I sat with my back against the far wall of the Forge's great hall and held the stiletto in both hands.

  Phymera had shaped a sheath for it at Danzig's request. The leather was thick and pale, stitched with a care that felt ceremonial rather than practical. It rested across my p now, the bde half drawn so that the metal caught what little light reached this end of the chamber.

  Across the length of the hall, Danzig was instructing Halbrecht.

  Living metal rose and folded at the Bishop's command, reshaping itself again and again as the Martyr corrected his stance, his grip, the angle of his strike. Their voices didn't carry this far, but the rhythm of demonstration and adjustment was unmistakable.

  I had no part of it.

  The stiletto rested warm between my palms. It wasn't heavy. Not even particurly sharp, to look at it.

  Just... expectant.

  Waiting its turn.

  The hall stretched out in a haze of smoke and low torchlight, its vaulted ceiling lost in the darkness above the encampment that had sprouted there like a second city. Iron braziers burned. Racks held armor still damp from cleaning. The slow murmur of voices rose and fell like a tide against stone.

  I smiled faintly.

  It reminded me of gym css.

  Of polished floors and echoing whistles. Of standing at the edge of the court while the coach clustered around his chosen few, demonstrating footwork with exaggerated care. Of the way time stretched when you knew you would not be called next. Or soon. Or perhaps at all.

  My parents had always insisted I try.

  'Just give it a chance,' my mother would say, in that tone that suggested the real disappointment lying ahead. 'You never know what you might be good at.'

  I had known. I had always known.

  I tightened my arms around the sheath and drew my knees closer to my chest.

  Across the hall, beyond a line of stacked shields and a tangle of bedrolls, I could see Lumiere speaking animatedly with Rocher and Evelyn. Even at this distance I recognized the cadence of her gestures: earnest, precise, as though she were trying to build a structure out of words alone.

  Rocher stood with his weight shifted slightly forward, listening to her attentively. Every few moments he gnced toward me, as if checking to make sure I hadn't somehow slipped out of existence.

  Evelyn stood beside him with her arms folded, gaze tracking the flow of movement through the encampment. She looked less like she was part of the conversation and more like she was guarding it.

  Danzig had insisted the instruction remain private.

  Tradition, he had said. The warriors of the First Men did not parade their weaknesses before an audience. Knowledge should only be shared with those who had earned the right to hear it.

  He had shrugged when he said it, as though aware of how fragile that boundary sounded in a hall full of strangers and improvised alliances.

  'I won't stop you from telling your companions what you learn,' he had added, rubbing the back of his neck. 'It's not like I particurly mind.'

  I didn't know whether to feel grateful or more uneasy.

  I drew myself tighter against the wall and reminded myself, for perhaps the tenth time, that it should be Rocher sitting here instead of me.

  In the game, this had been Rocher's role. The living weapon had been crafted for his hands, and Danzig's guidance had been written to follow.

  The ancient hero had survived there, too. Just barely. It had taken the full restoration of the Saintess's power to drag him back from the brink. A miracle event. A turning point.

  I hadn't told the others.

  Lumiere didn't have her powers. It had seemed cruel to offer hope built on conditions we no longer met. Easier to let the past remain the past.

  Now Danzig stood at the far end of the hall regardless, flesh scarred but unbroken, speaking quietly with Halbrecht over the shifting shapes of living metal.

  I watched them from where I sat. The Bishop held himself with careful composure, hands csped behind his back, head inclined just enough to suggest respectful attention.

  But even at this distance, I could see the brightness in his eyes.

  Reverence. Excitement. The unmistakable thrill of proximity to a legend.

  He idolized Danzig. From his speeches and present demeanor, that much was clear.

  If Prince Corveaux had been here as well, I suspected Halbrecht might have swooned from the strain of it.

  As if sensing my scrutiny, he turned his head, his gaze finding mine at once.

  He smiled.

  It wasn't a rge expression. Not even particurly hostile. Simply smug in a way that implied the outcome of this entire exercise had already been decided.

  I looked away first.

  A moment ter, Danzig's voice carried down the length of the hall.

  "Come," he called. "Both of you."

  I rose before my mind could supply an argument and crossed the stone floor, the stiletto still clutched in both hands. The noise of the encampment dimmed as I approached, repced by the soft, fluid whisper of metal reshaping itself at Halbrecht's feet.

  As I passed him, he leaned slightly toward me.

  "I am very eager," he murmured, "to see what you can do."

