My tools—my hammer and medallions—once belonged to the Blacksmith, Malak, who enslaved the humans in this city for thirty years.
Like Malak, I’m left-handed.
No other tools ever worked for me.
But Malak’s cold malice lives within these tools, an insidious force that creeps within my mind and threatens to take root within my heart, tainting my thoughts and my intentions.
It was Malak who created the Vandawolf. When he merged the Vandawolf’s human body with the soul of a wolf, some of Malak’s Blacksmith magic also transferred to the Vandawolf.
Blacksmith magic is drawn to itself.
Fiercely and irrevocably.
Just as I’m drawn to the Vandawolf now, fighting not to lower my left hand to his face, wrap my fingers around his jaw, and close the gap between us.
The humans might wish to kill the Vandawolf, but I could do much more harm to him than to give him death.
I’m on a knife’s edge as I fight the cruelty that surges through my mind and body, fight the terrible thrill, the awful impulses that I’ve struggled so hard to deny.
Mold him to your will.
Make him yours.
The battle within me is harder now because those terrible thoughts bring hope.
I can use this power to save him.
I have no other choice.
It’s this or let him die.
If this is yet another choice that costs me, so be it.
But first, I need to remove the bolt from his body.
I clamp my right hand on his upper shoulder, repositioning my current kneeling position so that the left side of my left leg supports his back and I can lean over him to reach with my left hand for the crossbow’s shaft where it enters his body. The tip, where it is at his back, now extends across the air in front of my knees, protruding by a whole foot.
I have to break the shaft near the entry or exit wound so that I only have to pull it a short way to remove it. Otherwise, I’ll have to push the entire length of the bolt through his body.
Wrapping my left hand around the bolt, just in front of the entry wound, I close my eyes and focus on my power.
I mentally reach for the same surge of energy that rushed through me when the harpoon came into contact with my hand.
Then I clench my fist as far as I can around the bolt and send a command through the medallion, ordering the bolt’s metal to soften and pull apart.
The metal groans, a low, creaking sound in the near-silence that has fallen around me.
Otherwise, the bolt doesn’t react.
My forehead creases in confusion. The harpoon changed in an instant. I created this bolt in the same way I made the harpoon. Surely, it should respond to my commands.
I press my hand harder around it, willing it to obey me.
Break!
It resists, creaking and groaning in the quiet.
Frustration billows within me because I can sense the thread of magic still alive within this metal. It’s enough that I should be able to command it one last?—
