Thorne woke before dawn, drawn from restless sleep by the forge's unnatural warmth. The stones beneath his feet radiated heat, pulsing low and steady, though no fire had been lit since the night prior. He swung his legs off the cot and stood slowly, joints stiff from sleeping in his work leathers again. Downstairs, the forge wasn't empty.
Ren knelt beside the anvil, tools laid out in a half-circle around him. His fingers were wrapped in cloth, trembling slightly as he scrubbed soot from an old fuller handle. He looked up as Thorne entered, startled but not ashamed.
"You're early," Thorne said, voice still gritty.
"Couldn't sleep," Ren answered. "Kept thinking about the edge you forged yesterday."
Thorne crossed to the hearth, gave the bellows a hard pump. Flames flared up. "You rearranged my tools."
"I thought it might help organize the process."
"It doesn't."
Ren grimaced and moved to fix them, but Thorne raised a hand. "You meant well. Just don't touch the tempering blades."
Ren held up a bundle. "I brought the hilt again."
Thorne examined it. The steel was worn and cracked, the guard uneven. The shard set into the pommel was dull but intact.
"You still want it reforged?"
"I do."
"You understand this won't restore what was. We're forging a new purpose. Old steel doesn't care who held it last."
Ren nodded. "That's why I brought it back."
Thorne set the hilt on the workbench, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled a bundle of raw iron from beneath a tarp. He started the fire, adjusted the airflow, and selected a heavier hammer.
"Strip the hilt. We'll salvage what we can."
Ren got to work. The boy's movements were clumsy but focused. He cut the leather grip, separated the guard, and set aside the pommel. Thorne offered no correction unless it was necessary. Pain taught faster than words.
"Use this," Thorne said, passing him a rasp. "Clean that shard."
Ren hesitated. "What's it made of?"
"Nothing local. It's forged from something older. Keep it steady."
They worked in silence, each caught in their own rhythm. The forge glowed white-hot. Ash clung to the air, dry and clinging. Thorne watched the steel shift in color, watching for flaws as the blade core formed. By midmorning, he opened a small cedar box and pulled free a wrapped object.
Inside, a strip of ore gleamed faintly.
"Star-iron," Thorne said. "Rare. Resistant to corruption. Stubborn as a mule."
Ren reached for it, but Thorne pulled it back. "You'll earn the right to touch it. Until then, observe."
Thorne worked the star-iron into the forging blend, reinforcing the central spine of the new blade. When the two metals fused, the air thinned. Sparks hissed differently, sharper, almost brittle.
"It's reacting," Ren murmured.
Thorne didn't answer.
They quenched it in brine, an old recipe Thorne swore by, and the hiss echoed like a shout in a tunnel. Ren stepped back, blinking through the steam. The steel glowed faintly, but held.
"It's bonded," Thorne muttered.
"Is that good?"
"We'll find out."
The afternoon stretched on. Thorne showed Ren how to carve the tang and inlay the shard with precision. Ren's hands blistered, but he didn't complain. Thorne watched him strip the grip leather a second time, saw the moment he lined it properly, and gave a short nod.
"You learn quickly."
Ren looked surprised. "I thought you were waiting to yell at me again."
"Yelling's wasted breath if the work speaks louder."
By evening, the handle had been carved and shaped, fitted cleanly with the crossguard. Thorne ran a cloth along the new edge.
"No crest. No title. Just function."
"I'll name it tomorrow," Ren said.
"You don't have to rush."
"I'm not rushing."
Thorne turned to the racks and began reorganizing tools. He didn't look back.
"You said once this forge wasn't meant for students," Ren said, breaking the quiet.
"I did."
"Why change your mind?"
Thorne set down the tongs. "Because you knocked twice."
Ren blinked. "What?"
"There's an old rule. Knock once and you're a beggar. Knock twice and you're a fool. Knock three times, and you're either desperate or dangerous. You knocked twice. Fool's heart. Not bad for learning."
