Page 14 of A Winter Courtship

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show,” Ulrich said as he turned. His heart sank like iron.

“You were expecting me?” his father said, brows lifted.

ChapterNine

His father stared at Ulrich, waiting for an answer.

“Ah. No.” Ulrich cleared his throat. “Rhorton was going to come by. I ordered some equipment from Castle Evermore.” Why would he think the heavy footsteps were Lutoth’s? He knew Lutoth made no sound when he walked.

“Hmmmm.” His father eyed him. “I got a letter from your brother today.”

“Yeah?” Ulrich prodded the coals with the tongs.

“Seems he’ll be back for the Solstice this year.”

“It’ll be good to see him,” Ulrich said, pumping the bellows. Ulrich hadn’t seen his brother, Elias, since Ulrich last visited him in Bordertown.

“We’ll see if he makes it here. Wouldn’t be surprised if Elias turned around halfway to Ores when he remembered how cold it got up here. Ran back to his mother’s family where they can wrap him in blankets and spoon-feed him fancy broth like a sick, pathetic child.”

Ulrich’s jaw ticked. He pulled the glowing iron out of the fire and placed it on the anvil.

“I still can’t believe he left,” his father said. “You know, your mother’s family offered to take you both in after your mother passed. Said it was too much for one man to raise two boys and be working all day in the smithy. But I did what needed to be done and raised you both. Raised you properly in these mountains. I wasn’t going to let you boys be raised in Bordertown. Didn’t want you growing up weak and soft. And then Elias just takes off anyway.”

His father hobbled closer to the anvil. “What you making?”

“Shovels for Wareth,” Ulrich replied as he hammered. “To dig up clay.”

“You didn’t heat it through enough,” his father scolded.

Ulrich’s hand tightened on the tongs.

“Your brother better not complain about the food we serve here. We’re not fancy like your mother’s people. We eat honest, decent food.” He laughed. “Though, I’m sure throwing in your reindeer would definitely add to the Solstice Eve feast. It’s definitely fatter than any reindeer you’d hunt.”

Ulrich’s teeth clenched.

“I saw that botanist, Edwin, on my way here,” his father said. “His family never belonged in the Norend Mountains. All too soft. I was surprised when Edwin returned to Ores without his family. Too dainty and small, that one. Clearly unsuited to these mountains. Like that nymph he’s bedding.”

Ulrich kept his eyes fixed on his work, trying not to listen to his father. Sinoe and the oreads were perfectly suited to the mountains, despite being pretty. They didn’t feel the cold. They had textured hands and feet so they could climb vertical cliff faces.

An image of Lutoth helping him climb as a youth filled his mind. Ulrich could never climb like an oread. Or a half-oread, half-sylph.

And the oreads had saved the villagers’ ancestors. The oreads had given them shelter and food. He wanted to tell his father that without the oreads, their ancestors would have perished in the Norend Mountains as they tried and failed to reach Castle Evermore. They would have starved and frozen to death, and Ores would never have existed.

But his father didn’t care. That his mother might have been part-nymph was enough to create disdain towards all nymphs. His entire life, his father had despised those who didn’t appear tough and strong. Too much of a reminder of Ulrich’s mother, whose only guilt was that she had died in these mountains, leaving him with two boys.

Words caught in his throat. But as always, Ulrich kept his mouth shut. Too much a coward to speak his mind to his father. Ulrich placed the metal back into the forge and pumped the bellows, leaving it in longer.

His father watched him. “Anyway, I better get going. It’s getting late.”

Ulrich grunted goodbye. He stared into the fire as his father left. He couldn’t tell if his face burned from the flames or from the guilt of staying quiet.

Why did his father have to be so cruel? Why did he have to say those things about his brother, about Edwin, about the oreads? He took the metal from the flames and placed it back on the anvil. He smashed the hammer into the iron, and the loud clanging rang through the smithy as he pounded it.

But then, his father had always been tough.

As a boy, Ulrich had found a dead rat, and he’d cried over its little broken body, cradling it in his arms.

His father had found him.