by Jesse Teller
“Hunet!” she screamed.
“I’m messing with him,” Hunet said. “I’m just kidding you, boy. We are fine.” He grabbed the guy’s head and turned it to look at Rachel. “See, he’s fine.” He nodded the boy’s head up and down and walked away.
“I’m sorry about my brother. He is an ass.”
“Is he staring at my ass as I walk away?” Hunet shouted.
“Hunet, I swear!” she screamed.
“Who’s staring at your ass?” she heard from the other room, and froze.
Her archer began to tremble.
“Rachel brought a boy to the house. Wants to be alone with him. Want me to introduce you?” Hunet said.
“I think I’m going to go,” her archer said. He started to get up, but she grabbed his face really quick and kissed him.
She kissed him long and hard and let her tongue slide into his mouth. His entire body when stiff, and she thought she had killed him, before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She left his small arms around her and felt a kick of disappointment.
She sat in his lap again and handed him his ale. “Drink up,” she said. “It will calm your nerves.”
He drank deep. When he pulled his mug down to look at her, his eyes shot wide, and he stared at something behind her.
“Oh, he’s cute,” Brenden said.
“Brenden, go,” she muttered.
“But he is,” Brenden said. “Look at his delicate features. Oh, oh, and his little beady eyes.”
She turned to see Brenden standing right beside her. Mercy made itself plain in the fact Brenden was fully clothed, but Hunet stood behind him, still bare naked except for his dagger.
“Brenden, please leave. I am begging you,” Rachel said.
Brenden turned to Hunet. “What’s its name?” he asked.
“Not sure. I think we should call it Beans,” Hunet said.
“I want to give it a hug,” Brenden said.
Rachel sighed.
“What do you think, Beans, want to give me a hug?”
“His name is not Beans.”
“I-I am Demak o-of Ter-” the boy stuttered.
“Nope. Not gonna call you Demak,” Hunet said. “Not gonna do that at all. You’re Beans,” he said with a grin.
Brenden walked behind Beans’s chair and grabbed his bow. “Look at this,” he said, tossing it to Hunet.
The boy jumped up, tossing Rachel aside, and reached for the bow.
“This is adorable. What do you think it is?” Hunet asked Brenden.
“You know what that is, Hunet,” Rachel snapped. She looked at the tiny bow in the hands of her progetten brother, and knew this guy would not do. “Give it back to Beans right now.”
“She called him Beans,” Brenden said with a giggle.
“I didn’t mean to say that.”
Beans could only stare at her.
“You gonna make him a man, little sister?” Hunet asked. “Is that what you are going to do?”
Rachel hated them both right then. She wanted to break their faces open and stomp on their man parts.
“No one is making him a man. I just wanted to spend some time with him. And—” she began.
“I’ll make a man of you, baby, come with me,” Brenden said.
“If anyone is going to make a man out of him, I think it should be me,” Hunet said. “I’m dressed for it.”
“No!” Brenden said. “He’s mine.” Brenden shoved Hunet, and Rachel decided she hated them with the passion of a burning flame.
“I’ll fight you for him,” Hunet said.
“Deal,” Brenden said. He turned to Beans. “We will knock each other around for a while to see who gets to open you up. I like my chances.” Brenden winked at him and turned, taking Hunet’s fist.
Brenden grabbed Hunet and hoisted him into the air. He tossed him against the wall, and Hunet dropped in a heap. Brenden kicked him, and Beans began to whine.
As her brothers pounded on each other, she kissed Beans again. She sat down next to him and shook her head. “I won’t let them hurt you,” she said. This boy looked terrified. He was frozen to his spot in fear, as if he could not run now if his life or virtue depended on it.
Brenden picked Hunet up over his head and brought him crashing down on the middle of the table. The table shattered, throwing ale everywhere, and Rachel leapt to her feet and screamed. She punched Brenden in the spine, and he groaned. She bit him on the shoulder and came away with a hunk of meat. With a bloody chin, she spun to look at Beans.
