The Shattered Circle

9. The Pact of the Hilt

Haven followed me like my own shadow as I stepped into the training room. "If you train her as you were trained, my lady, there is a chance she will merely shatter."

"She has will. She has fire." I strode over to my armor, arrayed on a stand. It looked beautiful now that Ember had tended to all the damaged and dirtied pieces. The finish was still dulled with smoke, in striated patterns across the breastplate, but beneath that was a mirror polish that left no room for rust. She had oiled every hinge and piece of leather after cleaning with saddle soap and sand.

I loved it almost as fiercely as Woe. My sword had been my mother's gift, but my armor, my second skin, my guardian against all the world could do to me...that had been given by the person who had valued my life above all others. I leaned my head against it and inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of steel and smoke and leather. It smelled like home, like victory, like love. It had followed me through campaign after campaign. Straps were replaced, sometimes plates, but the soul was always there with me, as scarred and battered as my heart.

Strange, to believe in souls surrounded by the soulless.

"You are not listening to me," Haven observed.

I ran my hands lovingly over the pauldrons, smooth and seamless. It was designed with flexibility in mind as well as strength. The range of motion within my armor was barely different than my natural one. It was molded to me like my own skin, particularly after all the breaking in I had done. "I know what I am doing, Haven."

"And if her fire is your funeral pyre?"

I turned to face him. "I have broken fate many times, Haven. Even her fire, I could extinguish."

"You risk yourself too much, my lady." His tone was even, emotionless. There was not care in him, yet he held onto me. Onto the shadow of who he once was, before undeath had changed him into this. "Senseless duels. Leading an army. You have earned glory in the King in Black's eyes hundreds of times over. Rest on your laurels and let the others earn their keep."

"It is never enough," I whispered, putting my hand to my visor. I cupped its cheek, the smoothness meant to deflect every blow. "You know it will never be enough for him."

For a moment, Haven was still. I wondered if he could still feel some ghost of the anger that he once felt in life. After a long moment of silence, he put his hand on my shoulder. It was almost tender, the gesture. I looked over. Claws trimmed back to nails, manicured and carefully kept. Clothes neat and clean, his sleeves rolled up to bare pale arms that in every motion rippled with unholy strength. "You deserve better, my lady."

I laughed. "When has this world ever treated anyone as they deserve?"

"After the price you have paid..." He didn't finish the sentence. He knew as well as I did what had happened: he was there, the first baptized into undeath after the King in Black's ascension. He had seen my heart in my face that day. When it was all over, when the glory had moved on and left us in its ashes, he had kissed the earth in front of my feet and asked to serve me for the rest of his existence.

No one knew me better than Haven.

I covered his hand where it sat on my shoulder. "I saw her anger, Haven," I said quietly. "Impotent, locked in its cage, like a tiger imprisoned behind bars. What a waste."

"She will hate you," Haven said. "Vex will make her suffer in your name, all to become a great warrior."

"And what would you have me do? Throw her loose, to be caught in Varys's claws?" I couldn't bring myself to be angry with Haven. Instead, it came out as a sincere request for his thoughts.