One day, his mother came down to visit him and found him alone and melancholy. He had sent away the lesser spirits and was sitting by his forge, idly tapping his hammer and watching the sparks fly up. She asked him what grieved him, ready to put it right, and he told her he wanted a wife. Surely, she said, he could have any he chose.

But what wife would choose him? he asked. The goddess looked at him, and it was true. He was not attractive, no more than his father had been. He was short, and his arms and shoulders were massive with the strength of his work. His brow was low; no doubt his eyebrows nearly joined as he scowled into his fires. As a child, standing at his father’s side, he’d been scarred by the sparks that flew from the anvil. Where the wounds had been sooty, the scars were black. His face was pockmarked, as were his hands and his arms. He lived his life in the dark so that his eyes would be able to distinguish to a degree the colors of heated metal. What wife would choose to live with him?

What matter if she chose or not? said the goddess. The wife he chose would have him. She was the goddess Meridite, and she would see his wishes granted.

His wish was for a wife who chose him, he said. He had no heart for an unwilling wife. The goddess Meridite kissed her son on his black brow and went away.

She spent some time looking for a girl both pretty and well mannered and willing to live in a dark hole but found none. She remembered that a pretty face is not the best indicator of a tractable wife and looked among the ugly girls, but not even an ugly girl would marry a man who was pockmarked, who worked in the dark with spirits and monsters. No father would let his daughter go to such a husband, so Meridite turned back to the pretty girls and looked for one with no father to protect her. Now the prettiest of the girls was the daughter of Callia, who was a widow and a priestess of Proas. You know Proas? Yes, that’s right, the god of green and growing things.

One day, as the girl walked the road between the temple of Proas and her home, the goddess Meridite saw her. Appearing at a bend in the road, Meridite called out to the girl, and the girl turned. Meridite looked her over carefully and could see no flaw that would make her an unsuitable wife. The goddess held out her hands and took the girl’s. “Beautiful child, can you sing?”

“Yes, Goddess,” Hespira answered.

Meridite was a little cross to be identified as an immortal so readily. She pouted. “You know me?” she said.

“Yes, Goddess,” said Hespira.

“Then you know I have a son?”

“Yes, Goddess.” Hespira knew she had any number of sons and waited to hear which one the goddess spoke of. She was patient. It is the gift of all the followers of Proas, and no doubt she had learned it from her mother. She was also clever. If the goddess had looked beyond Hespira’s beauty, she would have seen this, but she didn’t look.

“Horreon. He’s ill, very likely he will die.” Meridite sighed.

“I am sorry,” said Hespira, though Meridite didn’t seem overly concerned. Meridite only thought it would seem unlikely that she was looking for a wife for her son if he was supposed to be on the verge of death.

“He asked me to find someone to sing to him,” said Meridite. “Will you come?”

One does not refuse a goddess. Hespira agreed but asked if she might send a message to her mother. Meridite consented. She called a dove to bear the message, but once the bird was out of sight, it dropped to the ground dead, and so the message disappeared.

“Come to my temple first,” said Meridite, and offered Hespira food. She declined. The goddess pouted, and Hespira agreed to have something to drink. When the goddess wasn’t looking, she carefully tipped the drink into the basket she carried. Then, quite cheerful, Meridite took Hespira down into the mountain along the twisting black caves in total darkness. Hespira was frightened. She had not reckoned on being so hopelessly lost. She wondered if her mother was looking for her.

Her mother had waited until the end of the day, and as the sun was setting, she had walked the road between the temple and her home, calling her daughter’s name. When there was no answer, she had gone from door to door, asking at each house. The people there could only shake their heads and say that they hadn’t seen the girl.

Meridite, confident that the drink she had given Hespira would leave her ready to fall in love with Horreon when she saw him, gave up any pretense that he was ill. Her son had wanted a willing wife, and lo, Meridite had made one willing. She smiled in the darkness, pleased with her gift to her son.

She brought the girl to the edge of the cave where the forge was and left her. Suddenly alone in the dark, Hespira stopped at the entrance and stood looking into the space before her. The cave was empty of minions. There were no spirits; the fire was quiet; the chained monster slept curled at Horreon’s feet. Horreon himself sat on the stones at the lip of the forge. The fire was dim, and by its light he was gently tapping a bit of metal he had heated. Each time he tapped the metal, sparks flew up into the air. Glowing with their own light, they danced in front of the forge, swinging in circles and dipping in sequence like the dancers at a festival.

“They are lovely,” said Hespira from the entranceway, and Horreon looked up, startled.

“If you have no light, you have come a long way in the dark,” he said. “Are you a shade?”

“No,” said Hespira. “I am a living maid.” She stepped forward, carefully picking her way across the rough ground of the cave floor.

At the sound of her voice the monster by the forge awoke and slunk toward her, his chain rattling out behind him. He was black and the size of a large dog, with leathery black wings that whispered as they dragged behind him and claws that scrabbled against the stone beneath him. Hespira hesitated. Surely Horreon could have no reputation as an armorer if all of his customers were eaten. Bravely she held one hand forward as she would to a strange dog, and the bat-winged creature lifted its head and a forked tongue licked out once and then twice to brush her skin before the monster turned back to the forge and lay down again while Horreon looked on.

“You wish armor for your lover or your brother?” he asked.

“No,” said Hespira. “Your mother brought me.”

Horreon scowled suddenly, his brows drawing down, and Hespira’s heart quailed.

“And why did my mother bring you?” Horreon asked.

“She said you had asked for someone to sing to you,” Hespira answered.

Horreon still looked suspicious, but he scowled less.

“Sing, then,” he said gruffly.

Hespira stopped in the middle of the floor. After a moment she opened her mouth and sang the nanny song about the boy who was rude and got not and the boy who was good and got much.

Horreon grunted. “Forgive me my rudeness,” he said.

“I may,” Hespira said.

Horreon looked her over, reevaluating what he saw. “When might you forgive me?” he asked.

“When I have a chair to sit in, and a pillow,” said Hespira, “and light to see with whom I speak.”

Horreon laughed. It was a rumble in his chest that Hespira didn’t at first recognize. Then the armorer stood and bowed and offered her his arm, and together they stepped across the cave to a stair and door that led to a room lit with lamps where there was a single chair.

“No pillow,” Hespira pointed out.