Larkin leant against the anvil, lowered his head, and sighed heavily. Sweat dripped slowly from his brow, but he was too tired to lift his hand and wipe it. If he was to do this properly, he needed a blueprint. All blacksmiths worked from diagrams, and to do without was not only unheard of, it was unimaginable. The Veyrsteel pulsed a faint white, but he ignored it. Instead, his attention was drawn to his own blistered hands. They pulsed with their own kind of energy, a kind which was red, sore and swollen.

  “I spoke too soon,” muttered Mira, with a tone of voice which betrayed the hurt she was still feeling; “you clearly have the hands of a blacksmith; just not the skill… or the brains for business.” She was propped up against the back wall of the chamber, her arms crossed tightly.

  The boy’s head shot up, and, with a glare, he opened his mouth – a defence ready on his lips. But only a faint gasp came out, which was quickly accompanied by a shudder, and the sudden colouring of his cheeks; soon his knees sank beneath him, the pressure mounting, and he wept bitterly.

  Now it was Mira whose words failed to reach the stifled air. She stepped towards the anvil, her heart quickening.

  “You’re wrong; your wrong; your wrong!” Larkin cried, clutching the sides of his head vigorously. He cast his bulging eyes around the forge and saw that more than half of it was drenched in darkness. The fire was dying, but the oppressive heat wasn’t.

  As the flames gradually receded into the furnace, the white flashes of the Veyrsteel became more pronounced. When Mira saw this, she stopped, her eyes wide.

  “It’s getting faster,” she noted with apprehension; “Larkin, why’s it flashing?”

  Larkin just about heard her over the beating of his own heart and let out a laugh. “Why’s it flashing?” he repeated sarcastically, raising his head with a crooked smile. His eyes were bloodshot. “I don’t know. You tell me? Why’s it flashing, Mira?”

  “What have you done?” Mira shrieked, more surprised than disturbed at her friend’s apparent nonchalance. She staggered backwards, pressing her back to the wall.

  “Do you still want to trade them?” Larkin laughed morbidly. Despite his second-degree burn, he picked up the flashing ingot and raised it to eye-level. With a wince, he said, “This… this is what will spur me to greatness.”

  “They’re mana-bombs, Larkin!”

  “Not yet,” he replied.

  “Well, what else could they be used for? It flashes just like an armed whisperbomb,” Mira said.

  “Good! Be scared; be afraid,” answered Larkin, dragging himself upright, “maybe then you’ll finally take me seriously.” There was a section of a wall that was still lit, and his tired eyes fell upon it at last. “Wait…” he muttered, his sweaty forehead creased in thought.

  “You do realise that this can’t continue,” said the thief in a calm tone. As she spoke, the Soulrend slowly slipped out of its sheath and hid itself behind her tailbone. Realising that she was concealed in darkness, she slowly started towards the anvil. “There is a worse thing than failing to be noticed,” she said. She raised the dagger, pointing it at Larkin. Her heart thundered as she advanced deliberately.

  Without so much as a glance in her direction, Larkin placed himself closer to the wall. “I agree,” he said absentmindedly as his hand traced the tiny, faded markings on the stone. His voice quietened suddenly, and he added, “But I will be noticed... I was chosen by the forge.”

  “Oh, shut up, Larkin,” spat Mira, tightening her grip on the dagger. “If the gods had some kind of plan for you, why would they put you here? Why would they make you an orphan in Backwater? Of all the places in the Realm... Backwater? Seriously? Look at us, we’re as repulsive as we are hopeless and weak. And now we’re going to spend the rest of eternity eating shit with our mouths instead of our hands because you’ve gone and blown us to hell and highwater.”

  Suddenly the markings on the wall began to resemble more than simple lines and circles. Larkin took out a blank parchment – it was yellowed and ragged. Turning to Mira, who was but inches away from the anvil, he asked, “Did you bring it?”

  The girl stopped, and for a moment she was speechless. She looked questioningly at Larkin, before it dawned on her what he meant. “Larkin,” she said at last, “are you serious?”

  “We haven’t got much time,” he said. “Did you bring it?”

  “Yes, but-”

  “Good,” he said quickly. “Set it on the anvil and give it to me carefully.”

  Mira’s eyes darted to the pile of ingots. Her first impulse was to steal one, but the steam still rose from the metal.

  Larkin felt her hesitation on the back of his neck, and said, “You could be so much more, Mira.”

  The thief laughed scornfully, her eyes lingering nervously on the Veyrsteel. The flashing had remained at the same constant rate for the past five minutes. “There’s a saying in the Thief’s Guild: ‘A true leader steals only what’s within reach, not what they dream of,’” she said.

