AN EXHAUSTED, BATTERED Doom emerged from the forest after more than a week away hunting. He paused at the edge of the clearing, savoring the sight of Kerk’s house—his and Tiwaz’s home—nestled among the trees. “I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life,” he said wistfully to himself. Hauling three doe and several smaller animals on a travois, he made quick work of hanging them in the slaughter shed. He looked towards the house with a hint of concern Tiwaz would not forgive him for the length of the trip. Securing the door, he headed inside.

Kerk peeked out of the kitchen as Doom entered. “Ah, good to see you, lad! We were getting worried you ran into some trouble.” He returned to the kitchen, calling, “Supper will be ready in an hour or so. Just regular stew, nothing fancy. Stretches out the meat we have left.”

“I had to go several days further out than I wanted to find a herd of deer robust enough to hunt,” he called from his bedroom door. He came back out wearing a simple set of clean clothes. He looked around the house with a frown. “I didn’t see a fire in the smithy. Where’s Tiwaz?” he asked as he entered the kitchen.

The smith kept his eyes fixed on the stew pot. “She is hunting.”

The spines on his back rose in alarm. “What?! Alone? Tiwaz should know better than to go alone. She isn’t—”

“She is not alone,” Kerk interrupted, still not meeting the gromek’s visage, made more terrible in his distress. “The wolflen have allowed her to run with them. They have been teaching her.”

Doom blinked, crestfallen. “The wolflen? She went to…? But I promised her I would—”

Kerk picked up a rag to wipe his hands clean, turning to look at the gromek. “Yes, you did promise to teach her. But when you told her she wasn’t good enough to go with you and left…” The man shook his head, waving for Doom to follow. “I want to show you something.”

In the smithy, Kerk picked up the scrap box and dumped its contents out on the table, all the shattered blades spilling out. “While I am grateful she has the discipline to direct her upsets away from doing harm to bodies or things, her emotions have not been without consequence.” Doom stared, picking up pieces to examine as the blacksmith spoke. “While you were gone, she got…angry. She focused her anger on her forging.”

Doom blinked as he snapped the thick piece of metal in his hands like a dried twig. “I thought she was better than this. I know she has been mastering everything you taught her as fast as you taught it, but…”

“You must understand something about crafting versus magic, lad. Everyone talks about those who can wield magic. One of the tasks of any master of magic is to find those born with the native gifts for it. They will whisk them off to learn how to use it, because untamed gifts are often the cause for great catastrophes.

“Now and again, someone escapes the drag net, so to speak. They were not strong enough to be noticed, or living away from most civilization, or something. However it happens, they often go on to learn a craft that is not dependent on using it.” He put a hand on an anvil. “Like smithing.

“Most of us who are masters of our crafts have a hint of magic energy in us. That isn’t unusual, being the world is filled with magic and we’re a part of it. We have more than most, but not enough to be dragged away to become trained in it. That energy gets imbued in our work, more so when we focus during the making.”

Doom frowned. “Ti told me how Alimar would occasionally collaborate with a goldsmith to have a ring made that allowed the wearer to use a spell. You mean like that?”

Kerk shook his head. “That is different. What I do is more subtle than embedding spells in objects. When I work metal, what I make tends to be more durable. Necessary up here in the North. But I can’t make a sword that would fling lightning, because I am neither that strong nor trained at all in the arts.”

He picked up a piece of a blade, holding it gingerly. “Your friend Tiwaz? She has a considerable amount of native magic. Perhaps even more than some trained in the magical arts. Took me a while to realize it because it doesn’t present itself in any overt manner. And I realized the possibility after she told me some of what your former master did to her.”

“You accuse her of being true mageborn?” The gromek scowled, crossing his arms. “Impossible! She is nothing like those misbegotten wielders who live to hurt everyone around them.”

Kerk held up a hand. “You’re damning a lot of people for the faults of individuals, lad. Being mageborn has nothing to do with temperament, disposition, or ethics. It simply means having a high degree of magic in you or the ability to control it.”

He tossed the piece back in the box. It broke into two pieces as it bounced. “When I work metal, I focus on what traits I want whatever I’m making to have. Durability, most of the time. It is a little more complicated with weapons. A sword needs to be rigid, yet flexible or it’d break. Durable, yet yielding.

“I have only been teaching her the basic techniques of forging, but her work has been of mastery quality due to her knowledge of weapons and her focus on her desired intent for the weapon. I had yet to teach her about magic influence. Especially after what she went through, I thought it wiser to refrain even mentioning magic.”

“These weapons are broken because she has magic?” Doom’s expression grew troubled. “I still don’t understand. Wouldn’t she want them to be what she has always understood about blades? Why are they so brittle?”

