The sword sang wrong.
Eryndor Vale heard it the moment the hammer came down.
The forge was a cramped stone room half-buried in the earth, its only window a slit that glowed orange at dusk. Heat rolled off the coal bed in choking waves. Sparks leapt in brief constellations every time the hammer fell, dying too quickly to be anything but honest.
Most people heard noise.
Eryndor heard notes.
Tang.
Master Hadrik's hammer smashed down on the half-formed blade again, metal shrieking against the anvil. The sound rippled through the air, sharp and flat at the same time, like a string pulled too far.
"Again," Eryndor said quietly.
The old blacksmith grunted. Sweat dripped from his beard, tracing black lines through the soot on his cheeks.
"Again?" Hadrik rasped. "You forge it, boy, if your ears know better than my hands."
"You hit too far toward the heel," Eryndor replied, not flinching. "The resonance bled into the grip. It'll vibrate when it's swung."
Hadrik glared at him. The forge hissed. Outside, the distant murmur of the town—market stalls closing, carts rattling over stone—faded under the hammer's echo.
"Steel is steel," the blacksmith said. "It doesn't care about your fancy words."
"It cares about how it sings," Eryndor said. "And this one is trying to scream."
Hadrik's eye twitched. For a moment Eryndor thought the man would hurl the half-formed blade at his head. Instead, the blacksmith grunted again, shifted the steel a fraction of an inch along the anvil, and swung.
Tang.
Cleaner. Truer. The note rang across the forge and settled in Eryndor's bones.
He smiled despite himself. "There."
Hadrik scowled, but his shoulders loosened.
"Annoying brat," he muttered. "Go turn the coal. It's getting cold."
The forge was hot enough to blister lungs, but Eryndor didn't argue. He moved to the bellows and began to pump, feeding the flames. Heat roared higher. Shadows jumped on the stone walls like restless spirits.
The sword's hum lingered in his mind, a faint line of sound he could follow even with his back turned.
Too soft at the tip. Just slightly.
He didn't say it out loud.
Hadrik could only tolerate so much.
Rynvale was not an important town, but it had an important road.
The eastern caravans from Aurenvale cut through it on their way toward the Crimson Valleys, and with them came soldiers, merchants, rumor-mongers, and people who thought coin could buy anything—including respect.
It could buy swords. That was close enough.
By the time the sun had dropped into a smear of red above the far hills, the forge had cooled enough to breathe. Hadrik quenched the finished blade in oil, steam exploding upward in a greasy cloud.
Eryndor watched the shock travel through the steel. He could hear it: that tiny moment when the sword's inner structure wanted to crack but didn't, locking into a new shape instead.
That resistance fascinated him more than the weapon itself.
"Leave it," Hadrik said. "We'll polish tomorrow. Close the shutters."
Eryndor moved automatically, dropping the heavy wooden bar over the door and sliding the iron latch into place. Outside, a faint rumble rolled across the evening sky.
Thunder, somewhere far off.
He paused with his hand on the latch, head tilted.
Not a storm yet. Just the promise of one. A low vibration you felt in the ribs rather than the ears.
His fingers tightened unconsciously.
"Boy."
Hadrik's voice snapped him back. Eryndor turned.
"What is it, Master?"
The older man was watching him, eyes narrow, jaw set in a way that never meant anything good.
"You're going to the square tomorrow," Hadrik said.
Eryndor blinked. "Why?"
"Resonant assessor's in town. Sent from Aurenvale itself."
Hadrik snorted. "All children of age get tested. Town order."
Right. He'd heard the rumor, but it hadn't sunk in. Too busy listening to metal.
Eryndor wiped his hands on a rag. "And if my Resonant Core is useless?"
"Then you keep working the forge instead of dying on some border field," Hadrik said bluntly. "Not the worst fate."
"And if it isn't useless?"
The blacksmith looked away, toward the sword cooling in its oil bath.
"Then some lordling will find a chain to put around your neck," he said. "That's how Vhaeloria works."
Eryndor thought about that. About noble crests he'd seen on passing caravans—a sun of blood-red enamel, a lion made of blades, a stormcloud split by a spear. About the soldiers that marched under them, armor humming faintly, like poorly tuned blades.
Strong. But… blunt.
The idea of someone like that telling him how to swing a sword made his skin itch.
"I'll go," Eryndor said. "I want to hear what an assessor sounds like."
Hadrik snorted. "You 'hear' too much already."
That wasn't true.
He didn't hear enough.
Not yet.