A Dark and Deadly Beauty

The Bread in the Hearth

***Trigger Warning- This chapter shows glimpses of domestic violence.***

Colm uncovered the ceramic bowl and turned the heap of dough out onto the floured counter. It required another good knead before it would be ready for the hearth. His hands worked, rolling and folding, until the dough was pliant and stretchy.

Cooking, Colm thought, was its own kind of magic. Mix barley flour, yeast, ale, honey, and salt…and you had the beginnings of a hoppy, hearty bread with a whisper of sweetness. He reckoned it would bake up into fine loaves for tomorrow’s Yule meal.

In truth, he wasn’t as skilled of a cook as Electra. Her skills with knives extended beyond slicing flesh. She could dice a parsnip in the blink of an eye, chop a joint of meat like a butcher, and filet a fish in seconds. She had inherited their mother’s ability to use just the right amount of salt and herbs, cook it to just the right doneness, and pair it with a side that only enhanced it’s flavor. Colm could hold his own in the kitchen, but Electra was a natural.

Still, he insisted he prepare the bulk of the meal.

Years of being unable to do even the simplest task for himself- dressing, washing, writing or making even a basic meal- had made him a hollow vessel, no different from an empty honey jar or spent bottle of wine. He had resigned himself to laying on his cot, wrapped like a corpse in a shroud, and waiting for the long tears of his fairy life to pass in misery. Then, the Crimson Princess had swept into his life, with a blonde-haired angel at her side- and gave him the chance to live. Now, he was a man renewed. Scarred, yes. But, healthy and whole.

His body was capable again, and he found himself delighting in performing even the most menial chores.

Tilling the earth and using his power to make a garden thrive brought such peace to his weary soul, peace he never had hoped to feel again. Carrying water home to fill the bath taxed muscles he hadn’t used in years, and it made him feel alive. Raking ash from the hearth filled his nose with the scent of char and smoke, and it left him thankful to be able to breathe deeply without fear of pain. Placing a plate of warm, hearty food in front of his sister after she had spent long hours at the Guild Hall flooded him with purposeful satisfaction, and gave him an opportunity to show Electra just how grateful he was for the years of her life she dedicated to his care.

Yule, his first real Yule in years, offered him the chance to use his hands to make the day special for his little sister. He would bake the bread and roast the duck breast that sat preserved in salt on the sideboard. He would stew the vegetables from the garden, onions and kale and carrots that had weathered the crisp temperatures and grown fat and gorgeous on the magic-imbued dirt. He would brew a pot of strong black tea and serve it alongside the apple and raisin pies he had bought from the baker, flavors that reminded Colm of home and warmth and coziness.

He had been relieved when Electra had come thudding through the door in the velvet darkness of midnight a few days past. He had been worried, very worried, when the short mission Electra had sworn would only last a few days stretched into a week. At night, when the cottage was empty of his sister’s restless rustling, he began to fear that instead of planning a Yule luncheon, he would need to plan a wake. Then, she had tumbled in, bruised, stiff, and dirty- and he let out the breath he had been holding for days.

Perhaps he was ridiculous, fretting over Electra brooding about her safety. He was an earth elemental, a farmer whose talents involved rampion and radishes. She was powerful, stronger than a team of oxen and as lethal as a viper's fang.

But, their mother had been powerful,too. Able to whip the wind into a tempest and summon a vortex with the flick of her fingers. And still, Sera Durand had found it necessary to scoop up her son and flee her home, the bustling town of Fra’ell, with a broken face and her drunken husband’s bruising handprints painted on her throat. To protect her children, she found safety in a brothel in a fishing town that was but a minuscule blip on a map- and she never looked back.

Electra had been a babe in Sera’s womb and had no memory of the liquor-fueled cruelty that had made her mother run. But Colm had been a boy, old enough to recall the thump of his father’s fists against his mother’s face, the breathless begging, and the blast of icy air that Sera was able to summon despite her terror that knocked the brute far enough back that she could grab her boy and blow them far, far away.

Colm had learned his first hard lesson about life that night- no matter how powerful you were, there was always someone crueler, more desperate, or vengeful who would find a way to break you.

So, he worried.

He shaped the dough into loaves. One for their table, one he would deliver to Lady Jacinde tomorrow along with a basket of fresh vegetables and bouquet of herbs he had grown. He had been spending some of his days volunteering at the Sanctuary, tending to the lawn and visiting with the fay who had taken up residence there. Or he helped direct folk who came for the children’s clinic the healing Guild held. The days when he worked shoulder to shoulder Jacinde left him feeling muddled and short of breath. She was beautiful, that was certain. But there was something else about her, a certain quality that was just…exceptional.

Her words were sunshine poured into his ear. Her laughter was as ripe as strawberries on a summer’s day. The softness of her smile as she comforted a sick child were like the petals of a blushing rose.

She was light. She was joy. She was everything.

