Page 27 of The Silversmith

The thin layer of snow from days before had melted. For once, the dead grass of the clearing was almost dry save for a light layer of frost, and the sky was clear of harrowing clouds. I wanted to take it as a sign. Perhaps the gods were on our side.

We ate a large and quiet breakfast because all but Smyth seemed too preoccupied with staring and silently assessing my state of mind instead of partaking in their normal banter. They meant well, but I felt like a child whose dog just died, and every family member was waiting for me to burst into tears.

My stomach churned when we left the house and made our way through the clearing. I stopped at the edge of the forest with my back to the others, who walked on. Only Smyth stopped when I stopped.

My limited memories were all in that house: joyful, terrible, everything in between. As long as that house stood, I had the ability to return to it. To hide. But I was so damn tired of hiding, of starving my body and soul. Even if that meant walking right into the unknown world before me.

“I want to burn it down,” I told him. “All of it.”

He said nothing, only nodded in silent understanding before removing the knapsack from his shoulder and digging around inside, eventually withdrawing two full bottles of clear liquor.

It took effort not to ask why he carried all of it with him. Didn’t seem necessary, but neither was prying.

He uncorked one of the bottles, strode over to the house, opened the door, and disappeared inside. Moments later, the sound of shattering glass echoed through the clearing. Even the frigid, whipping wind wasn’t powerful enough to drown out the noise.

He burst through the back door of the house and entered the barn, where he stuffed a rag into a half-empty bottle, held a lit match to the end, and tossed it inside. The glass shattered, and the flames rose. There was enough hay and dried wood in that barn that it wouldn’t take long to burn to ashes.

From behind us, I heard Gemma gasp. Ezra cursed, Caz and Finn remained silent, and that was all we heard out of them. Maybe they recognized I needed this. Anyone trying to move on from being completely trapped would need this. It had been a home, but it had also been a prison.

I watched as Smyth prepared another bottle and rag on his way over to me. I recognized both from the kitchen and Phillip’s old liquor stash, respectively. I expected him to light and throw it himself like he had with the barn. But this time, he placed the tools in my hand, gave me the lit match, and said in a deep, steady voice, “Then burn, it shall.”

My eyes widened at the flame dancing dangerously on the tip of the match in my fingers. Heat and flame and light. I lit the rag and, before it could burn me, tossed it inside the threshold of the house where Smyth had poured the rest of his liquor.

The moment I let go, Smyth took my shoulders in his strong, commanding grip and backed me away from the flames. I felt the heat rise up, drawing out tears from my eyes that burned with relief, not sorrow.

I didn’t want to be the numb, fragile girl that house had belonged to. With it gone, I didn’t have to be.

Still, when we reached the edge of the clearing, back to the flames, I found myself pausing at the edge, terrified of all that lay before me. The others had gone ahead without realizing I’d stopped, but again, Smyth noticed.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” I shuddered, gulping. This: walking into those woods. Facing my mother, meeting Simeon, marrying Elias Winterton, and being whatever idyllic queen Alistair Winterton and his people expected me to be. Confronting Molochai after learning to fight in the first place. I was not a leader. I was not a fighter. I didn’t know what I was.

“You can.” He offered me his hand. And a smile, unexpectedly soft and encouraging, tugged at the corners of his mouth. I sucked in a breath. The first warm and true smile he’d shown me. It was breathtaking. “I’ll help you.”

His promise tore the breath from my lungs. This scarred man with his unflappable, coarse exterior was here to guide me, show me. His unexpected comfort filled the cracks of my spirit with molten silver. Shaped by him, I’d be much harder to break.

“Ella.”

My heart leapt once at that name, and again when I matched his gaze. No one had called me Ella before, but… I liked it—a name that was mine and his. Separate from all this.

He nodded toward his hand, his next words a promise. “Whatever it takes.”

I let him take my hand in his unwavering grasp, and I believed him.

Chapter nine

Hues of green surrounded us on all sides, the trees so tall in places I had to stretch to find where they ended, up, up, up into the sky. A thin blanket of frost crunched beneath every cautious step I took. Mercifully, that caution waned—as the morning sun peaked higher above the horizon—and disappeared entirely when I could turn back and no longer see even the faintest wisp of smoke from the fire we’d started.

My old home. Reduced to ashes.

I imagined Phillip and Oliver, their souls flying free on the wind. I could feel their contentment, their peace, in the powerful sigh of the early-winter air.

As if Phillip was released from his vices. As if he whispered to me, “Be free.”

Indeed, I focused on the world around me and tried to be just that. The sun blinded and warmed me as I walked underneath breaks in the forest canopy, as it reflected off the icy sheen coating the ground.

Ezra and the Sinclair brothers found humor in my childlike awe of new things. That first day, I saw a lynx and a grizzly bear. The latter from afar because, upon spotting it, Smyth gripped my arm and led us all in the opposite direction—to go around, he said. He didn’t seem afraid of the bear, but irritated. As if he could kill it like he did the wolf in the barn, but it was still an inconvenience. I resisted when he pulled me away, just so I could stare at the creature. The bear was huge. Finn guessed it was pregnant.

We saw a moose, plenty of rabbits and squirrels. Gemma claimed it wouldn’t be long before we saw black bears too. Oliver and I had been allowed to watch from the window when animals were present, but venturing outside had been prohibited. Where there was prey, there would always be a predator.