Hunet fought his way to his feet and shook his head at Brenden. “He’s yours. Take him,” Hunet said.
Brenden smiled. “Come here, Beans.” He beckoned with his finger, and the boy she had brought home jumped to his feet and ran.
Brenden stood and laughed. Both of her brothers watched him go, and Hunet turned to her. “You’re welcome,” he said.
She sighed.
“I can’t have anything,” she said.
IV
25 Years Before The Escape
He looked into her eyes, and she shook her head. “No, Betten, I can’t help you,” Rachel said. She let him ring the bell and dropped onto the floor beside the cot where she had spent her night.
She was tired of living in Ellen’s old house, but not tired enough to break her promise, not tired enough of living alone that she was ready to turn on Madeline.
Betten rang himself home and turned back to her.
“Jocelyn has been Flak’s wife now for two years. She has proved to be a strong woman, a good woman, and she is a good wife. This war you and mother are waging on her has to stop.”
“Jocelyn Fendis is a witch. She mesmerized Flak and stole him from the woman he wanted to marry. She ripped that happiness away from them both. She is vicious. She is evil. And she does not deserve him,” Rachel said. “As long as I live, I will fight to scare her away from that man. She is wholly unacceptable as a Redfist bride.”
“Well, Rachel, you are going to have to accept the fact she is a Redfist.”
“Is he happy?” Rachel asked.
Betten’s face dropped. He looked out the window and stared out at the street. “I told Flak I would talk to you and mother about it. I have. I will ask you one more time as a personal favor to me, please embrace Jocelyn and make peace.”
“Never!” Rachel stated. She held her arms out to Betten and kissed his neck. She liked watching the way he squirmed when she kissed him. “It’s been too long. How many months have you been away?”
“I was on the mountain for nine months this time. I missed my mother and missed my king,” Betten said.
“What word do you have of my brothers?” Rachel asked.
“Well, when I took Hunet up there, we got half a day out of the ancestral home of the Beastscowl clan and the chief that ruled it fled for his life. He threw himself off a cliff to save himself from facing Hunet’s challenge.”
Rachel laughed. “That lucky bastard. Hunet would have ripped that man to pieces.”
“I told your brothers, on the way up there, the kind of things he was doing to the tribe. They were not happy.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel said.
“Well, the chief of the Beastscowl tribe had two wives. He was telling everyone they could take more wives, too. Said no man should have to suffer the same woman in bed all of his life,” Betten said. “Hunet heard that and—”
“And Clarta was frothing.”
“Hunet’s wife did not like that even a little bit for sure. She begged Hunet to take his time in that fight.”
“So, he was chief of the old tribe—”
“Half a day before he even got there, yeah.” Betten laughed. “Brenden is quiet. He misses the city, I think.”
“This has been his home for so long. He has to be miserable.”
“It was a good idea to send them both. Flak is right. Brenden needs to spend these last two years on the mountain with the rest of the Seven. It’s important.”<
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“I miss them both.” She felt a sadness in her gut when she thought of never seeing Hunet again. She would have to get up there to see him. But the idea of returning to the mountain, of being back in the same area as the Fury nation, filled her with fear. She heard her bow break in her mind again, and she shook her head. Even now over a decade after the event, the shattering of her bow was still the most horrible thing that had ever happened to her.
“So, are you going to marry me, then?” she asked.
“Might come to it. Mother would love it. I haven’t found the love of my life yet, though I look all the time.”
“How will you know her when you see her?”
“Probably won’t. She will probably just sneak up on me and steal away with my heart,” he said. “What about you? How’s the love business treating you?”
“You see me here in this house by myself, don’t you?” Rachel said. “There are none.”
“None what?”
“Acceptable men. Locke was the last of them, maybe Brock would do. He is handsome and brave. Could take a punch, and he is strong, but Papa doesn’t want me to marry a Clay.”
“Frost wives are essential to the nation,” Betten said. “Your child would serve the Redfist. And Brock is everything you have ever looked for in a man. He could tame you, if you let him.”
