Seth woke to the pale gray light of dawn filtering through his window, his mind already churning with thoughts and possibilities before his eyes had fully opened. Sleep had been fitful, interrupted by dreams that mixed memories of reading "Kill That Witch" with the visceral reality of his new life. But somewhere in the restless hours of the night, fragments of ideas had begun to coalesce into something resembling a plan.
He sat up, running a hand through his disheveled black hair, and swung his legs out of bed. The floor was cold beneath his feet, a sharp reminder that winter would be coming in a few months and Fort Renly was woefully unprepared for it. That was just one item on a list that seemed to grow longer every time he thought about it.
'Thirty days,' he reminded himself. 'Less than that now. Maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine days before word reaches the capital and my father decides whether I'm worth the trouble of dealing with.'
He dressed quickly in simple clothes, practical trousers and a plain shirt, then made his way to what passed for his study. The room was small and cramped, with shelves that held more dust than books and a desk covered in papers that the previous administrator, whoever that had been, had left behind. Seth had barely glanced at them before, content to let Roderick and Wilhelm handle the actual governing while he wallowed in his exile.
But that was the old Seth. The trash prince who had accepted his fate.
This Seth had work to do.
He lit a candle, the flame casting flickering shadows across the walls, and began sorting through the papers. Most of it was mundane: tax records showing pitifully small revenues, census documents indicating a slowly declining population, reports on crop yields that painted a picture of struggling subsistence farming. Nothing he did not already know from his inherited memories.
But then, buried beneath a stack of correspondence that no one had bothered to file properly, he found something interesting. A survey report from five years ago, commissioned by his father when Fort Renly had been more than just a dumping ground for unwanted princes. The surveyor had been thorough, documenting the territory's natural resources with professional precision.
Seth's eyes scanned the faded ink, his heart rate picking up as he read.
'Iron ore deposits. Significant quantities. Located in the hills three miles northeast of the town center. Previous attempts at mining proved the ore quality to be excellent, suitable for tool making and weapon forging.'
He read the passage again, then a third time, his mind racing with implications.
'We have iron. Good iron. But no one's mining it because...'
He flipped through more pages, finding his answer in a report from two years ago. The town's blacksmith, a man named Godfrey, had died of fever. He had been the only person in Fort Renly with the skills necessary to work metal, and after his death, the forge had simply been abandoned. Without a blacksmith, there was no point in mining ore that no one could process. And without the income from selling metal goods, there was no money to hire a new blacksmith from another territory.
A perfect circle of economic stagnation.
But Seth had something now that Fort Renly had not had before. Something that could break that circle wide open.
He had fire. Controlled, directed, incredibly hot fire.
'Eris.'
The thought came with a surge of excitement that he had to consciously tamp down. He needed to think this through, make sure the idea was actually viable and not just wishful thinking. A traditional forge used coal or charcoal to generate the heat necessary for metalworking, temperatures hot enough to soften iron so it could be shaped. The bellows provided air flow to intensify the heat, and the whole process required careful management and considerable fuel.
But if Eris could generate that heat directly, if she could control her flames precisely enough to replace the coal entirely, then they could bypass the most expensive and difficult part of the whole operation. They would still need someone who knew how to actually work the metal, someone who understood the techniques and had the strength to hammer and shape it properly. But Seth had seen in those old records that Godfrey had taken on an apprentice, a young man who would be, what, twenty-two or twenty-three now?
'If he's still in the territory. If he didn't leave after his master died. If he remembers enough of his training to be useful.'
A lot of ifs. But it was something. A starting point. A way to turn Eris's power into something tangible and valuable, something that could begin generating income and proving to everyone that keeping her alive had been the right decision.
Seth gathered up the relevant documents, rolling them carefully and securing them with a piece of string. The sun was rising properly now, golden light replacing the gray of dawn, and he could hear sounds of movement elsewhere in the manor. Servants beginning their morning routines, the clatter of pots from the kitchen, voices speaking in low murmurs.
