A murmur sounds behind me, the quietest growl. “Bright Heart. It is done. You must come away now.”
My arms only tighten around Erik’s body before I twist slightly to see the golden fire dragon whose large body takes up much of the space in the clearing behind me.
He is the dragon king. Graviter Rex. He vowed to end all Blacksmiths after his son, Lysander Rex, was murdered. But I made peace with Graviter. I convinced him that I am not his enemy, a feat that was only accomplished after Erik convinced the great dragon to listen to me and hear me out.
My voice is a rasp, my vocal cords raw from my screams. “The metal Erik used to make this hammer… You gave it to him, didn’t you?”
My voice carries no accusation. Only sadness. I understand that the dragon must walk his own path—the path that is best for other dragons. But without that metal, there would have been no hammer and no chance for Erik to die.
The handle is formed from half of one of the onyx spears Erik and I brought with us. Those spears are unbreakable, but Erik must have found a way to snap one of them in half.
The hammer’s head is a double-sided block, evenly balanced and carved with runes. I recognize them only because these same runes are etched into various parts of the nearby cabin. They have meanings that Erik described to me when he told me his story only hours ago.
“I gave him the gold for the hammer’s head,” Graviter admits softly. “It’s dragon’s gold. I hoarded it for centuries to give itliving properties and make it receptive to forming a bond with another being of pure light. I had intended to give it to my son. For that reason, it contains only love and hope.”
His voice becomes raw as he speaks of his son. He, too, has known terrible loss and deep grief.
But the conviction in his voice doesn’t waver as he continues. “The metal for your hammer was freely and willingly given, as it needed to be. It was the right metal for your hammer. The right metal for you to access your true power.”
“‘The right metal,’” I whisper; a hollow sound.
I understand the dragon’s intentions.
For years, I had no choice but to use the hammer of Malak Ironmeld, the only other left-handed Blacksmith in my people’s history.
His hammer and the medallions that went with it—strips of black metal that could be transformed into weapons—were filled with hatred. Every time I picked them up, I fought the malice within them, fighting to maintain my own thoughts and heart and not lose myself to the intoxicating power of his tools.
I feel none of that malice in the hammer that rests at my side.
All I feel within it is…
Love. Hope.
Everything Erik wanted for me.
I squeeze my eyes closed, unable to still the flow of tears. I have no choice but to let them fall.
Erik and I once stood across from each other on the balcony outside the tower he kept me in. Blood-red raindrops fell between us, marking the invisible barrier that existed between us at that time.
Even then, he was part of my life. Even with that invisible and seemingly unbreachable boundary between us.
“The right metal?” I repeat, opening my eyes and twisting further toward the dragon. “Nothing is right now that Erik is gone.”
How can I function when it feels like I’ve lost a part of myself?
My arm shifts away from the hammer, and the clearing goes dark again.
The contrast is startling.
The moon is shining at its fullest, moonbeams filling the clearing, and yet it’s the weakest light compared to the brightness of my magic.
Even so, the sudden dullness of the air brings other things into view.
A small orb of light floats close to Graviter’s shoulder, becoming clearly visible again now that my magic has faded.
When the orb first arrived at this clearing, Graviter explained that it was a magical being called aCelestial Star. It’s a living creature, but it doesn’t speak. Instead, it seems to communicate through movement.
It danced at Graviter’s side, flitting here and there, trailing light wherever it went. There was a happiness, a joyfulness, about it.
