| Fantasy Fiction posted October 10, 2020 | Chapters: |
...5 6 -7- 8... 
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Aallotar insists on joining Mara in her return.
A chapter in the book Within the Bone
A Late Night Plan
by K. Olsen
| Background Aallotar's nature as the beast seen in Kalevi's dark prophecy has been revealed. Now she and Mara rest and prepare to return to Sjaligr, but the danger that awaits may be life-threatening. |
Mara sighed in frustration. When it came to stubbornness, she was becoming more and more aware that Aallotar was her equal, at least when Mara’s protection was the matter at hand. No amount of persuading was going to keep her in the cave. The wounds to Aallotar’s flesh healed swiftly enough to seem like magic, but that didn’t mean Mara approved of this madness.
“We don’t know how far from me you can be without transforming,” Mara argued. She didn’t want to see the soldiers of Sjaligr turn on Aallotar or have a rampaging wolf monster around her people, vile as they could be. “It’s not safe.”
“You walking into a pyre is?” Aallotar demanded. Her whole body was rigid, looking very much like she wanted to raise her hackles but had no fur to do so. “They will not kill you. I will rip them to shreds first.”
“I thought you didn’t like the beast,” Mara snapped. She appreciated the protection, but Aallotar’s insistence that she not go alone put the wildling in serious danger.
It was the wrong thing to say. Aallotar’s jaw snapped shut and she turned on her heel, striding out of the cave in a sudden, frigid silence. Mara blew out a sigh, her temper cooling immediately. That was a low blow, she told herself. You know she hates that part of herself. Justifying it as a reason to keep Aallotar here wasn’t even vaguely enough to make it alright. She needed to apologize.
Mara followed her friend out of the cave. Aallotar hadn’t made it far. She had one hand on a twisted pine tree, her back to the cave mouth with her other hand over her eyes. At the sound of Mara’s approach, her body stiffened like she was ready for a fight. Mara was something of an expert when it came to pains in her heart, but this one was new. Seeing Aallotar in any pain, doubly that she’d caused, made her heart twist unpleasantly.
“Aallotar, I’m sorry,” Mara said, stopping a few feet away. “I didn’t mean that. I—”
“It’s true,” Aallotar said. Her voice almost cracked at the thought. “I would rather give in to the beast than lose you.” Her gaze fell towards the ground. “Selfish.”
Mara shook her head. She knew Aallotar wanting to have her around likely had everything to do with being free of the curse’s torment, but there was no escaping the reality that no one had ever wanted her safe so badly. She took a deep breath. “You just want to protect me,” she said, offering her friend a smile. “I know you keep the beast at bay with everything you have.”
“The thought of them hurting you makes a rage froth in me like no other,” Aallotar said, anger hardening her face. “If they laid a finger on you, I would show them savagery.”
Mara sighed softly. “You’re better than that, Aallotar. Just because the madness is all you have known doesn’t mean it will be all you know.” She flashed her friend a smile. “There are a lot of better parts to being human.”
Aallotar’s tense shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “I already feel so many things,” she admitted. “Too many.” Vulnerable golden eyes searched Mara’s face. “Let me come with you. Please. I will stay beside you and fend off the beast if it rises.”
It was not a good idea and Mara knew it, but she really only needed to talk to her mother, to learn at least of places where Aallotar’s curse might be recorded or studied. If she could avoid people, go under the cover of night, perhaps no one would cross their path…
“It isn’t wise,” Mara said softly. “Or safe.”
“My fate is bound to yours, nathæ. You are my calm, my refuge,” Aallotar murmured, gaze still soft and pleading. “Do not send me away.”
It was impossible for Mara to refuse when faced with the heartbreak in her friend’s expression at the idea. “You’ll have to stay close,” Mara warned. “We don’t know how far you can roam without the beast returning.”
“I will,” Aallotar promised, a smile breaking out across her face like the dawning of a brilliant sun. She closed the distance between them on impulse, pulling Mara into a crushing hug. “I will not fail you.”
“It’s not you I worry about,” Mara wheezed. Her friend’s hold was almost painful. Clearly Aallotar didn’t know her strength, even out of beast form, and it was hard on Mara’s damaged spine and ribs malformed from beatings. “Gentle, Aallotar. I’m only mortal.”
