“Mother didn’t break your clay bowls when you left, Davren,” Kezra said. Her voice dropped into a quiet, steady beat that carried the rhythm of their childhood kitchen. “She didn’t smash anything into grog. But when you packed your rucksack in the loft that morning, you took your second-best skinning knife—the one with the notched pine handle—and left your good bench knife behind.”
Davren blinked, his breath catching in his throat. “The horn-handled knife?”
“The horn-handled knife,” Kezra affirmed, nodding slowly. “The one Father shaped from an old scythe blade and hafted with mountain ram’s horn. You left it wrapped in an oiled flannel rag on the high timber shelf directly above the main throwing wheel. You thought you were being generous, leaving a good tool behind for the workshop. But do you know what Mother did with it?”
Davren shook his head silently, his eyes fixed on her mouth.
The bench knife was not an ordinary tool. It was the sharpest piece of hardened steel in Kilnstep. Their father had drawn the temper in sheep fat over a charcoal hearth thirty years ago. They hammered the spine thick and true so it wouldn’t flex when paring dry clay or cutting harness leather. The horn handle had been smoothed by decades of their father’s calloused palm, the grain polished to a deep, semi-clear amber that caught the morning light off the river.
