Forgemaster's House

She made Maya take her to Coopers Row. The elf had given her a long, quiet look and had helped her out of the carriage.

The streets of the lower city sounded different now. Louder and more chaotic. Every footstep, every sound, and every voice from a passing window was a thing she couldn't match to a face or a gesture. She gripped Maya's arm harder than she meant to.

"Left here," Maya said quietly. "The shop is just ahead."

"Tell me what it looks like."

"It’s the same forge. The sign above the door is iron shaped like a hammer and tongs. The windows are dark. There's a Closed notice on the door."

Velena swallowed. "Take me in anyway."

The door was unlocked. The bell above it chimed as they entered, a small sound in the quiet of the empty shop. The air smelled of metal and dust.

"Who's there?"

The voice came from the back room.

Velena turned toward it. She couldn't see him, but she could hear the sound of his footsteps as he came through the doorway.

"I'm looking for Orev's father," she said.

The footsteps stopped.

"...and who's asking?"

She reached up and pushed back the hood of her cloak. The bandages beneath were still fresh against her skin. She felt the man's gaze land on her.

"I'm Velena," she said. "I'm the girl your son blinded. I came to apologize. I…I’m very sorry that I have never even met you before either…until now…even though we were such great friends…"

The silence that followed was long.

The man made a sound. It was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"So you’re alive," he said. "The guard told me a noble girl was injured. They didn't say who, but I had an inkling it might be you. They took my boy, and they wouldn't let me see him. Wouldn't even let me say goodbye. Just came in the night and took him and left me here with-" His voice broke. "With nothing."

"I know…I was there on the bridge. I said goodbye to him. He...he told me it was his fault. He believed it."

"Because it was his fault." The man's voice hardened, just slightly. "His Key Tone. I told him. I told him a hundred times. 'Stay away from the untempered conduits.’ He never listened, was always too curious, but he was a bright kid. Might’ve even taken that curiosity from you…"

Velena stood still. The words hit her like stones. He never listened. The same thing Maya always said about her.

"I was the one who wanted to see the cane," she said. "It was my idea to go into the workshop…He told me not to touch it. I didn't listen! So if we're assigning blame..."

"You're a child."

"So is he."

The man didn't answer. She heard him move with the scrape of a chair and the creak of wood as he sank into it with a long, shuddering exhale.

"His mother died four years ago," he said finally. His voice was quiet now. "It was just the two of us after that. Just me and my boy. He was all I had left of her. He had her laugh. Her stubbornness. Her way of looking at the world like it was a problem he could solve if he just tried hard enough." A pause. "Ah…and her Key Tone…She had the same thing. Loud. Uncontrolled. Beautiful…” he let out a low chuckle “Haha…She never learned to temper it properly either. Said she didn't want to, t’was more honest that way."

Velena's heart clenched. "What happened to her?"

"She…She died in an accident. A conduit activation gone wrong. Same as you, except she didn't survive it. The healer said her Key Tone burned too bright at the end. That she poured everything she had into the casting and there was nothing left to keep her heart beating." His voice deepened. "And now my boy has the same thing inside him. The same wild, beautiful, dangerous sound. Now it's taken someone else's sight...and now he's gone. He's gone, and I have nothing."

Velena opened her mouth to answer. To apologize again. To say something, anything, that might help, but she couldn’t say anything else.

Something the man had said was turning over in her mind. It was related to Key Tones and about burning too bright.

"Maya," she said slowly. "What did you say my Key Tone sounds like?"

Maya's voice came from behind her, careful and measured. "A bell that hasn't decided yet whether it wants to ring."

"And Orev's?"

"Loud. As I said, it sounds like a bell that doesn't stop ringing once you've struck it."

Two bells. Two Key Tones. Both unfinished. Both reaching for something.

The man's wife had died because her Key Tone burned too bright. Orev had her same wild, uncontrolled resonance. But to Velena, she had something else. Something that hadn't been decided yet and was waiting for a moment to awaken.

