Mel raked a hand through her brown hair and stared down at the metal between Will’s fingers. The guards had told her she couldn’t touch the iron, Headmaster Lorken’s orders. So she had to instruct Will to do what she wanted, but it was proving difficult. It was frustrating, and he was a worse smith than she thought anyone could be that attended Falden.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow, and Mel dragged in a deep breath. “If you could just focus on hitting the iron to the beat.”
Will’s eyes lifted and caught hers. His pupils were dilated, and he looked angry. “What do you think I’m doing? Of course, that’s what I’m doing. The beat is just not easy to…to hear.”
“Let’s go over this one more time,” Master Foss’ voice broke through the tension in the room. “You sing the song, you hit the metal at the places I indicated in the song, and you make sure it’s consistent. That’s everything. I know it’s hard and we’ll keep practicing this until you get it right. But arguing and getting frustrated with each other is not the way to go.”
Master Foss sent Mel a meaningful look, and she sighed. That’s what she had been doing, arguing with Will. It was just frustrating to not be the one holding the hammer. To be the one on the sidelines instructing and helping. She wondered how Master Foss did it. Taught students to master mage smithing and stood by watching them make mistakes.
Meredith was holding her hammer and Dean’s voice echoed through the small room with anvils, located some distance away from the dragon stones. They didn’t actually want to play with magic yet. Not until they got the sounds right. Not until they’d all learned to feel the iron.
Dean sang the opening lines to the song of fire, staring at Meredith while she tried to feel out the beats and crashed her hammer down onto the metal. It sounded wrong to Mel’s ears. How could they not hear that?
It was grating and horrible. But Will just looked at them with longing in his eyes. Like he wished he and Mel could have that kind of teamwork. He didn’t seem to understand that Dean’s and Meredith’s teamwork was currently not creating anything worth noticing.
Mel let out a ragged breath through gritted teeth. She was determined to make Will get at least one of his strikes to sound right.
“We bend the flames to our will,” Mel sang, and Will tried again.
He hit the iron, his hammer falling flat against the metal, and a proper clank rang out. But it was at the wrong moment in the song. The next one too, it was a little too fast. Mel compensated by singing the song even slower, but all this did was make Will stop and glower at Mel.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, so you can hear that? You can actually hear when I sing the song at the wrong tempo. Right, then why can’t you hear that you’re off beat?”
“Off beat?” Will huffed out. “I’m not, not unless you think off beat is some millisecond away from your singing. In that case, correct your singing to my smithing.”
Mel shot daggers at him now. “That’s not how it works. I’ll show you.”
She took the hammer from Will’s hands, and he gave it to her without question. But just as Mel was about to put her fingers down on the iron, a hand grabbed her shoulder. A shiver went down Mel’s spine and she knew without the guard uttering the words that she wasn’t allowed to touch that.
She glanced back and met the guard’s gaze. He shook his head at her. Mel sighed and handed back the hammer to Will. Her gaze caught with Master Foss’ and he gave her an apologetic look, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Right, okay, you actually got the note right that time,” Mel said. “It sounded like fire. Like how it should sound every time you hit the hammer against the iron. Which means, I guess, that you have the right angle and force. That’s good.”
Will gave her a quizzical look. “How do you know that?”
Mel swallowed. “We’ve studied the notes. Haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have. But… okay, I guess maybe it’s easier when you’re standing next to the person.” He shot Dean a look. “Can you hear when Meredith is creating the right note?”
Dean stared at Will for a moment, and Mel felt her heartbeat racing. She could just come out and tell them, tell them that she knew the notes intimately by now and that she had always been able to hear the magic.
“Yeah,” Dean said, dragging a hand over his neck. “But…”
“But what?” Will asked when Dean didn’t finish the question.
Master Foss broke the conversation between them. “She hasn’t done it yet.”
Will’s gaze flicked from Dean to Master Foss, then to Mel and finally to Meredith. Her cheeks were red from embarrassment.
