The forge's fire had long since dimmed, but Arin Kael could still feel the heat pulsing beneath his skin.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it—the faint veins of light running through his forearms, glowing like rivers of molten ore. It was a warmth that never faded now, humming faintly beneath the cold breath of Ironveil Valley. When he pressed his hand against his chest, he swore he could feel his heart striking in time with the rhythm of the anvil.
He did not sleep that night.
When the first gray light crept over the mountains, Arin was already outside, staring at the forge hut half-buried in snow. The wind bit his face, but he did not flinch. His breath came out in faint plumes of steam. For the first time, he felt warmer than the dawn.
Elder Harven arrived soon after—his gray cloak heavy with frost, his eyes sharp and measuring.
"You were up all night," Harven said, voice rasping like gravel. "You felt it, didn't you?"
Arin nodded silently.
"The pulse?" Harven continued. "The song in your blood?"
"Yes," Arin said. "It doesn't stop."
"Good." The elder's mouth curved into the faintest hint of approval. "That is the Iron Veins waking. It means your body is listening. Now you must teach it to obey."
Harven led him inside the forge, tossing aside the tarps that covered the anvil and tools. The air smelled of oil and soot, of countless days spent breaking and reforging. The old man picked up a hammer so worn its handle gleamed smooth as bone.
"Today, you begin the first trial," Harven said.
"You will not strike to shape iron, but to shape yourself."
Arin frowned. "How?"
"By endurance," Harven said simply. "You will hammer until your body refuses. Then you will hammer more."
He tossed the hammer to Arin. The weight nearly dragged the boy's arm down, but he caught it.
The elder gestured to a dull, cold slab of iron on the anvil.
"Strike it," he said. "Do not stop until I tell you."
Arin obeyed.
The first blow rang through the room like thunder. The second left his wrist trembling. By the tenth, his muscles screamed. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cold. The hammer grew heavier, his breath ragged.
But Harven did not stop him.
"Listen," the old man said, his voice cutting through the rhythmic clang. "The hammer's rhythm. The forge's breath. They are the heartbeat of the world. You must make yours match theirs."
Arin gritted his teeth and swung again. And again. And again. His arms felt like they were being torn apart, but somewhere beneath the agony, something began to align. The sound of steel on steel grew steady. The pain dulled—not because it lessened, but because his mind began to move past it.
Time blurred. The only thing that existed was the hammer, the sound, and the heat rising from the iron. He stopped hearing Harven.
He stopped hearing himself. He became the motion.
When Harven finally raised a hand, Arin collapsed to one knee. His palms were torn raw. Blood ran down his fingers and hissed against the hot metal.
The elder studied him quietly for a long moment.
"You did not stop," Harven said.
"I couldn't," Arin rasped, breath shaking. "It felt like… if I stopped, something inside me would die."
Harven nodded once. "Then you have begun to understand. The Iron Path is not about strength. It is about refusal. To stop is to break."
He knelt beside Arin and placed a calloused hand against the boy's shoulder.
"Your veins have awakened, but they are still soft. The iron in your blood is young. Every strike tempers it. Every pain refines it. You must teach your body to accept what should destroy it."
Arin stared at his hands. The blood had already started to darken—thicker, almost metallic. He flexed his fingers, wincing as pain flared. But beneath that pain, he felt something else: a faint vibration, echoing through bone and sinew.
"The body is the first forge," Harven said.
"Remember that."
That night, Arin's dreams were filled with fire.
He stood at the heart of a forge vast as a mountain, his own bones glowing red-hot.
Sparks rained down like stars. He swung an invisible hammer against unseen chains. Each strike made the world tremble.
When he woke, his arms throbbed, but the faint silver glow beneath his skin was brighter than ever.
The next week was agony.
Every morning, Harven had him hammer the same iron block until he collapsed. Then he made him carry buckets of ore from the mines, each load heavier than the last.
Arin's shoulders burned. His breath came out in clouds. He could barely lift his arms, yet he refused to stop.
Sometimes, Harven said nothing. Other times, he barked words that struck harder than blows.
"Pain is not the enemy," he'd say. "Pain is the teacher. Listen to it."
And Arin did.
He began to hear the difference between exhaustion and growth, between breaking and tempering. His body hurt less because it was learning to endure. His grip grew sure, his strikes clean. The forge began to respond-each blow sending faint ripples of metal essence through the air.
By the tenth day, he no longer collapsed after the first hour.
By the twentieth, he could lift the hammer as easily as a stick of wood.
On the thirtieth day, when he struck the anvil, sparks did not fade—they lingered, swirling in the air like embers caught in wind.
Harven watched, eyes gleaming.
"You see it now," he said.
Arin nodded slowly, breath steady. "The metal moves when I do. It… answers."
"It recognizes your rhythm," Harven said.
"Every forge has its spirit. The weak impose their will upon it. The strong learn to dance with it. You are beginning to hear its song."
They stood in silence as the sparks died away. Outside, snow fell quietly, soft and cold against the heat inside the forge.
That night, Arin returned to his small room beside the workshop. His hands were wrapped in cloth, but faint light still leaked through the bandages. When he unwrapped them, he saw that the faint silvery veins had spread up his arms, tracing patterns like rivers of steel.
He pressed his thumb against one. It pulsed under his touch, warm and alive.
A strange calm washed over him.
He thought of his father—broken beneath the mine collapse. Of the valley, filled with men who had lost everything but kept digging. Of his mother's quiet prayers to gods that never answered.
Maybe strength was not meant to be given. Maybe it had to be forged.
He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. The world slowed. He could hear his heartbeat—strong, rhythmic, steady as the hammer.
For a moment, he was back in the forge again.
And in that stillness, he realized that the pain he'd felt wasn't a curse. It was proof that he was changing.
That night, when he finally slept, the forge's light followed him into his dreams—soft, steady, and alive.
By dawn, when Harven entered, he found Arin already at the anvil, hammer in hand.
The old man smiled faintly. "So the spark survived the night."
Arin lifted the hammer, his veins glowing faintly beneath the morning light.
"It's more than a spark now," he said quietly. "It's fire."