Page 48 of The Blacksmith

His tone hardened. Instinctively, Idalia braced herself for his next words.

“He was a decent man, at times. His skills as a smith are renowned.”

His words were heavy with sadness—or was it anger? Idalia could not tell which.

“But when he drank too much ale . . .”

His hand stopped moving through her hair. He slung it around her shoulder, linking his hands about her, and Idalia braced for his next words.

“He became a different person. Mean. Mocking.”

This was difficult for him. His strained words made that abundantly clear. Wanting, needing, to see his face, she pulled away to look him in the eye. He let her. She encouraged him silently, and he kept going.

“He hit her. So many times. And I did nothing.”

She would not cry.

“I pretended not to hear her cries. Hid outside at her bidding when he was at his worst. I was a coward.”

“You were a child,” she countered.

“I could have told someone, though half the village likely knew.”

“And they’d have done nothing. She was his wife—”

“Exactly.”

Lance had only ever looked at her with kindness, but there was no mistaking the hate in his eyes when he spoke of his father.

“Did he . . .” She swallowed but forced herself to finish. “Did he kill her?”

His bitter laugh was a sound Idalia never wanted to hear again.

“Nay. But he might as well have. He made her life miserable.” He’d been looking above her, off into the distance somewhere, but his eyes lowered to hers. “I was ten and five the night I finally struck back.”

Idalia did not look away.

“Still an apprentice, still young, but strong. Nearly as strong as my father.”

She thought of the muscles in his arms, formed, no doubt, from years of wielding a smith’s hammer, and could only imagine the same was true of his father.

“I’d resolved not to let him touch my mother ever again. There were stretches of months he did not drink. Occasions when he slept in the forge. But I knew it would happen again, and it did. He came home one night smelling of gut-rot, and I knew the time had come.”

Idalia shivered, scared. Though she did not know for whom.

“He’d not expected me to stop him. When I grabbed him from behind, he was stunned at first. I struck him with all of the anger I felt toward him, and despite his size, I knocked him right to the ground.” Lance closed his eyes. “Mother screamed the entire time. Yelled for me to stop, that he would hurt me.” He opened his eyes again. “But he did not. He lay there, holding his jaw. Stunned.”

She would not cry. “What happened then?”

He began to stroke her hair again, almost as if he didn’t realize he was doing it. She sighed, waiting, soaking in the gentleness of this big, strong man.

“I’d imagined the moment for so long, I could hardly believe it had happened the way I planned. But I also knew I could not stay there, could not work with him after that. So I left.”

“You . . . left?”

“Aye.”

“But where did you go?”