Page 60 of Bull Moon Rising

Mercy, it’s warm in this tent. I tug at my blouse, trying to air my cleavage.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, voice low and secretive.

“No.” I undo the top button on my blouse and pretend that was all I was up to. “Just getting comfortable.” I pull my hair down from its bun as well, tugging free tightly bound strands and fussing with it until my hair spills loose over his arm. “There. See? All comfy now.”

He grunts.

His grunt reminds me that he’s been rather stony all night. Ever since Magpie took charge, Hawk’s demeanor has been downright sour. Does he feel as if he’s been passed over as a teacher? That we don’t need him anymore? I turn and glance up at him, and his mouth is pulled down in what can only be a Taurian frown. “You’ve been acting strange tonight.”

That gets his attention. “Strange?”

“Yes. Dare I say it, disapproving. Like you don’t appreciate that Magpie has returned. That she’s taken charge. Why is that?”

He rears back slightly, studying me. “I’m not disapproving. It’s just…well, I’ve seen her like this before.”

“Like what?”

“Like her old self. Smart. Capable. Attentive.” Hawk shakes his head. “I’ve seen it happen before, when she comes out of the bottle. She’s great for a few days, and then something pisses her off or is difficult, and she reaches for the drink again. Then she’s worse than before. I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”

I gaze up at him, sympathetic. He sounds so glum, and I want to fix this for him, somehow. I wish I could. Sadly, I know he’s right. There was a stable hand back at Honori Hold who drank too much. He’d get fired, only to come crawling back, swearing he’d changed his ways. The “new” changes would last only a few days before he’d turn into a drunkagain, and he’d get fired once more. The only reason he got another chance was because his wife was one of the cooks. I remember her crying constantly, her face buried in fistfuls of her apron. How she swore he was a good man when he wasn’t drinking.

It’s just that he wasalwaysdrinking. I think of Magpie, and it makes me ache with sadness to see my childhood hero like this. That today is likely just a fluke and she’ll go back to being the puking, miserable drunk she was before. “Why do you stay with her if she’s this bad, Hawk? It’s clear everyone in the guild respects you. You could work for the guild masters directly. Work with the archivists. You could substitute in until you found a permanent Five. Anyone would take you. Why are you wasting your time with Magpie? If she’s a lost cause?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, thinking over my question. Then, when he speaks, his voice is soft. “I owe her my life.”

“Go on.” Hawk’s so private that I wonder if he’ll actually tell me.

To my surprise, he doesn’t hesitate. “I grew up in a very poor family. Many Taurians who live outside of the city are impoverished. They farm and grow crops, and that doesn’t exactly bring the wealth the holders have.”

I say nothing. I know all too well that holders have a great deal of coin. Well, usually. The venom in Hawk’s voice makes me pause, though. Such vitriol has a history behind it, and I’m afraid to ask.

“It’s not uncommon for a young Taurian man to leave home the moment he’s old enough to earn coin on his own. I was twelve when I left home.”

“Twelve!” I’m shocked. It’s so very young.

“Aye. I had three brothers and four sisters and there was never enough food to go around. So when I hit the ripe old age of twelve, I set out for Vastwarren to make my fortune. I was young and arrogant and full of myself. It went about as well as you’d expect.”

There’s a hint of amusement in his voice but I can’t even laugh. I just ache, thinking of a twelve-year-old forced to leave his family behind because he wanted to have a full belly. Then there was me, still living at home at thirty and fretting because I didn’t have enough coins for finery. For parties. Meanwhile Hawk was just trying to survive to the next week. I’m a little ashamed of how disparate the fortunes of holders are incomparison to the poor. I know all too well that holders have a ridiculous amount of wealth, and tax their landowners heavily so they can continue to acquire more artifacts to protect what they already have. It’s a vicious cycle, and the moment you fall behind, everything collapses.

Just as my father has had everything collapse around our family.

A knot rises in my throat as Hawk continues. “I showed up at the guild hall and declared myself to be as capable as any students they had here already, and that even though it wasn’t Swansday, I should be allowed to apprentice. They laughed in my face, and when I didn’t give up, they told me if I could beat Osprey at the obstacle course, I would be allowed to join. He beat me handily and all I got for my pride was a public shaming and the realization that I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living. I slept two nights in the gutters before Magpie offered to buy me a drink. Said she felt sorry for me. I followed her home and showed up on her doorstep the next day, asking for work. Any work, no matter how difficult. At first she declined, but I kept showing up, and she started to give me errands. Running things to the guild hall. Grabbing supplies from merchants. Making sure the practice swords stayed sharp. I made a nuisance of myself but I also made sure she saw that I could do the tasks she set for me. She gave me a place to stay, but I wasn’t considered part of the guild. When I was eighteen, I was allowed to join as a fledgling.Herfledgling. I passed my very first testing. Excavated for two years, and then I lost my hand.”

“Lost your hand?” I squint into the darkness, not sure I’ve heard him correctly.

“Yes. I was in the tunnels with my Five. They were idiots, looking back, but I was just happy to have work. Our navigator took us down a wrong turn and a tunnel collapsed over us. My arm was pinned and our healer buried under the rock. The others left us for dead.”

I gasp. “They left you?”

“It was self-preservation,” he says, voice bland. “If they’d have stayed, they’d likely have run out of air or encountered ratlings. They swarm after a tunnel collapse, looking for carrion. But aye, they left us behind. I was there when the healer died, crying out for help until the end. I thought I was a goner, too, that it was just a matter of time. Don’t knowhow long I was down there, pinned. Two days? Maybe? But then Magpie showed up. She’d heard they’d left me and brought her students down to come and save my arse. Rescued me and carried me out of the tunnels. My hand was crushed, so there was no choice but to amputate it. And just when I thought I couldn’t owe her more, Magpie used her connections to acquire me a hand.” He lifts an arm and flexes it. “A magical limb from Old Prell, grafted to my stump with words of magic.”

I’m shocked. “I didn’t realize you had a false hand.”

“Most don’t. It changes its appearance to match my skin and moves just like a real hand.” He rotates his hand in the air, flexing his fingers, and I can barely make out their outlines in the shadows. “There’s naught but a small line on my lower arm to show where it’s connected, but if you run your fingers over my wrist, you can feel the glyphs carved there.”

It’s a siren call if there ever was one. “May I?”

“Of course.” He extends his arm toward me, his palm open.

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