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AURORA
There are days when I forget that my life is always in danger.
There are days when I forget that magic thrills through my veins, as true and real as the sun that shines in the sky.
The days when I forget are usually days like today. When the sun is high in the sky and its light is sharp and bright and piercing.
Lodra, lush, fertile Lodra, is always beautiful. But today the air is crisp, and the wind is sweet and balmy against my skin. Today, I can smell the scent of the sweetgrass and the rirzed herbs. The two beautiful, brutal fragrances intertwine around one another, and I inhale deeply before I turn to walk back to the smithy.
Lodra may be beautiful, but it is early in the morning and already hot. I dread walking into the smithy because I know the temperature will only get worse, and standing before a roaring fire isn’t the best way to cool down.
I have braided my hair away from my face, and I am wearing the standard clothing I always wear when working in the smithy with my father. A light cotton shirt and a pair of cotton trousers. Cool and not easily flammable – high fashion for a smithy.
Today my father works on a batch of swords for the naga. This agreement between our smithy and the naga is one of the few things that keep food on our table. The fire is spitting when I walk in.
What I do next is a reflex more than anything else. I twist my hand and grab at the fire and the energy it throws into the air.
I quiet the flames with a whisper of magic as soon as my father turns his head, but not soon enough.
“Rory!” My father’s voice is sharp and tinged with disappointment, even though we’re alone in the smithy, with no one around to see that I have magic and snitch on me to the naga.
“It’s okay, Father,” I tell him easily. Then I go over to the table where gold is melted down and the liquid poured into molds. I spent most of last night picking out imported zanthenite to be secured to the hilts of the sword.
“There isn’t anyone around to see me,” I continue, giving him a kiss on his sweaty cheek.
“I don’t want you using your magic outside the house. In fact, I don’t want you using your magic at all.”
He hisses the words as though someone might be listening in on our conversation. And to be fair to my father, no one could put that past the naga.
The naga hate human women with magical abilities. I have been hiding my magic, the origin of which is still inscrutable to me, my entire life with the help of my father.
It is difficult to suppress this part of myself every day, but it is for my own safety.
“They’re coming for the swords tomorrow,” he tells me.
Now the heavy lifting begins,I think as my father moves away from the forge and I take his place.
We have already selected the stock for the swords. Now I have to actually forge the swords and sharpen the blades.
My father has finished ten swords thus far, and now it is my turn so that he can rest.
Using metal rods, I weld some pieces of the stock together before immediately thrusting the welded stock into the forge. Then, grabbing the heaviest mallet I can find, I begin to forge.
The smithy is extra hot today,I think as droplets of sweat form on my forehead.
The heat of the forge is incomparable to anything else that I have ever experienced before. Not even the heat of my magic, heat that I can feelinsideme, can match up to the heat of the forge.
The flames lick at me. I wear thick leather gloves that reach up to my upper arms, so I am mostly safe from the relentless fire.
But this fire is old and stubborn, and my father has been stoking it for months now because the older the fire, the better the forged product.
I dunk the first blade into water for a second, and then start hammering at it again.
My back aches and my upper arms, already muscular and hard after working in the smithy my entire life, are straining for relief.
But there is no time for that. Instead, I drag the grindstone closer to the forge, and I start sharpening the blades of each sword.
