Tunde spent the entire night in the lotus position, cycling until he fell asleep upright, his breath as steady as when he was awake. Footsteps from the corridor pulled him out of it.

  His eyes snapped open, and Ethra flooded his limbs before he was fully conscious. He was on his feet as Elder Joran appeared, the elder tilting his head toward the ceiling.

  "He's on time," Joran murmured.

  "Who?" Tunde asked.

  The elder gave no answer, moving past him toward the stairs. He tapped the wall near the entrance and runes lit up, the stone door grinding open to let in the morning air and the large frame of Artificer Borus.

  The forgesmith descended into the underground chamber, his metallic arm catching the crystal light, the runes along its surface faintly glowing. His gaze found Tunde immediately.

  "Greetings, young cub," he said.

  Tunde bowed at the waist.

  "I greet the forgesmith," he replied.

  "Artificer Borus has decided to honor us by delivering your weapon in person," Joran said.

  A large wooden container was strapped to the forgesmith's back. Borus unslung it as he spoke.

  "I wanted to be present for the bonding," he said.

  "It is not every day a work of this kind passes to a disciple."

  He said nothing more, his expression settling into something more serious as he opened the three metal latches holding the case together. Tunde looked at what lay inside and went quiet.

  The weapon was unlike anything he had encountered. A double-handed axe, its blade a deep, light-drinking black, its shaft wrapped in something that pulsed faintly under his gaze.

  A wolf's head sat at the weapon's summit, gripping the axe head firmly in its jaws, its carved eyes watching him with a stillness that felt deliberate.

  Borus lifted it carefully and cradled it in both hands, his expression one of a craftsman who has made something he will not make again.

  "Tunde," he said, his voice resonant in the chamber.

  "This is Shadowfang. It is more than a weapon. It is a joining of arcane elegance and primal force, woven from Ethereon, Ugue tree wood, a tier three rift core, and the bones of a shadow panther."

  Tunde reached out and let his fingers trace the shaft, feeling the subtle thrum of energy beneath.

  "The Ugue wood," Borus said, "draws strength from the roots of the primal world. Its essence speaks to the spirit of battle." He gestured to the bones woven into the shaft.

  "These grant the axe a predatory quality. Lightness in motion. The ability to move like shadow in the chaos of a fight."

  He placed the weapon in Tunde's hands.

  "The blade is forged from an alloy of Ethereon and arcane ores," Borus continued.

  "It cuts through armor and arcane defenses without distinction. You will need to learn to direct it rather than simply release it."

  He pointed to the wolf's head.

  "This is not decoration. It is the core of the axe's power. The rift core is housed within its spatial cavity. It devours Ethra affinities, all of them, and feeds that power back into your strikes."

  Tunde turned the axe over slowly, examining the undecipherable runes running along its surface.

  "The inscriptions are the language of rune readers," Borus said.

  "They record battle. They will develop as you develop."

  He held Tunde's gaze as he spoke the last of it.

  "Shadowfang carries what I would call a resonant hunger. Each strike draws in your rage, your force, your intent. It will become an extension of your will, a conduit shaped by whatever your Ethra affinity proves to be."

  Tunde took a practice swing. The axe moved like a part of him, light enough to wield single-handed despite its size, and the wolf's head seemed to regard him with something other than stillness now.

  He looked down at the tattoo on his chest and then back up at the forgesmith.

  "You knew," he said.

  Borus glanced at the tattoo with open curiosity.

  "A snarling wolf," he said softly.

  He turned to Joran, who shrugged.

  "I have my ways," the elder replied.

  "So I'm beginning to notice," Borus murmured, and traded a brief look with Tunde.

  Tunde had not forgotten the forgesmith's warning, and he had not yet found a moment alone with him. Whatever the man knew, he was keeping it close for now.

  "The true beast is some kind of wolf, isn't it?" Tunde murmured.

  "There will be time for that later," Borus replied.

  "I have very little of it at the moment. Cut your thumb on the blade and let it drink."

