Alex stared at the raw iron lump on the workbench, his eyes narrowing slightly as he flipped through the pages of the manual. The instructions were clear: heat the metal until it was malleable, then hammer it into shape.
Simple, in theory. The only problem? There was no furnace in the room.
He set the book down and exhaled sharply through his nose.
'Is this some kind of test?'
His instincts told him Darya had set him up to fail. It wasn't hard to see – she didn't take him seriously from the moment he said he wanted to be a blacksmith. She had probably sent him here as a joke, expecting him to storm out frustrated after realising he didn't even have the tools to start.
Alex smirked to himself.
If she thought he'd give up, she was sorely mistaken.
His gaze shifted to the piece of iron. He needed heat, and a ridiculous amount of it to make iron malleable.
