The days that followed the council session moved slowly.
They were not confined, exactly—no guards at the door, no formal orders to remain indoors—but the unspoken expectation hung in the air: stay close, stay available, don't cause trouble.
So they lingered in the guest house and its immediate streets.
Garran passed the time pacing, checking gear, and occasionally bullying Lysa and Naera into brief drills in the courtyard behind the building. Lysa fletched arrows, gambled poorly with a pair of junior clerks from the castle offices, and complained about city air being "too organized." Naera read whatever she could get her hands on—a borrowed scroll here, a thin treatise from a side shelf there—and took quiet walks to stare at the Arcanum walls.
On the third morning after the council, a knock sounded at the guest house door.
Garran answered it.
A castle runner stood there, breathless but composed. "Freewarden Garran?" he asked.
"That's me," Garran said.
"You're requested at the castle," the runner said. "A follow‑up with Lord Caldrin's office. Just you, for now."
Garran glanced back at the others. "Guess they want to argue logistics without scaring the mages," he said. "Don't break anything while I'm gone."
"We'll do our best," Lysa replied.
He buckled his sword, straightened his tabard, and followed the runner out, the door closing behind them.
Silence settled for a moment.
Then Lysa turned to Trin.
"So," she said, "think you can do for wood and string what you did for carved sticks and ink?"
Trin tilted his head. "You'll have to be more specific."
Lysa reached for her bow, which rested propped in the corner near her pack. She brought it over and set it on the table between them.
"I've been watching Naera with that staff," she said. "It fits her. Like it listens when she holds it. Mine—" she patted the bow "—is good. Solid. Reliable. I've had it for a while. But after the dragon, the bandits, and the endless walking, I've been thinking: if there's a way to make it better without it snapping in my hands at the worst moment, I'd like to know."
Trin picked up the bow, turning it slowly.
It was well cared for. The wood was seasoned, the curve even, the grip patched in places but smoothed by long use. The string was functional, properly waxed, faint frays in the places most often stressed.
"You've taken good care of it," he said.
"I try not to die because of laziness," Lysa said. "Can you modify it? Make it…sharper. Stronger. Something."
He ran his fingers along the limbs, feeling the grain.
"Possible," he said slowly. "But not without cost."
Lysa's eyes narrowed. "What kind of cost?"
"Durability," he said. "The wood is old, used to this curve and this strain. If I try to push more power into it—reshape it, thin it, force more draw out of it—we'll gain performance and lose reliability. It would shoot harder…until it broke."
She grimaced. "And if there's one thing I hate more than missing, it's a bow exploding in my hands when something important is charging me."
"Understandable," Trin said.
He set the bow down gently.
"Modifying this is possible," he went on. "But it would be unwise if what you want is something you can trust."
Lysa chewed on the inside of her cheek. "So what, then? Just accept what I've got?"
"Not necessarily," Trin said. "If you're willing to invest in new material, I can build something from the ground up. Your old bow can remain as backup. The new one can be shaped to you from the start."
Her eyes lit. "Now you sound like you're offering the good stew instead of the thin one."
"Then we need ingredients," he said. "Not just any wood will do."
Lysa grabbed her cloak. "The capital has an entire district that smells like sawdust and molten metal," she said. "If we can't find something there, I'll be very disappointed."
Naera looked up from the scroll she'd been pretending to focus on. "You're both going out?"
"Crafters' quarter," Lysa said. "Bow project."
Naera's gaze flicked to Trin, then to Lysa. "Don't let him talk you into anything that will explode," she said.
"I'll do the talking him out of things," Lysa replied. "He's the one who thinks about failure three steps ahead."
"That's why I'm worried," Naera said dryly.
Trin inclined his head. "We'll be back before supper."
They stepped out into the street.
The crafters' section was not far—a tangle of streets where the smells changed from cooking and river to oil, smoke, hot metal, wood shavings, and dye. Shops opened onto the street with their fronts wide: carpenters planing boards, leatherworkers cutting hides, glassblowers rotating molten blobs at the mouth of furnaces.
They tried a few places first.
At a bowyer's stall, Trin handled the pre‑cut staves on display, but nothing called to him. The wood was good, but mass‑produced, shaped more for predictability than the particular way Lysa moved. The prices were high, as befitted a capital, and while Lysa grumbled about that, Trin's real disinterest came from the lack of…resonance.