Time to see if Eris was awake.
He found her already in the dining hall, sitting at the same place she had occupied the night before. She looked better this morning, the haunted exhaustion in her eyes replaced by something more alert and present. Her silver white hair had been braided back from her face, probably by Lyra, and she wore the same modified maid's outfit from yesterday. A plate of bread and cheese sat in front of her, and she was eating at a more reasonable pace than the desperate hunger of last night.
She looked up as Seth entered, and for a brief moment something like nervousness flashed across her features before she schooled them into a neutral expression.
"Good morning," Seth said, taking a seat closer to her than he had during dinner. No point in shouting across the length of the table when they needed to have an actual conversation.
"Good morning, Your Highness," Eris replied, and there was something tentative in her voice, as if she was still not entirely sure how she was supposed to act around him.
"Just Seth is fine when we're alone," he said, waving off the formality. "We're going to be working together closely. Titles will just get in the way."
Eris blinked, clearly surprised, but nodded slowly. "Alright. Seth."
His name sounded strange in her voice, but not unpleasant. He pushed the thought aside and unrolled the documents he had brought with him, spreading them out on the table between their plates.
"I found something interesting this morning," he said, tapping one of the pages. "Fort Renly has iron ore deposits. Good quality ore, in significant quantities. But we haven't been mining it because we lost our blacksmith two years ago and couldn't afford to replace him."
Eris leaned forward, her eyes scanning the documents even though Seth doubted she could read the technical survey language. "And you're telling me this because?"
"Because I think your fire could solve our problem," Seth said directly. "A forge needs intense, sustained heat to work iron. Normally that comes from burning coal or charcoal, which is expensive and requires constant fuel management. But if you could generate that heat directly, if you could learn to control your flames precisely enough, then we could restart metalworking in Fort Renly without any of the usual overhead costs."
Eris sat back, her expression shifting from curiosity to skepticism. "You want me to be a blacksmith's furnace? That's your grand plan?"
"I want you to be the key that unlocks Fort Renly's economic potential," Seth corrected. "Metal tools mean better farming yields. Metal goods mean trade income. Eventually, metal weapons mean better defense. All of that starts with being able to work the iron we're sitting on top of."
He could see her considering it, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as she thought. "I've never tried to control my fire that precisely before," she said finally. "When I use my power, it's usually just to light something on fire or create a quick burst of flame. I don't know if I can maintain steady heat for the hours it would take to do actual metalwork."
"Then we'll practice," Seth said simply. "We have time. Not much, but enough to see if this can work."
"And if it can't?" Eris asked. "If I can't control it well enough, or if I set something on fire by accident, or if my flames just aren't hot enough?"
"Then we'll figure out something else," Seth said, meeting her eyes directly. "But I don't think you'll fail. You survived three months on the run, Eris. You learned to control your power well enough to not accidentally burn down every forest you slept in. That takes discipline and control. I think you can do this."
Something in her expression softened, and she looked down at her hands where they rested on the table. Slowly, she turned one palm up, and a small flame appeared hovering above it. The fire danced and flickered, orange and yellow with hints of blue at its base. She stared at it with an intensity that suggested she was seeing more than just a flame.
"Alright," she said quietly. "I'll try."
The flame winked out, and she looked back up at Seth. "When do we start?"
Seth grinned. "Right after breakfast."
The walk through town was uncomfortable in a way that made Seth's skin prickle with awareness. He had expected some level of hostility after yesterday's events, but the reality was worse than he had anticipated.
People saw them coming and immediately altered their paths to avoid crossing near them. Shopkeepers who had been standing in their doorways suddenly found urgent business inside their establishments. Women pulled their children close, covering the youngsters' eyes as if the mere sight of Eris might corrupt them. And everywhere, everywhere, there were the stares. Cold, fearful, hateful stares that followed them like physical weight.
