"Where it would be safe," Sienna corrected. "Where everyone would be safe."
"Where it would be buried alive." Marron’s hands were shaking. The dicine made the Blade’s emotions distant, but she could still sense them—terror, loneliness, desperate pleading. "For how long? Decades? Centuries? Until you die, and then what—the next Champion takes it deeper? It becos another artifact locked in a vault, another tool that Edmund can point to as proof that these things should never be used?"
"Marron—" Aldric started, but she cut him off.
"It chose ." Her voice cracked. "The Blade chose to partner with . It taught about precision, about material science, about respect for what you’re cutting. It showed how to honor the work, not just complete it." She looked up at Sienna. "And yes, right now it’s dangerous. Right now it can’t control its joy because its sibling is close. But that doesn’t an it deserves to be imprisoned."
Sienna’s expression didn’t change. "What’s the alternative? Keep it and risk killing everyone you et? Hope you can resist the joy the next ti it flares?"
"I don’t know." Marron’s voice was barely a whisper. "But I know what Edmund would say if I took this deal. He’d say I proved him right. That the tools are too dangerous to use, that they should all be locked away where they can’t hurt anyone. And maybe..." She swallowed hard. "Maybe the next ti soone finds a Legendary Tool, the Council won’t even hold a hearing. They’ll just confiscate it imdiately, because ’Look what happened to Marron Louvel. She had to trade her Blade away to stay safe.’"
"Better that than corpses," Sienna said bluntly.
"Is it?" Marron looked at the food cart, at the Pot and Ladle still cold and silent. "The Pot teaches patience. The Ladle teaches generosity. The Blade teaches precision. These aren’t just tools—they’re teachers. And if we decide that teaching is too dangerous whenever there’s risk, then what are we preserving? What are we learning?"
She moved to the locked box, her hand hovering over the iron bands. The dicine kept the joy at bay, but she could still feel the Blade’s presence underneath: terrified, desperate, pleading.
Don’t leave in the dark. Don’t bury . Please.
"The Blade is afraid of being alone," Marron said. "Just like the Crock was lonely for centuries, waiting to be understood. Just like all of them were scattered and separated and hoping soone would find them who’d see them as more than objects."
She pulled her hand back, pressed it against her chest where the dicine pulsed cold.
"I can’t take your trade, Champion."
The forest went absolutely still. Even Aldric’s protests died in his throat.
Sienna was quiet for a long mont, her green eyes unreadable.
"You understand what you’re choosing?" she asked finally. "The dicine will last maybe a day. Then the joy returns. And when the Slicer’s wielder gets close enough, when the Blade’s call becos irresistible—you’ll lose yourself again. Completely."
"I know."
"You might kill Aldric. You might kill Lucy. You might kill everyone in whatever village or town you’re near when it happens."
"I know that too." Marron’s voice was steady despite the fear coursing through her. "But if I trade the Blade away, if I let it be buried in a mountain because I’m too afraid to find another solution..." She looked at Lucy’s jar, at the sli still pressed against the far side, still refusing to et her gaze. "That’s not partnership. That’s betrayal."
"You’re choosing the harder path," Sienna observed.
"I’m choosing the only path that doesn’t prove Edmund right." Marron t the Champion’s eyes. "The tools aren’t the problem. The Perfection Slicer is the problem. And hiding from it, burying the Blade in a mountain, surrendering every ti sothing gets dangerous—that’s not solving anything. That’s just... waiting for the next tragedy."
Sienna studied her for what felt like an eternity. Then, slowly, a small smile crossed her weathered face. It was sad and proud at once.
"You just proved worthy," she said quietly. "Not of the Mortar—you’re not ready for that yet. But of the harder thing. Of choosing to understand rather than to contain. Of trusting that there’s a solution beyond just locking away what frightens us."
She lifted the Mortar from the ground, cradling it in her hands like sothing precious.
"When you’ve stopped the Slicer’s wielder," Sienna said, turning to leave, "when you’ve proven that tools and wielders can face danger without becoming it—co find . The Mortar will be waiting."
She paused at the edge of the clearing, her back to them.
"But Marron? If you fail—if the joy takes you completely—I will hunt you down myself. And I will not offer rcy a second ti."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the forest shadows, and Marron was left with a dicine that would last maybe a day, a sli who wouldn’t look at her, and a Blade that sang with fear and desperate gratitude.
Aldric stood frozen, his face pale. "You just—you refused—Marron, that was our way out. That was—"
"That was the easy answer." Marron pressed both hands against her chest, feeling the dicine’s cold barrier strain under the Blade’s renewed presence. Even muffled, she could feel its relief, its terrible hope. "And easy answers are what got us here in the first place."
She looked at the path ahead, dark and winding through the Thornwood.
"The Slicer’s wielder is six to eight hours away. The dicine will last maybe eighteen. We need to find them, stop them, and figure out a way to—" She faltered. "To make this right. Sohow."
"And if you can’t?" Aldric’s voice was rough. "If the dicine fails and the joy takes you again?"
Marron thought of Lucy’s retreat, of the Blade’s terror at being buried alive, of Edmund’s seventeen docunted cases of corruption.
"Then you do what you have to do," she said quietly. "To stop . Whatever it takes."
The locked box on the cart pulsed once—not with joy, but with understanding. The Blade knew what she’d just promised. Knew what refusing Sienna’s trade ant.
Freedom, but only if they could stop the Slicer before the dicine failed.
Imprisonnt in her own body if they couldn’t.
"We should move," Marron said. "While I still can."
They walked deeper into the Thornwood, leaving behind a Champion who would wait for proof that partnership could survive its darkest test. Ahead, sowhere in the growing shadows, a butcher ran with a mandoline that glowed red and sang with desperate, infectious joy.
The distance was closing.
And Marron’s dicine was already beginning to thin.
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