Rise of a Fallen Man (A Look in the Mirror #2)

Chapter 1

Salas

“ T his way, son. In the bucket it goes.” Father directed the heavy sword blade that required two pairs of tongs to hold toward the barrel of water.

Gripping the handles of my tongs with both hands, I strained my muscles and bared my teeth from the effort. The water bubbled and hissed as we plunged the hot metal in it.

“Well done, Salas,” Father said after we had finished for today.

He wiped his sweaty brow with his thick forearm. And I mimicked his gesture, wiping my forehead with my sleeve. The pounding of horse’s hooves against the packed dirt road came from behind the workshop.

“Mother is back.” Father took my leather apron from me. “Go check on the pie and see if she needs help to unload. I’ll close up the shop for the night.”

“Yes, Father.” I took off my work gloves and placed them on the shelf by the door before leaving.

“And fetch some wine from the cellar, boy,” Father shouted after me. “She likes a glass of wine after a long day at the market.”

I dashed into the main room of our log house. With a large hearth in the center, this space served as a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room all at once. A square wooden table took most of the space in front of the river-rock hearth. I’d already set it up with the earthenware bowls and carved wood spoons for our dinner.

There were just three people in our family. I was an only child. Mother said there had been a time when she wished to have more children, but the gods decided otherwise. Sometimes, I wished to have a brother who’d share the chores with me. But when I worked with Father at the forge, I loved having his undivided attention.

After taking the rabbit pie out, I set it on the table. The thudding of hooves and clanking of metal grew louder in the yard.

“Stand still, you demon!” Mother yelled at the horse.

She sounded frustrated, clearly needing help out there. Leaving the wine in the cellar, I ran into the yard to help before her frustration would blow into anger. She wasn’t a cruel woman, but got angry and snappy at times, especially when she was tired.

“Greetings, Mother.”

I grabbed the reins of our horse. He shook his head, impatient to get the harness and the collar off.

“Oh, there you are, Salas.” Mother looked exhausted but relieved to have help.

Children’s laughter came from the road on the other side of the house. My ears almost twitched with excitement resonating through my chest. A year ago, I’d be running out there, too, to play tug or hide-and-sick with the neighbors’ kids.

But once I’d turned twelve, Mother decided I was too old to go outside unchaperoned, especially since some families on our street had girls my age.

“Girls are nothing but temptation and trouble,” she’d said. “You better stay home, my boy, keep your father company, and learn the trade. People like to wag their tongues and make stories out of nothing. If you’re home, no one can say a single bad word about you. This way, it’d be easier for you to find a good woman to marry when the time comes.”

There were a few boys my age on our street who were still allowed to play outside. None of them were as tall as me, though.

The last time I had gone to the market with Mother, a customer ran her gaze up and down my body and smacked her lips.

“Are you looking for a wife for that one already?” she asked.

“No. He’s way too young,” Mother snapped before sending me to sit in the wagon, out of sight.

“Couldn’t be that young.” The woman laughed. “He’s as tall as me.”

“He’s barely twelve. Hey, how about this sword for your husband?” Mother grabbed a weapon, turning the blade to reflect the sunshine.

The woman ignored her, staring at me as I tried to hide in the wagon by folding my legs under me. All my limbs seemed to have grown way too long lately. Mother often complained about how fast I was growing out of my clothes.

“Twelve, you say? What are you feeding him to grow that big? My husband is twenty-seven. But I bet your boy would wrestle him to the ground before we could even blink. Look at those arms of his!”

Mother huffed, losing her patience.

“Here.” She grabbed another sword. “This one is nice and light. Perfect for your puny husband, who can be so easily overpowered by a twelve-year-old boy.”

Ever since that day, she’d stopped bringing me to the market or letting me play outside. As much as I loved spending time with Father, sitting at home got boring sometimes. It didn’t help that I didn’t even understand the reasons for Mother’s worries. How could girls mean trouble for me? Boys were more likely to start a fight.

A peal of girly laughter trickled from the road into the yard. It tugged at something inside me. I wished I could be playing with the others out there, but the pull was deeper than that, like a twist of longing for something I couldn’t name.

“How was the market?” I tied the horse to a hitching post.

“Good, good.” Mother ran a hand over her face. “I sold a lot. There isn’t much left to unload. Leave it for your father to deal with.” She waved a dismissive hand at the horse and the wagon. “Make me some tea instead, will you?”

“Sure.” I ran back into the house ahead of her.

As she entered with slow, heavy steps, I filled a metal pot with water and set it on the fire to boil, then grabbed a porcelain tea set from the glass cabinet. The set was a part of Father’s dowry and had Mother’s favorite teacup that we didn’t take out very often. I hoped it’d cheer her up to drink from it tonight.

“Father told me to fetch some wine too.” I made a move toward the trapdoor to the cellar dug under the floor, but she stopped me.

“Leave the wine for now, my boy. Tea is great.” She folded her tall frame into the armchair at the head of the table.

Mother was a large woman—tall, strong, and solid. She lifted the crates with heavy swords as easily as any man I knew. I once saw her stop a running horse in its tracks.