Ren exhaled slowly. "Did the last student knock three times?"
Thorne's eyes darkened. "He didn't knock at all. He walked through fire thinking it would bow to him."
He left it there.
The forge dimmed as they closed shop. Ren headed toward the back stairs, but Thorne stayed behind, sitting near the embers. He held a flat coin in his palm, the kind worn around the neck by Pact apprentices. His own name was carved on one side. On the other, scratched nearly away, was a word: Nullmark. He ran a thumb over it. He hadn't touched the coin in years. Hadn't needed to.
Something had changed.
He stood and moved to the hearth, reaching behind a loose brick. A lockbox emerged, cold and dust-coated. Inside, a thin blade, unfinished, blackened at the tip. He lifted it. The weight was wrong. The balance uneven. The alloy unstable. He stared at it for a long time. Then placed it in the center of the forge and stepped back. Flame curled around it.
Then a flicker of pale green, quick as a heartbeat. Thorne frowned.
Outside, wind scraped the shutters. A low thud echoed from the front step. He crossed the floor cautiously, unhooked the lock, and opened the door a fraction. No one there.
Except, a package sat on the stone. Wrapped in cloth. Marked with a sigil he hadn't seen in a decade.
Thorne bent, picked it up. The cloth smelled of iron and pine. He shut the door, bolted it, and unwrapped the bundle.
Inside lay a single piece of curved steel. No hilt. No core. Just a bare frame, half-forged and deeply scored.
A message was etched along the inside curve:
Send no more students. They won't survive.
Thorne stared at the steel. He didn't speak.
He walked to the hearth, placed the message steel beside the blade from his lockbox, and sat down again. The forge crackled, then fell still.
Above, the rafters groaned, old beams shifting with the change in temperature.
Below, deeper than the cellar, something stirred. Thorne sat motionless. Another knock would come. The next one might not be from a student at all.
The fire dwindled to coals. For a long while, Thorne didn't move. Then he rose and fetched chalk from the back drawer. He knelt beside the forge and began sketching sigils in the soot-stained stone, symbols old and unspoken, a safety lattice etched only when threat lingered. He hadn't drawn them since the Pact fell apart.
"Wards?" came a voice. Ren again, from the stairwell.
Thorne didn't turn. "Insurance."
"For what?"
"For when the steel speaks before the smith does."
Ren approached, quietly, watching Thorne complete the ring of glyphs. "You think something's coming?"
Thorne straightened. "No. I think it's already here."
He didn't elaborate. He extinguished the lanterns and left the coals to burn low. Upstairs, Ren returned to his room, but sleep wouldn't come. Down below, the glyphs pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat.
The Pact had been broken long ago. The consequences had only just begun.
Thorne remained at the hearth until his knees ached. Then he rose and opened a hidden drawer beneath the bellows. Inside was a journal bound in darkhide, stitched shut with copper wire. He hadn't opened it since the war ended. He snipped the wire. Opened the first page.
Every sketch, every formula, every failed prototype, it was all there. His mistakes catalogued by his own hand. Half the diagrams were too advanced for Ren. But the others...
He turned to a page marked with a faint crescent. A set of blueprints unfolded, ink faded by age: the design for a twin-forged gauntlet, one meant to channel resonance from a Pact weapon without needing the full bond. He had scrapped the idea back then.
Now, he wasn't so sure. He folded the page and set it on the table.
Maybe it was time the forge stopped waiting for danger to arrive. Maybe it was time to prepare.
Thorne gathered the coin, the message steel, and the ancient blade into a new bundle. He tied it tightly with fresh twine, marked it with a single black chalk stroke, and slid it beneath the main anvil.
If Ren asked, he'd say it was just an old project. Nothing more.
It wouldn't be long before someone did come asking about Nullmark, about the Pact, about the forge that never should've reopened. When they did, Thorne needed to be ready.