CHAPTER 833: TWO BLADES (PART ONE)

The ancient fortress in the Vale of Mists was home to many workshops needed for the maintenance of the sprawling building and the care of its unique inhabitants. Some of those workshops, like the castle laundry, were busy year-round. There was always washing to be done, whether it was clothing or bedding, or an annual cleaning of rugs and tapestries.

There had been a time when Lady Heila spent most of her days in the castle laundry, and ever since her meteoric rise, the servants of the laundry had held fast to the hope that one of the new witches in Lady Ashlynn’s coven might take one of them on as a personal maidservant. Of course, the chances were very low, but it didn’t stop the younger ones from feeling like they might be the lucky ones.

But while some workshops never went quiet, others could be dormant for months or even years between uses. The horses of the ancient fortress were mostly used to pull wagons and carriages, and the farrier only needed his smithy a few times a year to replace worn shoes. The same was true for the stone cutter’s shop, where a local craftsman worked only when damage to the fortress required repairs.

One such workshop, often dormant for years at a time between wars, had recently been refurbished and given over to one of the most eccentric guests currently residing in the ancient fortress. After all, a swordsmith was a specialist who required a number of things that an ordinary blacksmith wouldn’t, or at the very least, a different arrangement of their workstations to produce the carefully tempered and exquisitely sharpened blades used by the swordsmen of the ancient fortress.

When Artificer Erkembalt took over the workshop, however, it underwent a substantial transformation.

Where there had once been racks of carefully sorted steel stock, there were now shelves that held assortments of crystals, lumps of rare metals, and an assortment of even more exotic materials, many of which were considered taboo to harvest even if possessing them wasn’t a crime.

The shelves that contained wood suitable for handlemaking had tripled in number with newer, more exotic woods like box elder, kingwood, white liba, and more. And, as if the exotic woods weren’t enough, several unique bones, some of dubious origin, sat in neatly labeled rows as if they were soldiers lined up and ready to be selected to fight once again.

The artificer himself looked much less composed than the rest of his shop. Days of work with few breaks had left the fur of his tail bushy and frazzled, and his whiskers drooped with the fatigue that haunted his body. The acrid scent of quenching oil lingered in the air, mixed with the metallic tang of worked steel and the faint sweetness of exotic wood shavings that covered his workbench like snow.

His eyes, however, shone behind his gold-rimmed spectacles while his hands carefully manipulated a hammer and jeweler’s engraver. The rhythmic tap-tap-tap of metal on metal echoed through the workshop as he carved a slender channel into a twisted piece of metal that would soon become the handle of a sword.

Occasionally, he would pause to blow metal filings away from his work, the tiny particles catching the lamplight like falling stars before settling onto the leather apron that protected his chest. The forge itself had cooled to a dull orange glow now that day had turned into night and Erkembalt had moved on to more detailed work, but it was more than warm enough to keep the winter chill from invading the workshop, even though he kept many of the shutters open for fresh air.

"How goes the work, Master Erkembalt?" Nyrielle’s smooth, dark voice said when the artificer paused his engraving to adjust the vice and rotate the workpiece.

"Y-your Eternity," Erkembalt said with a tail that shot instantly upright as he nearly jumped out of his skin. "H-how long have you been standing there watching?"

"Only a few minutes," Nyrielle said as she glided across the floor of the shop to inspect the piece that Erkembalt was working on. "Long enough to know that you’re taking your work seriously."

"Please, your Eternity," the artificer said as he bowed nervously while wringing his hands. "It’s more than my fingers are worth to disappoint you, and I already finished the first sword on time, didn’t I?" Erkembalt asked rhetorically as he gestured to a recently completed blade sitting on a rack in a freshly stitched leather sheath that had been dyed a deep, ocean blue and tooled with patterns of cresting waves.

"You did," Nyrielle said with a genuine smile as she crossed the workshop to run a finger along the immaculate stitching of the leather sheath. "You also ran me ragged scouring the lands for the materials you needed for this blade. Even in the long nights of winter, reaching Airgead Mountain and returning before dawn is difficult and draining."

"You didn’t have to do it in a single night," Erkembalt said with a frown before he realized that the powerful vampire was teasing him. "But I’m sure Lady Ashlynn will be grateful for all the work you did to help bring her blade into being," he said as he came to stand next to Nyrielle. "It’s almost a shame that it won’t see much use."

The sword in the leather sheath had been the first one that he made for Ashlynn, and Nyrielle had been very clear in her instructions. The blade needed to suit Ashlynn’s human origins, but it also had to stand up to her enhanced strength and speed with an edge that wouldn’t chip on impact and a blade that would return to true, no matter how hard on it she was.

It was a sword fit for a Marchioness, crafted with care and meant to perfectly suit a noblewoman from Blackwell County. When Ashlynn stood before the people of Lothian March to face Owain in battle, they might see her as a heroine, a lady knight, or even a saintess... but they wouldn’t see her as a creature of darkness or the servant of a vampire.

"Even if it won’t see much use, it’s an important part of her journey, and you’ve done everything I’ve asked for and more," Nyrielle said as she felt the power hidden deep within the weapon that made it anything but ordinary. "You still have plenty of time to complete the next one, so you can stop worrying about your fingers," she added with a smile that showed the barest hint of her fangs.

Even as she spoke, however, Nyrielle never took her eyes off the lethal work of art that had taken shape under Erkembalt’s talented hands during the days that Ashlynn spent training with Sybyll.

Soon, this blade would claim Owain Lothian’s life, and if it did nothing else but free Ashlynn from the torment of remembering what her murderous husband had done to her, then it would be worth everything she had done to help Erkembalt forge it and more. But inwardly, she couldn’t help but hope that the blade would find a new wielder once Ashlynn was done with it, even though she hadn’t been willing to tell Erkembalt that he should prepare it for a second person to inherit the blade.

There were two women who had come from the sea and suffered under the hands of Owain Lothian after all, and if her darling was able to forgive her sister, Nyrielle wanted to ensure that Ashlynn had something suitable to give her younger sibling as a symbol of their reconciliation.

And if they weren’t able to reconcile in the end, then the blade was equally suitable to reap Jocelynn Blackwell’s life. If it came to that, Nyrielle would never speak of her other intentions, and Erkembalt was completely unaware of them... but deep within her heart, Nyrielle hoped that her lover wouldn’t have to live with the pain of killing her closest kin.