Break Every Bone

The books taught that the power granted by pewter enhanced a body's existing strength, and so it was still worth building up my own natural abilities. Though I had been frail before, all of my physical exuberance had already helped me fill out. Pewter could make it hard to exercise effectively, as letting the metal do all the work did not strain my body enough to promote growth.

I learned to modulate the burn, tapping only as much strength as I needed. This practice gave me fine control over my burning, as well as allowing me to use my reserves more efficiently. I could make the same vial of pewter last two, three, four times longer while tapping the same strength. Even longer than that when I kept the burn on a simmer, just enough for me to maintain power to overcome my inherent weakness.

I took up dancing as a publicly acceptable pastime for a young noblewoman that justified the intensity of my training without arousing suspicion. This necessitated a covert means of taking additional pewter doses. My slow burn was sufficient that I could be out in public and maintain a dose in the morning throughout a daytrip, so long as I mostly sat, riding in carriages, taking tea, watching the theatre. Once I began training as a dancer however, I needed even more regular doses than when I was at home, but still did not want to risk revealing my secret.

Once again my uncle came through for us, suggesting I adopted the habits of an elderly noblewoman he had once known of regularly popping peppermints. Only mine were pewtermints, infused with flakes of metal.

The dose was smaller than you would get in a typical misting vial, but enough that I could keep my reserves topped up as I trained with the other dancers without being obvious. We did have to accept the necessity of bringing another person in on the secret, hiring a smoker to act as my lady's maid when in public to protect me from seekers.

Similarly, the mints had to be kept in a metal case to guard against coinshots and lurchers detecting the metal flakes. It meant risking its use as a weapon (any metal could be turned against you by a coinshots or lurcher), but we felt I was more likely to be a target of espionage than of an outright attack. I also had to practice some sleight-of-hand to be able to offer the mints to others, switching the case around to offer normal mints rather than the specially dosed ones.

The mints inspired me to investigate the options for a liquid pewter solution. It was difficult to find one that rendered the pewter liquid without degrading its allomantic properties, or making the concoction dangerous to ingest. My experiments rendered me sick more than once from metal poisoning, and I almost gave up before finally finding something that could be used in a diffuser. Just powdered pewter would have blocked up the spray nozzle in short order, but after a little refinement I ended up with a breath spray that could deliver a dose of pewter. The taste left something to be desired unfortunately, but delivered a powerful, rapidly absorbed dose of pewter when a quick burst of strength was needed.

With my newfound strength came newfound confidence. My upbringing had been sheltered, protected. I had been content in the idyllic little world that was our modest country manor. But now the world opened up in front of me, I was eager to travel, to see new things, to learn. I absorbed everything I could.

It took some convincing, but I eventually persuaded my parents to allow me to travel alone, or at least without them; I would always have a lady-in-waiting with me as befitted a respectable noblewoman… my secret smoker. I would travel with the caravans delivering goods from our holdings to nearby cities. I took every opportunity to visit my uncle.

As sharp and astute as he was, he had no idea about the kind of proper entertainment suitable for a girl my age… and so he would take me along with him to all the things he would normally do. I could tell he was worried that having me sit in on his business dealings would be dreadfully boring for me, but on the contrary, I was fascinated.

These were the men who ran things, decided things, owned things. These were the men who, in their quiet negotiations and backroom meetings, ran the empire. Every deal, every contract, every handshake shaped the future. I had discovered in my secretive pewter training that if I flared my power, I could smash bricks and bend metal bars. But as strong as I was, it was these unassuming often elderly men who held the real power in the world.

For his part, my uncle began humoring me, answering questions and explaining the purpose of his various deals. Soon he was grilling me after each meeting to see what I had observed and deduced. I was an eager student and soon I wasn't just learning from him, we were planning together, going over ledgers of his business interests, monitoring the news of the markets and discussing strategies for future deals.

Eventually I moved to Fadrax City permanently to live with my uncle as his protege. Before long, I was no longer the silent partner just making plans with my Uncle but letting him do the talking. He recognised my potential and started letting me do the talking during business deals.

It was exhilarating! I had thought that a hard dance routine would get my heart racing, but it was nothing to the way I felt when I closed my first deal. I continued to keep my pewter burning abilities a secret, but there was an undeniable confidence that came with knowing that, while I of course never would, that if I had wanted to I was fully capable of using my pewter enhanced strength to break every bone in their body without breaking a sweat.

That secret knowledge was a great asset to being calm and assertive in the face of hardened businessmen many years my senior.

Luthadel sounded like a dream come true for me, the heart of the Empire where the Lord Ruler and the most powerful House Lords controlled the world.

While we had made trade deals with Luthadel, it was further than I had ever traveled myself, and I was thrilled at the prospect of my next great adventure with… Tanniker… to Luthadel. We would take it together. I was so sure that together we would be unstoppable, together we could do anything, that together we would be a power couple like Luthadel had never seen!

I was so sure…