What if it had been decided? What if, in that workshop, with the untempered conduit humming between them, her Key Tone had reached out and found an answer?

"Mister," she said, turning her head toward where she thought the man was sitting. "The investigators…What exactly did they say about how the activation happened?"

"They said my boy's Key Tone was the catalyst. That his resonance was unusually strong and uncontrolled. It triggered the untempered conduit." A pause. "Why?"

"Did they check my Key Tone?"

Silence.

"Did they check my Key Tone?!" she repeated. Her voice was rising now. "Did they compare the resonance signatures? Did they test whether it was his tone or mine that actually set off the activation?! O-or did they just see a commoner boy with a loud Key Tone and a noble girl who got hurt and decide the story wrote itself?!"

"I...they didn't mention your Key Tone. They just said he was the catalyst."

"They just said..." Velena's hands were shaking. "They just said?! And everyone believed them so no one checked?! No one thought to check if the blind girl had anything to do with her own blinding…No one thought maybe it was her Key Tone reaching for the cane that set it off- no one thought-"

"Young miss," Maya said quietly.

"I’m not finished!" She was crying now. "On the bridge, two days ago, I told Orev his Key Tone might mean he had a strong aptitude for magic. I told him like it was a good thing! Like it was something special! We went into that workshop…the cane started humming and I reached for it because I wanted to touch it! I wanted to feel the singing…and my Key Tone– m-my stupid Key Tone reached out! It reached out, the cane answered a-and Orev was just standing there holding a lantern! He was just standing there, and now he's gone!"

The words echoed in the empty forge. Velena was breathing hard, her chest heaving, tears soaking through the bandages. She couldn't see the man's face, but she could hear the silence. The terrible, heavy silence.

"You," the man said. His voice’s tone had changed. The grief was still there, but something else was rising underneath it. "You're saying it was you? Your Key Tone…not his?"

"I-I don't know for certain! It could have been…It could have been both of us…It could have been mostly me. They didn't check. They didn't even think to check because I was the victim and he was the commoner and that's all the story they needed."

"You blinded yourself." The man's voice was shaking now with anger and disbelief. A terrible dawning of a truth was slowly being revealed. "You blinded yourself, and my boy is paying for it. My boy is in a cart heading toward the border with his hands bound because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself. Because your Key Tone couldn't stay quiet. Because you-"

"I know." Velena's voice came out in pieces. "I've been thinking about it. That's why I came here. To tell you. To tell someone the truth."

"The truth?" The man laughed. It was a terrible sound. Bitter and broken. "The truth is my son is gone. The truth is I have nothing left. I can see that some noble girl with more magic than sense walked into my workshop and destroyed everything I had left of my wife. Everything…Now she's standing in my shop telling me it was an accident. Like that matters and fixes anything-"

"I'm not trying to fix it. I can't fix it!" She was crying harder now. Great, heaving sobs that made her shoulders shake. "I can't fix anything! I can't see! I can't bring him back. I can't tell anyone about the truth because if they know it was me, if they know who I really am, they'll execute him instead of exiling him! That's what Maya told me. If the council finds out the princess was the one who caused the accident, they'll hunt him down and kill him just to make an example because my father would have done so! So I have to stay quiet…I have to let him think it was his fault. I have to let the whole world think it was his fault! I have to live with that…forever. That's my punishment."

"Princess?" The man's voice had gone very still.

Velena froze. Maya shielded her using her arm. She hadn't meant to say that. The word had slipped out between sobs, the truth she'd been holding back since the bridge, and now it was out. There was no taking it back.

"You're the princess?” the man said slowly. "The princess of Lumina…in my shop? My son didn't just blind a noble girl…he-he blinded the princess…and you're telling me it might be your fault?"

"Yes."

"The princess..."

"Yes..."

The man was silent for a long moment. She heard him stand up. His footsteps crossed the room toward her. She braced herself. For shouting, or for the blame, maybe even the fury he had every right to feel.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Rough, calloused, but surprisingly gentle.

