: Chapter 8

Melting snow drips from the roof over my workshop, and early morning fog clings to the sodden ground. Mud will be everywhere today, which might make for decent business. I’ve been up since before dawn with butterflies in my gut, because today is the day that Lord Alek said he’d return, and I’m not sure what to expect.

After he left three days ago, I headed back down the lane to Callyn’s bakery. Nora saw the blood at my neck and looked like she was going to pass out, but Cal is more steady.

She cleaned the wound while swearing under her breath. “This isn’t worth it if you’re going to end up dead, Jax.”

I thrust a hand into my pocket and pulled out the silver. “Here’s another five. Do you still feel the same?”

She bit her lip—and pocketed the coins.

I saw her yesterday, and between the coins I’ve given her and what the bakery has made this week, she has fifteen silvers stashed away. I know Lord Tycho paid her generously for meat pies and sweetcakes, just like he overpaid me for his mare’s shoes. I keep feeling a twinge in my gut every time I think of accepting his silver, as if coins earned honestly and those earned from disloyalty don’t all spend the same.

This morning, I’ve filled a jar with forged nails to replace the ones we’ve sold, so I move on to other projects. I have an order from a farmer on the north side of town who needs a new hammer and a spade, so I feed a fresh ingot of iron to the forge, then roll out my shoulders and wait for it to heat.

“You’re at it early,” my father grunts.

I look over to find him in the doorway that leads into our home. He’s relatively clear-eyed this morning, but that probably has more to do with the fact that he’s run out of coins than any avoidance of ale.

“No earlier than usual.” I glance into the forge, but the iron hasn’t reached the right shade of yellow yet. “I boiled some eggs if you’re hungry.”

He makes a noncommittal sound, but turns to go back in the house, which is answer enough. I haven’t mentioned Lord Alek to him—just like he’s never mentioned the Truthbringers to me. It’s no secret what happened to Cal’s father. There’s a part of me that wonders why he’d ever be willing to take the same risks.

Then again, I’m taking them now, so I’m not in a position to judge.

I can hear him rattling around in the kitchen. I wonder if he’s planning to take up some of the work, or if he’ll fall back into bed. He’s not always horrible, and when he’s sober, he can actually be somewhat decent. He’s very strong, and quick with a hammer, and we’ve worked alongside each other in the forge for so long that we can stay out of each other’s way. When I was a boy, he worked long hours, but we always had enough to eat, with a little left over for the occasional diversion. He’d send me running down the lane to Callyn’s bakery with a few coppers in my pocket, telling me to buy some sweets for us both.

Then I got hurt, and it seemed like the village physician carved out a piece of Da’s heart when he took my foot.

I pull the iron out of the fire with my tongs, then set it against the anvil. I’ve gotten one end nearly flattened by the time my father reappears. He takes a leather apron from a hook on the wall. My eyebrows go up, but I know better than to say anything. I thrust the half-formed spade back into the forge and try to ignore the flicker of hope in my chest.

“I’ll need a hammer to go with this,” I say.

He nods, takes an ingot of his own, and sets it in the forge. A minute later, we’re both clanging away.

Moments like this always fill me with longing—or maybe nostalgia. We don’t say much to each other, but my father has never been a talker. The air is cold and peaceful, but we’ve both got a sheen of sweat on our forearms from the forge and the effort. We’re starting so early that we can make some good headway, and that flicker of hope that ignited earlier grows into a burning ember. I finish the spade and move on to a set of door hinges. Hours pass, and my list grows shorter—then longer, as a woman shows up with two axles that needs repairing, and she commissions us for new ones instead. With Da’s help I can probably finish the thresher for Farmer Latham, too, and that alone is worth ten silvers. We can pay the tax collector and begin to save silver for when we need to pay the balance next month.

Maybe I won’t need to hold a message for the Truthbringers again.

Around midday, my stomach is empty, but I don’t want to disturb this tentative peace between us. It feels like a truce. Maybe I should have kept all the coins away from him years ago.

“Jax,” says my father.

I don’t look up. Hopefully he’s hungry too. “Yeah.”

“Where’ve you been hoarding the rest of the coins?”

A sudden chill grips my spine, but his voice is casual, so I keep swinging my hammer. “What coins?”

“Don’t be daft. You know what coins. I see how much business you’ve been doing.” He gestures at the table, where I’ve got a scrawled list of projects to complete by week’s end. “Where’s the money?”

I turn a flat piece of metal against my anvil, creating a twist in the steel for an augur. “Those coins are for the tax collector.”

“Then you’d best give them to me so I can pay her.”

I make a derisive sound. “That went so well the last time.”

He grabs hold of my arm, and the metal I’ve been working with slides off the anvil to hit the floor. “Tell me.”

I glare at him, my tongs tight in my grip. “Let me go.”