  Tunde obeyed, drawing the edge across his thumb.

  "Shadowfang draws the Ethra of its wielder and concentrates it along the blade's edge," Borus said.

  "The result is destruction in its most direct form."

  Something shifted inside him. He crashed to his knees before he understood why, eyes wide, another presence pressing against his mind with sudden and savage intent.

  A predatory consciousness snarled at him from somewhere deep within the weapon, fighting for the forward position, his aura beginning to pour out of him in response, the smoky black power building rapidly.

  "Rein it in!" Elder Joran commanded.

  His vision was going dark at the edges. The foreign presence shoved forward, and his own mind began to slip back.

  He looked down at the axe gripped in both hands, the axe gripping him in return, and understood this was a battle happening in two places at once.

  A growl came from his own throat, not from the presence he now recognized as Shadowfang, and he fixed his eyes on the blade's black surface and forced his body to answer to him alone.

  He brought his willpower down like a hammer. He pictured Shadowfang as what it was meant to be, a wolf of midnight, a predator, and himself as its master.

  Elder Joran had said cultivators treated him like an unsheathed blade left in the open. Like a rabid beast. There was nothing wrong with that.

  It kept people at a distance and it was the truth. He was exactly that, and Shadowfang was his arm, an extension of him, no different from his fist. Nothing that was part of him could rebel.

  The shift in thinking was immediate. The axe's presence receded, retreating into the deep background of his consciousness like a chained animal that had found its master.

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  The wolf's head eyes flickered white and then dimmed. The weapon felt light in his hand, and Tunde moved through a few experimental swings, barely registering that the forgesmith and the elder were still in the room.

  "This will give you reach when you need it," Borus said, drawing him back.

  Tunde felt the relic band stir on his wrist. He looked down as thin black lines spread from the band across his fingers toward the axe, touching the shaft. He went still.

  "Interesting," Borus said, leaning forward, his eyes sharpening with genuine fascination.

  The black lines moved into the shaft and disappeared entirely. The axe felt cooler against his palm. Tunde looked at the elder and then at Borus.

  "I have no answer for what you just witnessed," Borus said.

  "That is a road you will have to walk yourself."

  "It does sound exciting," Joran said, with a chuckle.

  Tunde bowed to the forgesmith.

  "I am grateful," he said.

  "And I intend to use it well."

  "That is all a forgesmith can ask for," Borus replied. He straightened and rolled his shoulders.

  "I'll take my leave. Two days until your fate is decided," he said, and a smile crossed his weathered face.

  He watched Elder Joran escort Borus to the stairs, the stone door opening and closing behind them, cutting off the brief window of daylight. Tunde turned Shadowfang slowly in his hands, moving through his usual steps with it.

  The axe cut through the air as if the air had already agreed to yield. He caught himself pulling a swing short mid-motion to avoid cutting himself, the silver edges shimmering with his Ethra where the blade passed through the light.

  The stone barrier opened again and Elder Joran descended, sealing the entrance behind him.

  "A fine weapon," the elder said.

  Tunde nodded. Joran held out a hand, gesturing for the axe. Tunde threw it across, watching it sail through the air. The elder caught it and immediately seemed to press downward, a grunt escaping him.

  "It rejects being wielded by anyone else," Joran said, and released it.

  The axe hit the ground with a crack that shuddered through the stone beneath it, fracture lines running outward from the impact point. Tunde's eyes went wide.

  "What exactly did Borus do to it?" he asked.

  "A common characteristic of soulbound weapons. Once bonded, some grow impossibly heavy for any other hand, others take on a different quality entirely," Joran replied.

  Tunde picked it up with one hand. Light as a piece of wood. He looked around the chamber.

  "Where do I keep it when I'm not holding it?" he asked.

  "Carry it until we can arrange a proper sheath," the elder replied.

  "Now. We move." He pointed toward the darkened tunnel.

  "The trials," Tunde said.

