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I like to call myself wound
but I will answer to knife. Sometimes
I think we have the same name, Notquitelove.
- "Underbelly", Nicole Homer
The skill of knife throwing is one that Astrid has perfected to an art form.
Her expertise lies in unbalanced knives. She knows, intimately, the weight of each knife she bears, and the balance struck between handle and blade—or rather, the lack thereof. The uneven center of gravity makes its trajectory difficult to predict, and the slightest error will cause its aim to go wide. It must be thrown with a delicate touch. A precise hand.
Unbalanced knives do not submit to brute force. It is their master who learns how to wield them.
One breath. Careful aim.
Astrid's blade impales itself dead center in her target.
“You never cease to impress me, love.”
“Don't call me that,” she says through clenched teeth, trying not to betray how startled she is. “And I told you not to bother me when I'm practicing.”
“Am I not allowed to watch? Your knife throwing is so much better than mine.”
The only thing you're better at, the voice in the back of Astrid's head whispers.
She doesn't turn around. The next knife lodges itself cleanly next to the first. “I'm busy. Go bother Wulf if you're bored.”
A beat. “He's not back yet.”
The note of uncertainty makes Astrid pause as she weighs the third knife in her palm. She doesn't have to—she knows exactly how to throw each of her blades based on the feel of the handle alone.
“Send him a message if you're so worried.” The third knife leaves her fingers and lands in the target with a solid thud.
It's not the first time Wulf’s been delayed returning from a solo mission. There's no cause for worry. He can take care of himself. She knows him even better than the most reliable of her knives.
“Astrid,” Bren says, plaintive and cajoling all at once. She absolutely detests it when he puts that voice on, and he knows it. “Come on. I'm leaving tomorrow. It wouldn't kill you to be a little nicer to me.”
She snorts. “If you were hoping for a goodbye kiss, maybe you shouldn't have pissed me off while I was holding a knife.”
“There's a certain appeal in never knowing whether you're about to kiss me or stab me.”
“Fuck off, Bren.”
“Or maybe they're the same thing, hm?”
“What the hell has gotten into you?” she says, finally turning.
Bren's slouched in the doorway, affecting his usual easy charm. Her fingers twitch around her knife. It would be so easy to send it hurtling across the room and into his chest. One movement of her arm, and he'd never bother her again. In some ways, knives were preferable even to magic.
Only because you'll never be as good as he is, the voice whispers, you'd be well and truly outmatched, your spells depleted on dispelling his magic alone without ever casting any of your own, and even then, his fire would consume you—
Bren pries the knife gently from her fingers and lays it down on the table. He cups her face in both hands and bends down to kiss her, languid and sweet.
Astrid bites him on the lip, hard.
He doesn’t even flinch—he just lifts a hand to his face and touches the spot where her teeth had been, his finger coming away stained with a drop of blood. He’d probably been expecting it, as he should have been. And yet he'd gone ahead and kissed her anyway.
His thin mouth turns down at the corners. “I wish I knew why you hate me so much. What did I ever do to earn it?”
Nothing, other than to be better than Astrid in every way that matters. Nothing, other than to be favored by their master for being his most prodigious student. Nothing, other than to suffer far more than she or Wulf ever had because of it.
She pities him. She envies him. She loves him. She loathes him.
“You're awful and you talk too much,” she tells him.
“Is that why you like Wulf better than me?”
“What makes you think I like you at all?”
“Ach, please. You do, and you know it.”
It's strange, the way Bren makes her feel. She'd never known it was possible to be so drawn to someone, and in the same breath, to be so completely, utterly repulsed.
“I could slit your throat open.”
“You could,” he agrees. “But you wouldn't.”
“But I want to, all the same.”
“I'll let you do the honors one day, if you give me a reason to come back alive first.”
“What the fuck is your problem?” she demands.
He closes his long fingers around her wrists. He isn't gripping tightly by any means, but it shocks her into silence.
There's an unspoken rule among Trent's students: forearms are off-limits. Residuum thrums just beneath the surface of their skin, a constant low-level burn. It makes the slightest touch feel like a jolt of electricity.
Astrid stares at Bren, feeling as though she's had the breath knocked out of her. How dare he touch her there. How dare he. One quick gesture of her fingers would cast a spell that would melt his blue eyes right out of their sockets.
“Astrid,” he says, so quietly that she can barely hear it. “What if I wanted to run away, would you and Wulf come with me?”
“Don't be stupid,” she spits out. “Our master would never let you go. You could spend the rest of your life trying to get away from him, but there’s no escape, Bren.”
He actually flinches. It's nothing but a minute twitch around the corners of his eyes, but Astrid knows all his tells.