Eris walked close beside Seth, her shoulders hunched slightly inward and her eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her. She did not look at the townspeople, did not acknowledge their reactions, but he could see the tension in every line of her body. This was what she had run from for three months, this exact hatred and fear, and now she was walking right through the middle of it.
"Keep your head up," Seth murmured, just loud enough for her to hear. "Don't let them see you afraid."
Eris's spine straightened fractionally, and she lifted her chin, though her eyes remained carefully focused forward rather than meeting anyone's gaze directly.
They were halfway to the old smithy when it happened. A merchant, middle-aged with a beer belly and a face reddened by sun and drink, stepped deliberately into their path. For a moment, Seth thought the man might actually try to block their way, might force a confrontation right here in the middle of the street.
Instead, the merchant looked directly at Eris, worked his mouth for a moment, and spat. The glob of saliva landed in the dirt just inches from her feet, close enough that there could be no mistaking the gesture's intent.
Eris stopped walking, her whole body going rigid. Seth felt fury surge through him, hot and immediate, but he forced it down and channeled it into something colder and more useful.
He took a single step forward, closing the distance between himself and the merchant. The man was taller than Seth by several inches and probably outweighed him by fifty pounds, but Seth did not let that matter. He looked up at the merchant with eyes that could have frozen water.
"You seem to have dropped something," Seth said, his voice quiet and perfectly polite. "Your manners, perhaps? Or possibly your sense of self-preservation?"
The merchant's face went from red to purple. "She's a witch! A monster! You're protecting evil, Your Highness, and the whole town knows it!"
"What the whole town knows," Seth said, his voice never rising above that same polite, conversational tone, "is that I am the lord of this territory. And what I have just witnessed is a citizen of Fort Renly showing open disrespect not just to my guest, but to me personally by extension."
He took another step forward, forcing the merchant to either hold his ground or back away. The man chose to back away, but his expression remained defiant.
"I could have you flogged for that," Seth continued. "Public humiliation in the town square, your back laid open by the whip while everyone watches. That would be the traditional punishment for such insolence. Should I order it?"
The merchant's defiance cracked, fear seeping in around the edges. "Your Highness, I didn't mean—"
"Or perhaps I should simply make an example of you in a different way. Your shop, the one you're standing in front of. I could have it seized for failure to pay taxes. I'm sure if I looked through the records carefully enough, I would find some irregularity, some missed payment or incorrect filing that would justify it."
"Please, Your Highness—"
"Or," Seth said, his voice finally taking on an edge sharp enough to cut, "you could apologize to the lady, go back to your miserable little shop, and remember that the next time you feel compelled to disrespect someone under my protection, there might not be a warning."
The merchant looked like he wanted to argue, wanted to spit again, wanted to do anything except what Seth was demanding. But fear won out over pride. He turned to Eris, his jaw working as if the words were physically painful to produce.
"My apologies, miss."
The words were grudging and insincere, but they were words. Seth nodded curtly. "Get out of my sight."
The merchant practically fled, disappearing into his shop and slamming the door behind him. Seth could feel the weight of dozens of eyes on him and Eris, the whole street having gone silent to watch the confrontation. Good. Let them watch. Let them see what happened to people who thought they could openly antagonize what was his.
He turned to Eris, whose eyes were wide with shock. "Are you alright?"
She nodded mutely, then seemed to find her voice. "You didn't have to do that."
"Yes," Seth said simply. "I did. Come on. The smithy isn't far."
They walked the rest of the way in silence, but Seth noticed that Eris no longer walked with her shoulders hunched. Her head remained up, and though she still did not meet anyone's eyes directly, there was less defeat in her posture.
The old smithy sat at the edge of town, a squat stone building with a sagging roof and weeds growing up around its foundation. The windows were broken, their shutters hanging at odd angles, and the door stood slightly ajar as if inviting vagrants to take shelter inside.
Seth pushed the door open fully, and it creaked in protest, the hinges rusted from disuse. The interior was dim, lit only by the sunlight streaming through the broken windows and the gaps in the roof. Dust motes danced in the beams of light, and the air smelled of rust, old ash, and decay.
