Heart of Steel

by Samantha M. Derr

  Loran kept her face to the trail ahead. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of looking at him.

  *~*~*

  As it turned out, Farris was quite the singer. Loran had to admit she preferred his drinking songs to anything else he'd had to say throughout the day, and she couldn't have been more relieved to see the sun start to dip into the horizon.

  Kisa found them a clearing just off the road and insisted on looking at Loran's wound the moment they settled in.

  "It feels better than it did..." Loran murmured in halfhearted protest. "Besides, now that my secret is out, I can use my healing powders. Oh, and I suppose we won't have need of a fire tonight. I can take care of heat." She rifled through her pockets for the proper vials, but a gentle hand on her elbow stopped her.

  Kisa looked down at her with a pleading gaze, eyes darting to the wound and back to Loran. Loran sighed in defeat, shaking her head with a tired smile.

  "I'll let you take a look." She lowered the shoulder of her robe with her back to Kisa. She had already removed her gauntlets, gloves, and helmet, and her fingers carefully peeled back the lavender fabric that had held on the swatch of linen.

  Loran winced as she felt the linen peel away. The blood had effectively pasted it to her skin.

  "Aww, did that hurt, Killer?" Farris's far too cheerful voice cut through the quiet. Loran had all but forgotten he was there.

  "Maybe I should find my silencing powders next," she threatened, arms wrapped around her middle to keep her robes up far enough to cover her front.

  "But then you'd miss my handsome voice. If you're good, maybe I'll even sing you a lullaby."

  "And if you're good, maybe I'll—"

  Kisa put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and Loran made herself take a deep breath. "I'm not going to play into your taunts."

  "But that's no fun." Farris pouted from his spot in the grass, leaning against a fallen tree. Kisa had bound his ankles as well once they'd settled in. He didn't seem the least bit fazed by it. "I suppose I can survive without torturing you any more, if I must."

  Loran flinched as Kisa pressed a wet cloth to her wound. It stung and burned, but not as badly as it had the night before. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth as wheels turned in her mind. "Why were you with that group of thugs? What were you hired to do, I mean?"

  Farris sat up, a lopsided smile reaching his lips. "If you want more information from me, you're going to have to give a little in return."

  She huffed and looked away, trying to stay still as Kisa finished inspecting her back. She put in some fresh linen and covered it once more with the torn fabric, patting Loran's shoulder once it was done.

  She quickly covered herself again, grateful that was done. She wasn't entirely sure she had the strength to cast any kind of healing, even with the aid of the powders. Only the strongest Terns could use their magic without the powder's aid. It focused the magic, gave the water properties better suited for the purpose of whatever spell it was used with.

  "With what I know of you so far, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you dumped me at the city gates with no memory of the last few days, so you could just tell me and clear my head later, hm?"

  Loran's casting didn't quite work like that, but she wouldn't admit that to him. "... Very well. My name is Loran. Now why were you hired?"

  "See? That wasn't so difficult." Farris chuckled, leaning back comfortably, his bound hands resting on his thighs. "Rhist was the one who put us all together—the blond one with the bad attitude. We all ran in the same circles, so when word got out about this fancy lord moving his estate from Tarbrooke to Lionswell, we all knew we wanted in. It wasn't so much being 'hired' as it was knowing we all wanted a piece. We did some listening and discovered that there would be a caravan along the main road, so we got ourselves the biggest cart we could afford and old Beulah here—" he gestured to the mule, "—and made sure our paths crossed. No blood drawn: nobles are too frightened to even risk a fight when they see anything remotely sharp pointed in their direction. They practically handed us everything the moment we brandished our weapons."

  Loran pondered his story, wondering if he was telling the truth. It was his word against several dead men's, but whatever had brought him here meant little now.

  "So, you consider yourself an honorable thief then?"

  "The same way you consider yourself an honorable killer, I suppose," Farris shot back with a smile.

  Loran seethed, fists balled in her lap. "I am not a killer! I've never— Not before today!"

