Freya Ironblade's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The forge rose from the rock like a temple. Freya stood before its great arch and felt the heat wash over her face. Fire glowed behind an iron gate. Runes lined the stone walls, blue and gold. She carried the shards in a leather sack on her back. Somewhere inside worked the man who could melt them. Naferian had told her his name. He had also told her the man would refuse. An old man swept the stone steps with a straw broom. Gray hair sat knotted on his head. His beard reached his chest. He did not look up when Freya climbed toward him. He kept sweeping the same clean step. "I need your forge," Freya said. "I can pay." "Master Chen owns this forge," the old man said. "That is me. And you cannot pay." He swept again. "Many strong ones come. They think the fire is a tool. The fire is a test." Freya dropped the sack at his feet. The shards spilled out, silver and sharp. "These are pieces of a god's axe. Two years I hunted them. Bone hounds burned me for the last one." She held up her scarred palm. "I don't want a lesson. I want the fire." Chen finally looked at her. His eyes were dark and steady. "Then you will waste the fire and ruin the shards. The forge answers only a worthy hand." He set down the broom. "Prove it. Not with your axe. With patience." He walked to the anvil beneath the arch. On it lay three raw metals in three piles. Black steel. Green ore. Gold. "Blend these into one bar," Chen said. "No cracks. No seams. Fail, and you leave." Freya wanted to argue. She swallowed it. She fed the metals into the fire and worked the bellows. The heat scorched her arms. She poured, folded, and hammered. Her first bar split down the middle. Chen said nothing. She threw it back and started again. Hours passed. Her hands blistered. She stopped fighting the metal and began to listen to it. She hammered slower. She folded the layers with care, the way she had never treated any weapon. Sweat ran into her eyes. At last she lifted a single ingot from the anvil. Black, green, and gold flowed through it in smooth waves. No crack. No seam. She turned it in the light and held it out. Chen took the ingot. He ran his thumb along the bands. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he nodded once. "Now your hand is worthy," he said. "The fire is yours." Freya's chest loosened. She looked at the god-axe shards on the stone, then at the roaring gate. She had the forge at last. But the ingot in Chen's hand was three soft metals. The god's shards were something older, harder, and she did not yet know if any heat could bind them.