One day when the prince was nine, his limbs plump with muscles, his hair a wild golden mane like his father’s, he ventured into the woods with his sister.

He ran ahead to prove he was faster.

They found a tree together and resolved to climb it. Albrecht vowed he could climb higher.

“Watch me,” he commanded.

Ursula stopped far below him, weaving a crown of daisies on a lower branch. That’s the only crown she deserves, he thought.

Satisfied, he leaned against the trunk. Soon, he was lulled by the music. The trees were sleepy too, for it was sunny and they’d feasted on endless beams of light.

The prince dreamed, and in his dream, an enormous beast emerged from its den. The prince had always hoped to hunt a beast in the woods. He lurched awake, fumbled for his bow, and in his groggy state, he slipped.

The fall seemed endless. Time stretched. His limbs pinwheeled; the world blurred. In the midst of his fall, he opened his mouth and screamed through his fine white teeth. The note was high-pitched. It would have cracked something brittle, like a mirror. But forests are made of stuff that bends. The forest music shifted. The trees, who know what it is to fall, sympathized with him then. They would not always.

The prince landed standing up. A leg bone snapped, its sound sharp as a breaking branch. The trees hushed. When he finally took a breath, when he fell and wept and clutched his leg, the music started again and Ursula dropped beside him, unhurt.

His leg was turning colors. His skin felt clammy. The pain made him want to vomit. He hated Ursula seeing him like this, even more than he hated seeing her take her bear form.

None of this was fair. Albrecht should have been firstborn. He should have been a werelion. A flying one. That would be superior in the same way it was better to be a boy.

“Oh, Albrecht,” Ursula said. “Your leg.”

He clenched his jaw. He hated when she was nice to him. He wasn’t a weakling.

“A beast did it.”

“I don’t smell anything.” She looked around. “Are you certain?”

He scoffed. She was always pretending her sense of smell was better than his, that it was a werebear thing. He didn’t believe her. It was easy to make things up. It was easy to get people to believe whatever you told them. You could make anyone believe anything if you told them so three times. He did it plenty. It wasn’t even magic. People liked believing what they were used to hearing.

“Yes,” he said. “A beast. A great big one. Vicious.”

She crouched by his leg.

“Don’t touch it.”

“I’m quite sure you’ve broken it.”

“It wasn’t me who broke it. It was the beast.”

She glanced up. “I suppose you’re lucky this beast didn’t bite you, then. We need to get your leg fixed. I can carry you.”

“Carry me? No!” Everyone would laugh.

“On my back. I’ll go as my bear self.”

That was different. He wouldn’t be embarrassed to ride a bear. It wasn’t as good as a lion, especially a flying one, but it was better than a horse.

“All right.”

Ursula undressed. Albrecht hated to watch her shift, but he couldn’t look away. The expression on her face as it stretched, the way her skin looked as the fur emerged, the sound her bones made as they bent. It looked as though it hurt, which was the part that riveted him. He usually liked pain. He liked picking his own scabs precisely because it hurt, and seeing someone else in pain felt even better. How much pain could a person take before they broke?

He’d once asked his mother this question and she’d shushed him, saying it was wrong even to think about such things. Now, with his leg throbbing like an exposed heart, he took pride in the quantity of pain he could withstand.

Ursula lowered herself to her belly, and he eased his hurt leg over her back. He settled behind the hump between her shoulders, his hands buried in her golden-brown fur. Then she ran, her paws beating the forest floor in time with the music.

Every step shot an arrow of pain through his leg, but the suffering was worth it. It meant he was strong, that he was his pain’s master. What’s more, he was riding a bear. To command such a beast, to dominate her, was glorious. The next best thing to being a were himself.

“Take me to Jutta,” he said.

As they sped through the cobbled streets, people stared, and Albrecht loved it. Everyone knew who he was. And he supposed everyone knew who the bear was, though he didn’t care as much about that.

Jutta would know what to do. She always patched him up. She was the kingdom’s blacksmith. Her father had been one, and his mother before that, and people used to joke that Jutta hadn’t been birthed so much as smelted and pounded into existence. She had pale skin, golden hair like Albrecht’s, a long face, and powerful limbs. Her hands were tough too, as tough as hooves, which seemed only right, given that she was a weremare with a white coat and cream mane.

Albrecht loved Jutta. He knew he was her favorite, and he loved being first in someone’s heart. He was also fascinated by her. She usually did what he asked, and he always asked for one more thing than he wanted, to see if he’d get it. He often did.