  "Indeed," Joran replied, walking toward the corridor.

  Tunde followed. His Ethra sight came on as the torchlight thinned, lighting the corridor in its familiar midnight glow.

  The dim torches ahead drew his attention first, then the large circular stone door beyond them. Carved into its face was a massive humanoid figure, a great hammer raised above its head.

  "Everything you are about to face, understand that Rhyn and Thalas have faced and passed," Elder Joran said.

  "Both performed well above what was expected of disciples, even if neither broke the time record of the chambers' original owner."

  "How long did it take them?" Tunde asked, studying the carving.

  "Don't concern yourself with that. Focus on surviving," the elder replied.

  Tunde turned to him.

  "Surviving?" he said.

  "Once you pass through this door, you are entirely on your own," Joran said.

  Tunde glanced around. The entrance had a coating of undisturbed dust across its surface.

  "Where have you been sleeping?" he asked.

  "Right there," the elder said, gesturing toward a stone shelf at the far corner that Tunde had somehow not noticed.

  "The first trial tests raw strength and your command of imbuement. I expect you to go through it quickly," Joran said.

  "The second tests projection, the second principle of Ethra use. The third tests dominion, your willpower under the third principle."

  "What's on the other side of that door?" Tunde asked.

  "A creature forged of Ethra and earth," Joran replied.

  "A work of considerable craft made by Artificer Iphan at the patriarch's request, commissioned as a coming-of-age gift for his two children."

  Tunde stared at him.

  "He gave his children a chamber that could kill them," he said.

  "He is not a man who tolerates weakness," Joran replied.

  "Not even in his own blood."

  Tunde nodded and gripped Shadowfang tighter. Joran noted his adjustment.

  "Your fighting style will need to fold in the axe. Crude weapons like axes have a long history of integration with close-range combat styles. You have the instincts for it already," he said.

  "I'll work on it as I go," Tunde replied.

  Joran placed his palm against the wall beside the door. The carved figure at the center of the circular stone rotated, the grinding sound filling the corridor and rolling out through the underground. The elder turned to him.

  "Less than two days to complete all three trials, rest after, and arrive at the duel by sunrise. That is the task," he said.

  Tunde briefly wondered what Rhyn and Thalas's times had been, and whether the two days were generous or a statement. He pushed the thought aside, took a breath, and stepped through the entrance.

  The dark room illuminated in his Ethra sight, and he stopped.

  Fused with the far wall was an enormous figure of rock, jade crystal, and what he judged to be Ethereon metal throughout its body. Four arms.

  A face smoothed entirely blank, without features, without eyes. A thick, dark green frame of considerable mass. One hand gripped a hammer the size of a young tree.

  The door ground closed behind him. He glanced back. Elder Joran gave him a cheerful wave through the narrowing gap.

  "Try not to die," the elder said, and the door sealed shut.

  Torches sparked to life in sequence all the way to the far wall, illuminating the creature fully. A deep hum rose from within it as golden light began to pulse in its chest cavity. The creature stirred.

  Tunde was already moving. Imbuement burned through his body and he poured Ethra into Shadowfang, the axe shuddering in his grip as its runic inscriptions ignited.

  He felt his Ethra being drawn into the weapon in measured sips, nothing like the relic's consuming pull, more like a partner drawing from a shared reserve. He crossed the chamber in five steps and swung.

  The hammer met him with matching speed, a giant rectangular block of jade crystal and Ethereon that screamed against Shadowfang's blade on impact.

  The force of it blasted Tunde backward through the air. He rolled, his legs biting into the ground as he skidded to a stop, Ethra veins visible through his skin, his entire body running with power.

  The creature had been embedded in the wall a moment ago. Now it stood in the center of the chamber as if it had always been there, its blank face turned toward him.

  His Ethra sight read its potency. The affinity was unfamiliar, somewhere adjacent to what he had faced before but not identical to any he had encountered.

  The creature sat at early disciple rank in power output but the raw physical mass behind each strike more than compensated.