To my surprise, he does. “This is my forge,” he snaps. “Those are my coins.”

I seize the steel from the ground and roughly shove it back in the forge. “I already paid her what I had,” I lie.

He studies me. I ignore him and wait for the metal to heat.

After a moment, he shifts like he’s going to return to his own work, and a bit of tension falls away from my shoulders. I reach to pull the steel back out of the forge.

And while I’m unsteady, he grabs my arm again, so roughly that it throws me off balance and I drop the tongs. I lose track of the stool and I flail, hopping on one foot so I don’t fall right into the forge.

He grabs my wrist and pulls me closer to the heat, and he’s strong enough that it jerks me to my knees. “Don’t play games with me, boy.”

“I’m not playing,” I snap. I fight his hold, but he’s got more leverage. “We owe two hundred silvers! Do you want to lose the forge?”

“Tell me where they are.”

I grit my teeth. My arm is slick with sweat, so he’s having a hard time holding on—but it also feels like I’m going to pull my arm right out of its socket. “Go ask the tax collector for them back,” I grind out.

He holds my hand so close to the fire that I can feel the promised burn, and my breathing shakes. My father’s dark eyes hold mine, but I grit my teeth. I can’t tell him. I can’t. I know what he’d do with those coins. We’ll lose everything. I’ve been working too hard.

He pulls me closer, and my free hand scrabbles for the tongs I dropped. “Let me go,” I say, and my voice is full of rage and fear.

“Tell me.”

“They’re gone.” My fingers close on the tongs, and I swing for his arm.

He’s faster than I am, or maybe my life really is just cursed by misfortune. Either way, he catches the iron tool, and he wrenches it out of my grip. When he swings for me, I’ve got nowhere to go. The tongs are heavy, and they crack into my upper arm hard enough that I’m going to have a welt—or possibly a broken arm. But it throws me sideways, and my opposite hand automatically reaches to stop my fall.

I grab onto the hot steel edge of the forge.

The pain doesn’t hit me at first—and then it’s all at once. Blinding and searing and impossibly overwhelming. My head hits the dirt floor of our workshop, and I’m distantly aware of my father shoving me away. I can’t hear what he’s saying because my heartbeat is a roar in my ears, and the sound coming out of my throat is a terrible keening sound I wasn’t aware I could make.

“You foolish boy,” he growls, but there’s a lick of fear under his words now, too. Then he’s got his arms under my arms, and he’s lifting me, half dragging me. For a wild, panicked moment I think he’s going to throw me into the forge, but instead, he tows me to the edge of the house, where there’s a small pile of melting snow. He lets me collapse beside it, then thrusts my hand right into the snow.

That’s worse. I’m panting and crying and I think I want to cut my hand off. I might actually be begging my father to do it.

But time passes, and I’m not sure how much, but my heart begins to slow. My breathing is still shuddering, and mud and snow have soaked through my pants to chill the lower half of my body.

My father is standing over me, and the expression on his face is almost identical to the moment when that wagon fell on my leg.

“You’ll be fine,” he’s saying, as if he’s trying to convince himself. “It’ll heal. Good as new.”

Nothing is ever good as new. I know that better than anyone.

I swallow and swipe hair out of my eyes with my good hand. The strands are damp with tears.

I’m terrified to look at my injured hand.

“Tell me,” he says.

I don’t want to look at him either.

“Jax.” His breathing is shuddering, and I can’t tell if he’s afraid of what’s happened—or if he’s thought of something worse to force the truth out of me. “Just tell me where they are.”

There’s too much pain. My thoughts are scattered and lined with agony.

“Under my bed,” I say roughly, and my voice is thick.

He draws back. “Next time, you give them to me. You hear me, boy? You give them to me. Maybe this will teach you to be honest.” He tugs at the leather ties to his apron, and he goes into the house. The door slams behind him.

All that silver, everything I risked, and he’s going to take it.

That hurts almost more than my hand.

Well. Not quite.

I finally dredge the courage from somewhere and look at the damage. The skin across the center of my palm is a straight line of blistered skin, a red so dark it’s almost brown. Three of my fingers as well. I can’t fully close my hand. I can barely move it.

I’ll never be able to grip a hammer or tongs until this heals.

Or a crutch.

I draw a whimpering breath. I need to get out of the mud. I need to figure out what to do.

There’s nothing to do. Nothing. I brace my good hand against the snow and lever to my knees, then shuffle back into the workshop, where I ease onto one of the stools.

If any part of this could be called lucky, it’s that my injured hand is my left—which means I can still use one crutch. I’ll be slower, but I was never really fast.

My entire hand is throbbing, and I can’t think. I pull it close against my body, as if cradling it will help the pain. For the first time in my life, I want to ask my father where I can get the best spirits, because I would quite literally do anything to stop this pulsing agony.

