This story exists in the universe of my story The Tisroc and the King. If you haven't read that, you might want to wait until you've finished chapter 9 to read this (there are some spoilers, which are written below).

If you don't intend to go and read that story, here are the spoilers: Aravis never escaped Calormen, and instead married Rabadash. Rabadash became Tisroc, but then died in his ambush attack on Archenland, and Aravis manipulated the situation in a way that resulted in her becoming Tisroc in his stead. Now she's going to war with Archenland. Almost everyone in the government hates her, and no one thinks she stands a chance.

This story is intended to give you a glimpse of what was happening to people outside of the political drama.

It is the craft that has always attracted Irfaan to the red-lit darkness of the forge, far beyond any ambitions to mingle with the powerful. Indeed, years before he was even named Head Smith for the Tisroc (may he live forever), he had no further aspirations but to make beautiful things: from an engraved helm for Prince Jarrash to the steel case that housed hundreds of sticks of incense in the Temple of Zardeenah.

But staring at the forge now, which burns into his eyes relentlessly, he fights the urge to shiver despite the heat, still dressed in his finest tunic, a pristine turban wrapped around his head – his outfit in stark contrast to the shabbiness of the place around him. Political entanglements are ugly, his father said when Irfaan was a child in Azim Balda, and his father shied away from offering gifts to smug Tarkaans like the other merchants. Political entanglements are ugly.

But Head Smith seemed impartial enough, back when Adeben Tisroc (upon him be the peace of the gods) ruled, and his reign was expected to perhaps even outlive Irfaan's own career. The position came with benefits, of course: a fine home with a fountain in the courtyard, a decent enough variety of suitors for Almah, and enough assignments of fine armor to keep Irfaan pleased for years.

And then Adeben Tisroc (upon him be the peace of the gods) died, and Rabadash Tisroc (upon him be the peace of the gods) took up the rule, and now—

Well, it is difficult to understand what exactly is happening now.

The iron melts swiftly, consumed by the fire, bright yellows and oranges lighting up the dark walls of the room, and Irfaan is so occupied with his own thoughts that he starts more sharply than he would care to admit when Damaz rushes in, eyes gleaming with excitement.

The teenage boy stops short in his tracks immediately under Irfaan's scathing glare, and folds his dusty hands politely in front of him. But his tone is awash with unbridled curiosity. "How was it?"

Irfaan sniffs. "Are you not supposed to be polishing?"

"I've been polishing!" Damaz protests. "It cannot shine any more than it already is." He lowers his voice, unable to help himself, and glances around like the gods themselves are staring him down. "What was she like?"

Irfaan watches the bloom burn bright white in the fire, then gruffly straightens his much-too elegant turban on his head, seizes the tongs and gestures roughly towards Damaz. "Am I here to report to you? Bring more limestone."

…

The house is a large, whitewashed structure, connected to the forge only by way of a courtyard lined with dusty flowers. It is the nicest home in the neighborhood, certainly, financed by the palace's generous payments. In front of it, Irfaan's wife is waiting, wiping sweat from her brow and narrowing her eyes at Damaz. The heat of Tashbaan has decreased somewhat as the day dies, and the cool breeze of the approaching evening cools Irfaan's brow.

"Did I not tell you to get that fountain working, boy?" Salme calls out to Damaz, pursing her lips. "Now see, your master is back and the yard still looks like we haven't lived here since last summer."

Damaz rolls his eyes, and Salme watches him retreat before turning to Irfaan with a look in her eyes not unlike the one Damaz just had. "Well?" she asks pointedly.

Irfaan clears his throat. "It was…" what can he say? "Strange," he finally replies. "And inefficient."

"Inefficient?"

A head suddenly appears from around the house's doorway. Almah is peering out, her expression playful. "They did not let you take measurements as usual, did they, Father?"

