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The forge breathed around her like an enormous beast. Sweat spread across the wool tunic beneath her apron. Coal dust migrated in and out of her nose, and she would carry the scent of iron in her hair no matter how far she walked.
In these things, Bruna Ironthumbs took pride.
Every dwarf forge had its music, and Master Stonebones’ sang fairest. His hammer rang in bright notes, echoes of the stone ribs of Mount Erzader. Bruna’s strikes followed a beat behind. Each sent a jolt up her tired arm, proof, she thought, that she had earned her stipend.
She wiped her brow, then squinted at the barrel hoop on her anvil. One more hour, she thought. It could be cleaner, rounder. She just needed to focus.
“Miss Ironthumbs. If you keep glaring at that hoop, the poor thing’s liable to leap up and roll away weeping.”
Bruna looked up to find Master Stonebones’ in front of her, arms crossed, eyebrows a snowy peak on his forehead.
“I want to make sure it’s worthy of your name, master,” she said.
He limped around her anvil, then tugged his beard. “Good enough.”
Stonebones had never shown Bruna a hint of cruelty. Yet his words had a way of lodging under her skin, just the same.
“One more hour,” Bruna said.
“Hours to days to years,” Stonebones chuckled. “It’s time.”
Bruna’s heart skipped. Had she miscounted the days? She hadn’t been sleeping well, but surely… “I thought the client wanted them—”
Stonebones waved a hand. “Time… for your training to end.”
If her heart had skipped before, now it stuttered like a wagon wheel on unkempt cobbles.
“One final test, Bruna, and the guild will have a new journeyman.”
Bruna’s first thought was denial. She wasn’t ready, not if she couldn’t perfect a simple barrel hoop.
But this was what she’d dreamt of since the first day in Stonebones’ forge.
“My apprentice. You shall make me…”
A sword that can slay a dragon, Bruna thought. An axe that can fell a tree in one blow. A pick that can cleave the hardest stone.
“A knife,” Stonebones finished. “The perfect knife.
And then his back was to her as he limped back to his anvil.
Something tightened in Bruna’s chest.
Perfect.
Bruna glanced at her “good enough” barrel hoop. Perfection, clearly, was beyond her knowledge.
So, she would have to discover it.
* * *
As Bruna predicted, the forge-scent followed her into the open air of Erzader market. It was noon, but the wind was cold as it sprinted across the streets and mountainside.
Bruna pulled that air into a yawn, relishing it after the forge. She’d worked late, slept on a pallet under a desk, and woke early. Even with the fires doused, the forge was always hot.
The streets were bustling: miners returning from their shifts, hawkers shouting about fresh bread and gem polish, steam drifting from the vents. As she walked, Bruna chewed her lip. She needed answers, and she thought she knew just the folks to provide them.
Knives were for people. Who better to describe the perfect knife than those who used them?
Last month, the Stonebones forge had taken bespoke knife orders for three different clients.
Butcher. Ranger. Noble.
Three clients, three knives, and at the center of them: Perfection.
She hoped.
Sometime later, she stooped over a writing desk at Erzader Courier Post, rubbing shoulders with dwarves penning everything from bulk turnip receipts to perfumed love letters.
Bruna untangled a quill from the chain that bound it to the table, then scratched in her clumsy script:
Lady Astrid Diamondhand,
I, Bruna Ironthumbs, Apprentice of Master Ernst Stonebones of the Erzader Metalworker’s Union…
When she’d finished and the message was in the hands of a courier, a sliver of her anxiety seemed to peel away. One task, at least, was out of her hands.
Bruna told the courier to deliver the reply to the Violet Lantern, though the boy surely noticed her hesitation. Bruna could imagine the lavender smell of the tavern’s candles. And sitting in her usual spot…
She shook her head. As she left the courier post, she turned away from the street that led to the Lantern and headed toward the butcher instead.
Near Erzader’s outskirts, the breeze was stronger. The smell of vinegar and smoked meats rode it and set Bruna’s stomach rumbling. Perhaps that was why it took her so long to realize she was being followed.
The dirt road that led to Bjorn Goregrin’s shop was more or less empty, but the hair on Bruna’s neck lifted.
When she paused, the wind carried only the chatter of branches. But when she quickened, her footsteps were matched by a light pitter-patter and laughing voices just out of sight.
She snorted. She was no warrior, but a dwarf is still a dwarf. She would not bolt like some rabbit or elf.
