FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

Alana rushed toward the door of her hilltop house and pushed it open. The warmth of the forger’s furnace shielded her from the cold autumn air. After a week of hard and boring work at mistress Zita’s house, it felt like heaven.

“Father, I’m back,” she said with a smile, carefully holding the woollen scarf she had made for him during the week, hiding it under her blue cloak.

But there was no answer. She looked around, brushing a tendril of blonde hair away from her face. Had she been too late or too early? Father’s old dragon armour rested on a stand next to the door, its serpentine metal scales covered with a thick layer of dust, and the fangs of the dragon helmet above were starting to corrode. She hated seeing it like that, she would have to dust it later since he was too busy with his new apprentice.

Her eyes wandered through the small hallway of arching flat bricks. She narrowed her eyes, fearing something was wrong.

“Father?” she called again. She fidgeted with the scarf in her hand and strode by, dropping her leather travel bag at the door of the only dormitory.

“I made something for you at weaving class,” she said. “I hope you like it. I missed you.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand why you won’t just let me help you at the workshop.”

There was no response.

“Father?”

Where had he gone?

She walked past the narrow dining room into the workshop. She stepped inside, and the heat of the charred coal engulfed her body, and she smiled. It had been like ages since she had not been in her father’s forge. Her own home. For the past couple of months, father, once again, had been complaining about nightmares and visions, and had prohibited her from getting close to the workshop. It had been years since she last assisted in his work, and nothing made her blood boil as much as seeing that dumb foreign apprentice handling high quality Gadalian iron.

“Fabyan?” she called for her father’s apprentice but heard no answer either. He wasn’t there. At least, some good news.

She sighed and revealed the present to herself, a red woollen scarf with a dragon knitted into it. Where was he? And it was the first time she came home for the week and nobody was around. That was unusual.

Alana swallowed and looked through the window. His absence had an upside. No one around, a perfect chance to peek through her father’s work. She approached the furnace, its upper part was round, shaped like a beehive, with a square opening below, where the burnt coal and ash were still warm. A forge blower lay on the side, and behind it, an anvil with a piece of fine iron on top, already reminiscent of an Itruschian army blade.

She liked swords, but the Itruschian kind were the least interesting. She knew her father had some more intriguing requests to deliver. She peeked through the chests and small wooden tables covered in organized rows of crucibles and gold fibres. And lo, there it was, a golden piece, designed to adorn the guard of a senator’s sword. It had beautiful filigree reliefs representing an eagle with its wings spread, around it, the one they called the Brown One, the beast that guarded the forest, and mountains in the distance. All contained within five inches of pure gold.

But beauty of gold was not in its price, but in the detail. She caressed the gold, running her fingers over the ridges of the wings with reverence.

“Alana, what are you doing here?”

Alana staggered back, startled, and dropped the piece inadvertently. It clanked in the floor. Her heart raced.

She turned. Her father, Alan the Blacksmith stood before her, his brawny tarnished arms crossed over his leather apron. His face was dark with the coal particles that stuck to his thick brown hair and his moustache.

“Father!” she said as she faced him. “Sorry, I was just… I was just looking for you. I came back from weaving school. See.” She presented the scarf to him with a regal gesture, bowing her head slightly.

“How many times have I told you not to come inside the workshop?” he said sternly.

“Sorry! Sorry, I was just…!”

“How many times?”

“I just…!”

“You disobeyed me again. Get out!”

She squeezed the scarf in her hand, then threw it at his feet.

“But that boy gets to see you work and help you, and you won’t let me anywhere near the forge. Why a stupid boy who’s not even your blood and not me?”

Her father’s stern expression changed slowly. He took a deep breath, and his lips twisted into a slight smile. He sighed and dropped on the wooden stool next to the furnace, placing his arm on the table.

He met her gaze unflinchingly, his sapphire eyes boring into her own.

Suddenly, she felt guilty. She had burst into anger while he remained calm like a newborn sheep.

She swallowed, then reached for the ground and lifted up the scarf. She dusted it off.

“Sorry for throwing it. I really made a scene.”

“Sorry for being harsh to you,” he said with a smile.

“For you, head artisan.”

“Aha, the dragon.” He smiled, reaching for the scarf and taking a closer look at it. “Good work. You like dragons, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Thank you. It means a lot to me.”

Her father’s guard was down, and her spirit was up. She had thought about it all week long, and she knew that was the time to let it all out.

“I have something to say. May I speak?” she said.

“Go ahead,” he said calmly.

Alana cleared her throat.

