In a small castle off the coast of Pincer’s Bay, a hero argued with his steward.

“What do you mean, ‘alone?’” Jacob blinked at the woman.

Marriane Falter had a kindly old face, wizened from years of counseling heroes, guiding them until they were ready to leave her nest and begin their first campaign. She was a shrewd woman, though you wouldn’t have known it by looking at her, nor even conversing with her.

Jacob didn’t learn the truth about her for months. She was a spider in human flesh, weaving her machinations in a vast web that covered a full third of the kingdom.

The iron in her spine was veiled by her soft voice and kind words, showing only in the steely gray of her eyes—but even that could be confused for a more benign sort of intelligence. One who knew her in passing might be surprised to learn that she lived a friendless life, and had existed so for nearly forty years. One might have also been surprised to learn that she preferred it this way, and in fact, regarded most people as unworthy of the air they breathed.

Not Jacob. Not now.

“Think of it as your very own adventure,” the elderly woman said, hands folded in a picture of innocence. “You’re free to explore the kingdoms as a wandering hero, aiding the common man from the monsters ravaging Eleth from within.”

“You’re kicking me out of the party,” Jacob said, a cold and numb feeling spreading through his stomach. “You’re replacing me?”

“Only temporarily, and for your own safety,” Marriane said, smiling wistfully. “You’re simply not cut out for the front lines, little dove.”

“You don’t think I’m good enough,” he said.

It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t think he was good enough. He could see it in her eyes. It wasn’t pity that glimmered in her steel-gray irises—he didn't think she was capable of a thing like pity—it was the lack of any emotion at all. It felt as if she was looking past him, through him, like he only deserved the pretense of her attention while her mind was elsewhere.

“You might have been good enough,” she said, eyes boring past him. “If your party was content to spend the remainder of their career hunting goblins. Their destiny lies in higher peaks, while yours…”

“Is down in the warrens,” Jacob finished, chest numb. He felt his jaw go lax. “You’ve said. But I feel like my blessings would really shine in the mountains, you know? The closer I am to the sky, the stronger I’ll be.”

This was, almost verbatim, the same argument he had with her last night. The same night his party left him for good, if she was to be believed. He knew what she would say next.

“Would you be strong enough to cut troll flesh?” She asked. “Strong enough to withstand the wrath of the storm giants?”

“Maybe,” he looked away. “I bet I could dodge the wrath of the storm giants, at least.”

“Wind cannot cut stone,” she said. “And I very much doubt you could dodge lightning, pet.”

He winced. His blessings were rooted in the power of wind—useful for maneuverability and quick blows—but the creatures of the northern reach were built to withstand the power of the wind.

“But we’re a team,” he said, though his heart wasn’t in it any longer. “We’re strongest when we’re together.”

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” Marriane said. “And I’ll not allow a weak chain to bear the weight of an entire continent.”

‘The weak link,’ she called him. And she had the nerve to sound like she was doing him a favor. Anger flared in the pit of his stomach, burning as suddenly as it drowned in the crushing ocean of shame weighing on his chest.

“But what am I supposed to do?” He asked, miserable.

“As I’ve said,” she squinted at him. “Leave. I’ll not have you loaf about the castle when I’m preparing for another party of heroes.”

“But this is my home.”

“I think you will find,” the old woman looked him up and down. “That this is my home, pet. You will always be welcome as a guest here, but it’s time for you to avail your services to the kingdom! Grow stronger, that you might one day join your party beyond the mountain.”

Jacob’s shoulders slouched. “But I hate the warrens.”

“Travel the hills, then. Or the valleys. I hear Enkhyria’s lovely this time of year, and the Anoroc plains might be the perfect place to exercise your power over the wind.”

“Enkhyria?” He whined. “There’s nothing in Enkhyria but farmland. What would I do there?”

“You would protect the farmland, dear,” Marriane said, smiling slightly. “Food is the fuel of war, and lean times will be upon us soon enough. The crusade’s starved us before, and I’d wager a lack of feed’s killed more innocents than every goblin and troll put together. We’d depend on you, pet.”

He could only stare at his steward, and wonder.

Enkhyria. The other side of the Eleth, far from the reach of the Enlepidin steward. She’d not send him there unless it served some need of hers. Unless…

He blinked.

Unless she truly wanted him gone. Unless she truly had no more need of him. Unless she truly thought he was useless. The realization slugged him in the chest, forcing him to take a step back from the older woman.

…

*thwack*

Jacob breathed with the wind, bearing his sword down on the wooden dummy.

