“Shut up,” I said. The male looked at me in affronted shock. “Shut up before I crush your throat so thoroughly you can no longer speak. Or breathe.”

“Threats of violence will not get you very far here, Skallagrim,” Jolakaia warned me. “We are compelled only by the Mother and the way of cotton. We do not fear death.”

The shield of invisibility and the high wall and the gate and the armed guard said differently, but I saw no value in pointing that out right now.

“Skallagrim,” the male breathed. “No. It cannot be. The one from the legends...” He gave his head a stunned flick. “Whoever he is, he is a child of metal and he cannot be granted entrance.”

“I was a child of metal once too,” Jolakaia said sharply. “He has come here in softness, to beg for help from the Mother’s Hands. He-”

I had no plan to beg anyone for anything. If they could not be compelled by the threat of death, perhaps someone here with half a brain in their skull could be compelled by pain. I’d break a thousand bones if I had to until someone finally complied. Pull out ten thousand claws. Spill a river’s worth of blood.

I refused to stand idle with Suvi suffering, maybe even dying in my arms, while some guard flung gibberish moral strictures at me. Metal. Cotton. Who in the blasted river cared?

My tail twitched. The points of my starmap buzzed.

I blew the gate off its hinges.

The guard very narrowly avoided being squashed by heavy falling wood. I supposed he should have thanked his cotton Mother for that. Personally, I thought it was rather a pity and probably would have lifted the gate from the ground and brought it down again, on his head this time, if I had not had more pressing things to attend to.

The seam of Jolakaia’s snout had pulled long and flat, as if she were disappointed by something but not at all surprised.

We were standing in a large, mostly empty ring. Ahead was one more wall that encircled Callabarra, this one low enough that I could see the glow of the tall buildings beyond. From an opening in that wall, more guards poured forth, both male and female, about two dozen of them and almost all of them carrying more of the tubular weapons. Some of the weapons had begun to glow, emitting an ominous buzz of energy. I hissed, bared my fangs, and with a snap of power wrenched every weapon from every hand and pulverized them. Luckily, my power was as effective in controlling metal as it was water and wood. Perhaps I really was a child of the metal, whatever that meant.

Controlling flesh, however, was more difficult and yielded far messier results. As I held the group back from getting any closer to Suvi and me, I heard the distinct sound of several bones crunching even though I did not specifically mean to break anything – at least not yet. The three closest guards fell and clutched at various body parts. One of them was the original guard who’d accosted me at the gate, and when I saw the odd angle his leg was now bent at, I allowed myself to feel just the smallest slice of savage satisfaction.

This is what happens, came an inner taunt. This is what happens when you defy your prince. A prince with the powers of a god.

Somewhere, some sort of gong or bell was ringing. An alarm. Beyond the lower wall, my ears picked up frantic activity. Hurried footsteps, the slamming of doors, parents calling for their children. Someone cried out, “Koltar! The Mother’s Eye!” Jolakaia breathed out tensely then spoke quietly to me.

“Rein in your rage, Skallagrim. Rein it in and present yourself calmly before the Mother’s Eye. You have already done much damage here. We will help your companion, but if you continue in your rampage you will not be allowed within the inner walls. Your female will be taken from you in order to be saved.”

“Let anyone come and try to take her,” I hissed. The sentence was punctuated by the sound of another bone snapping somewhere in the group of guards I held back. It was unintentional, but it made my point rather nicely.

“I mean it, Skallagrim, calm yourself and-”

“And what? Your weapons will have no effect on me. Your walls cannot keep me out. I will pulverize a path through this city if I have to until I get what I need from it.”

“Then what?” Jolakaia probed. “Do you really think we’ll be able to attend your female with all due attention and all resources available if you are flattening everything we’ve built in a berserker rage? You have already injured four guards who now will need their own healing. Hurt any more people and all the Mother’s Hands will be busy mending bones instead of working on this female. She is not of our kind and with her foreign biology she will take much more time and expertise. You must realize that!”

My heart pounded so painfully hard that I felt it in my eyes – or my eye, and the hollow of the other. It was as if part of me could hear her logic, but another scratching and slavering part wanted to reject it entirely. Curse words, that part said, curse logic, curse the consequences of my actions and destroy. Fight and fight and fight until you get what you desire or there is nothing left.

“The Mother’s Eye!” The call came again from within the city’s wall, much closer this time.

Jolakaia gave a small hiss.

“There’s no more time. Koltar is about to pass through the inner wall and find us. If you want to get your female help with any sort of quickness, then you will calm yourself, now, and release the guards from whatever hold you have on them.”

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, placed her hand on my shoulder, and started to pray.

“Mother, wrap him in cotton. Wrap the metal’s edge so that he may find his way without cutting his path through this world. May he be durable and flexible and staunch all wounds and...”

Though it went against every bristling instinct that shaped me, I did as she asked. Just as a new male wearing golden-yellow robes came through the inner wall, I released my hold on the guards.

But unlike Jolakaia, I did not pray.

And I did not repent.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Skallagrim

The male in the deep yellow robes surveyed the scene with eyes set deep above his snout, his brow low. Everyone looked at him, to him, and it was obvious to me that he was some sort of leader among these people. Koltar. The Mother’s Eye. The guards slowly collected themselves and their crushed weapons. At least, those who could stand did.

“Honoured Eye, he-”

Koltar silenced Jolakaia by raising his flat palm then closing it into a fist. “I have heard much of it already.”

“Perhaps you should be named the Mother’s Ear, then,” I hissed. “If you can hear so well then hear me now. This female will be healed. Immediately.”

He jerked his snout up and to the right. “She will be.” He said it rather blithely, and for some reason the words did not reassure me but rather made me angry.

“Then let us pass!”

He eyed us for one excruciatingly long moment, then jerked his snout again in agreement. The guards who could walk freely clustered around us, two of them flanking Koltar and a third one placing his body between Koltar’s and mine as I followed him. As if that would do anything, I thought peevishly, if I really wanted to kill him. I broke some of their bones without even meaning to.

Imagine what I’d do if I meant it.

I adjusted Suvi in my arms. She made a small, pained sound that sent my guts twisting in my belly. I kept my wings firmly around her, protecting her and blocking her from prying eyes – of which there were many, peering from windows and doorways and the alleys between tall, lit-up buildings – but I made sure not to smother her too much. Her shivering body was already so much hotter than usual, and I did not want to make it any worse. I bumped my snout to the top of her head, rustling the fine hairs there with my breath.