There was a knock. Light. Measured. Like the world was asking permission instead of demanding attention.
From the hallway came Silas’s voice. Steady now. More rested than it had been in weeks. “They’ve got fresh bread, hot oil, and someone downstairs singing off-key about a woman named Buttercup. Thought that might lure you out.”
Septimus stirred. Sat up slow. His voice was rough with sleep, but there was a flicker of something in it. Not quite a smile. Not quite a warning. “I’m coming, I’m coming. That song’s a saga that can’t be bleat.”
The sound of Lottie nearly falling out of bed was unmistakable. “Oh no.”
From the next room over, just close enough to hear without effort, Lottie’s voice cut in, dry and half-laughing. “If Buttercup turns out to be a goat, I’m tipping extra for the punchline.”
Their rooms lined the back corner of the Brass Nest now. Three in a row. Not extravagant, but upgraded. Windows that shut properly, doors that locked from the inside, and walls thick enough to grant privacy when it mattered. Call it payment for surviving what they shouldn’t have.
Downstairs, the Brass Nest was already alive with the smell of scorched bread and the sound of someone murdering a melody near the hearth. “Ohhh Buttercuuup, you stomped on my heaaaart, With hooves of love and the grace of a cart—”
The crowd whooped. Someone threw toast.
Silas was already at their usual table, tucked into the back, half in shadow, half in the warmth of the kitchen’s breath. Three mugs of coffee waited like offerings. His coat was folded, but the dark shimmer of his shadow hadn’t quite left his posture.
When Septimus and Lottie joined him, he didn’t speak. Just offered a quiet nod. They sat. For a rare moment, Viremoor was only a city. Not a battleground. Not a graveyard in waiting. Just heat, and bread, and bad music in a room where the future hadn’t arrived yet.
Septimus took a sip. The coffee was strong. Bitter. Ground too fine, just the way he liked it. “Feels like the world didn’t end,” he murmured, watching the mug steam. Then, after letting the drink warm his bones. “Might be time to check in with Ril. Or the forge. See how Rollen’s doing.”
Lottie slid into her chair without grace, stole one of Silas’s untouched mugs, and took a long drink.“Two weeks early,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “If he throws a wrench, I’m blaming you.”
Silas didn’t flinch. Just nudged a slice of rootbread toward her. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone greeted us with something sharp.”
They ate. They let the warmth sink in. Silas cradled his mug like it was a relic, fingers wrapped around it steady, eyes half-lidded but sharp beneath the calm.
“Ril’s probably expecting us,” he said. “Might already have a dozen things in motion and two more set aside for us. Depends whether she’s feeling generous or manipulative today.”
He took a sip. Long. Measured. Then added, “And Rollen... if he’s started experimenting with his power, he could be drawing attention without meaning to. We may want to check on him before someone else does.”
Lottie, midway through something deep-fried and unidentifiable, shrugged with one shoulder. “Might as well do both,” she said, chewing. “Swing by Ril’s, see what she’s moved while we were gone. Then check on Rollen, make sure his hammer hasn’t gotten smarter than he has.”
She leaned toward Septimus, half-grin blooming. “Or we could follow Buttercup’s trail of heartbreak and see if tragedy pays better than contracts these days.”
Septimus set down his mug, half-empty already. “Let’s make some rounds. Rollen first. We'll drop in on Ril after.”
Lottie drained her drink like a war chant. “Good,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Let’s make sure our quiet morning doesn’t mean the city forgot how to scheme.”
Silas nodded, already tucking a small notebook into his coat. The look he gave wasn’t quite unreadable, but there was tension in it. Like he was bracing for ripples from whatever C. hadn’t said yet.
The wind off Furnace Row carried soot and heat, the kind that clung to your clothes even before you stepped foot in it. Septimus paused near the corner where Ril’s street ended and the smoke began. Chimneys bloomed against the sky ahead, black-lipped and angry.
He unhooked the satchel slung beneath his coat and drew out the folded bundle. The same fine clothes they’d worn last time they played merchants and made liars look generous. Pressed linen, dark thread, a collar sharp enough to suggest old money. He handed Lottie her half of the disguise.
“Time to dress up again. If we’re stopping by the Foundry, we may as well check on Rollen properly.”
Lottie’s reply came with a grin, half-sun, half-knife. “Sep, I was born to lie to men who think their boots are worth more than my name.”
She gave her coat a sharp tug at the sleeves and shook out her hair with both hands. In a few practiced motions, she went from restless brawler to something else. Shoulders straighter, chin lifted just slightly, like she’d grown up with ledgers and inheritance lines.
