When he woke again, he felt the madness swirl around him faster and closer, and he greatly feared for anyone nearby. Beadhil came to his side, whispering gently into his ear, encouraging him to sit up despite the pain. “You must, just please stay the madness for another hour, just an hour, and then you can release it all, just another hour.”

He looked at her with baleful eyes. “Why an hour? What happens then?”

She swallowed hard. He noted that her hair had been shorn off, a bruise across her cheekbone. “Nothing happens then, except that Prince Wigia will have claimed his sword and left the castle with King Nithad, traveling to serve as Lord Diettr’s sworn companion. You must be strong for Wigia, or he will never leave.”

“I’m only a slave and a blacksmith,” Weyland muttered, bowing his head dismissing the fanciful notion.

Beadhil knelt in front of him, cupping his face between her hands. He noted that three fingers on her right hand were twisted and swollen, and he swallowed hard. “No, Weyland, not only a slave. The prince knows. I know, and Lady Ninian knows, and never have I said anything to anyone, because I love Wigia more than light, as if he were my true and faithful brother indeed.”

“He knows what?” Weyland felt something else rising in his soul, white-hot, eclipsing all of the pain in his beaten and burned body.

Footsteps, and then the young man himself knelt before the smith, nudging the princess out of the way. “I know who my father really is.” Black eyes locked onto Weyland’s gaze, speaking more than any words. More people came into the room, and Prince Wigia stood, stepping back, gesturing to the guards who wore his own sigil on their cloaks. “If it is time, I would claim my sword,” he said clearly, his voice smooth and beautiful in its command.

Weyland forced himself to stand, turning a little to take the sword hanging above his cot down from the wall. It moved easily in his hand, eager to please. “The scabbard is in the chest next to the workbench,” Weyland said to one of Prince Wigia’s sworn men. “Bring it to him. Beadhil, fasten it to his belt.” They followed his instructions swiftly. When it was done, Weyland held the sword across his hands, extending it to the youth before him. The young man stood as tall as Weyland’s father, with Sigrun’s brilliant gold hair and black eyes. “This is the sword Mirrmung. It will always swing true for you, and cut only at the bidding of one of your own blood. Wield it in honor and it will give you victory, and give it to your son when the time comes. It is fit to kill man or dragon in the hands of one of our blood.”

Prince Wigia gravely accepted the weapon, sliding it home into the scabbard. “Thus, I shall go forth as my father commands, in honor and to achieve great victory.” He nodded briefly to Weyland, and left with his men as quickly as they had come. Beadhil gave a great sigh, and helped Weyland ease back to the bed, sitting stiffly.

“It is not yet an hour, Princess. Tell me of your hand, and your face.”

She flushed red with fury and shame. “My bastard brothers tried to have their sport with me yester-eve. I stabbed them both with my bodkin. I’d poisoned it, but I don’t know what to do now. Father did not believe me. But Father is gone by now, away with Wigia to deliver him to Lord Dittr.”

Weyland’s rage boiled to the surface. “Send for them, these half brothers who call themselves princes. Have them come here, before the poison takes root in their bodies and begins to show.” She nodded, shaking. She spoke quietly to the guard, who left for a moment and then returned.

The brothers arrived only with the help of two husky manservants. Regin’s injured shoulder was braced with his arm bound tightly to his body, and he whimpered with each step. Raiden was pale and confused. Neither of them showed any of the bluster of times past, all sarcasm gone. Weyland examined them both carefully. Beadhid’s bodkin had scratched Regin’s good arm deeply; it was swollen, black streaks climbing past his shoulder towards his heart. She had pierced Raiden’s belly, though, and his color was yellowing already, the thick stench of urine oozing from his pores with his sweat. Both were delirious with fever. Weyland dismissed the servants, leaving the princes on thick pallets on the floor of the smithy.

He looked up at Beadhid. “Would you have vengeance against them? And against your father the king?”

She covered her eyes, nodding once. When she removed her hands, her eyes were wet with tears, but her expression was resolute. “Yes. If only I could drink from their skulls and wear their trophy on my hunting cloak, I would have vengeance.”

Weyland raised both eyebrows at her bloodthirstiness, and then remembered that this girl was not at all like a maiden he’d once known, at an inn beneath the canopy of great dark trees. “My price is this: When this vengeance is delivered, you will remove the cuff from my ankle, and return to me the pack and contents of the pack, including the sword your father wears and the ring on your own hand.”

She shivered, but did not protest.

“Now, leave us. Close the door behind you and let none enter for seven days and eight nights. On the dawn of the eighth day, you may knock three times on the door and enter. Do you understand?” He nudged the cat with his foot. “Take him, also, and the thread of this tale. None may know this story, unless by your own words and telling, for I shall never speak of it.”

