Two Blades by the Fire
October 21, 2026
The fire is more smoke than flame. Wet wood, no choice. Dhaelen sits as close as he can stand it with a rag across his knee and both swords laid out on his cloak.
The plain one first. Old steel, nicked along the edge, the grip wrapped so many times the leather has gone dark and smooth as a river stone. He works the rag down the length of it without looking. His hands know the way.
Then the other.
He takes longer with that one. Slower strokes, lighter pressure, the way you'd touch something that might have an opinion about it. The pale blade takes the firelight and holds it, a faint shimmer deep in the surface that doesn't quite match the flames. He turns it a few degrees. The shimmer turns with him. Then it settles.
Across the fire, Hadna is tuning. One peg, a pluck, a wince. Another peg. Honey sits in her lap, red-brown and warm, and she hasn't looked up in a while, which is how he knows she's been watching.
"You talk to it," she says, eyes on the strings.
"I don't."
"Your mouth moves."
He says nothing. The rag keeps going. A log slumps and sends up sparks, and somewhere out past the road a night bird tries the same two notes again and again, never getting them right.
She plays them back to it. Gets them right.
The bird goes quiet. Dhaelen's mouth does something that isn't quite a smile, and he lays the pale blade down, careful, on the cloak. The plain one goes back across his knees, where it's lived for years.
"Cold tonight," he says.
"Mm."
She plays something low and slow, the kind of tune that's mostly space. He listens with his hand flat on the old steel, the way other men sit with a dog.
Whispers of the Wyrm, Book One of The Bard and the Blade Saga.