The hold relaxed into something more comfortable. “Forgive me,” the wildling murmured. “Even with the curse ebbed, my mind restored, its strength burns inside me.”
Mara felt almost awkward in the hug, though not because of Aallotar. She’d just...let no one close besides her mother. Even Aamu hadn’t been the type to hug or coddle and gods knew Gaius wasn’t. The wildling’s body burned with heat, erasing all the chill from the night air, and something about the muscular form holding her felt so safe. Mara had to blink hard, banishing tears. “You’re fine,” she promised.
A feeling snaked through all her other emotions like a serpent through a vineyard. As it did so often, worthlessness sunk its fangs into her heart. For her entire life, the pressures of the world had taught her she was nothing, not even human. Aallotar’s hug was wonderful, but she didn’t deserve it.
Mara pulled away and brushed at her eyes before even the hints of tears could make themselves known. Her hope that Aallotar wouldn’t see was quickly crushed when rough fingertips touched her cheeks.
“What shadow is over your sun, nathæ?” the wildling asked.
“You’ve called me that twice now,” Mara said to deflect. “Should I be offended?”
“It sounds ‘peace’,” Aallotar explained. She seemed to understand without words that Mara wasn’t ready to talk about her darker feelings. “Because that is what you bring, I thought it good.”
Mara smiled, Aallotar’s presence fighting back against the insecurity. “Best name I’ve ever been called.”
“Then I will call you it until you tire of it,” Aallotar promised. She ran her hands down Mara’s upper arms when she felt a shiver. “Back inside, back to the fire.” Her authoritative tone left no real place for argument, not that Mara wanted to.
“I knew you’d like the fire,” Mara teased.
“For you, not me. Mennskr are cold-blooded, like snakes. You need a warm rock.”
Mara grinned at that. “There’s a reason my mother says all the women in my family descend from the Queen of Frost,” she said as she placed her hands on the back of Aallotar’s neck once the unwitting wildling had exposed her back.
The wildling let out a squeak that was almost a shriek of shock and whirled around. “You are an ice wraith!” she said accusingly, catching Mara’s hands both to warm them and prevent Mara from putting them on any other bare skin.
The huntress laughed hard enough to make her ribs and face ache, offering no resistance when Aallotar marched her inside and pointed to a seat by the fire. Mara took it, gasping now as she tried to catch her breath and brush away a few tears of mirth.
“And what amuses so?” Aallotar demanded, hands on her hips.
“That sound!” Mara wheezed, trying not to burst out laughing again. A throb from her ribs stopped her. “Oh, gods’ blood and bone, don’t do that to me.”
“You seemed to enjoy it,” Aallotar observed dryly, though her own smile was starting to form. “Cackle away, little nymph.”
“I’d love to, but it hurts,” Mara admitted.
“Are you wounded?” Aallotar asked with instant concern.
Mara shook her head. “Just muscles that don’t get used and bones not quite in the right places,” she explained. “I’ve broken every rib and some set better than others. They can be hard on me.”
Aallotar sat beside her by the fire, no longer so afraid of it. “You mean others broke them,” she said with a frown.
“One or two were just me,” Mara said matter-of-factly. “Once I was so sick that I coughed so hard, I dislocated a rib. Aamu said she heard it across the room.” She winced at the memory. “Not my favorite winter.”
“And your back?”
Mara’s expression sobered. She hated the damage to her spine and leg. It gave her grief every time she tried to use her body to its fullest potential. It was the limit on her skill as a warrior, but also removed all the natural grace her mother’s blood had given her. “A fall.” She sighed when she saw the demand in Aallotar’s eyes. “There are these cliffs near Sjaligr, probably as tall as three towers stacked on end. The knights were practicing earth-sculpting in the area and an idiotic younger Mara wanted to watch, so she could learn how to do magic. Gareth said he missed his target, that errant magic slammed me off the cliff, but the Earth-Cleaver never missed a mark before or since. I don’t remember the fall or the landing.” Her lip curled. “He almost got what he wanted: an end to the blight.”
“The hardest part of being in Sjaligr will be keeping my teeth from his throat,” Aallotar said, voice rough with a growl.
Mara winced. “You don’t have the fangs for that in this form, Aallotar. Besides, the taste alone would probably gag a buzzard.”
Aallotar bared her teeth, showing canines still pronounced enough to rip and tear. “He deserves it.”