The fire dimmed behind her eyes, but the ember stayed. “Let them think we’re just investors with pretty words. Makes it easier when they bleed.”
Silas didn’t smile. He was watching the smoke ahead like it might start watching back. “Rollen doesn’t need another mask,” he said softly. “But the rest of them? They’re already playing a part. Might as well wear the right costume to sit at their table.”
He brushed his fingers across the edge of his totemic crystal, and concentrated. The glow dulled. Shadows bent just a little differently around him after that. Not gone, just quieter. Like his presence had stepped to the side and left something less noticeable in its place.
Septimus took a breath. Slow. He checked the street behind them, then the path ahead. “Keep your lies clean,” he said, “Keep your exits closer.”
Then he stepped forward into the heat, into haze, into a game they knew how to play. Just not the names it would write them under.
The wind off Furnace Row had shifted by the time they crossed into the foundry yard.
It wasn’t just hot. It was wrong. The kind of heat that didn’t cling, but hovered. Waiting.
Septimus adjusted his collar as they walked, posture easy, pace casual, as if they were just here to check on a deal. As if the smoke wasn’t moving a little too slowly around the chimneys.
The gate worker spotted them and hesitated, just for a breath. Recognition flared behind his eyes. Then he waved them through without a word.
Good. The performance was still holding.
Inside, the foundry breathed with heat. Not furnace fire, but with true resonance. A pressure that settled under your ribs, low and persistent. Rollen’s workstation stood at the center, wreathed in haze and lined with thin bars of silver-veined alloy that pulsed faintly, like they remembered lightning.
Septimus gave a low whistle. “Oof. Looks like someone finally took my advice on keeping talent alive.”
Lottie fanned herself dramatically with a scrap of parchment. “Either that or he’s forging the sun in there.” She sniffed the air, curled her lip. “If they’ve got him on fifteen-hour shifts again, I’m breaking something. Possibly foreman bones.”
Silas didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the shimmer rising off the anvil. Heat distortion warped through with something else. The hammer blows weren’t just loud. They settled in your chest, carried by more than sound.
Septimus could sense it too now, a rhythm beneath the noise, like something old trying to remember its shape.
“That’s not just exertion,” Silas murmured. “He’s syncing with the forge. Attuning with the metal.”
Closer now, Septimus caught more detail. Rollen’s movements had changed. Not frantic, not exhausted, but precise. Not a bead of sweat on him. The alloy itself hummed quietly, even untouched.
And the workers around him? Avoiding eye contact. Even the foreman, usually barking orders across the yard, stood still. Watching. Quiet. Wary.
Lottie leaned in, voice low, just for the three of them. “We’re not the only ones who noticed something’s changing. Either we get ahead of it, or the Church is going to sniff this place out by the end of the week.”
No more time for subtlety. Septimus straightened, pulled on that familiar smile. The one that said I can fund your dreams or ruin your margins. He stepped forward and called out, voice bright and easy.
“Hoo-boy. Looks like you’re finally treating your talent right. These carriages are going to make this foundry famous! I’d bet even the mainland will start placing orders once they see what kind of alloy’s coming out of the Frontier.”
The foreman startled. Just slightly. A twitch at the corner of his eye. He hadn’t expected them back. But the man recovered well. Rubbed the back of his neck, smeared grease, gave a smile that tried to be polite and fell somewhere between wary and relieved. “Heh. Yeah, well… we’ve had some, uh, breakthrough days since you were last here.”
His eyes flicked toward Rollen. “He’s been workin’ like a man possessed... uh, not literally. Just real inspired-like.”
Septimus tilted his head, listening.
“Improvising a bit. Shaved hours off the tempering process. Alloy’s lighter than it should be, but tougher too. I’ve got merchants tryin’ to bribe me for offcuts.”
He leaned in, voice quieter no. “He ain’t sleepin’ much, though. Eats like a bird. Says he don’t need to. We tried givin’ him a break, and the alloy froze up like it knew he was gone.”
Lottie slid in smoothly, warmth returning to her voice like it’d never left. “That’s just genius, love. You ever seen an artist at work? They don’t rest, they create. My cousin painted a barn mural on a sugar crash once. Same energy.”
The foreman chuckled, eased. Just enough to let his shoulders drop.
Silas remained back, arms crossed, eyes flitting between Rollen and the material stacks. Always quiet, always watching.
