Chapter 1

1

LECTURE NOTES FROM THE ART OF BLACKSMITHING III:

Bladesmithing is an entirely different craft.

D aggers are complicated. Thessa set the scalding blade atop her anvil and gripped the hickory handle of her hammer. Swinging in an arc motion, she beat the edges flat. Iron striking iron reverberated around the workshop, filling her ears with a familiar, steady drum.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

The incessant noise had a way of drowning out every miserable thought she had—until it stopped.

She sifted beneath her tool-ridden workbench for some gritty parchment. Sanding was just as brutal as hammering, but not as loud. Swiping away, she filled her mind with lecture notes to pass the time.

If a blade is not smooth, consider it unfinished. The correct angle will remedy any imperfection.

Professor Shovak, with a belly and beard as oversized as his heart, eventually checked in. “Another dagger, Thessa?”

She kept sanding. “You say this like it’s a bad thing. Would you prefer a spiked collar like Sebastian’s making?” she asked, her voice tart.

Professor Shovak laughed. “I suppose that’s the nature of an assessment which lacks specificities, but no, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, quite the opposite. A smith can make several different things fairly or focus on one and make it well. Let it be well then.” He tapped her workbench with a soot-stained finger before meandering over to the next student.

Once her dagger was smooth, Thessa strode to the forge.

The strongest of steel is forged by the hottest of fires .

Dagger clamped and ready, she pushed it into the flames—her favorite part. The forge roared by way of greeting, warming her balled-up cheeks. When her blade burned as bright as a star, she pulled it free, plunging it in the oil bucket by her feet.

Quenching the metal is for hardness, strength, and resistance.

After cooling and cleaning it, she went back to her workbench, wrapped the hilt, and sharpened the point. By the time she’d looked up, only a few students remained.

Despite the heat of the workshop, and the sweat coating her skin, a shiver ran down her spine. Finishing this blade meant she was finished with Central Secondary Academy.

Thessa paced towards Professor Shovak with her dagger in hand.

He stood. “Ah, is it ready?”

She shook her head. “As ready as it can be.” Six hours was all the time he’d allotted for this final assessment.

“Of course, of course. Let’s see what you’ve come up with.”

Professor Shovak took her blade and began his ministrations, examining each edge before poking the tip. It was sharp enough to draw a drop of his Elemental blood—red hued with bright blue flecks. Before Thessa could apologize, he’d gripped the hilt, hoisting her blade in the air for his true test . Accustomed to his theatrics, she stared with anticipation as he stabbed his abused desk.

Will it fall?

Together they watched her dagger stand, unfaltering.

She wiped her forehead in relief, smearing soot and sweat across it.

Professor Shovak beamed. “Excellent work Thessa, just excellent. You’ll make quite the bladesmith … if you so choose to be.”

She smiled back. “All thanks to you. Will you be at the ceremony tomorrow?”

“You can thank me, but it’s your work. And yes, of course, all professors will be in attendance.”

Thessa scanned the filthy workshop one last time. “I’m going to miss this place the most. I mean it. Thank you for everything.”

“How kind, this shop will miss you much the same. You’ve certainly shined among all this soot.”

She grinned.

“Alright, I have grading to do.” He gestured to the students’ work surrounding his desk. “Go on and get some rest before the big day tomorrow.”

Opening the door to her private chamber, Thessa’s pulse wavered.

The entirety of her short immortal life had been reduced to piles. The blankets she’d collected over the years, once layered so thick over her windows that they blocked any trace of light, were crumpled in one corner. Twenty-seven hand-crafted daggers were shoved into another; clothes that hardly fit were bunched beside those.

The blade renderings pinned along her walls still needed unpinning.

It all had to go.

Completion of secondary school meant she was finally free to leave Gravenport, except leaving meant parting with most of her things. And since there’d be no family or hidden fortune to find when school ended, things were all she had.

Despite wishing the years away, and hating the capital she grew up in, her panic brewed. Trying to remember her steps from the school healer, Thessa closed the door and breathed.