Everyone admired heroes. Some admired the deeds they accomplished; most admired the lives they imagined they lived.
Songs spoke of knights whose blades split storms in two. Chronicles remembered archmages who turned back armies with a single incantation. In every tale, when hope had become little more than a dying ember, someone always arrived to keep the darkness from swallowing the world.
As a child, Geovrick believed every word.
He would sit beside his grandfather's forge long after the day's work was done, watching sparks drift into the night like wandering stars. The old smith's hands, blackened by soot and scarred by decades of labor, could shape iron as deftly as they shaped stories.
"There was once a sorcerer," his grandfather began, "who wished to destroy an entire village."
The hammer rested. Only the forge answered with its steady roar.
"He summoned a flame so vast the heavens themselves seemed to burn. Those who saw it believed there would be nothing left when it fell."
Geovrick leaned forward, scarcely daring to blink.
"But before the fire reached them…" the old man said, a faint smile crossing his weathered face, "…a single flash carved through the inferno."
The forge spat sparks into the darkness.
"The flames scattered around the village, yet not a single home was touched. Standing amidst the fire was a lone knight."
The image lived in Geovrick's mind long after the words were spoken—a figure unmoved by the storm, clad in steel bright enough to rival the dawn itself.
"The sorcerer unleashed spell after spell, enough to shatter mountains. Yet none found their mark. The knight crossed the battlefield faster than frightened eyes could follow."
His grandfather lifted the glowing steel from the coals.
"There was only one strike."
The hammer fell.
"And when its echo faded…"
Another strike.
"…the sorcerer was gone."
Silence reclaimed the forge.
That night, after the fire had dwindled to glowing embers, his grandfather carried him to bed.
"Grandfather?"
"Yes?"
"I want to become a knight."
The old smith did not answer immediately. Instead, he pulled a stool beside the bed and sat in the quiet, where only the fading forge filled the room with its amber light.
At last, he spoke.
"A knight is not made by a sword."
He placed a calloused finger against Geovrick's chest.
"Nor by armor."
His voice was gentle.
"A knight is made by what he chooses to carry here."
Geovrick nodded without hesitation.
"I can do that."
For the first time that evening, the old man looked away.
Toward the forge.
Its fire had begun to fade.
"So I fear," he whispered.
His gaze lingered on the dying coals, as though they held a truth too old to argue with.
"The strongest steel is never born from gentle warmth."
Only from fire fierce enough to destroy what came before.
Years later, with smoke choking the heavens and an entire city disappearing beneath flame, Geovrick would remember every word.
Not the knight.
Not the sorcerer.
Only the forge.
And he could not help but wonder when the fire had stopped forging him…
…and begun consuming him.