Thinking about elves, or one elf in particular, made her doubly grumpy. She twisted and gave a great booming shout. “Show yourself, or get a hammer up the nose!”
Silence.
Then, laughter.
In a nearby alley loomed a pair of pale faces. Two sets of eyes, wide and gleaming with mischief.
“Boo!”
“Harald and Helga Goregrin!” Bruna huffed. “Come out this instant!”
They emerged simultaneously, in that unsettling twin-symmetry. The priests claimed the Sculptress carved each pair of dwarf twins from just one stone. Looking at the butcher’s children, Bruna believed it.
“We were practicing,” Helga said. “Papa says a butcher’s kills should be clean and quiet.”
“In a pen,” Bruna said. “With its hooves chained up.”
“There’s lots of animals,” Helga answered.
“And not all have hooves,” Harald added.
The two giggled at whatever joke was passing between them.
“Are you going to see Papa?” Helga asked.
“Yes,” Bruna said.
The twins seemed to hold an entire conversation without saying a word, and then fell into lockstep at Bruna’s side. Half the time she turned to address one or the other, they would be gone, replaced by their sibling. By the time they reached the cabin, Bruna was convinced she’d died and the little rascals were her personal collectors, there to guide her gemstone soul back to the Sculptress’s Vault.
Bjorn Goregrin himself filled the cabin doorway. “Ernst’s gal, I’ll be!” He grasped Bruna’s hand, fingers wet with garlic brine. “Tell me true, did the old anvil-head send you to steal my sausage press? I bought it just yesterday off that halfling caravan.”
“Afraid not, Master Goregrin,” Bruna said. “I actually wanted to ask you about knives.”
His eyes sparkled. “Well, that’s one of my favorite subjects. Come in, come in. Ingrid, we got company!”
Ingrid Goregrin emerged from the kitchen as her husband politely dragged Bruna in. She was an agreeably plump woman with a wide smile, which was almost enough to distract from the crimson stains on her apron.
“Sit, dear,” Ingrid said. “I’ll put another lambchop on the stove.”
“Oh, I can’t stay,” Bruna protested.
“Nonsense!” Bjorn guided her toward a chair baking before their hearth. The wood was warm and seemed to untie the knots in Bruna’s back like little fingers.
Behind her, Harald and Helga perched in the corner like gargoyles, staring with synchronized interest.
Bjorn plopped into a chair opposite Bruna. He plucked a bit of whatever critter he’d been plying his trade on from his beard. “Tell me about these knives.”
“Just one,” Bruna said. “Master Stonebones asked me to make the perfect knife.”
Bjorn’s laugh was a raucous drumbeat, woven through by the tin flute giggles of his children. “That old goat. Well, I don’t know how much a butcher can tell a smith about metal.”
“Apprentice,” Bruna said. “And, well, you go through more knives than anyone. What makes a great one?”
Bjorn hummed and scratched his beard. At last he spoke, “Well, a knife’s for cutting.”
“And slashing,” Harald piped up.
“And stabbing,” Helga added.
Bjorn chuckled. “Sure. But cutting’s the real trick. No tears. No struggle. Smooth as a beardcutter’s razor.” He swung his hand and made a sound like flesh leaving bone.
Bruna clutched the teacup that had appeared at her side, even as she practically leapt from her skin to find Ingrid there. At least she knew where the twins got it from.
“Speaking of.” Ingrid glided over to her husband and snagged his curly black locks in her fingers. “You are past due, dear.”
“Yowch!” Bjorn snarled. “You see how she tortures me?”
He chuckled again, and this time his wife joined in, a brass trumpet to accompany the drum and flutes. A little orchestra, Bruna thought, with a pang in her chest.
“So… sharp,” she said.
“Aye,” Bjorn said. “Sharper than the eyes of a beardcutter counting his pennies.”
Ingrid reached for Bruna’s shoulder, and it was probably just a coincidence that Bruna was coiling to rise when she did. “We’d love to have you for supper.”
“Is it tasty, Mama?” Helga asked.
“Is it scrumptious?” Harald sang.
“I’m sure everything your mother makes is wonderful,” Bruna said. She forced herself to her feet, perhaps too quickly. Ingrid yelped, and Bruna’s cheeks burned. “But I must be going. Many other clients.”
Bjorn guided her to the door and extracted a promise to return with Master Stonebones to see the new sausage press, then wished her luck.