“Nah, Papa is right. Clay is not a suitable choice. I need a bit of rebellion in my man.”
“I need to go find Flak,” Betten said. “Should I tell Jocelyn you say hello?”
“You can tell her to leave that man’s bed and run for her life, and I will not chase her.”
Betten turned around and headed for the door.
“You can tell her to march out of that building and go to each and every Ragoth in the nation and personally apologize for stealing their queen from them.”
Betten waved a hand over his shoulder and closed the door behind him.
She rushed to it and threw it open. “You can tell that bitch if she wants to talk about it I am ready and waiting!”
As Betten disappeared into a crowd Rachel watched him go. She wondered what it would be like to live as Betten’s wife, and shook her head.
Not right.
She stopped at Madeline’s to pick her up and went to see Ellen. Since Tulbo’s death, Ellen had gone quiet. She spoke on few occasions, always with reserve and never with passion. It seemed something within her had fled, and the only joy she found anymore was the visit of her son. Rachel knew she had heard the bell of Betten, and knew Ellen would be in a good mood. The two friends walked to Ellen’s house with flowers and the ingredients to make her paints.
Ellen was writing again.
She sat in the high window of the Stonefist house, staring out at the street and the people walking it. She sat there often, looking in the streets for something Rachel knew would never come back. The guards let them in and they found Ellen. The curtains flapped lazily around the chair. Madeline went and hugged Ellen and kissed her hand. Ellen looked up at Rachel.
“Is he really here?” She looked happy today, looked like she might be having a good day.
“I saw him, yes. Betten and I had a long talk.”
“And has he found a woman yet?” Ellen asked.
“No, Ellen, he has not,” Rachel said.
“Well?” she said. “Is my boy man enough for you?”
“Do you really want your son to marry me? Do you really want half-Rachel, half-Betten babies running around this city?”
“Savages to stop the world, they would be. I can smell them from here,” Madeline said.
“Not funny,” Rachel said.
“How goes our war?” Ellen said.
Rachel turned to Madeline and Madeline smiled.
“Not a peep,” she said with a laugh. “I checked the Stonefist, Flurryfist, Beastscowl, Black Hand, and Steeltooth ghettos, and not a single woman has said a word to Jocelyn yet. The Redfist have accepted her. And, of course, the Fendis still think she is flawless, but the other ghettos want nothing to do with her. The women have all just gone silent.”
“We are going on two years now. She can’t have much more in her. She knows most of the women in this nation hate her. Soon, the pressure of it will be too much, and she will run home,” Rachel said.
“Have you talked to the servants of Yenna about her sheets?” Ellen asked.
This was tricky business. Madeline had been obsessed for the last two years on Jocelyn’s sheets. If Jocelyn gave Flak a child, this war was lost. But asking about the sheets was a sure way of upsetting Madeline.
“Still bleeding regularly. She is not capable of giving him an heir. After a few years of this, the people will beg him to take a new bride.” Madeline smiled. “I will be ready.”
Ellen grabbed Madeline by the waist and shook her. “With these prize-winning hips of yours.”
Madeline laughed. It had once been such a pretty laugh. It had lit her face up bright and made a star out of her. But with every passing day, every passing night Flak slept beside that woman, Madeline faded a bit.
Soon, they saw Betten, Brock, and Flak walking up the street.
“Is that him?” Madeline asked. She trembled all over and went flush.
“That is Flak Redfist, yes,” Ellen said. “And my son.”
“And Brock,” Madeline said. “Look at him. Isn’t he—”
“I’m not marrying Brock Clay, Madeline,” Rachel said.
“How do I look?” Madeline said. “Do I look okay?”
“His heart will melt when he looks upon you, girl,” Ellen said. “As always, you are the vision of a queen.”
Betten waved as they reached the lower doors, and Ellen smiled. It was the first real smile they had seen out of her in a while.