“Deserving’s a funny thing,” Mara said, looking back at the fire. “I guess I always tried to believe Aamu when she said that what the gods do has more to do with them than us.”
“What do you mean?” Aallotar asked, slowly calming. She looked over curiously.
“Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people,” Mara elaborated. “Aamu said people use it as a cudgel. Something bad happens to you, you must have deserved it. I felt that way about my curse for a long time. She tried to fix that, but the rot ran too deep.” She sighed. “I still feel that way.”
“It is not a curse,” the wildling argued. “It is just a thing, a part. Like blue eyes, like warmth in laughter, like bravery.”
“I almost believe you when you say that,” Mara said with a smile. “You’re a good friend, Aallotar. Crazy, but good.”
Aallotar pursed her lips. “Not crazy.”
Mara laughed, ignoring the sting in her ribs and face. She relaxed a little, stretching her back and her fingertips. “I was thinking something,” she said, flashing the wildling a smile when curious golden eyes turned her way. “You said yourself that you’re feeling things that you don’t have a name for. So let’s name them. Gaius had me do that when I was younger. He says it’s important to know your feelings to know yourself. Granted, he also said that was for the purpose of keeping a cool head in battle.”
The appeal to Aallotar was unmistakable in the way she sat up straighter. “To be calmer?”
“If you know what you’re feeling and why, it might be easier to deal with the beast,” Mara said. It was a guess, but she was confident that it wouldn’t hurt.
“How? I will not feel all the things between here and Sjaligr,” Aallotar said curiously.
“So we’ll make up stories,” Mara said with a grin, warming to the idea. “I know it sounds silly, but it’s a long walk and plenty of time.”
“It sounds good,” the wildling said. Her eyes were alight with excitement at the idea. “Do you tell many stories?”
Mara stifled a yawn. “Only for you. Some of them will be from Gaius or Aamu, though. Or my mother.”
“Will we meet?”
“I don’t know about Gaius, but I’m going to ask my mother about your curse, if that’s alright,” Mara said firmly. “No one knows magic lore better than Eirlys Silver-Song. She and Gaius have spent most of their lives in Sjaligr trying to gather tales of magic and write them down. The scholarly pursuits and the smithing suit her more than the life of a chieftain’s wife.”
Aallotar cocked her head slightly. “Smithing?”
“A smith is a master of fire and metal, who can take ore or iron sand and make it into tools or weapons using heat,” Mara explained with a smile. “Most do so with magic, but iron is hard to move and shape with will. It doesn’t like it, so the steel isn’t as good. My mother does it with just her hands and knowledge, making steel so strong and flawless they call it Winter’s Breath. My youngest sister, Ritva, is learning all her secrets to keep the tradition alive.”
Aallotar’s eyes were wide. “Can I see this?”
“Smithing?” Mara said, grinning when her answer was an enthusiastic nod. “I’m thinking you enjoy fire more than you say.”
“I wish to see,” Aallotar said defensively, though she was still smiling. “Magic without magic.”
“When we get there, certainly,” Mara said with a smile. “If we have time and aren’t running for our lives, I’ll ask her to make you something. Maybe a knife. Something useful?”
Aallotar looked down at her hands. “Maybe a human thing?” she said softly.
Mara understood in that moment that for Aallotar, a human thing was something that didn’t need to have a use, but was free of all parts of the beast. “I’m sure she could,” Mara said. She didn’t know if the patterns worn on jewelry would frighten off the beast, evil spirit as it was, but it wouldn’t hurt to give Aallotar something beautiful. Something...human. Mara liked the way that thought sounded.
“We should rest,” Aallotar said with a smile at the thought. “We can leave at first light.”
“And hope we can get better clothing on the way,” Mara said with amusement. Aallotar’s furs were still bloody and shredded, so she’d kept Gaius’s shirt and was wearing pants Mara had made from two pairs of her own, which had cutting and stitching that were, as Sabine would say charitably, abominable. It would hold well, but it looked like sutures a necromancer might use to hold together some unholy amalgamation. It left neither of them with alternatives in the clothing department.
“Is this not acceptable?” Aallotar said, plucking gently at a seam. “The needle marks are so artful in their chaos. Like little lightning bolts.”
Mara threw a fur from the wildling’s bed at Aallotar’s head since it was the first soft thing in reach, rewarded by a peal of laughter. “You look like you stole a witch’s hex-doll’s pants.”