The last time she’d slapped me, it was for dropping a pot on her foot. My hands were covered in flour after kneading the dough. The pot slipped from my fingers and hit her foot. She swore and swatted me aside as if I were a fly. Propelled by the impact of her blow, I’d hit our kitchen table and shoved it all the way to the wall.

“Watch it, boy,” she’d growled, limping out into the yard.

That limp was gone the next day. Mother was strong as a bear and healthy as an ox. Until just a few weeks ago, she’d unload the wagon and tend to the horse all by herself after spending the entire day at the market. Today, she slumped in her chair, waiting for me to get her tea ready. She breathed heavily, as if lifting an anvil, even as she just sat there, not moving a limb.

Father came in, wiping his hands on a clean cloth.

He hugged Mother’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “How did it go?”

“Good.” She patted his hand before reaching into the pocket of her skirt. “Here.” She dropped a leather purse on the table. It landed heavily, thick with coins clinking inside. “They really liked those hunting knives you made. The arrow heads sold well, too, like always. There isn’t much to unload, but the horse needs to be tended to.”

“I’ll do it,” he said, heading out into the yard.

“Your tea, Mother.” I filled her cup. “The meat pie is ready if you’re hungry. Or do you want some sweets and cookies with your tea instead?”

Her asking for tea at dinnertime confused me. She usually had it after work in the afternoon, often when other women from the village came to visit or her friends from the Blacksmith Guild dropped by. Then I served them tea with cookies, jams, and meat sandwiches. For dinner, we usually had a stew, a roast, or a meat pie. Now, I wasn’t sure what to serve her.

“No. Just tea for now, Salas. Tea is good.” She leaned back in the chair and stretched her legs in front of her. “Help me take these boots off, will you? My head spins when I bend down.”

I kneeled by her feet and pulled her short, worn boots off one by one.

“Ahh,” she exhaled, as I gave her feet a quick rub to relax her a little. “You’re a good boy, Salas. Strong. Hardworking. Kind. All you need is a good woman who would appreciate everything you have to offer.” She sighed heavily. “If only—” A rough, coarse cough cut off her words.

She bent over, coughing so hard, as if trying to hack a passage in her throat for her next breath. Her shaking hand rummaged in the pocket of her skirt before pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it to her lips.

“Mother...” My voice came out small. I wasn’t used to seeing her weak like this.

Fear wormed its way into my chest. Mother had always been the epitome of strength to me. Father might be slightly taller and considerably wider in shoulders than her, but he was softer at heart. He would often keep quiet, while Mother was never afraid to speak up.

“Mother?” I placed a hand on her shoulder, wishing I could stop her body from shaking from her chest-ripping cough. “What can I do to help? More tea?”

I moved the cup a little closer to her.

She waved a hand at me between the bouts of convulsions.

“Go—” she squeezed out in an altered, strangled voice. “Go, boy... Help your father outside.”

I took a step toward the door, torn between the need to obey her and the fear of leaving her alone like that.

“I...”

“Go, I said,” she snarled, wiping her lips with her handkerchief.

Bright red stains bloomed on the beige linen of the handkerchief. My fear turned into a lead-heavy ball of dread in my chest.

“Go, Salas.” She waved a hand at me, looking deadly tired. “Just go, will you? I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Her voice turned soft. Pleading. I’d never heard her speak like this before, and it terrified me even more.

I turned on my heel and ran.

DURING THE LONG MONTHS of Mother’s sickness, her body lost most of its bulk. The strong, solid woman I knew most of my life had melted down to just a wick of her former self. She’d turned thin and frail. With her skin paled, she’d look like a ghost if it weren’t for the feverishly bright red spots on her cheeks.

As the village’s healing witch shook her head, talking to my father in a subdued voice, I gathered the bloodied pieces of cloth from around Mother’s bed, then gave her a clean one.

“Salas,” she said, her voice sounding like a rustle of a breeze in fallen leaves. I had to lean closer and strain my hearing to catch her words. “Bring me a piece of paper and a quill. I need to write a letter,” she explained, answering my questioning stare. “I’ll be gone soon—”

“No, Mother,” I interrupted her. She was weak. She might look like a corpse already, but my childish optimism still made me believe my parents were invincible. They had to be. She and Father were my world. What was life supposed to be without one of them? “You’ll get better.”

She lifted a hand, stopping me while fighting another bout of a body-shaking cough.

“I will be gone soon,” she repeated after the coughing fit had finally subsided. Every word was a struggle for her, and I didn’t interrupt her this time, not wishing to force her to repeat. “I’ve been trying to make sure that you’re taken care of. You and your father will be alright. I promise.”

My wishes and prayers for Mother’s life proved useless. She died, no matter how well father and I took care of her.

It was a sunny but frigid day when she passed. The weather remained freezing the day of her funeral too. The villagers had to burn bonfires for the entire night prior to thaw the ground enough to dig a shallow grave.

The priestess of the Great Goddess Nus said a few words over the casket. She spoke about Mother being a well-respected woman, an honorable business owner, a long-standing member of the Blacksmith Guild, a wife, and a mother, survived by her loyal husband and son.

