My heart was full of hatred. I knew I was no match for Aldric, yet I still set out on the road to the Commission's stronghold to take my revenge.
But my bones had barely knit and my leverage had yet to coalesce. I couldn't even fend off a street thug looking for an easy mark.
Just as a man with a knife was about to finish what Aldric had started, a pair of large hands scooped me into a warm embrace.
The old man whose eyes already creased with wrinkles looked down at me, heartache plain on his face. "How's a little thing like you out here all alone with nobody looking after you?"
"Don't be scared, sweetheart. This old man will keep you safe."
I assumed his kindness was a passing impulse. I never imagined he would go on protecting me for years.
The year I pieced Mietitore back together, I was nine. I reforged the broken blade myself, heating the steel over a gas burner in the back of Massimo's shop, working the metal with hands too small for the hammer. Tore found me there at three in the morning and said nothing. He simply sat down, took the hammer from me, and held the blade steady while I shaped it.