Next Morning. The Inn Room.
Grog woke with the sword in his hand.
He didn't remember picking it up. Didn't remember getting out of bed. But there it was—the dark blade wrapped in his fingers, warm against his palm, pulsing gently like a second heartbeat. Sometime during the night, while he slept, the sword had come to him.
He stared at it.
The metal was so dark it hurt to look at directly. Light bent around the blade, disappeared into it, leaving a hole in the world wherever it moved. Faint patterns swirled beneath the surface—almost visible, almost hidden—like smoke trapped in ice.
He sat up slowly. Held the blade before his eyes.
"You chose me," he said quietly. "Why?"
The sword didn't answer. But it pulsed—once, twice—warm against his skin.
Grog had never been chosen by anything. He'd earned his axe through years of training. Earned his place through blood and sweat. Nothing had ever simply... decided he was worthy.
This sword had.
"Okay," he said. "Let's see what you can do."
---
He dressed quickly. Strapped the sword to his belt. Grabbed his axe—old habit, couldn't hurt to have options. The morning light was weak through the window, gray and cold, but the sword's warmth against his hip made him feel like he carried a small sun.
Downstairs, the common room was quiet. A few early risers hunched over cups of tea. Lena was wiping tables, her brown hair escaping its tie in the usual small curls. She looked up when he passed.
"New sword," she observed.
"Yes."
"Going somewhere?"
"Testing."
She nodded. Didn't ask more. He appreciated that about her.
Grog walked out into the cold.
---
The village was quiet at this hour.
A few shutters opening. Smoke beginning to rise from chimneys. The distant sound of Henrik's hammer already ringing from the smithy. Ordinary life continuing.
Grog walked past the houses. Past the well. Past the last buildings at the edge of town. The path led into the forest, narrow and winding, barely visible under fresh snow.
He followed it.
---
He found a clearing fifty yards in.
Isolated. Hidden. The snow here was deep and untouched, no footprints breaking its surface. Trees surrounded the open space on all sides—oaks and pines, their branches heavy with white. The morning light filtered through, pale and weak, casting long shadows across the ground.
Perfect.
Grog stood in the center. Drew the sword.
The moment it left the sheath, he felt it.
Power. Connection. The blade sang in his hand—not literally, but close. A vibration that traveled up his arm and into his chest, into his bones, into the strange hum the golden apple had left behind. They recognized each other, the sword and the apple's gift. Belonged together.
He swung.
The blade moved faster than he expected. Much faster. It cut through the air with a sound like tearing silk, leaving a trail of darkness in its wake. The motion felt effortless—like the sword was doing the work, guiding his hand, showing him what was possible.
He swung again. Harder. Aiming at nothing, just testing the weight.
A tree at the edge of the clearing—thick as his arm, solid oak—split clean in half.
Grog stared.
He hadn't aimed for the tree. Hadn't even been thinking about it. The sword had simply... extended his will. Made his strike reach farther, hit harder, cut deeper than any normal blade could.
He walked to the tree. Touched the cut surface.
Smooth as glass. Like the wood had been sliced by something impossibly sharp, not hacked by a swinging blade.
He looked at the sword.
It pulsed. Almost seemed pleased.
---
He spent the next hour testing.
Speed first. He swung in patterns—basic forms he'd learned decades ago, in the old timeline. The blade responded instantly, faster than thought. Each strike flowed into the next without effort. He felt like he was dancing, not training.
He timed himself against a mental clock. The sword cut his speed by a third. Maybe more. In a real fight, that would mean landing blows before opponents could block. Dodging before attacks landed. Moving like water while they moved like stone.
Power next. He found a fallen log, thick as a man's torso. Swung.
The blade passed through like the log wasn't there. Both halves fell apart cleanly, the cut surface smooth as glass.
He found a rock. A boulder, really, half-buried in the frozen ground. Swung.
The blade bit deep. Not through—the rock was too massive for that—but it carved a gash six inches deep, as if the stone were soft clay.
He struck the blade against his axe. Hard.
The axe chipped. A small piece of metal flew off, landing in the snow.
The sword showed no mark. Not a scratch. Not a dulling of its edge. It gleamed in the pale light, dark and perfect.
Range next. He stood ten feet from a sapling. Swung.
The sapling fell.
He hadn't moved. Hadn't stepped closer. The blade hadn't grown. But his strike had landed anyway—the sword reaching where it shouldn't, extending his will across distance.
He did it again. Fifteen feet. Same result.
The sword knew what he wanted and made it happen.
Durability last. He struck the blade against the same rock, over and over. Twenty times. Fifty. A hundred.
Nothing.
No chips. No dulling. No marks of any kind. The sword was as perfect after a hundred strikes as it had been at the first.
---
By the time he finished, he was breathing hard.
Not from exertion—the sword made everything effortless. From wonder. From the sheer impossibility of what he held.
This sword was more than a weapon. It was an extension of himself. A part of him made metal and magic. It knew him—somehow, impossibly—and responded to his deepest instincts.
He sheathed it.
The vibration didn't stop. Just settled. Became background, like his own heartbeat.
Mine, he thought again. Really mine.
He stood in the clearing for a long moment, surrounded by evidence of what the sword could do. Split trees. Carved rock. The chip of his axe in the snow.
He'd been strong before. Forty-one years of battle in the old timeline. Months of training in this one. The golden apple had made him stronger still.
But this sword—this sword made him something else entirely.
He walked back toward the village.
