Eventually he eased out of me and pulled me against him, tucking me onto his chest like I belonged there.
I did.
15
LORKIN
Metal made sense.
You heated it. You struck it. It changed shape.
It didn’t ask why. It didn’t want anything from me except force and attention, and I had both to spare. There were plenty of things in the world that I didn’t understand. Metal wasn’t one of them.
I brought the hammer down again, and sparks scattered across the dirt floor.
The forge was hot enough to make sweat run down my back under my shirt. The fire burned low and red in the belly of the furnace, throwing light over the walls, the tools, and the soot on my arms. Everything was where it belonged.
That should have been enough.
It usually was.
But I kept thinking about Kazan.
I’d driven out to the orchard two days ago with a load of milled timber and found him in his kitchen. Kazan. The Bastion. The man who’d held a transport hold against forty Protos marines with one arm broken and blood running into his eyes.
He was catching figs.
Maisie tossed them at him, and he caught them like there was nothing else in the world he needed to do. He wore a flannel shirt. His tail moved slowly behind him, content as anything I’d ever seen.
It was wrong.
Or it should have been.
I’d told myself that was weakness.
A warrior gone soft. A man forgetting what kept him alive.
I’d told myself that more than once.
But Maisie wasn’t what I’d expected either. I’d thought she’d be fragile. Humans usually were. Small, breakable things with too much fear and not enough sense to survive the places they ended up.
I shoved the blade into the slack-tub. Water hissed, steam rising between me and the door. For a moment, there was only heat and iron and the familiar stink of the forge.
I was alone.
That was as it should be.
The terminal on the wall pinged.
I ignored it.
The box was bolted to the wall near the workbench because Remmen had insisted. There were timber orders. Repair requests. Supply notices. Proof we were all respectable citizens of New Knossos and not a camp full of men one bad day away from trouble.
It pinged again.
Then a third time.
I set the tongs down harder than necessary and crossed the shop, wiping one hand on my apron. Whoever wanted a plow blade by next week could wait. Whoever wanted timber could wait longer.
