Uma's day did not start with a peaceful awakening.
It started with Hamaron barreling into her room making a sound that was loosely, generously, in the neighborhood of good morning, while Serosa desperately tried to pull him back by the collar and yelled something about manners.
He boomed over her.
"...Forge. Work. Girl."
Uma, who two seconds earlier had
been asleep, shot upright.
She did not get to process this.
Hamaron scooped her up, slung her over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and carried her directly out of the bedroom, down the stairs, past a furious Serosa, and into the entrance of hell that was his forge.
He set her down. Handed her a folded bundle of clothes.
"Change."
Uma stood there holding a white tank top and a pair of overalls, blinking.
She mouthed one word.
Wut.
Hamaron interpreted this — somehow — as where am I supposed to change, I am a girl, and in an honestly impressive feat of emergency carpentry, assembled a small changing box in the corner of the forge using materials that were, as far as Uma could tell, just there. He stepped back and gestured to it like a kid presenting his science fair project.
Uma blinked twice.
Looked at the box.
Looked at the overalls.
Looked at Hamaron.
He nodded enthusiastically.
What the fuck is going on with my life right now.
She was gently nudged into the changing box.
She stepped out a minute later and did a small turn, mostly for herself. The overalls were a little baggy — which raised the vague concern of getting set on fire — but she pushed that aside. She liked them.
Hamaron took one look at her, laughed, and motioned for her to come over.
"...Iron... friend... window..."
Uma stared up at him.
He tried again. Slower. Fewer words.
She blinked once.
He chuckled, held out a hand for the chalkboard, and she passed it over. He scratched something onto it — a very sad stick figure standing next to what appeared to be a window with its iron frame broken. He erased it, pointed to Uma, drew a long rod, circled it a few times, and finished with an enthusiastic hammering motion.
Uma pointed to herself.
Made the same hammering motion back at him.
He nodded vigorously.
...He wants me to forge? Mf. I can barely read. I'm not a blacksmith.
She shrugged and gave him a blank look.
He just laughed and pulled her into a side room.
If the main forge was hell, the side room was the ninth layer of it.
Uma felt every drop of moisture in her body evacuate the premises the instant she stepped inside. A giant bellows — the size of a small cow — was wedged into the far wall, feeding directly into the main forge fire.
Hamaron motioned for her to push it.
She looked at him like he'd just asked her to commit a felony.
That thing is literally bigger than I am.
She made a series of gestures that, as far as she was concerned, communicated this point clearly.
Hamaron walked over, operated the bellows once with a single hand, and looked at her as if to say see. Easy.
He came back over, placed his hand over hers, and guided her through the first pump. With his grip helping her, it went down smoothly. A warm gust of air fed the fire.
Huh. Okay. This might not be so bad.
Hamaron gave her a thumbs up, stepped back, and walked out of the room.
Uma pumped the bellows.
The bellows pumped Uma.
Her entire body left the floor. She hung there — both hands clamped around the handle, feet kicking at empty air — before her weight slowly, laboriously dragged it back down.
She landed.
Panted.
Stared at the bellows with something approaching religious awe.
...Oh. That's what he meant.
"Again!" Hamaron's voice boomed from outside.
Uma set her jaw and pumped it a second time.
By the third pump, she was seriously beginning to consider whether this was how she died.
After what felt like several generations of human civilization, Uma came to see herself in a new light — as the mighty Sisyphus himself, cursed by the gods to push a boulder up an endless hill. A divine punishment. An eternity of suffering. A trial of will beyond the ken of mortals.
It had been five minutes.
Hamaron came in after three to help.
When Uma finally staggered out of the side room, she was hit in the face with cold air — which would have been a relief, except her legs immediately decided they were done. Her knees folded.
Serosa caught her limp form halfway to the ground, took one look at her, pushed her back upright, and let go.
Uma fell backwards instead.
Serosa looked up at Hamaron with the expression of a woman whose childhood dog had just been murdered in front of her.
Uma, for her part, was not following any of this. Every word spoken within ten feet of her was being translated by her oxygen-deprived brain into one of two things:
Food.
Water.
Food. Water. Hungry. Water.
She was lifted off the ground by Serosa and deposited gently on a nearby crate. A soft green glow bloomed from Serosa's palms.
Wait—
Wait wait wait — magic? That's magic. What kind of magic is that. Can I learn it. Can anyone learn it. Why didn't anyone TELL me there was magic here — I have so many questions I—
The glow touched Uma's shoulders.
Every single question in Uma's head evaporated.
A wave of warmth spread through her aching muscles like hot water through cold pipes, and Uma let out a long, deeply unprofessional exhale.
"...Okay, dear?" Serosa asked, one eye on Hamaron over Uma's shoulder.
Uma nodded.
"Hungry?"
Serosa produced a straw lunchbox and a small water pouch from what Uma had to assume was an extradimensional pocket somewhere on her person.
Uma nodded hard enough to dislodge a few brain cells.
