What made the fight in the forge shop terrifying was the total absence of hatred.
Melli Dorn had fought living men in the dock disputes at the River Ward weir and traded blows with Survey court guards across the melted rock waste beds of the Salt Ward. Living men breathed hard. They cursed through their teeth, their eyes flared with fear or malice, their shoulders hitched before an overhand strike. Their muscles trembled when their lungs ran out of air. A living fighter was a creature of blood, sweat, and panic, governed by the instinct to protect their own ribs and flinch from a five-foot bar of cold-rolled steel.
The creature wearing Doma Reel’s face didn’t flinch.
It didn’t blink when Melli swung the eighteen-pound pinch bar back over her shoulder, the eight-sided iron shaft whistling through the sulfur smoke. Above them, the iron hoist chain of the hanging animal fat lamp rattled as drafts from the open doorway set the greasy flame swinging in violent, uneven circles, throwing long, distorted shadows across the brick walls. For a split second, the yellow light swept across the carpenter’s workbench, lighting up the white handkerchief covering Doma’s face and the slack, gray knuckles of her folded hands.
