Blacksmith In Solitude Novels & Stories

I scrubbed at the stains again and again, which made the smile clearer with each time. It looked just like Mom's smile. I touched the drawing softly and whispered, "Mom, I promise to live a good life..." As I spoke, my tears fell on the stool. I just could not face life without Mom. However, after a while, I pulled myself together and went back to the courtyard. Keeping busy had always helped me forget my worries. After tidying up, I felt a bit better. Lately, I had been looking all around for a job that was right for me, but had not found anything.

He doesn’t look like the guards—his silhouette is taller, broader, cloaked in soot and silver. A blacksmith, I assume. His hands are calloused, his movements quick but calculated. He approaches the forge with confidence, tools clinking at his belt, and when he sees me—his eyes lock onto mine. There’s something strange about his gaze. Not cruel, but… pitying. Gentle.

The blacksmith stall smelled like smoke and iron. I loved it immediately. Heavy tables were covered with tools, horseshoes, nails, and rough chunks of raw ore that glinted under the hanging lanterns. A few finished blades sat further down the display, their polished surfaces reflecting the warm festival lights. Bjorn wasn’t there tonight. Instead, a broad older shifter worked the stall, carefully weighing small chunks of ore for another customer. I hovered near the end of the table, studying the raw metals laid out on a cloth.

Sparks shoot into the air like dying stars. Arven stands over the anvil, exactly where I expect him to be, his hammer rising and falling in a brutal rhythm. Sweat runs down his temple, disappearing into soot-streaked skin and the rolled sleeves of his shirt. He looks like a man who has spent his entire life arguing with iron—and winning. Clang. Clang. Clang. The air smells of iron, ash, and old magic. He doesn’t look up at first. “Whatever it is, come back tomorrow,” he mutters without turning. “I’m finishing an order for the western warriors—unless you want a sword shaped like a spoon.”

But in the end, his body gave in, baring his throat in submission. “Severnaya Zvezda is in shambles,” he muttered. “Our warriors are a joke. There’s no point in continuing this sad excuse of a pack.” His voice turned bitter. “Besides, you don’t trust me. You won’t let me use the stone. Won’t even tell me where it is. You’re no longer the person who was my friend. You’re just a miserable fuck, petting a hedgehog against the grain because of some warped sense of duty.”

As the blacksmith locked them around my chest and arms, the runes ignited. Pain detonated through me. I screamed. There was no dignity left in it. No restraint. The sound tore itself out of my throat as the chains burned into my skin, searing through flesh, bone, and straight into the bond. I felt Aurelia’s presence convulsed violently, like a flame caught in a sudden storm. “No.” My vision fractured. “Stop!” “This is the point,” the blacksmith said calmly, tightening the final clasp. “To make it stop.”

His eyes wandered around the circle. "Perhaps we were right." A pause. "Perhaps we were incomplete." The young man in the silver cloak remained unmoved. "Incomplete ideas destroy worlds." The blacksmith shook his head. "No." "They build them." His scarred hands rested upon the table. "I've forged thousands of blades." "But I've also forged plows." "The fire was never the enemy." "It depended on what we chose to create." The musician quietly touched the strings of the silent violin. No sound emerged.

I pushed past the thick leather curtains of the primary foundry, the intense heat of the burning coal instantly warming my freezing skin as the smell of molten steel filled my lungs. Dozens of skilled blacksmiths were working diligently around the massive stone anvils, their muscular bodies covered in soot as they forged the defensive armor plates and the silver-tipped spears that our pack was famous for. I marched straight toward the center of the main workshop, my powerful aura immediately drawing the attention of the workers who quickly lowered their tools in deep respect.

My task was to add the finishing touches, design the swords, and safely store them. The clanging of metal and the scent of hot iron welcomed me as I entered the forgery. One of the blacksmiths, a burly man with calloused hands and a perpetual scowl, nodded in acknowledgment as I approached. I wasted no time and began working diligently, my fingers dancing across the weapons, adorning them with intricate patterns and symbols.

“Well? What do you know?” Oban pushed his glasses up and crinkled his face. His nose was smeared black with his sooty hands performing the action dozens of times a day. His wrinkles were embedded with soot, grime and labour. Like a prune he seemed to have shrunk in the extremes of heat he resided in, looking up at me like a mole. “Well, it’s not local. Not even northern territories.” “So, who?” “It’s human. That, no doubt about it at all, has come from human blacksmiths.”