“The metal’s attuning to him,” he muttered to Septimus. “Not reacting. Adapting. He’s imprinting something he doesn’t even know he’s giving away.”
The foreman caught the edge of the whisper and nodded, half to himself. “If you’re still serious about that long-term contract,” he said, “now’s the time. He’s only getting better. And sooner or later, someone’s going to notice.”
Septimus let the words hang a second. He could feel it. Beneath the heat, beneath the hum. Something else was moving here. Not corruption or magic. But pressure. The kind that bent metal or men.
And whatever it was, Rollen was at the center of it. Septimus put on his best drawl of a lucrative business man.
“Now, I do agree with you. This is quite the marvel. However, I got to talk to the man again myself, make sure he’s ready for the challenge, and that he stays in good health. I got interested buyers from Thalgrund to Duskwater, and the sanctuaries in between.”
The foreman straightened the moment Septimus spoke, like a man suddenly aware he might be standing between gold and the only one who knew how to mine it.
He nodded quickly, too quickly. “’Course. You’re the ones who lit this fire in the first place. Rollen’s taken a real shine to you. Just—ah—be gentle, yeah? When he’s in the groove, the whole damn forge hums like a prayer bell.”
He stepped aside without another word, not deferential but relieved. It was clear he was out of his depth, and happier for someone else to take the reins. They walked.
Rollen stood at the center of it all, shirt discarded, sleeves rolled. Movements fluid. Inhumanly precise. The hammer rose, fell, struck, and didn’t just ring. It sang. Not from the anvil. From him. He didn’t look up at first. But as they stepped into his field of view, the hammer paused mid-air. Then lowered. Slowly.
Rollen turned, a faint smile touched his mouth.“I figured you’d come back,” he said. His voice was low. Tired. But sure. “You felt the shift, didn’t you?”
He set the hammer down. It vibrated. Not from the strike, but from the mana humming in his skin. “I… I think I’ve become part of it. Not just the forge. The metal. The memory inside it. The more I work, the more it gives.”
Then he hesitated, something in his posture cracked. Not physically, but emotionally. As if even he wasn’t sure whether what he just said was brilliance or madness.
“You came to check on me. Didn’t you?”
Septimus didn’t answer right away. He let the silence stretch just long enough for the heat to settle in deeper. Around them, alloy gleamed in stacks. Light as feathered steel, priced higher than gold.
“There’s a saying,” he said at last. “A tree that grows too fast falls first in a storm.”
His eyes swept the yard. Then landed on Rollen. “These people will work you until there’s nothing left. You know that, right?”
Rollen’s gaze dropped. Not from shame. But from weight. The words didn’t wound. They landed somewhere deeper. A place still raw. Still forming. He looked at the metal. The shimmer. The pulse, soft and steady, like a second heartbeat. Then looked back.
“Yeah,” Rollen murmured. “I do.”
He stepped away from the anvil, wiping his hands on a cloth that had long since stopped being useful. There was soot along his jawline. And now that Septimus was close, he saw it. A streak of silver at Rollen’s temples. Thin. But real.
“They don’t see me as a person anymore,” Rollen said. “Just the flame that keeps the bellows hot. The more I give, the more they want.”
Then he met Septimus’s eyes again. And there it was. The boy beneath the forge. Still trying to understand a power that hadn’t asked his permission. “But you... you didn’t come to take. You’re the only ones who asked if I was okay.”
Lottie moved forward then, slower now. The edge had gone from her voice, but not the fire. “You’re not just a forge, Rollen. You’re a man caught in something bigger than him. If you keep letting it burn through you, you’ll be ash before the first coin’s minted.”
Silas spoke from beside Septimus, quiet as always. “You’ve awakened something rare. But power without clarity? That’s how the Totemic Church builds its monsters.”
Rollen closed his eyes. Nodded once. Not to them. To himself. “Then help me,” he said. “Please. Help me shape it. Before they shape me.”
Behind him, the forge continued to hum.
“You take a man like that away from the only place he thinks he belongs,” Lottie murmured, “You better give him somewhere better. Somewhere real.”
Septimus met Rollen’s gaze. Steady. No showmanship left now. Only honest truth. “I think it’s about time we had ourselves an investor luncheon. What do you say?”
Rollen exhaled. And with it, something eased in his shoulders. Like a chain slipped off a post. He looked once more at the forge. At the metal. Then reached for his coat, thick with ash, stained with weeks of work, but stopped himself. Let it hang.
Then he stepped away.
