The courier, a lanky youth with mud streaking his tunic, fumbled the package. It wasn't the usual crate of high-grade silica or the latest shipment of shimmer-dust from the Obsidian Depths. This one was wrapped in gaudy, cerulean ribbons and smelled faintly of cheap rosewater. I eyed it from my perch on a teetering stool, my vitromancer’s goggles pushed up into my tangled hair. “That’s not mine, boy. My commissions are usually less… fluffy.”
“Shavara Denth, isn’t it?” he squeaked, consulting a smudged parchment. “Yes, ma’am. Lord Kethran Vael’s estate. Sent directly to the Crystal Forges. Said it was urgent.” He thrust the box into my arms. It was surprisingly heavy. Kethran? It had been weeks since he’d bothered to send anything but an aggressively polite missive regarding a ‘postponed’ engagement.
I tore open the paper, expecting some lavish apology gem. Instead, my fingers met cold, etched glass. I hauled out the glass statuette, tilting it toward the kiln's orange glare. My jaw didn't drop. My stomach didn't lurch. I simply stared. It was a glass sculpture, roughly a foot tall, depicting Kethran Vael – rendered in surprisingly accurate, if overly rosy, detail – locked in an embrace with a woman. A woman who looked remarkably like me. Or rather, a softer, less sarcastic, distinctly *weeping* version of me, with larger, more helpless eyes and a dress that billowed far too dramatically for static glass. He was kissing her forehead. She clung to his arm as if he were the last shard of sanity in a shattering world.
“The craftsmanship,” I murmured, turning the piece slowly. “It’s… atrocious. Look at the inadequate annealing on the shoulder joint. And the hair! Whoever fired this has never seen a proper curl in their life. It’s like a cluster of glass noodles.”
“Ma’am?” the courier stammered, his gaze darting from the statuette to my face, then back.
“The artist clearly prioritised saccharine sentiment over structural integrity,” I continued, poking the fragile glass hand. “And the choice of cerulean for the gown? Ghastly. Absolutely ghastly. It clashes horribly with Kethran’s rather sallow complexion. He always did look better in emeralds.” My gaze sharpened. “Take this back to Lord Kethran. Tell him his taste has deteriorated along with his judgment.”
The courier gulped, clearly terrified. “But… it’s a gift, ma’am. A token of… affection.”
“Oh, I assure you, it is. But not for *me*.” I took it back. “No, on second thought, leave it. I’ll deliver this critique myself. Where is he staging his latest pity party? The Vael estate, I presume?”
***
The Vael estate’s gardens were a sprawling, meticulously manicured nightmare of topiary beasts and imported weeping willows. The air hung thick with the scent of ‘refined’ perfumes and the clinking of champagne flutes. Kethran, a man whose spine perpetually slumped, presided beside a fountain shaped like a preening griffin. He gestured expansively, his voice carrying on the breeze, describing a new, experimental sand-kiln he’d supposedly acquired. Beside him, dressed in a dress of truly offensive cerulean, stood Ninza. The ‘weeping stand-in,’ as the gossips had dubbed her. She looked exactly like the statuette. She even had the slightly tremulous lip.
I strode through the gathered nobles, my boots kicking up perfectly raked gravel. Heads turned. Whispers started like a ripple through still water. Shavara Denth. The ‘White Moonlight’ of society. The one who’d been so fragile, so delicate, so conveniently ill. The one who’d disappeared from society’s eyes only to return, apparently, with the grace of a charging glass rhino.
Kethran caught sight of me. His face, already a delicate shade of rose, drained to the colour of unmixed clay. Ninza, however, merely blinked, a flicker of something unreadable in her wide, innocent eyes.
“Shavara!” Kethran stammered, his hand instinctively going to Ninza’s arm. “What… what a surprise! You’re… looking well.”
“Am I?” I stopped directly in front of them, lifting the hideous glass casting aloft like a subpoena. “And you, Kethran, are looking rather… generic. As is your taste in art. And, apparently, your choice in partners.”
A hush fell over the garden. The clink of flutes ceased. All eyes were on us.
“This,” I declared, twirling the trinket for the benefit of the hushed crowd, “was mistakenly delivered to my forge. Imagine my shock. It’s a truly execrable piece of vitromancy. The flow lines are appalling, the colour palette is a crime against optics, and the emotional resonance is so overwrought it practically weeps glitter.” I gestured to Ninza. “She, however, has managed to replicate its precise, simpering expression flawlessly.”
Ninza’s tremulous lip didn’t move, but a fleeting, almost imperceptible wink caught my eye. It was quick, a flash of shared, wicked amusement, gone before Kethran could notice.
Kethran’s face was now the colour of an overripe plum. “Shavara, please! This is a private matter. We can discuss this later. Ninza is a guest!”
“Oh, it’s hardly private when you commission a public shrine to your new… affections,” I said, my voice carrying clearly. “And as for discussing it later, there’s nothing to discuss. Our engagement, Kethran, is hereby terminated. Officially. Publicly. And without prejudice to my considerable reputation.”
He gaped, his jaw working. “But… you were ill! I waited for you! I had to… there were expectations… responsibilities…”
“Responsibilities?” I scoffed, dropping the glass into the hands of a passing footman, who looked like he wanted to evaporate. “Kethran, darling, let’s be brutally honest. I only entertained your tedious proposals for access to your family’s advanced sand-kilns. Your ancestors were pioneers in high-refraction glass, and I admired their dedication. You, on the other hand, barely know a crucible from a cooling tray.” I smiled, a wide, utterly disarming smile. “Now that I’ve sufficiently recovered, I find I no longer require the distraction of a fiancé whose primary contribution to Vitromancy is a vague awareness of its existence. Consider your family vaults safe from my ambitious designs. For now.”
Another choked gasp swept through the guests. Kethran looked as though he might spontaneously combust into a pile of ash. Ninza, however, was now studying her fingernails, a faint smirk playing on her lips.
“I have far grander ambitions than being Lady Vael, Kethran,” I continued, my gaze sweeping over the astonished faces. “I intend to win the Imperial Menagerie Commission. I shall build a giant glass dragon, one that breathes genuine, searing kiln-fire. A dragon that will make your anemic topiary animals look like discarded trinkets.” I adjusted my goggles, the gesture both casual and intensely deliberate. “And I don’t need a pathetic, stammering ex-fiancé or his secondhand kilns to do it. I will do it with my own forge. The old Denth workshop. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do.”
Without another glance at Kethran, who stood there, utterly flayed, I turned on my heel and marched past the hedge row. The chatter reignited only after I cleared the wrought-iron gates, buzzing into an outright scandal. I ignored them, my mind already racing with designs for crystalline scales and articulated wings. The Denth workshop awaited. My ancestral forge.
I pushed open the heavy, soot-stained doors, the familiar scent of iron and fired clay a welcome embrace. But the workshop was not empty. A figure stood amidst the dormant kilns, silhouetted against the single shaft of sunlight piercing the grimy ceiling. He was tall, lean, and his shoulders were broad, a contrast to Kethran’s perpetual slump. He turned, fixing me with grey, level eyes: Voshari Fenn, my most infuriating rival. His hand went to his hip, unsheathing a blade of pure, obsidian-dark glass. It shimmered with contained power.
“Shavara Denth,” Voshari said, his voice a flat, emotionless statement. “Your old forge. It now belongs to me.”