Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lia clutched the goggles, unease settling into her stomach. Maybe if she didn’t put them on, her hand wouldn’t be forced. “Look, I appreciate the artistry, I really do, but I’m not exactly built for this kind of thing.”
She was a self-proclaimed literary couch potato and proud of it. Then again, she had Aurelia’s Norenthian skills now. Strange as it was.
Kayce’s pointed stare felt like a brand. No one else broke the silence.
There was no getting out of this.
Lia was about to nod when she noticed the Smith twiddling his fingers, avoiding her direct gaze. Her pulse flattened. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
The Smith’s mouth clamped into a firm line. “Yes. However, I’ve been told that it is worthwhile and therapeutic.”
“Smithy,” Fee interjected. This time, her tone was softer. “Just tell her.”
His expression was solemn. “You need to give up something, pour it into the pen to solidify the bond to your ember.”
“What?” Lia questioned, her chest clenching.
“A memory,” the Smith said. “One pivotal to your being, fueled with emotion.”
Her being? She struggled to understand. A memory of something.
Something that happened to her, obviously.
An event that impacted her. Made her who she was at this moment.
There was so much that made Lia herself.
And to be frank, she was unfinished, a clay sculpture partially formed. That was somewhat comforting, at least.
“What does the memory have to be of, exactly?” she asked.
“It has to be something you are willing to release. Something that no longer serves you. In the release of pain in our past, we can truly step into who we are meant to be,” the Smith explained. “Who you are meant to be.”
Silence filled the room as she contemplated, attempting to look inward. Kayce found a perch nearby, his gaze upon her as if willing her success.
A memory to let go of. Lia wished to forget many things. Adolescence had not been very kind. But it was deeper than that. What was she holding onto that was keeping her back?
Slowly, she approached the anvil, the silver rod and crystal waiting in a mold.
“Giving up this memory, creating this pen,” the Smith warned. “It won’t heal instantly. It will take time, processing. And that memory is likely tied to a string of behaviors that will have to be confronted. But it’s a step in the right direction.”
Lia felt a restlessness in her bones. She had been tired of standing still.
Learning she was a Flameheart had been a shove, one she didn’t realize she needed.
Or how badly. Now she craved that momentum, something that would propel her to learn who’d murdered her papa, how Seekers were destroying the barriers between worlds.
Who she was meant to be.
Turning, Lia caught Kayce’s eye. He stared back, starlight flickering over his features.
He gave a slight nod, a thin smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
Whether he realized it or not, Lia caught how his thumb rubbed into his open palm.
Her own scar tingled as though in response.
A small gesture, but it was enough—he was with her. As he’d always been.
The blood oath pulsed between them.
Fee watched the exchange with a twinkle in her eyes before she tossed a pair of goggles to Kayce. “You’re going to want these.”
Everyone put goggles on, black lenses tinting the room in shadow. The Smith handed Lia the hammer, the weight heavy. He then took hold of the lever, gesturing to the pipe overhead.
“When starlight fills the mold, you think of that memory. Bring it to the forefront of your mind. Let yourself feel it. Then swing—hard, fast like you are trying to punch through it.” The Smith modeled the swing several times. “Expel it from you and into this instead.”
Lia’s hands turned clammy. She nearly stumbled on the first practice swing, but she found the more she tightened her core, the more control she had. It reminded her of sword-work with Kayce in Norenth.
The Smith didn’t wait. At a pull of the lever, steam hissed.
The vat bubbled and starlight was sucked out.
Several fat drops came from the pipe, mercurial beads like mini galaxies falling into the mold.
But the steam and heat such a small amount created was immense, an open furnace baking Lia’s skin.
Now for a memory.
Lia thought they would have dispersed and scattered, and she’d be unable to grasp only one. She expected the funeral to surge in her mind, the grief manageable yet still hard to bear.
But as if her heart knew what it was about to do, one memory stayed. A small one, seemingly insignificant. Yet it echoed in her whole being—the pain pulsing with each beat of her heart.
Little Lia perched on her bed, clutching a stuffed lion to her chest while she watched her daddy.
She could see him in his truck from her bedroom window.
It had rained earlier that day. Drops clung to the windowpane, to his windshield.
A bright red ember bloomed to life in front of his face before he took several puffs of a cigarette, flicking the ash out the window.