Lottie intercepted a nearby worker on cue, her voice bright and pointed. “Be a dear and let your boss know we’re taking our premium smith to lunch. Big things ahead. Very exclusive.” Her grin was charm with a knife behind it.
Silas fell into step beside Septimus, his voice just for him. “You just stole the flame from their hearth.” Then, more softly. “You’d better keep it burning.”
Septimus stepped back into the city, not as a patron, not as a guard, but as something rarer than either. A guardian of someone still becoming.
The sun was bright overhead. The air smelled of metal and bread.
And beside them walked a man who no longer knows what he is.
“Rollen,” Septimus asked quietly, “how much do you care about the foundry? Big picture.”
He walked for a while without answering, eyes trailing across the uneven cobblestones like he was hoping something in them might give him the words. The forge soot on his skin hadn’t fully faded. Neither has the weight in his posture.
“The truth?” He looked up. “It was the only place that didn’t look at me like I was broken. They gave me work. Purpose. Let me hit things until the world made sense again.”
There was another lull in the air. This one heavier. “But now... the forge doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore. The work ain’t just mine. The heat listens to me in ways it never used to. I don’t think it belongs to them either.”
He met Septimus’s eyes. And this time, there was no uncertainty there. It was something like clarity. “I care about what I make. About what I’m starting to understand. But the foundry? If they sold me off tomorrow to the highest bidder? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
He shrugged. A little sad. But free. “So I guess I care more about what I can be than what they want me to be.”
Lottie, walking just behind, tilted her head and casted him a sideways glance. “That answer sound familiar, Sep?”
Septimus nodded.“Let’s talk to someone who actually has the funds to set you up at your own forge.”
Septimus glanced toward Furnace Row behind him. “It’s too bad they never bound you with a contract, huh?”
Rollen blinked. Then huffed a breath that was half disbelief, half something dangerously close to hope. “Guess they were too busy mining ore to see the gold standing right in front of them.”
Lottie’s grin sharpened. She bumped Septimus’s shoulder with hers. “Oh, you’re really about to make Ril owe us, aren’t you?”
Her voice dipped, amused. Warm. “I like it when you start bending the rules.”
They made their way to the south dock. Ril’s warehouse loomed at the end of a shadow-wrapped street. Quiet, but not asleep. A familiar runner with a half-shaved head nodded once and vanished inside. Silas and Rollen waited at the door.
Upstairs, Ril was already pouring. She didn’t ask them to sit. She knew they would. Three glasses. Deep amber. Unlabeled. Slow-burning.
She set them down like chips in a game only she played. And always played to win.“You’re back,” Ril said. No warmth. Just observation. “So either you cleaned up the mess... or buried it deeper. I’m betting both.”
She didn’t sit. Just leaned back against the edge of her desk, arms crossed. Balanced. Measured. “You want to tell me what you found at Paleflow Ridge?” Her voice didn’t lift. “Or should I start with what I’ve heard?”
Septimus raised his glass, watched the amber catch fire in the light. He took a slow sip. Then spoke. Flat. Certain. “I’d take a gamble and guess you already have a very good idea of what happened.”
He set the glass down. Didn’t blink. “Your currency is information. And knowing the right people. Which means, we’re only sitting here because we’re the sort you need to accomplish some scheme we’re not even aware we’re already participating in.”
A flicker of amusement touched Ril’s mouth. Not a smile. Not quite.
“Viremoor’s full of clever bastards,” she said. “But you’ve got the timing most of them don’t.”
She reached beneath the desk, unfurling a roll of parchment with a flick of her fingers. Crystal dust scattered across the surface like a deliberate breath. “No robes. No symbols. Just two surveyors. Civilian coats, too clean. Hands too steady. They showed up two days after you left.”
She tapped the edge of the paper once. Not to point anything out. To be heard. “One of them was Sanctum-trained. Not elite. But close enough. He reeked of C. He bought old mining maps. Asked about dormant totemic veins like he already knew what was there... and just wanted someone else to confirm it.”
She looked at Septimus and Lottie in turn. Eyes flat. Calculating.
The room didn’t feel like an office anymore. It felt like a ledger she was about to balance. “And then the rumors started.” She let the words hang. Intentional. “They’re saying the Ridge was a failed forge. That a rogue sect in the Church tried to build something sacred out there and lost control.”
She picked up her drink and finally took a sip. No wince. No comment. Just silence while the taste settled.
“That story’s moving fast,” she said. “Too fast. And the people who usually spin threads like that? They’re quiet. Too quiet.”
She stepped forward, slow and steady, until the pressure in the room shifted.“Which tells me two things.”
