Mira breathed deeply, forced a smile, and then laughed flirtatiously right on cue. “I’m good at what I do,” she explained. “And besides,” she admitted sheepishly, “this way I can get access to lucrative blueprints… Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I’m stealing from anyone that matters.” She shrugged, pondering the cult member she saw earlier, wondering if he would miss the contract more than her body. Her hands shook a little as she felt the yellow bruise on her neck. How could the older women do it?


    “I’ll prove you wrong, Mira,” Larkin said, his voice hoarse, “I’ll prove all of you wrong.”


    “You’re going to get yourself crippled for eternity,” Mira snapped, her face almost as red as his now. “Dear gods, how the hell can you work in this heat?” she said, pulling at her collar.


    “You get used to it,” said Larkin. “You would know if you took my offer.”


    “Enough!” she said, her tone sharper than the sword on the anvil. She glanced at the empty vials stashed in the corner cupboard, and added, hastily, “Besides, I don’t fancy the prospect of mana crashing.”


    “Even if my mana runs to zero, I don’t die. That would be a miracle, Mira, and according to you miracles don’t happen.”


    “Maybe if you owned a factory. I heard from one client that down south they’ve got machines that can do what you do but faster and cheaper.”


    “Magical machines? Impossible. Only crafters can imbue objects with mana; and only blacksmiths can build magical machines,” said Larkin, seemingly unphased by news. “Things must be good down there if they’re that desperate to put themselves out of work.”


    “All work’s taught me is that all men bullshit, and all men are bullshit,” she blurted. “The guilds won’t let anything supplant their power. It’s the only thing keeping them from being slaves like the rest of us…” Mira glanced at the older boy in embarrassment, “Curse you, Larkin. You’re the only boy in this crummy town to make me use my head.”


    “Isn’t that a good thing?” he chuckled.


    “It doesn’t pay to think,” she replied, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.


    Larkin stole a glance, watching her puff on it with silent fascination.


    The rare gems beside his workstation sparkled brilliantly. “How did you get this contract, and the materials needed for it anyway?” he said, giddily. Like a young child, Larkin’s mood could change instantly, especially in the presence of a beautiful girl.


    The young woman stepped out onto the road, spinning around slowly, and threw her small pale arms into the air in frustration. Even though the sun hung overhead like a giant spotlight, it wasn’t nearly as hot as it was in the workshop. She was still close enough to hear Larkin, however, and keep him within her line of sight. Her life depended on it.


    “I meet all kinds of people in my line of work,” she said absentmindedly, “you know the types…” She now stood in the centre of the dusty road with her hand on her shapely hips.


    “I don’t,” Larkin frowned, trying not to stare at her for too long. “Get a grip,” he muttered as he concentrated on hammering the edges of the hottened blade. After all the edges were evenly tempered, he brought the sword over to the large grinding wheel sitting in Haldar’s corner; he sat down on the stool attached to its wooden frame and began to refine the blade. Watching the edges gradually become perfect against the sandstone never failed to satisfy Larkin. But this time he had company, and he was acting against Haldar’s explicit orders not to work unsupervised or on items higher than his level. “If I don’t craft this, I’ll be a no-name smith for the next five decades,” he thought.


    “Always the good boy,” she retorted out of habit.


    “I’m older than you!” he cried. He laid aside his hammer and placed both of his hands on the edges of the anvil, glaring at the prostitute.


    His chest tightened all of a sudden. He stumbled and fell upon the anvil, catching his breath. He glanced at the empty vial on his bed. “Dammit,” he winced.


    Mira burst out into a quiet laughter, covering her mouth with her hand. “You’re not normal,” she blurted after a moment’s hesitation.


    “If normal means accepting the role other people have given you,” Larkin said, “then you’d be right.” He held up the sword to the sunlight pouring in from the front of the workshop, inspecting it carefully. “It’s not giving me any experience points,” he frowned.


    “It’s done?” Mira asked.


    Mira was about to respond with a clever quip when she saw a black dot on the horizon. She quickly placed a hand to her breast and walked quickly back inside the workstation, her face suddenly pale. “Listen, Larkin,” she began with a quivering voice.


    “No, you listen here, Mira,” interrupted the young man confidently, pointing his finger in her face, “you don’t know what it’s like to work day in and day out for virtually no reward, having everyone laughing at you behind your back because you’re doing something they don’t agree with-”


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “Larkin!”


    “No, Mira,” he said haughtily, “I’m not being talked down to by a girl like-”


    A tall man appeared behind the frightened girl. He was dressed head to toe in a black robe, which seemed to suck in the heavy sunlight for there seemed no edge, no curve, no shape to him that would distinguish his figure as belonging to a man and not a shadow; his face was obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, so that only the purple gleam of his eyes could be seen. He stepped into the workshop, surveying the entire space with cold and calculating precision. Larkin looked up in surprise.


    “Where is the blueprint?” the man demanded angrily. He noted the furnace behind the shopkeeper


    His eyes jerked to the young girl behind him. “Ah,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “You’re the woman who cost my lackey his life.”


