Hephaestus limped around the anvil and set the sword flat on the stone. The blade was finished except for one thing. It had no crown. No emblem at the pommel. No mark to tell the other gods who made it and why. Without that, it was just sharp steel, and sharp steel would not silence the laughter he still heard when he climbed the mountain on his bad leg. Outside the forge, the pile of his old failures sat where he had thrown them. Gold hilts. Silver crossguards. Bronze fragments crushed under their own shields, half buried in ash. Every one of them had been meant for his mother. Every one of them had broken before he could present it. This new blade, curved and straight-spined and cut with gold runes, was the first that had held together through cooling. He had promised himself it would be the last he ever needed to make. He called the donkey over. Thetis stepped in from the yard, golden bags swinging at her sides, brass hooves clicking on the forge floor. He unbuckled the left bag and lifted out the hammer. The orichalcum ore set into its head glowed like a trapped sun. He set the hammer on the bench and drew from the right bag a rough chunk of the same ore, faceted and bright, still shaped like the vein it came from. Before he could carve it, he had to know the blade was worth the crown. He walked to the far wall where he had stacked three iron ingots, the kind he used to test edges. He set them upright in a row. He lifted the sword, breathed once, and cut. The blade passed through all three without catching. The halves fell in clean pairs. He pressed his thumb to the edge. Not a nick. Not a burr. He carried the ore to the anvil and picked up the hammer. He worked slowly, tapping, folding, shaping the ore into a small crest to seat in the crossguard. Thetis stood close and did not move. When the crest was set and the runes along the fuller caught the forge light, he stepped back. The sword was done. He had made the weapon he had been trying to make his whole life. He reached for the cloth to wrap it. A crow landed on the sill with a strip of folded reed tied to its leg. He knew the seal before he broke it. His mother's summons. Bring the blade to the council. Bring it now, unfinished or not. He looked at the sword, finished at last, and at the pile of broken ones outside the door. He wrapped the blade in the cloth, loaded it onto Thetis's saddle, and started toward the gates. He would not present it as a gift this time. He would present it as proof.