Look up, Lia thought. See me. See me sitting here, watching you. Get out of the truck.
She shifted to sit up on her knees. Held the lion tighter. Daddy, please. I need you.
But he didn’t look up. Not once, as he pulled out of the driveway.
The memory scorched Lia’s mind, burning in her chest, in the backs of her eyes, the pain resurfacing. On the day her father left, she’d sat staring out the window for hours. She didn’t move until breakfast the next morning, her mom coming up to find her with tear-stained cheeks.
Lia hadn’t wanted to risk it—miss seeing him come home. But he never did. It was like he’d disappeared, become a ghost to them. Even though he was very much alive, with a life that had a new wife and new children in a new town with a new job.
He’d left them. Abandoned her.
“Swing, Lia!” The Smith implored, gently squeezing her shoulder and breaking her from the memory’s grip.
The hammer felt lighter when it collided with the anvil, the shock reverberating through her bones, into her marrow. Sparks flew about, pulling the pain out of her. Her eyes glassed over, hidden behind the goggles.
“Again, pour it into the metal!”
The burning cigarette filled her mind as Lia swung the hammer a second time, grunting with effort. He’d left her. The one person who was supposed to protect her. And he abandoned—
A sob hitched in her throat. Lia brought the hammer down again and again, each swing more powerful than the last.
“That moment does not define you, Aurelia,” the Smith said, his gravelly voice stern. “It does not get to dictate your life.”
The “but” clung to Lia’s lips, and she hated it. She hated how she couldn’t trust people to stay. How she always feared she would do something so embarrassing, shameful, or awful that people would turn their backs on her. Like he did.
Because who else cuts ties with their child?
Lia yelled her frustration, the hammer casting a meteor shower of sparks on the next swing. And the next. And again. Over and over, Lia swung until sweat trickled down her brow, her fiery curls tumbling free. Her muscles burned, but she relished in it, for it anchored her.
Was this the root, like the Smith said? The memory tied to her anxiety, her insecurities, her lack of desire to be around people or step outside her comfort zone? How she had nearly allowed herself to drown in her grief only to become her family’s life raft?
She couldn’t let her father’s decision impact her own choices. Not anymore. He was gone; she was here. This was her life. Her future.
And that was her past.
With a final wail, Lia brought the hammer upon the anvil.
Light burst forth, enveloping the room as the last bit of grief and rage and disappointment fled in the wake of relief and understanding.
Of forgiveness, though not for her father.
Maybe one day that would come. Today, it was for herself in clinging to this pain, this self-doubt that was never meant to be hers.
Light dimmed. Lia sagged, her frame trembling with the release. The hammer slipped from her grip.
“Hurry,” the Smith urged, grabbing the flattened starlight with a pair of tongs. “We must mold it while it’s still hot and the emotion fresh.” The giant ushered her toward a work bench. In a whirl of activity, he pulled out a few tools and set about showing Lia how to shape the metal.
Time ticked by like an army marching toward war, yet it took no notice of the massive man and young woman.
Slowly, they brought the pen to life, crafting each piece with the care of a mother tending to her infant.
The Smith guided Lia, encouraging her to find what gave her peace and pour it into the engraving.
At first it was just swirls wrapped around each other.
But soon the engravings began to take shape.
For hours they worked, focusing on nothing but the parts in front of them.
Fee and Kayce watched patiently from the background, waiting to see the final product as the pen was taken back to the forge. Reheated, worked more, than reheated once again.
Finally, it was finished.
Steam cleared from the room. The Smith gave the pen one last critical gaze while holding it to the light. His smile was gentle as he inspected the craftsmanship of Lia’s heart.
“A fine pen, indeed. It will serve you well.”
Lia was proud that her hand hardly trembled when he placed the pen in her palm.
The hours of metalwork had been as therapeutic as the Smith had said.
It was warm to the touch, the pen’s body a swirl of cresting waves.
Elegantly etched feathers swelled for a grip before flowing into a nib that housed the anandalite rainbow quartz.
Lia’s heart fluttered, realizing how the pen’s design reminded her of Paxia, the white volatequis Kayce had gifted her.
A realization struck—that name, the one she’d chosen for her mount.
She didn’t understand at the time, the word foreign like the thought that summoned it that day, but she knew what it meant now.
It stood for peace.