Chapter 29
Morning had brought Ksenia to the forge—and to the most important reason she was here.
Sparks skidded from the grinding wheel as Ksenia watched her sister press the edge of a blade against its roughened surface.
A keening, pitchy whine emitted from the blade as she focused on the gleaming silver line it left behind.
Danika had a few visitors today, each waiting for her to service their weapons.
Scattered throughout the room, the dozen or so children were busying themselves polishing weapons. Their hands nimbly lifted the blades from the rack before setting them on the worktables.
Danika then rubbed the darkened soot from its surface before testing the sharpness, holding a piece of parchment loosely in her hand, the blade barely grazing the surface but splitting it cleanly.
Satisfied, she gave it one last cursory polish before handing it back to the castle guard who stood before her.
Ksenia perched at the workbench with a small smile and a dulled short sword she had nicked from the sparring hall, brandishing a small cheesecloth full of pastries.
“You just need the edge back on, right?”
Danika quickly brushed the package beneath the table with a small smile and accepted the weapon with her opposite hand.
While Danika busied herself, Ksenia’s eyes wandered the forge and settled on a rack of a few nearly identical swords.
From them, Danika’s distinctive bound resonance radiated. No two blades were exactly alike, but all had a sound like a silver bell ringing in a cathedral, the notes clear yet shimmering.
Facing Danika, she mouthed, Are those his kingswords?
Danika’s eyes slid to their periphery at the rack before tucking a strand of hair over her left ear: affirmation.
The blades were prototypes of one another, and from left to right, Ksenia could tell the story of how the design had changed with time.
Starting as a greatsword, heavy and cleaving, but gradually shrinking until it closely resembled Radegast’s size and form.
After decades of wielding it, Ksenia surmised Karsan had become accustomed to its weight and size. The most recent version bore the most intricate details and finesse.
A slender common steel blade paired with a sculpted cruciform crossguard with elegant pointed curves, embedded with brass. A large bezel sat empty, waiting for a marquise-cut gem of some sort. The grip was wrapped in black leather, and the pommel was topped with another bezel.
The screeching grind of the whetstone stopped as Danika examined the short sword. She wiped it down with her polishing cloth before handing it back.
Ksenia gave her a grateful nod and a knowing smile before turning around.
The room fell silent.
Bohdan’s footsteps were measured and soft as he entered the room, and everyone swept into a collective bow at King Karsan’s arrival, a slight upturn at the corner of his lips. Ksenia dropped to one knee, head bent low as she held her breath.
Bohdan’s presence was a dark shadow to Karsan’s frigid presence. Pale blue eyes that bordered gray reminded Ksenia of a frozen lake, a solid icy veneer under which black currents still moved—deep, and patient.
“Rise, my friends,” he said graciously.
The guards stood and parted the way as Karsan approached Danika.
She proffered a second bow. “Lord King, your latest sword is ready for review.”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod in return as he moved toward the weapon rack himself.
Nearby, a young boy with messy black hair stared up at him, wide-eyed and unafraid.
Karsan’s expression softened. He ruffled the boy’s hair with practiced gentleness.
“You’ve been working hard, Milo.” His voice was warm. “I’m so proud of you.”
The boy’s face lit up like the sunrise.
From his pocket, he produced a satchel of sweets, pressing it into Milo’s hands.
“Go on, share it with the others. You’ve earned it.”
Milo ran to the other children, who swarmed eagerly.
Karsan gave a light-hearted laugh as the children doubled back for more, producing a second bag when their small hands reached for him.
Ksenia’s stomach turned, and she could feel blood splotching her face.
Most of them were too young to remember. Too young to know he was the one who’d killed their families. To them, he was the kind king who brought sweets and remembered their names.
Once the children were placated, he turned back to the weapon rack and lifted the kingsword to the light.
He balanced the flat of the blade precariously on his index finger, enjoying the stillness of the moment before his hand disappeared from beneath it and deftly grasped the hilt from midair.
Ksenia’s breath was stifled in her chest. Karsan’s movements were so fast the blade hadn’t even moved.
He handed the sword back to Danika. “Make the next one out of Grastelian steel.”
Danika nodded. Her eyes met Ksenia’s for a fraction of a second before dropping to the ground.
Danika wouldn’t be able to.
Not alone.
The sun had set, and Danika paced in the empty forge.
A singular bondsmith did not make Grastelian steel–borne weapons. They always required at least two.