*thwack* *thwack*

He grimaced. He’d left two pale gashes in the wretched thing—not enough to cut steel plate, and certainly not enough to cut troll hide.

He looked down at his blade—a great beast of a weapon. Most men would need two hands to wield it, and a great deal of them wouldn’t be able to do much more than keep hold of the massive thing. But in Jacob’s hands, the sword sang through the air.

The sword was curved in the fashion of a sickle, or a crooked finger. That was the blade’s former name before he claimed it. Crooked Finger, wielded by the sea lord Khaldeni. He was a pirate, a slaver, and an utter bastard of a man the world was well rid of.

He was the first person Jacob had ever killed. The first he looked in the eye before the deed was done, at least. He must have killed at least three of Khaldeni’s crew before he got to the captain—mowed them down like wheat. They didn’t feel real at the time, and it wasn't until after that he realized what he’d done. By then their faces had faded from memory, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at the corpses.

Khaldeni, though, was a man not easily forgotten, and one of the few pirates that managed to live up to his reputation. He’d got it in his head that the Enlepidian coast was ripe for the pillaging with all its soldiers sent north—and he was right. No one was left to protect the villages and towns west of the Dragonspine—neither soldiers nor guards, wizards nor priests.

So Khaldeni made his fortune. It was easy enough, for a man of his stature. The brute was seven feet tall, with a reputation for cutting men in half with his Crooked Finger. He was slow on his feet, though, and wasn’t in the habit of wearing armor. He had a neck as thick as a tree trunk, and Jacob planted a rapier straight through it.

Crooked Finger was a beast of sword—wielded by a beast of a man—but it was too pretty a thing for such an ugly name. In the hands of the pirate, it was a tool for butchery—inelegant slaughter, crushing plate armor as often as cutting through it. In the hands of a hero, though…

Jacob breathed in once more, filling his lungs with a cold air that brushed upon his very soul. His blessing stirred, and the dance began anew.

In his hand, Crooked Finger was no heavier than a whisper. The wind, harnessed by the blessings howling at the base of his soul, carried it in accordance with his will. The powers of air and sky gusted through him, and he felt as if his very blood was wind, and his blade nothing more than a bending reed.

Ethereal currents of power—visible only to him—wreathed his arms and legs, and clung to his blade like threads of spider silk as he pulled it across his body.

The Dance of Wind, he called this, back when he was still in the habit of calling out his moves before executing them. His final blessing, earned when he took Crooked Finger for himself and made it his own, like finding the last piece of a puzzle in the wrong box. Now, it was Whisper. He thought he was being clever when he gave it the name.

‘How could a blade as large as that be a whisper?’ People would ask, and stare, and giggle. Of course, that was before the truth of his blessing was revealed, and the irony of it began to sting.

Feet planted, he swung at the wooden dummy with all his strength, grunt whipped away by the wind as a pale line scratched across the dummy’s chest. He grunted again, twisting his body and another scratch appeared below it. Again he swung—and again another mark joined its cadre.

He’d been at this for hours, and there were hundreds of marks.

The dummy looked like a well-used cutting-board, by now. Fresh lines overlapped old as the pale innards of the thing were revealed, chip by chip. It would be at the end of its life, soon—and it had only taken him a week to do it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A week—a full ten-day—to kill a tree. Lumberjacks were better heroes than he was.

With a final grunt, twisting his body with the full force of his power, he planted the side of the blade in the wooden dummy’s neck, released the hilt, and stepped back to view his handiwork. He relaxed his blessing with a slow exhale, deflating as the rush of wind and power left him in a visible fog of power— like breathing out a cloud that was trapped in his lungs.

He stared at the rough grid of marks scoring his target, feeling hollow.

“You’re getting better, little hero,” a voice called from the balcony overlooking the training yard. “That’s the fastest you’ve finished your little dance yet.”

Jacob didn’t bother looking up at the voice’s source. Garrick practically lived on the edge of the yard, and he was used to the comments. He meant well, but…

Jacob set his jaw, not taking his eyes off the dummy. “Cats do worse to scratching posts than I’ve done to this thing. I don’t want to be faster, I want to be stronger.”

As if the gods themselves heard his plea, Whisper fell from the wooden dummy’s neck, thudding heavily against the ground. Jacob snarled as he picked up the sword, heaved the sword up over his head without calling on his blessings, grit his teeth, and brought the thing down into the dummy’s shoulder. The blade bit deep, and stayed.

He stumbled back, shaking the buzzing pain from his hands and arms as he fought to control his breathing. Whisper was damned heavy without the gods' help lifting it.

