“Our relation deepened as we grew older, and so did my love for your grandfather’s craft. I was ten years old when he allowed me to join his smithy.” Mannat’s brows rose in excitement and Raesh also grew feverish remembering those days he had long buried in the depths of his memories.

“I wasn’t any good at it. I was born with neither the skill nor the fate to become a blacksmith. You see, unlike most people, I was born with no skills. Your grandfather was a busy man and had over ten masters working under him. My master was the oldest person among them and had been in the smithy the longest. He was not easy to get along with; he was strict, demanding, and a perfectionist. He was the only one who couldn’t keep an assistant. But he kept with me till the end.” Raesh took a deep breath. He could still hear the hard voice of his master in his ears. The man was the father figure he didn’t have in his life. Noor’s father might have given him a place to work, but his master showed him the ropes.

“How did you get the job with your attributes?”

Raesh frowned hard. It was not a good memory. “I had to shovel coal and pump the lungs for a whole year before my master allowed me to hold a tong. Then I held the jobs on the anvil for him for half a year. I can still sometimes feel the vibrations that his hammer produced. You see, the man might be old, but he was very strong. His strength alone was over fifty points. I worked day and night as his assistant, but he didn’t let me hold a hammer for another year. However, I learned a lot from him. It was my luck that I got to watch him work. He didn’t teach me anything specifically, but he never punished me in vain either. He was a blacksmith, through and through.”

Raesh looked at Mannat. The boy was staring back at him, eyes wide and gleaming. He was completely engrossed.

“Then what happened?” Mannat asked in anticipation when his father stopped speaking. What happened? They were just getting to the good part.

Raesh spoke. “We kept meeting, of course, your mother and me. we were good friends first and became lovers later. Nobody propped,” he said calmly as if he had told the same thing countless times before. “It was like a season passed and another came. We were friends one day and then became lovers the next day, but it wasn’t long until your grandmother found out. I’m talking about your mother’s mother.” Mannat responded with a nod. “She was supportive but also told me the truth. The manor owner was the soon-to-be royal blacksmith, and I was just their servant. There wasn’t going to be anything official between us unless I surpassed him. You can guess what happened next.”

Mannat curtly nodded and said, “I still want to hear it from you.”

“When did you grow so demanding?” Raesh said but was happy to oblige to his request. It had been a long time since he last revealed his past to anyone. He had never thought about it before, but he had been very lucky in life. Not only was his master a good man, but he also married his childhood friend against all odds. He did face many difficulties in life, but he also met some real gem of people on the way. Maybe it was fate.

“Your grandfather definitely had thoughts when your mother refused to marry the son of his best friend. Noor had to face many restrictions for her decision. We could hardly meet afterward. I had to chase her around the manor and the capital to get a glance of her.” A fond smile grew on Raesh’s face. “Our meetings usually ended with a smile and without any words spoken. Then, when your mother refused to marry the second time, your grandfather asked around and he found out about us. That was fifteen years ago.” Raesh exhaled a long-drawn breath. It was harder to remember those days than he thought. His heart was thumping inside his chest as if it was eighteen years old again and meeting Noor privately in the manor pantry. The keeper’s son was a good friend of his. There was an urge by his heart to find the man, but he quickly squashed it into cold nothingness. A decade is enough time to change people.

He shook his head to clear his mind and looked back at the boy sitting opposite him. Mannat was on the edge of his seat, tightly gripping the edge of the table with one hand and rapping the tabletop with the other. It grated on his ears, but he didn’t stop Mannat. It was just anxiousness. A good story does that to you.

Raesh got comfortable on the chair and got into it once again to finish the story for the last time. “I was eighteen when Noor’s parents forced her to break up with me. She protested by climbing the manor and, warned to jump to her death. She had been fighting for years, but that evening, with the sun disappearing behind her, I really thought I was going to lose her.”

“Why did she do that?” Mannat asked. His voice tensed, chest stuffed and eyes staring. Perhaps, he forgot he was listening to a story from the past.

“Why else?” Raesh said. “She wanted me to ask her hand in marriage.” Mannat swallowed a loud breath when Raesh said grinning from ear to ear, “‘I did it right there in front of everyone, young old, soldier, noble and commoner. I got on my knees and asked her to marry me.” He quickly added, “She said, yes.”

“And grandfather agreed?”

“He agreed to put me in prison.”

Raesh picked up the cup of ale that had sat in front of him through the story. It was time to put an end to the night. He looked at the golden liquor filled with ripples in the cup and gulped it down. His stomach felt it enter as a burning fire lit up his insides. No wonder they call it fire. He thought and put the cup down on the table with a clink. Mannat hadn’t spoken, but he was waiting for him. Raesh couldn’t remember the last time someone had waited for him like this.

Raesh licked his lips and rubbed his face. His sight was getting blurry, but that was all right. The story was ending was also coming to an end. He started slowly, “That night, Noor’s mother freed me. She did somehow. Then took me outside the city wall where Noor was waiting for me inside a carriage. She gave us some money and asked us to elope. Many things happened in between.”

He looked away in nostalgia before coming back around a second later.

“There were times when I thought we’d be caught, and I would be beheaded. Yet somehow, we always found a way. I still believe we only managed to get here by a miracle. Maybe the god of fire didn’t want to see our flame burn out. We had spent most of the money Noor’s mother gave us by the time we reached here. Whatever we had left, I used it to buy the land and built the home. Luckily, the village needed a blacksmith. You came along a few years later and life has been bliss ever since.”

Raesh finished with a grin and swayed forward. He almost fell on his face, but manage to hold on by holding the chair arms. He raised a hand to stop Mannat from worrying and fell back into the chair. He had let the liquor get heavy on him. He was stretching his head around the neck when he found the boy deep in concentration and couldn’t help asking, “What are you thinking?”

Mannat didn’t raise his head, but softly said, “I never thought mother was so courageous.”

Raesh let out a snort. “All her family members are the same. Her older brother chased after us for two months before we lost him. Maybe he’s still looking for us. You know your hair reminds me of your grandfather.”

“He has the same red hair?” Mannat asked in surprise.

“They all do. All right,” Raesh picked up the cup to call it a night but found the cup empty. The bottle was right there, but he didn’t want to open it just for a shot. Eventually, he simply got up from the chair.

“It’s getting late,” Raesh said looking at the moonlit garden through the window. “Let’s call it a night. What do you say?”

Mannat nodded and got up. He picked the lantern and walked into the dark corridor. It showed signs of life as lantern light filled the nooks and the crannies.

The bedroom door was open. Raesh entered the room and found it cold and gloomy, but then he heard the boy stop behind him. He looked and saw Mannat standing right behind him with a glowing lantern in his hand.

“Can I sleep in here with you?” The boy asked and a gentle smiled floated out on his face. “Sure,” Raesh said.

When they fell on the bed, Raesh could hear his heart gently growing louder in his ears. The presence beside him was alive and moving. It took Mannat some time to settle down before he turned the lantern off and plunged the room back in darkness. However, Raesh felt the room was somehow different.

Suddenly, a young voice came from the side.

“Goodnight, father,” It said.

Raesh replied, “Goodnight, son,” and he closed his eyes for the night.

At that moment, for the first time in many-many nights, Raesh found that the room was not so cold anymore.