But beneath the abandonment, Seth could see the bones of what had once been a functional workspace. The forge itself dominated one corner of the room, a large stone basin built into the floor with a chimney rising above it. The basin was cracked, the chimney partially collapsed, but the basic structure was sound. Against one wall stood an anvil, its surface pitted and rusted but still intact. Scattered around the room were tools, hammers and tongs and files, all coated in rust but potentially salvageable with enough work and oil.
In one corner, partially hidden beneath a rotted tarp, Seth spotted something that made his heart leap. A workbench with drawers, and on top of it, a leather bound book.
He crossed the room quickly, pulling the book out from under layers of dust and grime. The leather was cracked and water stained, but when he opened it carefully, the pages inside were mostly intact. And there, in a careful, practiced hand, were notes. Diagrams. Techniques. A master blacksmith's accumulated knowledge, preserved by chance.
"What is it?" Eris had followed him, peering over his shoulder at the book.
"Godfrey's journal," Seth said, his voice tinged with excitement. "The old blacksmith. He kept notes on everything. Temperature control, alloy mixtures, forging techniques. This is..." He trailed off, flipping through more pages. "This is exactly what we need."
Eris moved away from him, walking slowly around the smithy. She stopped in front of the forge, staring down into the cracked basin. Her hand came up, hovering over it as if she could already feel the heat that would eventually fill this space.
"It's broken," she said quietly.
"It can be repaired," Seth replied, joining her. "The cracks aren't structural. We'll need to seal them with something heat resistant, maybe clay mixed with sand, but it's fixable."
Eris's hand lowered, and she wrapped her arms around herself. "Even if we fix it, I don't know if I can do what you're asking. The fire I make, it's not like a normal fire. It's... it's part of me. It responds to my emotions, my state of mind. When I'm angry or scared, it burns hotter and harder to control. When I'm calm, it's easier, but I've never tried to maintain it for long periods."
She turned to look at him, and there was vulnerability in her eyes.
"What if I can't do it? What if I try and I just make things worse? I could destroy what's left of this place. I could hurt someone."
Seth set the journal down carefully on the least dusty surface he could find and turned to face her fully. "Do you remember what you showed me last night? That flame in your palm?"
Eris nodded.
"That was controlled. Precise. You made it appear and disappear at will, and you adjusted its size. That tells me you already have more control than you're giving yourself credit for."
"That was tiny," Eris protested. "A candle flame. What you're talking about requires heat intense enough to soften iron. That's completely different."
"Then let's find out what you can actually do," Seth said. He gestured to the forge basin. "Try it. Not at full power, not trying to melt anything. Just see if you can create fire in there and maintain it."
Eris hesitated, her eyes moving from Seth to the forge and back again. "If something goes wrong—"
"Then we'll deal with it," Seth interrupted. "But you won't know your limits unless you test them. And standing here being afraid isn't going to help either of us."
That seemed to strike a chord. Eris's jaw set in a determined line, and she nodded once, sharply. She moved to stand directly in front of the forge, her hands coming up to rest on the rim of the basin. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and Seth saw her lips moving as if she was speaking to herself, though no sound emerged.
Then her eyes opened, and she held out one hand palm down over the center of the forge.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a soft whoosh, flame burst into existence. It started small, no bigger than what she had shown him the night before, but it grew rapidly, expanding and intensifying until it filled the bottom of the forge basin. The heat of it hit Seth even from where he stood several feet back, a wave of warmth that made him take an involuntary step backward.
The flames were beautiful, orange and yellow with cores of white-hot intensity. They moved and swirled as if alive, responding to Eris's hand movements in ways that normal fire never would. And they were loud, a roaring, crackling sound that filled the smithy and made conversation impossible.
Seth watched, fascinated, as Eris worked to control what she had created. He could see the concentration on her face, the way her brow furrowed and her teeth clenched with effort. The flames fluctuated, surging higher and then dropping lower, the heat intensifying and then moderating as she struggled to find a balance.
