The firelight always found ways to trick the eye. Shadows bent and stretched against the stone walls, dancing like restless spirits while the iron hissed and groaned. I wiped the sweat from my brow, though it only smeared soot across my skin.
Father stood across from me, sleeves rolled to the elbow, thick forearms glistening with heat. He'd worked the forge for longer than I'd been alive, and every scar on his hands told a story I wasn't sure I wanted to hear.
"You're rushing again," he said.
"I'm not," I replied automatically, though the uneven rhythm of my hammer betrayed me.
He raised a brow. "Then the iron is lying."
"Maybe it is," I shot back, lips twitching. "Metal can be stubborn. Takes after you."
The corner of his mouth lifted in a rare smile. "Then you'll have no trouble with it, since you're twice as stubborn as I'll ever be."
We shared a brief laugh, though mine faltered quickly. The truth was, the forge demanded more from me than it ever had before. Each day, Father pressed harder, as though some unseen clock ticked louder with every sunrise. He didn't say it, but I knew why.
War.
It hovered at the edge of every conversation in the square, stalked the silence in our home, lingered in the questions people were too afraid to ask.
Would the fae come?
Would they take what they wanted?
Would we have enough to fight back, or would we be broken like iron cooled too quickly?
I shook the thoughts away and focused on the rhythm. Strike. Turn. Strike again. The hammer was an anchor, heavy and sure, its song steady even when the world outside spun faster.
But when the iron hissed as I quenched it, steam curling up like smoke from a funeral pyre, I couldn't stop the unease that coiled tighter in my chest.
Father caught me staring too long at the blade. "You're thinking again."
"Is that not allowed?"
"Not when your thoughts wander where they shouldn't." He met my gaze, steady as the anvil between us. "Fear weakens steel before the strike. Weakens people too."
I wanted to argue, to say fear also sharpened you, made you fight harder. But something in his tone silenced me. He wasn't speaking as a blacksmith then. He was speaking as a man who had seen what fear could do.
The door creaked open again, letting in a draft that carried the scent of bread and the distant cry of gulls from the river.
"Speak of fear and it walks through the door," Father muttered, though there was humor in his voice.
Ronan leaned inside, grinning like he had no right to. He held a broken rivet between his fingers, waggling it at me as though it were a prize.
"Seems my belt buckle couldn't survive another week of me," he said. "Thought I'd bring it to the only smith who might fix it without scolding me for eating too much bread."
I set the hammer down with a clatter. "Maybe the belt isn't the problem."
He laughed, a sound that filled the forge and made the firelight seem brighter. "Sharp tongue, sharper than your blades. One day, Eria, you'll wound me beyond repair."
Father grunted, but didn't look up from the blade he was polishing. "Wouldn't be the worst thing."
Ronan smirked, but his eyes found mine. They lingered a moment longer than they should have, softening in a way I didn't know how to answer.
I busied myself with the rivet, muttering under my breath, though I wasn't sure who I was trying to convince—him, Father, or me.