No, they did not. And he stood there uncomfortably, as the Tisroc of Calormen (may she live forever) was measured by slave-girls, and the palace seemed like a strange, unfamiliar place, with courtiers whispering to each other behind pillars and Chlamash Tarkaan's expression so very tense—

He shakes his head, for her benefit, and Salme must recognize his disturbed expression because she quickly ushers them all to supper.

Over flatbread and chickpea dips, the conversation shifts to more familiar territory, much to Irfaan's relief. Salme is all practicality, fixing their only daughter with a stern look that might seem threatening if it did not have a loving spark to it. "I spoke to the Mazar family today," she said. "They will come visit three days from now, and bring their son. He is a good man."

When Almah dips her bread into the eggplant dip, it is with all the viciousness Irfaan has come to expect. "I do not want to meet him, Mother. Can't we wait just one more year?"

"You are already two years behind. All your friends are married."

"Perhaps that's why I have the sense to not wish to be."

"You have been of age for two years. It would be disgraceful to wait any longer. A girl your age should not be without a husband."

"The Tisroc (may she live forever) is."

Salme throws her eyes up to the heavens, as if asking for deliverance. "The Tisroc (may she live forever) was married."

"She is not now."

"And look where that has gotten her."

Irfaan shoots them both sharp looks. "Stop. I will not allow such talk in my home." The women fall silent, although Almah does not seem bothered by the end of the conversation in the slightest. "These are precarious times."

A moment passes before anyone speaks again, and finally it is Almah who breaks the silence. "What is she like, Father?"

He has been expecting the question from her, of course, but nevertheless he is speechless. What could he possibly say?

That she is small? Young, very young?

A look in her eyes so drastically different from that of Rabadash Tisroc, or his father before him, that it is unsettling to have her so near, staring directly at him?

That it is unsettling to witness the combination of her youth, her gender and her absolute power, in one body?

Irfaan is not sure how to describe Aravis Tisroc.

…

Make her armor to withstand the assault of the barbarians, Chlamash Tarkaan told him, a fierceness in his eyes that Irfaan had not seen when Rabadash Tisroc had been alive. Armor worthy of history.

He scoffed, then, because he had yet to meet her, and because all his armor – he foolishly believed – had been worthy of history.

Now, he dreams of the emperors of old crossing the desert, white demons bearing down upon them, and behind them all a string of Irfaan's ancestors falling to their deaths where they stand.

…

Damaz comes early the next morning, and by the time the sun peaks in the sky the ingots are ready.

"Are you…" Damaz clears his throat awkwardly. "Will we have to put…" he reaches up with both hands to his chest in such a vulgar shape that Irfaan is of half a mind to slap him upside the head, except he can feel his own face burn with embarrassment at the thought that has also occurred to him.

"Of course not," he snaps gruffly. "Don't be crude. We do the same we have always done."

But it is not quite so easy. The blackened, flattened ingots lie outstretched on the burnt wood table, and for once, Irfaan cannot visualize the shape they ought to be. He pores over his measurements, as Damaz places their steel-and-cloth model of a man's torso in the center in the room, ready to be dressed.

The Tisroc (may she live forever) is small, much smaller on parchment than she appeared to his eyes, even. Her measurements are scarcely the size of the young boys he often fits for their first full suit of armor.

Perhaps he ought to be approaching it from that angle: if he were to dress a boy, how would he go about it?

He makes modifications in charcoal to his design. Damaz stares nervously over his shoulder until Irfaan scolds him, and then gets to work, hammering down the ingots individually until they are smooth, blackened plates. Irfaan hammers too, with some desperation. A shape is needed: from there, he can begin to work.

It is madness, for the Tisroc (may she live forever) to have announced war on such short notice, so soon after the loss of Rabadash Tisroc (upon him be the peace of the gods), and so soon after her own coronation. But the people are incensed in their rage against the barbarians, and the curse they have inflicted upon the royal family.

Everyone knows that if the Tisroc (may she live forever) could finally rid them of the disease of the North, and take the barbarian lands for the empire, then perhaps she stands a chance.

