Page 53 of Untempered
My father had almost killed the man Chay had called friend just a day ago. He was here because he’d tried to help me.
“Audrey needs to learn the sword,” Isolde said, the words brisk. “If she doesn’t, her life will be in danger.”
He was looking at me like a pile of horse shit in the middle of his path. “I suppose I’ll have to keep you alive.”
Isolde snorted, and I felt like I was about to fall through the cracks in the stones. “That’s not how this works. You have a student.”
“I’m no one’s mentor.”
I saw Isolde get in close behind him, her face turned to his ear. My eyes were on her feet, though, visible in the gap between his dusty boots. The patches she’d darned into the toes of her hose stood out as a different shade of gray. The arches of her feet were as graceful as the rest of her as her toes held all of her weight. She was stretching herself to her full height, and still her mouth only barely topped his shoulder.
“You were so full of yourself when you were telling me how to deal with your father’s man at the tourney,” he said, and the words were directed at me, not Isolde. “Why do you need me?”
All the reasons jumbled up in my head, and they didn’t make sense to me, either, because we were fleeing, weren’t we? When the majority of the army filed out to put down the rebellion? When it would take longer for whoever was left behind to come after me, because they’d first want to check with my father, halfway to the South?
I don’t need you,I wanted to say. But I didn’t know if that was true, and even if I’d been confident, the words were stuck in my gullet.
Suddenly, fleeing seemed like thebestoption.
“No,” he said flatly, shrugging Isolde away. “I’m charged with keeping you whole. Putting a sword in the hands of someone who can’t use it and expecting them to fight? That’s theoppositeof my job.”
I couldn’t breathe. He turned away, and everything that held me frozen melted. My legs shook, and I had to prop my hands on my thighs to hold myself up as the room whirled around me.
Mayhap, I thought dimly, it was because so much was changing. So many hopes and dreams budding, only to wither before I saw the bloom.
“Tell him, Audrey,” Isolde said, her voice level. Only the impatient flick of her fingers gave away how agitated she was.
But I couldn’t. All the ideas and the things I could say were tangled up and there were tears in my throat that I hated. They were choking me.
I was okay with no one coming to my rescue. I understood no one wanted to challenge my father. I didn’t like it, but I could understand it.
But ifIdidn’t do it, no one would, and I’d live in hiding for the rest of my life.
There were worse things, of course. I knew it. And to live alongside women like Isolde would be another, different type of dream. But even as I reminded myself of these truths, it didn’t help the loss I felt at this brutal death to the hope I’d clung to for so long.
A cup of water was pushed into my hands. Isolde sat with me, our backs to the wall, and I tried to match her breathing.
He was gone.
“Tell me about your tribe,” I managed, eventually. “Who is your best friend?”
She propped her shoulder against mine. “Katarina. She’s the main blacksmith for my people. You’ll love her. She has a laugh that you feel to the soles of your feet.”
I tried to imagine a woman with such a big laugh and couldn’t. Would they like me? Would I be welcome? I’d have a job, surely, as a hunter or gardener. But would they give me a job in their social structure?
I didn’t want to go. I knew Isolde wanted to return, and it sounded so wonderful, but not forme.How much of that disconnect was the death throes of childish hopes of a happier tomorrow, and how much of it was the fear of the unknown, I couldn’t be sure.
I didn’t want to plot to kill my father. I didn’t want to flee.
I just wanted to have a normal, quiet life. To live.
The tears clogged up my nose, and I knew if I sniffed, Isolde would be on me, but I hated the feel of it.
If wishes were threads, I’d hold a fine tapestry.
“He’ll come around,” Isolde told me softly. “He’s taken the attack on his previous lord personally, I gather.”
It took me a moment to realize she was referring to Chay, not my father.
