Page 7 of Kill the Beast
“Expenses, expenses. Are the fancy chocolates you never deign to share with us considered expenses, hm?” Rags tucked the coin pouch into one of the pockets of her apron. “It’ll feed us for a little while, anyway. Nadia, I want you to go through the Gate soon.”
“Why doesn’t Lyssa ever have to go get groceries?” Nadia grumbled.
“Because I bring in the money,” Lyssa told her. “If you want to spend an afternoon hacking off a troll’s head, be my guest. I’d be happy to do the shopping for a change.”
“Sit, sit,” Rags said, ignoring their bickering. “Let me brew you some tea.”
“No, thank you. I just came to drop off the coin.”
Ragnhild’s face fell. “I see. Well, we’re having roast lamb for dinner, if you’d care to join us.”
“Thanks, but I have food in the smithy.”
“You’d rather eat tinned sardines than my roast lamb?” the witch said, sounding flabbergasted.
“You never use enough salt.”
Rags waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, pah! Salt is expensive, and doesn’t deserve the lofty reputation it enjoys. Just wait until you try the mint jelly!”
Lyssa sighed. “It’s been a long couple of weeks, Rags. I just want to be alone.”
“But—”
“Oh, let her go,” Nadia said with a smirk. “Lyssa has her own life, you know. She’s far too busy cutting out newspaper articles and reading romance novels to have any time for us.”
Lyssa scowled, her face growing hot with anger. “I told you to stay out of my smithy.”
Nadia stuck her tongue out at Lyssa. “It’s notyoursmithy, it’s Ragnhild’s smithy, and she asked me to clean it. Absolutely filthy. The cobwebs, I mean, not your books, though theydidseem a bit—”
“Rags,” Lyssa started, but the witch didn’t let her finish.
“Stop it, you two!” Rags snapped. “Nadia, don’t be a pest. Lyssa, if you don’t want us going in there, you have to keep it clean. I willnottolerate filth. The cobwebs, I mean—read whatever books you want to, dear.”
“Ungharad’s flaming sword,” Lyssa said through clenched teeth. “I don’t even know why I bother staying here when I could rent a room in the city and not have to deal with you two.”
Ragnhild’s face softened. “Oh, don’t be like that. It’s just that we’re worried about you.”
“I’mnot worried,” Nadia muttered, going back to her cord-spell.
“You work so much,” Rags said, ignoring her apprentice. “You deserve a nice meal and some rest, once in a while.”
“I’ll rest when every last faerie is dead,” Lyssa said.
Nadia muttered something under her breath as she picked at a difficult knot in her cord, scowling at it like she was trying to disintegrate it with her eyes. But Lyssa didn’t care about whatever snide comment the little witch had made. She turned on her heel and strode to the door.
“It’s okay to live for something other than revenge, you know,” Rags said, and Lyssa’s hand froze on the knob. “Not every last minute has to be spent fulfilling that oath of yours.”
Lyssa stiffened. Turned. “I seem to remember a certain witch making a bargain with a distraught child, promising to make her into a weapon of vengeance. And now that that’s exactly what I am, you’re… what? Having second thoughts?”
Ragnhild’s eyes shone with something like sorrow. “I never meant for it to consume you.”
That was what grief and anger did, though—they consumed. It wasn’t something Lyssa expected Ragnhild or Nadia to understand.
But it didn’t matter what they thought. There was nothing left of Lyssa but her oath, and she had made peace with that. She didn’t deny herself small comforts, like her sweets or her books—she needed something to get her through the long nights, after all—but building a life, a future, when Eddie’s had been stolen from him… it didn’t seem fair.
Besides, she had tried making room for something other than revenge in her heart, once, and it had ended in betrayal. At the time, it felt like a sign from the Blessed Lady, a reminder that Lyssa had one purpose in this life, and deviating from it was not an option.
“A sword is only a sword, Rags,” she said. “I can’t be anything else.”