Bruna stepped back onto the dirt road, shrugged off the exhaustion hugging her like a cloak, and headed back toward central Erzader.
Without the lady’s seal, she would be turned away from the Diamondhead estate. Her only choice was the Violet Lantern. But it was more than tiredness that kept her steps small as she neared the tavern.
The namesake lantern swung above the door, stained glass panes glowing. Bruna took a breath and pushed through the door. The smoke of lavender candles floated out, pulling her in like a harpy’s talon.
The place was calm, not at all the beautiful disaster Bruna knew it would be once the sun had set.
A human bard tuned instruments on stage. The chalkboard nearby announced, “New from the Serpent Isles, Sapphire the Poetess.”
At the bar, the tough old bartender was arm wrestling an orc. The two women had eyes only for each other: unbroken glares like they were mapping the topography of each other’s bulging muscles.
A painting dominated one wall. A huntress stormed the underbrush of some forest, bow drawn, arrow nocked and pointed at the doe running ahead of her.
At the table beneath sat Eira.
The ranger looked like she always did: lean strength and quiet wariness. Her hair fell in a rope braid over one shoulder, and even across the room Bruna caught the scent of rain and pine needles.
Eira’s almond eyes were on Bruna as soon as she entered. Her delicate elven ears had likely caught Bruna’s shuffling from a block away. They were the only part of Eira that seemed delicate.
For a moment, that gaze seemed warmer to Bruna than the tavern’s hearth.
Then it cooled.
“Well, well,” Eira said as Bruna reached the table. “Ironthumbs graces us with her presence. Has milady’s messenger taken ill?”
“It was a public courier,” Bruna corrected, as though that changed anything. Cancelling dinner plans during Eira’s last trip to Erzader had been scummy regardless. “I meant to reschedule, next time you were in the shop.”
Eira let a breath out of her sharp little nose. “I’m teasing, Brun. We’re adults. You have… priorities.”
She didn’t add, “I just thought I was one,” but she didn’t have to.
Bruna dropped into the seat opposite Eira, and any thought of hidden meanings vanished when Eira’s fingers began to trace Bruna’s knuckles.
“But as your friend, Brun,” she whispered. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“You need a break. Outside this… city.” Erzader was barely large enough for that title, but Eira made it sound like a curse. “Trout season’s coming up on the River Gjoll. We could escort some nobles as they play at being fishermen, nab some of their fancy wine and stretch out on the banks to watch the fish fly.”
“I… can’t,” Bruna said. “I’m on the verge of—”
“Collapse?” Eira’s hand returned to her wineglass.
“Making journeyman,” Bruna said. “Master Stonebones gave me one last test, one you can help with, actually.”
Eira’s lips twisted. “Help as in you’re going to sacrifice me to make a cursed sword?” Bruna quirked an eyebrow, and Eira shrugged. “We elf maids have to be careful of that sort of thing.”
“This isn’t one of your operas,” Bruna said. “I just need to know, Eira, what makes the perfect knife?”
Eira looped her braid over her fingers.
“I need something dependable,” she said. Which was a perfectly reasonable thing to say about a tool. There was really no cause for the spike of guilt it sent through Bruna’s heart. “And what I don’t need is to be left with a broken hilt when I’m four days out from a settlement.” Eira flexed one wiry bicep. “Strength is what makes a good blade. Can’t have it snapping the first time I need to tickle a manticore’s ribs.”
Bruna was still staring when the tavern door banged open. A red-faced courier stumbled in. He grew redder as he surveyed the place. A few more customers had bustled in, and even the courier had picked up on just how out of place he seemed among them.
“Ms. Bruna Ironthumbs!” he stammered. He sighed in relief when she waved him over and handed her a scroll. Sealing it was a waxen fist clutching a gemstone, the sigil of the Diamondhand family.
Bruna skimmed the pleasantries that covered most of the paper and translated the meaning through the multiple layers of condescending etiquette.
Busy nobles don’t wait on lazy tradefolk. If you’re coming, come now.
* * *
Bruna took a step toward the door.
“Good luck,” Eira sighed. There was apparently something interesting at the bottom of her wineglass. A dozen phrases appeared in Bruna’s head, every one of which felt foolish, so she settled on a grunt and a nod Eira didn’t see and got to feel foolish about that instead.
The Diamondhand estate smelled like money. Money won on the spice paths and the open sea, money in the form of spices and furs and metal from every corner of the continent. Money passed along in the blood, like Bruna’s father’s red hair and gap-toothed grin.
