Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 3 of 31

Sterling worked the coals until dawn. He drew two blades from the same billet, folding the steel again and again, chasing even heat down the length. The first came out clean. The second cooled with a hairline crack near the tang, thin as a hair, hidden under the scale. He found it on the second grind. He ran his thumb over it and knew a hard strike could split it. He wrapped both in oilcloth anyway. Two blades were better than one. He would carry the cracked one himself. He slept two hours on the shop floor. When night came again he crossed the square with the blades under his coat. Her window was latched but loose. He worked it open and climbed through. Linny sat cross-legged on the bed with a journal open on her knees. A candle burned low beside her. She was painting a shape onto the page, something with too many sides. She saw him and her hand jerked. A line of blue ran off the edge. "You could knock," she said. "You'd have locked me out." "Yes." He set the bundle down on the quilt. He did not unwrap it. He sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. His shoulder still ached where the fae had opened it. "How do you know it's different this time," he said. She closed the journal on her thumb. "I know." "That's not an answer." "It's the one you get." He waited. She turned the journal on her knee and did not look at him. On the trunk his hands hung between his boots. He made them stay there. "I brought two," he said. "If you want one, tell me. If you don't, I go home." She watched him for a long moment. Then she opened the journal again and turned it toward the candle. Page after page of the same place, painted from angles she had never stood at. Light that moved wrong. A hill. A door in the hill. A girl standing beside it in a green dress with no shoes. "I didn't paint her," Linny said. "She shows me. I found this last time. In the hollow under the frostwood." She tapped her journal. "And now I have the key." "A key to what." "The door that kept me out. The one I couldn’t see." He looked at the painted girl. He looked at Linny. Her face was tired and certain. "I want a blade," she said. He unwrapped the good one and laid it across the quilt. He kept the cracked one under his coat. “I made a mistake last time, Lin.” “Telling me to give up my dream? That it was stupid?” “No.” He still thought that. “Trying to talk you out of it for one. And letting you go alone.” She was silent. “I was a coward. I didn’t even go after you.” He placed his hand on the other bundle. “I won’t make that mistake again. I’m coming with you.” She laughed. “No.” “I didn’t ask,” he bit. “I’ll follow behind if you say no, or you could let me join, and prove me wrong. But I’m coming.” She did not tell him no again. She picked up the blade with a slight grin and tested its weight. Then she blew out the candle.