The Spymaster’s Prize: A Fantasy Romance Tale (Artisan Magic Book 2)

A grunt from her rescuer stole Elia’s attention and she cursed herself for forgetting his injury so easily. “You’re bleeding. Let me see to you.”

“If you want to help, get a fire going.” He cast his axe aside and shifted his cloak out of the way.

She glanced down. There was the piece of firewood at her feet and a stack of it beside the door. “How?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know how to start a fire,” he groaned.

Another time, she might have been offended. Given she didn’t know the extent of his injury, she decided to let his shortness slide. “I can do that. I mean—”

“This place is stocked. There’s a fire starter somewhere.” His cloak slipped from his shoulders and instead of moving it aside, he wadded it up and stuffed it into the hole in the door where the latch had been.

Elia tried not to flinch when he turned to lower the bar and hold the door shut. She wasn’t locked in; that was ridiculous. The bar was on their side and would keep the door from blowing open. Or, she thought grimly, from being knocked in. She put the thought of her attackers—and Peretor’s kidnappers—out of mind as she took the wedge of firewood from the floor.

The snowstorm robbed them of daylight, but the grungy glass windows were unshuttered, so she saw well enough. The furnishings were sparse, but there was a good stone hearth against one wall. Remnants of a recent fire sat in a battered pail beside it, ashes still scattered across the stones. She tossed the single log into the fireplace and scanned the mantel. Back home, they used magic-imbued fire starters, a luxury crafted by one of the artisans in Samara. She saw nothing of the sort on the dusty mantel, but a small, lidless box hosted chunks of flint and a curved piece of steel.

“Tinder,” she muttered to herself as she took the sharpest piece of flint and slid the steel over her fingers.

“Box on the floor,” the man said.

She stepped back and frowned when she saw it. “How did you know?”

“I have eyes. Best start using yours. Maybe it’ll keep you from getting ambushed next time.”

Elia turned to protest, but instead of words, all she managed was a squeak. He’d removed his shirt, and somehow, she didn’t think examining the muscles of his chest and stomach was the best way to use her eyes at that given moment. She spun back toward the fireplace and gathered tinder for the fire. The dry grasses and slender, straw-like twigs crunched in her hand. “I wasn’t ambushed.”

He snorted. “Then you’re stupid.”

Reflecting on everything that had just happened, that was probably true. “Why did you rescue me?”

He moved, and his breath caught. A moment passed before he grunted and exhaled. “Because I’m stupid, too. Hurry up with that fire. I need water for this.”

For his wound, she assumed. She twisted grasses together and pinned them to the flint with her thumb. “I’m trying.”

The response wasn’t satisfactory, for he pushed himself from the floor, left arm clamped close to his side, and took another log from the stack beside the door. “Check the barrel in the corner for water.”

She shot him a scowl and tossed the flint and steel to the hearth. “Why would there be water in there?”

“So it doesn’t freeze.” The look he gave her was flat and unamused, but she met his eyes, all the same.

Until that moment, she hadn’t looked at him for more than an instant. His dark eyes were hard and his expression twisted with both annoyance and pain. His tidy beard and wild dark hair were at odds with each other, and the grim set to his mouth did nothing to sharpen his graceful features.

He looked away first. “Water,” he prompted as he cast the log into the fireplace and knelt to take the tinder and flint in hand.

Now, Elia let her gaze dip lower. Blood marred his left arm and a wide part of his side, a stark red-orange against the warm gold undertones of his skin. She thought of asking after the injury, then changed her mind and turned toward the barrel instead. There was water inside, and a small iron soup kettle hung from a peg on the wall nearby. She removed it from its peg and filled it halfway, then carried the pot to the fireplace. Already, new flames crawled along the bark edge of the split logs.

“Let me hang this. I’ll clean you as soon as it’s warm.” She didn’t dare push him, but she let the cold metal of the pot hover close enough to his bare shoulder that he moved on his own.

He sat on the corner of the hearth and clasped his injured arm with his good hand. “I can clean myself.”

“And will you see to yourself if you need something sewn up, too?” Elia hesitated when there proved to be no way to hang the kettle above the fire. She settled for putting it close beside the flames instead.

“If I must.”

“Well, you don’t have to, so you’re going to have to let me see to it.” Besides, it was the least she could do. Nothing had required him to intervene, and he’d gotten hurt in doing so. Even at the best of times, she couldn’t bear the thought of someone doing something by themselves when they didn’t have to do it alone. And this was hardly the best of times.

When he didn’t object, she stood and scanned the small cabin with her hands on her hips. There had to be a cloth somewhere that she could use. “I hope the owner of this place doesn’t mind us being here.”

“No one will care.” He searched, too, before pointing out a stack of cloths on a shelf near the corner.

She slid across the room to claim them. “Even though you chopped a hole in their door?”

“I’ll fix it.”

“In the dead of winter?” There were candles in a box on the shelf, too. She helped herself to several and carried them back to the fire to light them.

He took one from her hands and followed her lead, lighting the wick in the flickering flames. “If I must.”

Elia placed a candle atop a wooden plate on the table and another on a chest of drawers beside the bed. Between the candles, the fire, and the feeble light outside, the single-room cabin was finally bright enough to get by. Without anything else to do, she returned to the hearth and settled on the floor beside it. “What were you doing out there, anyway?”

