I’m not as thin or as frail-looking as the other humans. Even the miners are more wiry than well-muscled. I used to fear running out of food on the mountains, but my family ate well compared to the humans here.
“Way more fun than that piss-weak runt the other night.” The girl scoffs.
Landon grins as he rubs his fist. “Down in one strike.” But he follows up with a huff. “Except that this one’s Malak’s property.”
The girl rolls her eyes and leans in close to Landon, rubbing his arm. “Since when has that stopped you? You got away with dragging Asha out into the snow. Nobody fucking cares?—”
Landon grabs the girl so hard that she winces. “Because nobody fucking knows it was us.”
He casts a rapid glance around them before he focuses back on the girl. “And we’re not going to fucking mention it again, are we?”
“No,” she gasps. “Of course not.”
He lets her go and all three of them step away from the crate.
They don’t give me a backward glance.
I am nobody to them.
A haze of anger has descended over my vision, a rage that makes my blood pound in my ears.
These three students are the ones who took Asha out into the snow and left her there to die.
If they hadn’t hurt her, she wouldn’t have needed help, and my father would still be alive.
My father is dead because of them.
I can barely see through my rage.
I slide my arms free of the crate’s straps and take a step after them, calculating how fast I can snatch a hammer from one of them and what it will take to crush in their skulls.
That’s when a door on the right-hand side of the courtyard opens and Ayla Silverspun glides through it.
“Darlings!” She claps her hands. “Take your places! Today is a momentous day.”
Her presence is as glittering as the white stone around us. She wears a silver pants suit that hangs on her lithe frame, seeming to make her green eyes even brighter. She carries a silver hammer at her waist and, just like the other night, her hair is adorned with multiple metallic hair pieces.
But it’s the young woman who follows behind her who draws my attention.
Her head is down, her silver hair tangled down her back and hanging across her face. Her shoulders are hunched and her posture is drawn and tense.
Her footfalls are silent, her presence a mere shadow compared to Ayla’s and yet she is all I see.
Asha.
Chapter 33
Asha doesn’t look up.
I hover only a single step away from the crate, waiting for her to raise her eyes, trying to see her face and if the wound on her forehead is healing, but she moves like a wraith, slipping toward the anvils.
Her arms are bare. She doesn’t carry a medallion or a hammer.
I remember the way Malak spoke about Asha up on the mountain. The way he described the shame her parents feel about her powerlessness.
I didn’t know what to think of that at the time, but now the absence of metal around her body confirms what Maybelle said about her: She is not like other Blacksmiths.
And yet Malak has ordered that she be kept alive.
