The forge held its breath.
So did he.
The forge breathed.
Not like a man, but like something older. Deeper. A slumbering god stirring beneath stone and steel. Its bellows exhaled in steady, thunderous rhythm, forcing waves of molten heat through rune-etched ducts spiraling along the walls like coiled serpents. Copper vents spat embers into the dark, while condensation hissed down iron struts, steaming as it touched glowing veins beneath the floor.
The air shimmered—warped by heat, thick with the tang of molten metal and the acrid sting of smelted stone. Breathing here meant tasting soot, brass, and the electric bite of charged Akar. The walls bore scars of a thousand projects—soldered wounds, scorch marks, fractures kissed with quicksilver welds.
Beneath the Verge, the Ironweavers' workshop was no mere smithy. It was a cathedral of intent. An artery. A crucible threaded into the city's living skeleton.
Conduits and spine-rails webbed beneath the floor—pulsing with Akar siphoned from the deeper Veinlines that ran under Embermark like roots of an ancient machine.
Even the tools were more than tools. Hammers inlaid with resonance filigree. Tongs wrapped in glyph-chains insulating against volatile flows. Measuring calipers folded with fractal hinges, angles exact to the fifth harmonic.
The forge remembered.
And Hatim—he no longer fought it.
His hammer rose, trailing sparks like captured stars, then fell—metal meeting metal with a tone tuned beyond mere sound. Each strike was a syllable in a language older than words, a negotiation with the unseen current coiling beneath reality.
Sparks scattered in glyph-shaped flares—lines, curves, loops—fading before apprentices could track them.
This was not brute labor. It was a ritual of resonance.
Akar did not come because you demanded it. You could not muscle it into obedience. It came when glyphs sang true. When material agreed. When your own pulse harmonized with the deep lattice of the world.
Kael had told him once—not kindly, not praise, but a grim warning passed between men who lived by fire and failure.
Hatim felt it now.
That subtle vibration beneath his ribs—the Node, where his being overlapped the world's structure. Akar slept there, coiled like liquid gold inside flesh and breath.
Drawing from it wasn't theft. It was bleeding. Permission.
He inhaled—slow, steady. Warmth flared within, threading down arms, gilding fingertips. Not light. Not flame. Something stranger. Fuller. The current of meaning itself.
Beneath his hands, the glyphwork etched into the conduit coil stirred—lines pulsing with soft amber light as Akar began to flow.
The forge responded.
Kael, looming in the background, crossed his arms. His face gave nothing, but the slight dip of his chin—barely a fraction—was seismic here.
The apprentices who once called Hatim street-scum now watched from smoke's edge, pretending to check work but glancing, always glancing.
The fire was claiming him.
Not fully. Not yet.
But enough.
Then—
The forge's rhythm stuttered.
Not loud. No crash. No scream. Just absence.
A hollow note where breath should be.
Hammerfalls slowed. Bellows faltered. Even the air shifted—sharp, brittle, as if heat itself recoiled.
Apprentices froze. Heads turned toward the entrance before sound arrived.
Bootsteps. Crisp. Measured.
A tremor passed through Veinlines beneath the floor—a ripple of pressure, as if the city itself inhaled and held.
Then she entered.
Lady Aethel.
She glided across the blackstone threshold as if gravity deferred to her presence. Her robes weren't fabric, not truly. Woven from memory-silk and shadowthread, shimmering with sigils that refused to hold still. Glyphs shifted as eyes tried to read—rotating, rearranging, spelling meanings not meant for mortals.
Where she walked, heat pulled back. The forge's glow dimmed—not extinguished, but wary.
Behind her came the Whispercloaks—Crown enforcers clad in glimmersteel and echo-plate. Mirrored masks reflected only flaws of those who dared meet their gaze. They moved like silence given shape.
"Master Kael."
Her voice was paper sliding across a blade. "My instructions…" A slight tilt of the head. "…seem to have suffered dilution. Contamination. Independence."
Kael bowed—not low, not meek, but steel flexing beneath load. "The southern conduits are ahead of schedule. Harmonics align within sanctioned deviation."
"Sanctioned…" The word dripped from her lips like spoiled fruit. Her gaze drifted over conduit coils, still steaming where glyph-seams hadn't cooled. Veins of rune-copper pulsed faintly, like shed skins of something larger.
"Yet," she continued, "Aeridorian uplinks report tapering on terminus lines. Disruptions. Failures in harmonic ascent."
A ripple passed through apprentices—stiff spines, shared glances. They all knew.
This wasn't just error.
It was sabotage. Or might be made to seem so.
Hatim's throat tightened. His hand twitched toward his hammer—not defiance, but instinct.
The conduits here weren't mere wire or pipe. They were arteries—carrying structured Akar to shield towers, sky-anchors, ward pylons. If resonance failed… glyph nets collapsed. Wards shattered. Cities burned.
"Perhaps," Lady Aethel mused, voice soft as falling ash, "your newer apprentices… forge with too much improvisation."
Her gaze snapped to Hatim.
It pierced. Not a look. A reading. Her eyes demanded what lived beneath his skin.
Hatim stood still.
"Demonstrate." A single word. Inevitable. Final. "A full conduit. Forged. Aligned. Charged. Now."
Kael didn't argue. His nod was brief. Measured. A forge-master's trust carried more weight than law.
Hatim's pulse roared against ribs. Fingers trembled—dread or residual Akar burning in veins, he couldn't tell.
The floor thrummed beneath his boots. Veinlines—ancient arteries beneath Embermark—awoke. He felt their pulse sync with his breath.
The forge held its breath.
So did he.