The air was sharp enough to cut lungs. I stood by the creek, my breath not even misting in the air. I had stopped fighting the cold long ago; it was easier to just let it in.

  I watched Leo from the treeline. He was twelve, loud, and full of a restless, stupid energy. He was swinging a heavy stone tied to a rope, trying to scare a stray dog near the edge of the rushing water. The creek was a gray, churning muscle of ice and mud.

  I saw the moss on the rock beneath his heel. I saw the way he leaned too far into his throw. I knew he was going to fall before he did. It wasn't a guess; it was just how the world worked.

  Splash.

  The water swallowed him instantly. His friends didn't move to help; they screamed and bolted toward the village, disappearing into the trees like frightened rabbits.

  I walked to the bank. The rope was a wet snake sliding through the mud. I grabbed it.

  "S-Satan! Help!" Leo’s head bobbed, his skin turning a sickly blue. He looked at me with wide, desperate eyes.

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  I didn't feel the panic he felt. I didn't feel the "heroism" a normal boy might feel. I just felt the weight of the river pulling on the rope. It was a massive force, enough to drag a grown man under.

  "Logic: Absolute Anchor."

  I reached into that dark marble in my chest and pulled. I didn't get stronger; I just became... heavier. I anchored my soul to the earth beneath my boots. The river roared, trying to yank me into the white-water, but I didn't budge. I was a mountain in the shape of a boy.

  The rope went taut, humming like a wire. I began to walk backward. I didn't strain or grunt. Each step I took punched a deep, square hole into the frozen ground. I dragged Leo and the dog out of the throat of the river as if I were pulling a bucket from a well.

  When Leo hit the mud, he didn't thank me. He crawled away, shivering, staring at the craters my feet had made in the solid earth.

  "You're... you're a monster," he wheezed. "Your eyes... they're empty."

  "You're alive, Leo," I said. My voice was as flat as the horizon. "Go home. Your father has work to do tomorrow, and it would be a waste if he had to spend the day burying you instead."

  I turned and walked away. The Blacksmith owed me a life now. And I knew exactly how I was going to use it.