In a matter of days, Linnea turned into a livingcorpse. Eyes sunken, dark and soulless. The lines of her face so deep and stark she looked like a woman three times her age. When she did move, it was the slow, shuffling steps of an old, broken woman. But even that became too much, and she collapsed with nary a whimper. From there she was picked up and carried to the bed, her body hot as a furnace.
Her fever raged for nine days. Nine anxious, fraught days.
Maretta was sent for. She took one look at the burns on Linnea’s hands and declared them pestilent. Maggots were fetched and applied to the wounds. Over the next few days various broths and tonics were force-fed to her as she slipped in and out of consciousness.
I watched helplessly.
Maretta came and went, came and went, her manner growing grimmer with each visit.
Isak and his sister kept watch and tended to her. Linnea’s mother was fetched and carried into the house by one of her burly nephews. Left in a chair beside her daughter’s bed, she did very little beyond sitting and weeping into her hands.
“Come, Linny,” I whispered beside her ear. Her body radiated heat. Sweat dotted her skin, and I could feel that, too—the moistboil of her as her fever raged. “You can’t give up. You have the children and Isak...so much to live for.”
My words never reached her. No one and nothing did.
Her breathing slowed, thinning and fraying like the threads of a rope coming undone until she slipped away. Until she was gone.
16
Iron in My Hand
Day 2,999
Vengeance burned in the hard stone of my heart. Imade it my mission to find out everything I could about the thing I hunted. I read every book on Penterran history I could find in the village, hoping for more information on witchkind.
I conducted an exhaustive search. No house in Isstad was spared my probe. From the humblest of residents to the town’s most prosperous, I let myself inside their homes and browsed their shelves, cupboards, armoires, and bedside chests. Time was the one thing I had, after all.
I found an assortment of books, but even the wealthiest families in the village did not commonly possess a great deal of reading material. What I did find mostly related to agriculture or livestock—things that immediately mattered for survival in Isstad. Books on history did not rank high in value. Literacy was not prized in this community where brawn and one’s strength behind the plow accounted for more, for everything.
Ultimately the most books to be found were within the school’s library and in Mr. Nyland’s private collection. These were my greatest resources and where I found copious information about the Threshing, and how witchkind fell out of favor with humans following that long and bloody war on dragonkind. I would lounge for hours at Mr. Nyland’s desk, shadow and light chasing across thefloorboards while I turned pages in a steady rhythm, his voice droning on belowstairs as he lectured to his students.
Fire was always mentioned as the tool used in the destruction of witchkind except for the one footnote I found citing iron as something that weakened a witch, voiding her magic.
I seized that one piece of information, reading the brief mention over and over. Iron made a witch weak and nullified her powers.
Iron would givemepower over my foe.
This struck me as vital...like finding water in a year-long drought. It was something that could lead to my salvation, and I snatched it up with greedy hands.
I armed myself with this knowledge—literally—keeping an iron-bladed dagger with me that I’d pilfered from my father’s smithy. It was old. It had been in the family a long time, dating back to my grandfather’s era. The hilt was well-worn, and I had to exert a good amount of energy honing the blade’s edge on a whetstone to get it sharp enough. In its initial condition it would have only been good for buttering bread.
Once satisfied with the dagger’s razor-sharp edge, I dedicated myself to forging an iron sword. My father was a skilled-enough bladesmith, but he did not typically choose iron, preferring steel for its durability.
I worked in the evenings after Da closed shop. I’d learned enough from my father over the years to don a leather apron and gloves and get to work. It took a few false starts, but after several weeks I’d forged a sword of iron that I could be proud of.
I practiced with the dagger and sword every day, making certain I was comfortable wielding both. I pinned targets to trees and flung the dagger again and again, over and over, for countless hours, until my shoulders burned and my arms became toned with muscle and sinew.
With my sword in hand, I joined the men and women selected for the village’s local guard, working alongside them, learning rudimentary swordplay, mimicking their stances and footwork, their thrusts and parries, the various angles of attack and blocking. Igrew quite proficient, learning to throw from great distances. I even practiced hurling the blade while moving, spinning and running over uneven ground.
I was never more ready to confront the witch who had wronged me...who had set forth the chain of events that led to Ulrika’s and Linny’s deaths. A chain, I vowed, that would end with me. No one else would be hurt.
Logically, I understood thatIhad not brought about their deaths, but I had been there. I could have stopped it. As far as I was concerned that made me guilty.
Dusk loomed, streaking the sky with oranges and purples. I finished for the day, taking one final strike at the tree I used as a hitting post. Slightly out of breath, I uncorked my flask of water and drank deeply, water dribbling down my chin. I spun around when I heard voices arise in the woods near me.
The tension ebbed from my body when I spotted a young couple laughing together as they frolicked into the woods, shedding their clothes as quickly as their hands could move. They fell against a nearby tree, kissing amid their laughing gasps, touching skin as fast as it was revealed. A clandestine liaison. Not the first I’d witnessed over the years.
I studied them only a moment before sheathing my sword and starting for the village. Gone was my curiosity of trysting lovers. I’d seen it all. I knew the mechanics. Knew what I was missing. I would not permit myself to yearn. It was a waste of time to long for what I did not have.
