Glimmer of Steel (The Books of Astrune Book 1)

by K. E. Blaski

  “Don’t need to be rude. Trying to be nice here.”

  “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry,” and I don’t want you to ask questions when I’m compelled to give you answers that can get you killed. Already the dungeons held over twenty people who’d admitted knowing Madam before they’d realized they were condemning themselves. But as long as this shopkeep didn’t know Madam’s name, perhaps he’d be safe. “I need writing paper and charcoal.”

  “Fine, fine. Don’t want to hold you up. Got some pale yellow just come off the dryer, common tan is on the third shelf over, if you want to take a look.” He pointed to an expanse of shelving filled with a color-scope of papers. “Charcoal is in the barrel by the door, quarter yint per piece. Kerchiefs on the clip.”

  “I’ll see the yellow,” Damen said.

  The man shuffled off. Damen grabbed a kerchief, wrapped four pieces of charcoal, and stuffed the wad into his pocket.

  A crash, followed by a stream of inventive curses, erupted from the back room. Damen chuckled at the phrase “minging bumbo” while his eyes explored the store. They stopped on a stack of bos-skin bindings. He moved them over to the counter and spread them out. Twelve, each with a different flower pressed into the front. He opened the binding with the stalk of purple linnaea on its cover to find page after empty page.

  “I can give you a good deal on those.” Fausto returned carrying a handful of yellow paper. “Twelve yint for the lot.”

  Damen fingered the coins in his pocket; he had only half that much. His thumb brushed against Marcis’s silver scale. The bindings would send the perfect message to Jennica. Every page she filled with information for Noble could buy her another day of life. By giving them to her, she’d know Damen expected her to keep fighting. She had something Noble wanted: knowledge. Pages and pages of knowledge that could keep her alive—and the light in her eyes burning bright.

  “All I have.” He emptied the contents of his pocket onto the counter. The silver scale gleamed in the store’s dim light.

  Fausto poked at it with a stained finger. “What to land’s end’s this?”

  “A metal scale from one of Noble’s soldiers.”

  “Put that evil away.” The old man shuddered as Damen deposited the scale back inside his robe. “What kind of a man you take me for, offering me such a thing?”

  “They’re highly valuable.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Where’d you get it? You don’t look like much of a soldier to me.”

  “It—was a gift.”

  “Well I don’t want to know what you did to get a gift like that. I’ve a mind to kick you out of my store just for offering it to me.”

  Damen didn’t have to look again at the dust-coated inventory to know Fausto’s threat was as empty as his store. “You want to sell me the bindings; you need the business. But I don’t have twelve yint.”

  Fausto slumped. “Who’re they for? Too pretty for a mug like you.”

  Damen wanted to blurt out, “None of your business,” but his tongue was compelled to tell the truth again. “Nobless Tortare.”

  “Nobless? The new one? Isn’t she dead?”

  “Yes the new one, and no, she’s not dead.”

  “But all the castle celebrations last night. Thought they had the wedding.”

  “They did.”

  “But he always kills those girls on the wedding night.” He shook his head. “One of them instead a thousand of us. To keep the peace.”

  “Not this one.” He didn’t feel obligated to correct the man. Noble didn’t actually kill them. Consumed their souls and left their living carcasses behind? Yes. Kill them so their kin could bury them? No.

  “She lives?” Fausto’s eyebrows raised under his wrinkled brow. “Really. Lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “By Aprica’s light,” the man muttered, then erupted in a flurry of activity. “Take them all. They’re yours to give to our Nobless. A gift.” He pulled out a cloth sack from under the counter and slid the bindings and coins inside. “Please take them. No charge.” He pushed the bundle into Damen’s chest. “Go along now. You musn’t keep her waiting.”

  He ushered Damen out and shut the door behind him. A lock clicked. Through the door, Damen could hear the man’s muffled shouting. “Venita, Venita! I have news. Amazing news. The Rosen girl’s alive. Noble’s bride—she lives!”

  Damen stood in front of the archivist’s store, clutching the sack of bindings. Dread tapped on his heart. What firestorm had his truth telling set off now?