“Feel better now?” The voice called from above.

“No,” Jacob muttered, clenching and unclenching his hands.

His strongest blessing—his only real blessing—imbued him and his weapons with all the powers of a stiff breeze. He could cut mortal flesh well enough, and he could dodge attacks with the best of them, but he was useless against any creature with skin thicker than parchment.

His greatest strength was his speed, and speed didn’t mean shit if there wasn’t any weight behind his blows. He could carve a goblin into slices so thin you could see through them, and he could cut an orc’s throat before it could so much as smell him, but past that? He could cut a troll once or a thousand times, and he wouldn’t do much more than tickle the thing.

Gods, he missed the party’s pirate fighting days. The fights were quick and easy, free in the open air, and warm in the light of the sun. Half the poor devils didn’t even wear shirts, let alone steel plate; and if they did wear armor, it only took a stiff breeze and some elbow grease to get them over the edge and let the sea do the rest of the work.

“I’m supposed to be the Knight of Clouds,” he said, once he’d caught his breath. “Not the Knight of Great Big Stupid Swords That Can’t Even Cut Wood.”

“Daggers still not working for you?” Garrick called again.

“No,” Jacob muttered. “I couldn’t cut cheese with a dagger while I’ve got my blessings going.”

“You could always poison your weapons,” Garrick suggested. “Cyrith venom, maybe. One cut, and your enemies sleep forever.”

They’d had this conversation before. Several times, by now—or some variation of it. Garrick had answers for any question Jacob could throw at him, but there wasn't any comfort to them. Jacob vastly preferred avoiding problems to solving them.

“How many poisons do you think work against mountain trolls, storm giants, and cave spiders?” He asked, swatting dirt off his pants.

“Erm—” Jacob could hear him scratching his beard. “Two of each, for the troll and spider. I’d think you’d have a hard time envenoming a storm giant with anything that wouldn’t melt your blade to slag, lad.”

“Uh-huh,” Jacob grunted, putting a hand on his sword and planting a foot on the dummy's chest. “Is that four poisons total, or is there some overlap? There isn’t something I could use that would work on both of them, is there?”

“Aye,” said Garrick. “Faerthflower extract would burn straight through the both of them faster than you could blink.”

“And where—” With a grunt of effort, he wrested Whisper free from the dummy, nearly launching himself onto his back in the process. “—Would I get my hands on that?”

“At the highest peak of the Hearthhome mountains, I’d expect,” Garrick answered. “Or you could try your luck at market. It’d cost a bloody fortune, though.”

“And how many drops do you think it’d take to get me over the Teeth, and have enough left to still be useful for what lies beyond?” He stabbed the great curved sword into the ground and rested his weight on it.

“To put it kindly, lad? More than you could afford.”

“Yeah,” Jacob rolled his neck in a vain attempt at relieving the coiled knot of tension stuck there. “More than I could afford. Any other ideas?”

“None that’d let you within a mile of a real battle. Still not interested in courier jobs? You could be a one-man supply line if you got your wind dance working right.”

“Any chance a couple of jobs would pay for that poison?”

It didn’t matter if they did. The Dance of Wind didn’t work on anything he couldn’t carry in one hand, and—gods only knew why—it had to be a weapon. If it didn’t, his party would have let him along no matter what the steward said. He’d have been more than happy as the party’s pack-mule if it meant he got to be with the party.

“No, lad, not much of one,” he could hear a smile in Garrick’s voice. “The legions take care of their own, but not that well.”

Jacob’s lips pressed into a thin smile. “Too bad.”

He lifted his sword and paced around the wooden dummy like a vulture, his blade held out and low, almost skimming the dirt. Without channeling his blessings, it was a challenge to even hold the thing. He switched to a two-handed grip, cross-stepping left as he considered his target.

He bent his knees and tensed his core, ready to spring at any moment. Whisper wasn’t made to be wielded by someone with mortal strength, but it wasn’t impossible. You had to move slowly and carefully, always keeping your eyes on where your opponent would be next if you had any chance of hitting them.

“You know it can’t hit you back, right lad?” Garrick called from above.

“I’m thinking,” Jacob said, still circling.

He breathed, and the Dance of Wind howled in his soul like a caged wolf, but he didn’t grant it release. He held it back through force of will, and frowned.

He was missing something. He had to be missing something. His blade and his blessings were constantly at odds, but they were so right together. He’d never felt more powerful than when he’d first claimed Whisper, like his blood was transformed into the wind itself, his heart pounding with the fury of a hurricane.