How long could this take to heal? It’ll be weeks, most likely. Months?

Ever?

I’ll never catch up on what we owe now.

I think of that moment when Lord Tycho stood in the workshop. The way he said, I would offer you mercy.

I’ve heard that they believe in fate on the other side of the mountain in Emberfall, and right this moment, I want to beg fate to send him back.

Nothing happens. Because, of course, if fate does exist, it’s laughing at me.

I duck my face to dry the last of my tears on the shoulder of my cloak.

Then—then—hoofbeats sound in the lane. My breath actually catches, which is ridiculous. My legs are half frozen from kneeling in the slush and mud, and my hand feels like it’s still on fire, but for a wild, crazy second, I don’t care. I’ll confess my crimes and he’ll drag me away from here, and at this point I don’t even care if I end up in prison because at least it will be better than this horrific misfortune that follows me every day.

But then I see the horse, and it’s not a dark bay with a crooked stripe down her face, it’s a blazing red chestnut gelding.

It’s Lord Alek.

Ah, yes. Thank you, fate.

At least he didn’t find me crouching in the mud. I tuck my injured hand behind the leather strap of my apron, because after the way he tossed the coins into the slush, I don’t want to give him an excuse to be more of an ass.

His gelding skids to a stop in the mud. “It seems you kept your word,” he says.

“I’m good for it.” My voice still sounds broken, and I try to breathe slowly. I don’t know where my father went, but at this exact moment I can’t decide if I’m hoping he’s gone off to find someone who will buy him a tankard of ale, or if it would be better for him to come take this message from Lord Alek so I don’t need to be a part of it anymore.

“I have another message for you to hold,” he says. “Lady Karyl will come for it in three days.”

I should demand more coins. I should ask questions about the content of these letters. I should do something.

All I can think about is the pain in my hand. I can hear my own breathing shaking.

“Fine,” I say.

Lord Alek extends the folded parchment to me. He doesn’t dismount from the horse—and he’s at least ten feet away.

I was wrong. This is worse than fishing coins out of the snow.

I find one of my crutches on the ground by the work table, and I get it under my right arm, then lever to standing. I feel sick, and there’s a good chance I might vomit in the snow. Everything about him disgusts me, from the way he glares down at me, to the casual marks of wealth and prosperity that seem like a mockery of everything I’m lacking.

When I make it to his side, I have to reach out with my injured hand, because the alternative is letting go of the crutch. I gingerly take hold of the parchment with the tips of my fingers, but it makes me wince anyway. I thrust it into my pocket.

He’s peering at me, those piercing eyes searching my face. “You look unwell.”

“I’m fine.” I eye the sword at his waist and wonder if I’m about to risk my neck. I wonder if it matters. If I can’t replace the silver that my father is taking, I might as well throw myself onto a blade.

I have to take a breath. “Holding a message for three days carries more danger than just one.”

His eyes narrow.

I clench my fingers on the crutch. “You yourself saw the King’s Courier in Briarlock,” I add.

“What are you playing at?”

“Ten silvers per day,” I say.

He looks like I just told him to swallow a lit coal. “Ten silvers!” he seethes. “You greedy little—”

“In addition to the twenty I require to pass the message.”

“I should kill you right now. I doubt anyone would care.”

“You could. And you’re probably right.”

He says nothing. I say nothing. I have nothing to lose.

Eventually, I endure the agony of pulling the parchment back out of my pocket. “Here. Find someone else to pass your treasonous notes.”

“I should kill you for that.” His hand flickers toward his sword. “The Truthbringers are not acting against the queen. We seek to protect her from the harm magic will bring to Syhl Shallow. You haven’t seen the destruction wrought on Emberfall, the way this king used his powers to rise from nothing and claim the throne. You don’t see the way he shares magic with his inner circle, for their benefit alone. You didn’t see the monster he created, or the way our people were casually slaughtered during the Uprising.”

I go still. I do know about that.

He must see the change in my expression, because he settles back in the saddle. “If you think you’re bargaining silver for treason, then that says more about you than it does about me.”

I don’t like the way those words make me feel.

I do know I need silver.

“Fifty silvers,” I finally say. There’s a part of me that hopes he’ll refuse. That we can be done with this. “Fifty, or you can have your message back.”

He glares down at me, and similar to the day Lady Karyl brought me the first note, I realize that whatever is inside this message must be very important. I passed the first message and didn’t say a word about it—surely that makes me less of a risk than finding someone new.

“Fine,” he says. “Half now. Lady Karyl will pay you the rest when she returns.”

I gingerly slide the message back into my pocket while he opens a purse at his waist and painstakingly counts out twenty-five silvers.

This time, it’s no surprise at all when he throws them on the ground.