Demon Forged

as ugly as when she was angry.
    Alejandro was one of the few who knew that. It had only been a week before their encounter with the demon, she remembered. They’d spent hours arguing over an essay about nature and beauty that he’d found in Caelum’s library and read aloud to her here. Olek had been in agreement with the author; Irena had not. It was that simple, but afterward, Olek had stalked from one end of the forge to the other, reading the essay again—probably looking for a point he could use to sway her. Irena had not minded; the sight of Olek, stalking and determined, had been worth watching.
    Until she’d realized that the hungers she’d buried were being uncovered with his every step. Then she’d formed her iron block, blanked her mind, and shoved her emotions into it.
    She’d felt Olek’s astonishment when he’d turned to see what she’d created. He’d examined it from every angle, then looked at her.
    With a hint of laughter around his eyes, he’d said, “This is not anger.”
    No. Her Gift stripped her emotional shields, and he’d felt everything she’d put into the block of iron: her contentment, her desire, the deep pleasure of being here with him.
    Of course, he’d thought she’d been making an argument of her own.
    “I see your point,” he’d said. “When there is no will to shape an object, then the only meaning it has is what the person seeing the sculpture gives to it.”
    She’d been about to remark that his conclusions also said more about him than about her sculpture, but then he’d added, “And when your will shapes the metal, the result is nothing but what you intend it to be. All of those statues of me—they are just that: me. No one could mistake them for anything else, or read any more meaning into them.”
    She could not answer then—she had been laughing too hard. If anyone with eyes looked at the statues she’d made of him, they would know instantly how beautiful she’d thought him. How every plane and angle of his body had become a new landscape to explore beneath her hands. How she had fought to understand why the tightening of his fingers had so many meanings, in what combination his brows and eyes and lips would tell her what he thought. It was all there, in each sculpture she’d made.
    Olek hadn’t seen it, but he’d never seen himself as she did. She’d laughed as he declared that she’d misunderstood his arguments. And he’d finally tossed away the essay, and invited her to spar with him, instead.
    That had been a memorable day—one of many memorable days with him, in a life that had grown very long and the years indistinguishable.
    Irena sighed and returned to the front of her latest sculpture, running her fingers over one of the ridged bumps. She missed those days almost as much as she treasured them.
    And it had been so long since they had fought so well together. She wanted to recapture it . . . but once again, she had no idea how to move forward. If he would take a demon’s role, she didn’t see how it could be done.
    Icy air touched the back of her neck. The forge had finally cooled. She walked to the open door and stopped, shielding her eyes and looking out over the windswept snow.
    In the brilliant midday sun, the plain shimmered a blinding white. Half a kilometer distant, three figures trudged through the snow toward her forge. Two men, one woman—each dressed in a bright, bulky coat, synthetic pants, and heavy boots that told her they’d come from a city.
    A psychic probe confirmed they were human. Irena searched the horizon behind them, but didn’t see any vehicles. They’d been traveling for a while, then.
    One of the men lifted his arm. Irena waved, then headed back inside.
    Unease prickled at the back of her neck. She paused, glanced over her shoulder. Another psychic probe confirmed the first: They were human.
    It wasn’t the first time travelers had stopped here, whether lost or simply heading through. Reindeer farmers moved their herds across these plains during the summer, sometimes camping within a stone’s throw of her forge. There had been tourists, surveyors. She’d never turned anyone back.
    She would, however, be careful.
    With a mental pull, she called in her pantry from her cache. The fifty-year-old bread would still be fresh, and there were enough canned goods to feed the three humans for a week, if necessary. She set the rustic table near the central hearth, called in an aluminum hip bath and a stuffed tick