“But if I wanted to,” he repeats, “would you?”
“Is there a point to these useless questions?”
“Yes,” he says, low and insistent. “Answer me.”
Barely concealed emotion simmers in his blue eyes, the skin beneath them bruised dark. The fury rolling off him in waves is so palpable that for a split second, Astrid hesitates.
“Come back, and maybe then I'll think about it.”
“I'll hold you to that.”
Bren finally, finally lets go of her wrists, his hands moving to encircle her waist. Her arms are burning. If she folds up her sleeves, maybe she'll see the imprints of his fingers on her skin. The thought makes her shiver. Maybe it should feel like more of a violation than it does, but instead, it seems more proprietary than anything else. She doesn't know which one is worse.
“I received my orders just before I came here.”
Astrid looks away. “And?”
“I am to give myself up to the Dynasty. After some pretense of a fight, of course,” Bren adds, lip curling. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”
“Give yourself up? Why?”
“To infiltrate their information network. Master Ikithon has intimated that the Assembly has found an unexpected flaw in the fortress. A young prodigy. No one less than the Bright Queen's left hand.”
Now Astrid understands. “Shadowhand Essek Thelyss. Seems a shame to kill him.”
“I feel the same.” Bren's thumb is rubbing circles into the jut of her hip. “I've been granted permission to try… other means first.”
She huffs through her nose. “No wonder the master is sending you. That's your specialty, isn't it?”
His face darkens, and he pulls her closer to him. “I didn't ask for this, Astrid.”
The kiss that follows is hard enough to bruise. She can taste his blood in her mouth—or perhaps it's hers; she can't tell the difference.
“None of them are you or Wulf,” he whispers against her lips, his voice a low growl. “This is just another bed I'll have to warm if I must. That's all.”
A bark of laughter escapes Astrid's throat. “My darling, gorgeous Bren. You're so fucking full of yourself. You think I'm jealous? Of him?”
“Oh, you will be, my beautiful treasure, when you find out just how brilliant he is." His handsome smile twists into something grotesque. "The greatest mage of the Dynasty, and only a few years into his second century. Maybe I'll finally know what it's like to have a peer, yes?”
The insult is all the greater for its subtlety. Sharp as a razor, aimed to incise at the jugular with unerring aim. Bren is the most unbalanced of knives, center of gravity constantly shifting from handle to blade. Impossible to predict. The mistake Astrid can never seem to stop making is to think that she has finally gotten the measure of him. One moment, she loves him. The next, their master's poisonous words are slipping from his lips and into her mouth.
She doesn't think twice before she slaps him across the face so hard her palm comes away stinging. He stands still and lets her do it, his head snapping to the side with the force of the blow.
It's infuriating.
“I thought that would make you come alive.” A smirk hovers around one corner of his mouth. “I've been told Essek Thelyss is—in Master Ikithon's words—a cold fish. He might not even want me for a bedmate.”
She pounds her fists against his chest—it knocks the breath out of his lungs, but he doesn't let go.
Words can be knives too. She and Bren know that better than anyone.
“How fortunate that he'll be getting a peer instead,” she snarls. “You two are made for each other. I've seen his dossier, Bren. Pretty little thing, isn't he? Maybe now you'll finally leave me and Wulf in peace.”
Another flash of anger in his blue eyes. “What exactly do you think you would do without me?”
“We'd do just fine, I expect.” Astrid buries her fingers into his long red curls, tugging hard enough to make him hiss. “But unlike you, Wulf can't do without me, and I can't be without him. So where does that leave you, Bren?”
He shudders and pulls them flush together. Already, he's hardening in his trousers. Pathetic.
“You don't mean that,” he whispers. “You don't.”
“You'll never know now, will you? Not while you're off being the perfect lover to the Shadowhand—”
A loud echoing crash as the rest of the knives fall to the ground.
“Stop it,” Bren growls, and kisses her so thoroughly she's gasping by the time he pulls away, his fingers tugging at the laces of her waistband. “Stop it, Astrid, I won't hear another word of this—”
“Why?” she murmurs, nails digging into his scalp as he groans. “It hurts you, doesn't it? To be reminded that Wulf and I belong to each other—” her words are cut off by a throaty moan as his fingers find her clit.
He exhales in a loud huff as she strokes his cock through his clothes, so hard he must be aching for it. “And what about me?”
“We only make room for you, Bren.” She punctuates her words with a sharp nip on his earlobe as he shudders. "You don't belong with us. You are no one's but our master's.”