Father stood by the gaping hole of the grave, silent and grim. His eyes remained dry. He didn’t cry. But a ripple of reflection ran over his large body with a shudder now and then.

I’d cried so much in the past few days, I had no tears left either. They just burned now in my chest like a ball of inextinguishable fire.

I held Father’s hand in mine, watching the reflection momentarily discolor them both into the grays and browns of the surrounding landscape.

Father was scared, and so was I. What would happen to us with Mother gone?

Her younger sister came down from the mountains for Mother’s funeral. She glared at Father and me from across the open grave.

My aunt was a tall, broad woman, just like my mother. The similarity between them was so strong, it made my heart ache.

While the priestess spoke, the aunt sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. After the priestess had finished and the first shovelfuls of dirt hit the pinewood lid of Mother’s casket, the aunt left, not sparing me or Father another glance.

People came by to offer us their condolences and to shake Father’s hand. Eventually, everyone left. Only Father and I still stood over the freshly filled grave. Frost in the air bit my face. Cold wind seeped through my coat and woolen pants.

“Let’s go home, Father.” I tugged at his hand.

He squeezed my fingers in his. “That house is no longer ours, Salas.”

With a shiver running through his body, his skin and clothes changed their color, reflecting the frozen hill and the black stones of the cemetery. He turned nearly invisible, blending into our surroundings to hide from the world. Now that it was just me and him, he no longer had to keep his fear at bay, and the fear urged him to hide.

I’d rarely seen Father reflect before. Granted, when Mother was alive, he had fewer reasons to feel fear or shame that caused reflection . But I also reflected far less than other children did. Mother had wondered if I was less sensitive than most. But Father had told her that the men in his family generally reflected less than normal, even when they were genuinely scared.

Now Father must be terrified, turning practically invisible against the bright winter day.

“Why can’t we keep the house, Father?” I asked, squeezing his hand tighter.

His broad chest expanded with a deep breath as he took control of his emotions once again. The reflection passed, allowing his image to solidify again.

“Your aunt owns both the shop and the house now. Like the law says, ‘the next living female relative...’” He rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s always hated me. Their whole family does. Your mother came from a well-to-do family up in the mountains, Salas. And I was a nobody when she met me, the fifth son of a goat shepherd with nothing to my name. My parents couldn’t even scrape enough for a dowry. But your mother married me, anyway.”

“That’s not true. You had a dowry,” I objected. “Our tea set is a part of it.”

He huffed a laugh. It was a sad, miserable laugh, but it was still better than tears.

“That tea set was all my parents had of value. A family heirloom, you see?” Father pulled his hat lower over his head and hiked up his collar to hide from the bitter wind. “The set is your aunt’s now, like everything else. But she didn’t want to keep you. She has three boys of her own. All will need a dowry at some point, and you’d be just another mouth to feed. Her husband also said he’d hate to have more men in the house, so...” He waved a hand in the direction of the village as if rejecting that entire place after they had rejected us.

A heavy feeling pressed on my chest. The house where I’d spent all my life was no longer my home. We had no shelter to get out of this cold.

“What are we going to do?”

Father patted my shoulder reassuringly.

“We’ll go to Lady Lana’s manor, son. She owns everything around here.” He swept with his arm toward the frozen fields that surrounded the cemetery and the dark strip of the forest in the distance. “Surely, she’ll find a place for you and me.” He took my hand again, tugging me along the path toward the road. “Your mother wrote to Lady Lana, asking for her kindness. The lady agreed to take you in as a companion for her son. He’s about the same age as you.”

I’d never been to a lady’s manor. Living in one seemed exciting.

“What does it mean to be his companion? What will I have to do?”

“It’s kind of like being his friend,” Father explained. “You’ll play with the little lord, sit in the lessons with him, learn everything they teach him.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “To read the right books, to dance, and to fence with a sword like a gentleman.”

“I know my way with a sword already. You taught me.”

“It’s not the same.” Father shook his head, huddling into his coat against the wind as we left the cemetery behind. “Noble folks have their own ways of doing things. When they teach you, you’ll learn how to act just like them.”

“What for?”

“For your future, boy. You’ll have a chance of a better marriage if you speak and act like a highborn. If you gain Lady Lana’s favor, she’ll find you a good wife and may even offer a dowry for you. You’ll have a chance at a much better life than any man in our family ever had, son.”

I hadn’t met a noble lady before. I had no way of knowing whether marrying one would be a good thing, but Father seemed to think it was. His face lit up with hope, and I didn’t question it.

“And you, Father? What will you do when I get married? Will you stay with me and my new family?”

He grunted uncertainly, then tugged his coat closer around him.

“I’ll be around,” he replied evasively. “But you’re getting way ahead of yourself, boy. Let’s just get there first.”

The road ran down the hill. My boots slid on the hard, frozen dirt mixed with ice and snow. Freezing wind pelted my cheeks and nose, no matter how hard I tried to hide my face in my coat. But Father’s hope proved contagious. Huddling into the coat I’d already outgrown since the last winter, I hurried along, lured by the promise of a better life.