The sword forge in Red Iron Valley, in the Land of Iron, lay hidden between two red cliff faces.
Serina, Mingchen, Soundless, and Uncle Teuchi, who had pushed his ramen cart all the way from the Boundary River, arrived at dusk. Kikyo waited for them at the entrance, the iron cover over her left eye glowing red in the furnace light. Behind her, dozens of forging furnaces burned at once-the Land of Iron had not produced a "living blade" in three years. This time, the old smith Iwasa was forging the first blade to regain its "trailing resonance," and Kikyo considered it more important than the northern border's defenses.
"The blade blank is on its ninth heat." Kikyo led them inside, her voice muffled by the roar of the furnaces. "Once the final hammer stroke falls and it's quenched, the blade will have a soul. You came at just the right time to hear it ring."
Before the largest furnace at the center of the forge, the old smith Iwasa stood bare-chested, his bronze muscles covered in burn scars. He held a long-handled iron hammer in both hands, its head raised high above the white-hot blade blank on the anvil-
At the very instant the hammer was about to fall, the Sinking Light in Serina's left shoulder suddenly chilled.
It was not cold. It was "stop."
The entire sword forge froze in the same millisecond.
The furnace still shone, but the tips of its flames had solidified into a golden-red lotus that would never sway. The hammer hung in midair, only three inches between its head and the blade blank-that three-inch gap had become eternity. Iwasa's face still held the expression of a man about to exert himself: eyes creased, teeth clenched, muscles bulging-everything "about to happen" had become trapped