The forge burned low in the dead of night, its coals glowing like sullen embers in the darkness. The ancestral smithy of House Lionhart, normally alive with the rhythmic clang of master craftsmen, stood silent. All you could hear was the ragged breaths of the boy who had dared break into it.
Leonidas wiped his brow with the back of his arm. He was not supposed to be here. The forging of a matrimonial ring was sacred tradition, a ritual passed from father to son.
His lord father should be doing this.
But he would never approve of the union.
Would never give him his blessing. Would never forge a ring meant for the Emperor's daughter. He would call it treason.
So Leonidas stood before the glowing anvil alone, ten and six, hands shaking, breath quick and uneven.
He held a small ingot of raw starsteel, the last piece in the family reserves.
"By the gods, father would skin me alive if he knew."
He had risked everything stealing it from the locked armory, the act itself nearly enough to warrant exile.
But he would face exile. Banishment. Even death. All for her.
Because she deserved something real.
Something that came from his own hands.
"Father told me he had done the same for mother. Why shouldn't I?" He said to no one at all.
He placed the ingot in the tongs and thrust it into the heart of the forge. Flames licked around it, turning silver-blue before melting into orange. Starsteel softened slowly and stubbornly.
Leonidas clenched his jaw.
"Must I beg on my knees," he whispered hoarsely to the metal. "Just this once… obey me."
He gripped the hammer, his father's hammer, too large for his hand.
The first blow nearly rattled his bones apart.
The second landed truer.
By the third, he found a rhythm. Clumsy, imperfect, but it was there. Metal rang, singing through the empty forge like a mockingbird. His arms were in pain. Sparks jumped and died at his feet.
All the while, he pictured Illiana's face, her smile beneath the crystal-lit aether tree, the way she had looked at him without judgment, without hesitation. The way she had chosen him.
Not his House. Not his status. Him.
His chest tightened.
He hammered harder.
When the starsteel finally yielded, stretching into a thin, glowing strip, Leonidas began shaping it around the mandrel. His movements were careful now, precise. Every curve mattered. Every imperfection would touch her skin. He wanted it smooth. Elegant. Quietly strong like her.
A snapping sound behind him made him freeze. He spun around, heart bouncing in his chest. But it was only the old rafters creaking. He exhaled shakily and returned to his work.
Hours passed. The forge dimmed. His shoulders throbbed.
But at last, as dawn's pale light brushed the windows, he quenched the metal in oil. Steam hissed violently, enveloping him in a cloud of heat and smoke.
When it cleared, the ring lay in his palm. Cool, imperfect, forged outside of tradition, without a father's blessing…
But by love.
Leonidas sank onto a stool, exhausted. His fingers trembled as he found a small engraving chisel. Tradition dictated that a father inscribe a line of House scripture into the inner band—typically the family motto.
He rejected that instantly.
Instead, he carved the words slowly, painstakingly:
YOU HAVE MY HEART IN YOUR HANDS AND I AM NOT AFRAID
His hand slipped once, leaving a tiny, near-invisible scratch inside the curve. He grimaced, but left it.
It made the ring honest.
Holding it between his fingers, he whispered:
"You deserve better, but this is all I have. All I am."
He closed his fist around it.
"This ring is yours, Illiana. Not my House's. Yours."
He looked around the empty forge, its shadows long and disapproving.
"This is the first thing I've ever made for myself."
He slid the ring onto a leather chain and hid it beneath his shirt. The metal rested over his heart, warm from the forge but warmer from meaning.
He slipped out of the smithy just as the sun began to rise, knowing he had broken a hundred rules.
But for the first time, he felt free.
And he silently hoped, that when he placed the ring on her finger, she would see his heart in every imperfect line.