After Mel came back from the bunker, there was a guard shift and two fresh looking faces stood inside her room, refusing to let her sleep alone in the small space. Mel had to convince them for an exhaustingly long time to let them guard outside. She finally won and one guard had stood outside her door the entire night, the other outside her window.
She knew he had glanced inside a couple of times, making sure she was still in there in her bed. She had caught him doing this, but at least she had gotten some sleep in her new dorm room, and it was better than sleeping in the dungeon for sure.
In the morning, the two sleepy-looking guards made sure she got something to eat and then there was another guard shift before they took her up the stone steps to the dragon forge. Mel had barely been able to get the bread down. Her stomach was still full of knots and anticipation. The dragon forge was her dream. Had been her dream for so long. Ever since her father had first told her about the place back in Windbrook, when he had been teaching her blacksmithing.
But today was different. Today, her dream was becoming reality. She had never imagined she would be escorted like a prisoner up the winding steps to the forge, but she guessed that flying up here wasn’t really possible, like she had imagined in most of her dreams as a kid.
The more they walked, the hotter the air grew. Completely wrong since they were walking up a mountain. The breeze from the wind chilled Mel to her bones, but the warmth from the forge was strong. A red glow shone out from the opening when Mel took that last step up to the plateau made of rock. She could see wooden pillars holding up sections of the ceiling, and she guessed they were new additions from when Headmaster Lorken had caused the forge to explode.
Mel walked over to the ledge, where a waterfall spilled over from somewhere above them. It pooled here and splashed up water against her face, chilling her. Some of the water continued its journey down the mountain, but some stayed for a while, flowing into a river leading inside the forge.
A strong hand wrapped around her shoulder and pulled Mel away from the ledge. She had been staring down at the waterfall, wanting to see where it ended, but now she was being dragged away. She shrugged off the guard’s hand and stared daggers at him. He met her gaze, unyielding and angry-looking.
Mel sighed, walking in front of the guards into the forge. Inside there were sounds like metal hitting metal and stone scraping against stone. There were people inside, working, running from stations full of anvils and tongs to the small river with buckets of water. Mel stopped, taking in the scene of the dirty faces working here, and thought about her father’s small forge in Windbrook. It was nothing like it. This place was just so much bigger than she’d ever imagined.
Not even one of the mage smiths was working on making nails or hammers. Something Mel found odd. It was, after all, the bread and butter of any blacksmith. But she guessed weapons were the same for mage smiths in a way. A woman walked past her with a tong in her hands, holding up a glowing piece of straightened iron. It was angry and red and when she dipped it into a barrel; the metal hissed.
From the water, a small straightened piece of metal with angry-looking red veins stretching around it emerged and looked at Mel. Her breath hitched, and she stared at the fire imbue with wide eyes. The pattern of red slowly faded, like someone had disconnected from the item, but Mel felt like she knew it had been glowing on its own. How strange.
“Ah, you’re here, good,” Master Foss said, striding into Mel’s field of vision.
He grabbed a hand around his beard and tugged it lightly, before stroking down the length. He observed her guards for a moment and then scanned Mel’s face for another.
“Have you been looked after?” he asked.
“Yes, they brought me food and water this morning. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Master Foss said.
He turned his gaze to the guards now. “You can leave us. We don’t need unauthorized people loitering around the forge.”
The guards shared a look, and then one of them shook his head. “No, we need to keep watch over her. We have orders to follow her everywhere.”
“You really think I can’t handle it?” Master Foss asked.
The guard hesitated. “No, Sir. But orders are orders. We go wherever she goes.”
Master Foss let out a long sigh and then turned to Mel again. He gave her an apologetic smile and then gestured for her to follow him. Mel did, and so did her guards.
“I’ll show you around quickly,” Master Foss said. “Then we need to join with the others and start the lesson. They're already here.”
“The lesson? Aren’t we supposed to focus on the double imbue?”
Master Foss clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Yes, we are. But first you need to learn some things, so you know why we need to test and experiment. We can’t create a new weapon without knowing first how the old ones work.”
They stepped between two workstations with mage smiths, creating more of the same small fire imbue that Mel had seen before.
“What are they creating?” Mel asked.
Master Foss shook his head before he spoke. “It’s Headmaster Lorken’s new weapon. The one that blew up half the city and blew up this very forge, too. He’s working on improving it.”
“What? But didn’t the governor say they weren’t going to need it if we made double imbues work?”
“Yes, but we haven’t made it work yet. Your dagger is amazing and definitely has a big value as a discovery. But it can’t kill a dragon. The imbue is too small and we don’t know how to use it properly. Until we figure out how to make more and bigger double imbues, Headmaster Lorken will keep working on his new weapon, too.”