Then it went wrong.
The fire suddenly surged upward, much higher than Eris had intended, reaching up toward the damaged chimney with hungry tendrils. Eris gasped, jerking her hand back instinctively, but the flames did not die. Instead, they spread, licking out of the forge basin and catching on the dry wooden frame that surrounded it.
"No, no, no!" Eris's voice was panicked, and she thrust both hands forward as if trying to push the fire back. But her panic only made it worse. The flames responded to her emotional state, burning hotter and faster, consuming the ancient wood with terrifying speed.
Seth could feel the heat now, intense and dangerous, and he knew they had seconds before this went from a controlled test to an actual disaster. He moved without thinking, closing the distance to Eris and grabbing her shoulders from behind.
"Eris! Calm down! You need to calm down!"
"I can't stop it!" Her voice was ragged with fear and exertion. "It won't listen to me!"
"Yes, it will!" Seth squeezed her shoulders, trying to ground her. "It's your fire. It's part of you. You can control it, but only if you stop panicking. Breathe. Focus."
Eris was shaking under his hands, her whole body trembling with the effort of trying to rein in the power she had unleashed. Seth could see tears streaming down her face, could hear the desperation in her ragged breathing.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "See? I'm just destruction. I can't create anything. I can only burn things down."
"That's not true," Seth said firmly. "You're scared, and your fire is responding to that fear. But fear is just an emotion. You can control emotions. You've been doing it for three months while you were running. All that discipline, all that self-control you learned to survive, use it now."
He felt her take a shuddering breath, then another. The trembling in her body began to lessen fractionally.
"Good," Seth encouraged. "Just keep breathing. The fire is yours. It's not some separate thing attacking you. It's an extension of your will. Tell it what to do."
Eris's hands, which had been clenched into fists, slowly uncurled. She extended them again toward the flames, but this time her movements were deliberate, controlled. Seth watched as the fire began to respond, the wild surge of it gradually subsiding, pulling back from the wooden frame it had been consuming and retreating toward the forge basin.
It took several long minutes, minutes where Seth barely dared to breathe for fear of breaking Eris's concentration. But slowly, gradually, the flames diminished. The roar became a crackle, the crackle became a whisper, and finally, the fire winked out entirely, leaving only wisps of smoke curling up from the charred wood.
The silence after the fire's roar was almost deafening. Eris stood perfectly still for a moment, her hands still extended, her breathing heavy and labored. Then her legs gave out.
Seth caught her before she could hit the ground, his arms wrapping around her waist and taking her weight. She sagged against him, utterly exhausted, her face pale and slick with sweat.
"I've got you," Seth said quietly. "I've got you."
"I'm sorry," Eris mumbled, her words slurring slightly. "I'm sorry, I told you I couldn't do it, I told you—"
"You did fine," Seth interrupted gently. He adjusted his grip, carefully lifting her into his arms. She weighed almost nothing, her body slight and delicate. "You lost control for a moment, but then you got it back. That's what matters."
"I almost burned down the smithy," Eris protested weakly, but there was no strength behind the words. Her eyes were already starting to close, exhaustion pulling her toward unconsciousness.
"The smithy was already half ruined," Seth said with a slight smile that she could not see. "A little more char isn't going to make much difference."
He carried her out of the smithy and back toward the manor. This time, the townspeople who saw them did not just stare with fear and hatred. There was also confusion, and perhaps, just perhaps, a hint of concern as they watched their prince carrying an unconscious girl through the streets.
Let them wonder. Let them talk. Seth had more important things to worry about than gossip.
Lyra was waiting at the manor entrance when they arrived, her eyes going wide at the sight of Eris limp in Seth's arms.
"What happened? Is she hurt?"
"She's fine," Seth assured her quickly. "Just exhausted. She used too much of her power and depleted herself. Help me get her to her room."