“You dressed me,” Aallotar pointed out with a grin.
“I’m not saying I’m not responsible,” Mara grumbled, though her act hid a good-natured appreciation for the teasing. Aallotar had learned quickly to determine when it was a joke and when not, at least mostly. The banter reminded her fondly of Aamu, jibes coming without sting. “Go to bed.”
“Do you want the place of resting?” Aallotar offered. “I am not injured any longer. It is more comfortable than your blankets.”
“You say that because you don’t know how nice my blankets are,” Mara said as she kicked her bedroll open with one foot. They were just enough padding to take the edge off the rocks and roots that dug into her back on the road, but she was out in the woods so often that it felt strange to sleep in a bed anyway.
Aallotar’s nest was made of more moss and other soft things than furs, but covered by the soft pelts of sables carefully crafted by the mage who had shared her cave for a few years. It looked damn comfortable, but Mara was already arranging the fire to bank it for the night before laying down on her bedroll. “Better hope you can carry that with you, Aallotar,” she teased. “Otherwise the road’s going to be real disappointing.”
The wilding laughed. “You know I slept on the ground often as a beast.”
“That was as a beast. Now you’re all squishy and human-shaped,” Mara said as she laid down.
“I am not squishy,” Aallotar said as she curled up in her bed, positioned to Mara’s back.
For the first time, the huntress didn’t mind someone being behind her where she couldn’t see what they might do to her. She trusted Aallotar not to harm her. “Fair enough,” she mumbled mostly into her blanket. The wildling’s hugs were more than proof enough that Mara’s friend was more sculpted than soft. Aallotar was not just taller: she was harder than the huntress, her beast blood and life of constant motion leaving her body mostly iron muscle. “Just between the ears.”
Aallotar’s pinch caught her in the small of her back, earning a yelp from the drowsing Mara. She rolled over to glare. The wildling had her eyes closed, but her lips were twitching with a smug smile.
Mara grinned viciously. She had just the revenge for that. Aallotar was hot-blooded enough to run a furnace, but cold feet would be more than enough to ruin that for her. “Don’t start with me, Aallotar. I will end it.”
The wildling laughed, eyes hooded with sleep as she buried herself deeper into her furs. “No fear.”
The shriek of shock and horror that echoed down the cave almost ten minutes later was chased by Mara’s victorious cackling for more than a full minute. It was at that moment that Mara realized Aallotar was going to break her face, though probably by forcing her to smile so widely her face split in half rather than as a traumatized revenge-thumping.
“We don’t know how far from me you can be without transforming,” Mara argued. She didn’t want to see the soldiers of Sjaligr turn on Aallotar or have a rampaging wolf monster around her people, vile as they could be. “It’s not safe.”
“You walking into a pyre is?” Aallotar demanded. Her whole body was rigid, looking very much like she wanted to raise her hackles but had no fur to do so. “They will not kill you. I will rip them to shreds first.”
“I thought you didn’t like the beast,” Mara snapped. She appreciated the protection, but Aallotar’s insistence that she not go alone put the wildling in serious danger.
It was the wrong thing to say. Aallotar’s jaw snapped shut and she turned on her heel, striding out of the cave in a sudden, frigid silence. Mara blew out a sigh, her temper cooling immediately. That was a low blow, she told herself. You know she hates that part of herself. Justifying it as a reason to keep Aallotar here wasn’t even vaguely enough to make it alright. She needed to apologize.
Mara followed her friend out of the cave. Aallotar hadn’t made it far. She had one hand on a twisted pine tree, her back to the cave mouth with her other hand over her eyes. At the sound of Mara’s approach, her body stiffened like she was ready for a fight. Mara was something of an expert when it came to pains in her heart, but this one was new. Seeing Aallotar in any pain, doubly that she’d caused, made her heart twist unpleasantly.
“Aallotar, I’m sorry,” Mara said, stopping a few feet away. “I didn’t mean that. I—”
“It’s true,” Aallotar said. Her voice almost cracked at the thought. “I would rather give in to the beast than lose you.” Her gaze fell towards the ground. “Selfish.”
Mara shook her head. She knew Aallotar wanting to have her around likely had everything to do with being free of the curse’s torment, but there was no escaping the reality that no one had ever wanted her safe so badly. She took a deep breath. “You just want to protect me,” she said, offering her friend a smile. “I know you keep the beast at bay with everything you have.”