  JENNICA

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MARCIS Balázs

  Jennica sat up—and her muscles screamed.

  Even rubbing the tender knots in her thighs made a ball of queasy juice rise into her mouth. She gagged until she could swallow it back down. She’d pushed too much, gone too far, and now she was paying the price: trapped, immobile, and alone in a garishly decorated room strewn with flower petals like in some ridiculous romance novel.

  There they were. The cause of her pain: metal boot-feet fused onto her legs. Toes gone. No more ankles. Even the arch had been replaced with a heavy, flat sole. Permanently disabled. And so, very, ugly. She’d never walk normally again, or run, or climb, or fight. Gray fog closed around her. Breathe, Jennica. Just breathe. You’re alive. That’s what matters.

  She sagged back down onto the bed that was so completely . . . comfy.

  “It figures the wedding bed is the best in the place.” She shifted her weight and groaned. “Damn lucky to be lying in it—that’s what you are. Damn lucky.” Uncle Ed used to praise her luck, every time she out-bowled him, out-chessed him, or out-anythinged him for that matter. He was the one who’d explained to her how television worked. “Memory like a steel trap,” he’d said when she was twelve and had recited Hamlet’s soliloquy back at him after hearing him read it only a couple of times.

  “Luck and memory come in handy on Planet Insanity,” she said aloud. The place was starting to rub off on her: already she was talking to herself. “Luck and memory.” When she had told Noble she was there to give him knowledge, in that moment she’d believed it. It seemed simple enough: he was curious about her, so she’d tell him as much as she could to keep him interested—so he wouldn’t eat her. Like a mouse that becomes a lion’s pet as long as she’s useful.

  But she didn’t know if she could do it again. Tell her husband a story tonight, one that would keep her alive—and then again the next night, and the next? There was only so much she could say about holidays, sports, and electronics. Inevitably, she’d run out of nexts.

  She was unlikely to survive another day. She’d never get home. And her feet were gone. Wouldn’t it be easier to—no, she couldn’t even think the words. Her great-uncle would want her to “fight like it matters.”

  Keep trying in the face of failure. Grandma Lorinne had lived through poverty. Grandpa Paul had learned to read after he turned fifty years old. Great-Uncle Ed earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, came back physically broken, and still managed to start a successful business. Fighting for survival was in her blood. Too bad the rest of her didn’t have a clue.

  How would Uncle Ed deal with a man encased in silver who’d stuck a tail on his backside and wore metal teeth to overcompensate and intimidate? Like Kim Jong Il wearing shoe lifts and teasing his hair into a pompadour. “But more extreme.”

  She pressed her head back into one of the pillows until the sides encased her like silky earmuffs. The bedroom ceilings were extraordinary, she had to admit. Like jewel-encrusted spider webs. She traced the intricate loops and swirls with her eyes and tried to recall everything Mr. Schmidt had taught her about Kim Jong Il in his history class. Over and around and over . . .

  She must have dozed off again, because this time when she awoke, the sun—Aprica?—blazed through the windows. Wasting the entire day in bed was tempting; but man, her stomach kept railing at her. The leftover food on the table beckoned her.

  Twisting her torso to get a better look,
she tried to keep her legs straight in the process—the less she heard from them, the better. But the more she longed for even a crumb of bread, the farther away the table appeared. “I have to get up.” Her legs protested. They had ideas of their own—such as spasming until she passed out again.

  Her feet hit the floor with a clunk, her body slick with sweat from the effort, and her heart sank. She was beaten. The fire burning in her veins last night had been replaced with dread. What could she say to Noble Tortate to keep his interest again tonight?

  She cradled her throbbing head in her hands. Her cheeks still felt swollen from sobbing all night. Purple, puffy, and miserable, yet the people here would pounce on her if given the chance. How messed up was that? She stared at the floor. Tin-man feet reflected back at her. She couldn’t even cry over them anymore. She’d shed every tear this body could make. What stage of grief was she in? Maybe there was a stage called numb. Except for her stomach. No numbness there.

  When she pushed off the bed, pain tore through her legs and up through her lungs in a rasping cry. Where was numb when you needed it?

