“T-tell…tell me something, pull my head out of the past,” she pleads, and I continue to run my fingers over her head as I try to think of something.
I look around the forge as though it will serve as inspiration, but all I can see is my work and evidence of a past I wish I could forget.
“My mother,” I start, looking down, but Auset is gone, and in her place is my mother’s battered and broken body. “My mother taught me all of this,” I continue, gesturing to the workroom with my chin while willing away the macabre image of the past so I can focus on the here and now. “She was the Royal Armorer for the Day Court. It was a family trade, but when my grandad made no sons, he employed his daughters. Said it was the best thing to ever happen to him, or so my mum said. The man died long before I came around,” I tell her with a little shrug. A snarl in her hair catches between my fingers, and I gently work through it and continue my soft strokes. “She was a master at what she did. She headed the clan of armorers who fitted the king’s guard and army, and she worked directly with the royal family herself.”
“That must have been quite the honor,” Auset replies, but there’s no veneration to be found in the statement.
I both scoff at her comment and laugh at the fact that the royal family of the Day Court doesn’t impress my Moonling in the slightest. I notice, however, that her gasped breaths are quieting, and the frantic inhalations are slowing down enough to make me think my story is working.
“I promise there’s no honor or privilege in being the bastard of a king,” I assure her. “Riall and Tarek will attest to the same.”
“Wait,” she interjects, her eyes looking me over in earnest. “Your sire is the Day King?” she asks, both equal parts shocked and disquieted.
I offer her a wide smile. It’s the one that usually shows the asker of this question the resemblance between me and my sire. I have my mother’s coloring, but everything else about me is him. I realize, as Auset stares back at me blankly, that she doesn’t know what the Day King looks like. Something about that resonates with me. Whenever I’ve revealed this piece of information in the past, all anyone sees after is the fucker who wears the crown. I like the idea that all Auset will see is me.
“Not just me,” I answer on a laugh. “Tarek’s sire is the King of Dawn, and Riall’s is the King of Dusk. We’re the Order of Scorpions, but we could have just as easily gone with the Order of Royal Bastards,” I tease, but Auset doesn’t laugh.
“H-how? Why?” she stammers, and I find her flummoxed reaction diverting.
Auset relaxes a little, and I hide a relieved sigh under an amused snort.
“The others deserve to tell you their stories in their own time, but if you think bastards are ever wanted in this world, the three of us are proof of how wrong you’d be,” I start. “The king was fond of my mother; she wasn’t brought on as a royal consort, but he did allow me to live after she had me, so some affection was there. After she died though, I was told there was too much of her in me and it pained the king. I was thrown out of the city gates and told to be on my way.”
Something shutters in Auset’s gaze, but I don’t know what it is she’s hiding from me as she asks, “How old were you?”
“Thirty or so. My voice was just beginning to drop and my body to fill in. I was still young enough to be of interest to the flesh slaver who found me on the road between realms all on my own.”
This time, it’s my gaze that disconnects from hers. Her silvery stare asks silent questions we both know I won’t answer. I’m past the torment of those years but won’t revisit them. Not even for the Moonling who’s staring up at me with a knowing look I wish neither of us possessed.
“Your mother?” she inquires gently, and I relax at the diversion I know she’s offering me.
I stroke my thumbs over her temples and stare down at her for a moment while I wait for the echoes of overwhelming emotions to settle down to where they were before Auset and I began to trade our tragedies.
“She was killed in an uprising. It seems the people of the Day Court didn’t take kindly to the king throwing a lavish ball in celebration of a legitimate child’s birth when they were starving, suffering, and watching their own babies wither and die because of it.” I shake my head in disgust. “I was in my mother’s forge, tasked with making arrow tips perfect enough to meet her approval. She was meeting with the clan to take stock of what was needed for the following months. They were some of the first to be overrun by the mob.”
Auset nods but thankfully doesn’t offer anything beyond that. We both know it’s pointless. Things are as they are, and no amount of pity or empathy is going to change it.
“I took the chakram we found in your stomach,” I blurt randomly.
Bewilderment fills her face just as quickly as it fills my chest. I have no idea why I’m confessing this to her, but there’s no taking it back now.
“I wanted to break it down and use it for one of your new weapons. I don’t know exactly what I’ll make yet—we’ll see what the metal asks to become—but I thought you should know,” I explain.
“Oh,” she retorts, like she’s unsure how to respond to that.
She stares up at me, her breaths once again even and her eyes searching for something. I hope it’s trust she finds in my eyes, but I know that will probably be harder to earn than I would like.
“What doesn’t kill us fortifies us,” I offer gently, my strokes through her hair slowing as we stare at one another. I feel as though a part of her is reaching out to me, and something in me takes a hold of it and vows to never let it go. “We can take those things…” I continue, my voice growing deeper as purpose and regard settle like a tether between us. “Melt them down, mold them, and reshape them until they work for us instead of against us. Then, when we have weapons instead of wounds, we make the fuckers pay for what they did to us.”
I watch as my words stoke something primal in Auset. Uncertainty drains from her eyes, and all that’s left is fierce determination. The strength she shows, the fortitude, it speaks to every part of me, tying us together in ways I never thought I’d find. Yet, here she lies, hanging on my every word as though it’s the lifeline she desperately needs despite her claims to need no one and nothing.
“They will,” she whispers, and even though it’s quiet, the power in that statement is undeniable. “They will pay,” she vows, and even though she’s looking at me as though I might be on that list, I can’t find it in me to fault her.
I’ll burn to nothing if that’s what she needs, and then I’ll show her just how I rise from the ashes and take what’s mine. I nod, hoping she sees that I’m more than prepared for anything she may throw my way. We both go silent, lost to our thoughts for a time, and before I know it, thirty minutes have come and gone.
“You did it,” I declare, pride and respect blooming in my tone.
I reach for the hammer once again and watch as a small smile sneaks across Auset’s face.
