“Do you remember why you shattered?”
She stiffened. “Because you pushed until I had no room left to stand.”
“No, it was not because of me. You need to stop blaming others and look inside yourself to get the real answers,” he said, finally facing her. “It’s because you chose the anger over breath.”
“I did not choose anything. It tore through me.”
His gaze did not soften. “You are not a riverbed. You are the river. Learn the difference.”
Anger rose. “You are a man who speaks like riddles and expects gratitude for the confusion.”
He walked toward her, measured, the way a smith walks toward the heat to judge the color. He stopped an arm’s length away. His eyes were not cold now. They were bright, and what burned there was not contempt. It was intent.
“That is true. I am not overly social. I say what is needed and don’t waste time on things that are not. Focus again. I expect effort,” he said.
“You have it,” she shot back.
“I expect more than rage. Rage is a spark. It is not a craft.”
“It kept me alive.”
“It will make sure you die loudly when we are at war.” He let the words fall between them and did not flinch when they struck. “We will continue.”
They did. He switched her to drills that threaded footwork with staff work. Forward and pivot, retreat without ceding the center. Step through a strike and claim the line. He let her fail on the third measure again and again until she heard the wrongness before it happened, until she could feel where her weight lied to her, where memory tried to hold ground that needed to flow.
By midday, she was shaking. He loosened the straps on his gauntlets and tossed her a strip of dried fruit. She caught it and bit down before pride could stop her.
“Again this afternoon?” she asked, testing how much mercy hummed in his bones.
He tipped his head toward the shattered mouth of the dome where a clean, wild sky waited. “You will run the parapet.”
“The parapet is for fliers.”
“It is for those who are not afraid to look at how far there is to fall.”
She set her jaw. “And you?”
“I will be at the forge.”
She did not understand until she stepped into the academy’s lower hall and smelled it. Coal and oil. Quenched steel. White-hot memory. The forge took up one long, vaulted room where the mountain’s belly opened to a narrow ravine, a seam of daylight spilling across anvils like a river of gold. Racks of bar stock gleamed along one wall. Tongs and hammers hung in debtless rows. The heat kissed her face and said, “Welcome back.”
She stood in the doorway, not moving.
Thorne’s gaze flicked to her and away, as if he had expected the stillness. He set a wrapped bundle on the nearest bench and unfolded it to reveal a sword blank, rough-ground and full of promise.
“Temper this,” he said. “Tell me why.”
She answered, almost without thinking. “Because a blade that has been stretched to shape will not keep that shape until it is taught who it is.”
He nodded to the quench. “Water?”
“Oil,” she said, already moving. “She is too long for water. She will warp.”
“You speak of her as if she were alive.”
Thaelyn reached for the long-handled tongs. “She will remember my hands when she leaves them. The good ones always do.”
The words made her throat ache. She ignored it. Heat curled against her shins as she fed the fullered length into the forge’s heart. The coals roared their pleasure. Color ran along the steel. When the blank reached the right red, the one that sits between cherry and the first whisper of orange, she lifted it, turned, and held it at eye height to watch the skin change. The air made it sing. She smiled despite herself.
