"There's something about watching someone you love work with their hands that makes you forget how to breathe."
***
The forge breathed like a living thing.
Its bellows pushed air through coals that painted the stone walls in amber and crimson. Lyra had abandoned her task of organizing the supply inventory an hour ago. Maybe longer. Time moved strangely in this hidden sanctuary they'd claimed as their own.
The clipboard she'd been using lay forgotten on a crate somewhere behind her. Its neat columns of numbers rendered meaningless by the spectacle before her.
Her Master stood before the anvil.
And she could not look away.
The academy's pathetic third son had vanished entirely. Shed like an unwanted skin. What remained was something raw. Elemental. A creature of fire and purpose that made her blood sing dangerous songs.
His shirt lay discarded on a workbench. Forgotten in the heat of creation. The fine linen now crumpled and stained with the day's honest labor.
