Chapter 142. Two Weeks of Genuine Love, Different Category Entirely
"The way you read him... it was like you were reading his next three moves before he even made them."
"It’s a survival skill. Mostly a harmless one."
"I want you to teach me."
William stopped walking and looked at her. "You want to learn how to haggle?"
"I want to learn anything that makes me look less like an easy target in a marketplace, yes." Catherine tucked the scarves carefully into her bag, a faint flush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks. "I can face down a chimera without flinching, yet I apparently cannot manage a simple price negotiation without nearly handing over my entire purse."
"I’ll teach you," William promised, stepping closer to her, his tone softening. "Eventually."
"But today is supposed to be about not learning anything. We agreed: no training, no drills, no new skills."
Catherine rolled her eyes, but there was a lightness in them he hadn’t seen in years. "That seems like a strange goal for someone who spends ninety percent of his time teaching."
"Even instructors need a day off from being instructors," William said, offering her his arm. "Now, come on."
"I believe there’s an ice cream vendor two stalls down who owes us a demonstration of whether his prices are as inflated as that merchant’s."
They continued through the market at an easy, unhurried pace, letting the sensory overload of the district wash over them. They sampled honey-glazed nuts, bitter-spiced wine, and warm meat pies, each bite a small victory against the starvation of their usual hectic lives.
Catherine laughed, really laughed, and more freely than William had heard from her at any point outside their most private, unguarded moments. It was a sound he wanted to memorize, a fragile melody that seemed almost defiant against the backdrop of the world they inhabited.
As they approached the outer edges of the district, the cheerful chaos of the market began to fade, replaced by the rhythmic, hypnotic percussion of the smithing quarter. The steady clang-clang-clang of hammer on anvil drifted through the air like a heartbeat.
William felt the weight of the secret in his pocket not a physical object, but the knowledge of what waited ahead. With deliberate, carefully practiced casualness, he steered them toward the familiar silhouette of the forge.
"Let’s stop by Grock’s for a moment," William suggested, keeping his tone light. "Just to say hello."
"It’s been far too long since either of us properly visited."
Catherine, entirely unsuspecting and still riding the high of their afternoon, nodded readily. "Grock is a good man... Though his prices are as stubborn as his beard."
William smiled to himself, a small, private flutter of anticipation settling in his chest. He wasn’t just bringing her to see an old friend; he was bringing her to see a gift that acknowledged exactly who she was becoming.
The moment they stepped through the heavy oak door, the heat of the forge rolled over them like a physical wave, thick with the smell of coal smoke, heated iron, and sweat. Grock looked up from his workbench immediately.
The dwarf was a mountain of a man, scarred and soot stained, but as his eyes landed on them, the usual gruff, impatient energy drained from his face. Instead, his expression softened into something warmer, something almost sentimental a rare vulnerability that made William realize just how much Grock had respected them both.
"There you are," Grock rumbled, setting down his hammer with surprising gentleness. "Good timing."
"I finished the final tempering yesterday, and... I was wondering when you’d finally show up to collect it, you bastard."
Catherine arched an eyebrow, glancing between William’s knowing smirk and Grock’s obvious eagerness.
"Collect what?" she asked, her curiosity piqued. "William... what did you do?"
Grock didn’t answer directly. He simply grunted, wiping his massive hands on a leather apron, and disappeared into the shadowed depths of the back workshop.
Catherine waited, her arms crossed, her tactical mind already spinning through possibilities. ’Did he order new whetstones? A replacement dagger?’
Minutes passed before Grock emerged. He wasn’t carrying tools this time.
He was carrying a set of armor draped carefully across both arms, as if he were holding something sacred.
It was forged from a pale, silvery metal that seemed to drink in the forge’s firelight, reflecting it back in soft, shifting patterns that moved like water. The design was unmistakable; it carried the echoes of traditional knight’s plate, but it had been radically transformed.
Gone was the clunky, restrictive bulk of standard infantry armor. This was something else entirely.
The joints were articulated with impossible precision, designed for the kind of rapid, unpredictable, almost supernatural movement that the Wind Stance demanded. Every piece looked lighter than air, yet the way the metal held its shape suggested a terrifying resilience.