Blasphemous, that was what he is being. Irfaan hammers down onto the steel as if knocking sense into his own head. There is no use in such thoughts. There is a reason for why he is loath to make up his mind as to the meaning of the new Tisroc and her gender: a Tisroc like her has little chance of surviving past a year.

…

The steel pieces come together, eventually, like a fragmented cage around the iron model, which Damaz has roughly reshaped to make smaller. But the proportions are wrong – that much is obvious the second Irfaan looks at it – and it seems a far cry from the small, grave figure of the woman Irfaan has met.

He says nothing of it, of course, and only hurries Damaz further, not joining the work himself. The boy's question was crude, yes – but what is to be done about the new dimensions a woman's body offers that a man's cannot? Should they be adding new volume to the iron model's chest? Or will the softness of the tissue—

Irfaan stands blushing like a boy in the darkness of the forge, becoming more and more uncomfortable with the prospect of the work. Surely there is a more appropriate way to do this? Should he simply take the safe path and make armor like the ceremonial pieces he makes for young boys, and pray it will be enough?

Armor worthy of history, Chlamash said.

It is an impossible situation.

He is still standing like this when Almah finds him, walking in while fussing over some embroidery in her hands. Irfaan might not have noticed her at all if Damaz did not drop the piece of steel he was working on with a deafening clang, blushing immediately at the sight of his daughter.

Almah pays him no attention. Instead, she walks up to the makeshift skeleton of armor, her saffron-colored dress and the jewels in her hair shining like precious gems in the firelight… so out of place among the soot. In that light, she could be a Tarkheena herself.

"Is this it?" she asks her father, turning away from the blackened steel.

Irfaan lets out a hum of agreement, then frowns, conjuring up his more fatherly manner. "What are you doing here?"

Almah ignores the question. "It looks like a boy's body," she says, and perhaps she does not mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it does to Irfaan, and the blow leaves his artisan's dignity bruised.

"You should not be here," he tells her wearily. Salme will have them both killed if the ash of the forge sticks to their daughter's clothes.

But Almah is already bent over the measurements, embroidery limp and forgotten in her hand. Her eyes skim over the numbers quickly, and then she turns to look at the armor again, shaking her head.

"It's too small, Father."

Irfaan tries to give her the most dismissive look he can. Damaz has already dropped nearly every tool in his vicinity at the shock of having a girl so near, and she is disrupting the weak rhythm they finally found.

But Almah, undeterred, walks up to stand beside the piece. She gestures between herself and the blackened cage. "See? She and I have the same measurements, but your armor is too small."

Reaching out a hand to touch what will become the front of the piece, she fixes Irfaan with a reproachful, though amused, look. "This is not how a woman's body is."

…

Damaz is distracted the next day, glancing over his shoulder at the lonely figure sitting in the courtyard, just far enough from the forge to seem innocuous. Irfaan knows Almah is watching; she always was a curious child, wandering in and playing blacksmith as often as she could until she grew into too much of a woman for it to be deemed appropriate.

Too small, she said, and muttered it again while she looked over the measurements. Too small. Irfaan is out of his depth in a way he cannot remember being since he was an apprentice in the outskirts of Tashbaan, Damaz's age, and still a boy in every way that mattered. It has become clear to him, of course: a child's ribcage cannot be compared to that of a woman, no matter how small she is – and the breasts, bound in some womanly manner, would have to be accounted for.

He shakes his head at such shameful thoughts. There is a reason for why armor is not made for women; a reason for why women do not go to war. What he is doing is unconventional to the extreme, indeed unthinkable to any other blacksmith. Is his desire to gain the favor of the palace so strong that he would willingly step into such a situation? What manner of dark stain will this piece of armor inflict upon his reputation?

"It still looks small to me," Damaz says, pulling Irfaan out of the storm of his thoughts. He is standing before the pieces, which are finally all in place, with a look of profound doubt.

