Nettle & Bone

by T. Kingfisher

She thought of every birth she had ever seen. Those women had been in far worse pain and they had done it, because once you started, you couldn’t stop.

“Lots of people deserve to die,” said the dust-wife finally. “Not everybody deserves to be a killer.”

“How did you get a demon in your chicken?” “The usual way. Couldn’t put it in the rooster. That’s how you get basilisks.”

“I came back from my first campaign and I’d been in my own clan’s lands for half an hour before I noticed.” She glanced up at his face, surprised. “I was cold and wet and very tired,” he said. “When I did feel something, it was because I realized we were only about twenty minutes from the keep and I might get warm again.” He shrugged. “And then again, other times I have come home and felt as if I had finally woken up after a long illness. I suspect these things say more about us than they do about the land itself.”

Marra remembered him handling the drunk at the well and felt a stab of envy for anyone who could go through life so unconcerned about possible physical violence.

She wondered if all the old stories of heroes slaying monsters and maidens locked in towers had involved long, tedious stretches of trying to find the monsters or build the towers in the first place. Probably. No, almost certainly. Who wants to hear the dull practical bits? Me. I do. It would make me feel less like I am failing.

Nothing is fair, except that we try to make it so. That’s the point of humans, maybe, to fix things the gods haven’t managed.

You’re a terrible liar, Marra. You look as if you’re afraid the universe is ashamed of you.”

Another of life’s little intelligence tests, and as usual, Marra had failed to even learn the question.

That was how she was going to die, telling someone it was all right for stabbing her, really, she didn’t mind …