He also loved the heat and smell of the smithy. He thrilled at the clang of hammer against metal, the only sound he knew that was louder than the music of the forest. He tracked such things. The first. The loudest. The biggest. The fiercest. The best.

Everything Jutta made was strong and shiny: His father’s throne and crown, both golden. Swords and knives made of steel. Even the cages that werefolk had to sleep in. Albrecht thought that a clever law. Should any were change in the nighttime, when they’d be a danger to sleeping humans, they’d be stuck inside the cage because paws and talons and hooves cannot undo locks. Even Ursula had to sleep in one, although she didn’t have to live on Cage Row with the rest of the weres.

When Jutta saw Albrecht, she set down her hammer and wiped her palms on her apron. “What have we here?”

Albrecht fought tears. He’d been fine until Jutta gave him a pitying look with her ugly old face. He dug his fingernails into his palms to give himself fresh pain to focus on instead. His voice cracked when he told Jutta that a beast had chased him.

“A beast.” Jutta crouched and gently examined Albrecht’s leg. “Well, now. That’s a broken leg.”

“Are you going to have to cut it off?” Albrecht sometimes had nightmares about his body being cut up. About losing some part of himself.

“Cut it off? ’Course not. You’ve broken it, and I’ll set it quick as a rabbit hops, and you’ll heal perfectly fine. Up you go.” Jutta took a bottle from a shelf, pulled the cork out with her teeth, and offered Albrecht a swig. Whatever was in there tasted like his finger after he’d stuck it in his ear, but it made him feel warmer and softer inside. He was glad his leg hurt less, but he hated that soft, warm feeling. He’d choose pain every time.

Jutta took a sip herself and then turned to Ursula. “Off with you now. I can’t have a bear in my shop. You’ll knock things over and get fur everywhere. And don’t keep sniffing at my boots or I’ll tan your hide.”

Albrecht was glad to hear Jutta tell his sister she couldn’t sniff the boots. They were fancy ones, with metal toes. Jutta made herself a new pair every Moon Festival. Ursula wanted boots like them, but their father said no.

Ursula ignored Jutta, took her human form, and ran a finger over the toes of each boot. Jutta tossed an apron at Ursula. “Can’t have naked little girls running around either. ’Specially not when they’re princesses.”

Ursula donned the apron, and Jutta took Albrecht’s leg in her hand.

Ursula clasped her fingers over her heart. “Be brave.”

Albrecht didn’t need her telling him what to do. He was about to say as much when everything around him turned the sickly white of a lightning bolt. Jutta had put the bone back to rights. For a moment, he felt outside his own body. He feared she’d torn off his leg altogether. But she hadn’t. It was still there, a burning spear.

“And now to splint it,” Jutta said.

Albrecht held his breath as Jutta lashed flexible bands of metal to his leg with strips of torn cloth.

“Most people use wood,” Jutta said. “But for you, my prince, only the best. You mustn’t walk on it until it’s healed.”

“How long will it take?”

“Two moons,” Jutta said. “But don’t you worry. I’ll bring you things to help you pass the time.”

Jutta brought him bits of metal at first. Then, when she saw how good Albrecht was at making things, she brought him gears and hinges and levers. Albrecht assembled clever boxes that cranked open. Then he demanded things in certain shapes and sizes. With them, he made a crude mask with a moving jaw. A little metal soldier holding a sword and a shield that slashed his weapon down when you slid a lever.

As a special gift to help him heal, Jutta made Albrecht a smooth metal boot to hold his leg in place. He couldn’t walk in it, but it made him imagine a man made entirely of metal. What a man that would be! Nothing could burn him! Nothing could stab him!

He would like to be a metal man himself. He would like to command an army of metal men. He would put wings on them, and then nothing could stop him.

Weeks passed. He healed quietly using his body’s slow magic, enjoying the werebeasts Jutta brought him in secret for his entertainment. It was great fun to make a were dance, and once they’d broken the law by taking their were form outside the Row, they were so afraid that he could make them do anything.

When Jutta finally removed the boot, Albrecht’s leg was withered. It ached when he put his weight on it. It would always hurt in cold weather. Flesh and blood were stupid things, he decided. What do you expect, though, from something that comes from women?

Even after he was healed, Jutta did not stop bringing him bits of metal, and Albrecht did not stop building.