Chapter 6: The Apprentice's Hands

"If your alley has begun selling plum scandal by the cup, Lina, I am here as a civic servant and a thirsty man."

Rovan stood in the kitchen doorway with one hand on the frame and the other carefully not touching his sword. He was off gate duty for the afternoon, though he still wore the leather shoulder guards that made him look more official than his expression deserved. Behind him, in the common room, three villagers pretended not to listen from the hearth table.

Lina closed the pantry door behind Mira, who was still recovering on a flour crate with water, a cooling cloth, and the smug serenity of a woman who had discovered a new category of afternoon.

"This is not a tavern special," Lina said. "This is a controlled experiment."

Rovan looked around the kitchen: Tamsin guarding the notebook, Lina flushed and ink-smudged, the copper pot hidden badly under a towel, and the hearth beyond the door giving occasional approving cracks.

"I have seen controlled experiments," he said. "They usually involve fewer people asking me whether the inn has invented a drink that makes leather stalls more interesting."

Tamsin pointed at him. "Mira is a menace and will be billed separately."

From behind the pantry door, Mira called, "Menace was not in the consent terms."

"It is in the addendum," Tamsin called back.

Rovan's mouth twitched. "I did not come to stop you. I came because Garron's apprentice is in the street announcing that if a courier can survive your brew, a blacksmith's man can handle twice the heat. He is gathering an audience, and if he says the word handle one more time with that much confidence, the square may become impossible to govern."

Lina shut her eyes. "Dain."

"Dain," Rovan confirmed.

Tamsin sighed. "That boy has the self-preservation of bread left near dogs."

"Dain is twenty-three," Lina said. "He is old enough to be responsible for his own mouth."

"His mouth has never accepted that responsibility," Tamsin said.

They found Dain outside the forge, exactly where Rovan had promised and worse than Lina had feared. He was broad-shouldered from hammer work, brown-haired, shirt open at the throat, arms folded in a pose he had clearly practiced against reflective metal. Half the market had not gathered, but enough had drifted close to make the matter dangerous.

"Lina," Dain said, too brightly. "Tell them I am volunteering in the name of honest craft."

Garron stood in the forge doorway behind him, arms crossed. Garron was large, black-bearded, and usually quiet enough that silence around him became an object with weight. His eyes met Lina's. They were not angry yet. They were measuring the size of the nuisance.

"Honest craft," Garron said, "does not usually require you to shout about your cock in the street."

The listeners laughed. Dain went red.

Lina stepped close enough for the crowd to hear her and low enough to force them to quiet down. "Dain, if you want to volunteer for a controlled taste, you will stop performing for the street and start answering questions like an adult. If you cannot do that, you can go back to the forge and impress the anvil, which has the advantage of being unable to gossip."

Dain's posture shifted. Pride fought interest and lost. "I can answer questions."

Tamsin opened the notebook. "Name, age, current state."

"Dain Voss, twenty-three, healthy, not drunk."

"Expected effects?"

"Heat, wanting, honesty, body feeling... closer."

Mira's useful sentence had already escaped into Valmora.

"Boundaries?" Tamsin asked.

Dain glanced at the crowd.

Tamsin snapped the notebook shut. "No. You look at me when answering that. If the crowd matters more than your own terms, you are not drinking anything."

That did what scolding would not. Dain looked at her properly.

"No touching from anyone unless I ask," he said. "I do not want to be stripped in public, even if I make a fool of myself. If I need release, I want somewhere private."

"Safe word?"

"Candle."

"And if Lina or I say stop?"

"I stop."

Garron grunted. "First sensible sentence he has forged all week."

Lina took the cup from Tamsin: three drops in watered cider. "This is not twice Mira's dose. It is the same dose. If you want to prove strength, prove you can follow directions."

Dain drank.

The crowd leaned in as one body.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Dain's expression shifted. Not like Mira's bright curiosity. His whole body seemed to remember itself at once: shoulders tightening, breath deepening, hands flexing at his sides.

"Name the honest part first," Tamsin said.

"Heat," Dain said. His voice came rougher. "In my chest first. Arms next. Hands feel... full."

"Full?"

"Like I can feel every callus from the inside."

Garron's eyebrows lifted slightly. That was the first moment Lina saw him become interested.

