The inside of the gloves clung damply to her skin, sweat soaking the terrycloth fabric. In her hands, the tongs held glowing cherry-violet metal in place, and each blow of the hammer reshaped it. Despite the feeling of heat in her hands, her nose had gone numb perhaps thirty minutes ago; she would need to stop soon, lest she lose a piece of it to frostbite.

When she had first purified the ore, it had been a blobby little thing, ugly as sin and twice as difficult. Macha had treated it like her own child, carrying it close to her chest with her where-ever she went on her travels. There was a cold-scar beneath her breast now, a memorial to how close to her skin she had held that metal. She could feel its heart beat in time with her own, as much as anyone could feel the heartbeat of unworked stone. It clung to her awareness, and she could not bear to be far from it. Even smelting it down had hurt her, like watching little Myrddin’s arm be reset, a deep and sympathetic ache. Sometimes she found herself talking to it, and sometimes she sensed something there, with the burgeoning powers entrusted to her by the Code for this test.

Perhaps she shouldn’t find it strange. The metal was, after all, the heart of a star. It had taken time, so much time, to find a star unprotected by one of those damned witches, but she had done it. Years had passed as she explored magic that would allow her to reach into the star’s heart and take it for her own. And now that success was hers, the protection of her island could not be much further gone. Soon, the Code would bind the magic, turn it to the defense of the island. That was the deal. For that, she would place herself under the nominal command of Earth’s senshi, that b***h who deserved nothing better than she was--

Finally, Macha set the hammer aside and eased the long bar of metal sword into lukewarm water. It didn’t surprise her that the water froze over almost immediately. When she had first drawn the metal from the star’s blazing center, she’d expected heat. Now she was used to its subzero temperatures, and she nearly never puzzled over its meaning. Perhaps it was simply so hot she could only perceive the temperature as winter’s chill. Or perhaps it was a mystery that mortal women were not meant to know. Either way, it worked itself like true steel, like Damascus steel, and though it would not be finished today, it would be finished soon.

Soon, she would be Avalon’s knight and protector. The name would pass down her family line to her children, perhaps to her sisters first, but the Council of Nine Sisters had ever been responsible for the island. That would not change for the Code. It couldn’t. If she had sacrificed Avalon in the name of saving it… if that was how it worked… she wasn’t sure she would be able to live with herself.

Her arms ached pleasantly as she drew the metal from the water again and set it down on the heat of the anvil. It sizzled for a moment, as the blackness of the forming sword began to glow that eerie violet again. Someday she would have to blood the blade, she thought. Before offering it to the Code as proof of Macha’s worthiness. It would have to taste a life’s blood, and the life it tasted must dearly matter. Perhaps a sister? Perhaps… no. Myrddin was too dear.

But that, Macha thought, was a worry for another time.