Uzca kneeled with his mouth hanging open, surprise plastered on his face. Uzca had never heard about this. The god's honored many, but he'd never heard of anyone speaking face to face with their deity.

"Thank you, lord. It is an honor to be granted an audience."

The god examined him, stepping around him carefully while Uzca kept his eyes respectfully lowered. Rethkam touched a sleeve and sniffed the air around Uzca.

"You have come to me on this day, but this is not your first time in my temple. You have come to the temple before, with your father. Many times. You work the forge as he does and have done me the great honor of working the forge on this very day. Truly, you would serve me well. Tell me, Uzca, son of Renza, what would you have for your gift?"

He didn't know what to say. No one told him he would get to talk to his god, much less pick his gift. Maybe he didn't get to choose; perhaps the god was just testing him. He could say something to make him a great smith. Would that please the god? No, he would see through Uzca's lies. He would be honest.

"I...I love working the forge with my father. I really do. But I want to make a difference in the world. I want to see the world too. I don't know what to ask for because I'm torn between these parts of my life. The younger boys, and even some just a few years older than me during the last gifting, see this as an opportunity to grow in power. To pursue some selfish ideas that they have floating around in their heads."

He knew he was rambling, and he had lost the question while he was talking. If his face wasn't already red from the intense heat of the god's domain, he was sure it would have reddened then. What would he like for his gift...

"If you can give me something like my father's gift. Something I can use to advance my craft while still being able to help people. That's what I want."

"You struggle with yourself. Not only in this choice, but there is more you have not yet said. Your older brother...he disappeared with your mother, did he not?"

The non-sequitur question was jarring. He hadn't thought much about his brother and mother in years. Not since they had vanished, years before the last festival of gifts. His brother would have been old enough to receive one of his own ten years ago and surely would have been waiting in the town square for Uzca to return now. The memory and the fact that he was now kneeling where his older brother might have were it not for a twist of fate burned him. Hot grief and not a little bit of anger were all he had left of them. Those were old wounds that had never healed. He didn't know if his family was alive, but his father suspected they had been taken to the lowlands. He never elaborated further. Renza had pursued them for a time, leaving the village and Uzca, but he had returned empty-handed.

"He did. They vanished many years ago."

"You wish to find him. And your mother."

The god stated it as fact, and it was. He didn't think about it much and actively pushed the thoughts away whenever they bubbled up, but he wanted to know what happened to them. He wanted to know if his brother and mother were alive, and if they were, he wanted to find them. He had been too young to really understand what happened when he was younger, but now the hidden desire in his heart was kindled to life.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

"Do they live?"

The god was silent for a moment. Uzca could almost feel the scales of some great mechanism within the god's realm rise and fall, as though he weighed the cost and benefit of revealing this truth. It gave him the impression that Rethkam was more than just the avatar before him, but the entire cavern and everything beyond it. When Uzca somehow felt the mechanism settle, the god spoke.

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"I see you clearly, Uzca, son of Renza. I see a seed of greatness, but it is buried under obligation and fear. I have a power for you, and you may choose to take it or leave it, but if you take it, there is a price. You must find out what happened to your lost family for yourself."

Uzca swallowed. He had never heard of something like this. He felt disappointed by the lack of concrete response, but it was something.

"I offer you the power of the forge. To shape and change is the heart of it. You may have this power, but you must leave your village behind if you take it. Not forever, but you must travel. You must leave to learn what happened to your lost family. You must leave to discover what it means to be Uzca and not Uzca, son of Renza. This is how you will serve me."

He and his father were close. The fear that Rethkam mentioned was real. He was afraid to leave his father behind. Fearful of what losing the last piece of his family would do to the man. His heart almost couldn't bear it.

The god approached and squatted in front of him, eye to eye. He looked into those molten orbs and was almost as afraid to refuse the god as he was to leave his father behind.

"Do not worry about your father, Uzca. Remember that I am his god. I know the secret turnings of his heart as I know yours. He fears that pity is all he has left. He fears he has a son that thinks that if he doesn't stay, he will be the one to break his father completely. But I know the truth of it. You do not pity your father, and you stay because you've never seriously considered leaving as a possibility. Parting will be hard, but you are both my children. I have forged you both into a metal that will not break."

Uzca almost laughed. Honestly, they were both cowards, he and his father. Afraid to speak of their hidden fears. It is always hard to tell those you are closest to the things that you think will hurt them, and it's even harder to tell them the things that you know will hurt you. The god's words soothed his fears. He wanted the power and to learn the secrets of his lost family. It wasn't a difficult choice when he was presented with the facts.

"I will take this power, and I will find out what happened to my family, and I will return."

The god clapped and stood up, and a grin managed to split the enormous unruly beard.

"So be it! I, Rethkam, God of Fire and Forge, grant you the Heart of Change. This divine power will grant you the ability to change yourself, and eventually change the world around you."

Rethkam reached out a single finger and pressed it to Uzca's chest. A flash of blue light, no, power, unfolded through his body. The world around him seemed to change. He could feel more than just the heat of the world around him. There was now something more intimate, something malleable he could carve from the world and bend to his will.

Then that sensation faded away, and the malleability was now an internal thing. He could change if he wanted. The power begged to be used, but as his body continued to change, that too faded away. He was left kneeling before the god, knowing something profound within himself had changed, but not knowing what it was, or how to reach inside himself and touch it.

"Is that it?"

Rethkam boomed a laugh in response. "You will have to grow into your power, my young disciple. Go now, and be the change in the world. I will see you again, Uzca."

The heat in the chamber became suddenly unbearable, and Uzca flinched away. At that moment, he was back in the small temple room, sitting in front of the altar, sweat covering his forehead. His old hammer was gone, taken by the god as a worthy tribute.

Uzca again felt a warmth blossom inside him. The gift unfolded and permeated his very being. It swam to the surface of his perception, and back down again, never quite in reach. He could feel it working, but it was too new. He could tell it needed to settle before he would be able to use it.

"The Heart of Change..."

He stood and gave one final bow to the altar before heading back out into the surprisingly cool night air. His father seemed to look anywhere other than at him. Uzca suspected that was so he didn't immediately start asking him what happened.

Uzca nodded to Harvon, letting him know he was finished, and the boy entered the temple.

Instead of the expected agonizing wait with his father, who clearly wanted to talk to him but couldn't, Harvon came out almost immediately. The boy was looking at his hands with wonder. Uzca's father didn't seem to find it odd, instead waving them both along back to the village. Uzca wondered if that's what it had felt like when he entered the temple.

Uzca felt drained but excited. Tomorrow, he would begin exploring his new power. Knowing that he had to leave home dampened his excitement, but he still felt good. He felt refreshed like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It was one he hadn't realized he had been carrying, but the relief was palpable.

He would talk to his father tonight, and in the morning, he would learn what it meant to be the Heart of Change.