The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)(87)

Now Benn plied his trade in Mairy’s father’s barn, and business was brisk. He bought bags of sand from Messengers out of Fort Krasia, and turned them into things of both function and beauty. The Hollow had never had a blower before, and everyone wanted glass of their own.

Leesha, too, was pleased by the development, and soon had Benn making the delicate components of distilleries shown in Bruna’s books, allowing her to leach the strength from herbs and brew cures far more powerful than the Hollow had ever seen.

Soon after, Benn and Mairy wed, and before long, Leesha was pulling their first child from between Mairy’s legs. Two more had followed in short order, and Leesha loved each as if it were her own. She had been honored to tears when they named their youngest after her.

“Good morning, rascals,” Leesha said, squatting down and letting Mairy’s children fall into her arms. She hugged them tightly and kissed them, slipping them pieces of candy wrapped in paper before rising. She made the candy herself, another thing she had learned from Bruna.

“Good morning, Leesha,” Mairy said, dipping a small curtsy. Leesha bit back a frown. She and Mairy had stayed close over the years, but Mairy looked at her differently now that she wore the pocketed apron, and nothing seemed able to change that. The curtsy seemed ingrained.

Still, Leesha treasured her friendship. Saira came secretly to Bruna’s hut, begging pomm tea, but their relationship ended there. To hear the women in town tell it, Saira kept well enough entertained. Half the men in the village supposedly knocked on her door at one time or another, and she always had more money than the sewing she and her mother took in could bring.

Brianne was even worse in some ways. She had not spoken to Leesha in the last seven years, but had a bad word to say about her to everyone else. She had taken to seeing Darsy for her cures, and her dalliances with Evin had quickly given her a round belly. When Tender Michel had challenged her, she had named Evin the father rather than face the town alone.

Evin had married Brianne with her father’s pitchfork at his back and her brothers to either side, and had committed himself to making her and their son Callen miserable ever since.

Brianne had proven a fit mother and wife, but she never lost the weight she had put on during her pregnancy, and Leesha knew personally how Evin’s eyes—and hands—wandered. Gossip had him knocking frequently on Saira’s door.

“Good morning, Mairy,” she said. “Have you met Messenger Marick?” Leesha turned to introduce the man, only to find he was no longer at her back.

“Oh, no,” she said, seeing him facing off with Gared across the market.

At fifteen, Gared had been bigger than any man in the village save his father. Now, at twenty-two, he was gigantic, close to seven feet of packed muscle, hardened by long days at the axe. It was said he must have Milnese blood, for no Angierian had ever been so large.

Word of his lie had spread throughout the village, and since then the girls had kept their distance, afraid to be alone with him. Perhaps that was why he still coveted Leesha; perhaps he would have done so regardless. But Gared had not learned the lessons of the past. His ego had grown with his muscles, and now he was the bully everyone had known he would be. The boys who used to tease him now jumped at his every word, and if he was cruel to them, he was a terror to any unwise enough to cast their eyes upon Leesha.

Gared waited for her still, acting as if Leesha were going to come to her senses one day and realize she belonged with him. Any attempts to convince him otherwise had been met with wood-headed stubbornness.

“You’re not local,” she heard Gared say, poking Marick hard in the shoulder, “so maybe ya haven’t heard that Leesha’s spoken for.” He loomed over the Messenger like a grown man over a young boy.

But Marick didn’t flinch, or move at Gared’s poke. He stood stark still, his wolf eyes never leaving Gared’s. Leesha prayed he had the sense not to engage.

“Not according to her,” Marick replied, and Leesha’s hopes fell. She started moving toward them, but already a crowd was forming around the men, denying her a clear path. She wished she had Bruna’s stick to help her clear the way.

“Did she say words of promise to you, Messenger?” Gared demanded. “She did to me.”

“So I’ve heard,” Marick replied. “I’ve also heard you’re the only fool in the Hollow who thinks those words mean a coreling’s piss after you betrayed her.”

Gared roared and grabbed at the Messenger, but Marick was quicker, stepping smoothly to the side and snapping up his spear, thrusting the butt right between the woodcutter’s eyes. He whipped the spear around in a smooth motion, striking behind Gared’s knees as he staggered backward, dropping him hard on his back.

Marick planted his spear back on the ground, standing over Gared, his wolf eyes coldly confident. “I could have used the point,” he advised. “You would do well to remember that. Leesha speaks for herself.”

Everyone in the crowd was gawking, but Leesha continued her desperate push forward, knowing Gared, and knowing that it was not over.

“Stop this idiocy!” she called. Marick glanced at her, and Gared used that moment to grab the end of his spear. The Messenger’s attention snapped back, and he gripped the shaft with both hands to pull the spear free.

It was the last thing he should have done. Gared had a wood demon’s strength, and even with him lying prone, none could match it. His corded arms flexed, and Marick found himself flying through the air.