"You're just a child," he said. His voice was different now. The anger was still there, somewhere underneath, but it had changed. "Maybe even the same age as my boy. You're standing in my shop blind and crying, telling me the truth even though it could get you in trouble…Even though you didn't have to..."

"I had to. You deserved to know."

"I did. Most nobles wouldn't have come here at all." He paused. "Even princesses wouldn't have apologized to a forgemaster."

"I'm not most princesses."

"No. I'm starting to see that."

His hand lifted from her shoulder as he walked away. She could hear a drawer opening. He lifted something out of it.

"I want you to have this," he said.

Velena reached out. Her fingers touched soft fabric. Wrapped around something long and slim and cool to the touch. It was humming beneath her hands.

"The cane," she breathed.

"It's yours now. It bonded to you during the accident. I can feel it. A conduit always remembers. It'll never work for anyone else."

"I can't take this!" She tried to push it back toward him. "This was your commission. I can't take it after everything I-"

"It was meant to be a gift for a lord's son. The lord canceled when he heard about the accident. Said he didn't want a conduit from a forge that maimed a noble." The bitterness in his voice was sharp. "So it's got no home and no purpose. Except to serve you. It's already yours. You might as well carry it."

"But I'm the reason-"

"You're the reason my son is alive."

Velena stopped.

"The council wanted to execute him. You said so yourself. Your brother argued for exile, and the king agreed. And you- you kept the secret. You protected him, even though it meant standing on that bridge and listening to him blame himself." The man sobbed. "A guilty person stays in the palace and lets the story happen. You came here and told me the truth. You cried in my shop and called it your punishment."

"But it is my punishment..."

"Then take the cane. It's a reminder. Every time you use it, you'll remember. You'll remember my boy and what happened…that you've got something to make up for." A pause. "Orev would have wanted you to have it. He always liked things that broke the rules…A blind caster with a cane-sword. That's exactly the kind of thing he'd love."

Velena's fingers closed around the shaft of the cane. The gold handle hummed against her palm. She felt the vibrations and could slightly hear the same song she'd heard in the workshop coming from the cane. Quieter now, like it had been waiting for her.

"Thank you, Mister," she whispered. "I'll learn to use it. I'll become something. Someone who can bring him back someday."

"One day," the man said. "When it's safe and when the council isn't watching…You bring him home."

"I promise."

She heard him exhale. A long, shaky breath that carried everything he wasn't saying. Grief and anger and hope, all tangled together.

"I am Kael Doure," the man said. "In case you need to find me again."

"I'm Velena. Just Velena." She paused. "For now. Until I figure out how to be a princess who deserves the title."

"Hmm…that might take a while."

"I've got time. I'm twelve. That's practically forever."

Kael almost laughed. Broken but real. "Orev said you were like this on the day you two first met. He said you talked like every conversation was a duel you were determined to win."

"I don't lose duels. I've never been in one, but I'm very confident about it."

"Hmph…he said that too."

Velena felt fresh tears slide down her cheeks. "I-I've only known him for a short while compared to you, but I think that I'm going to miss him for the rest of my life."

"Me too."

Maya's hand found her elbow again. Gently. "We should go, young miss. Before someone notices you're gone."

Velena nodded. She turned toward the door, the cane tapping against the floorboards, then stopped.

"Mister Kael?"

"Hmm?"

"The pastries on Coopers Row. The burnt sugar twists. Orev said they were the best on this side of the river."

"That they are."

"We never got to eat them. That was the quest we were supposed to do again!" She tightened her grip on the cane. "When he comes back, the first thing we're going to do is go to that bakery. All three of us! You, me, and Orev. We're going to finish the quest!"

Kael was quiet for a long moment. Then, very softly:

"I'd like that. I'd like that very much."

The bell above the door chimed as Maya led her out into the street. The cane tapped against the cobblestones as they walked, a new rhythm, awkward and unpracticed.

Three quick taps. A stumble. Two slow.

She would learn. She would become someone who could make this right. Someone who could bring him home.

She had to.