Once every ten years, the Festival of Gifts happens in the remote villages of the Dragonfang mountains. Uzca was twenty-two years old and a junior blacksmith to his father. He had been too young during the last festival to be eligible for a gift, with the cutoff being thirteen years old. It grated on him throughout the intervening years. The village was small, and he had been the only young boy who had missed out, at least from his perspective. The boys that were old enough now had been mostly five, six, or seven during the last festival.

As custom dictated, the village was decorated with bright colors and paper lanterns. Effigies honoring all the old gods were put together by volunteers and placed throughout the village square. Boys and girls old enough to partake in a gift from the gods would make their way to each of the altars in the days leading up to the gifting and choose a god that resonated with them. Most of the boys looked up to Vandrias, the Warrior God. They wanted personal power and ability. They had dreams of going to war and winning glory. They were young idiots.

Uzca might have done the same ten years ago, so in a way, he was glad he had been made to wait. A tiny way. Still, he didn't need to go around the village square; he knew what god he would petition. The same god as his father had received a gift from decades ago. Rethkam, the God of the Forge, Fire, and Hot Metal.

He didn't need a gift to become a great blacksmith. Most people didn't have gifts that helped them excel in a craft, but his father did. Uzca helped out in the forge the morning of the gifting. He worked the bellows and grabbed tools for his father as needed. He watched and observed. His father let him work the anvil frequently enough, but he said today was a big day for Uzca, and his father said he shouldn't strain himself in the morning.

His father was a big man named Renza. He and his son were powerfully built men, but Renza had a height that Uzca had never grown into. Renza reached into the forge and grabbed the ingot he had set there earlier. The red-hot metal didn't make a sound as he grabbed it with a bare hand. Renza had received a gift called "Heart of the Forge." The village elders of his youth had proclaimed it to be one of the most powerful the village had ever produced. Not that it got people clamoring to Rethkam for a gift. Uzca handed his father a particular hammer, and he got to work.

Renza's gift allowed him to handle molten metal without harm and made him utterly impervious to heat and fire. The gift went so far as to protect his clothing. He had rescued a few people from burning buildings, though the smoke still gave him as much trouble as anyone else. Uzca hoped for a power like that. A power he could use every day, but when it counted, he could use it to help people too.

As his father flattened the metal with one head of his hammer, he would flip it and break off pieces to land on the workbench. Uzca used a pair of long tongs to grab the separated chunks of hot metal and put them back into a cooler part of the forge until they could be worked. They were making several iron bands for some shields that were on order. It was one of the more common things they made, so they worked with silent efficiency.

Or at least Uzca thought they were going to until his father paused his hammering for a few moments to speak.

"Uzca, I know you've been looking forward to today. You don't have to go to Rethkam, you know. There are other gods, and you can make your own choices."

As was his father's way, he continued beating the metal he was working on, the first band. He would give Uzca time to think about his answer and respond between pieces.

Uzca wasn't sure why his father wanted him to consider other gods. He had been brought up under Rethkam's protective gaze, and though he did have some passing interest in some things covered by the other gods, he liked smithing. He didn't want a gift from a god he wasn't familiar with. His father tossed the shaped banding into the bucket they used to quench metal. It sizzled and popped, and his father looked at him expectantly.

"It's alright, Pa. I've made up my mind. Rethkam is my god just as much as he is yours. I won't choose another."

His father smiled at him. "Good lad. You hold to your convictions, and it will take you far. Some people in this village are too concerned with impressing others."

Uzca knew his father was talking about Menza, the village's first elder. He also happened to be Uzca's uncle and his father's brother. The brothers didn't always see eye to eye. Menza's son, Bezben, was five years younger than Uzca but already acted like he ran the village. Uzca liked his cousin, but he definitely thought the boy had some growing up to do. He had no doubt which god Bezben would petition.

As they finished their work, his father tossed him a token for the bathhouse. It was just a series of buildings with hot baths and a variety of soaps. They had some at home, but it was a big day, and his father wanted him to look his best before petitioning the god.

His father had cleaned himself up by the time Uzca returned, smelling and feeling fresh.

"Are you ready?"

Now that the moment was almost upon him, Uzca felt like a scared child once more. What if the god refused him? He heard that had happened to someone once. He knew he could live without a gift but didn't know if he could handle the shame.

"What if the god doesn't want to give me a gift?"

Renza nodded sagely, "Ahh. A god might refuse, but only if your purpose in life is counter to their domain. If you were a warrior and only cared about power and death, why would the god of compassion give you anything? It's rare because people go to gods that align with them. You're cleaned up, but you're fresh from the forge. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone else in the village who has honored their god so much on the day of gifting."

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His father gave him a hug that he was helpless to avoid. It was weird. He was a grown man by almost any measure, but having not been through the gifting, he felt like a child. His father's words were from a father to a son, and they comforted the childish worry he felt and pulled him back to himself.

"Thanks, Pa."

The sun was beginning to set when they left home. They made their way to the village square. It was supposed to be a festive atmosphere, but nerves kept most people quiet. As the village population gathered, several people stepped out to don hooded robes. His father squeezed his arm and left to get a robe, then he walked over and stood next to the effigy of Rethkam.

