Everything is not okay. Temra tries to approach me, but I step backward, nearly falling over as I do so. My hands are shaking, and my body temperature goes from uncomfortably hot to unbearably so.
“Ziva, he’s gone. You’re safe. Look around the room. It’s just us. Here, hold your hammer.” She thrusts the instrument into my hand. “Now listen to my breathing and match it.” She exaggerates the sounds of her own breath, slowly dragging it in and out.
I fall to my knees in front of my anvil, my head level with the unfinished mace, my hammer held loosely in my hand.
You are no longer welcome.
I can’t believe the things I said. I insulted him. He’s going to tell other potential customers about the ordeal. Everyone will know that I said something stupid. They’ll all want to take their business elsewhere. I’ll be ruined. Humiliated.
Everyone will know there’s something wrong with me.
“Breathe. You’re safe. Breathe,” Temra says, cutting through my tangled thoughts.
“What if the sword was defective, and I just—”
Temra says, “The sword was perfect. Don’t think like that. Come on, Ziva. You’re amazing. Just breathe.”
Time falls away as I try to crawl out from under the weight of my own panic.
I’ve no sense of how long it takes before the attack recedes, before my mind can understand that there’s anything else besides impending doom. But it passes, easing out of me like a fruit being juiced.
I’ve always been a naturally anxious person, but being around people makes it so much worse. And sometimes these attacks happen—when it’s a particularly nasty encounter or if I’m simply feeling overwhelmed.
I’m tired and overstimulated, but I still welcome the hug my sister wraps me in. She lets me decide when to pull away.
“Thank you,” I say as I set my hammer back on one of the many worktables in the forge.
“I’m sorry, Ziva. I really did try to keep him from entering.”
“Trust me, I heard. But I hope you know that if anyone is acting dangerous, I insist you show them in. I don’t ever want you in harm’s way.”
She scoffs. “How can a man who injures himself with his own weapon be dangerous?”
We share a laugh, and I turn back to the unfinished mace, trying to decide whether to continue working or to rest for a bit.
Only … the weapon has already been magicked.
There’s no physical change that I can see, but I sense it. A slight pulsing of heat.
I pick up the mace by the metal handle and bring the head toward my face for inspection, careful of the single flange that is still cooling.
“Something happened,” I say.
“Did Garik ruin the weapon?”
“No, it’s already imbued with magic.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was welding the first flange on, and then Garik came in. I set it on the anvil, and then…”
“Then?” Temra prompts.
“And then I couldn’t breathe.”
I head outdoors, Temra following. Our city is located in the middle of a conifer forest. It rains every other day of the week, and the sun is constantly battling the clouds for dominance in the sky. Today the sun shines brightly, warming my skin through the light breeze.
Our parents kept chickens and a goat in the backyard when I was little. I remember helping Mother collect the eggs each morning. But neither Temra nor I care for such responsibilities, so the land mostly serves as an area for me to demonstrate my weapons.
When I judge myself to be a safe distance from the house, I grasp the mace tightly before taking a swing in the direction of the old cedar tree.
Nothing magical happens.
Though rare, there have been a few times when I’ve unwittingly magicked a weapon and had to figure out how it worked.
It’s rather frustrating.
I try bringing the shaft down against the dirt-packed ground, but that does nothing either. On a whim, I breathe onto the mace, since my face had been so close to it during my attack.
Still nothing.
“Let me try,” Temra says.
“Absolutely not. You might hurt yourself.”
“I’ve handled your weapons before.”
“But oftentimes my weapons have long-range effects. Until I’m sure what it does, I won’t let you—”
Temra falls to her knees, her hands going to her throat as she makes a gasping noise. I’d started twirling the weapon over my head, and I immediately stop and rush over to her.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did you swallow something?”
A burst of air fills her lungs, and she stares wonderingly at the weapon. “I didn’t swallow anything. It’s the mace. Do that again.”
“What?”
“Spin it over your head in a circle.”
I give one full rotation of the weapon, and this time Temra is ready. “I can’t breathe when you do that.”
I stare at the mace in shock before handing it over to her. “Now you can try.”
She does, and I feel the effects instantly. The mace is sucking the air away from me, toward itself. I step farther and farther away. Once I reach about ten feet, I can breathe again.
Temra stops the motion. “Incredible!”
“I’m glad my sheer panic is good for something.”
Temra looks on me sadly. “It’s all right, Ziva. Whenever it happens, I’ll be here for you.”
As the older sister, I should be there for her. But more often than not, she is the one saving me. Temra should have been the one to receive our mother’s gift for magic. She is so much stronger and braver than I will ever be, but I don’t think she realizes how much my gift took away my own childhood.
I’m glad that, at sixteen, Temra is able to concentrate on more trivial tasks, like flirting with boys and focusing on her schooling. But me? I’ve been providing for us since I was twelve. I often wonder if spending so much of my formative years locked in a forge somehow made me fearful of everything else. At eighteen, I hate to leave the house and be around people.
Or maybe it’s simply an effect of the magic itself. I’ve no one to ask for answers about magic. Mother was killed when I was five, long before my gift manifested.
“The local tournament is only months away,” Temra says. “I’m sure we’ll have many more customers passing through the city between then and now. Everyone is going to want a Zivan blade.”
She’s trying to make me feel better. I appreciate the effort, but I’m still reeling from the effects of my attack.
“It’s a phase,” Temra says, reading my thoughts. “It will pass eventually.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
But I don’t believe it for a moment.
CHAPTER
TWO
It’s Tuesday, which means we go out for dinner.
I hate going out.
There’s a small relief when I see that our usual table is free. I make a beeline for it, taking the far chair. It’s my favorite spot because my back is against the wall. No one can get behind me, and I can see the whole room.
I don’t like feeling as if people are staring at me, and it’s a sensation I can’t shake off when my back is exposed to a large space.
Temra and I make a show of raising the menus, but we both already know what we want.
The waitress greets us both by name before taking our orders. “I’ll have the cauliflower soup and fresh bread,” Temra says. “She’ll have the lamb and steamed vegetables.”
I nod with a forced smile on my face toward the waitress. It’s an arrangement Temra and I have. We’re both terrible cooks. Everything seems to be burned or soggy when we try. Still, I’d rather eat poor food and be safe at home than out and about where strangers can watch me eat. Temra, on the other hand, loves eating out, so we have a deal. We can eat out for half the week; the other half we take turns cooking at home. And Temra always orders for me so I don’t have to talk to anyone but her.
I place my hands atop the table in front of me and twist my fingers together, a habit I’ve had since childhood. A light buzzing sensation has taken root just under my skin. In an attempt to distract myself from my discomfort, I say, “The governor came by to collect his weapon this afternoon while you were at school.”
“He came in person?”
“Yes.”
“He must be really excited about the mace. How did he like it?”
I try to hide a cringe, but I must not manage it, because Temra says, “He didn’t like it?”
“No, no. He liked it just fine.”