She pointed to Septimus, not with a finger. With her gaze. “One. You three walked through something the Church thought was sealed for good.”
She swirled the drink slow. Let the amber rise high along the glass without spilling. Deep enough to show the bottom. Like her connections. Quiet, layered, and watching from every level. “And two... they’re afraid there’s another one like it.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t back off. “So the question is… do I hold that? Let it rot in the dark with the rest of their secrets? Or do I sell it sideways to the kinds of people who don’t like being lied to by false saints and rotting spires?”
Her voice lowered. “You’ve danced with my favor before, Septimus. You want to keep the rhythm... or is this the part where your conscience steps in and starts tripping on the beat?”
Septimus leaned back in his chair. Let it creak beneath him like it might share the weight. “If we piss off the right people,” he said, “you’ll need more than good information to sleep easy.”
He tapped the edge of his glass once. “There’s coin in it, fine. Just make sure it’s worth the risk.” He stood slowly, adjusting his coat.
Ril’s smile changed. Not gone, just sharpened. She leaned forward slightly, resting her hands on the desk like a woman who knew exactly how close to the line she stood... And liked it there.
"You’re not wrong," she said. "This city bites harder than most. And I’ve never liked sleeping with one eye open."
She gestured toward the parchment as it curled shut on its own, like it was nothing more than a napkin with scribbles. "So how about this? I hold the information. Let it simmer. Quiet-like."
Her eyes scanned them with pointed precision. "And in exchange, you keep tabs on our mutual friend at the forge. Make sure he doesn’t turn half the city into a totemic tuning fork by accident."
She moved around the desk, hand grazing Septimus’s arm as she passed. Not flirtation. Control. Beside him, Lottie tensed. Just enough to notice.
Ril poured herself another drink. Same burn, no hesitation.
"I like my investments breathing, Septimus." Her eyes appraised them all. "And I think you three are worth more than any deal I could make today with the wrong ears listening."
Septimus finally revealed the card up his sleeve. “There's someone I'd like you to meet." He waited just long enough for the silence to carry weight. "He's waiting outside. With Silas”
Ril didn’t blink. She just tilted her glass, let the amber swirl, then gave a nod that passed for permission. Septimus opened the door. Silas entered first, quiet and coiled, eyes flicking across the room. Behind him came Rollen.
He stepped inside like a man crossing the line between past and future. No coat, just a scorched shirt tied at his waist, chest still streaked with soot and old burns, movements cautious but not unsure. He didn’t shrink. He simply didn’t pretend to belong yet.
Ril looked up. And for once, didn’t reach for the ledger. She just watched. “Well,” she said, tone dry as old embers. “Either I’m dreaming, or the prodigal blacksmith has wandered off its leash.”
She stood. Arms crossed. Half-curious. Half-calculating. “They poached you? Or did you wake up and realize you were worth more than your apron?”
“I woke up,” Rollen said. No apology. No bitterness. Just the truth.
Something in Ril’s expression sharpened, eyes flicking to Septimus now. Measuring the space between what she thought she knew and whatever this was.
“So what is this, then?” she asked. “You bringing me a rescue case... or an investment opportunity?”
Septimus didn’t dodge it. Just stepped forward and said what needed saying. “He needs a forge, and more than that. Friends who’ll keep him grounded when the work starts speaking louder than the man.”
Ril didn’t answer. Not right away.
She circled her desk slowly, each step deliberate, like she was walking through someone else's memory. When she stopped, it was directly across from Rollen. Close enough to catch every flicker of doubt or spark of will.
“A forge I can provide,” she said. “Hell, I’ve got three half-used properties in the south quarter I’ve been sitting on like rotting teeth.”
Her gaze stayed on Rollen, like he might vanish if she looked away too quickly. “But friends?” She looked back to Septimus, eyes hard. “Friends are more expensive than iron. Harder to keep sharp, too.”
She returned to her drink, poured just half a glass. Raised it without drinking. “You’re asking me to back a talent the Church would chain up, house him in my territory, and trust you lot to keep him from burning the city down with good intentions.”
She let that hang a moment. She set the glass down, untouched. “So here’s my price.” Her voice didn’t change. But the terms came like cards laid flat. “One. I’ll fund the forge. Property, material, and contracts, quietly. No names. No paper trail. Two. You three stay involved. Not just muscle. Guardians. Advisors. Three. If anyone comes sniffing, Church, gang, noble. You handle it. No mess on my doorstep. And four... I get first bid on any Totemic-forged piece he makes for sale. Not a monopoly. Just first look.”
