“I don’t wanna get up,” the figure sleeping next to her mumbled.
“Go back to sleep,” Thessa said, gently touching the head of golden hair lying on the pillow. The girl’s name was Palua. She was an apprentice at the glassworks and at nineteen just a couple of years younger than Thessa herself. Thessa grimaced. She wasn’t supposed to sleep with anyone of a lower rank. Kastora was going to give her an earful when he found out. If he found out. This would, she promised herself, be a one-time thing. No more bottles of wine and shared cigarettes late at night.
It wasn’t even a serious thing with Palua. But this was what Thessa did around the holidays, every damn time; find some way to avoid the loneliness of not having a family to visit. Last year it was that muscular guard, a real asshole of a man who turned out to be married. The year before that she’d eaten until she threw up. “I’ve got to stop doing this to myself,” she muttered, trying to work the ashy taste of cigarettes out of her mouth.
Thessa craned her head toward the sound of thunder in the distance, then forced herself to lie back down. It was just the Forge – a storm-prone series of cliffs a dozen miles to the north. The Forge could often be heard late at night, thunder rumbling distantly even when the air was calm in Grent itself.
Just below her window was a small racket, a series of feathery thumps and a high-pitched repeating screech. Thessa snorted irritably and finally swung her feet off the bed, padding across her cell to open the door with a creak, peering into the darkness of the dormitory. Most of the bunks were empty, siliceer apprentices sent home to celebrate the winter solstice. Thessa herself was the only journeyman left in the building, having volunteered to oversee the furnaces and the small handful of remaining apprentices. It seemed silly to take a holiday when she had no family to visit and her few friends were gone to see their own.
She pulled on a tunic, then hurried down the stairs, following the sound of angry screeching. Just outside the main floor was a large mews – a room-sized falcon cage with a thatch roof and iron bars. A large falcon, just a few inches shy of two feet tall, was hopping from perch to perch, fluttering his wings in agitation. “Ekhi,” she hissed, “shut the piss up! People are trying to sleep.”
The falcon hopped to the closest perch, cocking his head forward through the bars and staring at her until she reached out to stroke the top of his head. He nipped gently at her fingers and ruffled his feathers.
“What’s wrong, Ekhi?” she asked. “I didn’t forget to feed you yesterday, did I? No, I definitely fed you. Is the Forge bothering you? It never has before.” She sighed. He seemed calm enough with her right here. He must have just had a bad night. “I know I haven’t taken you hunting for a while, but I’ve been in charge of the glassworks. Once Kastora returns I’ll take an afternoon off and we’ll head into the countryside. Does that sound good?”
Ekhi nipped at her fingers again and she smiled. No matter how annoying the little asshole could be, she still loved him. “Breakfast is in two hours. Here, hold on.” She found a little crate nearby containing his anklets and jesses, then reached through the bars to put them on his legs. That always calmed him down – an implicit promise he was going to get to fly soon. “There, now settle down and don’t wake everyone up.”
Thessa ran her fingers through her hair, pulling out the tangles. Might as well do a round of the building. One of the apprentices should be up by now, lighting the furnace for the day’s work. Keep them on their toes, Master Kastora always said, or they won’t respect you. Thessa needed the respect. At just twenty-two in a profession that so often valued age over talent, she found herself too experienced to chum with the apprentices but too young to be properly respected by her peers.
She stilled her anxious thoughts and slipped on her thick-soled boots and heavy apron, then headed across the dark dormitory and down into the courtyard. Navigating the glassworks grounds in the dark was second nature, and she soon entered the main workshop. The furnace still burned hot; a permanent flame that took days to get up to temperature for working godglass. The reheating chamber, however, had not yet been lit and the workshop was empty. Thessa let out an irritated sigh. She found and read through the furnace schedule until she landed on today’s date. Axio. That flirty little shit.
She returned to the dormitory, where she found the third bed on the east wall and poked the snoring lump on the top bunk. “Axio.”
Axio snorted and rolled over.
“Axio!” She slapped him hard across the stomach.
“Ow! Son of a bitch, I … Thessa, what the piss was that for?” Axio sat up in bed, peering at Thessa. He was only two years younger than her, with scraggly blond hair and the kind of pretty face that would have looked more at home on either side of the transaction in a Grent whorehouse than in the glassworks. He was one of the many assistants who worked for the glassworks hauling firewood and keeping the workshops clean. Thessa held up the furnace schedule so he could see it in the moonlight. He ran a hand over his unshaven face and gave her a lopsided smile. “Oh, come on. It’s a holiday.”
“And you’re on the schedule,” Thessa said, tossing him the clipboard. “You were supposed to be up an hour ago tending the furnace and prepping the reheating chamber.” She turned and headed toward the stairs, listening to him swear as he pulled on his boots and apron. His footsteps followed her, and soon they were in the main workroom. Thessa lit the lanterns while Axio fumbled loudly with an armload of kindling.
“Hey,” he said as he loaded wood into the reheating chamber, “you never answered me about going into town for the solstice festival.” He shot her a coy smile. “We could even slip into Ossa. Their winter beer is so much better than ours.”
Ah. Damn, she’d completely forgotten about that. Thessa rolled her eyes as she lit the last lantern. Axio had been flirting with her ever since he arrived at the glassworks six months ago. Other than his looks, he had very little going on. He wasn’t from a rich family, or terribly ambitious or bright. He wasn’t even all that funny. Besides, she had already tangled herself up with Palua. She needed to make sure that wouldn’t blow up in her face before she went looking for more fun.
Court for love, money, or political gain, Master Kastora always said. Preferably two of the three. Anything else just sullies your reputation. Fun was never on that list, and Kastora had stopped turning a blind eye to her romps since her promotion to journeyman.
“I’ll think about it,” Thessa told Axio, before leaving him alone to finish lighting the reheating chamber.
She was on her way back to the dormitory when she was surprised to see a light on in Master Kastora’s office. The master had been gone for weeks, off working on one of his secret projects out in the countryside. He wasn’t supposed to be back until after the solstice.
Thessa changed directions and paused just outside his office to listen to the far-off thunder. Something was odd about that thunder, but she couldn’t quite place it.
She put it out of her mind and knocked.
“Come,” a soft male voice said.
Master Kastora’s office was an impeccably clean room containing a large drafting table, a single formal desk flanked by wingback chairs for visiting politicians, and two large iron safes stuffed to the brim with his formulas and technical drawings. Kastora himself was a widower in his sixties, “remarried to his furnace” as he liked to say. He was a thin man of medium height, with a bald patch taking over the center of his head of gray hair. His hands and arms were a patchwork of burn scars and permanent glassrot scales from a lifetime of godglassworking. He had a distracted but gentle face, giving her a smile as he looked up from his desk.