  "You killed five people today. I believe, by most standards, that makes you a killer. But perhaps tomorrow you could be a saint, so who am I to say? At least you've given me a name now." He shrugged, spreading his palms as far as the bindings would allow. "So, Loran, what do you say we call a truce between us, hm? Outlaw to outlaw?"

  She still wouldn't meet his eyes. She wasn't an outlaw; she wasn't a criminal. But she had killed five men.

  Loran rubbed her arms, fighting a chill. "A truce," she agreed, keeping her gaze down. She slipped a hand into her pocket and withdrew the flame shaped vial. "Since we have a truce, you might as well pull your weight with the rest of us, hm?" She smiled and stood. "Kisa, cut his legs free."

  Kisa looked at her curiously but knelt and untied Farris's ankles, discarding the rope near her mat.

  "Collect stones for me. Any the size of a fist will suit our needs well enough. We need at least seven."

  Farris nodded slowly. "Seven stones. Seems simple enough. Not enough for any kind of torture I'm familiar with, so that's a relief."

  "Set them in a pile right here." Loran uncorked her water skin. There was a brook nearby that she could use to refill it. "Please."

  "I even get a please? Don't I feel warm and fuzzy." Farris laughed as he began scanning the ground around camp, beginning his task.

  Loran watched him for a moment, making sure he didn't make a break for it. To his credit, he seemed to be genuinely interested in finding the rocks.

  Satisfied, she followed the whispers of water toward the quiet rush of the stream. It was only a few steps wide and clear enough that she could see the pebbles and moss at the bottom. Loran slipped out of her leather shoes and set them atop a root by the bed of the stream. She lifted the folds of her robes and stepped into the water, her eyes sliding shut as she focused on the ripples around her, the cool crispness of the stream as it babbled around her.

  The water's energy seeped into her, moving in gentle waves through her body. The water wasn't just a tool or simply a vessel for magic. It had magic of its own. Anyone with even the slightest sensitivity to magical energies could feel it if they tried.

  She breathed in the wet air of the forest, the water cooling her nerves and warming her heart. She could stay for hours like this and never know more than a few minutes had passed. Many other Terns in her Clutch would spend hours by the sea, drawing energy from the waves that lapped at their legs. Some teased that perhaps they all were supposed to be mermaids that had been born ashore, rather than the magic-bearing rejects they all knew they were.

  "Do you get turned on by running water or something?"

  Loran sucked in a startled breath and her eyes shot open. Farris was leaning against the large tree by the brook, smiling down at her.

  "Do you get turned on by sneaking up on people when they think they're alone?" she fired back, walking back to the edge of the stream to let her robes fall once more, covering her still wet legs.

  "Sometimes. If you're really interested in what turns me on, I'd be happy to tell you more."

  She rolled her eyes at that. "I'll pass."

  He shrugged. "If you insist. So what was that there? Are you 'one with the water' or something like that?"

  "In a manner of speaking." She knelt and dipped the mouth of her water skin into the brook, letting the water fill it with the push of the stream. "I draw energy from it, if you really must know."

  "Huh." He nodded, fiddling with a piece of
grass between his thumbs. He held it firmly between them and pressed his lips to the space between the knuckles, blowing. A horrid sound squawked out and Loran jumped.

  "What was that for?" she demanded, corking her water skin.

  "Fun." He shrugged with a smile. "Want to try?"

  "Maybe another time." She waved a hand. "Did you get the stones?"

  "Seven fist-sized stones," Farris mused as he stood straight, offering his hand to help her up from the stream. "I can only imagine what you're planning with those." He wiggled his eyebrows with a smirk. Loran decided she didn't want to know what he was insinuating.

  "Good. Let's get back then." She accepted his hand, climbing back up the shallow bank.

  "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll stay and give this shirt a little rinse. I've been on the road a bit longer than you two." He smiled, peeling off his shirt without waiting for confirmation. With his hands bound, he couldn't get it all the way off, and instead let it pool at his wrists. "Should work well enough." Beneath his shirt was a wide binding cloth, and Loran couldn't help but notice his shoulders and back looked more muscular than she might have guessed. He wasn't huge and chiseled like Kisa, but she had no doubt that he could hold his own in a fight.