He raised a dark brow. “I should be asking you that question.”

Her cheeks warmed. Yes, she supposed that made sense. “I came to speak with Peretor. And the other sugarmakers. I need maple sugar for… well, that doesn’t matter.”

If anything, he only looked more bewildered. “You came to buy sugar in a blizzard?”

“I didn’t know it was going to be a blizzard,” she protested.

“Did you not look at the sky?” He reached for the cloth in her hand.

She pulled it away before he could take it. “I am not an expert in matters of weather. But you haven’t answered my question. Why were you out there? In a blizzard?”

“Working. Checking the trees.”

“Do you know Peretor, then?” There were countless other sugarbushes nearby, sometimes tended by as many as a hundred men, but she allowed herself to hope.

“I work for his uncle.” Which meant they worked together.

The water had begun to steam, so Elia dipped the cloth and then squeezed out the excess. “Do you know who those men were?”

“No.”

She paused, hoping for some sort of elaboration. There was none. Refusing to be disappointed, she scooted close enough to wipe blood from his side. “Let’s have a look at this, then.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he murmured as she moved his arm. “He got a good stab at me, but glanced off a rib.”

“Sounds dreadful.” She kept her face neutral as she washed his skin. She’d thought his arm had been hurt, but it bore the barest of scrapes. Instead, his side had taken the worst of it. The gash was shallow, but ugly. “I think that will need to be sewn. Lucky for you that I work in my cousin’s shop, so I know my way around a needle and thread.” Assuming she’d find a needle and thread here. She sponged the area surrounding the injury until it was clean, then sat back and let her eyes drift.

When he offered no suggestions and she saw nothing within easy reach, she stood to continue the search. “Thank you, by the way. I don’t mean to have come across as ungrateful.”

He took the cloth after she left it and rinsed it on his own, then applied it to his wound with a wince. “You were just lucky I happened to be nearby.”

It wasn’t the response she’d hoped for, but she couldn’t help wondering why she’d expected anything else. He’d been brusque from the first word. Elia fought back a sigh and inspected boxes on the shelf where she’d found the cloth. If she had been in charge of organizing, that was where she would put it. Instead, she found oddities like colorful stones, snail shells, prettily-shaped seeds, and mixed bits of metal she couldn’t identify. Frowning, she straightened.

“Drawers by the bed,” he suggested. “Check there.”

It was worth a try. She hesitated a moment before pulling one open, her sense of propriety tingling. Under normal circumstances, she’d never go through someone’s belongings. But this situation was anything other than normal, and she’d be sure to leave everything as close to how they’d found it as possible. An embroidered pouch lay in the top drawer and she breathed a soft sigh of relief. That, she recognized. Every sewing kit in Samara came in the same thing.

“Will you need ice?” she asked as she returned to his side.

His brow furrowed. “For what?”

“To numb your skin while I stitch this up.” There were no tiny scissors in the sewing pouch, so she unwound the thread and bit it off, instead. She grimaced at the snapping sensation of it between her teeth.

He didn’t appear to appreciate the concern. “I’m not fragile.”

“I didn’t think you were,” she said, and this time, she allowed herself a glance at his body. It was clear he was strong; he bore the heavily muscled physique of a woodsman, his skin peppered with scars. Whether they were from mishaps in the woods or from fights like the one they’d just escaped, she didn’t know.

All he did was snort.

A small block of beeswax sat in the pouch. It was hard from the cold, so she warmed it in her hand before she threaded the needle and dragged the thread across it. The wax would help it glide, or so she assumed. She’d sewn plenty of dresses, but never any humans. “I’ll try to make this fast. In the meantime, it might help distract you from the pain if we talk.”

The bland look he gave her conveyed doubt.

She spoke anyway. “I certainly never expected I’d be doing anything like this today. I’ve been helping with my father’s business for the past few weeks, ever since my cousin decided to close her dressmaker’s shop. It’s dreadfully boring, but at least it’s predictable. Then my father asked me to bake six dozen maple pound cakes.” Her hand shook. She drew a breath to steady herself, then began.

He twitched, then grew still as stone.

“He said he has some sort of proposal for the merchant board, and he thought my cakes might convince them. They’re a bit special, though I… well, I feel silly trying to explain it. My cousin is a Threadmancer, you see, but I’m just a baker, I suppose. There aren’t any special words for people with talents like mine. It’s more than just a simple skill at baking, if you catch my meaning.” She tried to focus her thoughts on her words, in spite of his silence. Looking at what she was doing threatened to make her queasy, but she couldn’t turn away from the task.

She swallowed hard and went on. “That’s what I need the maple sugar for. I buy all my maple products from Peretor’s family, so I hoped they’d be able to sell me what I need in order to get these cakes done. Although, my father said he needed them in just a few days. If this snow doesn’t let up, I don’t think he’s going to get any cakes at all.”

He grunted softly, then turned his head enough to look at her from the corner of his eye. “You’re telling me all this, and I don’t even know who you are.”

It was the most interest she’d received for anything she’d said, so she answered with a smile. “My name is Elia. And yours?”

“Cass,” he replied flatly. “And you’re in my house.”