“The thought of them hurting you makes a rage froth in me like no other,” Aallotar said, anger hardening her face. “If they laid a finger on you, I would show them savagery.”
Mara sighed softly. “You’re better than that, Aallotar. Just because the madness is all you have known doesn’t mean it will be all you know.” She flashed her friend a smile. “There are a lot of better parts to being human.”
Aallotar’s tense shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “I already feel so many things,” she admitted. “Too many.” Vulnerable golden eyes searched Mara’s face. “Let me come with you. Please. I will stay beside you and fend off the beast if it rises.”
It was not a good idea and Mara knew it, but she really only needed to talk to her mother, to learn at least of places where Aallotar’s curse might be recorded or studied. If she could avoid people, go under the cover of night, perhaps no one would cross their path…
“It isn’t wise,” Mara said softly. “Or safe.”
“My fate is bound to yours, nathæ. You are my calm, my refuge,” Aallotar murmured, gaze still soft and pleading. “Do not send me away.”
It was impossible for Mara to refuse when faced with the heartbreak in her friend’s expression at the idea. “You’ll have to stay close,” Mara warned. “We don’t know how far you can roam without the beast returning.”
“I will,” Aallotar promised, a smile breaking out across her face like the dawning of a brilliant sun. She closed the distance between them on impulse, pulling Mara into a crushing hug. “I will not fail you.”
“It’s not you I worry about,” Mara wheezed. Her friend’s hold was almost painful. Clearly Aallotar didn’t know her strength, even out of beast form, and it was hard on Mara’s damaged spine and ribs malformed from beatings. “Gentle, Aallotar. I’m only mortal.”
The hold relaxed into something more comfortable. “Forgive me,” the wildling murmured. “Even with the curse ebbed, my mind restored, its strength burns inside me.”
Mara felt almost awkward in the hug, though not because of Aallotar. She’d just...let no one close besides her mother. Even Aamu hadn’t been the type to hug or coddle and gods knew Gaius wasn’t. The wildling’s body burned with heat, erasing all the chill from the night air, and something about the muscular form holding her felt so safe. Mara had to blink hard, banishing tears. “You’re fine,” she promised.
A feeling snaked through all her other emotions like a serpent through a vineyard. As it did so often, worthlessness sunk its fangs into her heart. For her entire life, the pressures of the world had taught her she was nothing, not even human. Aallotar’s hug was wonderful, but she didn’t deserve it.
Mara pulled away and brushed at her eyes before even the hints of tears could make themselves known. Her hope that Aallotar wouldn’t see was quickly crushed when rough fingertips touched her cheeks.
“What shadow is over your sun, nathæ?” the wildling asked.
“You’ve called me that twice now,” Mara said to deflect. “Should I be offended?”
“It sounds ‘peace’,” Aallotar explained. She seemed to understand without words that Mara wasn’t ready to talk about her darker feelings. “Because that is what you bring, I thought it good.”
Mara smiled, Aallotar’s presence fighting back against the insecurity. “Best name I’ve ever been called.”
“Then I will call you it until you tire of it,” Aallotar promised. She ran her hands down Mara’s upper arms when she felt a shiver. “Back inside, back to the fire.” Her authoritative tone left no real place for argument, not that Mara wanted to.
“I knew you’d like the fire,” Mara teased.
“For you, not me. Mennskr are cold-blooded, like snakes. You need a warm rock.”
Mara grinned at that. “There’s a reason my mother says all the women in my family descend from the Queen of Frost,” she said as she placed her hands on the back of Aallotar’s neck once the unwitting wildling had exposed her back.
The wildling let out a squeak that was almost a shriek of shock and whirled around. “You are an ice wraith!” she said accusingly, catching Mara’s hands both to warm them and prevent Mara from putting them on any other bare skin.
The huntress laughed hard enough to make her ribs and face ache, offering no resistance when Aallotar marched her inside and pointed to a seat by the fire. Mara took it, gasping now as she tried to catch her breath and brush away a few tears of mirth.
“And what amuses so?” Aallotar demanded, hands on her hips.
“That sound!” Mara wheezed, trying not to burst out laughing again. A throb from her ribs stopped her. “Oh, gods’ blood and bone, don’t do that to me.”
