Chapter 24: Thirty Days of Steel
For thirty days, I made six weapons a day.
Swords. Spears. Axes. Knives.
Enough steel to keep a small town confident and a mayor satisfied.
It was good work. Honest work. The kind that made men nod when they spoke your name.
But it wasn't why I asked for a forge.
I didn't come to White Wood to become someone's permanent armourer.
I came because I needed answers.
And if I was going to chase answers into the Wilder-East, I needed more than courage.
I needed something that could take a blow and still let me breathe.
So while I forged for them during the day, I forged for myself at night.
At first, I tried to make it simple: plates thick enough to stop a blade, light enough to run, flexible enough to fight.
It sounded easy when I said it in my head.
It wasn't.
On the seventh day, the shoulder plate cracked the moment I tested it.
Not a big crack.
Just a thin line that promised it would split open at the worst possible moment.
I stared at it for a long time, then tossed it back into the coals.
If I was going into Wilder-East, my armour couldn't be brave.
It had to be honest.
I adjusted everything after that.
Heat. Hammering angle. Quench timing. Layering.
I learned to listen for the ring that meant the metal was right—and the dull note that meant it was lying to me.
Day by day, the armour took shape.Matte black steel—dark enough to swallow light, clean enough to look expensive. Light enough not to steal my speed. Flexible enough to let my body move the way it wanted. Comfortable… as comfortable as steel could ever be against skin.
By the thirtieth day, I had it.
Breastplate. Greaves. Bracers. A helm that hid my face and left only the world in front of me.
It looked exactly like the armour from my white dragon dream.
That thought made my stomach twist, like dreams were not supposed to come true in pieces like this.
I didn't celebrate.
I didn't show anyone.
I just held it for a moment, felt the weight settle into my hands, and told myself quietly:
This isn't for glory.
This is for surviving the truth.
At dusk, I went to the stables and began saddling my horse.
I was finally leaving White Wood.
Leaving the Mayor's warm dinners.
Leaving Canty's strange new life.
Leaving a city that remembered my grandfather better than the world wanted to.
I tightened the straps, checked my saddlebag, and kept my eyes on the work so I wouldn't think too hard.
Then a soft voice came from behind me.
"Leaving without saying goodbye?"
I froze for half a breath.
I turned.
Annabelle stood there, hands clasped in front of her, hair loose, eyes too bright for the stable's dim light.
Belle.
I opened my mouth. "I left you a—"
"A letter under the pillow?" she cut in.
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"That's no proper way to say goodbye to someone you love."
That was exactly why I'd left a letter instead of my face.
She'd been talking about soulmates and marriage ever since Canty and Pan announced their engagement.
And I was too young to get married.
Too restless to pretend I could stay.
"Belle," I said carefully, taking her hands in mine, "I might not be coming back."
"You will," she said immediately, like she could command the world into behaving. Her pleading face appeared—soft, stubborn, unfair.
"I know you'll come back to me."
"Belle…" I wanted to tell her the truth.
That Rovena felt like a place I'd been buried in once already.
That I didn't intend to stop at one country.
That I wanted to sail to Hekhenden again, and beyond it, to places my grandfather only spoke of like myths.
But Belle didn't let me build the sentence.
She rose onto her toes and kissed me.
Long.
Insistent.
Like she was trying to tie a knot in my chest so I couldn't ride away.
When she pulled back, her breath touched my lips.
"Say goodbye to me the proper way," she whispered. "As a lover who will come back again."
I stared at her.I should've said no.
I should've said a dozen sensible things.
Instead, I touched her cheek and let the moment take what it wanted.
And the stable door closed.
I left before my courage could change its mind.
Before dawn fully settled into the streets, I rode out.
I went to the Great Black Tree first.Once, it had been the Great White Tree.
Now it stood charred and scarred, a monument to the night Pecundo had saved this city and paid for it in silence.
I placed my palm against the dark bark and said a prayer without words.
Not to gods.
To the dead.
To the man who raised me.
To the truth that had been stolen from him.
Then I turned my horse northeast.
Toward the Wilder-East.
It wasn't on any map.
A hidden place. A place people spoke of like it wasn't real.
But my grandfather once told me exactly where it was.
The only problem was finding the Hunter's Keep once I got there.
And for the first time since returning to Rovena, I felt something sharp and steady settle in my chest.
This wasn't a journey home anymore.
It was a hunt.