Raesh didn’t allow Mannat to leave the house for the next two days. Mannat bruises looked too scary, and the villagers were too excited. The news of his return was in the air, as was his battered and bruised condition. The people wanted to know what happened to him, what caused the injuries if the rumors were true. Everyone had questions for Mannat, and everyone wanted answers.

Mannat told his father he would recuperate faster in the clearing because of his ‘fortitude’, and Raesh reluctantly agreed to take him to and from the clearing. Sharmilla stuck to him like a butterfly through his hardship. Pandit called them a newlywed couple, which Sharmilla took as a compliment, frustrating the boy and making him jealous.

Two days later, the villager’s excitement had diminished, and they only pointed fingers and called out to Mannat and Raesh when they drove by in their cart. No one ran after him.

For the next few days, Raesh decided to take Mannat to the clearing in the evening and bring him back in the morning. Mannat readily agreed to the setup. He had Sharmilla to take care of his needs back home, while he knew the Witch wouldn’t accompany him at the clearing.

Gande fed Mannat so much meat Raesh had to go out of the way and bring him some vegetables. He brought back carrots, a basket full of them. Mannat wouldn’t have minded them much if it was a few months ago, but he had already tasted the Witch’s juicy and tender carrots. He found those village-grown carrots worse than chewing grass. There was no comparison between the two, and it made him hopeless. To think he was so far gone. He was addicted to the Witch’s garden variety of vegetables and he had no choice. Only her vegetables could rejuvenate his mana. Only she knew the secret to their growth.

What would happen if one day she uprooted the garden?

Mannat decided to prepare for such a day. He bought a few tomato plants from the village and planted them in the Witch’s garden; he also bowed some seeds right next to the plants. They didn’t make it through the night. He found them dead the next morning. The plants had shriveled up and turned brown as if they had lost all of their vitality. The seeds had also met a similar end and popped like corn kernels.

For the next four days, Mannat bought a variety of plants and seeds and kept planting them in the garden. None of them survived. He didn’t go to the smithy or practiced his ‘mana strike’ during those days; his injuries made him helpless. He either meditated under the tree or slept in the hut. He wasn’t surprised when his ‘meditation’ broke through and reached level three. Level 3 was a tipping point and his job leveled up simultaneously and reached level 2, which made him extremely happy.

His nights passed in the calm of the clearing and love-filled his days. Yet, for some reason he couldn’t figure, a moment of rest would break the peace of his heart and make it race in anxiousness. He would wake up covered in sweat at nights, hopelessly trying to find meaning to his madness. The answer always seemed to be right at the tip of his tongue, but he could never quite reach it. It was like watching a rock tumbling down a mountain slope and causing a landslide. There was no way to stop it.

Seven days after the council meeting, Mannat was back in the smithy.

Raesh wanted to keep him out, but he saw him standing in front of his hammer that day and shut his mouth. He even stopped hammering and suddenly, only the popping sound that fire made echoed in the workshop.

Mannat picked up the hammer and it hummed in his hands. The hair of his arm stood up and his heart skipped a beat. He clenched the handle with all his strength and returned to the anvil. He might have returned to the smithy over a month ago, but now he was truly back as a blacksmith.

There was a chuckle and the metallic ringing of hammer strikes filled the smithy again.

Mannat wanted to work on the hidden ring knife he had envisioned while trying to escape his kidnappers. He didn’t have a set design for the ring, but he knew what he wanted from it. It couldn’t be thick like a wedding ring. He needed it to stay inconspicuous on his thin fingers. He picked pig iron as the base metal for durability and strength. He hoped no one would pay attention to such a cheap ring and started working on it.

His first idea was to fold a flat piece of metal into a u-bar and then shape it into a ring on a mandrel. He scrapped it on the first try because he couldn’t shape it into a ring without deforming the groove walls. The second idea was to make a flat ring and cut a groove on its surface to fit a blade. Unfortunately, the blade was too easy to see. He also made a thick ring with a flat top and a rough horn rising from it, but it didn’t excite him much. He wanted a ring with a hidden blade.

