The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2024: Finishing the Blade (Part Two)

For a moment, Erkembalt almost corrected the young knight. Now was the moment. The work was almost complete. If this was a path that Jocelynn was meant to walk, then it should call out to her... She should be filled with a desire to see the work done. She should be as excited to see this blade come to life as he was...

But the look in Ollie’s pale eyes was harder than steel, and for the first time since Ollie had stepped up to the bellows, Erkembalt remembered the things he’d heard about Ollie’s role as the bloody point of Empress Ashlynn’s spear in her assault on Lothian Manor.

Then, Erkembalt’s eyes slid over to Jocelynn, and he realized how similar she was to freshly hardened steel. She was brittle and close to breaking. Pushing her now would only undo the progress they’d made.

"Forgive me, Sir Ollie, Princess Jocelynn," Erkembalt said, lowering his head and firmly disciplining his tail to droop to the floor. "I was too excited to see the blade come to life. Take your time, Princess Jocelynn. Or stop now if you want to. We can always resume the work later."

For several heartbeats, Jocelynn sat motionless before the stone. She could stop now, if she wanted to. She didn’t have to keep going. Ollie was here, and he said it was fine to stop.

"Will you," Jocelynn said without thinking, only to stop herself short when she realized she’d spoken. The words had slipped past her lips before the thought had fully formed, but once it did, she had to know the answer.

"Will you cook for me tonight, Ollie?" Jocelynn asked, looking up at the flame-haired knight with shining eyes. "Whether I finish it or not, will you have supper with me? A big, hearty supper... a knight’s supper, to get ready for a vigil? No matter what I do with the dagger?"

"No matter what," Ollie promised with a gentle, reassuring smile. "If you want to leave right now, then Lady Eira can take you back to the tower, and I’ll stop by Georg’s kitchen for ingredients. You just tell me what you want," he said gently.

Off to the side, Eira nodded in support.

"You’ve already done a great deal today, Your Highness," Eira said. "If you’d prefer to take a rest, I can serve tea and keep you company while Sir Ollie prepares a meal. However I can help, I’m at your service."

"In that case," Jocelynn said, taking one last, lingering look deep into Ollie’s pale eyes. "I want to try your favorite thing to cook, whatever it is... When I’m finished," she said, turning back to the dagger.

"When I’m finished," she repeated, glancing briefly at Erkembalt. "If my arms give out before the blade is done, then I’m finished, and I’ll start again tomorrow."

"Of course, of course," Erkembalt said, glancing from Jocelynn to Ollie and back again. "Exactly as you say, Princess, just take your time..."

So she did.

The sound of steel rasping against stone filled the air as Jocelynn began to work, following the steps that Erkembalt had shown her. Stroke. Wipe. Stroke. Wipe.

At first, it was slow and clumsy work. The blade skidded on the stone, her wrist ached, and the grit worked its way beneath her fingernails. She was afraid of making a mistake and ruining the blade and that made every step more difficult.

But little by little, with Ollie’s gentle encouragement from right beside her, she found the rhythm of it. The scrape of steel against stone. The soft hiss of the rag. The faint, steady crackle of the coals behind her as the forge cooled.

Most importantly, something else was happening while she worked. She wasn’t just grinding away the forge scale on the blade. She was grinding away at the voices that haunted her from a cold, lonely dungeon, and when she wiped the blade clean with the rag, she was wiping away the prickling sensation that clung to her fingers.

It was simple work. Repetitive work. But she wasn’t alone. Ollie was right there next to her. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. He was in no hurry to go anywhere. There was no rush to finish the work. He just sat there, providing a shoulder to lean on when she needed a few moments to stretch out her fingers or her wrist, and a calm, composed presence while she worked.

And with every stroke, the dagger changed.

Where the dull grey scale wore away, the steel beneath glowed with that same warm, red-gold hue she’d glimpsed when it came out of the oil. At first, it was only a hint, a faint blush that she might have imagined in the forgelight. But the more she polished, the deeper it grew, until the patches of bare steel shone like embers banked in a hearth at the end of a long night.

Somewhere along the way, the pressure of her impending trial stopped pressing against her chest.

She didn’t notice it leaving any more than she noticed when the voices from the Ancient Oak’s leaves went quiet, or when she stopped seeing the rotten acorn every time she blinked. There was only the stone, and the blade, and the stubborn grey of the scale giving way to that warm, glowing steel one stroke at a time.

Outside the open shutters, dusk deepened into night, and the first stars came out above the fortress walls. At some point, Ollie asked Eira to return to the Ancient Fortress to make sure Maela knew that Jocelynn would be out late, that she was safe, and that she’d be sleeping in Ashlynn’s chambers in the witch’s tower again.

When she returned, she brought a basket filled with savory pastries and a few sweet ones too.

"I visited Master Georg on my way back," Eira said as she set the basket on the table before offering pastries to everyone else in the shop. "I hope I didn’t overstep," she said, looking from Jocelynn to Ollie.

"Not at all," Ollie said gratefully, taking a pastry from Eira and setting it within easy reach for Jocelynn before taking one for himself. "I’ll still cook supper tonight, but the night is getting long, so thank you," he said.

Jocelynn only took a few bites of her pastry before returning to the work. Occasionally, Erkembalt leaned over beside her and adjusted the angle of her wrist with the tip of one claw.

"There," he said. "Not bad for a princess who’s never worked in a forge," he praised.

Jocelynn smiled down at the blade and kept going.

It was nearly an hour later when Erkembalt leaned over her shoulder again. This time, he didn’t say anything at all. He simply stood there, staring down at the dagger in her hands, where the last stubborn patches of scale had finally given way.

The whole blade glowed now. Red and gold, like the sky above the mountains in the final moments before the sun slipped away.

Erkembalt flipped down a lens on his eyepiece. Then another. His whiskers twitched, and his tail swished from side to side as a smile formed on his lips.

"Hmmmm," he muttered under his breath. "This is even better than expected..."