Lyra nodded and hurried ahead, opening doors and pulling back the covers on Eris's bed. Seth laid her down gently, and Lyra immediately began fussing with pillows and blankets, tucking them around the unconscious girl with a care that seemed almost maternal.
"Should I fetch a physician?" Lyra asked worriedly.
"No," Seth said. "She just needs rest. But stay with her for a while. Make sure she's comfortable. And when she wakes up, bring her something to eat and drink. She'll need to recover her strength."
Lyra nodded, her eyes moving from Seth to Eris and back again. "Your Highness... may I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Does it hurt her? Using her magic like that?"
Seth considered the question. "I think it's like any other physical exertion. Push yourself too hard and you'll pay for it. But the exhaustion fades with rest."
Lyra was quiet for a moment, then said softly, "She doesn't seem like a monster. She just seems like a girl who's very tired."
Something in Seth's chest tightened at those words. "That's because she is just a girl, Lyra. A girl who happened to be born with power she never asked for and has been hunted for it her whole life."
Lyra looked down at Eris's sleeping face, and something in her expression shifted. The fear that had been there since the moment Eris had entered the manor seemed to ease, replaced by something gentler.
"I'll take care of her, Your Highness," Lyra said quietly.
"Thank you."
Seth left them there and made his way to his study. He had work to do, plans to refine, problems to solve. But first, he needed to think through what had happened at the smithy.
Eris could create fire intense enough for metalworking. That much had been proven. But her control was still shaky, dependent on her emotional state and prone to dangerous fluctuations when she panicked. They would need to practice more, work on building her confidence and her ability to maintain steady heat for extended periods.
And they would need to find Godfrey's apprentice, if he still existed, someone who could actually shape the metal once Eris provided the heat.
One step at a time. They had made progress today, even if it had been messy. Tomorrow they would make more.
Seth was deep in reviewing Godfrey's journal, trying to decipher the technical notes about temperature and timing, when Lyra knocked on his study door several hours later.
"Your Highness, there's someone at the door. A messenger. He says he comes from the capital and carries a message for you personally."
Seth's blood ran cold. 'Already? It can't be a response to the petition already. That would take weeks.'
"Show him in," Seth said, his voice carefully neutral.
The messenger who entered a moment later was not wearing the king's livery. Instead, he wore plain travel clothes with a hooded cloak, though the cloak was pushed back to reveal his face. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, with sharp eyes and the bearing of someone accustomed to moving quickly and discreetly.
"Your Highness," the messenger said, bowing. "I bring word from the capital." He reached into his tunic and withdrew a sealed letter, the wax bearing the imprint of a seal that Seth recognized immediately.
Not his father's seal. His sister Liora's.
Seth took the letter with fingers that remained perfectly steady despite the anxiety coursing through him. "Thank you. You may go. Lyra will see that you have food and a place to rest before you continue your journey."
The messenger bowed again and departed with Lyra. Seth waited until he heard their footsteps fade down the hall before he broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
The handwriting was precise and elegant, exactly what he would have expected from his brilliant second sister.
*Little brother,*
*Word has reached the capital of your recent... activities. Protecting a witch openly in defiance of tradition and law. Bold. Foolish, perhaps, but bold nonetheless.*
*Father has not yet heard the details, as the official petition from your town council has not arrived. But he will hear soon. Information travels faster through unofficial channels than you might think, especially when that information is as interesting as a trash prince suddenly finding a spine.*
*I am writing to you now because I am curious. What game are you playing? You have never shown initiative before, never acted against expectations. Yet now you risk everything for a witch. There must be a reason beyond simple compassion. You were never sentimental.*
*Astrid and I have been discussing your situation. She finds your rebellion "delightfully audacious," her words, not mine. I find it concerning but potentially intriguing. If you truly have a plan, if this is not merely an impulse born of desperation, then perhaps there is more to you than Father believes.*
*You have time, but not much. The petition will reach the capital within the month, and when it does, Father will be forced to act. Make your next moves count, Seth. Show us that you are worth the attention we are now paying you.*
*Your affectionate sister,*
*Liora*
*P.S. Astrid sends her regards.*
Seth read the letter twice, his mind working through the implications. His sisters were watching him now. Liora with her calculating intelligence, always three steps ahead of everyone else. Astrid with her political connections and ability to read people's motivations like open books.