“You seemed to enjoy it,” Aallotar observed dryly, though her own smile was starting to form. “Cackle away, little nymph.”
“I’d love to, but it hurts,” Mara admitted.
“Are you wounded?” Aallotar asked with instant concern.
Mara shook her head. “Just muscles that don’t get used and bones not quite in the right places,” she explained. “I’ve broken every rib and some set better than others. They can be hard on me.”
Aallotar sat beside her by the fire, no longer so afraid of it. “You mean others broke them,” she said with a frown.
“One or two were just me,” Mara said matter-of-factly. “Once I was so sick that I coughed so hard, I dislocated a rib. Aamu said she heard it across the room.” She winced at the memory. “Not my favorite winter.”
“And your back?”
Mara’s expression sobered. She hated the damage to her spine and leg. It gave her grief every time she tried to use her body to its fullest potential. It was the limit on her skill as a warrior, but also removed all the natural grace her mother’s blood had given her. “A fall.” She sighed when she saw the demand in Aallotar’s eyes. “There are these cliffs near Sjaligr, probably as tall as three towers stacked on end. The knights were practicing earth-sculpting in the area and an idiotic younger Mara wanted to watch, so she could learn how to do magic. Gareth said he missed his target, that errant magic slammed me off the cliff, but the Earth-Cleaver never missed a mark before or since. I don’t remember the fall or the landing.” Her lip curled. “He almost got what he wanted: an end to the blight.”
“The hardest part of being in Sjaligr will be keeping my teeth from his throat,” Aallotar said, voice rough with a growl.
Mara winced. “You don’t have the fangs for that in this form, Aallotar. Besides, the taste alone would probably gag a buzzard.”
Aallotar bared her teeth, showing canines still pronounced enough to rip and tear. “He deserves it.”
“Deserving’s a funny thing,” Mara said, looking back at the fire. “I guess I always tried to believe Aamu when she said that what the gods do has more to do with them than us.”
“What do you mean?” Aallotar asked, slowly calming. She looked over curiously.
“Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people,” Mara elaborated. “Aamu said people use it as a cudgel. Something bad happens to you, you must have deserved it. I felt that way about my curse for a long time. She tried to fix that, but the rot ran too deep.” She sighed. “I still feel that way.”
“It is not a curse,” the wildling argued. “It is just a thing, a part. Like blue eyes, like warmth in laughter, like bravery.”
“I almost believe you when you say that,” Mara said with a smile. “You’re a good friend, Aallotar. Crazy, but good.”
Aallotar pursed her lips. “Not crazy.”
Mara laughed, ignoring the sting in her ribs and face. She relaxed a little, stretching her back and her fingertips. “I was thinking something,” she said, flashing the wildling a smile when curious golden eyes turned her way. “You said yourself that you’re feeling things that you don’t have a name for. So let’s name them. Gaius had me do that when I was younger. He says it’s important to know your feelings to know yourself. Granted, he also said that was for the purpose of keeping a cool head in battle.”
The appeal to Aallotar was unmistakable in the way she sat up straighter. “To be calmer?”
“If you know what you’re feeling and why, it might be easier to deal with the beast,” Mara said. It was a guess, but she was confident that it wouldn’t hurt.
“How? I will not feel all the things between here and Sjaligr,” Aallotar said curiously.
“So we’ll make up stories,” Mara said with a grin, warming to the idea. “I know it sounds silly, but it’s a long walk and plenty of time.”
“It sounds good,” the wildling said. Her eyes were alight with excitement at the idea. “Do you tell many stories?”
Mara stifled a yawn. “Only for you. Some of them will be from Gaius or Aamu, though. Or my mother.”
“Will we meet?”
“I don’t know about Gaius, but I’m going to ask my mother about your curse, if that’s alright,” Mara said firmly. “No one knows magic lore better than Eirlys Silver-Song. She and Gaius have spent most of their lives in Sjaligr trying to gather tales of magic and write them down. The scholarly pursuits and the smithing suit her more than the life of a chieftain’s wife.”
Aallotar cocked her head slightly. “Smithing?”
“A smith is a master of fire and metal, who can take ore or iron sand and make it into tools or weapons using heat,” Mara explained with a smile. “Most do so with magic, but iron is hard to move and shape with will. It doesn’t like it, so the steel isn’t as good. My mother does it with just her hands and knowledge, making steel so strong and flawless they call it Winter’s Breath. My youngest sister, Ritva, is learning all her secrets to keep the tradition alive.”
