THIRTEEN

THREE MONTHS AGO

Maddileh looked at the armour on the dummy before her. Consisting of a breastplate, greaves, and vambraces, it was simple yet beautiful, with scrollwork around the edges and a mirror shine. A dragon’s head was etched onto the breastplate, fierce yet elegant. But she knew not to be deceived by beauty. The finest lance on the field can be the first to break.

“Impressive craftsmanship,” she said, “but your price is still too high for looks alone. Show me what it can do.”

“Of course,” said Fain, a man who had the beady eyes and quick motion of a ferret. Maddileh would never have trusted the man if Kennion hadn’t provided his name personally. But a mage’s word that an armourer’s wares were as magical as he claimed they were was worth believing. Still, a demonstration would help convince her.

“Dursa!” Fain called. “Fetch the dragon breath.” One of several apprentices—their features indistinguishable beneath the dirt of the forge—ran forward with a bag while another one pumped bellows to heat the fire. A third attached the dummy to a hook suspended from the ceiling; a few tugs on a pulley had armour and dummy suspended over the forge. Maddileh’s eyes flicked over the fabric beneath the metal; it seemed unscorched.

“Watching?” Fain asked with a sly smile before throwing a handful of turquoise powder onto the flames, which leaped up in a roaring inferno. The armour and dummy within it were engulfed. Everyone in the forge turned their faces away from the heat; both Maddileh and Fain had to take a step back. Then the flames died back to plain orange fire.

The stones around the firepit were molten, oozing into new shapes. The chain had snapped so that the armour lay in the fire now. Both the steel and the fabric dummy were unharmed.

There was no sound in the forge beyond the ticking of cooling metal and stone. Maddileh took out a purse bursting with coins—a fortune, but worth it.