There are few things Astrid enjoys more than breaking Bren into his component parts, carving away at him with a precise hand until all she can see is whatever is left of him under the veneer of relaxed confidence. It's the only thing that cuts straight through his arrogance—the reminder that he's nothing but their master's most loyal dog.
Bren rucks up her tunic, palming at her breast, rolling her nipple between finger and thumb.
“Would you be as great as you are now, so powerful, if I didn't goad you at every turn?” he whispers, fingers dipping into her to gather up her slick before he rubs at her clit in tight, demanding circles. “Where would you be, Astrid, if I didn't force you to be better?”
Their master's voice in Bren's mouth. For a moment, she thinks she's going to be sick.
“I'd be rotting in the ground with Wulf,” Astrid snarls.
Bren's arm wraps around her waist and tightens, his teeth bared in a harsh mockery of his smile. “That's right. Without me, you'd both be dead.”
“Maybe that would have been preferable.”
She gasps as he lifts her without preamble onto the table and presses two fingers into her. A shock of pleasure ripples through her limbs. Bren always knows what she likes most, and it's even better when she riles him up first.
“Neither of you are going anywhere without me,” he snaps, grabbing Astrid's chin and covering her mouth with his before she can object. She blindly kicks off her boots and trousers as he pulls at the laces of his own waistband.
“You're the one leaving us behind,” she hisses.
“You really think I want to go?”
“You just asked me about running away. What the hell do you expect me to think?”
A moan tears itself from her throat as he drags her close and enters her, the corner of the table biting into her bare thighs. He sinks into her inch by inch, his fingers gripping her hips so hard she wonders she'll find bruises in the morning.
“You're not coming back, are you, Bren?” she whispers.
His mouth falls open in a sigh as he rocks into her. Slow, but unrelenting. Nobody knows how to keep time like Bren, but already, he’s picking up the pace. “I will. I will. I'll come back for you and Wulf.”
She writhes against him, chasing her pleasure as he rolls his hips, faster and faster. “If you even dare to think about leaving us for that crick—”
“I would never. I swear.” Bren’s face contorts—ecstasy? agony? Astrid thinks they are one and the same—and each of his thrusts punches the breath out of her chest. He digs his teeth into her neck, mouthing words against her collarbone, “I'm yours, Astrid, yours and Wulf's and no one else's—”
His fingers find her clit once more, and pleasure builds so quickly between her legs that it takes no time at all before she's crying out and arching against him, the bliss stretching on and on, until his hips finally stutter. He pulls out, painting her thighs with streaks of white.
Bren's forehead falls hard on her shoulder. He's trembling.
Astrid sighs, still trying to catch her breath. She curls an arm around him and lets him shake and shake. For all their master favors Bren for his power, he's always been the frailest of the three of them. The easiest to break. The easiest to control.
Perhaps that's exactly why he’s the favored one.
A wave of revulsion overcomes Astrid suddenly. In the end, she's no better than their master, is she?
No. No, that's not true. She's doing this for Bren. It's for his own good. Knives must be kept well-honed. A blunt blade could spell the death of its wielder. He won’t survive without them if he lets his weakness get the better of him.
And she and Bren have already hurt each other in every way that matters—another stab in the chest makes little difference now. Just another wound to add to their growing collection of scars.
“You have to be stronger than this,” she hisses.
“I know,” he rasps out. “I know. I won't disappoint you.”
“Prove it.”
“I will.” He takes one ragged inhale, then another. “If I don't see Wulf before I go. Tell him. Please, Astrid.”
She has never coddled Bren, and she isn't about to start now. “Tell him yourself when you come back.”
Bren kisses her, hard and possessive. His eyes are red-rimmed and wet, but they’re burning electric blue.
“Wait for me. And when I return, you better be ready to leave, because I'm not going anywhere without you and Wulf.”
“You assume too much,” Astrid says indifferently. As though they aren't talking about the greatest act of treason against their own master. “What makes you think we want to leave with you? What makes you think it's even possible—”
“Picture this with me one moment,” Bren interrupts. He tugs out a handkerchief from a pocket and begins wiping away the mess they've made. “One day, there will come a time when there will be a spot that needs to be filled in the Assembly. Who better to become the next Archmage of Civil Influence than one of the former archmage’s best protégés?”
Cold dread settles into her veins. “You. You want to become an archmage.”
“I want a world where we no longer have to be looking over our shoulders for our master. If I must replace him for that to happen, then so be it.”
Astrid pushes him away hard enough that he stumbles. “I see how it is. You're willing to get me and Wulf killed, all in the name of achieving your great ambition?”
Bren's already shaking his head before she even finishes, anger staining his cheeks a hectic red. “Some things are bigger than the three of us. I would have thought you of all people would be able to see that.”