Mel swallowed hard. This wasn’t good. He was going to blow up the entire city next. Wasn’t once enough?
Master Foss stopped and turned to face her. “This is why I agreed to this, Melissa. I don’t like how the governor is treating you. But we need to stop that dragon and I don’t believe Headmaster Lorken’s new weapon can do that. We need to save the people of Aldrion from the dragon and from more explosions. The sooner we figure out how the double imbues work, the more lives we save. Do you understand that?”
Mel nodded.
She felt reluctant, like she wanted to tell him not to say these things to her. The pressure was already too much. Not only did she have to deal with her own life being on the line if she didn’t solve this puzzle, but now she also had to deal with the people of Aldrion’s lives being on the line. This was such a big mess. She just wanted to go back to her dorm and crawl into bed again. Couldn’t someone else save the world?
Master Foss took her back into where the glowing hot forge was located. It was big, like a huge melting oven and a couple of smaller ones as well. Some weren’t even lit. They weren’t running this place to its full capacity today. Then, behind Master Foss, she saw them, the dragon stones. Inside a circle of anvils, some currently being used by mage smiths.
They didn’t look at all like she had imagined them. She’d always thought they’d be gray rocks with veins inside, like magical imbues. But this was something entirely different. They were diamonds. Really big ones, standing on a pedestal each, not connected but close to each other. The reenactment in Windbrook had been wrong.
Mel took a couple of steps toward them until she felt a hand clasp around her shoulder. The guard was holding her back from reaching them and Mel had to stop a distance away, taking it in from over here.
The four stones were shining inside, like glowing radiance, strong enough to emit a full glow outside, she realized. The red fire stone was the one standing closest to the entrance and Mel finally got it. It wasn’t just the burning from the forge itself that glowed red in the evenings from up here. It was the dragon stones themselves that gave off a strong light, shining out into the night.
She dragged in a deep breath and rocked on her heels. The guard’s hand pulled her back toward him and she felt her back grace his body before she shrugged him off.
“You know she’ll have to use the dragon stones eventually, right?” Master Foss said, looking at the guard who had pulled Mel back.
He grunted, but didn’t say a word in response. He pushed her forward and Master Foss shook his head, leading Mel past the dragon stones and back into what looked like a separate chamber.
Mel glanced back over her shoulder, wanting to see more of the dragon stones and of the mage smiths smithing beside them. She saw one of them getting something ready, then she lifted a hammer from the side and swung it up in the air. The guard pushed Mel again, and she stumbled into the room, leaving all her vision of the dragon stones and the mage smiths behind her. Mel let out an exasperated sigh and stared daggers at the guard. He was certainly one of the worst ones so far, and Mel hated him already.
In the small chamber, there were desks and a lectern. It was a small classroom, and it even had a blackboard, miniature sized compared to the ones inside Falden’s main building, but still. Mel looked around at the other students seated by the desks and recognized most of them immediately.
Dean was sitting at a desk in the back, staring at her with a frown on his face. Meredith was also here, seated in front of him and a little to the side. She had a look of surprise on her face, complete with wide, beady eyes. And there was another student too, someone she didn’t recognize more than just maybe having passed by him at Falden sometime. She couldn’t quite place it, but she was sure she had seen his face somewhere before.
Mel extended a tentative smile across her lips and clasped her hands together behind her back.
“Hi,” she said. “I guess we’re studying together this semester.”
Master Foss had gone up to the lectern, seeming focused on something behind it that Mel couldn’t see. Dean still watched her with a frown, only letting it deepen with time.
“Weren’t you expelled?” Meredith asked.
A lump formed in Mel’s throat and she struggled to keep her emotions out of her voice. “Yes, but then not, I guess. I’m here now and I’m studying with you according to Master Foss.”
The guy Mel barely recognized cleared his throat, making Mel look over at him. “What’s with the guards, sunshine?”
Mel glanced back at the two guards standing around her, watching her, and she wriggled her hands behind her back.
“Ehm… they’re watching me. Don’t worry. They’ll just be around.”
Everyone was staring at her now, with open mouths and big wide eyes. Mel’s heart pounded in her chest and her breath felt labored. She wanted to die. Should she just tell them she was a dangerous criminal, being watched by these two soldiers at all times?
No, that sounded crazy. They didn’t need to know that. She could just pretend she was important or something. That the guards were here to keep her safe, not the other way around.
Mel took the last seat behind the desk closest to the new guy and gave him a tentative smile. He watched her with suspicious eyes and then extended his hand.
“Melissa Temper,” she said.
He nodded. “William Stone. You can call me Will.”
