Chapter 1
“Diana. The sword will take you. Beneath the moonlight.”
Damn it.
Father.
Please, shut up.
Just for this moment—please.
I started hearing my father’s voice five years ago.
“Diana. Listen to the sword’s weeping.”
But my father was dead.
He was brutally murdered right before my eyes.
So that couldn’t possibly be his voice.
I shook my head.
My mind felt clouded.
For the past five years, I hadn’t slept properly and skipped meals like it was routine.
I inhaled smoke in the forge and went to sleep with iron dust still clinging to my skin.
I knew I was shortening my lifespan, but I did it anyway.
To defeat Gram.
Gram.
That was the name of the sword my father made.
A sword with a name—blacksmiths called it a named blade.
Named blades were said to have souls, and those souls held powerful strength.
“I heard you’re the Empire’s finest blacksmith. Forge me a sword, blacksmith.”
“Is this a royal command?”
“It is. And you know full well there’s no way to refuse, don’t you?”
Second Prince of the Empire—Valtair.
A mere seventeen-year-old boy looked down on my father like he ruled the world.
I had never seen a member of the royal family before. I couldn’t help but stare.
My father made me sit in the back, like he wanted to hide me.
“Forge a blade that will make the entire world tremble. A sword that can rule over all. Create such a sword.”
A sword to rule over everything?
Wasn’t Valtair already doing that?
That’s what I thought back then.
My father hesitated for a long time.
But the moment Valtair’s impatient gaze landed on me, my father finally responded.
“I accept your command.”
A faint smile appeared on Valtair’s face.
“You have one year.”
For the next year, my father poured his soul into crafting that sword.
He couldn’t risk presenting a fake blade to royalty—it would cost him not only his life but mine as well.
“A sword isn’t meant to rule through fear. Diana, never create a sword like this.”
This kind of sword.
That’s what my father called it.
But to me, that sword was a masterpiece.
Gram.
Named after the God of Wrath.
And the brilliance that radiated from it lived up to that name.
Just looking at it made your heart shrink in terror.
– A sword to rule over all.
The day I first saw Gram, I finally understood what Valtair meant.
The sword—it felt alive.
Like it had opened glowing blue eyes and was ready to pierce the hearts of all who faced it.
Even when that blade was plunged into my father’s stomach, I looked into Gram’s eyes and thought—
It’s alive.
“Wh… Why…”
My father, a hole in his gut, asked blankly.
The greedy sword, soaked in his blood, said nothing.
My father had been the Empire’s greatest blacksmith.
A man who could endure even the hottest flames.
A man who melted iron, tempered it, and transformed it into a weapon.
He was the god I worshipped—and my only family.
Even as that family grew cold before my eyes, I couldn’t look away from Gram.
I couldn’t believe that the masterpiece he forged had devoured its own maker.
“Be proud, blacksmith. Your sword is so perfect that it had to kill you. Because you might’ve made something even greater for someone else.”
Did my father truly feel proud when he heard that?
I’ll never know.
All I could do was watch—held back by soldiers—as his body convulsed… then went still.
Trembling, unable even to cry.
“Is that the blacksmith’s daughter?”
“…”
I didn’t answer. I just stared at Gram, now gripped by Valtair—its blade still wet with my father’s blood.
Valtair, grinning, blood splattered on his face.
“The sword feels alive. I barely used any force, and yet it shattered flesh and bone as it pleased.”
He chuckled, admiring the glowing blade under the pale moonlight that streamed into the audience chamber.
Blue light pulsed from Gram.
And Valtair’s eyes glinted in its reflection.
Yes.
Maybe Gram really did belong to Valtair.
It was born in my father’s hands—but it resembled Valtair, not him.
“Shall I test it on your arms and legs next?”
He stepped toward me.
I trembled uncontrollably and collapsed to the floor.
Even if I hadn’t meant to, Gram forced me to.
Domination.
Subjugation.
Submission.
That sword held the power to make you kneel—even if you didn’t want to.
My eyes burned like iron heated in a forge.
Gram.
I hate you.
Just as I hate Valtair, I hate you too.
I closed my eyes with that thought.
Then—
“It’s too fine a blade to sully with lowborn blood twice.”
Valtair sheathed the sword.
He looked down at me, trembling.
He sneered, like he could read my fear.
“Kill her after you’re done using her as a toy.”
Soldiers laughed.
They dragged me out.
One tossed me to the ground while another kept watch.
Ragged breathing filled the alley.
I hated the damp air—but I waited.
Until he loosened his belt and came closer.
That’s when I drew the dagger I’d hidden—and drove it into his neck.
It slid in like it was finding its perfect sheath.
A hiss of air escaped his throat.
He didn’t even scream.
I kicked him hard.
Then, as the light faded from his eyes, I spat on his face.
“You dumb bastard.”
I hoped those would be the last words he ever heard.
He thought a fifteen-year-old girl wouldn’t carry a blade?
Should’ve searched me, idiot.
That dagger—my first work—had just pierced his neck.
The first piece my father ever praised.
“You really made a true sword, Diana.”
Diana.
I loved that name.
My father said it was the name of the moon goddess.
The goddess who could tear thick deer hide with a single arrow, wrestle bears, and never feared competing with men in the hunt.
He said it suited a blacksmith.
Because under the moonlight, it shone the most beautifully.
“Don’t listen to anyone who says a woman can’t be a blacksmith, Diana. You can be anything you want.”
Back then, my father was the moonlight that made the sword shine, and I was the blade.
As a blacksmith, I became a sword—not just any sword, but a named blade—in his hands.
But he was wrong.
Moonlight suited him, not me.
“Hah… Hah…”
I shoved the lifeless soldier aside and ran.
My legs moved without rest beneath the moonlight.
If anyone chased me, I would just make another hole in their throat.
I was no longer afraid of staining my blade with someone else’s blood.
What scared me now was the irreversible reality.
My father never smiled warmly at me—but when others mocked him for teaching a girl to be a blacksmith, he silently guided me at the forge.
He’d been proud of my first creation.
That man—I would never see him again.
No matter how much I raged, how loud I screamed, my father would not return.
“Hah…”
Only my own shadow followed behind me.
That’s when I slowed down.
I realized I had run the same road my father and I once rode together on horseback.
Now there was no horse.
No father.
Just me.
Alone.
At the edge of the village, I stared at the burning houses.
I thought nothing could surprise me anymore—but as I watched my village burn, my heart pounded.
Smoke rose from every corner of the place I was born and raised.
As if someone had deliberately set fires everywhere.
Then I saw them.
Men walking with oil cans and torches.
Instinctively, I hid.
“Prince Valtair ordered all villagers to be killed and the place burned?”
“Yeah. Told the lord to say the blacksmith went mad and started the fire.”
“Why?”
“You know how His Highness is. He hates anyone else having what he has. Maybe he’s afraid the blacksmith left behind another similar sword.”
The moment I heard that, the fire spread—from the village to my hands, my feet, my chest, my back.
Everything burned.
My body was on fire, along with my father and everyone else.
But my heart burned hottest of all.
“The fire must be hot enough to melt iron, Diana.”
My father’s voice echoed in my ears.
“Just like the fire that’s burning in your heart now, Diana.”
I clutched my chest.
That was the day—
The day the fire to melt iron was born in my heart.
And from that day on…
I began to hear my father’s voice in my ears.