When she passed the ornate gate and reached the mansion’s foyer, a maid insisted on taking off Bruna’s boots. And by that she meant taking them off herself, kneeling to unlace the mud-stained leather. Bruna wasn’t sure if one was supposed to tip a noble’s servants, but she pressed a coin into the girl’s palm regardless.
She could feel the carpet, soft as a bedroll, through her wool socks. It muffled her enough that she was suddenly self-conscious about how much noise her feet must normally make.
The parlor door opened, and for a moment Bruna wondered whether most nobles had enormous portraits of themselves completely filling one room of their house.
Then the painting moved.
Lady Astrid Diamondhand, the wealthiest dwarf in Erzader, draped elegantly over a velvet chaise. Her face gleamed with a smooth sheen beneath her scarlet updo. Her cheeks were pale as full moons, her lips a black crescent. Jewels like stars dripped from her wrist and ankle and throat, twinkling as she shifted to accompany every movement with a meteor shower.
Her gown was a masterpiece in the places it existed and more so in the places it didn’t. The waist was cinched so tight the cloth seemed as smooth as a night sky, and Bruna feared she’d pop a joint in her neck straining so hard not to stare into the canyon that was Astrid’s bosom.
“Bruna,” Lady Diamondhand purred, familiar, like they’d grown up in the leather district together, skipping schoolhouse lessons to play in the pinewoods. In truth, this was only the second time Bruna had beheld the fair lady, and the first time they’d spoken directly.
“Do take a seat, darling.” Lady Astrid gestured at a chair Bruna was fairly sure the elven carpenter had meant as a surreal sculpture. In the same movement, the lady dipped two long fingernails into a glass jar on her tea table. The cream had a heavy perfume, sweet almond and fresh rose, which couldn’t quite cover its true smell as it stung the place between Bruna’s eyes.
Bruna perched on the edge of the elf chair, putting more weight on her knees than the seat. Lady Astrid dabbed her cheeks and studied Bruna like an appetizer she didn’t care for but was too polite to turn down. “You look exhausted. You know every beauty needs her sleep.”
“I sleep when the shop’s not busy,” Bruna said. Which for the best forge in Erzader, was pretty much never.
Astrid patted the jar. “Well, we should at least banish the shadows under your eyes. I don’t suppose you’ve time for a chalk powder compress. But this cream will help. Fresh from the halfling caravans. You must try it.”
Now Bruna was the one being offered what she didn’t want. But she wanted even less to insult a host whose gown looked expensive enough to buy Master Stonebones’ entire inventory. Dutifully, she dipped her finger into the mixture and rubbed it under each eye.
“Um…” Bruna swallowed. “It is supposed to burn?”
“Of course, darling. Surely a smith knows that perfection doesn’t come without pain. Why, every morning sweet Greta here has to tug the straps of my corset until she’s red in the face.” Astrid gestured at the same maid who had removed Bruna’s boots. Greta waved and showed the coin Bruna had given her, then seemed embarrassed, blushed, and returned to dusting the curtains.
“But look at the results.” Lady Diamondhand waved a hand over her impossible curves. “Surely, though, you’ve not come just to pillage my beauty secrets.”
Bruna laughed and pretended not to see the gleam in the lady’s eye.
“Yes,” Bruna said. “I mean, no. My master has given me a test before I become a journeyman.”
Astrid tilted her head. “Oh, how wonderful, darling.”
“I must make the perfect knife,” Bruna said. She paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase, And since you paid more for one knife than we would even joke about charging another client. “And as the most esteemed patron to ever grace our forge, I wanted to ask you…r grace. What makes the perfect knife?”
“Why, the answer to that is the answer to everything,” Lady Astrid said. “Beauty. Elegance. Luminosity. Devastation.” The gleam returned. “When I sliced the first piece of cake at Mayor Brascall’s harvest gala, every eye was on my blade. If your master’s knife had been anything less than an exquisite work of art, well…” She laid her hand across her forehead and collapsed backwards onto the cushions. “I would’ve died of embarrassment.”
Her gaze traced languidly along Bruna’s form. “You know, Bruna, you could be a real piece of art yourself, with a little work.”
More work seemed like the last thing Bruna could handle. She bid farewell to the lady as quickly as she could without being impolite and still got the vague feeling that she was. None too soon, Bruna was back on Erzader’s streets. The evening air tasted sharp and honest.
