The heat of his forge becomes nearly unbearable when Gendry keeps the fires lit in the hearth for thirty days and thirty nights, keeping the darkness at bay. He works day and night, sweat pouring from his limbs, hands blackened and calloused, agitated with effort. He stops only to shovel tasteless food into his mouth, collapsing beside Arya in bed at nights and awakening before the sun has risen. He knows he has no other choice.
When the moon becomes full once more, he thinks he is done and brings the untempered steel to the edge of a lake amidst the cold snow. Arya walks only a few paces behind. When they reach the lake, he turns back to look at her. Dark circles under her eyes indicate she hasn't been sleeping either. She nods tensely, her jaw clenched. "The sacrifice will temper it," she assures him.
Sweat dries on his bare back and he lets his weary hand drop the sword into water. Immediately upon touching the silvery liquid, the steel shatters. Shards of metal fly from the hilt and scatter into the snow, hissing quietly.
He stares with disbelieving eyes, trembling.
Arya circles her arms behind him, sighing warm breath into the crook of his neck, "You mustn't give up; you must try again."
And Gendry knows she is right, that this is what they do, the smith and the wolf. They try, through Braavos and King's Landing, through Essos and Westeros and all Seven Hells. They try. He is determined to create the greatest sword, the sword of heroes, with Arya by his side.
So he returns to the forge.
.
He watches two more moons wane and wax.
He spends even longer in his forge, mad and unorganized. Single-minded focus takes its toll on his body. He loses weight, becomes stooped from bending over with his hammer. When his beard and hair begins getting singed by the flame in the hearth, Arya sits him down and drags a cool cloth over his forehead, uses a dagger to shave him. She feeds him gently, sweet and nourishing.
It takes a few moments for Gendry to realize she has traded in her dagger for a spoon.
She brings him his smith's hammer again, large and unwieldy against her tall, lean frame. He goes back to work. Thoroughly immersed, Gendry does not notice that Arya disappears and does not return for days.
.
When he holds the sword in his hands, a swell of accomplishment goes through him. He created the hero's sword, not just once, but twice. He stands tall as he approaches the lake again. Gendry finds himself hesitating at the water. Shivering but heedless of the cold, he sits in the snow and considers.
Arya comes to him. Nymeria follows, taller than Arya, taller than Gendry, dragging a cart with a large wooden crate in it.
She says, "There was only one name left on my list."
From inside the crate comes a muffled scream.
.
The golden Lannister stands before him, wrapped in furs to shield against the vicious wind. A blind fold is placed upon her face. It is uncommon for Arya to show such compassion. It occurs to him that she is not showing mercy to the fallen queen, she is showing it to him.
He does not think he is capable; he is a smith, not a soldier. But Arya nods encouragingly and guides the point of his sword to where her heart would be with swift motions. "The sacrifice of life will temper it," she says.
She takes a single step back and stands as still as the trees, as still as the Faceless Men, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He could almost forget Arya behind them if he couldn't feel her waiting expectantly, if he couldn't hear Nymeria's soft panting.
But he does.
Moving on faith and confidence alone, Gendry drives the sword into the heart of the lioness until only the hilt remains. He sighs with relief when he feels the blade hold.
But when she falls in a crumpled heap, furs stained crimson, and the blade slides out of her soft flesh, he is left holding nothing more than a broken edge.
His eyes prick with tears and Arya takes his hand, telling him, "Don't lose hope. Once more will work. Once more." And the untamed grey of her eyes is sincere, unquestionable. He would follow them into the ocean if she asked, he would follow them off cliffs if she asked. But she is only asking him to try one more time.
He nods and returns to the forge.
.
He loses all track of time, the moon becomes nonexistent to him, as does the sky and the ground. All he knows is the hammering of metal on metal and the sizzling sound of the sword breaking and welding. He locks himself inside the forge, only Arya somehow capable of getting in. She watches him work without making a sound. He is reminded of their early days, when she had been nothing more than a girl and he nothing more than a bastard.
When Gendry is finished at last, the third time, he has become a ghost of his former self. The luster is gone from his eyes and the fight from his arms. Black hair is streaked with gray. His hands are raw and bright with blood, nails splintered, knuckles skinned and scabbed over. He broods over the unfinished sword, unsure how to temper it; he knows he does not have the strength to start anew if it does not hold this time.