  "Just don't dally." She hesitated, her eyes lingering a moment more before she tore them away and forced her feet to head for camp.

  When she returned, Loran found Kisa rifling through a pile of clothes on the cart. She turned, a stack of some less expensive looking pieces in her arms as she smiled her greeting to Loran.

  "We won't have need of a fire tonight, and we won't need to take shifts keeping watch. I've already broken every rule in front of you both now, so hiding this seems pointless." She smiled proudly. "This is how we stay safe in the night when we're traveling alone."

  Loran knelt in front of the pile of rocks Farris had gathered and spread them apart so that none were touching each other. She held the flame shaped vial in one hand and opened her water skin with the other, drawing out a stream of it into the air. She opened the vial with her thumb and poured the golden powder over the liquid. The powder sizzled and hissed as it melted into the water, the floating mass taking on an iridescent glow. She could feel the heat rising from it without even touching it.

  Loran guided the water down, spreading it beneath her fingertips until it formed a thin blanket over the stones. The water hugged the stones as it met them, melting into the surface of the rocks until they took on the golden glow themselves.

  She looked up to watch Kisa's face, aglow with wonder as she looked over the stones. She lifted a hand to hover over them, soaking in their warmth but not daring to touch.

  "You can touch them. They won't burn you." Loran grinned. She had never had the chance to show her magic to anyone before. A voice of warning bubbled up in the back of her mind, but she put it to rest. There was no going back now. She might as well enjoy it.

  Kisa picked up one of the stones, laying it in her palm. She drew light fingers over the surface, marveling at its warmth.

  "We just need to place them in a circle around us and I'll seal the spell once we're all inside. They'll go dark, keep us warm, and will warn us the moment anyone tries to break the circle, even if they're breaking it from the inside."

  Kisa took four of the stones with a nod, standing as Loran grabbed the remaining three. Together they began to place them in a wide circle around the camp. As the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, Farris came sauntering back from the brook, his shirt still wet and bunched around his wrists.

  "Would anyone mind undoing these so I can at least unbind for the night?" He held up his hands with a smile, lifting a brow once he stepped into the circle. "It's quite warm, is that what you were doing?"

  Loran smiled proudly. "It was. And yours, since you collected the stones. Thank you for that."

  Farris looked at her with wide eyes, his grin spreading "Did you just thank me? That

  brook truly must have magical waters."

  She shrugged, opening up her water skin once more. "I'll be sealing the circle now. No one leaves until morning." Loran decided not to clarify why, hoping to scare him into forgetting any plans of sneaking off. She drew out a coin-sized wobbling sphere of water, letting it hover over her palm a moment before launching it into the air. The water exploded into a shimmering spray, the droplets expanded out to the edges of the circle, and the stones went dark. Their warmth still radiated within the circle, but to untrained eyes, there was nothing out of the ordinary: it was only a circle of rocks.

  "Well done." Farris clapped. "Consider me once again impressed, mage."

  "I'm not a mage," Loran corrected quickly. Mages were known for blood magic and violent abuse of their powers.

  "Alright then, well done, priest." He held up his hands with a smile as Kisa carefully unbound them. He let out a sigh of relief as he let the shirt slip off his wrists, rubbing them where they'd been bound. "Any chance I can sleep without those tonight?"

  "Afraid not." Loran smiled sweetly. "Kisa, can you bind him again once he's finished?"

  "So, I have a name for 'the big one with the pointy thing' now!" Farris grinned. "Kisa, lovely name. Is that Havarian?"

  "Farris—" Loran huffed, but Kisa nodded back, seemingly undisturbed by the question.

  "Don't worry so much, priest." Farris waved a hand. "Your secrets are safe with me. Both of you."