Aallotar’s eyes were wide. “Can I see this?”
“Smithing?” Mara said, grinning when her answer was an enthusiastic nod. “I’m thinking you enjoy fire more than you say.”
“I wish to see,” Aallotar said defensively, though she was still smiling. “Magic without magic.”
“When we get there, certainly,” Mara said with a smile. “If we have time and aren’t running for our lives, I’ll ask her to make you something. Maybe a knife. Something useful?”
Aallotar looked down at her hands. “Maybe a human thing?” she said softly.
Mara understood in that moment that for Aallotar, a human thing was something that didn’t need to have a use, but was free of all parts of the beast. “I’m sure she could,” Mara said. She didn’t know if the patterns worn on jewelry would frighten off the beast, evil spirit as it was, but it wouldn’t hurt to give Aallotar something beautiful. Something...human. Mara liked the way that thought sounded.
“We should rest,” Aallotar said with a smile at the thought. “We can leave at first light.”
“And hope we can get better clothing on the way,” Mara said with amusement. Aallotar’s furs were still bloody and shredded, so she’d kept Gaius’s shirt and was wearing pants Mara had made from two pairs of her own, which had cutting and stitching that were, as Sabine would say charitably, abominable. It would hold well, but it looked like sutures a necromancer might use to hold together some unholy amalgamation. It left neither of them with alternatives in the clothing department.
“Is this not acceptable?” Aallotar said, plucking gently at a seam. “The needle marks are so artful in their chaos. Like little lightning bolts.”
Mara threw a fur from the wildling’s bed at Aallotar’s head since it was the first soft thing in reach, rewarded by a peal of laughter. “You look like you stole a witch’s hex-doll’s pants.”
“You dressed me,” Aallotar pointed out with a grin.
“I’m not saying I’m not responsible,” Mara grumbled, though her act hid a good-natured appreciation for the teasing. Aallotar had learned quickly to determine when it was a joke and when not, at least mostly. The banter reminded her fondly of Aamu, jibes coming without sting. “Go to bed.”
“Do you want the place of resting?” Aallotar offered. “I am not injured any longer. It is more comfortable than your blankets.”
“You say that because you don’t know how nice my blankets are,” Mara said as she kicked her bedroll open with one foot. They were just enough padding to take the edge off the rocks and roots that dug into her back on the road, but she was out in the woods so often that it felt strange to sleep in a bed anyway.
Aallotar’s nest was made of more moss and other soft things than furs, but covered by the soft pelts of sables carefully crafted by the mage who had shared her cave for a few years. It looked damn comfortable, but Mara was already arranging the fire to bank it for the night before laying down on her bedroll. “Better hope you can carry that with you, Aallotar,” she teased. “Otherwise the road’s going to be real disappointing.”
The wilding laughed. “You know I slept on the ground often as a beast.”
“That was as a beast. Now you’re all squishy and human-shaped,” Mara said as she laid down.
“I am not squishy,” Aallotar said as she curled up in her bed, positioned to Mara’s back.
For the first time, the huntress didn’t mind someone being behind her where she couldn’t see what they might do to her. She trusted Aallotar not to harm her. “Fair enough,” she mumbled mostly into her blanket. The wildling’s hugs were more than proof enough that Mara’s friend was more sculpted than soft. Aallotar was not just taller: she was harder than the huntress, her beast blood and life of constant motion leaving her body mostly iron muscle. “Just between the ears.”
Aallotar’s pinch caught her in the small of her back, earning a yelp from the drowsing Mara. She rolled over to glare. The wildling had her eyes closed, but her lips were twitching with a smug smile.
Mara grinned viciously. She had just the revenge for that. Aallotar was hot-blooded enough to run a furnace, but cold feet would be more than enough to ruin that for her. “Don’t start with me, Aallotar. I will end it.”
The wildling laughed, eyes hooded with sleep as she buried herself deeper into her furs. “No fear.”
The shriek of shock and horror that echoed down the cave almost ten minutes later was chased by Mara’s victorious cackling for more than a full minute. It was at that moment that Mara realized Aallotar was going to break her face, though probably by forcing her to smile so widely her face split in half rather than as a traumatized revenge-thumping.
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