“There is the rub. It isn’t just what she wants out of whatever she is forging that she put in. She puts her heart into her work. And she has been…angry. Angry you left her behind. Angry you think she is incapable of learning to hunt with you. Angry she isn’t good enough at whatever she feels she needs to be good at. Angry at things I can’t even begin to guess at.”

He looked at the pieces of metal in the box, frowning as he searched for the words he needed to say. “To keep from hurting anyone, she focused her energy and emotions on forging. And, the angrier she got, the worse the flaws in her work. The more flaws that appeared, the angrier she got with herself for not being good enough, for failing to forge properly. The angrier she got…

“Well. You can see the trend.” He sighed heavily. “These kinds of flaws would take a special sort of idiocy or something is very wrong, because she’d never have let these get past her. I tried to keep an eye on her like you asked. But she doesn’t listen to me. Not like she does to you. I’m too old to deal with her temper. She’s dangerous and I fear the day her self-control slips.”

“Tiwaz would never hurt you, Kerk,” Doom assured, his worry the man would turn them out apparent.

Kerk waved a dismissive hand after replacing the box on the shelf. “I’m not about to throw either of you out, no matter my concerns. And I’d not doubt you, lad, except I don’t think she even knows who I am when she’s in the depths of those black moods. It is like she is another person entirely. I knew you might get upset about her hunting with the wolflen, but honestly, I was relieved she found another outlet. It seems to have helped both her mood and her forging, even if she is here less often.”

He tossed the rest of the pieces into the box and tried to be reassuring. “She stays with the youngsters and comes home every night with little more than a scratch or two. They take good care of her.” The gromek simply nodded, walking back to the house with Kerk in silence to await Tiwaz’s return.

As expected, Tiwaz walked in the door just as Kerk was setting the table. She paused to stare at her friend in silence. Doom said nothing, nor looked at her, for the entire tension-filled meal. He remained seated at the table when Kerk went to bed and Tiwaz began cleaning the kitchen. The hurt in his low-pitched voice made the woman flinch. “I thought you wanted me to teach you to hunt.”

She closed her eyes, going still. “I do,” she replied after several minutes of silence. “You know that.”

“Then why didn’t you wait for me?” he demanded sharply. “Why did you go to outsiders?”

Back stiff, she stated tonelessly, “I want to be ready and capable of helping you if you needed me. The longer I wait, the greater chance there is I will be helpless to be of use to you, and I do not want to fail you!” She turned to face him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I am no hunter and I never will be one as good as you or anyone else. What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to be? Tell me! All I am is a gladiator, Doom. The sands and the fight are all I have ever known. The only time I ever felt alive and free is on the sands.

“Outside the arena, what am I? I am nothing. Yes, Kerk teaches me, but his art does not sing to me. The wolflen teach me, but I am not a hunter like you. What am I outside the arena?” she demanded. “You know everything! Tell me!”

“Ti,” Doom soothed as he got up when she stalked out of the kitchen. “Ti, calm down.”

In the living room, she spun on her heel. “I will not calm down!” she hissed. He felt a pang of hurt when she shook his hand from her arm, shunning his touch. “There is nothing in this world for me. Even though others ‘know’ that I am a shape-shifter, I dare not become a panther where anyone could see, so they can pretend I’m anything but. Shape-shifters are feared and despised by nearly everyone. The dragons told us that.

“The skills that I have mastered, the ones I can call my own, are only useful to amuse others. In an arena. But there are no arenas here!” She held her arms out. “Look at me, Doom! I was forged to be like a sword. Hard, cold, and deadly. But I was forged with flaws. Just like the knives I made.” She spun on her heel heading to their shared room. “No one wants something like me near them. Not even you!”

Her words rang in his ears as the door slammed. He closed his eyes, fists clenched. After a few minutes, he followed her, finding her sitting in the darkest corner of the room, face hidden in arms wrapped around her knees, rocking. He knelt beside her, reaching out to touch her but hesitating. “Ti, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I certainly did not want to hurt you. It’s just…I can’t bear to see you hurt anymore and taking you with would have risked that. You suffered so much before we escaped, and I thought…I hoped once we were free, you would never have to hurt again.”

He finally rested his hand on her shoulder, relaxing when she did not shake his touch away again. “But you are wrong. There is at least one person who wants you.” She looked up, her cheeks wet. “I do, Ti. You’re my best friend.” She closed her eyes, anguished, letting him draw her into an embrace. She hesitated putting her arms around him. Feeling that moment of uncertainty hurt more than any physical injury he’d ever endured, and he had no idea what to do about it.