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It won’t be an easy day – we received a commission from the Captain of the Royal Guard for a new order of weapons. I will have to do all that by myself, which is why I arrived at the smithy around three this morning.
I am not sure how long I’ve been here. All I know is that the sun has risen and my arms are aching from stoking the fire and hammering out old pieces of metal to form into new swords and knives.
All these weapons cannot be a good thing,I think to myself as I step outside the smithy for a few minutes to allow the cool, morning air to settle around me and cool down the burning wound on my arm.
I do not know much about the royal family, and I do not know anything at all about the politics of Lodra.
But I do know one thing. The only time that my village ever stocked up on weapons the way the Captain of the Royal Guard is stocking up on weapons right now was when we were expecting an attack from the naga.
Not that the weapons prepared us for their assault at all.
“Maybe the Captain, Lasta, is just being careful,” I muse. My cheeks grow warm at my memory of meeting Captain Lasta the other day.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he wasmenacing.
His presence dominated even Irian, who is the most masculine and commanding male I have ever met. For some reason, being in his presence made me feel smaller than I already do around all these naga.
I push thoughts of the captain from my head and walk back into the smithy.
I leave my mask and goggles off now that I am alone, although I am quite sure that Irian would whip me just for being close to the furnace unprotected.
The heat snaps and ripples against the skin of my face. My eyes water as I lift the giant tongs and grab hold of a large piece of metal.
I have been hurting myself a lot since I came to work in the smithy.
I am not very clumsy.
I have never been clumsy.
I’ve sought pain my entire life. Pain in the form of ‘accidentally’ falling over and bruising my body. Pain in the form of allowing boys in the village to grip me slightly too hard during village dances.
Now, for the past year, I have been attracting pain in the form of cuts, scrapes, and gashes that could have been avoided.
Instead of wishing the pain away, all I want is to dive into it, wrap myself in it, and hurt as much as I possibly can.
“Now you do sound crazy,” I say out loud as I pull the metal from the fire and place it on the anvil before I quickly grab the hammer.
Hammering the slightly more malleable metal into shape has become my favorite thing about working in the smithy. In fact, this is the first job I have had where I feel like I’m doing something useful.
Here, unlike when I worked in the armory, I get to change something. Shape something.
Working in the smithy means that I am contributing to something more.
Working here gives me a measure of comfort that I have been searching for my entire life.
I just wish I actually knew what it is that I have been searching for.
I have no words for it, except that I feel, for the first time, like the world isn’t going to fall out from underneath my feet.
I inhale deeply as I put the hammer down. Flecks of metal have flown into my face, cutting into the skin on my cheeks and forehead.
I’m probably bleeding again,I think to myself as I inspect the knife, a long, thin dagger, before I grab the hammer again.
The sun is lower in the sky when I glance out the door a little bit later.
I have finished a few more daggers, and now they’re going back into the heat before they are dunked into ice cold water.
I wakeup at two in the morning, after only having slept for three hours.
