Minoc’s mine forge was thick with the smell of soot and sweat when I finally dragged myself in, pack nearly splitting at the seams. Nearly fifty ingots in there—iron I’d pulled and refined myself since dawn—had my back screaming, but the real weight was in my hands. I set my pick down by the anvil, the chipped head still flecked with stone dust, and stared at the fire. It was low, but not dead. Someone had tossed extra coal on it before leaving, and that little kindness made all the difference. I fed it a few more chunks, coaxed the flame back to life, and felt the heat climb up my arms like an old friend returning.
I’d been at the upper shaft most of the day, the one near the cliffside where the rock’s harder but the veins run deep. Swung that pick until my shoulders burned, each strike ringing hollow at first, then finally thunking solid when I hit a pocket worth working. Took me better than three hours to clear it out, fingers cramping around the haft, knuckles split from grit. But when I hoisted the ore to my pack, felt that dense, uneven weight settle against my spine, it was worth it. Every time I think I’m done, that I’ll hang up the pick and tend a shop or something softer, the mountain gives me one more gift. Like it knows.
Now, standing there at the forge, I watched the coals glow red through the cracks in the firebrick. I pulled a bar from my pack—cool now, but I could still feel the memory of heat in its edges—and laid it across the anvil. Didn’t even strike it. Just let it sit there, a quiet promise. Tomorrow, I’ll make something real from it. Not just nails or hinges. Something that bears a name. Mine. Maybe I’ll take it to Elias at the smithy near the stables, see if he’ll let me use his press. Or maybe I’ll try it alone. Either way, the mountain’s not done with me yet, and I’m not done with it.
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