13. Hector

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HECTOR

I 'd expected barracks, gruel, the scent of sweat and fear.

Though I'd never lived to see war, I read enough, and the southern man near the border?—

I shuddered. I'd killed that man. His blood was on my hands, and I still hadn't figured out whether I was meant to be proud or horrified, but at the very least, it'd brought the horror I could expect on the wall into stark relief.

And then, I'd been set up in a comfortable and well-appointed room, with a window overlooking a garden that had no place on the front lines. It felt like a dream. I was too tired, too dazed, to make any sense of it, but surely it would start to make sense in time.

A night's sleep did me little good, admittedly, because I hadn't slept well.

I was nervous, unsure what to expect next, so when I woke in the morning, I prepared for the day and assured myself that tomorrow—tomorrow I'd feel more at ease.

A knock on the door came as I was fastening my boots.

When I opened the door, Killian was standing there. "You look tired."

Wonderful. That was precisely the impression I wanted to make on a man I admired, who looked exactly like a man ought to after sleeping in his own bed for the first time in weeks.

No, he looked better. I'd never seen any man with features as straight and striking, or hair like a white silk curtain.

I waved a hand between us to dismiss the very idea. "It was a long journey."

His brow rose higher.

"And it takes me a while to settle into a new place," I continued.

It rose higher still.

But I'd be damned if I were going to tell him that I still hadn't figured out how to settle in Hawk lands or that I hadn't slept particularly well since Father's passing—less well still after fleeing Urial while poison still worked its way through my body.

"I'm fine," I insisted, swallowing down the urge to cough that so often took me first thing in the morning.

Killian's pursed lips said he remained unconvinced, but he was kind enough to move on. "There's someone I'd like you to meet if you're ready for the day?"

He looked past me, as if a heap of belongings and chores might've manifested there overnight.

"Of course," I said, smiling. "Lead on."

The man he'd wanted to introduce me to was a smith—a large man with rough hands and missing fingers, ruddy cheeked from the heat. His name was Abram, and he sized me up in a way that reminded me far too much of the shrewd glare of King Albany.

"You know how to swing a hammer?"

I sucked in my cheeks. "I must admit, I've rarely had occasion to, but I'm a quick study."

"In Urial you are a . . . ?"

"Lord. I . . . mostly managed my family's holdings."

Abram made a quiet sound that I struggled not to take as disappointment. "Well, we'll see how you do."

That was it—I was to be a smith.

I supposed it wasn't the worst way to earn my keep on the wall.

That simply, I fell into step. Abram began to work, and I shadowed him, doing my best to offer up tools he needed before he asked for them. More than once, he'd narrowed his eyes at me and asked, again, if I was familiar with this sort of work.

Truly, I wasn't—or not beyond the passing familiarity of any lord who'd taken his horse to the farrier— but the processes took on patterns that made sense.

"Have you always been a weapon smith?" I asked Abram over a break. We stepped away from the scorching forge and sat on a low wall outside, eating strips of dried meat. "Is that how?—"

Despite myself, I glanced down at his hand. I'd been fixated the whole day, concerned that it was the missed swing of a hammer that'd crushed the digits.

Abram had softened up quickly, and now his laugh was loud and boisterous. "No, boy. Lost these on the wall. But I've spent my time at the forge since then. Years. It's dangerous work, but if you keep your eyes open and your head on straight, you should keep all your parts."

"I'll do my best," I promised, but for some reason, the knowledge that he'd lost his fingers to fighting picked at me all afternoon.

Just as the sun began to turn the sky a burnished orange, Orestes showed up at the open front of the forge. "Hawk owl!"

I looked up, wiping the hair from my sticky forehead with the back of my wrist.

I'd never kept my hair as long and luxurious as Paris had, but in the heat of the forge it was both too long and too short. When I pulled it back in a strap of leather, the relief of a breeze was marred by locks of hair that fell from the binding and plastered onto my skin.

Orestes, grinning, folded his arms and leaned against the tall counter where Abram usually took his orders. "I thought you might like to train again, if the old man hasn't worn you out."

Abram scoffed, but the workday was winding down, the fires in the forge stifled, the tools put in their proper places. It'd been a hard day, and the heat and weight of the hammer both had made me sweaty, but I felt ill-at-ease in my own skin, and I could stand to work out some of my anxiety.

"Are we finished?" I asked Abram.

He nodded. "Go on. Try not to bruise the behemoth too badly."

But on the training yard, I was even more helpless than I'd been when we were on the road.

Every fumble, every smack of the blunt side of Orestes's spear to punctuate an opening I'd left, ratcheted my frustration higher.

"You're clumsier than usual today," Orestes said as he stepped back from a bout and returned his spear to a ready position. His lips were tilted in a smirk. "Upset about something?"

It hit me all at once, the shame bubbling up and making space for a sharp awareness of all my failings so far.

"Years," I ground out between my teeth.

"I'm going to need you to elaborate a bit."

"My mentor. He served on the wall for years before he became a smith."

" Ah , Abram? Good man. I take it you're not pleased with your assignment?"

"I—" That brought me up short. "It isn't Abram. It's not even the work." I liked the work—the tools, the intricacies, thinking through the problems presented. It was meticulous—the kind of projects I could throw myself into almost meditatively.

"Okay, so it's..." Orestes held a hand out, inviting me to elaborate.

With a huff, I shoved the butt of my spear into the ground. The impact reverberated up the shaft and through my arm.

"Am I really so useless?"

"You think smithing is useless?"

"No!" It was interesting, hard work. No Crane could fight this war without a decent weapon. "But I haven't—I haven't served my time. The Crane doesn't trust me in a fight. I'm a child who's been put in the corner so I don't distract the others."

Orestes rolled his eyes. " The Crane —Killian," he corrected almost instantly, as if the formality were anathema to him, "is giving you the chance to familiarize yourself with our tools and ways. There's not a soldier serving who was shoved up onto the wall on his very first day."

"But Killian doesn't think I can fight at all! This isn't about learning or preparing. It's about—" I grimaced. "He's getting me out of the way."

"He's ensuring that our defenses are solid. It's war. Every part of our army needs to work together."

"And I don't fit. I'm a weak point."

Orestes frowned. "That's not what I said?—"

With a curse, I snatched up my practice spear and stabbed its blunt tip into the sand. "You didn't have to." My jaw ached from clenching my teeth, my shoulders were tight, and there was no way I was going to manage the long, fluid movements the Crane Clan fought with. "I'm done for today."

I turned and marched off the training grounds and back to my room. Rest would, perhaps, make this feel better.

At the very least, making myself scarce might convince me I wasn't a bit of grit in the bottom of everyone's boot.