In the end, he decided to make a spinning ring with a fixed bottom and a rotatable top. He added a half-inch long foldable blade with a serrated edge on the bottom ring and cut a grove on the rotatable top, so the blade could remain hidden unless the groove and the blade aligned perfectly. He didn’t like that the blade had to be pried out, so he added a small angled bump that would move with the top ring and automatically unfold the blade.

He readied the pieces one by one, sharpened the blade, and polished the moving parts. He left the forge marks on the ring surface for texture. They made it look rough and unique. The assembly took longer than it took to forge the various parts. The pieces were rather small and his dexterity was stupidly low. His father offered his help, but Mannat declined it with a shake of his head. He wanted to do it himself.

“Why not hide a small dagger on yourself instead?” Raesh asked while Mannat was working on the ring.

“I’ll do that too,” Mannat answered without looking away from the ring. “The ring is for added protection,”

Soon, the not-so-glamorous, half-beaten, and old-looking ring appeared in Mannat’s hands. It was an assistant’s work and it looked like one too. It fit loosely on his index finger, which was a shame. Ignoring the nuisance, for the time being, he rotated the top ring with his thumb and the blade popped straight out of the groove without any hassle. Mannat marveled at the ring but remained calm. He slid it the other way and the blade folded back into the groove and disappeared under the ring. He checked the sturdiness of the blade by pushing and pulling it and was neither impressed nor depressed. The blade remained attached to the bottom ring although it developed a rattle after Mannat shook it a few times. The pin connecting the blade to the base had come loose. He developed a lock for the pin and that solved the problem.

It was rough around the edges, and he liked it that way.

Mannat tested it against a taught piece of two inches thick hemp rope. He acted as though his hands were tied and he could only move his wrists. The blade though small was sharp, and the hemp fibers unraveled where the blade cut. It cut surprisingly well for a blade so small.

Now, he could be ecstatic. He had succeeded.

Mannat wanted to enjoy the feeling, but suddenly a chilling cold took him. It came fast and directly enveloped the shop and him. It was soul-numbing and suffocating. He imagined drowning in a pool of water, flailed his arms, and gasped for air. His pupils shook and he stood up straight. Something was wrong.

“What happened?” Raesh asked, but Mannat remained silent.

Mannat looked toward the dark corridor. The darkness made him quiver. He could feel it coming from outside, past the corridor, out of the shop. He knew the sensation. He had sensed it once before and things had turned out very wrong afterward. This time around, the coldness was even worse. Mannat rushed out. His father called behind him, but he ignored him and only stopped when he was on the road.

It was windy outside. The sky was cloudy and the sun was their prisoner. His ears buzzed and he heard a scream. A crowd had gathered outside the butchery. He grew vigilant; his heartbeat frantically. He approached the butchery and his senses blared at him. The cold was coming from inside the shop. The screams were its medium. Something was very wrong.

The closer he approached the butchery the more he could hear and the more he could sense.

The crowd was growing. It was as if the people couldn’t sense the biting cold. The onlookers watched -- they weren’t there to help. Mannat didn’t think they would be of much help anyway. It was a favorable outcome that they remained outside the shop. He pressed through them to get ahead. The people resisted, but he managed somehow. They gave him way once they knew who he was. His presence drew eyes and brewed whispers. More power to them. He didn’t care. The situation and the crowd reminded Mannat of the day his mother fell unconscious. He gritted his teeth to push the memory to the back of his mind and rushed through the gap that had opened in the crowd.

The screams were almost feral, filled with anger and hatred. Mannat pushed open the door and sprinted through the corridor, to the back of the butchery. He could hear Pandit and Khargosh fighting someone, something.

Mannat prepared himself mentally but found his preparation lacking as he approached the source of the commotion. He saw Gande standing in the corridor past the workshop and his thoughts grew quiet. The back of her blouse was ripped to shreds and there were shallow, but bloody gashes on her back. She didn’t notice him.

A howl came from the storage room and Mannat’s face fell. Things were worse than he had first imagined. He couldn’t help but thinking that it might be too late already.