Handing Runa his hammer for quenching, Harbek held up the last knife on his docket. The request was a standard hunter’s blade, finished with a gut hook at the tip.

  The shape made him pause. Not because it was unusual—Harbek had made dozens like it over the years—but something about it felt momentarily noteworthy.

  The thought passed by the time he racked the knife.

  Allowing Runa a few moments to clear the workspace and set up simple billet work, Harbek shifted his attention without comment. The cords along the forge edge had begun to wander inward from repeated movement; he gathered them with practiced fingers and looped them back, loose enough not to bind, tight enough not to creep. Order mattered, even when no one was looking.

  From beneath his bench, he drew a full ingot.

  The bar Harbek selected was shorter than the rest. Denser. He didn’t mark it.

  He set it into the coals while Runa moved across the forge floor, occupied with her own work — sorting quenched pieces, checking edges that had cooled uneven, testing balance with quick practiced turns of the wrist. She worked without looking to him, and he preferred it that way.

  When the iron came up to heat, he drew it out slow, listening to the ring change as the shape took. This wasn’t a blade. He worked the mass inward instead of long, keeping the weight close, letting the face spread only as much as it needed. Too wide and it would tire the wrist. Too narrow and it would chatter against the anvil.

  He shaped the peen with care, angled just enough to move metal without biting too deep. Narrower than his own. Not lighter — just quicker.

  Runa’s hammer struck nearby, the rhythm familiar. Harbek didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. He knew how long she held a tool before shifting grip, how her strikes shortened when fatigue crept in. He adjusted the balance point by a finger’s width, tested it once against the anvil, then again.

  Good.

  Not finished. But good.

  He left the haft long when he fitted it — longer than he would keep for himself. Enough room to cut back once it proved itself in use. Better to remove than regret.

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  Runa crossed behind him, paused at the quench, then moved on. She didn’t ask what he was working on. He didn’t offer it.

  When the hammer cooled enough to hold, Harbek wrapped the grip in plain leather, tight and even. No stamp. No mark to claim it. He set it on the edge of her bench where she’d find it when she needed it, then turned back to the rack without waiting to see.

  The forge carried on.

  Later — not immediately — Runa took it up without comment. Her first strike landed clean. The second cleaner still. She paused once, frowned faintly, then adjusted her stance and continued.

  Harbek felt it more than he saw it.

  He didn’t stop working.

  Harbek adjusted his hammer at his hip, aligning it with the seam before straightening. The weight settled reluctantly, as if it had more to say. He wiped his palms on his leathers and turned away from the anvil, giving the forge one last glance.

  Runa had already moved on.

  Her hammer came down steady and sure, the sound familiar enough that Harbek barely registered it at first. He knelt near the edge of the forge floor, drawing one of the bound branches closer and loosening the cord with careful fingers. The wood was sound—tight grain, straight enough to forgive what shaping would take from it. He turned it once, gauging length, where the hand would sit, where the pull would travel.

  The hammer rang again.

  Too clean.

  The sound carried farther than it should have, thinning as it went, not breaking against the stone but slipping past it, drawn away like breath through a crack. It didn’t echo. It pressed. The forge seemed to hold itself around the note, waiting for something to answer.

  Harbek stilled, the cord slack in his hands.

  Runa struck again—same angle, same force. The ring came back wrong. Not dull. Not flawed. Hollow. As if the sound had passed through something before returning, its edges softened by distance that hadn’t existed a moment before.

  No one spoke.

  The bellows breathed on. Water in the quench bucket rippled once, then went still. Harbek rested his palm against the stone floor, not looking up, feeling for a tremor that wasn’t there. The forge hadn’t shifted. The mountain hadn’t spoken.

  But something had listened.

  Outside, wind moved along the valley face, clean and unconcerned. Inside, Runa’s hammer rang again, the note truer this time, closer to what it should have been. Harbek drew the branch fully free and set it across his knees, sighting down its length.

  He began marking where the first cut would fall.

  The sound did not return.

  That was worse.