They had not been enemies before, his sisters. They had simply been indifferent to him, viewing him as irrelevant to their own ambitions and interests. But now he had done something unexpected, and that had caught their attention.
The question was whether their attention would work in his favor or against it.
He was still contemplating the letter when he heard soft footsteps in the hallway outside his study. A moment later, Eris appeared in the doorway, looking considerably better than when he had last seen her. She had changed into fresh clothes, another modified maid's outfit, and her hair was loose around her shoulders. There was color back in her cheeks, and her eyes, while tired, were alert.
"Lyra said you had a visitor," she said without preamble. "Is everything alright?"
Seth considered how much to tell her, then decided that honesty was better than secrets. He held up the letter. "My sister Liora. She's heard about what happened yesterday. About you."
Eris's eyes widened. "The princess? The one they say is the smartest person in the kingdom?"
"That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much," Seth admitted. He gestured for Eris to come in and sit down. When she had settled into the chair across from his desk, he continued. "She's letting me know that the timeline just got shorter. My father will hear about this through family channels before the official petition arrives. Which means we have less time than we thought."
He expected fear, panic, the same kind of desperation he had seen in her earlier when the fire had gotten out of control. But instead, Eris's expression hardened into something that looked almost like determination.
"How much less time?"
"I don't know exactly. But probably not the full thirty days we were counting on."
Eris was quiet for a moment, her fingers drumming against the arm of her chair in a gesture that reminded Seth oddly of himself. Then she looked up at him, and there was something new in her eyes. Not just determination, but actual resolve.
"Good," she said, and her voice was steady. "I work better under pressure anyway."
Seth blinked, surprised. "You nearly collapsed from exhaustion a few hours ago."
"And I recovered," Eris countered. "That's what happens when you push yourself. You learn your limits, and then you get stronger." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "I've been thinking while I was resting. About what happened at the smithy."
"Eris, you don't need to—"
"I lost control because I got scared," she interrupted. "But before I got scared, when I was just focusing on the task, I was doing it. I was maintaining the heat, keeping it steady. It was only when I started thinking about all the ways it could go wrong that it actually did go wrong."
She held out her hand, and a small flame appeared above her palm. This time, unlike the candle-sized flame she had shown him before, it was more focused, more intense. A tight little ball of fire that burned with white-hot brightness.
"I can do this," she said, her eyes fixed on the flame. "I can learn to control it properly. I just need to practice more. And we don't have time to practice slowly."
The flame in her hand shifted, changing shape from a ball to a thin column, then to a wide disc. The transformations were smooth, controlled, and Seth realized with a start that she was already better than she had been this morning.
"Tomorrow, we go back to the smithy," Eris continued. "We fix what needs fixing. We practice until I can maintain steady heat without losing control. And then we figure out how to actually use this power to save your territory."
She closed her hand, and the flame vanished. When she looked up at Seth again, there was a small smile on her lips. Not a happy smile, exactly, but something fierce and defiant.
"Your sister thinks you're playing a game. My being here, your protecting me, all of it. Is that what this is to you? A game?"
Seth considered the question seriously. "No," he said finally. "This is survival. Mine and yours both. And maybe, if we're very lucky and very clever, it's also a chance to change things. To prove that the world's assumptions about witches are wrong."
"That's ambitious," Eris said.
"That's necessary," Seth corrected. "Because if we don't prove it, we're both finished. You'll be killed as a witch, and I'll be stripped of what little I have left and forgotten even more thoroughly than I already have been."
He stood up and moved to the window, looking out at the town that stretched beyond his manor. Fort Renly. A dying place full of frightened, narrow-minded people who wanted nothing more than to maintain the comfortable certainties of their small lives.