  “Nobless? Are you all right?” It sounded like Marcis at the door. Alone, but never alone. Of course her husband had a soldier stationed outside the door—and probably more than one.

  “Marcis? I need help. Please.” She dropped back down to the bed, breathing deliberately, trying to stay conscious.

  In a moment, Marcis had entered the room and then kneeled by the bed. “Nobless, what’s wrong?” The second soldier paused by the door.

  She placed her hand on his broad shoulder for support, and recognized her mistake immediately. His eyes dilated and his face flushed—at least, the part that wasn’t covered in silver scales. “Sorry, I forgot.” She pulled her hand away.

  “My error, Nobless. I’m good till about three feet away and then, well, even my meditation instruction is no help against the touch of Rosen skin. I shouldn’t have come so close.”

  “I wanted some food.” She choked back a dry sob. Why did this soldier have to be nice to her all the time? It made it hard to muster any anger—and without anger to fuel her strength, she’d dissolve.

  “Don’t cry, Princess. I mean, Nobless,” Marcis said.

  His compassion broke her resolve. Fresh tears came. “Just Jennica,” she managed to squeeze out. “I’m just me. Jennica.”

  “Of course.” And then he whispered to her in a low voice. He spoke so quietly that for a moment she wasn’t even sure he spoke. “Jennica. Send Logan for fresh clothes and food. You deserve better than this. Go on. He has to follow your orders.”

  She did want food. And she was suddenly and overtly aware that she stunk. Bad. “Logan?”

  “Yes, Nobless.” He snapped to attention, a grin spreading across his broad face.

  “Fetch me new clothes and fresh food?” She tried not to sound like a little girl playing dress-up in her grandmother’s shoes.

  Marcis nodded encouragingly.

  “This is no way to treat the wife of Noble Tortare,” she added with more confidence.

  “Yes, Nobless.” He bowed with a flourish and left Marcis and Jennica alone.

  After the door swung shut, Jennica said, “Logan’s funny.”

  “Oh he’s a jokester, all right.” Marcis shook his head.

  “I thought there had to be two of you with me. You know—because of the obsession you all have with my skin.”

  “Everything is different now,” Marcis said. “No other wife has survived her wedding night with Noble Tortare. Soldiers and staff—we’ll want to respond to your commands as well as those from Noble. You’re our Nobless now. At least until Noble tells us otherwise.”

  Marcis moved a little closer, but only a little. “I brought you a veil for your face and a salve for your muscles. We use this same salve after battle exercises. You also need to eat to build your strength, but this”—he waved at the leftovers on the table—“is not what you need. Protein. Complex energy. That’s what you need to eat. And you need to keep moving. Walk, no matter the pain. Otherwise your legs will lock up.” He handed her a circular tin, about the size of a can of nuts, then backed away. “Rub it on your skin. Go on.”

  She dipped her fingers into the container and scooped out a glop of thick slime—like petroleum jelly, but with an odd, metallic smell. Setting the tin by her side, she tugged her robe up to her knees with one hand and reached underneath with the other. Marcis turned his back as she rubbed the salve on her thighs, over her knees, and then stopped at the middle of her shin. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the seared edge where her skin and metal formed a tight seam.

  “Oh . . .” Tingling warmth penetrated deep into her muscles. She scraped more from the tin and coated her knees and calves. “Mmm . . .” It was like taking a warm bath. No—a deep, hot stone massage. She’d had a massage once, in her former life before her parents’ divorce, when her father had sent her to a spa for her fourteenth birthday. He’d been attempting to console her for his choosing Paris, France, over Portville, Indiana. The funny thing was, she hadn’t minded one bit. Better to be pampered by strangers than spend time with a father who’d constantly excuse himself to call in to work or check his text messages.

  This salve felt even better than that hot stone massage. “Much . . .” She sighed again. “Better.”

  “Use as much as you want.” Marcis turned back to her with a grin. “I can make more.”

  “You made this?” She imagined a swimming pool filled with Marcis’s magical mixture.

  “All the time. It’s popular with the soldiers.”