“It’s hard, okay,” she said. “Will and I are trying. I know Mel can’t touch the metal because of her stupid guards. But maybe Dean can show us?”
Dean slipped the hammer from Meredith’s hands and licked his lips. He positioned himself over the anvil and the song poured out of his mouth. He circled the first line over and over again. When he seemed to have felt the words, he matched the first line of the song with strikes from the hammer.
“We bend the flames to our will.”
Clank, clank.
He stopped, not going further into the song, not hitting the metal again. He looked up at Master Foss and then at Mel.
“How did that sound?”
Mel cleared her throat. Her heart had skipped a beat, and she felt overwhelmed with the beauty of the words matching at last with the notes from the iron.
“Lovely,” she said.
He gave her a wide smile. “Thanks.”
Master Foss interjected once more, stepping up to their anvils. “That was great Dean. I think Meredith and Will need a little more practice, but don’t be discouraged, you will get there. That’s all the time we have for today, I’m afraid. But Melissa, can you hang back for a moment? I’d like to ask you some things.”
Mel nodded and, with the rest of the students, she picked up the tools they’d been using. Placing them back among the equipment in the forge. Her fingers ached to touch the iron. Ached to create something with her hands again. It had been too long.
When the other students left, there was only Mel, Master Foss, and her two guards in the room. Mel leaned against one of the anvils and caught Master Foss’ gaze. He didn’t look at her. He was staring at the guards behind her.
He cleared his throat. “Can you leave us?”
“No, Sir, I’m afraid we need to watch her. It’s not safe.”
“I think I can handle Melissa.”
“But what if she contacts the void?”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
Master Foss sighed and dragged a hand through his beard. “I’m telling you she won’t. Just step outside this room for a moment. She can’t leave and I can yell for you if I need your help. Okay?”
The guards shared a worried glance, but eventually, they stepped outside the small room in the cavern of the dragon forge. Master Foss’ eyes found her immediately, like he knew they didn’t have much time until the guards’ patience would run out.
“I’d like you to try now,” he said, slipping a hammer out from behind his back.
Mel stared at the object in his big hands and swallowed. She shook her head.
“Please, just try,” he said. “Just sing the first verse and hit the iron with the hammer. I want to know.”
Mel took the hammer from his hands, feeling the familiar sensation of the heavy object. Her fingers curled around the leather strap along the hilt. It felt just right.
She stepped up to the anvil, glancing back to the entrance where the guards stood. She didn’t want to alert them by making too much noise, but luckily, the dragon forge wasn’t a quiet place. From the chamber with the dragon stones, Mel heard metal clanking and mage smiths working.
She dragged in a deep breath and her fingers grazed the edge of the long, straight iron blade. It was crude and would never be a real sword. The metal was just for practicing, but Mel imagined what it could be. She imagined she could get the chance to smoothen out the rough edges and imbue it with glowing red fire.
Her mouth opened, and she began to sing, hitting the hammer against the metal at the right beats. “We bend the flames to our will,”
Clank, clank.
“And with it, we can conquer and kill.”
Clank, clank.
“Yes, we’ll kill them, kill them inside.”
Clank, clank, clank.
Her heart skipped a beat and Mel dragged in a ragged breath, trying to keep the tempo in the song.
“Yes, we’ll kill them, kill them inside.”
Clank, clank, clank.
Mel dropped the hammer, and it crashed against the side of the anvil and fell to the stone floor. She looked up at Master Foss, feeling her eyes wide in shock. What had happened?
It had felt like her heart had opened up, like her veins had cracked and spilled out her blood inside her skin. It had not been a pleasant feeling, not at all. Master Foss stared back at her, his eyes beady. He licked his lips, dragging an absent minded hand through his beard. Mel didn’t know what to say. This couldn’t have happened. She didn’t understand.
Eventually, Master Foss dragged his gaze away from Mel and picked up the hammer from the floor. Mel dragged her hands away and clasped them behind her back. She didn’t want to touch the iron anymore.
