Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The wind on Greypine Mountain had always carried the taste of steel.
My name is Mara Linwood, and my father is the unquestioned ruler of this mountain stronghold—Garrick Linwood.
Most people, when they speak of outlaws, either grit their teeth in hatred or steer clear as if the very word might stain them. Me? I wore it like a badge. The world below was boiling in chaos, the roads littered with the starving dead, and countless people were clawing just to stay alive. But up on Greypine Mountain, there was always meat on the fire, always liquor in the casks, always a blade close at hand. The authorities had come for us three times, and each time my father had led his men down the slopes and beaten them back so hard they never even touched our gates.
On my seventh birthday, the Hall of Oaths reeked of wine.
My father sat there with a clay jug in his arms, eyes bleary with drink, laughing as he stuffed a glossy roasted chicken leg into my mouth. Grease ran down my chin, but he only grinned wider, all rough pride and swagger.
“Mara,” he boomed, “tell your old man what you want this year. The golden unicorn from that rich merchant’s house in the east quarter? Or the jade scepter from that landed gentleman out west? Say the word, and I’ll fetch it for you tonight.”
I clamped the chicken leg between my teeth, blinked up at his bristled, weathered face, and mumbled, “I don’t want gold. I don’t want jade. I want a mother.”
The noise in the hall died at once.
All those men who usually killed without blinking and drank as easily as breathing froze where they sat, bowls raised halfway to their mouths. My uncles in all but blood suddenly looked as awkward as boys caught stealing pies. Even the mountain wind outside seemed to stop. The silence grew so thick I could hear the candles crackling.
My father stared at me for a long moment. Then he scrubbed one broad hand over his forehead and came away with a smear of dust and grit. He scratched at his head, and for once there was uncertainty in his voice.
“That… that’s not exactly the easiest thing to steal. That merchant’s house only has three fat sons. And the women kept by that gentleman out west paint themselves up like stage players. One whiff of all that powder would knock over an ox. I’d hate for you to choke on it.”
“I don’t care!”
I flung down the picked-clean chicken bone, dropped to the floor, and rolled around kicking and howling with all the force my lungs could muster. My cries nearly shook the roof tiles loose.
“Kids on other mountains have mothers to sew their clothes and braid their hair! I’m the only one dressed like a beggar! I want a mother! I want one now!”
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
My father feared nothing under heaven—except my crying. When I cried, Greypine Mountain might as well have been splitting in two.
At last he gritted his teeth and slammed a hand on the table so hard the wine bowls jumped.
“Enough! Stop crying! I’ll go down the mountain right now and bring back the best one there is. And if I can’t…” He paused, thinking wildly. “If I can’t, then I’ll tear down that convent at the foot of the mountain and make those nuns mother you instead!”
That very night, my father gathered a hundred of his strongest men. They slung swords across their backs, mounted their horses, and rode down the mountain in a great clamor.
I spent the whole night crouched in the watchtower by the stronghold gate, wrapped in a little quilted coat, letting the cold wind cut at my face. I hardly dared blink. Not until the first pale wash of dawn spread across the horizon did I finally see them returning along the winding mountain road, a dark line moving upward like ants hauling home a prize.
My father rode at the front on his tall horse.
There was someone in his arms.
I didn’t even stop to put on my shoes. I tore down the slope barefoot, the ground so cold it made the soles of my feet go numb.
“Father!” I shouted. “Did you bring my mother back?”
He swung down from the saddle. There was a trace of bad temper on his face, but underneath it was something else too—something strangely alive, almost excited. With a care I had never seen him use on anything in my life, he lifted the person from his arms and set her on the ground as if he were handling a piece of fine porcelain.
It was a woman, bound tightly from shoulders to ankles.
I had lived seven whole years and had never seen anyone so beautiful.
She wasn’t sobbing or shrieking the way I had imagined. She didn’t flutter and pout like the perfumed women attached to wealthy men’s households either. She wore a plain white dress, spattered here and there with mud, yet she still looked like a winter flower standing proud in the snow. Her hair had come loose in places, a few dark strands clinging to her cheek, making her face seem even colder, clearer—like the moon hanging high in the night sky.
What was strangest of all was that she neither cried nor fought.
She simply stood there in silence, those clear eyes passing lightly over the ring of fierce-looking outlaws around her before finally settling on me.
There was no fear in them. No disgust.
Only something I was too young then to name.
Pity.
“Chief,” One-Eye Drake said, sidling over with a grin as he rubbed his hands together, “where in the world did you find her? A woman with that kind of bearing doesn’t look like she came from any ordinary household.”
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
My father scratched the back of his head and gave a guilty little cough. “Well. I was on my way to snatch some corrupt official’s mistress, but halfway there I ran into this woman’s carriage being hunted by soldiers. So I figured the enemy of my enemy was my friend, and while I was at it, I saved her…” He coughed again. “And invited her back.”
At last, the woman spoke.
Her voice was a little hoarse, but it rang clear all the same, like spring water striking stone in a mountain stream. “Chief Linwood, when you say invited, do you mean you invited the carriage too?”
My father’s face went red. He stiffened his neck and threw on his mountain-chief swagger. “Enough talk. Once you’ve crossed into my stronghold, you’re one of mine. From today on, you’re my daughter’s mother and Greypine Mountain’s stronghold bride.”
The woman lifted one brow, then turned her gaze to me again.
I hunched my shoulders instinctively. Her eyes felt sharper than my father’s blade. But she was so beautiful I couldn’t help liking her from the bottom of my heart. Summoning every scrap of courage I had, I stepped forward, tugged lightly at her sleeve, and called out in a tiny voice, “Mama…”
Her whole body went rigid.
The air around us seemed to freeze. Even the wind felt too afraid to move. After a long while, the tension in her shoulders slowly eased. She lowered her head and looked at my grubby, mud-streaked little hand clutching the spotless white of her sleeve. Her brows drew together, just barely, but she didn’t pull away.
“My surname is Ashford,” she said at last, her voice flat and steady. “My name is Serena.”
At the time, I had no idea what storms the name Serena Ashford had once stirred in the literary circles and court of the Kingdom of Valewyn.
I only knew that from that moment on, I had a mother.
Serena Ashford became my new mother.
But she was nothing like the wicked stepmothers in storybooks. Those women were either all honey on the outside and poison underneath, or so meek they barely seemed alive. Serena was neither. If anything, she looked less like a woman brought to Greypine Mountain as a stronghold bride and more like someone who had arrived to rule the place.
On her second day in the mountain stronghold, she laid down rules for my father.
That morning, Father was sitting with his shirt hanging open, one foot propped on a stool as he gulped down thin porridge loud enough to shake the rafters. Serena walked in wearing the same white dress she had already washed spotless clean. She carried a bowl of plain congee in both hands. She said nothing. She only stood there, still as a blade, her eyes resting on my father.
He got so uncomfortable under that look that he slowly lowered his foot, tugged his clothes into place, and finally grumbled, “What are you staring at?”
Serena set down the bowl, drew a sheet of paper from her sleeve, and slapped it onto the table.
“Three rules,” she said.