"It would work," he said, putting one back. "But it would be like wearing someone else's boots."
"I've done that," Lysa said. "Blisters for days. Hard pass."
They moved on.
At a general lumber yard, stacks of planks towered, but most were for construction—beam and brace, not fine limbs and balanced draw. Trin ran his hand along a few, feeling their weight, but shook his head.
"Too heavy," he said. "Too stiff. Or too soft."
"Picky, picky," Lysa said, though there was no real complaint in it.
It was at a weaponsmith's shop that they found it.
The place smelled of hot iron and quenched steel. Blades hung on the wall behind the counter—swords, daggers, axes—their edges catching the lanternlight. A broad‑shouldered man with burn scars on his forearms and a neatly braided beard stood behind the counter, polishing a sword.
"Looking for steel?" he asked as they entered.
"Looking for material," Trin said. "For a bow. Not metal."
"We're in the wrong place, then," the smith said, setting the cloth aside. "I shape things that stab, not things that throw things that stab."
"Humor me," Trin said. "Do you keep scrap? Offcuts. Things that didn't become what you wanted."
The smith gave him an odd look, then jerked his chin toward the back. "Got a bin of odds and ends," he said. "Old handles, brace bits, the odd piece of mixed wood and metal that didn't work out. Junk, mostly. But if you want to pick through it, I won't stop you."
He led them to a side area where a waist‑high crate sat half-filled with remnants—short rods, warped strips, hanks of old leather, a few metal tangs from broken swords.
Trin approached it and felt something in his chest…shift.
Most of the crate was what the smith had said: discarded attempts and leftovers. But somewhere within the pile, something else hummed softly at the edge of his senses, like a note held under too much noise.
He began to move pieces aside, methodical, hands swifter than they looked.
Lysa watched, arms folded, eyebrows climbing. "You look like a raccoon in a jewelry box," she murmured.
He didn't answer.
His fingers brushed something halfway down—a length of wood perhaps as long as his forearm, partly wrapped in tarnished metal bands. It looked like the remnant of a failed spear haft or a broken reinforced rod.
When he touched it, the quiet hum sharpened.
He lifted it free.
Up close, the material was…odd. The wood was dense, fine‑grained, with threads of darker color winding through it like veins. The metal bands—three of them, spaced irregularly—had partially fused into the wood, as if someone had tried to bind two different things and then given up halfway.
"This," Trin said softly.
The smith peered over. "That?" he said. "Tried to make a reinforced staff once. Thought I could embed a core in a fancy wood I bought from a river trader. Never quite took. Too stiff. Too springy. Didn't behave like normal oak, didn't behave like ash. I tossed the rest in there. Useless, far as I'm concerned."
Trin turned the piece in his hands.
The grain wanted to curve. He could feel it, a potential line of motion running through it that had nothing to do with its current straight shape. The way it had resisted the smith's purpose made sense: it did not want to be a staff. It wanted to become something that bent, held, released.
"Not useless," Trin said. "Just miscast."
Lysa leaned in. "You thinking bow?" she asked.
"I'm thinking," he said, "that with some work, this could become one that won't fail you when it matters."
"Looks short," the smith said skeptically.
"It won't when I'm done," Trin replied.
The smith shrugged. "If you can make anything decent out of that, you deserve it. As far as I'm concerned, it's junk."
"How much for the junk?" Lysa asked.
The man waved a hand. "Couple of silver, and that's mostly for the story you'll owe me if you ever bring it back finished. I'd charge more if I thought it would work."
Lysa glanced at Trin. He nodded once.
She dug into her pouch and handed over the coins. The smith swept them up, bemused.
"If that thing turns into a legendary weapon," he said, "remember where you got it."
"I will," Trin said.
They left the shop, Lysa practically bouncing beside him.
"So?" she pressed. "Is it special, or are we just paying for your intuition?"
"Both," he said. "Something about it…aligns. It wants to bend. That's a good start."
She shook her head. "You and Naera both," she said. "Feeling things that wood and stone 'want.' I'm going to end up paranoid about chairs having opinions."
"Some do," Trin said.
She gave him a look. "Don't start."
Back at the guest house, they claimed the common room table.