  The words were pleasant enough. The tone beneath them was not.

  Danzig did not waste time on preamble.

  "Halbrecht's weapon is... unprecedented," he said, nodding toward the shifting mass of silver beside the Bishop. "I have never seen so many souls bound to one at once."

  Halbrecht straightened at once, pride fring openly across his features.

  At a gesture from his hand, the metal rose and flowed upward in a gleaming column. It split, folded, hardened. In the space of a heartbeat it became a massive war hammer, then a spear too long to wield indoors, then a bde with a serrated edge like the jaw of some mechanical beast.

  Each form looked heavier, more eborate, less practical than the st.

  He smiled as he cycled effortlessly through them.

  Danzig watched without interruption.

  "This is also why I struggle to instruct him," he went on after a moment. "Tradition holds that a living weapon could only bind a single soul. Devotion is not so easily found. To inspire such surrender from one person is rare. From this many..." He trailed off.

  Something in his expression shifted.

  A quietness entered it that did not belong to the present conversation.

  Without meaning to, I mouthed the name.

  "Brunna."

  Danzig's head turned.

  His clouded gaze did not quite find my eyes, but it came close enough to make my stomach drop.

  "How do you know that name?" he asked sharply.

  Panic arrived before thought.

  "I don't," I said quickly. "I mean—I didn't say anything. You must have misheard me."

  The lie felt clumsy even as it left my mouth.

  I knew his story all too well. The game had presented it in fshbacks and optional dialogue.

  Brunna. The girl who had been promised to him. Born to be Danzig's weapon.

  The strange concession that had allowed them to grow side-by-side like siblings.

  The moment she was led away to be forged into his weapon and he had torn through the ranks, trying to tear her free.

  The verdict.

  The mountain's edge.

  The fall.

  The miracle that had saved only one of them.

  Danzig studied my face for a long, uncomfortable second. Then he shook his head as though dismissing a ghost.

  "Show me your bde," he said.

  Relief and dread tangled in equal measure.

  I drew the stiletto from its sheath. The metal caught the torchlight and seemed to drink it. For an instant it remained nothing more than a narrow, unremarkable dagger.

  Then it shifted.

  Lengthening. Slimming. Straightening until it rested in my hand as a single dark arrow.

  I swallowed.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't have as much... material to work with. I can't shape it into anything particurly useful."

  Halbrecht made a soft, derisive sound.

  Danzig ignored him and leaned closer, head tilted, as though listening for something beneath the visible form.

  "A living weapon adapts to its wielder," he said slowly. "It answers the questions already on your mind."

  His mouth curved slightly. "An arrow suggests you are thinking about the correct problem."

  I blinked.

  "The Demon Lord," he said.

  Heat crept into my face.

  "I have been thinking," I admitted. "About how to beat it. Unless we can nd a decisive blow, the creature will continue to retreat and regenerate itself."

  Danzig nodded thoughtfully.

  "It has the luxury of choosing when to fight," he said. "We, however, are not so lucky."

  "Given enough time," I continued, "it will wear us down until all that remains is Halbrecht and his army."

  My gaze flicked over the towering shapes beside him.

  "Strength like his wins battles. But a living weapon only does what its master asks. It can't decide to forage. It can't think to repair a wall or tend a wound. It waits for orders. And his orders are always the same."

  My mouth drew tight. "Without a force that can sustain us... we'll be picked apart."

  Halbrecht scoffed.

  "Then we simply deliver that decisive blow," he said. "My strength is sufficient."

  I turned toward him before I could stop myself.

  "If it were so easy," I asked, "why haven't you done it already?"

  The metal at his feet stilled.

  "Unless," I went on, "you're saying you've been pulling your punches. Allowing more of your men to die in order to grow your army."

  Silence followed.

  Halbrecht's expression hardened. For once he did not have an immediate retort.

  Danzig looked between us, then ughed.

  Halbrecht's gaze flicked toward him, then back to me.

  "Just you wait," he said through his teeth. "I will show you what power truly means. Once I've pced the Demon Lord's head at His Highness's feet, there will no longer be cause to ignore me."

  He stepped closer and tilted my chin upward with the back of two fingers. The living metal slid forward at his feet, rising just enough to cast me in its shadow.

  "And when I finally have my rightful pce," he said, "you may petition for the privilege of kissing the ground at my feet."

  My fist clenched around the arrow in my hand.

  Then a horn sounded.

  Low. Urgent. From somewhere beyond the great doors.

  We turned.

  Another attack.