  “And yet, without a dream, there’s no desire to steal what isn’t already there,” Larkin replied. “I need the quill, now.” he added.

  Mira sighed and unloaded her satchel, her shoulders slump. Now that she was opposite the forge, her forehead began to precipitate considerably. She pulled out a small wooden container and, with a curious look, glanced at Larkin. Then she opened the box, took out the quill that was inside it, and set it down; with another sigh, she took out a tiny glass pot from the same box and placed it next to the quill. Her hand was inside the bag again when she stopped suddenly, her eyes locked in a blank stare at the forge. It was as though she had just seen a ghost.“If someone had told me last week that I would be Larkin Forgeheart’s squire I would have killed them,” she muttered.

  When the boy did not so much as glance at her in reply, she continued in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, but ‘Mira Stormsong will get rich from Larkin Forgeheart’. That’s what they said. ‘Just find yourself a blacksmith and you’ll be off the streets in no time.’ Or, my favourite, ‘Get yourself a boy who’ll sit in his forge all day and craft you weapons for nothing.’”

  Larkin looked over his shoulder and saw that his friend was slowly losing it to the heat. His eyes widened, and he said, “Wow, so it is true.”

  “What’s true?” Mira snapped, her face bright red and sweaty. She flailed the Soulrend, and gasped, “What in my entire rant was true? I was born with a knife in my hand,” she muttered, her brows knitt, “but you were born without a brain.””

  “Veyrsteel increases the surrounding temperature the longer it sits there out in the open,” Larkin said. But upon seeing the girl’s nostril flare, he quickly turned back to examining the wall. Both his arms which held the parchment were now trembling from exhaustion, but he thought it best not to push the thief further by asking for the quill again.

  Mira glared at the back of the boy’s neck, before lowering the blade. She rifled through the bag some more. Pulling out a small wooden bowl, as well as three other items, she said, “How long are we going to stay here? It’s getting too hot.” After dumping the soot into the dish, she asked, “How thick do you want it?”

  “Very.”

  The girl mixed the water with the soot, adding the gum arabic last. She then poured the ink into the glass pot. Once it was full, she quickly dipped the tip of the quill into it and gave it to Larkin.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “What are you drawing?” Mira said.

  “You’re going to be quite upset with me,” Larkin replied with a smile.

  Mira noticed that her heart was beating rapidly. “I’m concerned for your safety,” she muttered sternly.

  “Do you not see them?” Larkin asked.

  Mira leaned forward and gazed at the wall with a puzzled look on her face. She slowly shook her head.

  “They’re diagrams,” explained Larkin; “for the first time in my life all of Haldar’s lectures on ancient blacksmithing scripts has proved to be worthwhile.” He suddenly gestured sideways, and continued, “This entire wall is filled with blueprints for weapons.”

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  Mira glanced rapidly at the ingot pile behind her, and her eyes sparkled with understanding. “Veyrsteel weapons...” she breathed.

  “Yes; not once did I ever think that learning to read dead languages would have anything to do with becoming a great blacksmith,” Larkin replied excitedly as his fingers brushed the faded blueprints, “but here we are.”

  “But Veyrsteel is highly explosive,” remarked Mira.

  Larkin stopped sketching and looked at the thief as though he had not much confidence in his own plan to defend it.

  “You’re going to craft a weapon out of Veyrsteel?” cried the girl.

  “Of course,” said Larkin, restarting his copy of a diagram. “By crafting a weapon out of Veyrsteel, I can become strong enough to get the attention of the wider blacksmithing community, which in turn will notify my parents wherever they are that I exist, and that I am somebody important.”

  Mira shuddered, and, fixing on her friend a blank, unfocused gaze, she said, her voice shaking, “I can’t imagine anything better than having a massive fortune. I would no longer have to steal or maim. Nor would I have to live on the streets and contend with illicit individuals. I’d be out, Larkin, I’d finally be free.”

  Larkin saw her start toward the exit. “How can you be so sure that you are right in thinking that becoming rich is the only way forward?” he called after her; “there is a better way to happiness than what you’ve been led to believe. There’s a better way, a true way out of Backwater.” He walked over to the anvil, bringing the parchment with him, and placed a hand on one of the ingots. The Hammer hovered over its edge hesitatingly. “Even if one is physically in Backwater,” he said, “they can transcend – that is what the Forge promises. That is why I will continue to craft better and better items.”