Arya finds him hunched over his tools in a dark corner, staring at the blade glinting in the dim light of embers.
His delirious mind turns her into a wraith, brown hair a halo, her lithe form moving with the poise and suggestion of something not quite human. Her lips graze his, almost a phantom, as cool as snowflakes upon his feverish skin. She brings hope, she always does, but she brings challenges and Gendry feels a deep weariness settle into his soul.
"Is it done?" she asks, hushed in reverence.
"It is never done," he manages to choke out, though his voice feels rusty with disuse.
"It will be," she promises. She catches his lips and he drinks her in, the only salvation he has left among his failures. Arya pulls down his breeches and he groans; he could never resist her and this night is no different, regardless of how exhausted and drained he has become. With his back pressed to the sooty wall, Gendry welcomes her warm embrace and struggles to maintain balance when she lowers herself onto him.
She moves fast, riding him unabashed, one arm bracing herself against the wall behind his head and the other clinging to his shoulders. Her movement becomes almost desperate and Gendry loses himself under her silken touch until he finds release. She comes soon after him, sinking into him with a groan.
They remain together until she catches her breath, pushing off him, becoming again isolated limbs. They dress in quiet, unsure which words should be spoken next, knowing that none needed to be.
At his work bench, Arya takes the sword into her hands and turns it, admiring the handiwork. She walks it over to him, places the hilt into his grip.
"Can you feel the power?"
He can feel only the metal.
"With this, you will slay the Great Other."
He cannot imagine ever standing, let alone fighting.
"This sword will return summer to Westeros."
Winter will never end, his bones are too cold. Evil surrounds them always.
But she is not evil; she is all that is good and holy with his world. She is his saving grace. He wants to feel her again. Gendry leans forward and kisses her hard, feeling her tongue and her lips, her teeth and the heat coming from her. Her fingers leave the sword in its position and tangles in his unkempt hair, inching their bodies closer together. His lips are suddenly ice cold when Arya separates from him. She presses her forehead to his, the connection precious.
"I love you," he says.
"Please," her feathery voice is breathless and imploring. "Please know why I'm doing this."
"I don't understand," he mumbles.
"The sacrifice of love will temper it," she tells him.
He does not grasp at first what she is saying, nor why she is saying it. Confused, Gendry pulls back. Then he glances down to where she's placed the hilt in his hands, where the steel is pressed against her chest.
"No!" he cries in horror.
She smiles in acceptance, the wolf serene and silent for once, and plunges forward upon the blade of Lightbringer.
Outside his smith, he hears Nymeria snarl and wail up at the full moon in anguish.
This time, the steel does not shatter.
His heart does.
.
He does not notice the brightness radiating from the sword or the sudden warmth when it falls from his hands to the ground. He does not remember who wrenched her lifeless and broken body from his arms, their grip locked around her despite the weakness in his muscles. He does not recall eating or sleeping or walking. He has no memory of her funeral, only vague recollections of a red-haired sister clinging to dark-haired brothers.
He does not come out of his stupor until Nymeria lays beside him and whines in mourning, her warm pelt comforting and her breath smelling of blood and wilderness. The wolf reminds him of her too strongly to ignore, and he lets himself be weak. Gendry sobs into her fur for hours, until his eyes are dry and his voice hoarse.
In the morning, he is ready to join the war.
.
The pride he had felt when making it morphs into disgust each time he wields it. Gendry wears the sword on his hip into battle, but none of his soldiers ever see him use it or even touch it. Instead, he holds a hammer to smash his enemies.
He does not decorate the sword.
Even so, it carries a design on the blade, a red sheen, beautiful and intricate. Etched on its surface is a pattern of weirwood tree roots and wolves, woven into one another, branches with full leaves, eyes peering out and catching him unawares when he examines it.
The eyes are heavy with sorrow and unfinished goodbyes, and soon he stops wearing the sword into battle. He wraps it in boiled leather and places it around Nymeria.
Lightbringer is alive, its thirst quenched, throbbing and pulsing. Always warm. Her body never will be.
.
When he marches somberly into battle, Nymeria shadows him with her fangs bared and claws outstretched. The field parts for them, the hero of the battle and his great direwolf. Azor Ahai and the spirit of the north, they whisper, come to take back the land and end the season. They have become legends, almost myths, their feats sung and recorded and celebrated. In every city, in every tavern, they have become a beacon of hope.
