“What do you mean, what else? That’s what he did. That’s what happened. He tried to kiss me, and I told him no. Then he got angry and stormed off.”

“You’re telling me that boy made a big scene over a kiss! I thought he tried to assault you or something.”

“He did try to assault me. He tried to assault me with his lips.”

I’m staring at the back of her head. I wish I could see her expression. But when she starts shaking with laughter, I can imagine it perfectly.

“I love you, Ziva,” she says once she gets her giggling under control.

“I love you, too.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

It takes me a whole day to convince myself that Asel’s threat was empty.

Then Temra comes home from school in tears.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She heads for her room upstairs without another word.

Later, I’m able to pry more out of her. I forgot that Asel is one year above her in school. I didn’t have a formal education. I only apprenticed as a smithy. The dynamics of an educational setting are completely foreign to me.

But somehow, Asel has turned all her classmates against her. Temra’s friends have shunned her. Apparently everyone has taken Asel’s side in the matter, despite the fact that Temra had nothing to do with the incident in the governor’s home.

I may hate confrontation, but I’m not about to sit by while that brat makes a mess of Temra’s school life.

“Where are you going?” Temra asks when she sees me trade my work boots for walking boots.

“To the governor’s home.”

“You can’t!”

“I absolutely can.”

“If you tattle to his parents, that’ll only make things worse for me! Please, Ziva!”

She makes me promise I won’t go, and though I tell her I won’t go today, I make no such promises not to do so in the future.

But then things get worse.

I’m working alone in the forge when five men let themselves in. At first, my mind starts whirring from the thought of having to talk to so many people at a time, but when I take a second look, I realize these boys aren’t here to talk.

They’re friends of Asel’s.

I instantly relax and raise my hammer in one hand and the fire-red tongs in the other. “You’d better think very carefully about your next move,” I say.

I’m not intimidated by any of them. They’re tiny things, really. Hardly taller than five and a half feet each. There’s not one of them I’d lose to in an arm wrestling match. Together, however, they could overpower me.

But with a pair of tongs fresh out of the kiln? I don’t expect them to attack me.

And they don’t. Instead, they make their way around the forge, overturning tables and throwing tools across the room. They can’t actually break anything. Everything important is made of metal.

But the mess is devastating to watch.