“I’m sorry. I… I…” but the sentence died on her lips.
She didn’t know how to continue. She had what? She’d felt her heart open up, and it was like something wanted to come out of her?
That sounded crazy and scary. She didn’t want to feel that way again. She wanted the things inside her body to stay inside. Not leap out of her skin.
“I didn’t believe it fully until now. You already know, don’t you? It sounded right, just right. Everything was beautifully done. You definitely have an affinity, whatever that means. The governor was right about that. And from your conversation with the others today, I gather you can hear the notes as well, right? You hear the magic like a master?”
Mel staggered back from Master Foss and shook her head. Not because of what he’d said was untrue, but because it was all too true. How did he know?
Master Foss’ hands flew up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to corner you. I won’t tell anyone. It’s just unexpected. I didn’t even know there were people like you. I’ve read the stories about past mage smiths possessing the same kind of skills, but never in my life have I seen them with my own eyes. Thank you.”
“Thank you?” Mel asked.
“For showing me. It’s an honor to see your skills first hand. I think we might have a shot then. A shot at creating that double imbue. Perhaps it’s possible.”
He dragged a hand through his beard and got a faraway look in his eyes. It was quiet for a beat until he seemed to pull back into the present.
“I won’t tell the others, like I said. But I would like you to trust me and be honest with me. I would like us to collaborate, like I told Perrole. To exchange information freely and work on the double imbue together. The other students will help, of course, but if you don’t feel comfortable with them, we don’t have to mention your affinity.”
Mel nodded, thinking this over.
Could she tell Master Foss what she had felt just now? About her heart opening up. She didn’t think so. It was one thing to possess skills that others had, like hearing the notes. But it was another to express completely new abilities like things wanting to jump out of her, whatever that was. Maybe it was like the guards thought, the void contacting her somehow.
Mel shivered and then her hands unclasped behind her back. “Okay, then there are some things I should tell you.”
Mel raked a hand through her brown hair and stared down at the metal between Will’s fingers. The guards had told her she couldn’t touch the iron, Headmaster Lorken’s orders. So she had to instruct Will to do what she wanted, but it was proving difficult. It was frustrating, and he was a worse smith than she thought anyone could be that attended Falden.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow, and Mel dragged in a deep breath. “If you could just focus on hitting the iron to the beat.”
Will’s eyes lifted and caught hers. His pupils were dilated, and he looked angry. “What do you think I’m doing? Of course, that’s what I’m doing. The beat is just not easy to…to hear.”
“Let’s go over this one more time,” Master Foss’ voice broke through the tension in the room. “You sing the song, you hit the metal at the places I indicated in the song, and you make sure it’s consistent. That’s everything. I know it’s hard and we’ll keep practicing this until you get it right. But arguing and getting frustrated with each other is not the way to go.”
Master Foss sent Mel a meaningful look, and she sighed. That’s what she had been doing, arguing with Will. It was just frustrating to not be the one holding the hammer. To be the one on the sidelines instructing and helping. She wondered how Master Foss did it. Taught students to master mage smithing and stood by watching them make mistakes.
Meredith was holding her hammer and Dean’s voice echoed through the small room with anvils, located some distance away from the dragon stones. They didn’t actually want to play with magic yet. Not until they got the sounds right. Not until they’d all learned to feel the iron.
Dean sang the opening lines to the song of fire, staring at Meredith while she tried to feel out the beats and crashed her hammer down onto the metal. It sounded wrong to Mel’s ears. How could they not hear that?
It was grating and horrible. But Will just looked at them with longing in his eyes. Like he wished he and Mel could have that kind of teamwork. He didn’t seem to understand that Dean’s and Meredith’s teamwork was currently not creating anything worth noticing.
Mel let out a ragged breath through gritted teeth. She was determined to make Will get at least one of his strikes to sound right.
“We bend the flames to our will,” Mel sang, and Will tried again.