By the time she’d stumbled back to the forge, night had taken Erzader, and her stomach had begun to yell like a neglected cat. Bruna lit a candle and noticed the rolled parchment and wrapped cloth napkin on her workbench. Between her heavy eyelids and the candle’s flickering, it took several tries and a migraine to decipher the parchment’s message.
B.
Off to see old friend.
Back in two.
Don’t starve.
E.
As she read, she unwrapped the other item: a fresh apple strudel. She barely had time to recognize the stamped dragon sigil from the bakery across the street before she was licking the last crumb from her finger.
Then she slapped her cheeks until her eyes were wide. She needed to think.
Steel.
The first choice, but that was its flaw. All right edge, medium strength, and utterly unimpressive. Lady Diamondhand wouldn’t be caught dead with steel.
Copper.
A nice glow, crack resistant. But soft. It would wedge itself into any carcass Bjorn tried to slice and stay there until he used another blade to cut it free.
Silver.
Could be shined. Could hold an edge. Could also chip if sheathed too hard. Bruna did not relish the image of Eira staring at a broken silver blade, one instant before some chimera swept her head off.
Gold.
Brass.
Stone?
Ridiculous.
One by one, Bruna went over every material Master Stonebones had taught her. One by one, they failed. Sharp but not strong. Strong but not beautiful. Beautiful but not sharp.
A doze caught her unaware. In her dream, she was still at the anvil, hammering a piece of metal that grew longer and longer with each beat. The hearth next to her was alive, a hissing roaring beast exhaling smoke between curved teeth, like a…
Her eyes snapped open, and the flash of sunlight distracted her from the ache that now welded her neck to her back.
But the dream stayed true. She tasted the word before she said it, a hot, mineral, smoky flavor.
Dragonscale.
Light as wood, hard as stone, bright as gold. Bruna had seen one only once, in Master Stonebones’ safe. He said he was waiting for inspiration, to make something he could return to the friend who had gifted it to him.
Bruna had no idea who this mysterious benefactor was, though they must’ve been wealthy, or else one of those legendary heroes who had faced a wyrm and survived.
Dragonscale was what she needed. And if the Sculptress decided to grant a miracle and there was a single scale on sale at Erzader market, even She couldn’t convince a merchant to part with it for less than the entire forge earned in a month.
That left one option: get it from the source.
Bruna looked out the window. The sun made its way across the morning sky. The mountains in front of it cut the horizon like shards of broken metal.
There was a dragon in those mountains. Everyone in Erzader knew the story of the miners whose wagon had been roasted, their smith kidnapped. Venustasultra Intellegentiam Mortalium that smith had called her when he escaped. And she wanted, above all else, to be left alone.
Bruna grabbed her bag.
Aches spread across Bruna like a fungus, but sheer bloody-mindedness kept one boot moving in front of the other. Master Stonebones’ test was feeling less like a job and more like a slow fever, but she’d worked sick before.
When she at last reached the cavern on Venustasultra’s Peak, each step felt like she would shatter apart like an ice sculpture. But the breeze from the cave mouth was deliciously warm, sulfur and metal and the strange tinge of sweetness.
Past the cave mouth, her footfalls seemed to echo no matter how soft she stepped. The stone was warm through her boots. Dragon heat.
The tunnel narrowed, then opened. Bruna set her back against the rim and peered in. Beyond was a great chamber where veins of ore threaded the walls like the nerves of a heart.
In the center of it all, asleep on a hill of smooth stones, was the dragon.
A hole in the cave roof trickled sunlight over her, and her scales shimmered in the shifting colors of a burning forge—crimson to gold to orange.
Venustasultra’s wings draped the stones. Her tail curled around them, twitching with a lazy, sated rhythm. Her breath moved the air in shimmers of heat, laced with sulfur and herbs.
Bruna had not the desire nor ability to harm the dragon. She inched closer.
Something clattered nearby.
Bruna froze, mouth dry with fear.
Venustasultra didn’t stir. She let out a rumble, the purr of a cat lulled by kitchen noises. She stretched one leg, and the corner of what looked like a blanket poked free.
Sweat gathered along Bruna’s neck. Sunlight glinted off one of the dragon’s scales, illuminating a texture as delicate as an engraving. It was cracked along one edge. Dragons shed rarely, and sometimes the old got pushed up by the new.
Bruna reached for the loose scale.
