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Chapter 6.5
Last Updated:
2025-10-07 02:15:04
Latest chapter
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 6.5
Miss Salve and I started the holiday decoration on a Sunday, because miracles often come to small towns on days that do not conflict with the three b’s.(Yes, even in an out-of-the-way town like San Vicente, the three b’s of sports reigns with an iron fist: basketball, boxing and billiards.)She had the list of decorations memorized, having wrested the responsibility of holiday decoration from my grandfather last year. Jaric, meanwhile, insisted on being present because, according to the Cruz family, the only holiday decorating the men did would be lifting boxes, assembling Christmas lights, and climbing things to mount decorations on.Jaric already ran the risk of falling onto ornaments with two good arms, so he was content with showing up to be the moral support.The workshop had also doubled as a storage room ever since my grandfather began to plan for his passing: as we opened it to grab the boxes needed, the smell of the room lingered like a cat lounging on a nearby bench: lemon
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 6.4
Grief 6.4***The three of us walked into November in the way a town walks into a familiar church: quietly, with shoes tracing out well-trodden paths on feet that proceed on solemn autopilot. Despite the weather warning of light showers this morning, the sky was mostly clear on All Saints’ Day, wisps of cirrus hither and thither with a gray blanket in the distance, a sign that the later afternoon would have some precipitation.We got up early – when the sky was still moving from purple to blue, small bits of cloud adding character to a sky that looked like it was made to put on its Sunday best. While San Vicente’s cemetery sits on a gentle rise that looks over the town like an old, watchful relative, the columbarium was a few minutes’ worth of walking away.Given that the town’s most famous personality was the first interred within it, the columbarium looked like an oasis of white marble in the middle of a se
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 6.3
Grief 6.3***In the wake of my grandfather’s passing, San Vicente gradually picked up the pieces and returned to their usual tenor of everyday life, reassembling itself with the insouciance of folks who steadfastly stood with their tried and tested habits.It’s why my grandfather loved this town. To his words, “this town takes a kicking and keeps on ticking”. The Spaniards, the Americans, the Japanese, the rebels, the authoritarians, they came and went through this town and left nothing of note behind, not even wounds.Perennial underdogs with the kind of resilience to persist through everything; that’s the kind of townsfolk we have, same as the Maestro, who was laid to rest in the beloved town named after his bloodline.Wasn’t even a week until everything returned to normal: the hustle and bustle of the market back to its usual volume, vendors with their tarp stalls shouting the day’s profit in practiced cadences, the baker resetting displays as if grief had been a temporary distrac
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 6.2
Grief 6.2***The San Vicente town hall was chosen for the will reading for the simple reason that it was neutral ground. The fact that it had the right geometry for civil niceties was just a fortuitous bonus.The conference room was rarely used; three to five times a year for the planning of the town fiesta, summer festivities, Christmas get-togethers, and, of course, the once-in-a-blue-moon emergency happening. While San Vicente itself had all the trappings of a small town trapped in the 19th century, the interior design and amenities within those old and restored buildings were up to date.The incongruity of rural comfort and dispassionate urban architecture melded to form something that looked right out of a school, something the del Carmen lawyers no doubt had on their mind as they did not bother to hide the looks on their faces as they sized up the meeting place.Salve sat at the center of the table, the axis from which the entirety of this event revolved around: an open file in
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 6.1
Grief 6.1***The town church smelled of floral grief: the kind that comes dressed in the pretense of white shirts and black suits. White chrysanthemums were planted in neat rows outside. Men buttoned up their coats, what with the graying sky threatening to precipitate the day’s somber mood at any moment, while women in a mix of black dresses and white shirts clasped their hands over umbrellas in a combined gesture of condolence and anticipation of the weather. The people of San Vicente moved slowly and deliberately, in the ordered choreography of a town that knows the protocols of sorrow.Outside the church, a bench personally carved by the Maestro was an informal site of memory: it was an ordinary thing of wood and iron, but done up in such a way that it complemented the architecture of the building looming over it. The wooden parts were varnished and polished to a soft glow, inviting people to take a seat.The funeral was at 10 in the morning; Miss Salve and I had made it with secon
The Ironsmith's Mandate Chapter 5.5
Legacy 5.5***Once my eyes grew used to the blue light, the source loomed large despite its size: a sword on the bench.There was no stand, no sheath, nothing: just a piece of steel, forged into a blade that was a bit longer than my forearm, with the hilt and guard sporting a very simple design.The simplicity of its design stood in stark contrast to the fact that it was glowing with a blue light.I also put an answer to the question that had been bothering me for a couple of days: the blue light from this sword had the same hue as the light that I was apparently using in the final round of the tournament – the kind of light that drove away the darkness surrounding my opponent.It looked like it could cut anything in its way cleanly, the blade burnished and shiny, almost as if it was beckoning to me by calling forth that light.The item beside it, though, blew my mind entirely: beside the sword was an envelope: thick paper, wax-stamped, “For Maximo” written on the front in my grandfat
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