Delicate engravings ran along the edges—subtle, flowing patterns that whispered of old heraldry. They echoed the lost symbols of the White Sword of Astoria without copying them directly; it was as if Grock had taken the memory of her past and forged it into something new, something that belonged to her present.
"William came to me nearly two weeks back," Grock said, his voice dropping to a respectful register as he laid the suit across the workbench for Catherine to examine. "Said he needed something special."
"Something for a warrior who doesn’t stand still long enough to be hit."
Catherine stepped closer, her breath catching audibly. She reached out, her fingertips hovering just millimeters above the silvery surface.
"William..." she whispered, her voice thick with something she couldn’t quite name.
"He asked me to build something specifically for your fighting style, lass," Grock continued, watching her with keen eyes. "Dual wield."
"Built around speed rather than raw defense."
"Took some doing, getting the weight distribution right so it wouldn’t throw off your balance during a spin or a lunge, but I think you’ll find it holds up beautifully once you’re actually moving in it."
"It won’t just protect you; it’ll move with you."
Catherine stared at the armor, utterly speechless. For a moment, the only sound in the forge was the distant crackle of the coals and the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the dwarf.
Her fingers hovered millimeters above the intricate engravings, trembling slightly. The silvery metal seemed to pulse with its own inner light, a silent testament to countless hours of sweat, hammer blows, and molten fire.
"I didn’t call it White Sword armor," Grock continued, his voice rough as grinding stone, though a rare softness lingered beneath the gravel. "Didn’t seem right, given everything I understand happened recently."
"Called it something else instead... The White Knight of Astoria." He paused, meeting her eyes with unexpected gravity. "Because you’re not just a blade anymore, lass."
"You’re not just something to be wielded, but you... are the whole knight standing behind it."
The words seemed to strike Catherine harder than any physical blow. Her throat tightened, her breathing becoming shallow as the weight of the recognition sank in.
She wasn’t just a survivor of a fallen order; she was the embodiment of its resilience.
"Grock," Catherine managed to whisper, her voice thick with raw emotion, cracking at the edges. "This is... I don’t even know what to—"
"Don’t you dare get sappy on me, girl!" Grock barked, waving a massive, soot-stained hand as if physically batting away her gratitude. "I’ve got a reputation to maintain around here, and I won’t have it ruined by whatever misty eyed nonsense you’re about to spew."
Yet, despite his gruff dismissal, the pride blazing in his weathered eyes was unmistakable. It was the pride of a creator who had poured his soul into his craft.
He turned his gaze toward the fire for a moment, his shoulders squaring. "I watched you grow up in the shadow of this forge, back when you used to visit just to escape the training grounds and talk my ear off."
"I watched you disappear into whatever hellish thing happened to you after that dungeon, too." His voice dropped lower, almost reverent. "I never fully understood what you went through the darkness you carried until recently."
"But seeing you standing here now... seeing you whole again? That’s worth more to an old craftsman than any mountain of gold the crown ever paid me."
The silence that followed was heavy, charged with the unspoken history they all shared. Catherine looked down at the armor, a single tear threatening to spill before she blinked it away.
Then, as if suddenly remembering he was surrounded by people, Grock snapped his attention toward William, his expression shifting instantly back to its default state of irritable gruffness.
"And you." He pointed a thick finger at William’s chest. "I expect that armor to be properly maintained, understood?"
"I mean it this time! Oiled joints, polished plating, the full routine!"
"I won’t have my second best piece of work rusting away in some corner because you two are too busy playing heroes to remember basic upkeep."
William raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the emotional tension in the room.
"Second best?" he repeated, feigning deep offense. "I thought Aetherion was your undisputed masterpiece, Grock."
Grock crossed his massive arms over his barrel chest, looking entirely satisfied with his own logic. "Aetherion was four years of stubborn, maddening obsession."
"A fight between me and the metal." He glanced sideways at Catherine, then back to William. "This? This was two weeks of genuine love..."
"Different categories entirely, boy. Don’t compare ’em."
He stepped back, physically retreating behind his anvil as if to re-establish his fortress of gruff professionalism. "Now, get out of my forge before you make me say something else embarrassingly sentimental."
"I’ve got real work to do, and you two are contaminating my workspace with all this... feeling."