I have traveled farther than I could have dreamed in my lifetime, but I am tired. I believe I could sleep for years if given the opportunity. “It’s time to return to Thornbrook,” I whisper flatly. “We have been gone long enough.”
PART 2THE FAITHLESS
23
IT IS MORNING. GREEN, GOLDEN, warm. As I step into the hot, close air of the forge, the tightness in my chest unravels. Here lies familiarity and comfort, the quiet of solitude, every piece of this workshop touched by my hand. It is the only place in Carterhaugh where I can breathe freely.
With the tithe a mere week away, every moment counts. We understand its significance. The blood of twenty-one Daughters gifted to Under, so that Thornbrook may lease the land for another seven-year cycle. Mother Mabel has requested five additional iron daggers for the event, bringing the final count to twenty-six.For the Orchid King, she’d explained,as a gesture of goodwill.
Needless to say, I’d held my tongue.
Slipping on my apron and toolbelt, I tend the fire and shape the metal without complaint. Time spins out. My back twinges as I drive the hammer down, the impact shuddering up my arm, into my shoulder joint. The cowhide apron chafes the front of my thighs, and heat blankets me like damp cotton.
Uncomfortable thoughts begin to intrude. They appear as flashes of light and darkness: the gleam of a metal sword, the curve of straight white teeth. My heart thunders sickeningly. I swiftly block them out.
I’m beginning to shape the bevels into the blade when a shadow falls across my worktable. I startle so hard I almost drop the hammer on my boot.
Harper, her coal hair clasped in an elaborate updo, stands in the doorway backlit by the sun. A warm halo softens her shoulders in buttery light.
“I don’t know how you can stand to work in these conditions,” she remarks, waltzing in as though she has every right to. Her nose wrinkles. “I’m melting already.”
As usual, Harper’s commentary is unwanted. “Is there something I can do for you?” My attention returns to the blade’s fiery tip, my tongs clamping the tang to hold it steady against the anvil.
“Am I not allowed to visit? This isn’t your forge, you know. You just work here.”
I scowl at her. “If you’re here to start an argument, I will forcibly remove you from the area.” Flipping the metal over, I finish shaping the tip. “And to be clear, thisismy forge.”
Bowing my head over the anvil, I return to hammering, effectively ending the conversation. Maybe Harper will finally leave me in peace.
Shaping a medial ridge requires an aggressive slant of the hammer, pushing the metal rather than drawing it out. This ensures the angles marking the ridge do not cross at the center, which thins the blade, thus weakening its structure.
Harper watches me work for a time, a dark shape in my periphery. “Do you mind if I look around?” she asks.
Lifting the dagger to the light, I examine the ridge. Almost perfect, but not quite. “Mother Mabel requires these blades by the end of the week. I can’t afford a distraction.” Back onto the anvil it goes, the hammer impacting the edges with short, punchy clinks.
“I won’t distract you.”
I cut her a sidelong glance, my suspicion evident.
Harper sighs. “I want to see the work you do. That’s all.”
And she does not view this as completely out of character?
“I wouldn’t recommend it.” Again, I inspect the ridge. Much better. The spine is sharply defined, and the angles do not cross. “You’ll dirty your alb.”
Harper smooths a palm across the pristine white fabric. She wears her red stole atop it—displayed diagonally over her chest to represent her service to the Father—and has for the past fortnight. Following initiation, acolytes are required to wear them for twenty-one days. The cincture, tied into three knots, hugs her waist.
“I’ll live,” she says.
Who am I to deny Harper what she wants? “Fine. But keep your distance.”
With the medial ridge in place, I begin hammering in the bevels so its shape maintains uniformity. I heat the blade in sections, tip to base. At the next blow, another vision flashes: a tanned hand cradling a glass of golden liquid. My stomach turns.
“You really made all these?”
I falter, glance over my shoulder. Harper studies the line of daggers and knives hanging from the wall.
“I did.” I would have thought that was obvious.
