Gadis

The forge emptied at midnight, but Ember remained. She selected a core of starfall steel, a meteorite fragment her father had hidden beneath the floorboards. The metal was pale, almost liquid, and it sang when she struck it. She worked without sleep, her movements guided not by instruction but by instinct. Each fold of the steel was a whispered prayer. Each quench in oil was a baptism.

“The invisible kind.”

She offered the blade to him, hilt first. He did not take it immediately. Instead, he looked at her—really looked, past the soot and the lowly title. The forge emptied at midnight, but Ember remained