He hit the iron, his hammer falling flat against the metal, and a proper clank rang out. But it was at the wrong moment in the song. The next one too, it was a little too fast. Mel compensated by singing the song even slower, but all this did was make Will stop and glower at Mel.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, so you can hear that? You can actually hear when I sing the song at the wrong tempo. Right, then why can’t you hear that you’re off beat?”
“Off beat?” Will huffed out. “I’m not, not unless you think off beat is some millisecond away from your singing. In that case, correct your singing to my smithing.”
Mel shot daggers at him now. “That’s not how it works. I’ll show you.”
She took the hammer from Will’s hands, and he gave it to her without question. But just as Mel was about to put her fingers down on the iron, a hand grabbed her shoulder. A shiver went down Mel’s spine and she knew without the guard uttering the words that she wasn’t allowed to touch that.
She glanced back and met the guard’s gaze. He shook his head at her. Mel sighed and handed back the hammer to Will. Her gaze caught with Master Foss’ and he gave her an apologetic look, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Right, okay, you actually got the note right that time,” Mel said. “It sounded like fire. Like how it should sound every time you hit the hammer against the iron. Which means, I guess, that you have the right angle and force. That’s good.”
Will gave her a quizzical look. “How do you know that?”
Mel swallowed. “We’ve studied the notes. Haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have. But… okay, I guess maybe it’s easier when you’re standing next to the person.” He shot Dean a look. “Can you hear when Meredith is creating the right note?”
Dean stared at Will for a moment, and Mel felt her heartbeat racing. She could just come out and tell them, tell them that she knew the notes intimately by now and that she had always been able to hear the magic.
“Yeah,” Dean said, dragging a hand over his neck. “But…”
“But what?” Will asked when Dean didn’t finish the question.
Master Foss broke the conversation between them. “She hasn’t done it yet.”
Will’s gaze flicked from Dean to Master Foss, then to Mel and finally to Meredith. Her cheeks were red from embarrassment.
“It’s hard, okay,” she said. “Will and I are trying. I know Mel can’t touch the metal because of her stupid guards. But maybe Dean can show us?”
Dean slipped the hammer from Meredith’s hands and licked his lips. He positioned himself over the anvil and the song poured out of his mouth. He circled the first line over and over again. When he seemed to have felt the words, he matched the first line of the song with strikes from the hammer.
“We bend the flames to our will.”
Clank, clank.
He stopped, not going further into the song, not hitting the metal again. He looked up at Master Foss and then at Mel.
“How did that sound?”
Mel cleared her throat. Her heart had skipped a beat, and she felt overwhelmed with the beauty of the words matching at last with the notes from the iron.
“Lovely,” she said.
He gave her a wide smile. “Thanks.”
Master Foss interjected once more, stepping up to their anvils. “That was great Dean. I think Meredith and Will need a little more practice, but don’t be discouraged, you will get there. That’s all the time we have for today, I’m afraid. But Melissa, can you hang back for a moment? I’d like to ask you some things.”
Mel nodded and, with the rest of the students, she picked up the tools they’d been using. Placing them back among the equipment in the forge. Her fingers ached to touch the iron. Ached to create something with her hands again. It had been too long.
When the other students left, there was only Mel, Master Foss, and her two guards in the room. Mel leaned against one of the anvils and caught Master Foss’ gaze. He didn’t look at her. He was staring at the guards behind her.
He cleared his throat. “Can you leave us?”
“No, Sir, I’m afraid we need to watch her. It’s not safe.”
“I think I can handle Melissa.”
“But what if she contacts the void?”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
Master Foss sighed and dragged a hand through his beard. “I’m telling you she won’t. Just step outside this room for a moment. She can’t leave and I can yell for you if I need your help. Okay?”
The guards shared a worried glance, but eventually, they stepped outside the small room in the cavern of the dragon forge. Master Foss’ eyes found her immediately, like he knew they didn’t have much time until the guards’ patience would run out.
