Page 2 of The Iron Dagger
Hara cleaned up her materials and stowed away the basin. She barred the door and banked the fire, leaving only the single flame of her candle as a light.
The thought crossed her mind that this strange man could wake and harm her in a fevered delirium. She was loath to injure him after all her handiwork, but she had no qualms about hurting the stranger if he tried to overpower her. After a brief hesitation, she tucked a kitchen knife into a shadowed space near the wall.
Hara took out some thick coverlets and laid them on the floor before the hearth. With a brief glance over her shoulder, she undid the laces of her dress and slipped it from her shoulders. Hara settled deeply into her makeshift bed while Seraphine crawled onto her stomach and began to knead, purring deeply. The cat soon curled into a ball in the crook ofHara’s arm, and they both slept, their breaths layered with those of the stranger’s.
The man slept more or less continuously. He stirred when Hara would bathe him with a rag, and he moaned when she changed the dressings around his foot and his knee, but this was the most activity he displayed. Sometimes his eyelids would flutter, and he opened them once.
Glassy blue eyes fixed on her face, and his brows furrowed for a moment as he regarded her. Then his eyes wilted closed and he drifted back to sleep.
Sometimes he was wracked with coughing, especially at night, and Hara would rise sleepily to make him a hot drink, more for her own peace than for his comfort. She gave him willow tea and honey water mixed with coltsfoot in turns, hoping his fever would break soon.
During the day her routine was much the same, as if her guest was not lying helpless in her bed. She went into her garden at dawn and caressed her winter herbs, greeting them. Then she went to her chicken coop and collected eggs, cooing and praising her hens since it was much harder work to lay in the winter.
The earth crunched in frosty crackles underfoot and the wind was biting, but Hara did not mind. It made the flames in her hearth more merry and her warm meals more comforting.
There was a thin layer of ice in her well in the mornings, but it was easily punched through. What with the bathings, teas, and extra laundry, she constantly had her large pot filled, and had to make several trips to the well every day.
In finer weather, she usually had a few villagers come by the cottage each day looking for spells or medicines for their ailments. But in the days after her invalid’s arrival, snows cameand drifted against the cottage, softly falling in the night and steadily building throughout the day.
Thankfully, the pregnant women in the village were several months from birth. She only had one little boy who trudged through the snow on the second day, knocking on her door to ask for a sore-throat syrup for his family. She mixed the syrup for him while he warmed his hands by the fire, and he hardly glanced at the ill man in the bed.
With all the extra time, she began to take longer walks in the snowy woods. The energy was different when it snowed, stillness hiding the chaos of the forest floor, and she wanted to experience it. She collected some of the first snow in a jar to use the water for spellwork.
On the third day, Hara ensured that the man was sleeping soundly, and she set out. Seraphine perched on her shoulder, knocking the hood of Hara’s cloak askew. After an hour, Hara found one of her favorite sacred places and knelt in the snow. The wind seemed to still and the winter woods grew muffled.
Healing was her chosen calling, which had taken years to develop. The subtle spells, runes, and knowledge of herblore were skills she had to master through study.
But some abilities were not taught.
Idly, she tugged on a dead twig sticking from the snow. She could transform it into iron, or lead, or gold if she wished. Her gift of alchemy was a carefully kept secret, one which her mother and aunt had repeatedly warned her never to reveal. It was not difficult to hide, as she had little cause to use it in her daily life.
But it was Sight that came most easily to her, as intuitive as an extra sense. She used it as she would use her sense of smell or hearing; always open to the influence, but seldom concentrating on specifics.
Now she was curious. She wished to know more about the man and his circumstances, and so she did something she rarely did—she felt for his memories. It was easier to be close or even to touch the subject of her Seeing, but she had spent days caring for him. His smell, the sound of his breaths, and his touch were all familiar to her now.
Hara closed her eyes and trained her breaths to become low and deep, as though she were floating on water. The world became muffled, as though her ears had slipped under the surface, and her soul felt free to wander in the space where present and past blurred. She preferred to enter this space leisurely, allowing influences to pass over and through her, giving what it would. But this time she felt for the threads of his influence, catching hold.
His men were on both sides, the darkness broken now and then with a desperate cry. Then their voices faded away one by one, and he became aware of something chasing him. Suddenly he was cut down mid-stride. Something caught hold of his foot, and it felt as though a demon’s jaws were clamped upon him. His boot was torn away, and the beast savaged and mangled his ankle, tearing into sinews until he wrested himself away.
Seraphine meowed loudly, breaking the silence. With a start, Hara opened her eyes, glancing down at the cat whose tail was twitching impatiently. Pink and amber clouds streaked overhead as the winter sun began to set.
“Well,” Hara murmured. “Thank you for reminding me of your dinnertime.”
With a grunt, she hefted the cat’s considerable bulk over her shoulder. When Hara returned to her cottage, she removed her cloak and gloves, stepped out of her boots, and poured some goat’s milk into a dish for Seraphine. Gods forbid the creature skipped a meal.
“Who are you?”
Hara yelped and turned.
The stranger had awoken at last, and he was fixing her with a cold stare.
Gideon
He had woken warm and disorientingly comfortable in a soft bed. The rich scent of soil and herbs met his nose, and the source was made plain as he gazed at the high, pointed ceiling. A living net of plants formed a canopy above him; vines and weeds twined and drooped from the rafters, so tightly packed he could only see glimpses of thatch between them.
He turned to find a quietly crackling fire in the hearth and a scrubbed wooden table laden with all manner of scraps and vials. There were clay pots on almost every horizontal surface, sprouting seedlings and tiny flowers. Glass bottles filled with herbs suspended in liquid gleamed upon the windowsill.
Crammed in the shadows along the walls were trunks, stacks of paper, and a few books heaped atop each other. Behind the table sat a squat hutch where bowls and cups were stacked. A massive loom occupied one wall, and a line was strung up across the room where his clothing and some shifts were hanging up to dry.
