The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga, #1) - G.A Aiken Page 0,17
annoyed! The two of them pretending to speak to each other without words. Just long looks. So annoying!
“So you can hug Mum, but you can’t hug Da?”
“Oh, piss off!”
“That’s it!” their mother snapped before they could get into it again. “I’ll not have my two eldest daughters squabbling like their younger siblings.”
Keeley pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. Another long look passed between her sister and mother, and then her mother said, “Why don’t you go check on the children, Keeley?”
“Because I’m a babysitter now?”
“Keeley!”
Keeley stood and stomped out the back door, making sure to slam it closed.
“That was unnecessary!” her mother yelled after her.
With a sniff, Keeley continued on into the surrounding field where her sisters and brothers were playing. Three of the older ones, two girls and a boy, watched over the much younger pack of wild animals. Screaming, laughing, and pouncing on one another like jungle cats, the offspring of Keeley’s parents continued to grow happy, healthy, and strong. Just as Keeley had.
One of the children spotted Keeley, screamed louder than she had before, and charged over. In seconds, Keeley was tackled and taken to the ground by nine brats that she loved dearly.
Laughing, she hugged and tickled and kissed each one until they became bored and ran off again. Except for one: Endelyon, and she had plans to work with Keeley one day as a fellow blacksmith, which was why Keeley pulled out a tiny steel hammer from her travel bag and handed it to the child.
“Yay!” Endelyon cheered. “My own hammer!”
“Now don’t go attacking your—”
“By this hammer I rule!” she screamed before charging after her older siblings.
“I said no attacking!”
“Always give a child a hammer,” a voice said from behind a tree, “that she can kill her siblings with.”
Getting to her feet, Keeley grinned and walked around the tree.
As she expected, her sister Beatrix sat with her back against the trunk. She wore a bright yellow dress, the skirt spread out around her, along with many books and parchment scrolls.
Keeley relaxed her shoulder against the tree. “We have visitors. If you don’t want to talk to them, you may want to avoid dinner.”
“Gladly.”
“I’ll bring something out for you.” She dug into her bag and pulled out a thick book, handing it over to her sister. “Here.”
Beatrix took the book, glanced at it. “You and your precious philosophies.”
“You’re the only person in the family who likes to talk about philosophy, so yes. I keep getting you books on the subject. That way we can discuss.”
“Yet my philosophies never change.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Keeley admitted. “You’ve never told me what they are.”
Beatrix gave one of her small smiles. “Anything else?”
“Yes. A few letters.” She handed those to her sister as well, but instead of reading them, Beatrix merely tucked them away in a small pocket sewn into her gown. She never opened the many letters she received in front of anyone. But she’d always been a private person. Something Keeley respected.
“So, who are our guests?” Beatrix asked.
“Centaurs.”
Beatrix gave a small chuckle, shook her head. “Listening to Da’s tales again?”
“Something like that.” Still leaning against the tree, Keeley folded her arms over her chest. “Gemma’s back.”
“Gemma who?” she asked, dipping her quill in ink and writing on a piece of parchment.
“Our sister.”
Beatrix’s hand paused over the parchment but, after a second or two, began to move again. “I see. What brings her here?”
“I don’t know. Guilt, maybe?”
“Doubt it.” She glanced up at Keeley. “Perhaps one of her gods sent her.”
“She is a nun now.”
Beatrix let out a surprised laugh. “Really? Did they also sew up her pussy? Because I can’t imagine her no longer using it.”
“Stop.”
“Oh, are we still pretending?”
“She’s still family.”
“And she’s still Mother’s favorite,” Beatrix said. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Beatrix got to her knees, piled her books and papers together in her arms, and got to her feet. Her beautiful yellow dress swirling around her.
“New dress?”
“It’s not as expensive as it looks.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were thinking it.”
Keeley watched her younger sister walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“Away.” She glanced at Keeley over her shoulder. “I’ll be in the feed shed, where it doesn’t smell like shit.”
“Dinner—”
“I’ll eat later.”
* * *
“Then there was the time I met elves,” Keeley’s father went on. “Not a friendly lot. Downright rude. But I liked them anyway.”
“Is there anyone you don’t like?” Caid finally had to ask the man.
“No.”
Caid didn’t know how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to. Keeley entered the stable.