I pick up my wine. "I suggest we move to the matter that actually requires this gathering."
It works, because nobody at this table wants to be the one to hold up a war council over gossip. The conversation turns, and Thalen lets it turn—he's made his point, planted it where others can water it. That's how he prefers to work.
The news on the table is worse than the last report I received. Three border villages raided in the Ardenmere region, two dark elf patrol units ambushed on the eastern roads. Organized attacks, coordinated timing, and behind it all, weapons. New weapons, well-made, reaching rebel hands faster than anyone can track the supply lines.
Lord Caevar, grey-haired and blunt, sets a blade on the table with a heavy sound. "Confiscated from the last ambush site."
I look at it without touching it. The hilt is functional rather than decorative, the balance evident even from across the table. The iron bears a particular finishing technique—a clean edge drawn with a whetstone at a shallow angle, leaving a polish that most regional smiths don't bother with.
I've seen that finish once before on a pair of daggers returned to me sharper than they started.
I reach for my wine instead of the blade.
"The supply is coming from the border settlements," Caevar continues. "We have three confirmed routes."
"Then close the routes," says Lord Fenrath, who has never once considered that closing a route doesn't stop the water.
"We've closed two," Caevar says. "The third is moving through the western border corridor. We don't have a source yet."
Western border corridor. Oxwood sits squarely within it.
I turn the wine cup in my hand. Half a dozen smiths in this region use similar techniques. The finishing style isn't unique. Anyone who has trained under a competent teacher could produce the same result, and I have no evidence beyond a resemblance, which is not evidence at all.
That's what I tell myself.
"The solution," says Fenrath, "is pressure. These villages supply rebels because there's no sufficient deterrent. Increase the patrols, increase the penalties, and the supply dries up."
"The supply exists because the villages have nothing left to lose," I say. "Increase the pressure and you increase the desperation. You don't eliminate the problem—you accelerate it."
"A philosophical objection," Thalen says, pleasantly.
"A practical one." I put down the cup. "I've reviewed border village records this week. The conditions are worse than the reports indicate. People don't arm rebels out of ideology—they do it out of hunger. If we want to stop the supply, we address the conditions that make it profitable."
"Profitable for rebels," Caevar says.
"Profitable for everyone in a village who needs to eat."
The table doesn't agree with me. It doesn't disagree either, which is the frustration of councils—nobody commits to being wrong, so nothing gets decided. We talk for another hour, reaching no resolution. Fenrath wants expanded patrols. Caevar wants source identification first. Thalen wants to table the matter until the next gathering, which means he's still working out where his advantage lies.
I ride back toward Oxwood in the dark, refusing to think about the blade on that table.
I smellthe forge before I see it.
Coal smoke carried on the night air, faint but present, coming from the direction of the village. I check the sky—past the second hour. The forge should be cold. The village should be sleeping.
I signal Cyran to hold the horses at the lane edge and go forward on foot.
The forge glow is visible through the gap in the door, firelight moving in the steady rhythm of bellows work. I approach from the side, staying out of the light spilling from the window, and look through the gap.
Edria is at the anvil.
She works without a lamp—the forge fire is enough, throwing orange light across her face and arms. On the table beside her, laid out in a row, are six finished blades. Short, balanced, functional. The same finishing technique. The same clean angle on every edge.
I watch longer than I intend to.
She works with complete focus, nothing performative in it, just the automatic movements that speak to how long she’s been doing this. There's a different quality to this work than what she does in daylight—faster, quieter, the gestures stripped of everything except what's necessary.
She pulls the blade from the coals, sets it against the anvil, raises the hammer.
