BOOM!

The ancient halls of Clan Threist were rocked by an explosion that happened within. Wood creaking and threatening to splinter, this was clearly not the first explosion to happen within the wooden structure. Brynjar was blasted against the wall, wind knocked out of his lungs as he grunted loudly. It took several moments for his body to recover, struggling to gasp for air as he felt the shock of the explosion rock his body. Once his breathing and body relaxed, he growled and slammed in his fist into the hard floor. It was frustrating to see his hard work provide no fruition and just highlight his failures as an Alpha. As the supposed leader of Clan Threist. If he was going to be the right man to lead his clan and potentially lead the other clans then he needed Medelwr and be able to teach this power to others. Forging other weapons like Medelwr could help the clans gain an upper hand against the Fayth. Weapons that were stronger, sharper and able to tap into the Gift, these were weapons that could prove vital in taking down the Fayth. But he worried that unless he was Anasi, or someone he could trust as Anasi, then this power could be used to do more harm than good.

Especially if failing to forge these weapons was as difficult as it seemed for Brynjar. All he was trying to do was connect with the tiny crystal, the shattered axe shards and the wood he had carved as a handle. The scripture was simple really, it was difficult to decipher due to the Wulfi being used was several millennia old, but rough translations had been made when he spent weeks pouring over notes, cross-referencing words and double checking the evolution of words in the language. It was a task that was gruelling in his mind and much more suited for a scholar, which Brynjar was far from, but he couldn’t trust anyone to work on this bar himself. He needed to focus on this alone, figure this out alone. Because this was his clan’s lost legacy, it was a skill his clan had and right now, it only felt right that he had to figure it out to teach it. Not be taught by strangers who did not know the trials and tribulations that his family went through. No, for now, he would suffer to understand the words that his ancestors decided to write.

Bond crystal to metal, connect it all to the Gift. Connect yourself to the Gift, the metal, the crystal and all become one. It sounded simple enough but every attempt so far had been explosive, dangerous and at some points, deadly if he had not been as prepared as he was. Brynjar growled and threw one of the crystals he had at the wall, frustration was boiling over at this point. He was trying to connect with everything but his mind just thought back to the visions and his failings as a leader. Doubts, questions and issues were bubbling inside him now since he saw his upbringing would possibly lead his people to their doom. How could he face any of the other Alphas, face Gerwald, and state he would save them by standing to the old ways that he had brought up on? How could he do that when he knew that there was a good chance everyone, including himself, would die fighting the Fayth?

Punching the wall, Brynjar growled and snarled. It didn’t help that his body was itchy, skin peeling and bright red after burning hard in the desert sun. This was another irritation on top of the irritation of this power he was trying to learn. Where were his ancestors to guide him now? Suddenly when it came to an important and super helpful moment to appear and guide him, they were all silent and just guiding him from the sidelines. Brynjar was tempted to spit in anger but he knew better than to dishonour his ancestors. No, he needed to be cooler about this and try thinking about this calmer, more rationally.

Stepping outside, feeling the cool breeze, Brynjar inhaled deeply. He had been back for a couple weeks now but he still hadn’t gotten in touch with anyone, and by the looks of things, no one really seemed to miss him either. It was a bit disheartening at first but Brynjar shook it off, he knew that things were falling into place that war was being prepared for. It was what he needed to focus on and the reason he was pushing so hard to get this power in order to fight and defeat the Fayth. If he could reforge Medelwr, then he knew he could teach this power to others. It was all that circled in his mind, reforge Medelwr, master the power, teach others, have an army all with powerful weapons with the Gift imbued to them, win.

Was that all that mattered to him though? Was it just arming his people and winning wars? Deep down, Brynjar knew that there was something else. He sat at the steps to his ancient, ancestral home, thinking about why he was truly desperate to build the axe. Was it because he was desperate to have his family’s weapon to prove himself worthy as a leader of the clan and as potentially Anasi? No, no, this wasn’t about him at all. Or at least it didn’t feel like it was about him, more about his need to arm everyone. Was it everyone though? No, it wasn’t, he knew that wasn’t necessarily practical at least in terms of arming every soldier before war struck, from the way people were acting. War was coming sooner than anyone would have liked. No, he wanted to arm specific people. He wanted to arm his friends and those he had gotten to know over time like Aelin, Declan, Børre, Karim and he even wanted to keep Gerwald from dying, if only to laud it over the arrogant Lupo’s head. That made him chuckle, if he was honest with himself, he could be as arrogant as Gerwald was. This whole journey had demonstrated that, perhaps next time things would go better between them.

