Thorns of midnight

Chapter 3-whispers of the bound

The morning broke pale and blade-thin, a gray light slipping between clouds and thatch as if the day itself were undecided. I woke with the taste of iron in my mouth and the memory of a voice that wasn’t mine coiled under my ribs. I lay still, counting the breath of the house—old timbers settling, a kettle remembering yesterday’s boil, the soft scrape of Father’s boots as he checked what didn’t need checking. When I rose, the floorboards were cool beneath my feet, scrubbed clean of soot that would be back by sundown.

The forge never truly slept. It drowsed. It waited. By the time I tied my hair and shrugged into my leather apron, Father had already coaxed the coals into a sullen glow. The bellows exhaled like a creature deciding not to bite. Outside, the lane murmured with cart wheels and quiet voices—market day again, too soon and never soon enough.

“You’re late by three heartbeats,” Father said without turning. His tone carried neither bite nor warmth; it was a measure, the way he measured all things that mattered.

“Then I’ll pay you back four,” I said, and took the tongs from their peg. The weight settled into my hand like a promise I knew how to keep.

We fell into our rhythm. He heated, I hammered. He checked, I quenched. The forge sang: a deep-bellied hum, a hiss, the clean ring of steel agreeing to be made into something worthy. I worked the way I always did—jaw set, elbows firm, hips turned into the strike—yet there was a looseness in my wrist I hated. The night had stolen steadiness, leaving me with a restless thrum under the skin. I drove it into the metal. I told myself that was discipline.

“You’re pushing,” Father said. He did not look at the bar—he looked at me. “Let the heat do more. You do less.”

“I can do both,” I muttered.

“That’s how you crack good iron and better people.”

My next blow landed too square. Sparks jumped, bright against the gloom. I swallowed, tasted smoke, and forced my breath to slow. Patience. He’d been feeding me that lesson since I could lift a hammer. Patience turns temper into tempering, he liked to say. It makes the blade sing true instead of shatter.

“I dreamed,” I said, surprising myself more than him.

Father set the bar to rest. The red bled back toward black, a small sunset across iron. “Another bad one?”

“Another loud one,” I said, because loud was safer than bad. “It felt…nearer. As if someone knocked from the other side of my skull.”

“That’s a queer door to have,” he said mildly. He picked up the iron and tested the color against the light, his face unreadable. “Mind you keep it barred.”

“I do,” I said, too fast.