Oh, the sheer audacity. Astrid lets out a mirthless laugh and gets to her feet, a stinging line etched into her skin from where the sharp edge of the table had dug into her thighs. She picks up her clothes from where she’d shucked them off and starts pulling them back on.
“Grow the fuck up, Bren,” she says without looking at him. “We were all molded to serve the Empire. You, me, Wulf, all our brothers and sisters. What makes you think you're so special?”
“Master Ikithon—”
“You venerate our master one second and vilify him the next,” she continues, not giving him a chance to cut in. “You expect me and Wulf to follow you when you can't even seem to decide for yourself the path you want to take.”
“I—no, Astrid.” He scrubs his hand over his face. “You're getting it all wrong.”
“No, actually, I think I've got it figured out. You want us to be your dogs, the way you are our master's. Acting at your beck and call. Dispensable for your purposes.”
The blood has drained from Bren's face. “I don't think there's any way I can explain this to you that you'll understand.”
“Try me.”
A vein is twitching in his temple. “You wouldn't listen even if I did.”
“That's because you've never had a single thought to call your own.”
Bren winces when Astrid cups his jaw in her hands. From this close, she can see the tiny scar over his left eyebrow, just barely visible against his pale skin. A remnant of their days at Soltryce, when he had been too busy gawking at the advanced evocation students practicing in the playing field to notice the jagged rock that had tripped him.
His beard catches against the rough skin of her fingers. He turns his face and presses a kiss to the center of her palm.
“Sometimes I think I am cruel, and then I look at you,” he mutters.
“Sometimes I think I am too much like our master, and then I look at you.” She smiles, watching his expression contort. Their beautiful, perfect Bren. Bright as the sun in their master's eyes. Reduced to a woeful, petulant thing by nothing but a few well-placed words.
One of the easiest ways to cause a nearly exaggerated amount of pain is to twist a knife already buried in a target. Astrid caresses his cheek with her thumb, tracing over his mouth as though in silent apology—right before she presses against his lower lip and pulls her fingers apart, tearing open the cut she had made where she bit him.
He inhales, a shallow breath pulled in between his teeth. Red blooms between her fingers.
“Maybe some time with Essek Thelyss will do you good, don't you think?”
“How so?” Bren's voice is grating with anger again. “I don't want to go over this a second time, Astrid.”
“Some time away from our master will do you good,” she amends. “You'll find the Shadowhand's delicacy more palatable, I think. He's a young and exceedingly pretty member of the Kryn nobility. Moneyed, powerful, intelligent. What's not to like?”
Bren's blue eyes are fixed on her, unblinking. “What are you suggesting?”
Astrid can feel his ever-present anger against her fingers, seething beneath his skin. She thinks it's why he runs hot, his eyes always too bright, as though he's constantly burning with fever. Maybe if she stokes the flames high enough, his own fire will consume him.
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him: left cheek, right cheek, the tip of his aquiline nose. He lowers his head and lets her do it, his lashes fluttering. She kisses each eyelid too, first one, then the other, and imagines what it would be like to cut his blue eyes out of his head.
“Don't be tempted to put your leash into the hand of another, Bren. Even if he would make a better master than the one we already have.”
“I won't. I'm there to tempt him, not the other way around.”
Bren opens his eyes, his gaze sharp and knowing, and his mouth curves into his easy, effortless grin. It always makes him look so much younger. Happier. For a moment, she remembers what he had been like when they were children—he'd been gangly, freckled, too fucking cheerful by half.
The smile he wears now is an aberration. Take a second, closer look, and the smile grows eerie, like something out of a nightmare. Joy distorted by a near-invisible spider web of hairline fractures. Astrid wants to slap him again, just to see the mask shatter into a thousand fragments.
“Perhaps I'll bring him home for you and Wulf if he's pleasing enough, hm? Would you like that? He'd be quite the trophy.”
Astrid wrinkles her nose. “Not a fan of cold fish.”
“Let’s see if I can do something about that,” Bren says, raising an eyebrow. “Then again… no one would ever be pleasing enough for you, anyway.”
“Except for Wulf.”
“Except for Wulf,” he agrees. A pause. “And me.”
The lift in tone on the last word makes it a question more than anything else. Astrid presses her lips together to keep from smiling as she watches Bren's humor fade, a crease forming between his brows. His uncertainty is so delicious it’s intoxicating. Perhaps in their master's eyes, she will never be his equal, but neither will he ever be good enough for her.
She tilts her chin up and kisses him, slow and sweet as honey, the tang of iron lingering on her tongue.