Petra Stoneheart's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The cracked blade lay on Dan's workbench. Petra had the fire now. She had the metal. But the blade still chipped, and no one in town knew how to fix it. Dan said old knowledge existed. He had heard it from a traveling smith years ago. A way to quench steel that water could not match. But Dan did not have it. "There's a method," he said. "Stones. Dark ones. You heat the blade, then set it against them. Draws the brittle out. I never learned the full trick." Petra set her jaw. "Then we find someone who did." Dan rubbed his beard. "One man might. He used to run with us. Jake." Petra waited. "Jake Hazardapple. He collected strange things when the band toured. Rocks, bones, whatever held a hum. He kept a cluster of black stones. Said they came from under a cursed place in the sand. Swore they hardened anything they touched." Dan's voice dropped. "I never asked to borrow them. We didn't part easy." They found Jake at the forge door by midday. He came with his hands in his jacket pockets. His red hair caught the lamplight. He looked at Dan, not Petra, and his mouth twisted. "You call me after two years for rocks." Dan did not flinch. "Yeah. I do." Jake laughed once, hard. Then he pulled a cloth bundle from his pocket and unwrapped it on the bench. The stones sat dark and smooth. Violet light moved inside them. Petra reached out, then stopped. "How do they work?" Jake studied her. "You want it bad." "Three hunters are dead," she said. "The beast takes more every winter." Jake nodded slowly. "Heat the steel white. Press it flat against the stones. Hold it till they stop glowing. Don't lift it early." Petra fired the pit. Dan worked the bellows without a word. The blade went in gray and came out white. Petra laid it across the black stones. The violet light flared. Heat poured off the metal in waves. Her arms shook from holding it down. The stones hissed. The glow climbed up the blade and died. She counted her breaths and did not lift it early. When the light faded, the steel had changed. It was darker now, deeper. Petra lifted it and struck the iron bar. The edge bit clean. No chip. She struck again, harder. The blade rang and held. No crack ran the spine. She tested it a third time, with both hands. The iron bar dented. The blade stayed whole. She had her weapon. Strong and true, fit to face the beast. Petra turned to thank Jake, but he had already picked up the cloth that wrapped the stones. "You keep two," he said. "The rest come with me. I only lent these because he asked." He nodded at Dan, then at the door. "There's more where they came from. But the place that holds them doesn't give things up easy. You'll want to know what's down there before you go back for more."