Chapter 27

The wind outside the Black Anvil had teeth. I heard it bite through the soot-caked shutters just as I finished quenching the blade—plain steel, mirror-polished, no runes. Just enough embellishment to whisper "expensive" in a merchant's greedy little ear. I set it with the others on the rack. Seven blades total, not counting the one I'd kept for Varvek. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

"That the last one?" came a voice behind me—Lisett.

I nodded, not looking up. My shoulders ached like hammered iron. "For now."

She crossed the forge, pausing beside the stack. Her fingers hovered over one of the hilts. "They'll sell well. Fancy-looking. But not flashy enough to attract the wrong kind of attention."

"That's the plan." I straightened, rolling out the tightness in my neck. "We need coin more than we need glory."

Her gaze flicked to me. "You ever get tired of doing everything the hard way?"

I smirked. "Easy ways get you dead."

Before she could retort, a knock came at the outer door—three sharp raps, spaced with the deliberate rhythm of someone who didn't want to be mistaken for a thief.

I froze.

Varrik wasn't expecting anyone. Karvek and his last man, Felix, were out drinking off their bruises, and Lisett was here. Which meant—

I grabbed Skarnvalk, just in case.

Varrik grumbled something from the stairwell as he trudged down and undid the iron latch. The door creaked open, and through the rising hiss of the wind, I heard that voice. Gravel and whiskey, wrapped in old grudges.

"…Doran Thargrimm. I'll be damned."

I stepped into the light.

Thorin Grelt hadn't changed much—older, sure, with deeper creases around the eyes and a limp he tried to hide, but the same barrel-chested frame, the same cloak fraying at the seams from years of being too stubborn to replace it. He wore coin-broker's leathers, but the dust on them said he hadn't done real trade in months.

"Speak of ghosts," I muttered, "and one shows up on your doorstep."

His eyes narrowed as they found me. "You've aged, Thargrimm."

"Better than the alternative."

We stood in silence. The last time we'd parted, it hadn't exactly been on good terms. Back before the Path turned the world sideways, I'd taken a mining contract in the Blacksmoke Deeps—Thorin's coin had backed it. Then the Path swept in, wiped half the crew, and left the rest of us broken and scrambling out with little more than scorched boots and nightmares. Thorin had called it negligence. I'd called it survival.

He took a breath. "You cost me a lot of gold."

I crossed my arms. "And I buried good men dragging your iron-headed operation back above ground. We're even."

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on why you're back."

"I'm making swords," I said flatly. "Selling steel. Rebuilding."

"After all these years?" he asked. "No more ruin diving? No more hammering holes into ancient wards for kicks?"

"I'm not here to stir dust, Grelt. Just earn coin and keep my people fed."

He glanced around—at Lisett, who was watching quietly, and then toward the forge, where heat still shimmered from the anvil. "Varrik still letting you use the place?"

"Steel and fire don't argue," I said. "They just do the job."

His eyes lingered on one of the swords on the rack. "You ever think about selling more than just blades?"

I frowned. "What are you after?"

He raised both hands. "Not me. Word's out that a certain dwarf's been cutting a bloody swath through the Path. Trouble is, half the brokers think it's myth. The other half think it's opportunity. I've got contacts—quiet ones. They buy high-end steel for collector clients. Sword dancers, duelling houses, even a few rich bastards who just want something sharp to hang above their hearth."

"You want to broker for me."

"I want to make gold," he said. "And I think you do too."

I glanced back at the forge. My hands were raw, my shoulders sore. Karvek's men needed armour. Lisett could use better tools—vials, proper gear. And I still hadn't figured out how the hell we were going to afford travel out of this cursed city.

I looked him in the eye. "What's your cut?"

"Fifteen percent."

I snorted. "Ten."

"Twelve and a half. And I vet the clients. No Path. No mercs with too much curiosity."

I paused. That told me one thing—he didn't know what I'd been doing out on the road. Not in detail. Maybe he'd heard whispers, but he didn't know about the obsidian shard. Or the book. Or what I'd done in Tharn's Hollow. If he did, he'd be walking the other way.

I nodded. "You get clean buyers, I'll keep the steel hot."

He offered his hand. "Old times, then?"

"Let's not romanticize it."

Still, I shook.

That night, we met upstairs over a chipped bottle of cask-rot and an oil-stained ledger. Thorin had names. Varrik, for all his cranky tendencies, agreed to look over the first buyers and keep the blades safe until pickup.

Lisett was already drafting a list of salves and reagents we could afford if the coin came through. Karvek muttered something about armour weights and adjustable fittings. For once, the forge felt more like a war camp than a grave.

It wouldn't last.

But it didn't need to.

It just needed to get us through the next storm.

Vraknheim didn't change for anyone.

The snow in the gutters was black with soot, and the smell of the tannery district clung to the back of your throat like a curse you couldn't spit out. Even now, walking with Thorin Grelt back toward the markets, the streets hummed with that same tension I remembered from years ago—like a forge too hot, one hammer-strike away from collapse.