Aside from that problem, her normal bellows wouldn’t do, and she had called for a much larger one.
A young man and woman in waxed aprons carried the leather-and-wood instrument through the service doors held open by the guards, then set it down in front of Danika.
The young man brushed off his hands and strode away, leaving the woman behind, who slung a pack from her shoulders to the ground.
“Shall we get to it?” Tying her unkempt hair back, Ksenia looked Danika in the eye.
“Gods—” Danika startled backward.
Her eyes darted to the doors, likely to see whether any guards had heard and come running.
“What are you doing?” she whispered harshly.
“Helping you.” Ksenia lugged blue-gray ingots over to the furnace.
The amount she held in her hands could buy several houses.
Danika rushed over, snatching them. “You can’t,” she hissed.
“I can,” Ksenia gritted, turning on her heel to pick up another bar.
“You’re going to get caught.” Danika scrubbed the heel of her hand into her eyes.
Ksenia pulled away. “Not if we work fast and stay quiet. We both know Karsan won’t give a shit that you can’t do it alone, and the kids are nowhere near close to even attempting.”
Danika’s hand shook, then her jaw clenched.
Their eyes locked, a knowing look passing between them.
“Give me that…” Danika grumbled, swinging her finger at Ksenia’s haphazard hairdo, tendrils falling into her face and over her shoulders.
Ksenia rolled her eyes but obliged, untangling the ribbon.
Her sister’s deft fingers pulled every coarse and wavy strand into a tidy braid down her back in record time. She knew better than to trust her little sister not to burn her hair.
Ksenia pulled on a pair of heavy, singed leather gloves while Danika threw the first bar into the heart of the fire.
Beside the forge, Ksenia pulled the bellows handle down and up in a steady, rhythmic motion, reading the metal and the colors dappling across its surface.
It smelled like woodsmoke, leather, and iron.
A faint smile crept to her face.
She shot a glance at her elder sister, who smiled wistfully into the fire before cutting a look back at Ksenia.
It had been a decade or more since they had worked side by side like this, and although things were grim, nothing felt more like home than working with her.
Sparks burst from the metal, purple and blue.
It was time.
“I’ll be primary, unless—” Danika offered, casting her a sidelong glance.
“No, absolutely, I’ll be secondary.” Ksenia nodded her head.
Danika snorted and retrieved her hammer.
All metal had a single resonance, and a bondsmith could capture it into the body of the blade and temper it before it had the chance to escape. With a regular steel bar, if the resonance was lost, it could still become a weapon, albeit ordinary.
Grastelian steel was different. Unstable. It had a structure that wanted to resonate at multiple frequencies at once that a single bondsmith wouldn’t be able to hold still long enough to quench.
You always needed at least two.
And whoever wielded the hammer was the primary, whose sole job was to find and capture the dominant resonance hiding within the steel, while their secondary dampened the other interfering resonance.
With Grastelian steel, if the resonance was lost, the result was catastrophic.
Ksenia’s mind momentarily drifted to memories of their first-ever attempt at a Grastelian steel dagger.
It had been a scrap that their father allowed the sisters to practice on. It had resulted in the metal completely warping and twisting like a corkscrew, inverting in a burst of sparks and incinerating everything around it. It would have killed the girls had their father not been watching carefully.
Grastelian steel was dangerous.
She shook her head and picked up her tongs.
Danika pulled out the glowing purple-and-blue steel bar and laid it upon the anvil.
Ksenia pinched the metal on one end, and Danika pulled on the other as she swung a hammer with heavy, even strikes.
Then, the metal began to sing.
Two warbling notes: one high and restless like a twisting gale, the other low and deep like rolling, distant thunder.
Ksenia clenched her eyes shut. As the secondary, she had to suppress everything for Danika to work in complete silence.
Her job was to control.
Danika’s job was to finesse.
The steel roiled on the anvil before them, warping, twisting, like a live animal. They wrestled it flat with their tongs, and Danika continued to beat it down.
Ksenia cracked an eye open, her arms and core burning with effort.
Sweat dripped down Danika’s face as she hammered relentlessly.
Every ounce of Ksenia’s focus returned to her task, sweat pricking her nape.
Visualizations were key, and the familiar ones were stronger and more reliable.
She envisioned it: Danika at her anvil, outside in the field, exposed—wind tearing at her hair and clothes.