Chapter 21: The Forge Again

Phlegon's POV

Aethon stood at my forge door at dawn with a bag of melted gold and the look of a man waiting to be struck.

I let him wait.

I had waited twenty years in a cold house, and he could stand in a warm doorway for as long as I liked.

Eous came up the valley road behind him an hour later, with Lampos beside him carrying a roll of needles in a leather case.

Neither of them said good morning.

They stood in a row on my stone floor, and I looked at all three of them.

"My wife asked for a gown made by your hands," I said. "She didn't ask me to help. I won't."

"We understand," Eous said.

"I'll light the forge. After that you're on your own."

I laid my palm on the cold furnace wall and let the fire come.

It came easily now.

That was still strange to me, after so long.

The furnace roared white.

Aethon fed in the crown's cooled gold, the heap of his armor and the sunburst he'd worn on his chest since he was twelve.

It ran together in the crucible.

"Now what?" he said.

"Draw it out on the iron," I said. "Thin. Thinner than a hair. Pull it through the die."

He took the tongs.

He was strong, and he had never held anything delicate in his life.

The first strand snapped and splattered on his forearm.

He swore through his teeth, held still, and did it again.

I sat on the anvil I'd once carried my wife to, and watched him burn his hands for two hours.

I thought: I should feel something sharper than this.

I had imagined this man on his knees for twenty years, and in all those imaginings it had been satisfying.

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