WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

thirty | monstrous

Cole's heart clattered in his chest as he walked up to the front of Ivar's hut. He wrung his hands, chewed his lip and circled back two times before he knocked on his front door. It wasn't that the man was mean in any way – it was just that Cole's topic of conversation wasn't one he wanted to explore, rather needed to.

Ivar's eyebrows lifted when he saw Cole, propping an elbow up against the doorframe. He smiled warmly – that strangely familial smile that made Cole want to impress him or make him proud, which in turn made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. He smiled back.

"Cole! It's nice to see you again."

He nodded, pulling his lip between his teeth as his nerves raced down his back. Again, Cole was reminded of the feeling of electricity when Alistair had kissed him. When he closed his eyes to recollect his thoughts, all he could see was the wing-like shape of Alistair's shoulder-blades and poetic curve of his spine, all covered over in an expanse of alabaster skin, unscarred to a point in which it became almost unbelievable.

Shaking his head, he tried to refocus.

"I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, sir?" Cole asked, and Ivar gestured for him to come inside. He stepped into the room as Ivar hurried over to his workbench, tossing his tools into a large basket. Every surface of his home was covered in tools, scraps of steel, leather bindings – all the ingredients for a fresh weapon.

"Ask me anything. And before I forget, I have something for you," crossing the room, Ivar's intent gaze roamed his weapons, strung up along his walls like decorations, and unhooked a shiny new axe. "Your mother trained you with the axe, am I right? It was her favourite."

Cole gaped as Ivar closed the distance between them, holding up the axe with twinkling eyes. He hovered his hands over the weapon before glancing up for permission, slipping his careful fingers around the throat of the axe only after spotting Ivar's eager nod. It felt perfectly balanced, and Cole slid his thumb over the runes carved into its base – good luck runes, runes for battle, all the symbols needed to make a good weapon. And carved into the bottom of the throat, his mother's symbol.

Just two weeks ago he had spotted Emer's symbol carved into the table of some deserted village, that personal piece of herself that she only dared share with the people she trusted most. Niamh's symbol was different; sharp-edged and overcomplicated, just like her, with overlapping lines and clashing shapes.

Slowly exhaling, he looked up to meet Ivar's glimmering eyes. "It's – it's beautiful."

"Is it? I was going for a more blood-curdling look, but beautiful works too," Ivar crossed his big, inked arms over his chest and raised a brow. "Now, before you forget yourself in awe of my craftsmanship, why don't you ask me those questions?"

Cole nodded quickly, slightly flustered as he fumbled with the axe and recollected his thoughts. "Yes, uh – I'm here to ask about my mother, actually."

Ivar nodded knowingly. "Thought as much. Ask away."

The two of them turned to sit at Ivar's table, pulling up chairs. An old cup of herbal tea sat deserted on the dark-wooded bench and a few crumbs were scattered about from a past meal. Ivar didn't keep his hut very tidy, which felt oddly nostalgic, knowing that neither had his mother when they'd shared a home. Cole cleared his throat and placed the axe down.

He asked the first question that came to mind. "How did you know Niamh?"

Ivar released a hefty sigh and leaned back in his seat. "Ursa and Canale have almost always been allies. Well, had always been allies – your mother would come down for trade deals and deliberations, used to drink us dry, you bear people. Then when Ursa was destroyed, she came to us sometimes seeking support for Galanthus."

"So you were friends?"

Ivar smiled wistfully, eyes going soft. "Yes, we were friends. Summers, she was hard to get along with at times, but there was just this determination in her with everything she did. Helped Galanthus become what it is today."

A motley group of underaged orphans with an idiot leader. The thought struck Cole with such harshness that he had to sit back and blink a few times to keep from thinking it again.

An idiot leader who thinks he might like a stupidly gorgeous, blond-haired Chrysosian mindrenderer.

It felt like a betrayal.

Still, the thought wouldn't keep him from wanting to kiss Alistair again, nor would the confusion and guilt stop him from returning to his cottage later that night.

If Ivar sensed a shift in Cole's mood, he didn't mention it. "When the Chrysosians destroyed Ursa, she... changed, a great deal. She had always been emotional – when she felt things, she felt them – but this was different. This was grief, and anger, and hate. She hated the Chrysosians with everything she had, wanted them all dead, wanted revenge."

Cole nodded slowly, watching intently from behind a sheet of dark hair, and ran a hand down the edge of his new axe as he listened. His anxiety gradually increased, skin prickling, hands sweating, a hot well of nerves in the pit of his stomach. It didn't feel right, listening to Ivar talk about Niamh as if he had known her better than Cole, as a wash of sudden, inexplicable bitterness came over him.

He had asked him, he wanted to know all these things. But now that he was sitting there, across from Ivar as he talked on about Niamh and all her little pre-invasion charms, and then about her intense hatred for the Chrysosians, Cole found himself wondering whether he would've been better off not knowing.

And gods, she would've killed him if she'd seen him kissing the enemy. She would've pulled him by his ear, out into the snow, and demanded that he throw his axe at least fifty times before returning. Demand that he land every blow.

Worse, she would've pulled them apart, withdrawn her axe and driven it into Alistair's bare chest.

Cole shivered viciously.

"Well, thank you for this," he stood, taking the axe with him. "And for the axe. Truly, it's, uh, really blood-curdling."

Ivar beamed and stood, moving around the table to slap a hand over Cole's shoulder. A flash of sunlight revealed a patch of skin inked with the tattoo of a rune, the rune for strength, and another next to it meant for warding off bad spirits. The man was a walking piece of artwork.

"It was nice talking to you, Cole. It's eerie, really. You look a lot like her."

That information alone was enough to unsettle him. It wasn't that it was a bad thing, looking like his mother, it was just that he didn't want to find himself noticing all their little similarities when he gazed into his reflection.

She was a wild-haired monster with sparks in her eyes when she got mad. Did he also look so completely monstrous when he got angry?

Smiling tightly, Cole thanked Ivar once more before leaving.