Chapter 204: Two Kinds of Sweat

Chapter 204: Chapter 204: Two Kinds of Sweat

The sun inside the space never burned hot, but by mid-morning Penelope’s shirt was stuck to her back anyway, and she had developed a personal grudge against the row of tomato seedlings in front of her.

"Deeper," Aunt Lucy said, crouching beside her with dirt up to her elbows. "Bury them up to the first set of leaves. The stem grows roots anywhere it’s covered."

"That feels wrong. You’re burying the plant."

"I’m burying the stem. It’ll thank you for it."

Penelope pressed another seedling into the trench and packed soil around it with more force than necessary. Down the row, Dahlia was doing the same with visibly less patience, her dark hair knotted at the back of her head, a smear of mud across one cheekbone, her fingernails a ruin.

"I want it noted," Dahlia said, without looking up, "that I once held a knife to a man’s throat in a room full of his bodyguards and never sweated like this."

"Noted," Aunt Lucy said, amused. "Space the next row a hand’s width wider."

"Whose hand?"

"Yours. Ben’s are too big and Mary’s are too small."

Dahlia studied her muddy palm, and then, to Penelope’s surprise, laughed, a short, real sound. "Fine. I accept the assignment."

They had claimed this stretch of the field after the harvest, once the overgrown beds were cleared and the ruined plants turned back into the soil. Aunt Lucy had gone through it slowly, kneeling to crumble the earth between her fingers and sniff it like a sommelier.

"Soil isn’t dirt," she’d told them. "It’s alive. You feed it, you don’t just take from it. We’re going to need compost, and we’re going to rotate what we plant, or the whole field tires out on us."

"How do you know all this?" Penelope had asked.

"Twenty years of a backyard and a very stubborn husband who wanted fresh tomatoes." Aunt Lucy’s smile went soft for a moment before she shook it off. "It’s mostly hobby knowledge. Once the books come home, we’ll do this properly. Until then, you’re stuck with me."

Now, Penelope reached toward the compacted clay at the end of the row, and Ben’s Earth Root answered her, the ground loosening and turning over in a slow ripple.

"Gently," Aunt Lucy said sharply. "You’ll churn everything up. Just break the crust."

"Sorry."

"Don’t apologize. Learn." Aunt Lucy pointed a trowel at Dahlia. "Now you. Water. Not a flood. A slow soak, all the way down the row."

Dahlia lifted her hand, and a ribbon of water rose from the stream and flowed across the field, thin and patient, settling into the trench beside each seedling one by one. Aunt Lucy watched with the quiet approval of a woman who had spent her whole life hauling a watering can.

"That’s perfect. Do you see how it soaks in, instead of running off? That’s what we want."

"It’s a lot more precise than fighting," Dahlia admitted. "You can’t hurry it."

"Nothing worth growing can be hurried."

At the shady edge of the field, Aurora slept in a woven basket, one fist curled beside her cheek. The dragon had appointed himself her guard hours ago, coiled around the trunk of the nearest tree with one ember-colored eye half open. Aunt Lucy had stopped being nervous about it around the third day. "He volunteered," she’d said, and nobody had been able to argue with that.

They worked through another row, and Penelope was arguing with a stubborn stake when a distant, flat crack echoed across the field, followed by another.

She paused, head tilted.

Host.

Oddy’s voice landed in her mind so abruptly that she nearly dropped the stake.

Host, are you occupied? You should not be occupied. You must look at the training field immediately.

What’s wrong? she asked, careful to keep her face neutral.

Nothing is wrong. Everything is magnificent. His voice had climbed half an octave, thrilled beyond his usual measured calm. Your uncle and Aunt Mary are engaged in what I can only describe as a masterwork of violence. Real steel. No powers. The technique is flawless. I have been alive for a very long time and I have rarely witnessed anything so elegant. He has not even taken a sip of the spring water yet, Host. This is him unimproved.

You’re gushing, Penelope thought.

I am appreciating excellence.

You sound like a fan at a concert.

