Page 8 of Scorched By Fate

His back was to me, broad and unyielding, but his movements faltered for the briefest moment. The metallic ring of his hammer paused mid-strike before picking up again, slower this time, as if he were deliberating something. He didn’t turn.

"What are you doing here, human?" he said, his voice gruff, like gravel scraping against steel. “I had an apprentice deliver everything you asked for.”

I crossed the stone floor, ignoring the heat clawing at my skin and the prickle of awareness under it. The Drakarn had a way of making you feel like you didn’t belong, but I wasn’t about to let him push me out. Not when lives were at stake.

"The healers are collapsing," I said bluntly, cutting past any pleasantries. "Mysha’s sick. Whatever’s hitting them is spreading fast, and we have nothing precise enough to work with. I need tools that aren’t clumsy, that fit human hands. I need you."

His hammer froze mid-strike, the unfinished blade glowing beneath his claws.

Slowly, he turned, towering over me even across the modest distance between us. The flickering glow of molten fires caught the ridges of his scaled face, sharpening every detail—the scarcutting through his left brow, the flick of his tail that betrayed his thoughts more than his stoic expression did.

His yellow eyes locked onto mine, and it felt like the air in the forge shifted. Heavy. Different.

"You needme?" he repeated slowly, with just enough skepticism to make me grit my teeth.

"I need your tools," I corrected, stressing the word. This wasn’t time for games. "You’re the best forge master in the city, aren’t you? I’ve seen your work. You’re … precise. Fast. And that’s what I need right now."

If my words flattered him, his face didn’t show it. That cold, assessing gaze stayed fixed on me, searching, like he was looking for the real reason I had walked intohisforge and demanded his skills. The silence stretched a little too long, the heat of the room pressing down on me harder by the second.

"I don’t know what’s causing it," I continued, softening slightly, "but I know we can’t treat it with what we have. I need finer instruments."

His jaw tightened, and for a second, I thought he’d sneer and shrug me off. But then his gaze shifted, lingering on me just a beat too long before he finally exhaled through his nose.

"What exactly do you need?" he asked curtly, moving toward a nearby workbench without waiting for me to answer.

The tension in my chest loosened, and I stepped closer, the air between us feeling too charged and strangely fragile.

"Fine-tipped forceps, micro-serrated scalpels, tools precise enough to work between scale and muscle without damage," I said quickly, listing off items as I pictured the mess in the healing halls. "Retractors shaped for Drakarn anatomy, articulated probes?—"

The faintest quirk of his brow stopped me mid-word. His eyes glinted with something unreadable—sharp, calculating, and maybe a little irritated.

"You speak like someone who’s spent too much time thinking about my blades," he muttered, grabbing a chunk of heat-resistant alloy and turning it over in his hand.

For a moment, my tongue tied. The way he said it, quiet and under his breath, made something in my stomach twist.

"I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about saving lives," I corrected, shaking off whatever weird feeling tried to crawl up my spine. I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. "You can forge these, can’t you?"

He snorted, almost amused, as he dropped the alloy onto the workbench and reached for another. "I can forge anything. Question is whether your humans know how to use what I make … or if you're just wasting my time."

I bristled, taking another step forward. "It’s wasting time to talk like this when people are dying. You want to sit here and mock humans while the sickness spreads throughyourkind?"

The flare of defiance in my own voice caught me off guard, but I didn’t step back.

Finally, Vyne’s gaze softened—barely. Just enough for his brow to furrow instead of sneer as his claws dragged across the table’s surface with a sharp rasp.

"You’ll have them by dawn," he said, finally. Then he turned back to the forge, dismissing me entirely.

Even as relief coursed through me, I didn’t move right away. I couldn’t, not with the crackling heat of the room lingering in my lungs and his scent digging into senses I didn’t know could react so strongly.

I exhaled sharply, ripping my attention back to the reason I’d come here in the first place.

The healers. Focus on the healers.

"Good," I said stiffly, already angling back toward the exit. "Don’t make me chase you down for them."

FIVE

VYNE

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