“Father! I can be a better goldsmith than he’ll ever be!” she blurted out. “Even a better blacksmith. I can do everything better. You know me. You know my knowledge. I have memorized the processes, the ingredients and methods to make iron stronger and more durable. I have learned from you. Please. I’m fifteen already. Don’t let me waste my youth away. Fabyan can’t even tell good iron from the bad.” She opened her eyes wide, like a puppy. Her father had to understand before it was too late. Her knitting instructor was already talking about marriage. That would ruin her life. Especially if she didn’t get to choose. Her dreams of becoming an artisan would crash into the ground.

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Her father looked through the small window on the side. A chill breeze was coming through it, making the heat more bearable.

“Ala, I am proud of you,” he sighed, facing her. “But times are different now. We have to stick to the rules of this land. You are talented like no other girl I’ve met. But life is not what it used to be, you must accept your lot. It’s not like back in the steppe.”

“Father, they don’t even care about us! You make swords for them, you make armour, shields, and at the same time they laugh at our people, they use us as battlefield fodder. We are Gadalians, proud free people, but they...”

“Have you been listening to Uncle Jovus again?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No! I mean, yes, but it’s not because of anything he says. It’s plain for all to see.”

Alan’s deep voice was loving but stern:

“Child, we must do what we must to survive. And more importantly, to preserve peace. You weren’t there back then when we rode through the world with no place to call home. It was hard. And Senator Yurius wants his son Fabyan to be a great blacksmith, and it’s the least I can do for the work he has provided.”

“Living here…” She pouted. “Knitting apprenticeship…”

“I thought you liked knitting.”

“Knitting is fine, but… I want to work with gold!” Alana tensed her fists. “I want to make iron tools! I want to decorate holy relics. Swords!” She said with a wide smile, and Alan seemed to shudder at the word. “I want to be like you, and this stupid old Empire won’t let me. And that simpleton you’ve got at your workshop… Father… You won’t even let me help you. It is as if you thought my hands would melt if I stepped in here. As if it sickened you physically. Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Well tell them to me!”

“I told you already. This world expects something from you. Do what they say now so that you can do what you want later!” He paused for a second. “That little Fabyan, he’s got a lot to learn,” he laughed, then frowned. “And he did not come today, which is strange.”

“Admit it.” Alana smirked. “He’s got no talent.”

“Well, hopefully one day he will.”

Alana’s smirk turned into a frown. That was it. Her father gave all his time and effort to a nobody while she had to go to knitting lessons with Irema’s annoying mother. And yet, he kept putting Fabyan on top. It was all about him. How could he? That hurt like treason.

She stood up and turned her back.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

She ran and pushed the door open. She stepped into the rocky road and ran downhill, the cold bit her skin again, piercing to the bones. Tears stung the corners of her eyes.

“Alana! Alana, come back now!” she heard his voice ring behind the walls.

Life was not how she wanted. Why wasn’t life like in the stories of old, when women rode next to their men and forged blades that planted terror in the hearts of their enemies, now their masters, like Uncle Jovus used to say?

Why wasn’t life like when they were free to fight and love and be brave, and not forced to sit for fifteen hours on weaving class?

Five thousand years of Gadalian metalwork to waste away.

Her father had betrayed her.

She stopped abruptly, took a deep breath. Had she been too rough? He had to understand. Maybe that would make him see. Maybe, that was the way to show him. She clenched her fists. She would hide away until he would call out for her. Then, she would come back to him, and he would probably compromise.

As she walked through the round houses that led to the town square, she noticed a group of girls, hair braided and wearing tunics with flowers and birds knitted into them.

Some of them she knew from knitting workshops, but only one of them was her true friend: Irema, the instructor’s daughter.

She rushed to the side of the road, behind the house of Yinvar the Miller, and knelt behind a pile of hay.

She heard runny breaths behind her, someone was watching her. She turned around and found a youthful penetrating glance; a boy with short, dark hair and tanned skin looking at her from a small window.

“Tor!” she whispered, bringing her finger to her lips. “Don’t move!”

Anyway, Tor would not talk. He just couldn’t. He was just eleven, four years younger than her, and completely mute, and yet, as an only son, he was on the way to become the owner of the town mill. He was nice and sweet, he surely deserved it, she thought, but she couldn’t help grimacing at the thought that a mute was going to inherit his own family’s legacy and she would not.

“Tor, stay there…” she muttered.

Alana faced the road, like a young lioness stalking her prey.

Irema walked up along with the group, clay vessel in hand. Alana waited attentively until they had passed by her, then, when they had turned their backs, Alana sprung up from behind her, forcing her vocal chords to deliver the loudest scream she could.