She let the silence draw long enough for weight, then stepped forward again. Not imposing. Not soft.
“This folds into the last deal,” she said. “The clean forge. The commissions. Ashen Row. I haven’t forgotten.”
Her gaze held Septimus's, sharp, precise, but not unkind. “You brought me a name worth hiding. Now you’re asking me to help make it real. So this isn’t a fresh negotiation, Septimus. It’s the next stone in the foundation you started laying.”
She extended her hand across the desk. “Do we have a deal?”
The room held still. Even Rollen seemed caught in it, like some part of him had forgotten what this kind of moment felt like.
Septimus reached out and took her hand. The grip was firm. Final. A deal signed in calluses and trust. “Of course,” he said. “I know all too well what happens when Aberrants don’t get the help they need.”
He looked to Rollen.“You’re gonna have the forge. And live better than half the smiths in the Inner Ring. But you talk to us. If it starts slipping. If you feel it trying to take more than you meant to give.”
Rollen stared at him like the floor had opened up and shown sky instead of stone. Not afraid. Grateful. Maybe for the first time. “I will,” he said. Steady, quiet, and real.
Then, almost to himself, soft enough it could’ve been missed. “I didn’t know people like you existed. Let alone gave a damn.”
Ril released Septimus’s hand with a professional nod. “Then we build the forge,” she said. “Discreet. Reinforced. Private. It’ll be ready by the end of the week. Key under the stone lion. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Behind Septimus, Lottie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. When he glanced back, her look said everything without speaking at all.
You did good.
Silas stepped forward. Placed one gloved hand on Rollen’s shoulder. No words. Just that quiet anchor of presence.
For the first time, it felt like the man at the center of the storm might survive the fire he came from.
The warehouse door shut behind them with a finality that felt earned. They stood on the dock just beyond Ril’s reach. Fog curled low across the boards. Smoke from the river chimneys stretched into the dark like tired breath. The water below lapped soft and slow, one of the few places in Viremoor that didn’t try to sell its noise.
Rollen lingered near the edge, arms crossed, staring down into the ripple-glow. The amber light from Ril’s office still flickered faintly in the windows behind them.
Septimus stepped forward. "Rollen. I've got one more place to show you. But we're going to have to wait until it's dark."
Rollen raised an eyebrow. No suspicion, just quiet curiosity. "I figured nothing good ever waits for daylight in this city."
Lottie clicked her tongue against her teeth. "You're really taking him into the deep end, huh? Moonlight rites and soul-searching." She nudged Septimus with her elbow. "Careful now. You keep talking like that, and I might start thinking you've got room in that heart of yours for someone else."
The pride in her voice wasn't hidden. She saw what he was doing, and she was with him.
Silas stepped closer. His shadow folded across Septimus's. No words at first. Just presence, measured and sure. "We should take the long way. Watch who's watching us."
Septimus nodded. Then turned toward Rollen. "We're going to the source of the ore that started all this for you. We'll be there the whole time. Silas knows what it's like."
At the word source, Rollen stiffened. Just for a breath. Like the sound rang down into the marrow before his mind could catch it. He looked between them. Lottie, Silas, Septimus. Then settled on Silas.
"You mean... like what made me start hearing the forge? Feeling it?"
Silas didn't flinch. "Straight from the source. Not shaped by hands. Not chained in ritual. The Totem's wound, not its shrine."
Lottie placed a hand on Rollen's arm. "We're not doing this to push you over the edge. We're doing this so the edge doesn't sneak up on you."
Rollen looked down at his hands. Scarred. Burnt. Humming with something deeper than flesh. He drew in a slow breath. Let it settle. Then met Septimus's gaze.
"Alright," he said. "I trust you. Just... don't let me fall too far in."
They moved through the outer veins of the city as the sky bled toward indigo, lanternlight and long shadows swallowing the streets behind them. Not hidden, but quiet. Deliberate. The entrance to the Ashen Row vault came into view, half-swallowed by earth and time. No guards. No watchers. Only the silence of something that had already decided whether to let them in.
Septimus descended first. The last time he stood here, the vault had felt like a wound. Watchful, uncertain, reading them through the stone. This time, the air met him differently. The metallic taste was there, faint, like a reminder rather than a warning. His bones didn't report in the way they had before. The wrongness had softened into something closer to familiarity. The vault remembered them. And had decided they could stay.
