Iric blinks but says nothing. Then he turns around and keeps walking.
“You’re a brilliant inventor,” I say as I follow him. “If anyone can come up with a weapon to kill the hyggja, it’s you. The only thing you lack is the ability to swim, and that can be learned! I’m not saying all of this because I want you to die and reach Paradise. I’m saying it because I think it can be done, and I can help you get home to Aros.”
“We’re here,” Iric says. “Mind the circle of traps. Keeps the beasts from running off with my tools.”
Iric said he had a forge, but I wasn’t picturing something quite so large. He’s carved himself a stove out of rock, shaped a chimney out of metal. I spot a bellows made from animal hides and heaping buckets of coal off to the side. He has his own anvil, tools of all shapes and sizes, molds for casting, several good-sized hammers. It’s a full smithy, right here in the wild.
It’s beyond impressive, but if he thinks it will distract me from our conversation, he’s wrong.
“Iric—”
“Why? Why do you care whether I go home or not? Why bring this up at all?”
I try to think of a truthful response that doesn’t make me sound selfish, but one isn’t forthcoming. “Because I need your help in return. I can’t get into the god’s lair while wearing my armor. You’re a smithy. I thought perhaps you could help me build something that wasn’t made out of metal.”
“Ah,” he says.
“But don’t you see? Normally, those who are banished aren’t exiled in pairs. You and Soren have had an advantage, and that’s why you’ve survived so long. I’m only alive because of you two. If we all want to go home, we’ll need to help each other.”
“I don’t think our villages would take kindly to us helping each other.”
“There’s nothing in the rules that forbids it. So long as you’re the one to decapitate the hyggja, Soren is the one to pluck the feather from the otti, and I’m the one that ends the god, who cares who else is involved in the planning?”
Iric doesn’t look convinced. I add, “I think we can do it. You must know I’m serious. I’m willing to put off killing the god to help you complete your quest. I can’t die in any other way than completing my mattugr in order to be greeted into Rexasena’s Paradise. I wouldn’t take this risk unless I thought we could pull this off. I’m not trying to manipulate you. I want to trade. My help in exchange for your help.”
Iric grabs a hammer, examines it as though he suddenly finds it fascinating. “And what about Soren?”
“What about Soren?”
“You would have me complete my quest, help you, and then leave him out here alone?”
I thought they weren’t friends anymore. Iric blames Soren for his banishment. He acts as though he hates him some of the time. Is it all an act?
“If Soren wishes to help us, then we can help him in return as well,” I say. Provided he can find a way to make himself useful to me and my mattugr, that is.
Iric nods. “I will … think on all of this.”
He will?
Inside, I’m exploding, but I keep a smile from my face. “All right.”
Iric returns the hammer to the table.
“I can’t believe you’ve made all of this,” I say, taking in the forge again. “How is it that you trained to be a smithy your whole life, but then the elders let you take the warrior trial?”
“How do you do it in your village?” he asks.
“At the age of eight, we pick a trade. We train for that trade until we’re eighteen. Then we take the trial.”
“Ah. In Restin, we do not need to declare a trade until fifteen. We’re permitted to try all the trades, to train with any we might consider while growing up. We can switch at any time.”
“That doesn’t seem like it would produce adults talented in anything.”
Iric gives me a look like I’m stupid. “Raz, it produces adults with some talent in everything. How else would Soren and I have survived if we didn’t know how to hunt, how to build, how to make our own clothing?”
“You’re right. That was a careless thing to say.” After all, I was groomed for leadership for most of my life, and I was always terrible at it. “Where did you get all of these? Surely you couldn’t have made all of this in the wild?”
“No. There’s a trash heap outside of Restin’s borders. Each time I go to retrieve one of Aros’s letters, I stop by and look for anything useful.”
“Is that where the window in the tree house came from?” It would explain why it was cracked.
“Yes. I’ve been able to repair most of the damaged tools I found while picking through the waste. I discovered a coal deposit not far from here, which serves as steady fuel for fire. Remember, I’ve had a year to make all of this. It didn’t happen overnight.”
“Doesn’t matter. I think it’s brilliant.”
“We’ll see how brilliant you find it after I’ve got you hammering for an hour.”
I can’t actually help with any of the hammering. Just gripping one of the tools has my stomach protesting. I had never realized how connected everything is to the abdomen. Breathing. Walking. Even holding things.
But I watch Iric work. I learn. Iric heats up metal until it is glowing red. He pounds it into shape. He pulls buckets of water from the nearby stream to the forge to cool the metal quickly.
It’s fascinating work to watch.
Honestly, I believe it is a shame that Restin is being deprived of such a talented smithy.
CHAPTER
13
Either Soren doesn’t do nearly as much work as Iric does around here, or he’s suddenly become much quicker at doing it, because he always seems to finish first and find time to come bother me.
Sorry, keep me company.
“Are you hungry?” he asks a few days later.
I look pointedly toward the bucket of berries next to me. “No.”
“Are you cold? I can get you another blanket.”
The sunshine from the window warms my cheeks, and a small fire in the hearth keeps the tree house a perfect temperature. “No.”
“How’s the pain? Do you need—”
“Soren!”
He sits up straight. “What?”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“I’ve already finished. I’m at your disposal.”
I consider telling him I’m tired and wish for quiet, but while the second may be true, the first is a lie. So I settle for a brutal truth. “You’re hovering. It’s driving me mad.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
He ponders that a moment. “When I was ill, I loved it when Pamadel fussed over me.” That must be Iric’s mother.
“She must do it better than you do.”
He gives me a wide grin.
I can’t even make him go away by insulting him. Apparently, I’m too funny about it.
“All right, then,” he says. “What am I doing wrong? How would your mother fuss over you?”
Suddenly my chest feels heavier. My face grows hotter. “She wouldn’t. If she could get away with it, she’d lock me in a room without food or water and let nature run its course.”
That, at least, shuts him up, but it only lasts about a minute.
“Did she have something to do with your banishment?”
I would have thought Iric would have told him what happened, but it would seem he hasn’t shared our conversation. I only told him about Torrin, but if Soren is asking what happened, he doesn’t know any of it.
“Yes, she had a hand in my banishment.”
There’s a hole somewhere under my skin, where Peruxolo’s blade opened me up, but thinking of my mother is a far worse pain. And having shared that pain with Soren? A discomfort so rich shoots up and down my body, making me want to squirm from it. Why did I tell him that? I’m not at my best, injured as I am. I must keep my thoughts to myself. I don’t want his pity or his sympathy or whatever else he’ll likely say.
Soren bends at the knees until he’s crouched in front of me, meeting my eyes. “When you kill Peruxolo, think of the look on her face.”
There’s something about the sincerity and fervor in his eyes that makes my stomach tingle. Something in my mind shifts, and suddenly I’m not in such a hurry to get rid of Soren anymore.