    Immediately, Mira looked decades older. Her eyes looked like an old lady’s spectacles, and her skin, like Larkin, had become ghastly pale. She stepped backwards into the frame with halted breath as though she would sink into it. She looked like a mouse. “Your wrong,” she managed.


    “This isn’t the whorehouse,” the stranger said amusedly.


    “W-who are you?” Mira stammered.


    Malcaver stepped closer and touched her cheek. “No wonder his eyes weren’t on the ball,” he grinned.


    “Please don’t hurt me,” she said quietly, turning her head away.


    “You don’t have any rights here,” Malcavar whispered. “That blueprint you stole – it’s very important to me.”


    “P-Please,” she stuttered.


    Larkin, gripping the hammer tightly, straightened and made his way slowly around the anvil. The hairs on Malcavar’s neck stood up immediately, and his hand shot to the dagger on his waist. But since he was like a shadow, this movement was hidden from the two children.


    The intruder frowned, and asked, “You don’t intend to use a hammer, do you?” He turned slowly to face the young blacksmith, noticing the electricity in his eyes. “You wouldn’t even put a dent in my plans with that,” he chuckled darkly.


    “Who are you?” Larkin demanded. With great effort, he held the hammer pointedly. It sparked a little.


    “How cute,” he added, his tone rife with condescension. “Well, since I’m going to kill you two, I don’t see why the need to be discreet… I’m High Smith of the Cult of the Obsidian,” he said proudly, “and what she stole was in the possession of a… an ex-employee of mine. It’s rather sensitive: for my eyes only, capiche?”


    Larkin’s eyes flickered to the girl and then back to the stranger. “We don’t have what you want,” the boy said. “Get out.”


    “Your defiance is irritating, and yet simultaneously demanding of my respect,” he said in amusement. “It reminds me of when I was young and chock full of ambition.” Malcavar paused for a moment in consideration; then, raising his arm to just above his waistline, he slowly placed his right hand over his left fist. Without warning, he hammered his elbow into the girl’s gut.


    Blood spurted out from behind the grinning Malcavar, followed by a thud. Larkin lunged forward, swinging the electrified hammer in a rage.


    Malcavar’s gaze hardened as he muttered an incantation under his breath. Suddenly, the fire behind Larkin choked and spluttered into nothingness, and the room was thrown into darkness as though it was night. He stopped short, his arms falling to his side like a sack of iron nails. His jaw dropped.


    “B-but how?” he blurted, stumbling back into the anvil.


    Malcavar noted the apprehension in the boy’s eyes and stepped forward with a smile. He raised his gloved hand and began to speak another incantation. A dark ball of white-specked matter whirled in his palm, growing larger by the second until it was the size of Larkin’s head. Larkin paused, breathless, his face white as the specks that danced before his eyes. Every instinct within the boy screamed at him to run, but something rooted him to the spot. Was it fear? Was it that the man commanded magic without an enchanted weapon? Or was it Mira? No. He knew the reason. He knew it very well.


    “No one’s ever died in Blackwater,” Malcavar said, “Care to be the first?”


    Malcavar saw Larkin’s hand shoot across the anvil to what he supposed was a blade, though he could not take his eyes off his target while channeling mana, and said, “Now, that thing would probably hurt. But this right here will kill you: it’ll suck up all the mana in your blood ‘till there’s nothing left; then it’ll suck up some more ‘till you’re thirsting for it, ‘till your nothing but a crusty ol’ corpse. Sure, you aren’t dead like the ancients, but you’ll be as good as ‘em. What’s a crafter in Backwater without mana?”


    Larkin’s hands curled around the hilt of the Eclipseris. He would have gladly returned the blueprint to save both their skins were it not for the fact that once a craftsman starts a project the respective blueprint is immediately consumed. His heart thumped in his chest, yet he did not feel as afraid as he reckoned he should have been under the circumstances. The excess mana still surged in his system.


    “You’re out of your depth,” Malcavar said coldly. “I know you haven’t dared to craft it by yourself. So where is it? That blueprint was never meant to be seen by anyone outside the Obsidian. It’s the key to finding the Eternal Forge, the only thing capable of defeating the High Council.”


    The workshop seemed to warp and bend around Larkin. His back suddenly seemed to carry an impossible weight as though the ceiling had collapsed upon him. He lay sprawled across the anvil like a squashed ant under the menacing eye of the High Smith and his cruel smile. Every rise of his chest, every labored breath, was excruciating.


    “Why is your mana capacity so high?”


    The dark aura enveloping the workshop slowly suffocated the apprentice. He felt his pores open, and the mana sucked out of him as if, all at once, a thousand hypodermic needles were plunged into his skin. Larkin let go of the hilt and fell to his knees.


    The Eclipseris rattled before settling on the iron; but it was the blue glint of its dark ancient metal that finally caught the High Smith’s attention. He stopped channeling his spell to run his hand along the blade’s edge. His finger opened at the slightest touch, and he felt some of his lifeforce trickle out of him. He pulled away quickly.


    “Whatever the cost, I’ll wake everyone up,” he murmured. “Needs a good polish,” he added. He grabbed the sword and headed towards the exit, passing Mira without so much as a glance.


    The workshop brightened back to normal. Larkin fainted.