“Yes, blacksmith. I understand.” She gathered up the cat and took the guard with her, leaving her brothers and the blacksmith in the workshop, locking the door and taking the strands of the story with her.

The princess looked high and low, searching for Weyland’s belongings with little luck. She stopped by the smithy from time to time and pressed her ear against the door - there was no sound to be heard from behind the door. She searched the treasury, and the storerooms, and her father’s chambers, and still found nothing of his pack or belongings.

Finally, on the afternoon of the seventh day, she climbed up the stairs of the Lady Ninian’s tower, pausing outside the locked door. She pulled out the set of keys used by the chatelain and tried every key on the ring with no success. Sitting on the top step, she looked down the winding staircase. The mangy tom cat trotted up the stairs, rubbing his curly-whiskered face against her hands and knees where she sat. He yowled at her, and she shifted so he could share the top step with her. Pressing his paw against the door beneath the knob, she heard a click from the mechanism. While she stared at the cat, the door swung silently open, emitting a breath of musty air.

“You are not just a cat,” she scolded it as she stood, shaking out her skirts. “You are a very bad cat.” She entered the tower room, looking around. The bed was canopied in cobwebs and rotted fabric, and mice fled from the sudden light. Opposite the door was a window, and the princess crossed the room to open it for light and fresh air.

“I’m very bad at being a cat, surely,” said a mild voice from near the door. She whirled. A man stood in the doorway, dressed in singed rags with a feather pushed through the weave of the collar. He was unremarkable in every way, except for his green-gold eyes and an old burn on his cheek.

“Who are you?” she demanded, remembering that she was a princess, and the castle belonged to her father.

“I’m nobody to speak of. What you look for is under the bed. That woman was gifted, but never particularly imaginative.” Beadhid gingerly pushed aside the draperies, and her groping fingers touched smooth leather. Pulling it out, she realized it was a travel-sack, worn by time but still intact and untouched by rodent or rot. It weighed little in her hands, and she stood, turning to speak again to the strange man. An explosion of feathers burst past her, darting out the window. She rushed to follow, and saw the great rectangular wingspan of the eagle as it spread its wings and soared away into the clouds. Pulling the window closed, she turned, unsurprised to find both the man and the cat gone.

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Exhausted and sore, she climbed down the long stairs. A messenger brought word when she arrived at the great hall that her father’s party would return late that evening. She gave instructions to the chatelain, returning the woman’s keys, and went to bathe and dress in clothes more suited to the sister of the sworn companion of Diettr and princess of the kingdom of Nireke. As an afterthought, she also folded a wimple over her shorn hair.

Her father’s company was delayed again by a sudden storm, and another messenger came to say they would arrive at midmorning. Giving further instructions to the chatelaine and steward, the feast was rewarmed or remade, and the fires built high. As dawn broke fully over the stones of the castle, she went to the smithy. Hesitating for only a moment, she knocked three times, and entered.

Weyland sat at the bench, his skin gray with exhaustion. “The story is yours again, blacksmith,” she said, feeling the weight of it lift off of her heart. “There is much here that is strange that I cannot understand.”

Weyland nodded, taking up the skein of the story. She looked startled when she felt it lift from her like a strange spell.

Wearily, he spoke. “First, you must honor your promise. Return my belongings, free me, and I shall deliver your revenge.” He watched the princess shift from foot to foot. She handed him his pack, and he pulled from it a long, leather wrapped cudgel and a well used hatchet, hanging both from his belt. She pulled the ring from her finger, and he savored the touch of it, still warm from her hand.

“M-my father yet has your sword,” the woman stammered.

“I shall take it from him, then. Unchain me.” She took the key her father kept locked in his desk - another place she had looked for the pack - and unlocked the plain iron cuffs and then the chain from the bronze shackle from his left ankle.

Without the chain, the bronze shackle seemed to go dormant, only a lurking evil thrumming softly in the band of metal. “I found no key for this, blacksmith,” Beadhid said, miserable.

Weyland waited for the rage to recede, the ocean of anger and hatred to abate, but simply swirled around him like eddies in a current.

“Your father will unlock it, then, and pay dearly for locking me away. Look. I have made for you a brooch for your hunting cloak.” It was in the shape of a many petaled flower, much like her bodkin, the petals made of fine ivory, each almost square. “And for your father, I have made two chalices, a princely gift.”

The chalices were deep and not entirely round, each having a curved handle on one side and two blue gems set in the other. One had a silver rim, and the other a gold rim. “You may only drink from the chalice with the silver rim, for your heart is pure and has much in it that might be magical in the moonlight. You will serve him his wine in the cup with the gold rim when he arrives and takes his meal.” He handed the cups to her, and she marveled at how light they were, to be made almost entirely of solid gold and gems.