“I’d like you to try now,” he said, slipping a hammer out from behind his back.
Mel stared at the object in his big hands and swallowed. She shook her head.
“Please, just try,” he said. “Just sing the first verse and hit the iron with the hammer. I want to know.”
Mel took the hammer from his hands, feeling the familiar sensation of the heavy object. Her fingers curled around the leather strap along the hilt. It felt just right.
She stepped up to the anvil, glancing back to the entrance where the guards stood. She didn’t want to alert them by making too much noise, but luckily, the dragon forge wasn’t a quiet place. From the chamber with the dragon stones, Mel heard metal clanking and mage smiths working.
She dragged in a deep breath and her fingers grazed the edge of the long, straight iron blade. It was crude and would never be a real sword. The metal was just for practicing, but Mel imagined what it could be. She imagined she could get the chance to smoothen out the rough edges and imbue it with glowing red fire.
Her mouth opened, and she began to sing, hitting the hammer against the metal at the right beats. “We bend the flames to our will,”
Clank, clank.
“And with it, we can conquer and kill.”
Clank, clank.
“Yes, we’ll kill them, kill them inside.”
Clank, clank, clank.
Her heart skipped a beat and Mel dragged in a ragged breath, trying to keep the tempo in the song.
“Yes, we’ll kill them, kill them inside.”
Clank, clank, clank.
Mel dropped the hammer, and it crashed against the side of the anvil and fell to the stone floor. She looked up at Master Foss, feeling her eyes wide in shock. What had happened?
It had felt like her heart had opened up, like her veins had cracked and spilled out her blood inside her skin. It had not been a pleasant feeling, not at all. Master Foss stared back at her, his eyes beady. He licked his lips, dragging an absent minded hand through his beard. Mel didn’t know what to say. This couldn’t have happened. She didn’t understand.
Eventually, Master Foss dragged his gaze away from Mel and picked up the hammer from the floor. Mel dragged her hands away and clasped them behind her back. She didn’t want to touch the iron anymore.
“I’m sorry. I… I…” but the sentence died on her lips.
She didn’t know how to continue. She had what? She’d felt her heart open up, and it was like something wanted to come out of her?
That sounded crazy and scary. She didn’t want to feel that way again. She wanted the things inside her body to stay inside. Not leap out of her skin.
“I didn’t believe it fully until now. You already know, don’t you? It sounded right, just right. Everything was beautifully done. You definitely have an affinity, whatever that means. The governor was right about that. And from your conversation with the others today, I gather you can hear the notes as well, right? You hear the magic like a master?”
Mel staggered back from Master Foss and shook her head. Not because of what he’d said was untrue, but because it was all too true. How did he know?
Master Foss’ hands flew up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to corner you. I won’t tell anyone. It’s just unexpected. I didn’t even know there were people like you. I’ve read the stories about past mage smiths possessing the same kind of skills, but never in my life have I seen them with my own eyes. Thank you.”
“Thank you?” Mel asked.
“For showing me. It’s an honor to see your skills first hand. I think we might have a shot then. A shot at creating that double imbue. Perhaps it’s possible.”
He dragged a hand through his beard and got a faraway look in his eyes. It was quiet for a beat until he seemed to pull back into the present.
“I won’t tell the others, like I said. But I would like you to trust me and be honest with me. I would like us to collaborate, like I told Perrole. To exchange information freely and work on the double imbue together. The other students will help, of course, but if you don’t feel comfortable with them, we don’t have to mention your affinity.”
Mel nodded, thinking this over.
Could she tell Master Foss what she had felt just now? About her heart opening up. She didn’t think so. It was one thing to possess skills that others had, like hearing the notes. But it was another to express completely new abilities like things wanting to jump out of her, whatever that was. Maybe it was like the guards thought, the void contacting her somehow.
Mel shivered and then her hands unclasped behind her back. “Okay, then there are some things I should tell you.”