  As soon as Mira heard the clank, a chill passed through her spine. She became paler than ever, and she could walk no more, for her legs trembled too much. Every clang of the Hammer brought her further to the floor, as though it was herself that was being hammered flat. The exit seemed a mile long. “Stop,” she cried.

  But her voice was barely audible under the heavy Hammer. The clangs reverberated throughout the forge, disorientating the girl. She covered her ears.

  “Make it stop,” she begged.

  After thirty minutes or so, the hammering stopped. Mira turned around and saw Larkin hunched over the anvil, wiping the torrents of perspiration that had collected on his brow. The blades that lined the anvil were duds. Only one of the purple ingots remained. Mira rose to her feet. She remained still, however, her eyes, as blank and as unfocused as they were, fixed on the blacksmith curiously.

  “No matter what you craft, you’ll always be a Backwater orphan...” Mira muttered softly, an expression of pity on her face.

  Immediately, the Hammer started flattening the Veyrsteel. Now that Larkin had experience with the metal, this process was much quicker than before. Each strike perfectly compressed it until it resembled a blade. He carefully carried it over to the grinder, where he sat down and held it over the wheel. The blade shook in his hands.

  “You’re willing to blow yourself up, for what?” Mira asked.

  “I would rather risk eternal paralysis if it meant crafting a rare greatsword. To give up now would be cowardice.”

  “But without your hands you’ll be nothing!” objected Mira.

  “There is more to blacksmithing than just physical labour; it involves weaving mana through the metal, strengthening and enhancing the weapon’s properties. Too much mana can warp or destroy the material. That is where I was going wrong. I thought only mana mattered,” Larkin explained. He began to rotate the crank attached to the wheel's spindle.

  “You were born with a knife, you say?” he said with a grimace as he started sharpening the edges.

  Mira said nothing. The Soulrend was now loose in her hand. The blacksmith raised his head, his eyes emitting golden light. When they landed on the Soulrend in her hand, he narrowed them. “Why not a sword?” he smiled.

  “Girls aren’t warriors,” said Mira in an uncertain tone.

  “And?”

  She knitted her brow, and said, “What’s gotten into you? First it was enchantment, and now it’s fighting...” Her voice quieted as she began to imagine herself brandishing a sword instead of a dagger. She became silent, lowering the Soulrend reluctantly. Her gaze remained on the boy, however, and was nonetheless sceptical.

  “Pass me the sanding belt,” Larkin said with an outstretched hand.

  “I don’t see the point,” remarked Mira, eyeing the new blade. She threw the requested item across the room. “As soon as the Iron Guild sees a weapon like that, they’ll want to know who made it. Sooner or later, you’ll be on their payroll whether you like it or not.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the blacksmith replied as he smoothened the blade, removing scratches which had accumulated.

  “No, Larkin, we won’t. You of all people know that the Guilds dictate all trade within their relevant domains. A runt couldn’t steal an apple without the Thief Guild asking for a bite.”

  After buffing the blade, Larkin went to the anvil. The Hammer of the Eternal Forge found its next victim in a block of wood Mira had placed down earlier when she was making the ink. He made the hilt quickly, attaching the Pommel after he had finished. Then, satisfied, he raised the sword and looked at it. Wiry, blue sparks crackled along the length of the blade.

  “What’s it called?” Mira asked. She glanced down at her own dagger and then back to the greatsword.

  "Stormrend!” exclaimed Larkin with a huge grin. He finally wiped his forehead, and gasped, “You see? Unimaginable things are possible if you just believe.”

  For a moment, Mira hid her smile from him in the darkness with a slight turn of her head, while her mind ran with thoughts of her parents; this time she with a sword in her hands instead of the thief’s dagger. After an uncomfortable silence, she turned back to the blacksmith and, with a deep reddening glow of the cheeks, opened her mouth to speak:

  “Larkin... Could I -”

  Suddenly, the door opened, and a woman entered.

  Larkin’s smile instantly vanished.

  “Ah, ha!” exclaimed the guard. She unsheathed her short sword and pointed it at the blacksmith. “I knew this day would come, but, my gods, I did not know that it would come so soon.”

  “You’re not having it,” said Larkin, returning the gesture with his own blade.

  “I see that Haldar has yet to teach you the fundamentals of blacksmithing!” said the woman, laughing; “all crafts belong to the Guild!”

  “At least I am blacksmithing,” cried Larkin as he slowly stepped back, “and not a gallivanting thief pretending to be one.”

  “You know very well that you don’t belong in that workshop,” growled the guard.

  “Bitter and old,” said the boy with the shake of his head. “Lucia, you’ll never get married at this rate.”