It was clear the goal he had in mind, he wanted to build Medelwr to protect, to protect his friends. He laughed heartily to himself, of course it was to protect people. Glwyn’s ideology when creating Clan Threist was to create a clan that protected the Anasi. How could he have overlooked that his desires for building the axe would stem from that ideology? He could hear Glwyn laughing at him, clearly enjoying the fact it took him so long. Brynjar told the old man to get lost, in less than polite words with a joking tone. It was good to know that when he worked with his feelings and beliefs that things were falling better into place. Now he could rebuild, starting with the axe, then perhaps one day he would rebuild the ruins of the once great hall.

Placing the crystal on top of the axe, Brynjar sat in front of it all and closed his eyes. He thought about how he wanted to use the axe to protect, to rebuild and to maintain the peace. How it would be used to save lives as much as it would take, how it would be used to defend those that he cared about. Their faces flashing in his mind as he reached out through the Gift to the crystal. Connecting with it, sensing the Force through it, flowing through it before binding it to the axe. It was difficult, the crystal was resisting at first, however Brynjar pushed through as he pictured the crystal latticing and spreading across the entire axe. Once he felt the metal imbued with the crystal the rest of his axe came together much easier. Holding his hand out with his eyes still closed, he felt the axe fly straight into his grip. Excited, he opened his eyes and saw the axe, it was very different to what the axe had looked like. It was shorter and used less materials, Medelwr before had been a greataxe and was now more a large handaxe, a weapon that Brynjar preferred but not the Medelwr he had thought it was rebuilding.

“Medelwr has been reborn as the weapon you need it to be, not the one I needed it to be Brynjar.” Glwyn stated in a distant whisper. It brought relief to him, since Brynjar had feared that he had ruined the axe.

It meant one thing though, Brynjar had enough material to make a second, a twin to Medelwr. Heddwch to Medelwr, opposite sides of the same coin. Peacemaker and Reaper.

It made Brynjar smirk, the only issue he had was he flung the only other crystal he had against one of the walls and the floor was covered in shards of broken glass that just seemed to be perfect at hiding the crucial part of the axe. He knew that it shouldn’t be difficult to find, these crystals seemed to have some connection to the Gift. When he found them he wondered if these were the Godstones that were meant to be connected to the Anasi and Clan Svard, but Glwyn dismissed those thoughts. He had called them Kyber crystals, that the gods did speak of them but the history of them was long forgotten.

All Brynjar knew was he needed these types of crystals to imbue weapons, Brynjar figured there had to be more on the planet but he had no real clue. Finally, after several minutes, he spotted the crystal and carefully picked it up and placed it on the table. There, Brynjar positioned the materials in all the same way as he had before and performed the ritual again. It wasn’t as hard to construct the axe this time, mostly because he had the image of the new Medelwr in his mind and it seemed that everything was happy to form into a similar design again. Once it was completed, Brynjar opened his eyes to see himself holding Heddwch. The new family axe and perfectly made for him. Alpha of Clan Threist.

Stepping outside, he held both Heddwch and Medelwr, feeling their weight. Testing the speed he could throw the blades around himself, the sharpness and lightness was certainly a new experience but that was predicted from the description of a successful imbuement of the blades. The true test came when he poured his powers into the axes, he could hear the warning beeps of the electronics and see the lattices created by the crystals glowing brighter and jolts of energy arching from them. Brynjar smiled widely, he was excited to see what they could do. Throwing Heddwch, he watched as the axe buried deep into a tree and then blasted it into splinters with a booming Force Blast. Recalling the axe to his hand, Brynjar cheered loudly in absolute joy. Pointing Medelwr in a direction, Brynjar watched as a blast of blue lightning shot forward and burnt a hole into another tree. Pouring more energy into the axes, he slammed them firmly together and sent a strong Force Push and Lightning together at a tree. Brynjar cackled hard, it had been the first time in years that he experienced joy like this but it was hard to deny it brought him pleasure to see the axes work so beautifully together.

Brynjar was ready. Brynjar finally completed his mission on Islimore. Now it was time to protect and defend his friends, his people from those that wanted to take their freedoms. Now it was the time to be the Medelwr.