Forged Destiny [Book 3: Ch. 14]

Their work trapped in the safety of the Kingdoms will ensure they can never find the kind of incredible equipment we can. Why, this runic blade is the culmination of decades for me. It was quite the find."

Runic…?

[...]

Crocea Mors continued to give way, the cracks within the steel growing wider as his weapon sheared through it. He could have drawn back and ended it in one swing, but I'd have dodged. Safer for him to slowly kill me this way. Desperately, I wedged my sword between one hand and my shoulder, and used my free hand to try and break the grip on his own weapon.

My fingers scrabbled against his, but there was nothing I could do. Even using Stoke the Forge barely did enough to heat the metal around his gauntlets. It would take too long to burn through it, and the heat would be diffused across his armour. As a final gambit, my hand took hold of his sword, fingers cutting themselves on the unnaturally sharp edge.

Blood ran down it.

"Time to end this," Watts whispered.

No… not like this. Not now. I concentrated as best I could, my hand heating the metal until it glowed a dull red. There was something stopping me from breaking it, however – maybe some enchantment or one of those damned runes. My eyes fell to them once more.

Wait… the runes! My hand moved lower, thumb hovering near them. With all my strength I pressed in, thumb shaking against the hot metal.

"DIE!"

"No!" I growled.

"JAUNE!" someone cried.

Resistance gave way, both on my end – and on his. Crocea Mors shattered, and his blade came through, even as the friction against my thumb gave way and the digit smeared across the blood-soaked blade. I screamed as the metal pierced my skin, and then gasped as it lodged in my shoulder bone. Something within me cracked, and I felt the right side of my body crumple.

Watt's eyes were wide.

"What? How were you not split in two?"

"B-Because it's just a sword," I gasped, a weak, bloody smile on my lips. "At least… it is now..."

He looked down on it, and I laughed at the pyrrhic victory. His sword, which had once glowed a faint blue, not looked as inert and simple as any other. The ornaments were still there, from some of its serrated edges to the scrolling on the hilt – but there was no glow, no hum of power, and no enhancement to let it shear through me with ease.

"Impossible…" Watts breathed. "This… This doesn't make sense. How could my sword simply stop working?"

I sagged to my knees as he tore it free from my shoulder. My other hand came up to clasp the wound, which oozed blood through my fingers. With him before me, and his sword held vertical, I could see the damage I'd wrought. Nothing much… just a streak made by my thumb, and a tiny bit of melted metal beneath it.

Directly through the runes that powered it.

—Forged Destiny [Book 3: Ch. 14]