I’ll tell ye, the forge in Minoc’s smithy near burned my eyebrows clean off today, but I didn’t care—my hands were still numb from the mine, fingers stiff as cold iron. Came up from the tunnels just before dusk, pack heavy with nearly fifty ingots, boots crunching over that same patch of gravel near the Provisioner where I’d tripped twice already. Third time’s the charm, I guess, though the charm nearly dumped me into a tinker’s cart. Yale’s got no patience for clumsy miners blocking his door, so I sidestepped quick, muttering an apology I knew he wouldn’t hear over his hammering.
But it was at the bank I felt it—the weight, I mean. Not just the ingots, though they pulled at my shoulders something fierce, but the weight of the day. Stood there by the teller’s window, waiting for the clerk to finish with some dandy in shiny boots, and I started noticing the little things: the soot under my nails, the way my pickaxe handle had worn smooth right where my thumb rests, like it’s part of me now. I thought about how many swings that took—hundreds, easy—how many rocks cracked open in that dim glow of the mine’s torchlight, hoping for that dull glint of iron. Felt like every ounce in my pack had been pried from the earth with my own breath.
Sold most of it to the blacksmith’s vendor—old woman with a frown like a rusted hinge, but she pays fair. Didn’t say a word, just handed over the coin, barely looked at me. But when the gold clinked into my palm, I swear I felt the heat of the forge again, like it was calling. My smithing’s not where my mining is, not yet. But I’ve got plans. Maybe tomorrow I stop just short of the bank. Maybe tomorrow I pour every last ingot into something that bears my name. A blade, perhaps. Or a hammer. Something that remembers the strike.
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