After Mel came back from the bunker, there was a guard shift and two fresh looking faces stood inside her room, refusing to let her sleep alone in the small space. Mel had to convince them for an exhaustingly long time to let them guard outside. She finally won and one guard had stood outside her door the entire night, the other outside her window.
She knew he had glanced inside a couple of times, making sure she was still in there in her bed. She had caught him doing this, but at least she had gotten some sleep in her new dorm room, and it was better than sleeping in the dungeon for sure.
In the morning, the two sleepy-looking guards made sure she got something to eat and then there was another guard shift before they took her up the stone steps to the dragon forge. Mel had barely been able to get the bread down. Her stomach was still full of knots and anticipation. The dragon forge was her dream. Had been her dream for so long. Ever since her father had first told her about the place back in Windbrook, when he had been teaching her blacksmithing.
But today was different. Today, her dream was becoming reality. She had never imagined she would be escorted like a prisoner up the winding steps to the forge, but she guessed that flying up here wasn’t really possible, like she had imagined in most of her dreams as a kid.
The more they walked, the hotter the air grew. Completely wrong since they were walking up a mountain. The breeze from the wind chilled Mel to her bones, but the warmth from the forge was strong. A red glow shone out from the opening when Mel took that last step up to the plateau made of rock. She could see wooden pillars holding up sections of the ceiling, and she guessed they were new additions from when Headmaster Lorken had caused the forge to explode.
Mel walked over to the ledge, where a waterfall spilled over from somewhere above them. It pooled here and splashed up water against her face, chilling her. Some of the water continued its journey down the mountain, but some stayed for a while, flowing into a river leading inside the forge.
A strong hand wrapped around her shoulder and pulled Mel away from the ledge. She had been staring down at the waterfall, wanting to see where it ended, but now she was being dragged away. She shrugged off the guard’s hand and stared daggers at him. He met her gaze, unyielding and angry-looking.
Mel sighed, walking in front of the guards into the forge. Inside there were sounds like metal hitting metal and stone scraping against stone. There were people inside, working, running from stations full of anvils and tongs to the small river with buckets of water. Mel stopped, taking in the scene of the dirty faces working here, and thought about her father’s small forge in Windbrook. It was nothing like it. This place was just so much bigger than she’d ever imagined.
Not even one of the mage smiths was working on making nails or hammers. Something Mel found odd. It was, after all, the bread and butter of any blacksmith. But she guessed weapons were the same for mage smiths in a way. A woman walked past her with a tong in her hands, holding up a glowing piece of straightened iron. It was angry and red and when she dipped it into a barrel; the metal hissed.
From the water, a small straightened piece of metal with angry-looking red veins stretching around it emerged and looked at Mel. Her breath hitched, and she stared at the fire imbue with wide eyes. The pattern of red slowly faded, like someone had disconnected from the item, but Mel felt like she knew it had been glowing on its own. How strange.
“Ah, you’re here, good,” Master Foss said, striding into Mel’s field of vision.
He grabbed a hand around his beard and tugged it lightly, before stroking down the length. He observed her guards for a moment and then scanned Mel’s face for another.
“Have you been looked after?” he asked.
“Yes, they brought me food and water this morning. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Master Foss said.
He turned his gaze to the guards now. “You can leave us. We don’t need unauthorized people loitering around the forge.”
The guards shared a look, and then one of them shook his head. “No, we need to keep watch over her. We have orders to follow her everywhere.”
“You really think I can’t handle it?” Master Foss asked.
The guard hesitated. “No, Sir. But orders are orders. We go wherever she goes.”
Master Foss let out a long sigh and then turned to Mel again. He gave her an apologetic smile and then gestured for her to follow him. Mel did, and so did her guards.
“I’ll show you around quickly,” Master Foss said. “Then we need to join with the others and start the lesson. They're already here.”
“The lesson? Aren’t we supposed to focus on the double imbue?”
Master Foss clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Yes, we are. But first you need to learn some things, so you know why we need to test and experiment. We can’t create a new weapon without knowing first how the old ones work.”
They stepped between two workstations with mage smiths, creating more of the same small fire imbue that Mel had seen before.
“What are they creating?” Mel asked.
Master Foss shook his head before he spoke. “It’s Headmaster Lorken’s new weapon. The one that blew up half the city and blew up this very forge, too. He’s working on improving it.”
“What? But didn’t the governor say they weren’t going to need it if we made double imbues work?”
“Yes, but we haven’t made it work yet. Your dagger is amazing and definitely has a big value as a discovery. But it can’t kill a dragon. The imbue is too small and we don’t know how to use it properly. Until we figure out how to make more and bigger double imbues, Headmaster Lorken will keep working on his new weapon, too.”