Irfaan looks to Almah again as she sits in the courtyard, in every way appearing a young, dutiful Calormene woman, worthy of being illustrated in a tapestry. He looks at the armor, its true shape still a mystery. And then, rubbing his eyes with frustration and not a little disbelief, he finds himself striding to the entrance and onto the swept dust of the courtyard, calling his daughter's name.

…

Almah stays with them long into the night, and when Salme comes looking, Irfaan makes excuses. He can tell his wife disapproves, but Almah has tied her long dark hair up into wrapped fabric, and gathered her skirts in one hand, and in this manner she walks to and fro in the forge as if she never left since the days when she scampered about, looking like a little soot-covered boy-child.

First, the chest is not right, and at Almah's request Irfaan procures for her layers of sheepskin and leather, and she emerges from a nearby shed with new wisdom – she calculates a new measurement, which Irfaan did not think to request from the handmaidens of the Tisroc (may she live forever); and they work again.

Then, the shoulders. And then Almah has questions: "Is it true that she must cross the entire desert to reach the barbarians?" "Where will the horses get water?" "Will the steel hold against arrows?"

"It will hold against any weapon," Irfaan tells her. "Manmade or otherwise. Our steel is the finest in the Empire."

But not better than the steel of the barbarians in the mountains, he knows, though he does not say it. And days of marching across the hot sands under the blistering sun are only slightly improved by the lighter sort of armor Irfaan is known for. And the gods… will the gods avail such ambition in a woman? Or will they strike it down, like they did Rabadash Tisroc?

He keeps his doubts silent. Almah, mercifully, goes from curious to pensive, and falls into silence as Damaz and Irfaan hammer plates together. She is silent, again, when she tries it on one last time, holding her arms out to show Irfaan the fit.

It fits her perfectly.

"It will do," Irfaan says, clearing his throat, which for a moment seemed to close in on itself. "Now the helm; and that should be easy enough."

But Almah, looking down at the steel that encases her, frowns as Damaz brings forth the same manner of helm they have always manufactured for Tisrocs - a plain helm with a long point at the top, designed to emerge from the folds of a turban.

"Do you plan to dress her like a man?" she asks.

Irfaan frowns also. "She cannot wear a woman's clothes to war, my daughter. A Tisroc must appear mighty, powerful. The sight of a Tisroc at the head of the army must inspire shock and terror in the eyes of the enemy."

"But she cannot look like a woman masquerading as a man, Father – she is not. She is a woman. And that in itself will dumbfound the enemy. She must look the way she is."

The way she is. Small, young. Determined. An aura of absolute power surrounding her so powerfully that it yet haunts Irfaan's own thoughts.

Before them, the blackened armor is still a mere canvas. It still requires polishing and engraving, it requires beauty. And the helm – the helm must be something else. Almah is right.

Aravis Tisroc (may she live forever) is not like the Tisrocs of the past. She cannot dress like one. There is no use in pretending.

…

Damaz goes home late the next day, and only Irfaan and Almah remain, watching the fire die in the forge, the completed work before them. Tomorrow, it will be bundled up and delivered by Irfaan himself to the palace – another armor completed for the ruler of the Empire. Perhaps his most ambitious work of all.

Standing beside it, Almah is exactly the same size, and she and the armor seem like two dark silhouettes lined with orange-red against the dying embers. Two sisters side-by-side; two pairs of shoulders which have come to bear much more than is expected of their sex.

"Do you think she will return?" Almah asks him very quietly, and at the late hour no sound breaks through the heavy silence that falls between them, even in such a busy city as Tashbaan. It seems that even the city is holding its breath.

Irfaan does not answer for a long time, but watches his daughter's shoulders rise as she wraps her hands around herself, turning away from the fire and armor and walking towards her father. Her eyes are bright in the dim light. Irfaan feels, more so than he ever has in the past few days, profoundly at loss.