But it was also a place with resources. With potential. With possibilities that no one had bothered to explore because it was easier to just let it slowly fade away.
"We have to make them see," Seth said quietly. "Make them understand that you're not a threat but an asset. That magic can build as well as destroy. And we have to do it fast enough and well enough that even my father can't ignore it."
He turned back to face Eris, and found her standing now too, her expression matching his own intensity.
"Tomorrow we start rebuilding that smithy," she said. "And then we show them what a witch can really do."
Seth felt something shift in that moment, a kind of understanding passing between them that did not need words. They were both outcasts, both people that the world had decided were worthless. But together, perhaps they could be something more.
"Tomorrow," he agreed, and held out his hand.
Eris looked at it for a moment, then reached out and clasped it firmly. Her hand was warm, not from fire but from simple human heat, and her grip was surprisingly strong for someone so slight.
"We should get some rest," Seth said, releasing her hand. "Tomorrow is going to be a long day, and we both need to be sharp."
Eris nodded, but she did not immediately leave. Instead, she lingered in the doorway, seeming to struggle with something she wanted to say.
"What is it?" Seth prompted gently.
"Earlier today," Eris said slowly, "when that man spit near me. You didn't have to defend me like that. You could have just ignored it, let it pass. It would have been easier."
"Easier isn't always better," Seth replied.
"No, I know, but..." She paused, searching for words. "No one has ever stood up for me before. Not once in my entire life. Even before I awakened, when I was just a poor girl working in a bakery, no one cared enough to defend me from anything. And now you're risking everything, your position, your safety, maybe even your life, for someone you barely know."
Her voice had grown thick with emotion, and Seth could see the sheen of tears in her eyes though she blinked them back stubbornly.
"I just wanted to say thank you. And that I won't let you down. Whatever happens with the smithy, with Fort Renly, with your father's judgment, I'm going to give everything I have to make this work. You saved my life. The least I can do is help you save yours."
Seth felt an unexpected lump in his throat. He had helped her partly out of strategic calculation, yes, but also because it had been the right thing to do. Hearing her gratitude, seeing the fierce loyalty already forming in her eyes, made him realize the weight of the responsibility he had taken on.
"We'll save each other's lives," he said. "That's how this works. Partnership, not servitude. Deal?"
Eris smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. "Deal."
After she left, Seth remained in his study for a while longer, his mind refusing to settle despite his exhaustion. He reread Liora's letter one more time, trying to parse every word for hidden meanings. His sister was brilliant, cunning, and always played a deeper game than anyone else realized. The fact that she had bothered to write to him at all was significant.
'She's curious,' he thought. 'And curiosity from Liora could be either very good or very dangerous.'
But there was nothing he could do about his sister's machinations right now. He needed to focus on what he could control: rebuilding the smithy, training Eris, finding Godfrey's apprentice if the man still lived in Fort Renly, and beginning actual production before his father's judgment arrived.
The challenges seemed overwhelming when he laid them all out like that. But he had faced impossible odds before, in his previous life, when work deadlines seemed insurmountable or personal problems felt like they would crush him. He had learned that the only way to tackle the impossible was to break it down into small, manageable pieces and take them one at a time.
Step one: repair the smithy enough to make it functional.
Step two: help Eris master her fire control.
Step three: find someone who could actually work the metal.
Step four: produce something valuable enough to demonstrate their worth.
Step five: survive whatever came next.
Simple. Terrifying, but simple.
Seth finally allowed himself to head to his chambers. The manor was quiet now, the servants having retired for the night. He could hear the old building settling around him, creaks and groans that spoke of age and wear. Like Fort Renly itself, the manor had seen better days. But also like Fort Renly, it was still standing. Still functional.
Still salvageable.
He fell asleep with Liora's letter on his nightstand and Godfrey's journal on his desk, two different kinds of challenges waiting for him in the morning. But for the first time since waking up in this world, Seth felt something other than confusion and fear about his situation.
He felt purpose.