I am a fan. I respect the great, and I shall not apologize for it. Go, Host. Go now. You will regret missing it.

Penelope let out a slow breath. Dahlia, watching her, raised one dark eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing." Penelope set down the stake. "Let’s go check on them. I think they’ve been at it a while."

Dahlia glanced toward the training field, listening to another distant crack. "They’re sparring."

"They’re sparring hard."

Dahlia considered that, then wiped her hands on her trousers. "I’ve never seen my father go all out with someone his own level. Let me get the water."

"Go," Aunt Lucy said, already turning back to the row and shaking her head. "I don’t need to see that. Watch out for flying limbs."

"That’s not funny," Penelope said.

"It wasn’t a joke."

They found the training field at the far end of the space, and Penelope slowed to a stop at the edge of the grass.

It looked nothing like the guys’ friendly sparring match.

Silver and Aunt Mary moved across the packed dirt with a terrible, silent efficiency. Both were armed with real knives, and both were bleeding. A cut ran along Silver’s forearm. Aunt Mary’s lip was split, her hair coming loose from its tie, her sleeves shoved past her elbows. Neither spoke. The only sounds were the scrape of boots on dirt and the sharp intake of breath when a strike landed.

Silver came in low, blade angled at her ribs, and Aunt Mary turned her hip a hair’s breadth, let the steel slide past her, and drove her elbow into his jaw. His head snapped sideways. He recovered instantly, caught her wrist as she followed with the knife, and slammed her back against the ground hard enough to shake dust from the grass.

Penelope flinched. Beside her, Dahlia stood perfectly still, eyes wide.

Aunt Mary rolled, hooked her ankle behind Silver’s knee, and he went down. She was on him before he hit the dirt, her blade at his throat. He twisted, caught her forearm, and turned his own blade inward against her thigh.

They froze there, tangled, chests heaving, each one’s steel pressed against the other’s life.

"Dead," Silver said, flat.

"So are you," Aunt Mary said, breathless. "You telegraph the left with your shoulder. Always have."

"You still leave your right side open when you’re tired."

"I’m not tired."

"You’re winded."

"I’m forty-eight, Silver."

"You look thirty," he said dryly. "It’s confusing my instincts."

A short laugh broke out of her, and it cracked her split lip, and she winced. "God-Father would have broken both my wrists for that opening."

"Father would have broken both of mine for the shoulder."

They separated slowly, both getting to their feet without help, and it was only then that Silver’s eyes lifted and landed on the two girls standing at the edge of the field.

"Finished with the garden?" he asked, wiping blood from his forearm with the back of his hand.

"Aunt Lucy said we’d earned a break," Dahlia managed. "Dad, your arm."

"It’s a scratch."

"It’s bleeding on the grass."

"The spring will fix it." He glanced at Aunt Mary. "Again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," she agreed, pressing the back of her wrist against her lip. "And you’re leading with your right next time. I want to see if you remember how."

Penelope stared at the two of them, one bleeding from the arm, the other from the mouth, and something in her chest went strange and warm. She had known Aunt Mary her whole life, all the kitchen mornings and the extra plates and the soft hand on her hair. She had never once seen this woman put a man on the ground and hold a knife to his throat and laugh about it afterward.

Host, Oddy whispered, reverent. I may need to lie down. Metaphorically.

Please don’t, Penelope thought.

It was a sublime spar. I shall remember it always.

You’re impossible.

I am devoted.

Aunt Mary caught her staring and smiled, crooked around the swollen lip. "Close your mouth, dear. You’ll catch flies."

"You could have killed him," Penelope said faintly.

"We both could have killed each other. That’s the point." Aunt Mary tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "It’s the only way to remember what it’s for. Come here. I want you two to hold the bandages while we walk to the spring."

"Doesn’t the spring water heal everything?" Dahlia asked.

"It does." Aunt Mary gave her a look of pure, unrepentant satisfaction. "But it’s much more fun to have someone fuss."

Silver made a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh in any other man, and the four of them started across the field toward the water, the afternoon light going gold over the ground where they’d just tried, very hard, to kill each other.