He must notice me looking, because he turns away—which says enough.
I let go of his wrist.
He keeps milking.
“We owe a hundred,” I whisper so softly that I don’t think he’ll hear it.
But he does, of course he does, because he turns to look at me again. Our breath clouds in the air between us. He always smells faintly of smoke from the forge, and the scent is sharp in the cold air.
When we were younger, after he lost his foot, I would bring him sugared twists of dough from the bakery every day, along with books from my mother’s library. We loved tales of romance or history, but our favorite books were the stories of wind and sky and magic from the winged creatures in the ice forests to the west of Syhl Shallow.
I remember the day my mother stopped me. I’d been twirling around the kitchen, eager to go visit my friend.
He won’t make a good husband, she said, and the feel of her disapproval was so thick in the air that I felt like she’d slapped me.
She didn’t let me go. I didn’t see him for weeks, until he found some crutches and hobbled his way down the lane to our bakery.
I never told him what she said.
It didn’t matter, because he’s never said or done anything to indicate he even saw me that way.
But there are moments like this, when it’s cold and dark and the entire world feels like it’s caving in, and I wonder, just for a heartbeat, what it would be like if Jax and I were more than friends. If we were in this together.
“Callyn?” Nora’s worried voice calls from out in the courtyard, high and frightened. “Callyn?”
I jerk back and inhale sharply. “In the barn!” I call. “I’m here!” I look at Jax. “She doesn’t know,” I whisper fiercely.
He nods.
The door rattles and creaks as she tries to push it to the side. She’s in a sleeping shift, her feet bare. Her hair is a wild mess of tangles that reaches to her waist, and she’s shivering wildly. Tears seem almost frozen on her cheeks.
“Nora!” I exclaim. I pull my own cloak free. “You’ll freeze to death. You need to get back in the house!”
“I—I was worried—”
“I know. Come on.”
At the barn door, I pause and look back at Jax. To my surprise, he’s watching me go.
I wish I knew what to say.
He must not either, because he gives me a nod, blows on his fingers one more time, and turns back to the bucket.
CHAPTER 2
JAX
My ears ring with the sound of iron against steel, but I don’t mind. I was raised alongside the forge, so I can sleep through it if I have to.
Right now, the rhythmic clanging is all that’s keeping me grounded. I haven’t seen my father since midnight. When he disappears like this, frustration usually sets up camp in my gut, because without his help, I’ll never catch up on the work we have due.
Today, I’m happy to leave him facedown in a puddle of spirits. Maybe he’ll drown.
The forge is always busy this time of year. Farmers need new pitchforks and spades to prepare for the early planting season, and I can never make them fast enough. A man from the next town over requested new blades for his thresher, and I told him it’ll take a week, but I should’ve told him two. Once the snows began to taper off, carpenters started buying so many nails that I’ve taken to forging them at night, just so I have a supply at daybreak. With the slush and mud, travelers are forever needing repairs to wagon wheels and axles. There’s a blacksmith on the other side of Briarlock, too, but she’s in her seventies, so she sendsus anything big—and I try to return the favor by sending expensive detailed metalwork her way. She gets the fancy buckles and etched daggers, I get the sickles and horseshoes.
I think of that note from the tax collector and wonder if I should be taking any commissions I can get.
I swear under my breath and slam the hammer against the red-hot steel on my anvil. Two hundred silvers. All pissed away on ale or dice.