---
Lena was still sweeping when he returned.
She looked up. Raised an eyebrow.
"You were gone a while."
"Testing."
"Find anything interesting?"
Grog considered the question. How to answer? The sword had changed everything. But that wasn't something you told a village girl sweeping steps.
"Yes," he said.
She nodded. Didn't push. "Henrik's been asking about you. Says you abandoned your project."
Grog grunted. Walked on.
---
The smithy was loud.
Hammer on metal. The hiss of steam. Henrik's voice, raised in what might have been song or might have been cursing—hard to tell which. The sound echoed off the stone walls, mixing with the roar of the forge fire.
Grog stepped inside.
The heat hit him first—a wall of warmth after the cold outside. Then the smell: coal smoke, hot metal, burning leather. Then the chaos.
Henrik was at the anvil, working on a piece of curved metal. His massive arms moved with precision, hammer rising and falling in a rhythm he'd developed over decades. Sweat poured down his red face, disappearing into his wild beard.
The sword—Grog's sword, the first one—lay on a nearby table, partially disassembled. Its dark blade was in three pieces, laid out on leather cloth. Tools surrounded them. Diagrams covered every surface, pinned down by heavy weights.
Henrik looked up.
"You're back." His voice was loud, as always. "Good. Got problems."
Grog waited. He'd learned that Henrik needed space to vent.
"Problems," Henrik repeated, setting down his hammer. He turned fully, his face red from heat and streaked with soot, and absolutely furious. "This metal," he said, gesturing at the sword pieces. "It doesn't want to change."
Grog frowned.
"I've been working on it for days. Days." Henrik threw up his hands, nearly hitting a hanging tool. "Every time I try to reshape it, it fights me. The metal resists. The heat doesn't affect it like normal steel. I get it glowing—proper forging heat—and it just... sits there. Cold to the touch. My hammer leaves no marks."
He picked up a piece of the blade. Held it out.
"Look at this. I've been striking this spot for two hours. Two hours, Grog. And nothing."
Grog looked. The metal was smooth. Unmarked. Perfect.
"Magic," he said.
"Obviously magic!" Henrik's voice bounced off the walls. "I know magic when I see it. My grandfather worked with enchanted blades. My great-grandfather before him. This isn't just enchanted. This is alive. It has opinions. And its opinion is that it doesn't want to be an axe."
Grog considered this.
"Can you do it?"
Henrik glared at him.
The glare held for a long moment. Then, slowly, Henrik's face transformed. The fury faded. A grin emerged—not pleasant, exactly, but fierce. Challenged.
"Of course I can do it." He set the blade piece down. "It's just going to take longer. And more effort. And probably more of your gold." He shrugged massive shoulders. "But yes. I'll figure it out. I always do."
Grog nodded.
"The shield?"
"Different problem." Henrik gestured at a corner. "Come see."
---
The shield sat on its own workbench, away from the main forge.
Its core pulsed gently in the dim light—a soft, steady rhythm like a sleeping heart. The metal around it seemed to breathe with each pulse, expanding and contracting in ways that shouldn't be possible.
"That thing," Henrik said, "is happy. Content. It doesn't fight me at all."
Grog looked at him.
"I work near it, and I feel calm. Focused. Like it's helping me think." Henrik shook his head. "Never experienced anything like it. It's almost like it's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"No idea." Henrik picked up a cloth, wiped his hands. "But when I touch it—just for a moment, to test—I feel... something. Recognition. Like it knows me. Like it's deciding whether to trust me."
Grog looked at the shield.
Its glow seemed brighter than before. More alive. The pulses were stronger, more regular. And when he stepped closer, he felt it too—a warmth, a presence, a sense of being watched by something ancient and patient.
Waiting.
"Keep working," Grog said. "Both of them. I'll be back."
Henrik nodded. Turned back to his forge.
Grog walked out.
---
He stayed at the smithy for another hour, watching Henrik work.
The dwarf was a master—that was clear. Even frustrated, even fighting metal that didn't want to cooperate, his skill was undeniable. Every strike was precise. Every adjustment deliberate. He talked to the metal as he worked, muttering encouragement and curses in equal measure.
"The sword will become an axe," Henrik said at one point, not looking up. "Might take months. Might take longer. But it'll happen. The metal just needs to understand that I'm not its enemy."
"And the shield?"
Henrik paused. Looked at the glowing core.
"The shield is different. The shield is... waiting for something. Someone." He shrugged. "Not me, I don't think. I'm just the caretaker until whoever it's meant for arrives."
Grog said nothing.
But he thought about the sword at his hip. About how it had chosen him. About how the shield might be waiting to choose someone too.
Aldric, he thought. Maybe the shield is for Aldric.
He'd find out soon enough.
---
Back at the inn, he sat on the bed.
Pulled out the sword.
It pulsed in the dim light. Warm. Alive. His.
He thought about the tests. The speed. The power. The way it had cut through rock like butter. The way it had reached across distance to fell a tree he hadn't even aimed at.
This sword changed everything.
He'd meant to give it to Aldric. Had been sure, when he first found it, that it belonged to the boy. The hero needed a hero's weapon.
But the sword had chosen differently.
There are other swords, he reminded himself. Other rings. Other treasures.
The armor. The staff. The robes. Ten more rings waiting to be opened. Something in there would be right for Aldric.
He hoped.
He sheathed the sword. Lay back on the bed.
Its warmth pressed against his hip. Comforting. Right.
He closed his eyes.