Dran Z'vinn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Dran held the crystal shard in his fist. The light was back across the Stretch, but Shr'va would not name the forge without her price. "Name it," he said. She smiled and slid closer over the wet stone. "A thing I want. Bring me the healer's book. The one Grisandra Svetlana keeps. It holds cures I do not have." Dran knew the name. Every hurt soul on the Stretch knew it. He did not know the old woman would refuse him. He found her hut by a creek two days later. Smoke rose from the chimney. She sat on a stool outside, mixing a paste in a clay bowl, and did not look up. "You walk heavy for a man with light armor," she said. "Sit. You are bleeding under that plate." He was. A shallow cut from the hollow. She had seen it from across the yard. "I need your book," Dran said. "The one with the cures. I can pay." Grisandra kept mixing. "No." "I broke the orb. The lights burn again because of me. You owe—" "I owe you nothing." She set the bowl down. "That book is bound in old leather and marked with signs I still cannot read. I gave a man a bad leg once because I moved too fast. I keep the book so I stop doing harm. I do not hand it to a stranger for a snake's bargain." Dran's jaw tightened. "Then I take it." She looked at him then. Her brown eyes did not blink. "You could. You have a sword and I have a stick." She lifted her walking stick, then set it against the wall. "But you came here to save the light. A man who steals from an old woman is not that man. Sit down before your wound rots." Dran stood over her. His hand rested on his hilt. Then he let go. He sat on the log by her fire. She cleaned his cut with the paste. It stung, then cooled. "Shr'va wants the book to trade," he said. "For the forge that can reshape this." He opened his hand. The shard caught the firelight. Grisandra studied it. "I will not give her the book. But I know that forge. It is in a tower of iron and old stone, three ridges north. Graveborn, they call it. A wizard worked curses there once. His fire still burns." She wrapped his arm. "Go there. Do not tell Shr'va I told you. Let her keep waiting for her price." Dran left at dawn with the shard and the tower's name. He had not paid Shr'va. He had cut her out. She would learn it soon, and she was not a woman who forgave a debt turned to nothing. But now he knew where to forge the blade.