The last shard of a fallen god's axe lay in a field of bones, and Freya Ironblade could not cross to claim it. She crouched behind a split boulder, her own heavy axe across her knees. She had spent two years hunting these shards. Forge them together, and she would carry a weapon that never chipped, never broke. Only this piece remained. It glinted silver in the mud, one long stride past the pack that guarded it. The hounds were dead things that still moved. Bone showed through torn hides. Fire crawled along their necks and shoulders. Their eyes burned yellow. She counted seven. Any one alone she could kill. Seven would drag her down before she reached the shard. Boots crunched behind her. She spun, axe up. A small man stood there in a dark robe stitched with silver stars. He held a thin katana that shone like cold metal. He looked at the pack, then at her, and did not raise his blade. "You pulled me from the river ice," he said. "I don't forget that." Freya knew the voice. Naferian Starforge. Months ago she had hauled his half-frozen body out of a cracked lake and warmed him by her fire. He had walked off without a word. Now here he stood, at the edge of a killing ground, for her. "You don't owe me this," she said. "I decide what I owe." He stepped past her into the open. The hounds turned as one. Naferian moved before they charged. His katana flashed, and two heads dropped into the mud. Freya broke from cover and ran the other way, drawing the pack apart. Three hounds wheeled toward her. She swung her axe low and took the legs from the first. It fell screaming without sound. A second hound leapt for her throat. She caught it on the axe haft and shoved it down, then split its skull. Fire spat from the wound and burned her forearm. She kept moving. Across the field, Naferian danced between the last of them, quick and clean. The shard lay open now, three steps ahead. Freya dropped, snatched it, and closed her fist. Its edge bit her palm. She did not care. She had all of them at last. The final hound came at Naferian's back. He turned too slow. Freya threw her axe. It buried in the beast's ribs and knocked it flat. He finished it with one thrust. Silence fell over the bones. Freya walked to him and pulled her axe free. Blood ran from her cut hand over the silver shard. "Now I need a forge," she said. "A real one. Hot enough to melt star metal." Naferian wiped his blade and looked at the shard in her fist. "I know one," he said. "But the man who owns it will not give it to you." Freya closed her hand tighter. The next fight already waited.

The forge rose from the rock like a temple. Freya stood before its great arch and felt the heat wash over her face. Fire glowed behind an iron gate. Runes lined the stone walls, blue and gold. She carried the shards in a leather sack on her back. Somewhere inside worked the man who could melt them. Naferian had told her his name. He had also told her the man would refuse. An old man swept the stone steps with a straw broom. Gray hair sat knotted on his head. His beard reached his chest. He did not look up when Freya climbed toward him. He kept sweeping the same clean step. "I need your forge," Freya said. "I can pay." "Master Chen owns this forge," the old man said. "That is me. And you cannot pay." He swept again. "Many strong ones come. They think the fire is a tool. The fire is a test." Freya dropped the sack at his feet. The shards spilled out, silver and sharp. "These are pieces of a god's axe. Two years I hunted them. Bone hounds burned me for the last one." She held up her scarred palm. "I don't want a lesson. I want the fire." Chen finally looked at her. His eyes were dark and steady. "Then you will waste the fire and ruin the shards. The forge answers only a worthy hand." He set down the broom. "Prove it. Not with your axe. With patience." He walked to the anvil beneath the arch. On it lay three raw metals in three piles. Black steel. Green ore. Gold. "Blend these into one bar," Chen said. "No cracks. No seams. Fail, and you leave." Freya wanted to argue. She swallowed it. She fed the metals into the fire and worked the bellows. The heat scorched her arms. She poured, folded, and hammered. Her first bar split down the middle. Chen said nothing. She threw it back and started again. Hours passed. Her hands blistered. She stopped fighting the metal and began to listen to it. She hammered slower. She folded the layers with care, the way she had never treated any weapon. Sweat ran into her eyes. At last she lifted a single ingot from the anvil. Black, green, and gold flowed through it in smooth waves. No crack. No seam. She turned it in the light and held it out. Chen took the ingot. He ran his thumb along the bands. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he nodded once. "Now your hand is worthy," he said. "The fire is yours." Freya's chest loosened. She looked at the god-axe shards on the stone, then at the roaring gate. She had the forge at last. But the ingot in Chen's hand was three soft metals. The god's shards were something older, harder, and she did not yet know if any heat could bind them.