  It moved, one step covering enormous ground, the hammer swinging with the full weight of its body behind it. Tunde roared. Resonance coiled in its usual midnight cable around his hand and passed into Shadowfang, the axe humming louder as the power filled it.

  The weapons met. Tunde held his ground against the force through gritted teeth, resonance crashing against the Ethra-imbued hammer in a burst that vibrated the stone floor beneath them. The hammer held, no cracks visible on its surface.

  He broke the contact and moved, going up the creature's arm at a run. A second hand swept toward him, trying to knock him clear.

  He slipped through its fingers and drove upward toward the skull, aura fusing into Shadowfang as he moved, the wolf's head eyes coming alive. He felt the difference immediately, the axe surging with his Ethra, his aura, and something of its own.

  Instinct screamed. He ducked and rolled to the side, nearly losing his footing on the arm, then swung Shadowfang down into the limb.

  The blade bit deep, and a sharp explosion tore the jade and stone casing apart, revealing a damaged metal exoskeleton beneath. He was already off the arm, flipping through the air, crashing to the ground and bouncing back to his feet.

  The creature regarded its damaged arm. Then it made a sound with no mouth, a wave of pressure pouring from it. Tunde let his aura close around him, let the predatory quality of it sharpen his thinking rather than cloud it, and charged.

  He drove Shadowfang toward the creature's body before releasing it entirely, throwing the axe and willing it forward.

  It powered through both the creature's raised hands, blowing them apart, and lodged itself in the chest cavity where the golden light pulsed.

  "Feed," Tunde said, and wasn't entirely sure why he chose that word.

  The axe responded. The wolf's head glowed as the Ethra within the creature's chest began pulling into Shadowfang. The creature wrapped its remaining hands around the shaft and pulled without result, unable to dislodge it.

  Tunde ran in, resonance burning through his right hand, and drove his fist into the pommel of the axe to push it deeper. The creature screamed without a mouth.

  One hand found him. It swung him into the wall hard enough to ring every bone in his skull, and he hit the ground in a heap of dust and stunned breath. Through watering eyes he watched the creature wrench Shadowfang free and throw it across the chamber, the axe striking the ground with a boom that cracked the stone.

  The creature turned toward him.

  He rolled to his feet, empty-handed, devoid of the elixirs and food he had left in the outer chamber. He faced it with nothing but himself, and he held the creature's blank gaze without stepping back.

  Something pulled at the edge of his attention like a call. He extended one hand without thinking. Shadowfang crossed the chamber and hit his palm at speed, and he swung it in the same motion with barely a thought given to how the axe had come to him.

  The weapons met again, except now Shadowfang was bursting with everything it had absorbed, overflowing with raw Ethra and aura at its edges. The blade parted the hammer's rock casing like it wasn't there.

  The strike continued, shearing a complete arm from the creature. It stumbled backward, reeling, and Tunde's resonance-loaded punch found its knee joint and shattered it. The creature went down to one knee.

  Shadowfang left his hand, spun through the air, and sliced cleanly through the creature's neck. The head toppled.

  Tunde caught himself against the ground, breathing hard, feeling the Ethra drain pulling at him. Not as severe as the mining tunnels, but closer to that edge than he'd have preferred.

  Then he watched the creature's limbs begin to grow back.

  He went very still.

  It reattached its head calmly, retrieved the severed arm from the ground, and reabsorbed it. Then it walked back to the far wall and settled into the stone as if it had never moved.

  Tunde let out a slow breath. He could still fight. His body had more to give, he could feel the distance between where he was and his true limit. But the creature had apparently decided that wasn't the point.

  The distant door swung open.

  He sat down on the ground with Shadowfang across his knees, letting his cycling settle back into its steady rhythm. The fight had been short and heavy in equal measure. The creature was strong. So was he, and the evidence was in the open doorway ahead of him.

  He clenched his fist once, rose to his feet, and walked toward the second trial.