Mel swallowed hard. This wasn’t good. He was going to blow up the entire city next. Wasn’t once enough?
Master Foss stopped and turned to face her. “This is why I agreed to this, Melissa. I don’t like how the governor is treating you. But we need to stop that dragon and I don’t believe Headmaster Lorken’s new weapon can do that. We need to save the people of Aldrion from the dragon and from more explosions. The sooner we figure out how the double imbues work, the more lives we save. Do you understand that?”
Mel nodded.
She felt reluctant, like she wanted to tell him not to say these things to her. The pressure was already too much. Not only did she have to deal with her own life being on the line if she didn’t solve this puzzle, but now she also had to deal with the people of Aldrion’s lives being on the line. This was such a big mess. She just wanted to go back to her dorm and crawl into bed again. Couldn’t someone else save the world?
Master Foss took her back into where the glowing hot forge was located. It was big, like a huge melting oven and a couple of smaller ones as well. Some weren’t even lit. They weren’t running this place to its full capacity today. Then, behind Master Foss, she saw them, the dragon stones. Inside a circle of anvils, some currently being used by mage smiths.
They didn’t look at all like she had imagined them. She’d always thought they’d be gray rocks with veins inside, like magical imbues. But this was something entirely different. They were diamonds. Really big ones, standing on a pedestal each, not connected but close to each other. The reenactment in Windbrook had been wrong.
Mel took a couple of steps toward them until she felt a hand clasp around her shoulder. The guard was holding her back from reaching them and Mel had to stop a distance away, taking it in from over here.
The four stones were shining inside, like glowing radiance, strong enough to emit a full glow outside, she realized. The red fire stone was the one standing closest to the entrance and Mel finally got it. It wasn’t just the burning from the forge itself that glowed red in the evenings from up here. It was the dragon stones themselves that gave off a strong light, shining out into the night.
She dragged in a deep breath and rocked on her heels. The guard’s hand pulled her back toward him and she felt her back grace his body before she shrugged him off.
“You know she’ll have to use the dragon stones eventually, right?” Master Foss said, looking at the guard who had pulled Mel back.
He grunted, but didn’t say a word in response. He pushed her forward and Master Foss shook his head, leading Mel past the dragon stones and back into what looked like a separate chamber.
Mel glanced back over her shoulder, wanting to see more of the dragon stones and of the mage smiths smithing beside them. She saw one of them getting something ready, then she lifted a hammer from the side and swung it up in the air. The guard pushed Mel again, and she stumbled into the room, leaving all her vision of the dragon stones and the mage smiths behind her. Mel let out an exasperated sigh and stared daggers at the guard. He was certainly one of the worst ones so far, and Mel hated him already.
In the small chamber, there were desks and a lectern. It was a small classroom, and it even had a blackboard, miniature sized compared to the ones inside Falden’s main building, but still. Mel looked around at the other students seated by the desks and recognized most of them immediately.
Dean was sitting at a desk in the back, staring at her with a frown on his face. Meredith was also here, seated in front of him and a little to the side. She had a look of surprise on her face, complete with wide, beady eyes. And there was another student too, someone she didn’t recognize more than just maybe having passed by him at Falden sometime. She couldn’t quite place it, but she was sure she had seen his face somewhere before.
Mel extended a tentative smile across her lips and clasped her hands together behind her back.
“Hi,” she said. “I guess we’re studying together this semester.”
Master Foss had gone up to the lectern, seeming focused on something behind it that Mel couldn’t see. Dean still watched her with a frown, only letting it deepen with time.
“Weren’t you expelled?” Meredith asked.
A lump formed in Mel’s throat and she struggled to keep her emotions out of her voice. “Yes, but then not, I guess. I’m here now and I’m studying with you according to Master Foss.”
The guy Mel barely recognized cleared his throat, making Mel look over at him. “What’s with the guards, sunshine?”
Mel glanced back at the two guards standing around her, watching her, and she wriggled her hands behind her back.
“Ehm… they’re watching me. Don’t worry. They’ll just be around.”
Everyone was staring at her now, with open mouths and big wide eyes. Mel’s heart pounded in her chest and her breath felt labored. She wanted to die. Should she just tell them she was a dangerous criminal, being watched by these two soldiers at all times?
No, that sounded crazy. They didn’t need to know that. She could just pretend she was important or something. That the guards were here to keep her safe, not the other way around.
Mel took the last seat behind the desk closest to the new guy and gave him a tentative smile. He watched her with suspicious eyes and then extended his hand.
“Melissa Temper,” she said.
He nodded. “William Stone. You can call me Will.”
