The firelight played across her pale features, contorting with uncertainty as to whether that was considered rude. Alive with the colours of fires, the glow of hot coals, turning her dark hair into a curtain of molten black.
Finally, she asked, "How are they made? The blades we carry into battle. The blades that choose who lives or dies."
The smith grunted, approving of her curiosity.
Behind Korvash, his older apprentice, Nyxis Black, continued using the forge. As it roared as though it were alive, it was unlike anything Seraphina was accustomed to. Causing her to jump, a little with fright, caught off guard from the sudden loud noise.
She cursed internally at her reaction.
The heat here was heavy and shimmered in waves, licking the stone walls, which seemed to consume the light of the embers, and the smell of smoke, iron, and sweat pressed in like a second skin on every surface that it could find to lay itself.
Ravens of noble blood rarely came here. Even those Ravens of common blood... those who had wings — their strength was meant for war, for flight, for command of the skies, and for other capabilities.
Not for hammer and anvil.
With her shoulders still sore, Seraphina's arms were still a little bruised with now scabbed cuts, from Kaelen Falcrest's merciless drills. From the considerations rolling around in her head, she had found herself drawn to this place.
With each step she took, Sergeant Falcrest's words had lingered like a merry-go-round, cutting deeper with each rotation than his blade had done: 'You hesitated,' and, 'again,' and then more, 'You'd be dead.'
She did not want to hesitate again.
The smith grunted, approving of her curiosity, and happy to help to indulge a princess a little - who knew? It might be good for business.
He began as he lifted the next billet with tongs, turning it so she could see how the orange firelight danced in the grain of the black steel. Then he plunged it into the coals, sparks leaping like fireflies. He turned the billet of glowing steel with his tongs, letting her watch the ember-light dance across the grain of barely tempered steel. Then he thrust it back into the hot coals, the heat enveloping it once more.
"Steel is stubborn," he said, hammering with renewed force.
"It must be beaten, folded, and tempered. Without fire, it is weak. Without temper, it breaks." His black eyes flicked to her, meaning lingering behind his words. "Weapons... Blades, at least the best ones, are not made going into the fire once or even twice, usually its ten but for the strongest and sharpest blades? It could easily be up to 20 times. Each time they come out of the fire again, they're able to be shaped a little stronger than the last... eventually, you get a trustworthy blade that won't break on you when it counts the most."
Seraphina absorbed it like scripture. Without temper, it breaks. Kaelen's lesson whispered back to her. Without fire, she would falter. Without temper, she would shatter. Her sister, Sephora, had fire enough for both of them — reckless, wild, consuming. Seraphina had always been the tempered one. But was that enough?
As if on cue, the eldest princess noticed a warped longsword in the scrap pile that Nyxis had been working on - its spine bent from rushing the firing process. Rushing the forge.. like her sister's recklessness? She wondered.
The steam from another lump of scolding metal plunged into a barrel. The steam curled between the bent blade and her, like a specter.
She thought of Sephora—always fire, never temper.
She thought of her mother, Queen Nox, who'd once said, "A blade too soon drawn is a blade forever dulled.
As though it had winked at her to catch her attention, her gaze shifted - caught on a blade resting apart from the others. It gleamed black as midnight, so dark the light seemed swallowed by it. Its hilt was wrought with curling filigree of silver, set with stones of onyx. Its guard swept outward like wings — not soft, feathery wings, but razor-edged, proud, terrible.
It was beautiful.
It was dreadful.
It was hers.
At least... she wanted it to be.
Although it felt a little heavy in her hand and it wasn't quite right for her.
Her voice was hushed when she asked, "Whose is this?"
The smith set down his hammer, his expression sharpening with the accepted reverence that the blade she pointed to deserved.
It was not the smith that answered her but Nyxis Black, the apprentice. "That, Princess, is one of the royal blades of Ebonspire. Forged for the blood of the Ebonspire Raven line alone. It will answer no one else. It waits to be called. It will only ever wait… until you are ready... or it is ready. It has been at the forge for years. Ever since I got here."
A tremor stirred in her chest — part pride, part fear. She reached out, fingers hovering just above the black steel, but did not touch. Even without contact, she could feel its weight pressing down, heavy as the crown that one day would rest on her brow.
"Make me another," she stated suddenly, her voice cutting through the heat.
The smith blinked. "Another?" He might have been great at his craft, but the Ebonspire blades were legendary for their craftsmanship. He would try his best to make her something that stood up to them.
"Make me one that fits." Her fingers hovered lightly over the black blade's wing-guard, never grasping it or even lightly grazing it. "This is a queen's weapon. I'm not her, not yet."
At this, the young apprentice looked up from his work, his head still lowered. Clangs lighter than Korvash's rang out. Pretending to be mostly fixed on his work, but both Seraphina and Korvash could tell he was listening.
"Hrmm, is that so?" The blacksmith weighed her words.
