ever dreamed. He required a certain ruthlessness from her. Did she command the will to do what was needed?
She tweaked an eyebrow. "You know—"
"I ain't asking, bitch." Vren's words cracked with desperation, but again he shook the weapon at her. "I'm taking the sword, and you ain't stopping me. You're lucky I ain't taking the whole damn shop."
Her smirk vanished. She yanked one shortsword free, and rested the flat of the blade against her other hand's knuckles.
"I ain't scared of you," Vren growled. "You void-splattered bitch."
"Drop the sword, Vren." She carefully stepped forward, closer and closer, feet spread and angled to defend. "Don't let me see you again and you'll live. Fail to do that and I'll hack your arms from your shoulders. You'll rot in the street, fodder for the beggars and thieves."
Vren spat a wad of yellow saliva onto her chest. "Your sister ain't even charging coin no more, you know that? She's Crest's little toy, and she'll spread her legs for anyone with a scrap of bread. Lucky me, I found myself half a loaf in the gutters tonight."
Intelligence wallowed on the grimy cobblestones, lonely and desperate and foolish.
Kipra shot forward.
Vren attempted to ready his blade, but the long, heavy steel drooped in his fist. She smashed it to the ground with a single chop, and it clanged against the courtyard stones.
Vren's friends fled.
She thrust the tip of her shortsword again
st his throat, forcing him against the shop's wooden post. "I'm not my sister. I'll never be her, and you'd do well to remember that."
The scarred man gulped, and the point of Kipra's blade jabbed deeper into his flesh.
Blood dripped down his chest, but he glared at her, unknowing or uncaring of the consequences. "Even if you killed me tonight, I had her the night before. Bitch hardly moaned, so Crest ain't going to let her live much longer. She's as useless as a dirty rag."
Kipra threw her blade to the stones and leapt forward with a knee to his groin. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but only a hacking gurgle emerged. She drove her knee upward again.
Again.
Vren's eyes rolled to the back of his head. He slumped against her shoulder, and she stepped back to watch him flop against the stones. Two of his fingers twitched like a dead spider's legs, and she smashed her heel onto the back of his hand. Bones snapped, the sound sharp and clear, echoing throughout the marketplace. Almost without remorse. Almost without pity. Almost.
Silence.
Kipra knelt to grab her shortsword, thrust it into its sheath, and peered at the would-be thief's body. She tossed back her foot and slammed it into the man's gut. Breathe whooshed from him, but he made no other sound.
Again she drew back her foot.
"Hey!" Irreor shouted, unable to watch her torture or kill this man. He required ruthlessness, though it must be well-placed. True, the would-be thief had attempted to steal from her, but he didn't deserve this.
She reached for her blades as she swiveled.
Irreor moved into the light, carefully keeping his hands clear of his weapons. He offered her an easy grin, as if nothing had changed, as if a year hadn't passed. It was all he could think to do. "He doesn't even feel it, you know. Drag him into the gutter and be done with it."
For an instant—a single, blessed instant—Kipra's face softened. Her emerald eyes widened, then melted like a stick of green wax. But her expression, for that brief heartbeat, pierced Irreor's chest, rummaging through his emotions like a noblewoman in a boutique. Tossing. Throwing. Discarding.
Had the voice been wrong all this time?
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