Lottie followed. She paused on the ladder, head tilted, listening with her whole body. The air still gave her nothing to work with. No current, no pressure she could read. But the hostility was gone. Where the vault had once refused her fire, now it simply held its breath around her. Not suppression. Patience.
Silas came last, moving with the particular care of someone returning to a place that had once shown him things he hadn't been ready to see. His shadows behaved. No splitting, no reverting. They curled close to his body like they knew where they were.
Then Rollen.
He descended slowly, one rung at a time. His hands gripped the rusted metal and the vault shifted. Not visibly. Not dramatically. Just a change in the quality of the silence. A new attention, like a room adjusting to an unfamiliar voice.
Rollen's foot touched the floor and he stopped. His breath caught. Not blocked. Recalibrated. The air had thickened around him in a way it hadn't for the others, and he stood still in it, processing something his body understood before his mind could name it.
"I can feel it," he said, barely above a whisper. "It's not just ahead of me. It's around me. Like it already knows the shape of me."
Septimus watched him carefully. The vault had tested the three of them on their first visit, each one individually, each one through the lens of what they were. It was doing the same to Rollen now. The ore in the walls pulsed faintly, the veins of metal threading through the stone catching a rhythm that hadn't been there a moment ago. Rollen's rhythm.
Silas noticed it too. His eyes moved from the walls to Rollen and back. He said nothing. Just watched. His hand moved to his side, fingers loose, ready to intervene if the resonance turned hostile. It didn't.
They moved deeper. The corridor opened into the vault proper, and Rollen slowed again. The fractured stone at the center still hummed, still pulsed with the stubborn life that had refused to die when the Church abandoned this place. But the ore veins in the walls were brighter now. Not much. Just enough to notice. Responding to what Rollen carried in him.
Septimus spoke first. Voice low, the register he used when something mattered too much for volume.
"All the resonance that bleeds from this Totem settles here. Distilled. The ore grew from it. When you shaped metal at Hearthold Foundry, you were shaping echoes of this. Now you're standing at the source."
Rollen walked to the edge of the central formation, trailing his fingertips along the wall. The contact made his shoulders tighten, then loosen. No vibration he could hear. No sound. Just awareness meeting awareness. His hand and the stone recognizing each other.
He knelt beside the fractured shard at the center. Not in reverence or submission. Instinct. The way a smith kneels beside a forge that's been lit for him. He didn't reach for the stone. He just waited.
"What happens now?" he asked.
Septimus stood beside him. Didn't crouch. Didn't command.
"You listen," he said. "Your power isn't a weapon. It's a craft. Mine came to me like it was always there. Strength, speed, instinct. But even instincts have to be shaped. Like an ingot. Hit too hard, you ruin it. Hit too soft, you waste the heat."
He let the quiet return before continuing. "Lottie and Silas channel in ways I don't. Ask them. You'll need all of it."
Rollen looked to Lottie.
She crossed the room and sat beside him on the nearest stone outcrop. Watched him for a long moment. Then tapped her chest once.
"You know that feeling right before a fire catches?" she said. "That second where the heat's there but the flame hasn't decided yet? That's where I live. I don't control wind or fire. I just know the moment they're ready to move, and I move with them."
She held up her hand. In the vault's dead air, nothing stirred. No flame caught. But her fingers were steady.
"When I'm Wreathed, I'm me. Just more me. That's all it is. You find the part of you that was already doing the thing, and you stop apologizing for it."
Silas remained standing. Arms folded, his weight settled, watching Rollen the way he watched everything. With the kind of attention that most people mistake for distance.
"I don't pull power from the Totem," he said. "I reflect what it finds in me." He paused. Chose the next words with the precision of someone who'd spent years learning which ones mattered. "Light bends. Shadow splits. But only when I stop lying to myself about what I am."
He stepped forward and knelt beside the others. His voice dropped, and the dry wit surfaced. A rare gift, offered sparingly.
"You're not channeling steel, Rollen. You never were. You're channeling memory. Yours. The Totem's. Everyone who left blood in this stone." He gestured to the fractured shard. "So stop trying to understand it. Just stop interrupting it."
Rollen closed his eyes. His hands rested on his knees. His breathing deepened. Not strained or frantic. Deliberate. Like he was syncing to a beat only he could hear. The shard's glow pulsed faintly on each inhale, dimmed on each exhale. The ore veins in the walls followed, a half-beat behind, like an echo finding its source.
The vault was quiet but not still. The air had changed. The aura that had greeted Rollen at the entrance had settled around him now, not pressing but present. Holding him the way a forge holds heat. Patiently. Without urgency.