Thorin limped slightly on his left leg. Old wound, likely from his bouncer days before he turned coin-broker. He hadn't asked questions when I agreed to let him move the swords. Not yet. But I saw it—how his gaze kept drifting toward my hammer, toward the blade at my back, the runeless steel that didn't shine like it should in the lamplight.

He knew I was different.

He just didn't know why.

"You still got that temper, Doran?" he asked, voice casual as we passed a rusted iron shrine to Molgrym. "Back in Blacksmoke, it was the first thing to show up and the last to leave."

"I keep it under the anvil," I muttered.

"Still burns, though. I can see it."

I didn't answer.

He led us to a cramped stone outpost at the edge of the South Market. No signs, no heraldry—just a thick iron door with a slot at eye level and a battered knocker shaped like a wolf's jaw.

He rapped once. A pause. Twice more.

The slot scraped open.

"Grelt," Thorin said. "Tell Vek I've got something sharp he'll want to see."

A grunt. The door clicked and opened.

Inside was nothing but stone, dust, and heat. A brazier burned low, and a few crates sat half-unpacked near the walls. Thorin motioned me forward.

"This is one of the safer places to broker steel without someone stabbing you for it. Vek's no friend of the Path or their scavengers. He moves merchandise for clients that don't ask too many questions."

A man stepped out from the shadows—tall, broad, with a scar across his lip and arms like braided rope. He looked at me like he was appraising a mule for slaughter.

"So this is the smith?" Vek rasped. "Don't look like much."

"Keep talking," I said. "See how much less I look like after you're missing teeth."

Thorin sighed. "Vek, don't start."

The man smirked. "Fine. Let's see the wares."

I pulled back the cloth covering the blades—seven in total, none of them enchanted, but each one built with precision, balance, and enough flair in the hilt to charm a noble into overpaying. Vek examined each one without a word, holding them to the light, checking balance, bite, and the flex of the steel.

"These'll sell," he muttered. "High-end duelists, maybe a guildmaster's brat trying to show off. That twisted fuller on this one—looks exotic. You make that choice?"

I nodded. "Takes the weight off the blade's belly. Cuts faster on the draw."

"Could be worth extra to the right eye. I'll move them. Quietly."

We set terms. Vek would take a cut. Thorin would handle the accounts. I'd get updates through runners from the coin-broker's circle. First sale would go out tonight—to a Surnathi silk baron's youngest son looking to buy his first blade.

Gods help him.

Later that evening, back at Varrik's forgehouse, I found Lisett hunched over the old stone counter in the upstairs alcove. She'd mapped out a shopping list—inks, salves, boiled resin, some damned thing called "prismroot" I was pretty sure didn't exist outside apothecary hallucinations.

"You planning to start a war," I asked, "or a garden?"

She looked up, brushing hair from her ink-smudged brow. "Both, maybe. If I had the gear, I could make six or seven functional tinctures. Not proper alchemy, but enough to keep us breathing if things go sideways again."

Karvek entered behind me, lugging a satchel over one shoulder. The new sword I'd forged him—no runes, but with a leaf-shaped blade and thick crossguard—hung at his hip. He looked less ragged than when we'd met. More grounded.

"You sell the blades?" he asked.

"First one's going tonight."

He nodded. "Might have a way to help with coin too. A pit-fight crew near Eastcliff runs 'exhibition bouts.' Not to the death. No weapons. Just fists and bragging rights. They pay if you draw a crowd."

"You volunteering?"

He gave me a slow, lopsided grin. "Thought you might."

I groaned. "Great."

The frost had started to rot the cobblestones by the time we crossed into Eastcliff proper. Vraknheim's slums always stank in winter—smoke, piss, and the sour breath of too many people packed too close. There was a canal nearby, mostly frozen, with thin sheets of ice like cracked glass. Rats the size of boot heels gnawed at fish guts left by the wharf.

I walked with Karvek at my side. Neither of us said much.

I'd left my gear at Varrik's. Armour was too heavy for what we were doing, and weapons were banned in the pits. Didn't stop some bastards from trying to cheat, but if you got caught, they broke your thumbs and dropped you outside the South Gate without boots. No one cheated twice.

I wore a roughspun tunic under a thick wool coat, just to keep the chill off. The coat reeked of smoke and forge oil. My boots were reinforced leather—old, but comfortable. I'd stripped everything down to the essentials: fists, muscle, and grit.

Karvek had found the place.

Said the fights were clean—relatively speaking—and that the coin was real. Said they liked new blood, especially dwarves. Said a lot of things. I didn't argue. We needed money. Lisett needed reagents, Karvek needed armour, and I needed steel.

We turned down a narrow alley where the stone gave way to packed dirt. There was a longhouse at the end—low-roofed, squat, with carved posts blackened from old fires. A faint drumbeat thrummed from within, steady and low, like a forge bellows working overtime.

Karvek stepped aside and motioned with his chin. "You sure?"

I didn't answer. I stepped through the door.