And yet, Colm thought bitterly, all I have to offer her at Yule is a basket of peasant food and this pockmarked face.

The fluffy rounds of dough were on the hearth, and Colm was preparing the cold supper they would share tonight. Some pickled cabbage, hard cheese, and smoked fish. Just as he laid the forks on the platter, the door flew open, bringing in frosty air and his sweaty, stinking sister in her training gear.

“Pah!” Colm waved a hand in front of his nose. “You smell like curdled milk and low tide at the wharf!”

“Sorry,” Electra said, absolutely not sorry at all. “The first years had their first training with real weapons today. I was sparring with this little freckled fellow. Obviously I was pulling my strikes, but I still ended up slicing him a bit. The boy saw one little trickle of blood and puked all over himself- and me. I have never, in all of my years, seen a Warfare fairy grow queasy at the sight of blood.”

She strode through the house and peered over Colm’s shoulder, inching her bloody fingers toward the chunk of fish he had just cut.

“Oi, still your grimy mitts!” He slapped her hand away. “You’re not having a lick of this until you've had a wash.”

“Priss,” she teased. Still, she stalled away to the wash basin and scrubbed her hands and mopped her face. She unbuckled her leather breastplate and set it on the floor. “I’ll need to clean and oil that later, after I’ve had a chance to bathe.” She was eager to wash the stench of vomit from her hair, but the tang of pickled cabbage floating in the air pulled her

growling stomach towards her dinner first.

“How’s the lad now? The one who chucked up all over you.”

“He’ll be fine. Took him to Jacinde to mend his cut and give him something for his troubled stomach.”

“How is Lady Jacinde?”

“She’s fine. Excited to show off her new dress at the feast tomorrow,” Electra answered. She said nothing about the jittery lilt to her brother’s voice when he spoke Jacinde’s name, or how his glossy mahogany antennae flickered when Electra had brought her up. She had long suspected Colm was harboring a schoolboy’s crush on the Healer.

Good, she thought. If he was making room in his life for love, then he truly was recovering from his curse.

They ate in front of the fire, with Colm keeping an eye on his bread, carefully turning the loaves so they baked evenly. With their fingers they broke apart the cheese and shoveled forkfuls of cabbage and fish into their mouths.

“You know what this needs?” Colm mused. “A nice, strong mustard. Like the kind we used to get with sausages from Old Craften’s stall at the docks.”

“Definitely. You can’t find a good mustard in the city for love or money! Been here for how many decades? And every single jar of mustard is ground so finely you can’t even get your teeth into it. There’s no bite, no heat. I should write Mam and ask her to bring us some from Old Craften when she visits.”

“I would die a happy man. Do you fancy some draughts? You don’t have to be awake at the arse-crack of day for once. We can break into some of that wine you bought and see if I can still whoop you.”

“Sure. But,I still need to finish my gifts for the twins, first…” Electra stretched, her stomach full.

Electra had grown closer to Princess Emilia since the scandal of the traitor Princeling rocked the court. Electra had found in Emilia a solid, consistent woman who knew her own mind and protected what was hers. Because Emilia had cured Colm, she had earned Electra’s loyalty. But because Emilia had proven to be authentic in both her kindness and her pragmatism, she had won Electra’s friendship.

Emilia’s children, Kaitrin and Kyrin, had become a bright spot in Electra’s life. The little Prince, with his tender, silver eyes and sweet, toothless smile melted Electra through to her bones. Princess Kaitrin, well… Electra would wager good money that the little Princess would end up with warfare magic. There was something special about the girl, who demanded your attention and brokered no foolishness. Electra couldn’t explain it. The babe was only half a year old, but in her Electra could sense a kindred spirit.

She had made something beautiful for the children, a special gift for their first winter solstice.

Colm smirked. “Take a bath, first. You don’t want to be giving them gifts that reek of a man’s stomach.”

She had shown him the gifts, soft little dolls Electra had sewn by hand.

Weeks ago, she had pulled him into her room and opened up her wooden wardrobe. From the back, she pulled out a pale woolen blanket the color of freshly churned butter. Her own baby blanket, the very one their mother had swaddled Electra in the first time Colm had held her.

“I’ll use this to make rag dolls, like the ones Auntie Tati made for us out of her old dresses. Do you think that’s a gift fine enough for royal babies?” Electra’s voice had been hopeful and hesitant. She wanted so badly to spoil her friends' children, to show love to them the same way they had been shown love.

“If I know the Prince and his wife, they will cherish a doll made by your own hand above any gold or jewels you could give them.”

And last night, when she pulled the near-finished dolls out to show off, Colm had looked at the delicate thread smiles and stitched eyes and knew they would be well loved.

They were so deftly made, soft enough for a baby’s skin but sturdy enough to hold up to the trials of toddlerhood.

They were immaculate.

Of course they were. After all, what is a needle but a tiny sword?