Elian woke up with dark circles around his eyes. He had struggled to fall asleep all night. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind went back to the sword in the study—how heavy it felt, his grip on the hilt, the way the blade shone, and the way the oil smelled.
He kept wondering what his father was hiding, why he had that armor in the first place, and who that sword belonged to. Given his father's size, that sword seemed too small for him.
He lay in bed for a while, looking at his ceiling. He knew his father wouldn't tell him anything if he asked. Thorne was like a stone wall when he didn't want to talk.
So, he sort to find out himself.
"If he won't tell me then I'll find out myself," Elian whispered with a determined flare in his eyes.
He got out of bed, yawned and scratched his hair.
His messy blond hair was always the highlight of his day. He just needed to comb it back a bit and it would seem less like a bird's nest.
He got dressed, but while doing that, he felt his muscles ache. They felt a bit stiff. It was probably because of the number of firewood he chopped the previous night.
"Ugh," he grunted, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He would just have to go about his day and hope for the soreness to let out.
Elian went downstairs. By this time, the tavern had a few of its regulars, bumbling about and talking about their shitty life worries.
Elian was looking over as he entered the kitchen when he heard his father's voice.
"You're up late,"
Elian turned and found his father cooking, his gaze fixed on the pot of boiling broth.
He didn't look but he always managed to know who was behind him.
Whenever Elian asked how he did it, he'd say,
'It's one of this old man's many talents.'
But now Elian doesn't know if it's actually a talent or if there was another secret behind it.
Thorne noticed Elian standing at the door, paced out and then taped the spoon on the corner of the pot, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Eat your breakfast. Then go to the market and get more salt. Don't dally."
He said and Elian nodded.
"Yes,"
But before he ate his breakfast, he made sure to move the heat sacks of flour.
They were quite heavy for a kid his age but since he had been doing it from an early age, he was already used to it.
After which, he ate his bowl of porridge quickly. As soon as Thorne went down into the cellar to check the ale barrels, Elian raced upstairs.
He didn't want his father to know what he was up to, and he was confident he hadn't given his intentions away either.
He went to the study, luckily it wasn't locked, went to the wardrobe and took a look at the armour and sword.
It was even more glorious with the reflection of the sun.
But just as much as he wanted to admire it, he shook it out of his mind and reached in to pick a piece he could move around with without gaining suspicion.
He picked up a shoulder plate from the armour and turned it over in his hands. Something was engraved into the steel—a tooth. A lion's fang?
It was sharp and jagged, a single downward-curving shape.
To a normal kid, it might have looked like a simple spike or a broken dagger. But as Elian ran his thumb over the engraving, he felt the intention behind it.
The lower end of the tooth was wide and felt powerful, he could feel it just by looking at it, narrowing into a point sharp enough to prick his skin. It was thick, slightly curved, with tiny hairline cracks etched into the steel—made to look weathered by years of battle.
Elian found himself staring, caught in the crest, as though his soul were being pulled along its lines… dragged toward some unknown world.
But just as he was getting pulled deeper, the creak of the floorboard snapped him back to reality.
He blinked and looked down at the shoulder plate again. It was just normal metal. So why did his chest feel so tight?
Shaking off the sensation, he wrapped the plate in cloth. He needed to take it to an expert—someone who could tell him what it really was.
Elian hurried out, but he did not go to the market as his father had instructed.
He headed toward the edge of the village to the blacksmith's shop with the piece of armour tucked into his coat.
Old Marek, the blacksmith, was already at his anvil when Elian arrived. The shop was hot and smelled like burnt metal.
It was so hot that Elian couldn't go deep inside. So, he called out from the door.
"Marek," he called but the hammer was too loud for the focused Marek to hear. "Old man Marek!" He called again, louder this turn and the old man stopped hammering.
He wiped his sweat with his dirty palm as he looked up, seeing the young boy through the thick smoke in the anvil.
"Elian? What are you doing here this early?"
Marek dropped his hammer and then walked out, carrying a towel as he did.
"Did I interrupt you?" Elian asked, his eyes fixed on the glowing red metal on top of the forge.
"I was planning to take a break anyways," Marek said, cleaning his face with the towel. "What brought you here, boy? Did Thorne send you?"
"No, but…" he hesitated.
Marek was an old blacksmith, short and muscular. Some called him a dwarf, and his long braided beard spoke truth of it, but he had never once used his own mouth to affirm their claims.
What was he scared of? Some wondered.
But they would never know what they don't already know, stuck in this backwater village. So why bother telling them?
Elian looked around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled the metal piece out of his coat and held it out.
"You see, do you know what this is? And… where it comes from?"
Marek took the piece, and his face changed the moment his fingers touched the surface of the metal. He walked closer to the light of the fire, squinting at the engravings, and then his hands started to shake.
"Boy," Marek whispered, his voice low and somewhat scared. "Where did you get this?"