  Loran wasn't convinced, but she was too exhausted to argue. She sat on her bedmat and stretched out, a yawn escaping her lips; the day was catching up with her now. She'd used more magic than she should have in her injured state, not to mention the added strain of walking all day. She was exhausted.

  She lay down, watching as Kisa laid out the cloth she'd grabbed from the cart to make a makeshift bed between hers and Loran's.

  Farris, now once again dressed, sauntered closer with a laugh. "No one can resist being

  part of a Farris sandwich."

  "It's so you won't try to escape in the night." Loran assumed that was Kisa's intention, at least.

  "I thought your magic stones were supposed to take care of that?"

  "Not taking any chances." Loran sighed, letting her head fall. Her eyes felt heavy, and the light of day was already dying in the slivers of the horizon through the trees. She turned her back to Farris. She'd sleep better if she could forget he was there.

  She could hear Kisa settling in on her bedmat on the other side of Farris; Loran knew she was safe as long as Kisa was close. She finally let herself give in to the heavy arms of slumber, and the world around her disappeared.

  *~*~*

  The ground was black and charred beneath Loran's feet, and it stuck to her like tar; all she could do was keep running before it dragged her beneath its oily surface. The trees twisted around her, branches reaching out, scraping at her skin as she ran past them. Her feet couldn't move fast enough, dark shadows lingered overhead with inky wings and tortured features.

  "Killer!"

  "Murderer, mage, killer killer killer!"

  They shouted and whispered their accusations, sounding as if they were only a breath away. Loran kept pushing on, willing her feet not to falter. She struggled for breath, and her arms were covered in scratches and cuts. She looked back only for a moment, but she saw drops of her own blood falling to the forest floor, bursting into flames as they touched the tarry surface. She forced her eyes forward with a choked sob.

  A thorny branch caught her by a wrist and Loran jerked to a stop. Another coiled vine snatched up her other arm, biting into her flesh. Her feet began to sink into the unstable forest floor and the winged spirits above circled in closer as she struggled in the mire.

  "Help, someone help—" Loran choked out through her tears, but she knew spirits beyond the veil rarely cared for human struggles. These were her own demons dragging her down, her own guilt and shame, and she couldn't fight them.

  Loran stopped struggling. The mire began to swallow her, dragging her deeper into the
tar and scorched earth beneath her. Her falling blood hit the surface, sparking into flames before the muck snuffed them out. More branches wrapped themselves around her. Even if she wanted to struggle now, it was useless.

  A warm hand touched her arm, and suddenly the branches and mire froze in place. She was submerged up to her knees, but no longer sinking.

  Loran looked up, hoping to see her brave knight, but instead she saw Farris's concerned gaze.

  "You called for help," he said, starting to unwind the branches that had twisted around her. They peeled away, but not without some resistance. "This is quite some mess..."

  She could only stare up at him through wet lids. "Why are you here? I... I don't understand."

  "You called for help." He shrugged, snapping one of the larger branches in two, the twigs leftover fell to the ground in a harmless heap.

  Strong arms gripped her from behind and pulled her up and out of the mire. She caught a glimpse of lavender just before the dark forest disappeared.

  Loran's eyes shot open and she sucked in a tense breath. The camp was dark, but there were no traces of the sinister trees, nor the airborne demons that had taunted her. She lay still, curled up in the tight ball she'd awoken in. A pair of warm arms enveloped her; she saw bronze hands clasped around her waist, covered in gold rings. Farris. They hadn't tied him up again after letting his arms free, she realized.

  She trembled where she lay, unsure how to feel or what to say, or if she should say anything at all.

  The arms around her loosened slightly as Farris stirred. "Sorry, I can... not. If you don't want. I just thought I heard you call for—"

  "Help." Loran stilled, hesitant. She hadn't been simply dreaming. That had been a visit to the other side of the veil. "You were there. With me."

  "That dream?" Farris murmured sleepily. "You had that too? That was some scary shit..."

  "Wasn't a dream," she whispered back, curling up a little tighter. She'd never brought someone else beyond the veil like that. "Sorry, I didn't mean to drag you into—"