"Between your legs?" Tamsin asked.

Dain swallowed, color climbing his neck. "Hard."

A woman near the leather stall laughed. Dain looked toward the sound.

Tamsin stepped between him and the crowd. "Do not perform embarrassment. It wastes everyone's time. You are hard because you consented to a brew that increases arousal. Say it plainly and you get dignity back."

Dain looked at her, breathing faster. "I am hard. It is strong, but I am choosing."

Lina wrote quickly.

Dain's hands flexed again. "The hammer grip feels like it is still in my palms. I want to hold something."

Garron stepped aside from the forge doorway. "Inside."

"Garron?" Lina asked.

"Inside before the square decides it paid for a show."

The forge was hotter than the street, all orange glow and iron smell. Tools hung in ordered rows. The anvil sat square in the center like a patient judge. Garron closed the door most of the way but left the upper shutters open for air. Rovan stayed outside to move the crowd along with the tone of a man accustomed to disappointing curious people.

Dain stood near the workbench, both hands braced on the wood, trousers visibly tented. He looked mortified now that the crowd was gone.

"Water first," Tamsin said.

He drank.

"Do you want cooling?" Lina asked.

Dain shook his head. "No. I want to use my hands. Mine. Alone. If that is allowed."

Tamsin looked at Lina, then Garron.

Garron turned his back without fuss and faced the open forge. "I have seen men piss, puke, and pray in this room. I can look at fire for five minutes."

Dain laughed once, strained but grateful.

Lina kept her voice steady. "You can use your hands. Tell us whether you want us in the room."

"Stay," he said. "Not close. I want to know if the brew changes before I finish."

Tamsin made a note. Lina watched Dain unlace his trousers. He freed himself with a shaking breath, cock hard and flushed in his callused hand. The sight was explicit and startling in the forge light: young strength, honest arousal, no seduction wrapped around it except his own body deciding what the brew had made easier to admit.

Dain stroked himself once and groaned.

"Too much?" Tamsin asked.

"No. Direct. Like with Mira, I think. Less space between wanting and feeling." He stroked again, slower. "Hands are the strongest. Every ridge on my palm feels like it belongs to someone who has been touching me all day."

"Forge work," Garron said from the fire. "The body remembers repetition."

Dain's laugh turned into a moan. "Gods, Master, do not make the anvil sound wise while I have my cock in my hand."

Even Garron smiled at that.

Dain worked himself steadily. Lina wrote what he said when he could say it: heat in hands, no confusion, arousal manageable, shame reduced once privacy established. His hips began to move into his fist. Sweat darkened his open shirt. The forge heat made everything gleam.

"Close," Dain said.

"Still yes?" Tamsin asked.

"Yes. Still choosing. Do not stop me unless I forget where I am."

"You are in the forge."

"Unfortunately very aware."

He came with one hand braced on the bench and the other pumping hard over a rag Tamsin had wordlessly handed him. His body locked, shoulders shaking, mouth open on a sound he tried and failed to swallow. The orgasm looked almost painful in its clarity, then left him loose-kneed and laughing under his breath.

"Report?" Lina asked softly.

Dain leaned his forehead against the bench. "I will never touch a hammer again without remembering this."

Garron turned then, dry as old stone. "That is going to make tomorrow's work either better or unbearable."

Dain tucked himself away, still flushed. "Sorry, Master."

"For the shouting, yes. For testing safely after you were told the rules, no."

Lina looked at Garron. "I owe you for using the forge."

"You owe me for hinges already. Put this beside them." His eyes moved to the little bottle. "But bring that cup here again before you sell it near tools. The forge noticed."

Lina stilled. "What do you mean?"

Garron pointed to the anvil.

A thin bead of moisture had gathered on the iron surface, though the room was hot enough to dry sweat on skin.

Tamsin came closer. "Is that normal?"

"No," Garron said. "Iron does not sweat because an apprentice pleasures himself."

Dain groaned. "Please never say that sentence near anyone."

Garron wiped the anvil with his thumb. The moisture left a faint warm line.

"Your drink is not just warming bodies," he said. "Something under the heat is answering."

Outside, the disappointed crowd finally began to drift away.

Inside, Lina stared at the anvil and felt the notebook grow heavier in her hand.