Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 31 of 31

They were home a week before Sterling lit the forge again. Linny came with him each morning. She sat on the stool by the water barrel and painted small things on scraps of tin while he worked. He tried the sword every day. Every day it cracked at the quench, or the edge ran wavy, or the spine warped where the heat had run thin. "Again," she said each time. She did not say it kindly. She said it like a fact. He rebuilt the hearth on the fourth day. He tore out the old brick and laid new ones tighter, packed clay in the seams, cut a second vent low on the side. He watched the coals from morning until the light went yellow at the window. The heat still crawled. One end of the bar glowed orange while the other stayed dull red. "It's the draw," he said. "Air comes in cold from the door. It pulls the fire long instead of even." Linny looked up from her tin. "Close the door." "I'll cook." "Then crack the roof." He stared at her. Then he climbed up and pried loose two shingles above the chimney. Cold air fell straight down onto the coals. The fire steadied. The bar glowed one color end to end. He worked through the afternoon without speaking. He drew the steel out slow. He folded it, welded it, drew it again. The hammer sang the same note on every strike, which meant the metal was the same all through. When he brought it to the quench he did not close his eyes. The oil hissed once, clean, and settled. He pulled the blade up. It was straight. He sighted down the spine. Straight. He set it on the stone and tapped it with a file. The file skipped where it should skip and bit where it should bit. "Linny." She was already off the stool. She came around the anvil and looked at the blade in his hands. "You did it," she said. He laughed. It came out rough, more breath than sound. She laughed with him and the laugh caught between them and grew, and then they were both laughing hard enough that he had to set the sword down before he dropped it. She took his face in both hands. Her fingers were cold and had dried paint on them. She kissed him. He held her against him with the forge still ticking behind them. Ten years of failed steel. The girl he had lost and gotten back. Both in one afternoon, in the same room. "I love you," he said. "I know." He looked past her at the blade cooling on the stone. It was the best thing he had ever made. And somewhere on a shelf in a cottage that was not there anymore, a witch was keeping the count of what he owed.