She rose, Audric’s hand in hers, and led him quietly down the hall to a small, clean room that stood empty, faintly lit by the night sky. Once inside, Rielle closed the door and kissed him again, harder, until she could barely breathe, until he stopped treating her as if she was made of glass. He turned her away from him and pressed her gently against the door, and Rielle reached back to tug him closer, impatient. He kissed her neck and raised her skirts, and for those glorious blazing minutes while he moved inside her, one hand teasing between her legs and his voice hoarse and urgent in her hair, Rielle did not feel like a girl upon whose shoulders the fate of the world rested.

She felt, simply, like a girl lucky enough to know what it was to be loved, and she clung to that feeling as fiercely as she could, until Audric’s murmured words and tireless hands pushed her past her lingering fears, and she could think no more.

10

   Eliana

“The importance of mental intimacy during the forging of one’s casting cannot be overstated. You must treat these hours as the beginning of your new life. It is a rebirth. It is a transformation. Into your casting you must pour everything you carry inside you—even the darkness, even the cruelty, even the parts of yourself you wish you could cut away and burn.”

—On Castings: A Complete Studyby Eko Kaarat, renowned Astavari metalmaster

As Eliana stepped inside the Forge of Vintervok, the scents of smoke and oil filled her lungs, and her chest constricted around a swell of memory.

Before war had come to Ventera, before her years as the Dread, she had loved the stories of the Old World as fiercely as Remy still did—stories of the saints, the godsbeasts, and the magic that had filled the world before the Blood Queen’s Fall shattered it.

Every year, she had visited the Forge in Orline with her parents on Saint Grimvald’s naming day and murmured the Metal Rite alongside the other visitors—tourists come to marvel at the Forge’s architecture; those who considered the old legends to be simply that, and tossed their prayers casually; and true followers of the saints, like Remy, who believed that the stories about the Old World were as real as the air in their lungs.

As Eliana herself had once believed, before she first donned her Dread mask and began shedding the fanciful skin of her childhood.

And now? Eliana thought, walking through the starkly decorated halls of Vintervok’s Forge. Now what do I believe?

Before the invading Empire forces had destroyed the Forge in Orline, it had looked something like this—all right angles and gleaming dark surfaces, stark iron filigree barring every window. Artwork portraying Saint Grimvald in his pewter armor and fiery orange cloak hung alongside landscapes of war—battlefields glinting with swords, soldiers bearing brilliant bronze castings, bright-winged angels falling from storming skies with metal shards protruding from their chests.

One painting boasted a particularly dramatic spectacle. A dragon, gray-scaled and white-bellied, a mane of dark hair cresting its neck, rode toward a blinding door of light, which hovered just above a great chasm in the earth. Water surged up through the chasm, churning with foam. Saint Grimvald himself rode the dragon’s back, his hammer raised to meet a regiment of swarming angels. Each armored angel carried a sword; each of their exquisite faces blazed with rage.

Eliana hurried past, averting her eyes. Like every child she had ever known, Remy loved the godsbeasts, and the ice dragons of Borsvall had always been his favorite.

Give him time, Simon had told her.

But there wasn’t enough time in the world for them to come back from what she had done. Eliana felt the certainty of that reverberate through her body with every step.

Their escort—a scholar named Ikari—led them deep into the Forge’s honeycomb structure to the enormous central forging room. Shallow steps sloped down into a circular pit at the heart of the room, where a wide coal hearth blazed day and night. A stone statue of Saint Grimvald stood in the hearth, his hammer raised toward the ceiling, where a series of windows allowed ventilation. A dozen others milled about the room—scholars dressed in plain floor-length coats and ceremonial acolytes wearing the more elaborate and old-fashioned dark-gray robes.

Ikari, a petite, plain-faced woman with kind eyes and pale-brown skin, led Eliana and Simon toward the hearth. As she did so, everyone gathered in the room paused in their work—tending the hearth fire, tidying the prayer candles, scrubbing the smoke stains from the floors—and turned to stare.

Ikari cleared her throat. “You all have tasks to complete? As does Lady Eliana.”

The scholars and acolytes quickly resumed working, the air thick with their sudden, focused silence.

Below the crackle of the hearth flames, Simon murmured, “We can leave, if you want.”

Eliana threw a glare at him. “I don’t relish the idea of sitting around Dyrefal twiddling my thumbs for the rest of my life.”

“Nor do I.”

“Then stop trying to make me feel better.”

“I’d never presume to do such a thing. I’d just rather you not embarrass yourself in front of these people.”

“Embarrass me? Or embarrass you?”

“If you’re going to panic, you shouldn’t let them see it.”

Eliana gritted her teeth. “I’m not panicking.”

Ikari smiled warmly at her. “I thought I would show you around the forging hearth, my lady, and familiarize you with the traditional process. I hope you will forgive us our excitement. We have studied this practice in great detail, of course, but only in theory. This will be our first time to witness an actual forging.”

Eliana nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The curious gazes of the people around the room sat upon her skin like hot coals.

“It is important for the person who will use the casting to carry out each step of the forging process themselves,” Ikari began. “We will be here to guide you, of course, but it is your hand that must hold the hammer, your arms that must pump the bellows.”

Eliana followed Ikari around the hearth. “I understand.”

“First, you will use the bellows to pump air through the tuyere and feed the flames. Once they are at their purest heat, you will place each piece of metal you selected into the crucible”—Ikari pointed at a cylindrical vat of stone quietly cooking in the embers—“and melt them down. Their Majesties have told us you may have your pick of artifacts from the temple archives, my lady. Anything you wish to add to the mixture is yours. The archives include relics from as long ago as the Second Age—”

“I won’t raid your archives for my own purposes,” Eliana interrupted.

“But, my lady—”

“I won’t use relics. I’ll use scraps only. Bits of refuse. Metal left over from your own workings. The finery of precious artifacts would seem ill-fitting on me.”