Minoc’s mine forge was thick with the smell of wet stone and hot iron when I finally dragged myself back from the tunnels. My arms ached like I’d been wrestling earth elementals, and my pack—nearly fifty ingots heavy—dug into my shoulders like it had a grudge. I’d spent the better part of the morning swinging at stubborn seams in the mines, pickaxe bouncing off rock that refused to yield. Four times it happened—four times I swung hard and felt that sickening clack of metal on unbroken stone, like the mountain itself was laughing. On the fifth try, though, the rock gave way with a groan, and that first cascade of ore spilled into my bag like a gift from some long-forgotten god of miners.
Back at the forge, I laid the tongs down too hard—they’d been slipping all day, the grip worn smooth from use and heat—and nearly dropped a still-glowing bar into the dirt. I caught it just in time, but the near-miss made my hands tremble. That’s when I really looked at them: blackened at the knuckles, nails split, veins standing out like old rope. I remember thinking, This is what it costs. This is the price of every horseshoe, every sword, every hinge in this damn town. I stoked the coals until they roared, plunged the ingot in, and watched it bloom orange at the edges. The heat on my face, the weight of the hammer in my grip—it wasn’t skill so much as stubbornness keeping me going.
Sold what I could to Elaina at the smithy. She didn’t haggle, just nodded at the pile and handed over gold that barely covered the ache in my bones. But there was something in the way she set one ingot aside—“For the royal order,” she said—and I felt, just for a second, like maybe it mattered. Like maybe my sweat helped arm someone who’d face down a daemon or guard a child in Trinsic.
Tomorrow, I go back. The mountain’s still there. So am I.<|im_end|>
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