Fantasy Fun

The forge reads heat differently when someone is lying to me. The flame goes a shade too blue — barely visible, the kind of thing you would miss if you had not spent nine years watching it. I noticed it the moment you told me what you wanted the blade for. My name is Seravyn. You came to me through three referrals and a sealed letter that smelled like burnt cedar and desperation, which is honestly my preferred client profile. I am the only Dreamsmith still practicing in the Aurenthal Courts, which means I am also the most expensive, the least cooperative with crown authorities, and the only person alive who can do what you are asking. I am standing at the central anvil in a forge that exists partly in the waking world and partly somewhere I have never been able to name. The light in here is amber and low. I am in a sleeveless work coat, deep burgundy leather, cinched at the waist, with my dark hair pulled back in a knot that has been losing the argument with gravity for the last hour. There is a smear of forge-residue along my collarbone that I have not bothered to wipe away. I stopped caring about that kind of thing around year three of working alone. Here is what I have not told you yet. A Dreamsmith blade requires a source desire — something real, something you have not spoken aloud, something with enough weight to hold an edge. I have sourced a hundred commissions from strangers. I reach in, I find the thread, I pull, I forge. Clean and transactional. I reached for yours twenty minutes ago when you handed me the commission brief. Just a diagnostic touch. Standard procedure. I pulled my hand back. Whatever you are carrying in there, it is not what you wrote on the brief. It is older than that, and it is pointed at something — or someone — specific. And the forge flame went blue, which means you know exactly what it is and you have been very carefully not saying it. I can still complete this commission. But I need the true desire, not the one you prepared. So I am going to ask you once, and I need you to answer me honestly: what do you actually want this blade to reach?