Uzca's uncle, Menza, climbed onto a stage at the front of the gathering. He waved his hands to unnecessarily quiet the crowd and spoke out with a loud clear voice.

"It is once again time for the gifting! Every year we honor our gods, and every year they bring us bounty an life. On this, the tenth year, however, we gather to pray the gods grant even greater gifts on our young ones. It is the gods who gauge our worth, and it is they who honor us with their attention. All gifts matter, and all gifts are granted for a reason. Though we celebrate our young ones, it is the gods who we must always remember to thank.

"I ask that we all say a silent prayer to every god. That we give thanks for the bounty our children are about to receive, and that they be granted the grace to know how to best use these gifts."

Menza bent his head in silent prayer, and others around the square lowered their heads to offer one more prayer for the young men and women who would be granted gifts on this day.

"Now, those of age, go to the effigy of the god you wish to petition! Once everyone has taken their places, the pilgrimages will begin."

Uzca moved over to the sculpted figure of Rethkam and next to his father, who didn't acknowledge him from under the hooded robe. He knew from the stories that the guides were not permitted to speak or ask about the gifts until everyone returned to the village. Even then, there was a taboo on talking about gifts on the day of gifting. The younger generation would come back and celebrate, and tomorrow, everyone's new gifts would be revealed.

He looked around the square and saw a few teens, Bezben included, gathered around Vandrias, the Warrior. Another decently sized group was gathered around Hemmenish, the Healer. Hemmenish was an interesting one. They referred to him as the healer, as that was the most common type of gift the god gave out, but his first title was the God of Blood. Rarely would the god bestow a more sinister gift.

A few gathered around the gods of weather, agriculture, and wisdom, but three remained empty. There was a temple to an ocean god nearby, but Uzca had never met anyone who had even seen the ocean—that he knew of—so it was rarely visited. The other two were gods of ideals, like wisdom, but not as popular. In fact, he didn't think anyone had ever requested a gift from Audorus, the God of Passion. It wasn't explicitly frowned upon, but the effects of judgmental glances were felt nonetheless.

He was mildly surprised when another person joined him. Harvon was a boy of fourteen, and Uzca didn't know him well. He sometimes watched at the forge, but so did most children at some point or another. It was hard to ignore the sound of the hammer sometimes, so it drew people.

Without any signal that Uzca could see, all the guides waved the candidates to follow, grabbing torches and stepping out of the village into the darkening night. They made for different temples and left the village in all directions.

Uzca shared a glance with Harvon and gave the young man a slight smile and a nod. Harvon returned the nod but didn't say anything. Uzca still felt his own nervous energy, so he focused on that rather than what the other man was thinking.

Uzca had been to the temple of Rethkam with his father many times and had visited most of the other temples as a child. It was a few miles from the village, a little farther out than the other temples, but it was still an easy walk on a well-trodden trail. The temples were simple buildings, but each had been blessed by a priest of the god they honored in ages past, and they were appropriate for the gifting.

The sun had set, and a torch burned in his father's hand, lighting their way. The walk was uphill, farther into the mountains, and the ground was rocky with little in the way of vegetation. They occasionally saw a flash of eyes in the flickering torchlight as some animal or another looked at them. Wolves and big cats were known to sometimes prowl the heights, seeking out mountain goats and rabbits. There was safety in numbers, though, and two or three people, especially with a flaming torch, would be okay. Uzca had to remind himself of this fact as they neared the temple, and his own tension rose.

The temple looked the same as Uzca remembered it. A small building built from white stone—stone that had been quarried from a place close enough to see if it were light out. All the children, or in Uzca's case, adults, had been briefed on how to handle the gifting. They would walk out to the temples, then one at a time, they would enter the temple alone. Tradition dictated the oldest would enter first, so Harvon stepped aside.

His father held a hand toward the door, and Uzca walked inside the simple stone opening. Torches had been lit for the ceremony before they arrived, and a small offering sat on a stone block at the front of an empty room. For Rethkam, a few precious metals and a familiar forged hammer had been offered. The hammer was one Uzca had made himself. His father must have brought it up here early in the morning.

He picked up the hammer and looked at it. It was one of his early creations. His father said every smith worth their salt should work their own hammer. This had been his first attempt and wasn't very good, but his father had held onto it for all these years. A fitting offering to the god of the forge. He laid it back down and knelt in front of the small altar.

This was the part that everyone older than him had been vague about. He was supposed to pray but wasn't sure what to do. He just started talking.

"Great Rethkam, I come to you as a humble pilgrim and ask that you bless my life with a gift. I will do my best to use it to honor you."

It felt both a little awkward and right at the same time.

A breeze from nowhere blew through the room. It was hot and sulfurous. All at once the lamps went out. A deep red glow appeared in the distance. Before he knew what was happening, he was kneeling in a grand cavern. Slowly it brightened as molten rock bubbled on either side of the narrow path where he knelt. At the far end of the path was the deep red glow. He couldn't make out what it was, but it grew larger. Right when he thought he might be able to make out some details of the deep red glow, it changed. Suddenly a man was standing before him.

The man was huge, with muscular arms and broad shoulders. He had a long grey beard, eyes barely visible as red orbs under bushy brows, and a wrinkled face.

"Greetings, Uzca, son of Renza. I am pleased to see you here on this day of gifting."

The God, Rethkam, stood before him.