“Does my power surprise you, Vandawolf?” he asks. “That I can do more than turn flesh to stone?”
My jaw clenches at the memory of my father’s death.
A smile flickers around his mouth. “You will have seen what other Blacksmiths can do. Using their medallions to shape and reshape metallic objects according to their will. The Copperstream Blacksmiths have learned how to turn their metal to near-liquid. Kalith was born into that house, but in accordance with our culture, he took his wife’s name and transferred to her house when they married. As for Silverspun House, well, you’ll see soon enough what terrible violence Ayla Silverspun is capable of.”
His left hand flexes against the tree. “But I am Ironmeld. My house was the lowest of the low. So low, in fact, that we were the ones sent out on diplomatic missions to dangerous territories. We were dispensable, you see. It didn’t matter if we didn’t survive. Our numbers dwindled until there were only a few of us left. From my own people, I learned the power of cruelty.”
He releases the tree to step closer to me. “Over time, I allowed fear and hatred to replace my hope. And I simply waited for my chance to strike.” A smile grows on his face that chills me to the bone. “The perfect moment when I could slaughter those who had done me harm.”
His focus flickers briefly to the cottage on the far side of the tree before he backs away. “It is all a distant memory now.” He turns and leads us onward. “Come.”
We follow him along the path until it opens into a small, circular clearing.
The clearing is made up of three rows of stone steps, each large enough to create seating while there is a flat area in the middle, a small courtyard with dark stones at its base.
In the open space at the very center of the courtyard is a black anvil.
“Nobody can hear what happens in this clearing,” he says, stopping at the edge of it. “The placement of these trees means the acoustics stop any sound from leaving this area. You could scream as loudly as you wish, and nobody would hear you.”
He smiles, and again, it chills my blood.
“Even my own people think that I forge within my castle, and sometimes I do to keep up appearances. But here is where my real work happens.”
As he speaks, he reaches up to pluck one of the red fruits from the low-lying branch of the nearest tree.
“Do you see this apple?” He holds it in his right hand, his palm covering its far side while his left forefinger supports its base, the black talon at the end of his finger resting lightly against it.
“If I wish, I can reshape its entire structure.”
He turns it slowly side to side so that we can see more of it while the fruit begins to change.
Shining, ruby-red liquid seeps from between Malak’s knuckles, dripping down onto his left hand, the liquid taking on the appearance of glistening blood, trickling down his left forearm and dripping from his elbow.
He has already taken a step back and the bloody liquid spreads across the stone at his feet.
The apple within his fist quickly begins to shrink.
Its skin wrinkles and softens, peeling back to expose the fleshy inner that’s bright red and coarsely-grained, unsettlingly similar to a slab of meat.
Thoren recoils where he stands beside me and Skirra snarls, lifting his nose to the air.
“If I wish,” Malak continues, “I can take life just as easily.”
The texture of the meat begins to change again, but this time, the color darkens to a putrid gray and the flesh emits a foul odor.
The scent of decay.
Malak pitches the rotting meat into the plants at the base of the nearest tree but makes no move to dry the glistening liquid from his hands or arms.
He considers us coldly, his inky-dark eyes seeming to dissect us.
“I didn’t always have such full power,” he says. “I had to embrace the darkness first. I had to welcome it with my whole heart.” He turns to the other side of the clearing. “I had to kill the very people who gave me life.”
As he steps aside, two pale, twisted tree stumps come into view on the opposite side of the clearing.
They’re nothing like the glittering apple trees or the lush plants within the rest of the orchard.
Stubby branches streak out from their trunks as if lightning struck through them, sharp and violently twisted.
