I needed a sword.
Not the wooden katana I had been using—the one I carved myself. I needed something that could hold mana. Something that would not shatter the first time I tried to fight back.
I spent the morning staring at my hands, turning the problem over in my head. The wooden sword was fine for stances, for footwork, for the basic practice I had been doing every day. But it was not going to save me when another monster came. It was not going to let me test what I could actually do.
So I found Elder Marta in the herb garden, her fingers buried in soil, coaxing something green out of the ground.
"I need a sword," I said. "Do you know where I could find one?"