  As the woman advanced into the chamber with a tightened grip on her weapon, she saw the Stormrend more clearly. Elevating her eyebrows, she halted and gazed at it in amazement, comparing it subconsciously to her own, much shorter sword. Her face contorted miserably. “Eh? Is that-?”

  “-Veyrsteel,” interrupted Larkin proudly.

  “What, how!” cried the guard, lowering her sword, “where did you get that? You’re nothing but a pretender, a faux, a hobbyist – a child playing make believe with father’s hammer and anvil. Tell me where you have gotten it, so I can arrest the one who made it, for only the Guild has access to Veyrsteel.”

  Larkin narrowed his eyes, and said, his tone low and deep, “I did; but I will never become an Iron Guild member because blacksmithing is about seeing and owning the finished product of your hard work. My love for the craft would die if I handed that over to you people.”

  The serious way in which he had said those words made such an impression upon Mira that she felt it in her heart. “It’s true,” she added.

  Lucia leapt back in surprise, slashing at the air in front of her. “What?” she cried with another frantic swing, “Have you conjured yourself up a devil? Go back to Hades!”

  But Mira simply gazed very curiously at the older woman’s swordplay. She was well out of harm’s way, having stepped back immediately upon the slightest shift of air current in the combatant’s direction. Although the thief could not see in the dark, her perception was high enough to be able to navigate it beyond any other class type. On the other hand, the guard-stroke-blacksmith was evidently high in dexterity; for the faint glints of sword allowed by the dimming forge suggested a sort of craftsmanship superior to that of her friend’s usual weapons. This made Mira uneasy. She gave Larkin a scrutinising glance.

  Ironstrike’s paleness seemed to have been perceived by Larkin. As for Ironstrike herself, she gave the impression of being in over her head; having never had to fight somebody for real, she retreated quickly to the other side of the chamber.

  “It wasn’t a request,” said Lucia, “Regardless of your position on whether blacksmithing should be an ‘art’ or not, all the Veyrsteel-”

  “Not ‘should’, it ‘is’,” interrupted Larkin with a scowl. “You disdain the profession by your profit-seeking motive.”

  “- All the Veyrsteel in the empire is owned by the Iron Guild,” she continued, “and the guild has ways of punishing your master.”

  “Haldar used to be your guildmaster!”

  “And he refused to take me on as his apprentice!” returned Lucia; “instead he gave it to some snotnosed brat.”

  “Petty, old and bitter,” retorted the blacksmith, “as I said, it isn’t a good look.”

  Lucia scowled; her eyes left the sword, perceiving rapidly something in the boy’s other hand. It was too dark to tell from the distance.

  As soon as she stepped forward, however, she felt the cold steel of a dagger across her throat. A small hand also on her shoulder.

  “Don’t move,” whispered Mira into her ear. She was on her tiptoes, but the enemy did not need to know that.

  Lucia’s steely eyes bored into Larkin, her head remaining as still as possible. “The sword.” she gulped, lifting her trembling hand. “It belongs to the Iron Guild.”

  “Ever seen someone live in a pool of their own blood, unable to do anything but watch as the realm walks on by?” hissed Mira, pressing the blade deeper into the woman’s skin. Anymore and she would have drawn blood. “You would have thought that without the presence of death, there would be no fear. But, on the contrary, there is much to be feared in Backwater.”

  “Be glad that it is I that caught you and not any of my fellow guildmembers,” Lucia said, “for you two would have already begun your time as talking heads at the Severed Whispering Heads Carnival by now. Hand it over, and I’ll consider turning a blind eye to tonight.”

  “I can just kill her,” said Mira, “we can dump her body in the water.”

  At that the woman turned very pale.

  “No,” Larkin said, stepping forward, his head held high. He handed Lucia the Stormrend, looking her in the eye. “I do not only want to find my parents, I want to prove to Backwater that I am more than just some snotnosed urchin with his head in the clouds.”

  Mira glanced at Larkin questioningly before withdrawing. She watched as the woman quickly retreated to the door.

  “You won’t last long as Haldar’s apprentice,” Lucia said, opening the door; “the man has demons.”

  The thief waited until the woman had departed. She turned to Larkin, and asked, “Why did you give it to her? She’s just going to tell the Guild anyway.”

  “Because I can always craft another,” Larkin said with a shrug. “It’s not about the weapons, Mira. It’s about the craft itself.” He smiled. “And besides,” he added, “I want to create something that puts Backwater back on the imperial map. The Stormrend, and others like it, will do just that.”