Page 3 of Sharpen Your Claws

A laugh ripped through her throat. “What makes you believe your little mortal will want you? You should see yourself when you speak of him. He will see it too, the obsession, the breakage, the threat, a monster no different from the one you fought.”

Nicholas tried to argue he did not differ from before, but the words congealed in the back of his throat. He thought the words to be true. What had changed about him? He tried to recall who he was before his eyes changed, before Fearworn’s sticky blood coated his fingers and William’s dying breath. He couldn’t remember being different, couldn’t recall a moment of change, but this confusion brought Evera amusement.

She smiled with hideous delight and dropped the crown into his lap. “Make the right decision, Nicholas.” Then she walked away.

“Make the right decision,” he repeated once, twice, thrice, but no voice stirred. Sometimes one did. The voice came and went, calming him, but it was little more than a whisper. Then the world got too loud, too much, and he fell into humming a soothing song as he finished William’s crown.

They would be together soon. Nothing would separate them ever again.

2

William

DeathfollowedWilliamlikea newfound lover. Her claws embedded themselves beneath his skin, feral rose vines growing painful thorns. Any mistake and Death would take without remorse. He never blamed her, never saw her as anything more than the inevitable. At least Death didn’t discriminate like the rest of the damned city. She came when your time was up and he knew many whose times were nearly upon them.

Sick beds packed the warehouse. Operating as a clinic for the poor of Alogan, men he served beside two years ago against Calix Fearworn filled the beds. Though they never met on the battlefield, war survivors recognized the look. A bitterness overtook them, so few defiant and most having given up after being left behind by the government that promised to care for them.

In a way, William gave up, too. Life would never be what it once was. He would never be the man he could have been without five years of war, taken from his parents at sixteen and returned as a stranger to all, including himself.

He descended the iron staircase from his office overlooking the med bay. Drapes separated the patients, although nothing deterred the stench of open wounds, rotting flesh, and the sick. One never became accustomed to the smell, always burning the nostrils and watering the eyes. Nurses scurried about donning masks and gloves, their aprons stained by excrements.

Prior to the war, the clinic hadn’t been so crowded. The more time that passed, the fewer donations flowed in. High society saw no reason to donate. They paid their dues, saw nothing, knew nothing other than what the newspapers claimed. Fearworn died. The war was over. Soldiers were home. They should be grateful and move on, as if it were so easy. As if being spoken highly about for a handful of months healed their rattled minds.

High Society didn’t believe in the mental torment, that the soldiers could feel anything other than triumphant. Society spun their epics, tales of adventures and honor while ignoring the consequences, the men begging for help. They learned nothing of war. They cast these men aside, took away their free hospital visits, let clinics close one by one, and denied them treatment, so the soldiers turned to the last place they could.

William wished he were nothing but charitable, but in reality, he cared for them because of selfish reasons. Patient’s wants and needs kept him moving day and night. He assisted in dressing them, caring for their wounds and ailments far after the sun settled. He feared what his quiet mind would wish for otherwise.

Like the men he stitched up, he couldn’t return to normalcy. Peace and comfort felt out of reach, like a friend who grew distant.

At the front of the warehouse, nurses stashed medicine into brown bags with patients’ names on them. Mrs. Brigby noted visitors to ensure patients fetched their medication. He approached the table. His gloves squeaked when he flexed his fingers. His right hand locked behind his back, always further away from everyone. The cool silver at his shoulder pressed against his skin as a constant reminder of what had been lost and replaced.

Fearworn tore him apart in that last battle. He remembered little more than the pain, certainly didn’t remember Laurent Darkmoon gifting him a new arm after saving his son against Fearworn, and, like everyone else, expected him to be grateful. Like Nicholas expected to be forgotten, to be nothing more than a ghost haunting the halls of his mind.

Nurse Bigby, a kindly woman with warm olive skin and plump rosy cheeks, smiled. “Good evening, Dr Vandervult. You’re staying late, as usual.”

“There’s a lot of work to be done.” He presented a hand for the nurse’s clipboard. He feigned being unaware of the way her eyes clipped between his arms.

Most didn’t risk touching fae objects unless absolutely necessary. Tales said gifts given by fae, even if earned righteously, would cause catastrophe. His patients, sick and dying, would sometimes ask for another doctor, even if it meant struggling through more pain because they didn’t want his cursed arm touching them. He faulted no one for their beliefs because, after the years spent around fae, he knew nothing from fae ever ended well. Fools fell for their tricks, and he had been the biggest fool of them all.

Mrs. Brigby handed him the clipboard. He did his best to have daily inspections, to double check his patients’ received treatment. Most became regulars, but of late, some hadn’t shown.

“Mrs. Brigby, have you seen Vale lately?” He didn’t see her name on the list and Vale’s medicine bag sat on the furthest end of the table.

“Oh dear, no, I’m afraid I haven’t.” Mrs. Brigby accepted the clipboard to look through the sign-in sheet. “According to our records, she was meant to pick her medicine up two days ago. No one has marked seeing her. I’ll have another nurse ask around.”

“Yes, please do that.”

Ever since he returned, he tended to the clinic. Robert and Matilda wanted him to rest, but nightmares haunted him, visions he couldn’t forget, feelings he wanted to leave behind, and a man he didn’t want to admit to being. Keeping busy and monitoring patients kept him from spiraling.

Over the years, he learned about the people of the city. They weren’t as transient as the public believed. His patients grew their roots. The soup kitchen a block over advertised his clinic, so he visited frequently. That’s where he met Vale, an older widow who lost her husband a decade ago. They never had much, and she was sick with weak lungs, so it didn’t take long for her to lose everything and find herself on the streets. She was a kind woman, generous and sweet. She never missed her medicine pick up and brought flowers she picked from the local park for the patients. Vale’s absence made the seventh person, who stopped picking up their medicine in less than two months.

“Strange,” he said.

“What?” Mrs. Brigby asked.

“Nothing. Good work today, Mrs. Brigby.”

He returned to the rundown storage room that he called an office. Blinds, haggard and yellowed by age, hung from the windows lining the facade. A couch too small to lie comfortably on fit against the wall, the fabric ripped and cushions thin. A desk sat at the center, enclosed by shelves on either side. Papers filled every drawer and stacked atop the desk. One page stood out; a list of names that he added Vale’s to.

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