  “I bet.” Then an image flashed through her mind: luscious fruit that wasn’t fruit, but rather, raw eggs disguised as fruit. “What’s it made from?”

  Marcis only smiled. “Why don’t we save that information for another day?”

  “You’re saying I don’t want to know.”

  “I’m saying, don’t ask the Tovar. He’ll have to tell you.”

  Her laugh slipped out without permission, but it felt good. She handed him his empty tin. “Thank you, Marcis.” Tears welled: the happy kind this time. “For everything.”

  “Of course.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but at that moment Logan threw open the door and a half dozen women entered in a flurry of brown robes and gloves, carrying trays of food. Jennica quickly slipped the veil over face, and in just moments, the women had cleared the table of the previous night’s remnants and reset it with enough food to feed a family for a week. A stack of pastel-colored clothing appeared next to Jennica on the bed, alongside a hand mirror and a hairbrush. A small basin of water materialized on the bedside table. And as quickly as the figures had appeared, they were gone. Except for Logan, who took up his post by the door.

  “Try to stand, Jennica,” Marcis said.

  She pushed herself off the bed, gritting her teeth in anticipation of the pain. There was none. She stood.

  “You should walk. As much as you can tolerate, and then walk some more.”

  “Where? Where can I walk?”

  Logan and Marcis exchanged a look Jennica didn’t understand. “You’ll have to walk in this room. For now. Until permission for other arrangements is granted,” Marcis said. “Come. Eat something. The cocodrilli eggs will mend the tears in your muscles.”

  He shook a bowl piled with those raw eggs masquerading as fruit. Then he unrolled a paper-thin sheet of meat resembling prosciutto and waved it in front of her. All of a sudden, the room smelled like Costa’s Deli back home. She swiped at the drool on her lips before it embarassed her.

  “Aniello. It will give you strength and endurance. All Noble’s soldiers have two servings a day. We eat so much, the livestock breeder moved onto the castle grounds.”

  “He’s right, Nobless,” Logan piped up. “I’d’a never made it through our combat tests without extra helpings of aniello. Pathetic and weak when I didn’t get enough. But look at me now.” He flexed his biceps like he was posing for a Mr. Universe comp
etition.

  Jennica scanned the enormous man standing at the door with his silver chin and gray buzz-cut hair. He was quite the specimen. She couldn’t imagine Logan ever feeling pathetic or weak—he stood at least six foot four, with the physique of a football player. Only he didn’t look like he’d need shoulder pads or gear; they appeared to be already a part of him, underneath his skin. The body she was in was doll-sized in comparison. Maybe Logan’s form had been manipulated, like her feet. His broad shoulders made of metal. It wouldn’t surprise her.

  Well, if aniello had helped Logan survive Tortare boot camp, she’d consume as much as she could. Behind her veil, she tore into the food, although she steered clear of the cocodrilli eggs. Maybe if she knew what a cocodrilli was . . . she’d have to remember to ask Damen. He’d tell her anything she wanted to know, even if the truth hurt. She wondered how his foot was feeling today.

  Logan and Marcis leaned against the door and watched her devour three plates of food before she slowed down. She muffled a burp behind a greasy hand.

  “I was kinda hungry.”

  “I’d say.” Logan laughed. “Never seen a girl eat like a por—” Marcis elbowed him in the ribs.

  “It’s okay. I did eat a lot.” Her stomach gurgled its approval. “Is this where I clean up?” She walked purposefully over to the basin, deliberately picking her feet up and setting them down as she went. No more shuffling across the floor. Walking was liberating, thanks to the magical salve. Her spirits sank when she looked down into the basin: a thin layer of flower petals floated like cornflakes on a miserly inch of water. She wished aloud for a shower.

  “A shower?” Marcis asked.

  “Sorry. We have them back home. Water sprays down from above you to help you get clean. This little bit of water isn’t going to be nearly enough to scrub off five days’ worth of stench.” She smelled like a dog in a pen—hot and musky, stale sweat underneath fresh.

  “What you need is a soak. Command us to bring you a balneum.”

  “Won’t a soak wash away the salve?”