Trin unwrapped his tools and set the salvaged piece in front of him. Lysa hovered for a moment, then went to the doorway, leaning there to watch with her arms folded so she wouldn't be tempted to grab and interfere.
He worked.
First he removed the metal bands, heating them just enough over the small kitchen flame to loosen their grip without scorching the wood. They peeled away reluctantly, leaving shallow impressions where they'd bitten in. The wood beneath was unmarked by burn or rot.
He tested its flex.
It resisted at first—stubborn, tense—but then gave slightly, as if remembering it could. He encouraged that memory, shaving away tiny curls with his knife, following the natural line of the grain. Bit by bit, a curve emerged.
Lysa whistled under her breath. "It's…pretty," she said.
"It will be functional," he replied. "Pretty is a side effect."
He shaped the limbs longer, splicing in additional reinforcing wood from his limited stock where needed, binding it with careful joinery. The salvaged material took to the additions as if they were always meant to be there, the grain lines matching more easily than chance should allow.
By the time the light outside shifted toward evening, an above‑average bow lay on the table. The curve was clean, the limbs balanced, the grip sized for Lysa's hand. It looked like something a master bowyer in a good city shop might produce after several careful commissions.
Lysa moved in, eyes bright.
"That's mine?" she said. "You're not going to sell it to some lordling instead?"
"It's yours," Trin said. "But not finished yet."
She frowned. "It looks finished."
"Not without a string," he said. "And that, I think, you should let me do alone."
Suspicion flickered. "Why?"
"Because you wanted something better than a clever reshaping," he said. "And this is where I stop being only a very good craftsman."
She studied him for a heartbeat, weighing trust against curiosity. "Fine," she said at last. "I'll go pester Naera about something complicated so she doesn't notice what you're doing."
He inclined his head. "Give me a little while."
When she had gone—when the house was quiet save for the muffled murmur of Naera's voice in the next room—Trin rested his hands lightly on the new bow.
It was good work. Solid. Balanced. Any archer would have been pleased with it as it stood.
But he had more to give, in small, careful ways.
He closed his eyes and reached for that returning ember of power inside himself.
It answered more readily than it had weeks ago. Not a roaring torrent. A controlled, bright thread.
He held his hands a few inches apart, fingers curved as if around an invisible line. Between them, something shimmered—faint, like a heat mirage, then tightening, condensing.
He was careful.
Too much, and the result would hum with power in a way any mage could sense from across a room. Too little, and it would be no different from the best ordinary string.
He thought of the way Lysa drew and released. The rhythm of her shots. The way her fingers sometimes reddened after long practice. He thought of durability, of strain, of the need for something that would not snap in rain or cold.
A thread appeared between his fingers.
It was pale, almost colorless, with a slight iridescence if the light caught it a certain way. It felt smooth and strong, neither gut nor sinew nor any simple fiber this world spun, but not alien enough to scream its origin.
He anchored it carefully to the bow's nocks, wrapping and tying it with practiced hands. As it settled into place, the whole weapon seemed to…attune. The salvaged wood, the reinforcing pieces, the new string—all of it humming in a quiet, cohesive way that went beyond simple material harmony.
He pulled it gently.
The bow flexed with satisfying resistance, no creak, no complaint. The string held, singing a note too high for most ears to register when plucked, but clear in his senses.
He smiled, small and genuine.
"This," he murmured, "is good."
He laid the bow across the table and stepped back, taking it in.
It did not blaze with visible magic. It did not crackle or glow. To most eyes, it would simply be an exceptionally well-made weapon—clean lines, odd but beautiful wood, a string that looked unusually fine.
But he could feel what it would do in Lysa's hands: the way her draw would become smoother, her shots more consistent, the strain on her fingers lessened. The bow would forgive small errors, reward good form, and keep its strength in conditions that would weaken lesser strings.
Not legendary. Not a relic that would draw covetous eyes from across a battlefield.
Just…exactly what she needed.
Trin rested his fingertips lightly on the wood, feeling the subtle hum under his skin.
"Above average," he said softly to himself. "Let's leave it at that."
For a moment, he simply stood there, marveling—not at his power, but at the fact that he could still use it like this. Not to move stars or seal demons, but to make one person's work in the world a little steadier.
Then he lifted the bow, weighing it once more, and smiled at the thought of Lysa's inevitable reaction.