Irema jumped, dropping the clay vase, which broke into a dozen pieces and the water splattered about.

Alana chuckled, but the other, older girls stared at her in disbelief. The oldest and most boring of them all, Gitara, already pregnant for the first time, shook her head disapprovingly.

“Alana!” Irema said, horrified, staring at the broken pieces.

“Sorry!” Alana muttered, containing her laughter.

“Alana! Look! Why did you…?”

Gitara, the pregnant girl stepped forward. She gave Alana a freezing glance.

“Alana of Adachia. What would your father think? Act your age!”

“Come on, Gitara! I’m just playing,” Alana said, hands on her hips.

“That’s precisely what I mean.”

Alana scoffed, but did not say anything. Her father would have done the same thing. Maybe he would have considered the vase, though. She had not thought Irema would drop it. She cleared her throat and let out a small laugh.

“You should have seen your face, Irema. Anyway, sorry, really! I will give you one of the vases at home. By Venus, I hate carrying water.”

Irema’s frown turned into a grin.

“Besides, I made a nice wristband for you the other day,” Alana announced proudly.

Alana noticed it was still clinging to Irema’s wrists, a band made of leftover gold, twisted into beautiful patterns. The closest Alana could get to working with gold.

“So?” Alana said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you want to take a walk?”

“Mother is waiting for the water,” Irema muttered.

“Who says you’re not seeing her again?” Alana said with a wink. “Tell her there’s a big queue.”

“At the river?” Irema raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, Irema!” Alana said.

Irema turned to the other girls.

“Girls, you can continue, I’ll catch up with you.”

***

“Father doesn’t understand,” Alana said, sitting on a boulder close to the hilltop, both looking down into the village and the red, dry forest below. “Keep your hands soft and pretty, stand out of the fire,” she said, imitating his rough voice and running her hand through her hair.

“I know,” Irema shook her head.

Alana narrowed her eyes.

“No offence, but how can you know, Irema? Your dreams are exactly what they expect of you.”

“Well, I know you and know what your dreams are. Anyway, I’m sure your father loves you.”

“Well, that’s not the issue here,” Alana said.

“And he wants the best for you.” Irema looked at her in the eyes. She did that a lot.

Alana tilted her head and lifted her palms up.

“How does he know what’s best? And… Knitting? I could do better.”

“Now that is just sad,” Irema shook her head, offended. “How many times do I have to tell you? Can you make designs like Mother Zita? No. Don’t disparage the great and noble arts of weaving and knitting.”

“Sure. But… I would like to create something beautiful that can stand the test of time. I mean, fabric is fine but… It’s good for a lifetime. Even if it lasts, people can’t keep wearing it. It’s a memory. Whereas iron, gold,” she emphasized that last word. “I don’t care about possessing it. I just want to create something beautiful, even if no one knows my name; I’d just put my soul into it, and let it live on for hundreds of hundreds of years. Even iron.”

“Alana. Life is not that complicated. Don’t think of something too much or you’re going to lose yourself. Besides, you’re fifteen. We have a life ahead of us. And things more important than knitting and gold. Like marriage, for example.”

Alana sighed.

She stared at Irema. The mere mention of marriage made her friend smile like a fool. “Well, talking about knowing your friend’s dreams, you’re definitely excited about that.”

“I can’t wait,” Irema said, revealing her shining white teeth. “And… I know you’d like to get married too.”

“Eh, it’s not my priority.”

“Come on.” Irema elbowed her arm

“Fine, I would offer myself eagerly only if it was to Atila of Lak,” she smiled, and felt blood rush into her cheeks; thinking of the gallant cadet who lived a few houses down with his father, another blacksmith and former captain in the steppe days. Atila was perfect; although she had never talked to him, she had only heard good things about him, and seen his massive back muscles, his arms the size of tree trunks, his perfect chin and more than perfect crooked smile. And he was as tall as a tree.

That was what she would daydream about during class. Riding into the horizon, side by side with Atila, living in a movable home, and forging weapons and art. Too bad he probably didn’t know she existed.

“Speaking of…” Irema said. “He will be at the fair today, you know?”

“What fair?”

“It’s a surprise, the town folk have seen a caravan coming from the west. Someone who knows how to read said it’s got fair written on it.”

“Really?” She remembered the life-defying tricks the jesters had performed the previous year. The one who juggled with fiery daggers was her favourite. “What are we waiting for?”

image [https://i.ibb.co/PWtBQjp/Alana-and-Irema.png]