Lyra's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Lyra left the ice tower with the dragon behind her and a lump of warm steel in her arms. The billet had cooled by the time she reached her own forge. It sat on her bench, a rough gray slab streaked with blue veins. She had the fire now. She had the creature that made it. But a billet was not a blade. She needed an anvil hard enough to take dragon-heated steel, and tools that would not melt in her hands. Her old iron would warp under the first strike. She knew one man who might have such tools. She wrapped the billet again and walked to his shop. Garreth had taught her the trade years back, then told her to go when her marks first glowed. He said runed hands drew trouble. Now she found him bent over a grinding wheel, sparks jumping off a plow blade. He did not look up when the door opened. "I know that step," he said. "Thought I was done with it." "I need an anvil," Lyra said. "And tools that can hold against dragon fire." He set the plow blade down. His blue eyes went to her glowing hands, then past her to the dragon folding its wings in the snow outside. He stood very still. "So the stories were true," he said. "You brought a storm to my door." "I brought steel that won't be shaped by anything I own." Garreth walked to the back of the shop. He dragged out an anvil under a sheet and pulled the cloth away. The metal shone cold and blue, clean-edged, far heavier than iron. "Forged it long ago for a smith who never came back," he said. "Blue steel. Fire like yours won't scar it." He set a hammer, tongs, a chisel, and a file beside it. The same blue sheen ran across each. "Why keep them?" Lyra asked. "Because I knew a day like this would walk in." He stepped back. "Work it here. I won't lift a hammer for you. The marks are yours." Lyra set the billet on the blue anvil. She whistled low, the way the goddess had. The dragon pushed its head through the wide door and breathed. Blue fire washed over the steel until it glowed soft. She gripped the tongs and swung the hammer. The blow landed clean. The anvil held. Sparks flew blue, not orange. She struck again, and the billet began to stretch and flatten under her hands. For the first time the metal obeyed her. By the time the fire faded she held a long rough blade, still thick, still dull, but shaped at last. Garreth looked at the glowing edge, then at the dragon filling his doorway. "You can't swing a hammer in a shop with a dragon's tail in the snow," he said. "And that blade needs quenching now, while it's hot. You have nothing here to cool frost-steel safely." Lyra looked at the shimmering blade in her tongs. It was cooling fast, and wrong.