The moment her fingers brushed it, the dragon’s eyes peeled open.
Bruna’s breath froze. Her body went hot, then cold, then hollow.
The dragon’s head rose on a serpentine neck, then lowered until Bruna could feel the breath on her cheeks.
“Thief.”
Venustasultra’s voice was a rumble felt in the chest. Her teeth were gleaming daggers, her tongue a pink asp. Bruna’s back was against the stone, and when her knees went weak that was all that kept her upright.
This was the cost of ambition. This was the reward of exhaustion. She would die alone in a cave, roasted and devoured like an apple strudel. She closed her eyes.
Then—
“Did you say something, Venus?”
A silhouette in the warm glow of a side passage. Short, broad shouldered, with a distinctive limp.
Master Stonebones’ eyebrows nearly touched his receded hairline. He clicked together the teacups and kettle in his hands.
“Bruna,” he said. “I’ll fetch another cup.”
The dragon twisted toward him. “You know this trespasser?”
“More or less,” Stonebones said. “Been my best student for seven years now is all.” He set the kettle down on a flat stone.
“Oh, Bruna,” the dragon said. “Ernst has told me much about you.”
Bruna looked from the dragon to her master’s hand resting on that serpentine neck. She made a curious sound.
Stonebones apparently got her meaning. “The heart wants what it wants.”
“I get that, I think,” Bruna said. “I just have… logistical questions.”
“And you’re sure you want the answers?”
She did not, though she did hear the story of their meeting. Master Stonebones had been the smith with the mining expedition that first discovered Venus. What had seemed a kidnapping was actually a rescue, though the dragon pointed out that the wagon wouldn’t have collapsed on Stonebones’ leg if she hadn’t set it on fire.
“And what kind of dragon would let such treasure go to waste.” Her scaled cheek rubbed Stonebones’ stubbly one as she spoke.
“Speaking of treasure,” Stonebones said. “Why exactly were you burgling my lady love?”
“Your knife.”
Stonebones’ expression softened with the understanding and weariness that only a teacher can know.
“I asked a butcher,” Bruna continued. “And a ranger.”
“The ranger?” Venus asked, and from the amused puff of steam Bruna knew Stonebones had told her of Eira as well.
“I even got an audience with Lady Diamondhand, all to ask them, What makes the perfect knife?”
“Yet it never occurred to you,” Stonebones said, “that the answer was another question?”
Bruna knew better than to interrupt or make excuses. She listened.
“The perfect knife for who?” Stonebones finished. “There’s no such thing as one perfect knife, because there’s no one perfect client. Butchers need sharpness. Rangers need toughness. And nobles… well, nobles might pay you ten times what a blade’s worth if it strokes their egos right.”
He sank one calloused hand into Bruna’s shoulder. “A smith needs to know where to put the effort in, Bruna. And when to stop.”
The floor of Venus’ cave wasn’t soft, but it was smooth and very warm. Bruna wouldn’t disobey her master and was pretty sure she couldn’t disobey a dragon. When the pair told her to lie down, she did so.
When she awoke, Bruna first assumed she’d been out for only an hour, judging by the sunlight. Venus was quick to inform her that an entire day and night had passed. Also that Bruna snored louder than her master.
Back at Stonebones’ forge, she raked the coals, fed wood into the hearth, and got to work.
The steel glowed as it hit the anvil. Bruna’s first strike rang pure, a temple bell tuned to her heartbeat. Each blow followed the rhythm. Not perfect, because nothing is perfect. But perfect to her. When the shape felt right, she quenched it in a cloud of steam.
The handle was ashwood. No gilding. No flourishes. The natural lines were beautiful enough. She oiled it in linseed and held it to the light.
A knife.
Not a legend. Not a hero’s blade.
But good enough.
Stonebones shuffled in quietly. “Who is that for?”
He took the blade when she offered, and she said, “For you, master.”
He smiled.
“Perfect.”
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AUTHOR BIO:
D. M. Kiely is a veteran of the United States Navy and a graduate of the University of Central Florida MFA program. He is a lover of all things science fiction and fantasy and is eternally accepting horror movie recommendations.
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “The Perfect Knife”:
We loved how author D. M. Kiely chose to answer the question: What makes for a perfect something? He takes us on a journey with Bruna as she seeks the answer to that question.
By casting the concept into a fantasy setting, the author makes the journey even more interesting for the reader. And as always, we loved the solid ending.