Page 72 of The Storm
“Because you didn’t return on your own.” Artis frowned. “We waited for months for you to bring your mates to meet us. You never did.”
“Why would we come where we are not welcome?”
“What are you talking about?” the old man scoffed. “This is your home. You think you need an invitation to come home? I didn’t raise you to be stupid, Maxim.”
“You didn’t raise me to be anything. You trained a little soldier. That’s all we ever were to you.”
Artis’s face froze.
“Be honest in your death, even if you never spoke the truth in life.” Max stepped closer. “You wish we’d died with our mothers becausethenyou could have mourned in peace. Or killed yourself and gone to be with them. But no, you had two small children to care for—children you didn’t want—and you had to raise them. Well, you did. You raised us to be soldiers, and the world put us to use. Why do you expect us to be something we’re not?”
“You have mates now,” Artis said. “You should understand.”
“Understand what?” Max threw up his hands. “That we were enough to stay alive for but not enough to love?” He pointed at the house and dropped his voice. “Kyra is with child. Did you know that? They think we don’t know. They haven’t told anyone, but Renata knew the day Kyra did. And instead of being filled with joy at such a blessing, Leoworries. I can see it in his face. He worries he won’t be a good father because he didn’t learn from his own family.” Max rapped his chest with his fist. “Do you know how angry that makes me?”
Artis said nothing.
Max continued. “That man is the kindest person I have ever known in my life, and I’m not saying that because he’s my cousin. He is the most purely good person I have ever met. And he is worried about loving his own child because of you and Peter.”
Artis’s face fell. “We did our duty. We gave you—”
“Nothing,” Max spit out. “You trained soldiers, but you gave us nothing else. Why would we come here and bring the ones we love to a place of duty and pain? You resented us, and we felt it every moment of our childhoods.”
Some unknown emotion flickered in Artis’s eyes, but he quickly snuffed it out. “Do you want my ax or not?”
“I don’t want your ax.”
“Fine.” Artis stood. “But you should take your father’s sword from the armory before you go. I doubt you’ll be coming back when I’m dead.”
Max started. “You have my father’s sword?”
“Someone in the Riga house found it and sent pictures to Peter. He kept it for you. It’s clean and oiled. Peter made a new scabbard for it, but you don’t have to keep it. It might not be to your taste.”
“Fine.” He glanced at the woods. “I need to go.” He started down the path, only to stop when he heard Artis’s voice.
“There’s something in the woods.”
Max stopped and turned. “What do you feel?”
“I feel… age. If that makes sense. Something immense and old.”
“Malevolent?”
“No.” The old man shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
It was the same feeling Max had. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was going to find out.
* * *
Peter was standingin front of the forge when Leo walked in. His father’s body was dripping with sweat from the fire as he held a bent horseshoe with heavy tongs. The metal glowed red-hot before Peter pulled it out and turned, placing it on the anvil.
Peter knew Leo was there. He knew the moment anyone set foot in his shop. He didn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way. The smith grabbed a hammer hanging from a wooden rack and beat on the shoe, shaping it so it could be useful again.
That’s what my childhood was.
Heat followed by shaping. Max and Leo were pushed to the maximum of their endurance and then pushed again. The scribes who trained them in Riga only taught them when they were at the end of their endurance. When they were malleable. Especially Max. Max had been more rebellious than Leo.
Leo had always wanted to please. He would have taken instruction just to make his father happy, but that wasn’t how it was done.
