The hammer fell on the anvil, and the spear vibrated with a blue glow.
Duncan panted, drenched in sweat. Each blow burned his lungs as if he'd breathed fire.
Then, for a moment, he saw it: a white flame igniting around the metal, as if it were from another world.
The giant didn't notice. Kael did.
"Duncan... your eyes... they're burning!"
The blacksmith touched his face. The heat wasn't coming from the forge. It was coming from him.
A memory flashed in his mind, but it wasn't his own: visions of ancient blacksmiths, men hammering weapons in fires that consumed neither wood nor coal, but burned with a pure, devastating light.
The Divine Fire.
A flame capable of giving life to steel, of binding soul and metal.
Duncan looked down at his hands. They burned with a soft, golden light, which didn't burn but warmed the soul.
He understood, in that instant, that this power was the gift that had followed him across the worlds.
"A fire... that never dies," he murmured.
The giant laughed, unaware. "With that hammer, you are more god than man, stranger!"
But Duncan knew it was no joke. That flame could consume him if he didn't control it.
---
That same night he returned to the castle. In the new royal workshop, larger and more equipped, Duncan stopped before the anvil.
He had made up his mind: he would test the Divine Fire. Not on any weapon.
But on a sword.
"Not for the king," he whispered to himself, placing a block of black steel on the forge.
"Not for the Circle. For me."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he struck the first blow, the forge exploded in a white flash. The metal sang, and with each strike, the flames bathed it in light.
Hours later, exhausted but victorious, Duncan raised the blade.
It was long, elegant, its edge shining like crystal and a golden aura radiating heat. A sword that seemed to breathe with him.
He gripped it, and the flame in his hands pulsed like a heart.
He had forged his first weapon with Divine Fire.
He was no longer just a blacksmith.
He was a creator of legends.