She nodded, and Weyland threaded a piece of fabric through the ring and hung it about his neck. He slung his pack over his shoulder and looked around for a moment, remembering belatedly that Avril was no longer with him, nor Gilda, nor Hervor, nor a graceful girl with gray eyes and justice in her heart. The weight of the losses was suddenly immense, and threatened to drag him down beneath the black waves of his rage. The shackle grew warm on his leg, feeding from his darkness even as it built up the fires of his rage.

Beadhid led him to a hall with a long table and many chairs, that seemed only for the serving of food. It teased his imagination for a moment, a room with only one purpose, but he dismissed it, slipping into the shadows. The king had just arrived with his retinue, and they pulled off gloves and cloaks to sit at the table, the king at the head, his daughter to his left.

A bard sat to the right, an honored guest, and Weyland was mildly surprised to see Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān, his dark hair now almost white, his movements stiff with age, slinging his lute by its strap over the back of his own chair. Of all the men in the hall, only he looked to the shadows and saw Weyland watching, and his eyes widened with recognition. The bard took a deep breath and looked on without comment.

She set the goblets down between herself and King Nithad, pouring wine for both of them. The king unwound his sword belt and hung it off the back of his chair. The red stone in the crosspiece winked at Weyland, a shimmer from its bloody depths..

“Your brother sends his regards, daughter,” King Nithad said conversationally. “He’s gone to fight dragons or some such nonsense with Lord Diettr.” He paused, looking at the cups with interest. “And where did these come from?” he asked, tipping the gold-rimmed chalice without drinking.

“Part of the latest batch of creations from the smith,” the princess replied, a bit nervous.

“Very fine indeed. I did not remember that there were four such clear sapphires in the treasury.” He leaned towards her. “Where did he get them, do you suppose?”

“I - I could hardly guess,” she stammered, going quite pale.

“Interesting. Shall we go and ask him?” He began to stand, and she covered his hand with hers.

“Wait, my lord king. Shall we not have a toast first, and then feast in honor of Wigia and his adventures?” She took up her silver rimmed cup, waiting for him to lift his own before she sipped.

He narrowed his eyes at her and held out the gold rimmed cup to her. “Here. I shall give you the honor of the first sip of the toast.” She froze for a moment, and then took the cup, sipping delicately from it, choking a bit when the poison burned in her throat. Weyland’s vision began to haze with red. The king threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. “Such a timid thing.” He drank deep of the gold rimmed cup, and then emptied the silver rimmed cup as well, his arrogance flowing with the wine that spilled from his lips.

“Tell me, daughter,” the king resumed his chair, fingering the scabbard of the water-borne sword. “Where are your brothers?”

“I do not know, my lord king, it has been several days since I’ve seen them.” She began to sweat, her skin flushing scarlet.

He heaped food onto his plate, and then hers. “Perhaps out hunting.” He poured more wine into both goblets. If his hand trembled, if his own face began to bead with sweat, he did not give it any notice.

“They are closer than you think, King Nithad, ruler of Nireke,” Weyland said from the shadows. “They made one too many missteps, I’m afraid, and died by a cunning poison.” The smith stepped into the light, his hand lightly on the cudgel he’d once made from a monster’s arm-bone.

“Died? Where are their bodies?” The king flushed red, either with rage or the poison or both.

“Beadhid, show your father your fine brooch,” the smith instructed. She pulled the jewelry out of her bodice, puzzling over his request until the shape of the ivory petals became quite clear. “A brooch for your hunting cloak, made of the teeth of your tormentors.”

The king roared in fury. “You dare torture the princes?” He turned to his daughter. “You gave them over to this evil man?” Beadhid looked queasy, shrinking back from her father’s trembling fury.

Weyland answered him once again. “I tortured them only as I have been tormented myself, long years in your demon shackle. Behold, the empty minds and empty skulls of your bastard princes.” Weyland swept a hand before him, palm out towards the king and the cups. They shimmered in a haze like the heat of a forge and became human skulls, pieces of rib for the handles and -

Beadhid fainted as the sapphires shimmered and became cloudy and unblinking eyes, unmistakably the eyes of her brothers. Nithad caught her arm as she fell, pulling her roughly against his chest. “You shall die for this,” he spat as he lowered the young woman to the floor, reaching for his sword. “Kill him,” he ordered, and his men rose from their chairs, taking swords and maces in hand. He drew the water-borne sword and thrust it through Beadhid’s gut, opening her dress and spilling her intestines across the floor.

Weyland saw the red wave of her blood, and it became the red wave of his own fury. He embraced it gladly, reaching within himself, reaching to the shackle for that madness. His limbs shifted and bent, his face changing and his ribs collapsing into a new form. As the first man reached him, Weyland snapped the shaft of the mace in two with powerful jaws. He lept and tore out the man’s throat.

The rest was blood.