Inside were two sandwiches and a fruit she didn't recognize. She didn't care what it was. It was food and she was already eating it.
Over Serosa's shoulder she could see Hamaron being thoroughly dressed down, entirely in a language Uma still couldn't follow — but the tone carried beautifully across the language barrier. He was being handed two baguettes' worth of sandwiches mid-scolding, without Serosa ever breaking her stride.
Hamaron responded by pulling her into a crushing bear hug.
Serosa's brain visibly shut down. Her face went pink. Her fingers hovered awkwardly at her sides, twitching, like she couldn't decide between hugging him back and reaching for a pan that wasn't there.
I ship it, Uma thought, turning her face away so they couldn't see her shoulders shaking.
She was then lifted up like a handbag by Serosa, which was immediately met with loud protest from Hamaron.
"Forge. Not done!"
Oh god. Oh god no.
Serosa turned Uma around and the argument began in earnest.
"...Poor girl. Death."
Woah woah — death? Serosa thinks I'm going to DIE?
Uma looked up at her in mock horror.
Hamaron sucked his teeth. "...Muscle. Character."
Serosa pointed directly down at Uma. "She is exhausted."
I'm alright actually, Uma thought, lifting a thumb in the air.
Both adults looked down at the thumbs up.
Serosa turned it into an are you KIDDING me look.
Hamaron aimed puppy-dog eyes directly at his — well. Whatever Serosa was to him. Which was a separate question Uma was starting to have real investment in.
Serosa rolled her eyes and set Uma down.
"...Call. Too much."
Sure. I'll send a pigeon. Uma gave a lazy wave as Serosa walked off, already half-convinced she'd just been sentenced to her own execution.
Their day was spent forging a single steel bar.
Uma almost immediately regretted stopping Serosa from saving her.
Hamaron made her do most of it herself — only stepping in when Uma's arms started visibly shaking, or when she looked like she was genuinely going to pass out over the anvil. She hammered. Pumped the bellows. Hammered. Pumped the bellows. Hammered. She dropped the hammer on her own foot twice. She nearly stuck her hand into the forge once. Hamaron caught her wrist without even looking up.
The heat wrapped around her like a second skin she hadn't asked for. Sweat ran down her spine. Her palms blistered. Her back screamed. Her shoulders eventually stopped screaming, which was somehow worse — she suspected they had simply given up on her.
By sundown, the single finished bar sat on the workbench. Uma stared at it.
I nearly died for this. This stupid rectangle.
She would have kicked it if she'd had the strength to lift her leg.
Uma was carried back to the library by Hamaron, completely limp.
Everything hurts.
A single small tear slid down her cheek. She could feel her abs forming against her will. Her muscles were still vibrating from the effort in a way that felt vaguely like an earthquake.
He made me lift a hammer double my size. He made me lift it for hours. He is a bad man.
She looked up at him with concentrated, undiluted hatred.
Hamaron did not notice.
Or possibly he did notice and did not care.
Probably both.
They walked in comfortable silence — him humming something, her plotting his murder with her last remaining brain cell — and for a moment everything was fine. The sun was setting. The air was cooling. The road back to the library was half a block away.
And then there was a sound.
A soft crunch.
A skitter.
Then several more.
Uma's head lifted.
...No.
Three Hollowmen scuttled out from the shadows between two buildings. Patchwork-skinned. Joints in the wrong places. Moving like something was operating them from the inside and doing a poor job of it. The moonlight — the exact wrong kind of moonlight — caught one of their faces and Uma's body remembered the barn before her mind did.
Her breath hitched.
Her vision tunneled at the edges.
Not again. Please. Not again—
Hamaron set her down gently on her feet.
She felt the world go still.
He stepped forward.
And when he spoke, his voice was different.
Not booming. Not warm. Not the man who had been humming twenty seconds ago.
Quiet. Level. Deliberate.
"...Be alright, Uma."
He walked toward them at a steady pace. Not rushing. Not slowing.
One of the Hollowmen swung first — a rusted blade, fast. Hamaron raised his forearm and the blade shattered against it like it had hit stone. He closed his hand around the Hollowman's skull and crushed it without expression.
The other two lunged the way they'd lunged at her that night in the barn — low, jerky, limbs moving wrong.
Before they could reach him, he caught them both by the skull. One in each hand. And brought their heads together.
The sound was wet.
The first one — the one with the crushed skull — lurched forward anyway. Hamaron took its head off in a single clean motion. Barely a movement.
All three went limp.
The silence that followed was louder than any of the sounds that had preceded it.
Uma stood there, breath caught in her throat, staring at the man who had given her a home.
What had taken her voice, her safety, her sleep — what had left her bleeding out on a barn floor — he had dismantled in under ten seconds. Without a word. Without breaking stride. Without so much as looking angry about it.
...What are you?
The library door burst open.
Serosa came sprinting out, took one look at the scene — the bodies, Hamaron standing over them, Uma frozen on the road — and her face shifted into something sharp and urgent.
"UMA!"