He tensed, bathing himself in the memory, in the currents of power gusting through his soul, and struck.

*thwack* *thwack* *thwack*

Three new marks scarred the wooden figure’s face, no deeper than any of the last.

“Cocksucker,” Jacob spat, throwing his blade to the dirt. “Someone get me an ax and I’ll split this thing like gods damned firewood!”

“That’ll show it,” Garrick said in a dry voice.

Jacob threw his hands in the air and finally looked up at the dwarf. “I’m doing everything right! Everything! Either I’m a moron, or the gods gave me the most moronic power known to man!”

Garick said nothing for one long moment. The dwarf was a creature of two emotions, both of which perpetually warred across his face. His forehead was broad and sloping, etched with the deep lines of someone who knew anger well. His eyes were green and murky, but below them was a face transformed by a far kinder temperament. His mouth was quirked in a half-smile, and anyone who didn’t know him might say he was smug-looking.

Garrick himself liked to say that he’d heard a joke so funny when he was a boy, he was still laughing about it on the inside.

Jacob liked to think that he’d suffered so many blows to the head, that he couldn’t help but smile. There was every chance that someone struck him across the face, and his resting expression was stuck like that.

His hair was a dark brown, with the faintest touches of gray and red burning in it like embers smothered in ash. His beard was tied into a thick, rope-like knot that hung past his chest.

“I’ve not known the gods to make mistakes of that sort, lad,” The dwarf said, smirking down at him.

“So I am a moron then?” Jacob let his hands fall to his sides.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Garrick scratched his beard. “You just need more practice, boy. Something’ll come to you.”

“I’ve been practicing,” he gestured at the sword-scarred dummy. “All I’ve done for the last three days is practice, and look where it’s got me. I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m not getting any stronger.”

“Strength takes time, lad,” Garrick said. “And you’re a damn sight quicker than any man I’ve ever seen, but I take your meaning. What you need is real practice. There are risks to take and occasions to rise to, and you’ll find neither within these walls. You need an adventure, Jacob. A real one.”

Jacob. Garrick never called him by his first name—only ‘lad,’ or ‘boy,’ or ‘sir,’ if it was a formal occasion. The dwarf commanded the respect of all who knew him, but technically the heroes outranked him.

He sighed. “Marriane talked to you, didn’t she?”

“Aye, she did, and she’s got the right of it,” Garrick said, voice dropping low. “Stewards know their business, lad, far better than I. If she says it’s time for you to fly the nest, it’s time. You’ll never grow to be the hero I know you can be while you’re cooped up in here.”

“But she wants me to go to Enkhyria,” Jacob scowled. “There’s nothing there but— but—”

He shook his head, scowling deeper as his tongue failed him. “There’s nothing there but carnivorous rabbits and mutated squirrels,” he said slowly, in full control of his voice. “I’m better than that.”

“I’d not be so quick to dismiss the little beasties till you’ve seen what they can do,” Garrick folded his arms. “Besides, I’m sure they’ve got plenty of warrens, same as here. Or are you too good for goblins now too?”

“I hate the warrens,” Jacob muttered, looking away.

“And the warrens likely hate you,” Garrick let out a low chuckle. “Doesn’t mean they’re going anywhere, and someone’s got to clear them out.”

“I thought you said I needed a challenge? I know what to expect with goblins—they’re a pain in the ass, but they’re not dangerous. The worst they can do is collapse a mineshaft on my head, and that’s not the sort of danger that’d make me a better warrior.”

“Oh, Enkhyria’s a big place, I’m sure you’ll find a challenge or two somewhere. I’ve never known a hero to have a boring life. Your lot attracts strange beasts like shit draws flies.”

“Thanks,” Jacob said, voice dry. “So I should go to Enkhyria, and just trust that I’ll have bad luck? That I’ll run into that perfect challenge that’ll make me a stronger warrior, and a better person overall?”

“Yes?” The dwarf raised an eyebrow at him. “You say that like it’s not a foregone conclusion, lad. Monsters wouldn’t roam the land if they were easy to kill, even for a hero. Hard times breed hard men, and hard men breed even harder times. It’s a vicious cycle, and before the end of it is done we’ll have more horrors and champions than we’ll know what to do with.”

Jacob sighed, eyes turning down to where Whisper still lay in the dirt. He picked it up with a subdued grunt of effort and went back to his ready position.

Whether he went to Enkhyria or not, there was work to be done, and he’d be damned if he faced it unprepared.