Chapter 20: Coldveil
The plateau sheltered us from the wind, its view opening toward the southeast, with an overhanging rock providing cover from above.
We divided the work naturally. He went to gather kindling while I organized the camp, moving loose stones aside and building a fire circle on the leeward side. By the time he returned, I had everything ready.
Then I discovered I didn't know how to start a fire.
It wasn't that I didn't understand the theory. I had read books containing entire chapters on wilderness fire-starting, with detailed instructions on using flint, the best types of tinder, how humidity affected ignition, and emergency alternatives under adverse conditions. I remembered all of it, even the opening sentence of that particular book: Adequate preparation is the prerequisite for successful fire-starting.
Adequate preparation.
The flint struck sparks on the first piece of tinder. The sparks died. The second time, they died again. The third time, one corner of the tinder caught, and I leaned in to blow on it—the flame went out immediately. I rearranged the kindling material, forming it into the "bird's nest shape" the book had described, and struck it a fourth time. It caught, but after two breaths it was gone again.
Cade crouched beside me, took the flint from my hands, used it twice, and the fire came to life—steady, without going out again.
He glanced at me.
"You're serious," he said. Not a question.
"None of the methods I know are working." I threw the remaining tinder in my hand onto the ground with more force than necessary.
"I'm extremely curious now whether one of those methods was 'find someone who knows how to start a fire.'"
He added a few thin twigs to the fire. Once it stabilized, he stood, retrieved a small iron pot from his pack, poured water into it, then walked toward the edge of the woods and disappeared for a while.
I sat down by the fire and opened my notebook. The night wind was beginning to turn cold, coming from behind, while the fire faced it directly. Heat radiated from the front, but my back remained cold. I pressed the notebook steady against my knees and organized today's terrain records, then sketched the hybrid creature we'd encountered, marking the structure of its horns and the location of its luminescent organs.
About twenty minutes later, Cade returned carrying a handful of wild vegetables I didn't recognize and several pieces of meat cut from our emergency rations. He set the iron pot over the fire, added everything together, then reached into a small leather pouch at his waist and extracted something—a powder, reddish in color.
"What's that," I said.
"Spice," he said.
"Where did it come from."
"I carry it with me."
"Hunters carry spice around? Can't monsters smell it?"
"Hunters also need to eat," he said. "And you haven't seen the difference between my terrible cooking and my good cooking, so you shouldn't mock this decision, bookworm."
I lowered my head and swallowed the sharper words that wanted to come out, returning to my notes.
The pot began to make sounds, then came the smell—first the green bitterness of wild vegetables, then overtaken by the pungent warmth of that red spice, transforming into a rich aroma that carried far through the air. I glanced up at the pot, then back down at my writing, then up at the pot again.
Cade lifted the iron pot, ladled a portion into his own cup, then pushed another portion toward me.
I took a sip, and my eyes widened.
I had tasted various delicacies at court, yet even so, this soup's flavor was remarkable. It was complex—the bitter base of wild vegetables, the saltiness of meat, with that red spice binding them together. The aftertaste was warm, carrying a mild heat that flowed down the throat, leaving my stomach with a sense of having been genuinely cared for. This was better than the soup at certain formal banquets I'd attended, and disproportionately so.
"Where did you learn this," I said, my eating pace accelerating.
"Picked it up here and there," he replied in a tone that made it clear he had no intention of elaborating on details, taking a sip from his own cup—though the pride on his face was anything but hidden. "Is there a problem?"
"No problem," I said. "I was just thinking that the things you know, and the range that the word 'hunter' can cover, are much broader than I expected."
"To survive out here, you have to know a bit of everything."
I finished that cup of soup and found myself wanting more. He noticed but didn't call me out on it, simply ladled me another bowl. I held the bowl in my hands, my face slightly flushed—whether from the fire or something else, I couldn't say.
The pot was soon empty. Cade rinsed it with water and returned it to his pack.
After that, he drew his sword and began sharpening it. The fire burned steadily, and the sound of the whetstone against steel alternated with the crackling flames, creating an unexpectedly peaceful background noise. I continued writing notes to this rhythm, occasionally glancing up at him. He kept his head down, his movements even and focused, the blade catching the firelight in regular flashes with each cycle.
"The material of that blade," I finally broke the silence. "Of all the swords I've seen, none have that same luster."
"Coldveil," he said. "That's what my master named it. I don't know what the actual material is called. He said ordinary steel bounces off magical shields, but Coldveil's grain structure can find gaps in magical barriers and slide through. Like cold air seeping through the eye of a needle in thick cloth—no matter how thick the fabric, if there's a hole, it can penetrate." He flipped the blade and began sharpening the other side. "Can't be made anymore. The craft is lost, or maybe it was never systematically documented in the first place. It took him two years to find this piece of raw material. From when I completed my training until his death, this was the only piece."
He spoke flatly, as if we weren't discussing the better part of his life.
"Where did he learn it, then?" I asked.
He paused, the whetstone hovering over the blade for half a second before falling back into rhythm.
"Never said," he replied. "I asked once. He told me knowing the source wouldn't make the blade any sharper."
I wisely stopped there—such moments were rare. Because I could read the faint sadness in him. His experiences were likely the kind that would bring tears to those who heard them.
"You write everything down," he said, changing the subject as expected.
I shrugged. The light had grown too dim now; I could barely make out my own handwriting, so I closed the notebook.
"Anything useful gets recorded."
"So what I just said," he gestured toward my closed notebook, "what use is writing that down?"
"Not certain yet," I said, slightly embarrassed that he'd noticed. "Human memory can't be trusted. Better to record more things on paper than less."
He didn't respond to that. After a few seconds of silence, he lowered his head and resumed sharpening, the rhythm of the whetstone unchanged, though something about it felt different—I couldn't quite pinpoint what.
It was time to change watch shifts.
"You sleep," he said. "I'll take the first watch."
I had been about to say I could take the latter half, but seeing the sword in his hands still unfinished, I reconsidered. I removed my robe, covered myself with it, and lay down, using my pack as a pillow.
The outline of the overhead rock gradually lost its edges in the darkness. The sounds of fire and whetstone came from my left—steady, regular, like something dependable.
I fell asleep to that regular rhythm not long after.