"Yes, please. Make me one that fits," she nodded, determination solidifying firmly in her chest. She lifted her chin. Not enough to be arrogant or obnoxious, but enough to be elegant. "Not so heavy. Not so proud. Something swift. Something that will not drag me down."
The man studied her in silence, the fire snapping and hissing in the background. Then he inclined his head once more. "A lighter blade. Swift as a raven in flight. But remember, Princess…" He pulled the billet from the coals and quenched it in water. The hiss was violent, steam erupting like the breath of a beast. "Even the lightest steel must be tempered. A blade that flies too fast, without it, will shatter."
Seraphina stood with the forge's fire painting her face, the sparks leaping like stars around her. She thought of her hesitation on the training floor. Of Kaelen's cutting words. Of her sister's unchecked fury, always burning brighter, always threatening to consume.
"Then, please, temper it well," she whispered, her voice steady. "To ensure that it will not break when I need it the most."
For the first time, the smith allowed himself the faintest smile — the rare smile of a Wingless harpy man who saw something true being forged not on his anvil, but before his eyes. "Princess," he began, "I know what the nobles... what all the winged say about us, the wingless." The blacksmith casually began to wipe soot on his tunic, causing her to suddenly feel the soot that was settling on her own wings, "Those winged nobles, and even the winged commoners, all call us 'clipped.' Some of us were born like this, so we aren't all criminals. Those nobles forget it, but their swords still bear their maker's mark. The mark of a wingless blacksmith."
To their surprise, Nyxis chimed in, "Some of those born Wingless whisper that we were the Raven Goddess' answer to the arrogance of the harpy nobles—a reminder that flight was a gift, not a right."
This left the room stunned in silence.
Clearly uncomfortable with it, Korvash cleared his throat again, before speaking, "
As she left, the black blade gleamed on its rack behind her, waiting. She could almost have sworn it winked at her.
A reminder of the destiny she could not yet wield.
Yet, one day soon would have to as Queen.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The heat of the forge still clung to Seraphina's skin as she stepped into the courtyard, the cold air biting in contrast. Behind her, the rhythmic clang of hammer on steel faded, but the blacksmith's words lingered—"Without temper, it breaks."
She paused, her gaze drifting to the sprawling city below. Towers of obsidian and silver pierced the sky, their balconies and bridges alive with winged figures gliding between them. From up here, the streets were near-invisible, just thin veins of shadow and mist, below and between the grandeur of nobles.
Yet... all the way down there, unseen, moved those called the Wingless.
They tended creatures called horses and reared them. Drove their carts heaped with ores, dug from mines manned with the wingless and overseen by the winged. They manned the ground-gates and paths, turning the winches to let winged nobles pass without ever being seen.
They built the very roads Seraphina's the winged raven harpy kin rarely, if ever, deigned to walk upon.
How strange, she thought to herself as she took in the sight of the kingdom, that a kingdom built on flight depends on those who cannot fly. They had built the cobbled roads on which the nobles would never walk. Manned the ground-gates of the sky citadels, and in our history they were the ones who pulled the siege engines of war that even winged warriors relied on.
The blacksmith's forge was no exception.
His family had served the crown for generations, their skill unmatched and had even made the Ebonspire's blades. Yet, whenever the nobles had spoke of the Ebonspire's legendary blades, they named the steel, never the hands that shaped it.
The Wingless were like the stones beneath the castle and citadels: essential, enduring, invisible and utterly ignored.
A memory surfaced—her mother's voice, dismissive, years ago: "The clipped are criminals. They are on the ground and in the mines where they belong. The sky was never meant for them."
Her mother had only meant those who had, had their wings removed - surely?
Yet Seraphina wondered. Did they truly not ache for it? For flight? Or had they simply learned to carve their pride from something else—something that, we, the winged, could never fully understand?
Her fingers brushed the pommel of her practice sword.
It was the Wingless who made these weapons, which made everything around them.
The blades? It was usually them who sharpened the edge, and always those who repaired them.
When warriors like Kaelen Falcrest, or Kael Blackmere won glory on the battlefield, who remembered the ones who made their victories possible? No one.
A gust of wind tugged at her feathers, urging her upward. But for the first time, Seraphina resisted the pull of the sky. Instead, she looked down at the kingdom she would one day inherit.
'The Wingless,' she realised with a dawning sadness for them. For those who were born without flight, "They were, and always have been, the unseen spine of the Raven Kingdom. They hauled stone for the towers and castles they'd never ascend, stoked forges that armored winged warriors who dismissed their existence, and wingless buried the same dead who'd once scorned them. Yet there, in the fire's heart... in forges... they were their own sovereigns." No noble could endure the hours of blistering heat that toughened their hands into living leather, not without setting fire to their wings and forfeiting them anyway, the princess realised.
For the first time in her life, she felt like she truly saw her Kingdom.