…

That night, he lies in bed unable to sleep. In the light of the lanterns outside that filters through the white curtains, he can see Salme's sleeping form beside him. He is seized, suddenly, by a sort of desperation. How can she sleep in these circumstances? How can any of them, when Almah – small and young and strong – can stand in a Tisroc's armor? How can they dismiss the gravity of such a thing?

When he carries the bundle into the palace to present the armor to its wearer, he finds that his hands are shaking.

…

There is something rehearsed, somehow, about the people's movements as the army of Calormen marches through the city of Tashbaan, making its way towards the gates that open into the desert. Perhaps it is the fact that they have done this before, and very recently: it was from these very balconies that Irfaan, alongside his family, witnessed Rabadash Tisroc (upon him be the peace of the gods) march out of the city with the intention to conquer.

Then, the mood was festive, and the city felt loud – full of the chatter of women and the squeals of children, horses whinnying and the Tisroc's men standing proud, already invigorated by the prospect of their assured victory.

Now, it is much different. The people have flocked to the streets as before, a colorful procession in of themselves, but there is anxiety in the air, so insidious that Irfaan finds his hands gripping the stone wall of the balcony so his knuckles go white. Even Salme is quiet as she stands still in the shadow of the house, as if afraid to look.

Beside him, Almah leans as far as she can over the balcony, looking towards where the road beside the house twists downwards from the high palace to the lower gates.

A rustle seems to go through the crowd, and Irfaan hears the people's cheers before he hears the procession. In the distance, the sound of hundreds of hooves hitting the ground is unmistakable, and the very ground seems to shake. Irfaan finds that he is holding his breath like a child as the first banners of Tash come into sight, and the cheer of the public, which at first felt hollow to his ears, is suddenly infused with genuine excitement.

When the heralds shout Make way, make way for the Tisroc, the exalted, the incomparable!, Irfaan feels his daughter jump beside him.

He knew the armor was beautiful when he put it away to hand over to the Tisroc (may she live forever). He had even seen it on her, terrified that it might not fit, that they had gotten it wrong all along.

They had not. It fit perfectly. It was more glorious than he had even hoped.

But now, seeing it under the light of the sun, around the body of the Tisroc (may she live forever), Irfaan is suddenly stricken by the magnificence of it all. The helm glints on the royal head, around it draped a sheer veil that obscures the features of the most important person of the Empire, and the armor, damascened in gold, stained black and crimson, seems like a light in of itself – a light that illumines the Tisroc (may she live forever) in a glory that far surpasses that of any Tisroc before her.

The people fall to their knees, as they must. In the balcony, Irfaan rises his head to look over the edge even as he bows. The veil shimmers and parts, and through it he glimpses a steely gaze, bright and unyielding: the same woman he had met in the palace, but now clothed in a new glory… a glory that makes him understand, suddenly, why the gods might have chosen this woman to bring Calormen to victory.

The moment passes, and horsemen march past, and then the Tisroc (may she live forever) disappears into the winding street, and the people rise to their feet again, continuing their cheering. But at Irfaan's side, Almah stands still as a statue, her expression full of wonder. There is something coiled in her eyes like a snake, ready to spring forth… a force far more powerful than her small frame.

In an instant, Irfaan knows that he will have to spend the night persuading Salme, but that the conversation is now unavoidable. Almah will not be married this year, perhaps not even the next. Who is he to tell his daughter to do what does not please her; or worse, what might stifle the light that has existed in her all along?

When the procession fully fades into the distance, and the only evidence of it is the cloud of dust that gathers near the tombs outside the city, Irfaan finally allows himself to step away from the balcony. Almah, however, waits a moment longer. When she speaks, Irfaan halts in his steps.

"Do you think she will return?" his daughter asks again.

"If she does not," Irfaan replies, a mix of resolve and pride hardening in his heart, more unbreakable than any metal. "At least her armor will not have failed her."