If he was going to be the sword of my fiancée, then he would have me, her fiancé, as a rival. A challenger.
At dawn, I rose earlier than ever, dragging my weary body to where my father and Salvatore trained, where steel clashed against steel, and sweat painted the earth in sacrifice. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. I fought. I bled. I broke. But no matter how many times I carved new scars into my hands, no matter how many bones I set or how much I willed myself forward, Salvatore remained ahead. Beyond me. A genius. A monster of talent.
Worse still, he wasn't just a genius who coasted on his gifts.
No. He worked. Hard.
A genius who also worked hard, what crueler enemy could exist?
One afternoon, when the clang of steel no longer filled the air, I found my father in the workshop, hammering away at a blade beneath the molten glow of the forge. The rhythmic strike of his hammer was a heartbeat, the lifeblood of steel. Sweat glistened on his brow, his arms moving with the precision of a man who had shaped metal for decades. The sword he forged would be for his disciple, Salvatore.
And I wasn't going to stand by and watch my life be taken by a boy I barely knew.
"I want a sword too," I said, my voice steady. Unyielding.
His hammer froze mid-swing. The silence between us was thick, an unsaid challenge. Slowly, he turned, eyes shadowed with understanding.
"This is about Salvatore, isn't it?"
I shook my head. A lie.
He didn't press. Instead, he studied me for a long moment before nodding, his mind already turning like a grinding wheel.
"Let's reforge your axe then," he said. "If I forge you a sword, your axe will become useless. Instead, we will make it something more. Something worthy of you."
The axe.
It had come from Caelum, yet it had remained with me in Terra for as long as I could remember. I had found it in the Colosseum, its history unknown. And yet, deep in my marrow, I knew, I knew, that I was somehow tied to the one it had belonged to.
I sighed, nodding.
Father took the axe and placed it into the roaring forge.
His brows furrowed. "How do you even carry this thing? It's heavy as hell."
But the moment the fire licked the metal, the axe did not change. It did not soften. It did not yield. It was as if it refused to be reshaped.
Frustration curled in my gut like a coiled viper.
And then, an idea. Reckless. Desperate.
I thought of Xanthe's worn-out phoenix. Its flames were dying, but it had served me before. Could I ask more of it?
I exhaled, shaking my head. No, that would be selfish. It had already done more for me than I could have asked. Anything more would be greed.
As if reading my mind, the bird arrived as if summoned by my will alone.
With a mighty flap of its ashen wings, it soared into the workshop, unleashing a torrent of flames hotter than the sun's core. The air shimmered. The forge roared to life, an inferno of divine heat.
And then, the impossible.
The axe, so stubborn against ordinary fire, finally melted. Molten steel dripped like liquid gold, hissing against the anvil.
My father and I stared, caught between awe and disbelief. Then, with the fervor of a man possessed, he seized his tools and began to shape the metal.
"Bring me one of the eggs, Jack," he ordered, voice urgent.
I ran inside, seizing one of the phoenix eggs, my fingers trembling with the weight of what we were about to do. When I returned, the phoenix did it again, unleashing its dying fire upon the golden egg.
The egg melted.
Gold and steel fused, intertwining in a dance of rebirth and destruction.
Hours passed. The sky darkened. The world outside ceased to exist.
The only thing that remained was the rhythmic clang of hammer against steel, the forging of something beyond mortal hands.
Finally, drenched in sweat, his breath ragged, my father emerged from the workshop, holding a weapon unlike any other.
Black as a void. Its surface shimmered like liquid shadow. He carried it inside, but it was…small. No larger than a child's wooden sword.
Yet, something about it felt vast, endless.
A weapon forged by legend. A relic of myth.
I reached for it.
And the moment my fingers wrapped around the hilt—
It shrunk.
From the size of a short sword to something laughable. A bread knife.
"What?"
We both spoke at the same time, stunned.
Father grabbed it again, and instantly, it expanded, returning to the size of a wooden sword.
"What's going on?" I demanded.
He turned the blade in his hands, his eyes gleaming with the spark of revelation. "I think I get it, it grows according to its wielder's power." His voice was thick with awe. "If you grow stronger, so will it. It will never outpace you, never fall behind. This sword is alive."
He held it up, and with the weight of prophecy, declared:
"I shall call it The Grower. A relic that reflects its master's might. If you rise, it shall rise. If you falter, it shall slumber."
I scoffed, shaking my head.
"No thanks. I'll call it Rhea."
A name. The name of my late mother.
"Why, the Grower is a better name." He said.
Now, as I looked down at the blade, I recalled something strange. When I first arrived in this world, the axe had been smaller, as if it had once shrunk to match me. Had it always been bound to my strength? Or was it the phoenix's egg that had given it life?
A weapon that changed with its wielder. A sword that acknowledged only the strong.
I reached out again, brushing my fingers against the hilt.
And in that moment—
I felt it.
Power.
Waiting.
Hungry.
A quiet smile ghosted my lips.
For the first time in months, I had something that would never stop growing.
Because I would never stop growing.