Lottie looked across at Septimus. Her voice was low. Steady. "You didn't teach him power," she said. "You taught him when to hold it."
Septimus signed in the Common Hand, clear and controlled. Silas, you tell me if I have to interrupt.
Silas didn't look away from Rollen. His hand lifted in reply. If he frays, I'll see it first.
Then came the flicker. A small chunk of ore, raw and discarded near Rollen's knee, shifted slightly. Not melting or reshaping. Just lighter. The weight leaving it in increments, as though the density was being renegotiated between the mineral and the man beside it.
It rang. Not aloud. The tone moved through stone and marrow, like a bell chiming behind the ribs.
Lottie leaned forward slightly. Her brow lifted. "He's communing," she murmured.
Silas signed his response without hesitation. No distortion. No flare. He's not cracking. He's tuning.
The ore lifted. Just an inch off the ground, hovering with no force beneath it, held in place by resonance alone. The veins in the walls pulsed in time with it. The shard at the center brightened. Not dramatically. Like a coal fanned by a breath that wasn't air.
Silas shifted position. One hand near his eye, forming an L. Then he moved it forward, slowly, bringing thumb and finger together in a clean, final motion. Gifted.
Rollen opened his eyes. The alloy dropped softly to the floor.
"I felt it," he said. The awe in his voice was quiet, held close, the way a man holds something he's afraid of dropping. "Not like power. More like purpose."
He looked at his hands. Then at the shard. Then at Septimus. "The metal wants to become something. And I can help it get there."
The vault had quieted. The shard still pulsed, but the attention in the room had changed. The ore veins dimmed to their resting state. The air thinned. Whatever the vault had been holding for Rollen, it had delivered.
Septimus gave a single nod. "Now you have your flow. Channel it. But don't let it harness you."
Rollen absorbed the words the way he absorbed heat at the forge. Slowly, but with permanence. He lowered a hand to the stone beside the shard and held it there, palm flat, fingers spread. The contact was quiet. No light. No spectacle. Just the faint hum of ore recognizing the hand that would shape it.
Lottie rose, brushed dust from her coat, and offered him a grin. "If you start making Totemic swords that sing, you better name the first one after me."
Silas signed beside her. The rhythm was slower now, deliberate, with a weight behind it that the humor couldn't mask. He's not dangerous. Not yet. But he will be, if someone else gets to him first.
Rollen looked to Septimus. "Thank you," he said. "For not just pulling me out of the fire. For showing me how to use it."
Septimus didn't respond. He just stood still, letting the moment seal itself.
They came down here with a blacksmith. They were leaving with a shaper.
And when the Church came looking, they’d find someone with a forge, a name, and a family.
“You’re not going back to the Foundry,” Septimus said. “Not until your forge is ready. They’re probably worried sick their golden goose is on the loose.”
Rollen let out a quiet laugh, part humor, part realization. “Yeah. They’re either panicking or pretending they’re not. If I walk in now, I’ll either get hugged or locked in a storeroom.”
Lottie raised her hand like she was swearing an oath. “If they try to hug you, I start swinging. No one hugs my blacksmith without consent.”
Silas didn’t look up from the shadows clinging to his coat. His voice stayed level. “If they try to lock you in, I’ve memorized four ways into their vents.”
Rollen shook his head. But something in his posture had changed. He was already shaping himself. “I’ll stay low. Sketch designs. Prep alloys. I’ll be ready when the forge is.”
He looked again to Septimus. “You’ll let me know when it’s time to step back into the light... right?”
Septimus nodded. That was always the promise.
Time. Work. Refuge. Until the day he no longer needed it. Rollen smiled. Not shy or uncertain. Forged. “Then let’s make me the kind of man they write into the doctrine by accident.”
Lottie whistled low. “That’s the kind of petty I respect.”
Silas didn’t look at anyone in particular. “They won’t write him in. Not willingly.” He shifted his stance. Cloak brushing stone. Voice low, steady. “But one day, they’ll pretend they always believed in him.”
They climbed back toward the surface. Boots on stone. No ceremony. No divine light. Just work ahead. A forge waiting. A name beginning to hold. And a man who walked into the fire and didn’t ask to be pulled out.
The Totemic Church still held the cities. But something else was taking shape now. Not a weapon. A future.
Septimus didn’t say it aloud. Didn’t need to.
But as the winds from Ashen Row kissed the sweat on his brow… He remembered Dray Merns. The man they gave up. He hadn’t forgotten.
He never would.