The Cold Flame Smith

The Flame Tongue Scimitar Cillian seeks was not made in Springreach. It was not made on Fallstead at all. It was forged by Skorvak Emberbane — a Fire Giant smith of extraordinary reputation who has made his home inside the caldera of a Coldfire volcano on the Frostfire Islands, a remote and little-known archipelago of two great islands sitting in the far northern seas.

The Frostfire Islands are a contradiction made geography. Snow blankets their peaks and coats their shores for most of the year, driven by winds that come off the open ocean cold enough to kill the unprepared. Yet cutting through that cold at every turn is Coldfire — a rare and poorly understood magical phenomenon, a fire that burns in shades of pale blue and silver and produces not heat but a deep, penetrating cold that sears as surely as any flame. It blooms from cracks in the rock. It crowns the archipelago's great volcano in a perpetual crown of frozen fire. It is beautiful and deeply dangerous and Skorvak Emberbane has built his entire craft around it.

The giant works alone. He has for centuries. His forge sits within the volcano's caldera, fed directly by the Coldfire that wells up from somewhere deep beneath the island's stone, and the weapons he produces there are unlike anything made by conventional smithing. The Flame Tongue Scimitar — a blade that burns with magical fire — forged in Coldfire becomes something paradoxical and extraordinary, its flame carrying an edge of cold that ordinary fire weapons simply cannot replicate.

Skorvak does not advertise. He does not take commissions from just anyone. He is a Fire Giant living voluntarily in one of the most inhospitable places in Vianova, which says something specific about his relationship with company and convenience. Getting to the Frostfire Islands requires finding a captain willing to make the northern crossing — no small ask, given the weather and the Islands' reputation for chewing up ships that don't know the approach routes.

Getting Skorvak to part with a blade, or forge a new one, will require something more than coin. What exactly that something is remains to be discovered. But for a Monster Hunter who researches magical cooking recipes and tracks down extraordinary ingredients for a living — a Fire Giant smith in a Coldfire volcano feels less like an obstacle and more like a natural next step.