The answer was a shockwave.“And you must know, my son, I mourned you as lost. I built a tomb for you, and all the while, I cursed the sky for taking you so soon.”
The word “son” detonated through the group like a flare. I looked at Flint, who was trembling with the effort not to burst out with questions, and at Jax, who had taken two steps back and was pretending to study the pattern of the molten rivers.
“I have lost many children to war and age and foolishness,”Adalinda projected, the words a tangled knot of pride and sorrow.“But yours was the wound that never closed.”
Tharneval dipped his head, letting the moment burn away the centuries. When he lifted it again, his pride was unmistakable.“You did not give up the search. The world remembers those who mourn. Even in exile, I felt it.”
They stood like that, locked in silent exchange, and in that pause, I felt the raw ache of eternity. To be dragon, it seemed, was to survive one’s children and live on, a monument to grief as much as to glory.
It was Solenne who finally broke the spell, her thought-speech threaded with apology.“Forgemaster, we have come to ask for new work. Vaelog has returned. The courts believe nothing of this world’s common steel will end him.”
Tharneval’s focus shifted instantly.“Vaelog was always more hunger than mind. He will come for the Queen. He will come for all of us.”
Jax’s mental voice was sharper than usual, more human in its sarcasm.“We’ll be ready. This time, we have the original blueprints and the maker on our side.”
Tharneval laughed, a seismic rumble that set sparks raining from the ceiling.“You are an odd flock, but I will not see you fail. What I am forging will be bound to your intention. It will answer to you, Champion, if you are strong enough to wield it.”I was shocked to see Tharneval was looking atme. Not Jax.
I looked at my mate, then Adalinda, then at the anvil, then back at Tharneval.“And if I’m not?”I asked.
“Then you will die, and the work will wait for another. That is the law of the forge.”
There was a certain comfort in the simplicity of dragon logic. I glanced at Flint, who was watching the exchange. When the silence threatened to become unbearable, he crept forward and lifted his snout.“If I touch the things you make, will they make me as big as you?”
Tharneval looked at the baby dragon for a long, long moment, then lowered his giant head until it was level with Flint’s.“No, little one. But it may make you remember who you will be, when the sky is yours alone.”
Flint considered this, then said,“That’s good. Being small is nice, but sometimes I want to be large so I can eat the biggest snacks.”
Solenne covered her amusement with a flick of her tail. Corvus merely grunted, but I caught the way his posture eased.
The ancient gold dragon let the tip of his massive tail curl around Flint, a gentle loop that would have held a bus.“You are the first hatchling to come through the portal in many generations. You will not be the last. Perhaps this time, our kind will learn what it means to be victorious.”
Adalinda blinked, a single tear of molten gold rolling down her cheek. She let it fall, then straightened her neck to its full, imperial height.“We have work ahead of us. But for now, we are together. And that is all the comfort I will claim.”
“It is enough,”Tharneval agreed, then added,“I have something to show you.”
He made a gesture with his foot that defied physics, and produced a sword. Not a dagger, not a ceremonial implement, an actual sword, scaled for a human, though I didn’t expect any normal human would’ve been able to wield it. He set it on the anvil, and the metal sang, a high, sweet note that hung in the air even after the blade settled. “I forged this in my first century here. A vision told me to create a sword for a human hand. It has never been used.”
Adalinda approached, eyes shining with reflected fire. She ran a talon along the edge, careful not to touch the runes that glimmered just below the surface. They were old symbols, nothing I recognized, but the power in them was obvious even to a novice.
She looked up at Tharneval. “Why a sword, and not a dagger?”
“The daggers are for endings. The sword is for beginnings. This world isn't only a grave. It is a place where the old wounds can be healed.”
Jax stepped in then, his posture cautious but curious. “Can it kill Vaelog?”
Tharneval’s answer was slow and considered. “It can do more. It can unmake what Vaelog has become. But only if wielded by one who knows both sides of the blade.”
I didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked between Jax and me.
Adalinda drew herself up to full height, the reflected fire outlining every scale.“You have built a weapon for us.”
“Not only for you, Queen. For all of us. But there is more.” He reached below the anvil, and with a tenderness that nearly broke my brain, lifted a set of, well, they looked like gauntlets. Four of them, sized for dragon claws, the metal inlaid with the same runes as the sword. They glowed with a faint blue-white, and when he set them down, the light bled out onto the stone in runic patterns.
“I had a vision,” Tharneval said. “This vision was much more recent, only weeks ago. It told me you would come and that you would need these. To defend yourself when the blade is in play. They are unfinished, but they will be ready in a few days. I didn't expect you quite so soon.”
Adalinda stared at the claw covers, then at him.“You saw the future?”
“I saw a possibility,” Tharneval corrected, the thought gentle. “A world where you survived.”