Flak walked in and at once owned the room. It seemed a thing he did with ease these days. He seemed to possess everything in his sight. He was becoming the king of all of it, and at twenty years old, he had a way about him Rachel had only seen in Yenna. He walked in and froze, looking at Madeline while he said and did nothing. She stood still and poised, letting him see her before she curtsied to him and left the room. He could not pull his eyes from her as she walked. She touched his shoulder as she passed, and he trembled at her touch.
Betten ran to Ellen and they embraced.
“Got a daughter for me yet, son?” Ellen asked.
“Not yet, mother.”
“Loneliness will eat you alive if you let it stretch out for too long, Betten.” She seemed about to cry before she squeezed his hand and they sat. She did not look at him. She simply sat, looking out the window, holding his hand.
“She is a good woman,” Flak said.
“I’m sorry, Flak, but are you going to stand here and tell me your wife is the best woman you know?” Rachel said. “That she is making you happy and you want all of us to embrace her as our one-day queen? Is that what you are going to do?”
“Your father has assured me he will not let you back into his house until—”
“Until I show respect to the Redfist bride,” Rachel said. “Yes, I have heard it from him often. He lives in that house all by himself now, with no Hunet, Brenden, or me, and he waits for you to send her away. So just do it already.”
Flak kneaded his fingers into his brow and gritted his teeth.
“Do you want me to beg, Rachel? If you were to find mercy in your heart for her, then the rest of the nation would follow your lead,” Flak said.
“They all fear you,” Brock said.
She snarled at him, and he laughed.
“I am done with this woman, Flak. What are you going to do if she gives you a child? It will be too late then. There is no going back if you get her pregnant. I hope you are being careful.”
“Rachel, she is my wife. I long to put a baby in her belly. It is my duty to give the nation an heir.”
Rachel stomped over to him and glared into his eyes.
“Tell me you would not rather it be Madeline’s ba
by,” Rachel snapped. “Look me in the eye and say it right now. Say you want that woman to give you a son.”
“He wants me to give him a son,” Jocelyn said from the doorway.
The room fell silent and Rachel snarled.
“She was not invited into this house. She is not welcome here,” Rachel said.
Jocelyn stormed forward and came within a breath of Rachel. She looked scared, terrified, and seemed about to sick up all over herself. “You are going to stop this now or I will kill you,” Jocelyn said. “I will beat you to death right here on this spot, and the city will go on without you.”
Rachel laughed and put her hand on Jocelyn’s chest. She shoved her away and spit in her face. “I’m gonna let that go by without making her pay for it. I’m not going to give her the thrashing she has earned because she is obviously delusional.” Rachel turned to the city beyond the window, turning her back on Jocelyn in disrespect.
With sudden blinding pain, Rachel felt an impact on her skull and stumbled forward. Ellen gasped. The room boiled with activity. Rachel’s vision throbbed, and she touched the back of her head. She turned as her teeth vibrated to a stop, then looked in confusion at Jocelyn. In her hand, Jocelyn gripped a baton.
Rachel snorted before looking up at Jocelyn and laughing.
“Did you just hit me, bitch?” Rachel snapped.
Jocelyn’s hand was a blur as the baton flashed again, and Rachel felt the detonation rock the side of her head. She stumbled to the side and gripped her railing head. She glared up in hate and nodded.
“Okay, bitch. This is how you want to die? I’ll play my part.” She looked around her, snatched up a broom. She snapped it over her leg and rushed Jocelyn.
The little bitch was faster and far tougher than Rachel had given her credit for. Jocelyn took hit after hit but never broke. Rachel kicked and bit and punched and cussed. She pounded on Jocelyn mercilessly and even laughed at her.
“When I am done with you, I’m sending you back to your wolf-loving daddy,” Rachel said. She kicked Jocelyn down the stairs and stomped after her. Jocelyn fought her way to her feet, and Rachel laughed as she kicked her down the next flight. “Madeline Redfist, has a ring to it, doesn’t it, bitch?”