Lyra's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The blade cooled too fast in Lyra's tongs. The glow faded from orange to a sick gray. She had shaped it with dragon fire, but now she had no way to cool it. Ordinary water would crack frost-steel the second it touched. She looked at Garreth. "I need something colder than water. I need it now." Garreth wiped his hands on his jacket. He had taught her the trade, then sent her away when her marks first glowed. He had warned her that runed hands drew trouble. Now trouble stood in his shop with a dragon in the snow outside. He studied the blade, then the beast folding its wings at his door. "The fire made it," he said. "The fire can save it too." Lyra frowned. "Fire won't cool anything." "Not the flame. The blood." He reached under the bench and pulled out a dented metal bucket. "Bleed the dragon. A few drops in cold water. It turns the whole thing to something that bites deeper than ice." He set the bucket at her feet. "I've seen old smiths quench strange steels this way. Never frost-steel. But I've never seen frost-steel before you walked in." Lyra went to the dragon. Its eye tracked her, calm and bright. She pressed her marked hand to its neck. "I'm sorry," she said. She drew her chisel across one scale. The dragon shuddered but held still. Dark blue blood welled up and ran into the bucket. The water inside caught it and changed. A cold light spread through the liquid, pale and shifting. Frost crawled up the metal sides. The whole bucket glowed like swallowed winter. The blade in her tongs was nearly dead gray now. No time to test, no time to doubt. Lyra lifted it and plunged it into the glowing water. The bucket screamed. Steam shot up blue and freezing, not hot. The water hissed and locked solid around the blade, then cracked apart. Lyra held her breath and lifted the steel out. It came free clean. The edge shone hard and blue, cooled true, no crack running through it. She turned it in the light. The metal rang when she tapped it against the anvil. It had taken the quench. It had held. Garreth let out a slow breath. "It worked." "It worked," Lyra said. Then she saw the dragon. The beast had sunk low in the snow. Its wings hung loose. The cut on its neck still wept dark blood, and its bright eye had gone dim. Her hand was wet with it. She had her blade, hard and whole at last. But the creature that made it was fading in the cold, and the quench had cost more than water. Lyra dropped the blade on the bench and ran to the dragon's side.