Aldric Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

Aldric held the grey shard to the window light and pressed its edge against a smaller piece. The two would not meet. The break lines were sharp and hard, like glass left in frost. He needed heat to soften them, a forge flame steady enough to work the crystal soft. The cabin had a cold hearth and a few sticks of kindling. No forge. No bellows. He struck a fire in the grate, held a shard to the flame, and watched nothing happen. The crystal stayed brittle. One press and it would crack again. "This fire is too weak," Aldric said. "I need real heat." Galahad looked up from sharpening his blade. "The valley smith has a forge." "Two days there and back," Aldric said. "And the smith already refused us once." A knock hit the door. Shadowpaw rose from under the table, hackles up. Faelan opened it, bow half-drawn. A knight stood outside in dented armor, a crossbow scar cut deep in his breastplate. Mud caked his boots. His face was grey with hard riding. "Buster," Galahad said, standing. The two knights had ridden the same roads. Galahad's shoulders eased only a little. "My mill burned," Buster said. "A dragon did it. I'm hunting it north." He looked past them to the shards on the table. "You have crystal. That traps dragons." "If I can join it," Aldric said. "The pieces are too brittle. I have no forge heat to soften them." Buster stepped in. He crouched by the weak fire, then studied the shards. "You don't need a forge," he said. "You need dragon fire. My family worked metal. Sky-crystal came from dragons. Only dragon heat softens it clean." Aldric went still. "There is no dragon here." "There's dragon in the crystal," Shadowpaw said from the floor. "Trapped. Burning slow." Aldric turned the grey shard over. Deep inside it, a faint red thread pulsed, like a coal that would not die. He had never looked close enough to see it. He set the shard on the oak table and held a smaller piece against it, break to break. Then he spoke to the shard the way he had spoken to the iron boxes. Not a command. A request. "Give up your heat. Let the edges yield." The red thread brightened. The crystal warmed under his fingers. The sharp edge went soft, like wax near flame. He pressed the two pieces together. They held. No crack. No slide. The seam glowed once, then cooled to a single grey line. Two shards, now one. Aldric let out a breath. His hands did not shake. But as the seam cooled, the red thread inside dimmed and shrank. He had spent some of the dragon's caged heat to make the join. "The third piece," Buster said. "Same way." Aldric nodded slowly. He could finish the crystal. But each join drained the fire that kept the dragon inside. Weld the last seam wrong, and he would free the very thing the crystal was built to hold.