They do not sing of when the two lose control in battle and kill anyone in their way, friend or foe. They do not write of the shadow on the smith's face when he walks through his camp. They do not talk of the wolf who ravages entire forests in search of nothing.
In the dark of night, they have become desolate, damned. The wolf and the smith come together in their loss, preferring only the company of one another. The unhappiness they share overcomes language and action. They fight as one on the frontline.
He stays with the dragons at first, with the khaleesi and her two lovers on their great beasts. But soon, he has vanquished all the white walkers and wights in his path, and he and Nymeria's bloodlust needs to be sated with more. Gendry pulls himself onto Nymeria and she takes off at a sprint, leaving behind the fight into enemy territory.
It is Nymeria who growls when she first spots the Great Other, her ears flattened against her head. He is tall and spindly, nothing but ice and death. Gendry leaps off the wolf, and his hammer goes sprawling away from him.
Before he has the chance to fetch it, the Other moves toward him and is there almost before Gendry can realize it had moved. He is blinding and massive and Gendry can feel cold seep into his bones, freezing everything, his skin and tissue and his very soul. It has no eyes, and if it does, Gendry cannot find them. Incapable of fighting, of moving, he thinks it is time at last to meet her.
But then Nymeria nudges him and her snout is warm and wet. And there is another presence there, calling to him, daring him.
Lightbringer. She was the light of his life and she has not left him, not even in death.
His hand reaches out, pressing into Nymeria's coat until he finds it, the sword, and unsheathes it with a papery whisper. Gendry thaws, nearly melts, with the weight of the steel and its power. It jumps, guiding his hand as he can remember someone else had done so long ago.
The sword bites into the Great Other's torso, tearing out chunks of guts and meat in its maw, ripping through its solid membrane like water. Not blood, but a viscous blue ichor pours out of its wounds, pooling beneath it.
For a moment, the sword embedded into its body is no longer steel; it is a woman with brown hair and grey eyes and blood on her face.
From behind them, the first shouts of victory are heard.
He does not care, his eyes fixed on the sword and the soul inside that tempered its steel.
.
Gendry, Azor Ahai, the Smith, the Bastard Stag, the Bull.
Nymeria, legendary queen, the direwolf, the Stark Beast, the North.
He cannot keep track of the names they call him, the feasts they bring him, the favors and titles and gold they bestow upon him. Master of This, Lord of That. He tires of it all, never wanting the fame heaped upon him, responsibility he never would have accepted had he known the price. The sword remains strapped at his hip.
When at last he finds the chance, he escapes the Great Hall with Nymeria behind him. Neither of them was created for this kind of fuss, not after they'd both lost the one they loved the most.
In the north, it is not difficult to find a godswood. Gendry finds himself wandering in the freezing cold with Nymeria at his heels, searching and searching until he comes upon the tree with a face carved into it. The Old Gods. He does not care for them, for the blood red sap dripping down from their eyes, for their mysterious ways and blessings. He cares only for the dead.
He seats himself on a stump and takes the sword into his hands.
Arya.
To his surprise, he hears her comforting low voice, "Yes?"
Nymeria's ears prick and she keens like a pup.
Gendry says, "Arya, I miss you. We- we miss you."
"I'm here. I was always here with you both. Waiting."
"Will you come back?"
He hears her laugh, oh, he had not thought he would ever again hear this beautiful sound. Nymeria yelps in delight and springs to her feet excitedly. "The dead cannot return, Gendry."
"But what about now? I can talk to you. Nymeria can hear you."
"I'm only an echo trapped inside the steel. Lightbringer and I are one, but that does not mean I am here."
Hot tears streak down Gendry's face, his broad shoulders shaking. He doesn't care. He has lost all shame and concern. He is nothing but a half, a half who had lost his whole. "I love you. I love you. I love you. Please, Arya, please. Don't leave me here alone, please don't do this. I love you."
"I love you, too."
"I will do anything to see you again," he pleads and his tears are freezing before they can fall off his cheeks.
"Anything?" she asks, her echo asks.
And he would follow her anywhere if she only asked, and now she asks.
.
They find him dead in the morning, Nymeria protecting his corpse, having driven the point of Lightbringer through his heart.
They bury him in the Stark tombs, beside Arya Stark. He was not a king of the North, nor of Winterfell.
But he loved her, and she him, and that was enough.