"Lucavion."
Lucavion didn't respond imdiately. He simply turned, hands relaxed at his sides, gaze already sweeping the edges of the forge where the real fire was kept.
Kaleran took a asured breath. "Due to your exceptional performance during the entrance trials," he said, each word deliberate, "you will be granted the right to commission your weapon from the Empire's highest-ranked blacksmith."
That drew a reaction.
Toven actually stopped mid-fidget, blinking.
Mireilla glanced up, her expression unreadable but no longer indifferent.
Even Elayne's gaze lifted from the glass projections.
Lucavion… rely raised a brow.
Kaleran continued, unbothered by the shifting tension. "This is not a courtesy. It is a recognition. The individual you will be working with has forged blades for High Generals, Grand Magi, and the imperial bloodline itself."
There was a slight pause—almost as if he were preparing them for a na.
But then Kaleran looked to one of the nearby attendants and gave a curt nod. "Summon Mister Harlan. Let him know the old man's ti is needed."
The title struck the air like flint on stone.
Lucavion felt it imdiately.
He could sense the shift behind the words—like the forge itself stirred just faintly in anticipation.
The others wouldn't know what that na ant. Not truly.
But Lucavion did.
He knew exactly who was being referenced without ever needing to hear the full na aloud.
The old man didn't go by titles. Not forge-lord, not master, not fla-binder.
Just Harlan.
To call him anything else was to pretend he belonged to sothing.
And he never had.
The tension in the air shifted the mont the attendant returned from the deeper chamber.
He approached with careful steps, as if aware that delivering anything short of reverence might get him burned—if not by the forge, then by the expectations around it.
"Master Harlan is currently working," the man said, voice polite but tight. "He… hasn't yet responded to the summons."
Kaleran's eyes narrowed—just slightly, but enough for the air to cool in contrast to the forge's heat.
"We inford your circle in advance," Kaleran said, his tone not angry but cutting. "Today's audience was scheduled. Approved."
The attendant shifted uncomfortably, glancing toward the deeper end of the forge—the silent arch that Lucavion had sensed from the start. "I understand, Master Mage. But when Master Harlan is in the inner crucible, he does not take interruptions. Not even from the Directorate."
Lucavion gave a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. Of course.
Kaleran's jaw set, the faintest sign of displeasure flickering across the otherwise unreadable lines of his face. "Check again."
The man bowed slightly. "Yes, sir. I'll see if he's… nearing completion."
And with that, he turned and made his retreat—quick, but not rushed. Just enough to suggest he had no illusions about how long it would take. Or how welco the news would be.
A beat passed.
Then another.
Silence blood around them like a waiting fla.
Lucavion remained still, arms loosely folded, gaze lingering on the sealed archway. He didn't look irritated. Just… patient. If there was one thing Harlan taught, it was that steel didn't rush.
Lucavion's gaze stayed fixed on the archway, but his mind slipped backward—uninvited, yet welco.
Two years ago.
Maybe a little more.
A city smaller than it deserved to be, tucked between hills and trade routes that ti had forgotten. He'd gone there chasing rumors, not of monsters or mages, but of tal. Of a smith who didn't sell. Who chose his custors with the arrogance of a god and the eyes of a judge.
Lucavion had walked into that forge without appointnt, without pretense—just an unfinished blade on his back and a challenge in his eyes.
The old man had looked at him once.
Just once.
And without a word, tossed him a bent training blade and pointed to the forge's rear courtyard.
Lucavion had swung.
A rough welco. But the first of many nights spent over molten tal, hamr strikes that echoed like heartbeat, and silence broken only when truth demanded it.
[Hard to believe we found him there,] Vitaliara murmured now, her voice curling through his thoughts like rising steam. [A forge that looked like it hadn't seen a custor in five years, tucked behind an apothecary and a broken tavern sign.]
Lucavion's lips curved, faint. 'Yeah. And he still had the nerve to act like I was the lost one.'
[Because you were.]
'Maybe. But I found fire.'
[And he found sothing sharp enough to tolerate.]
Lucavion didn't reply to that.
Because it was true.
And then—
The attendant returned.
This ti, he was not calm.
He moved quickly, face damp with sweat that hadn't co from the forge's heat. His collar was slightly askew, and his steps betrayed the stamr of soone who had just been seen through too quickly and spoken to too directly.
Lucavion didn't need to ask.
He already knew.
The old man had replied.
Probably with sothing like "He can wait. The tal doesn't." Or worse.
The attendant bowed stiffly to Kaleran. "Master Harlan has said… he's busy."
Kaleran's expression didn't flicker—but sothing behind his eyes shifted. A sharper stillness. "This eting has been scheduled for over a month. He was briefed. He agreed."
The attendant wrung his hands, still slightly singed at the fingertips. "Yes, sir, but he says he's working on a ti-sensitive piece. That if he steps away now, it'll ruin the structure. He was very clear about it."
"Ti-sensitive?" Kaleran echoed, voice clipped as cold steel. "He was hamring a sword the sa hour I t him fifteen years ago. He is always working on sothing ti-sensitive. That's not an excuse. It's his existence."
The attendant looked caught between anvil and fla. "Sir, with respect, he said—'Tell the boy I'm aware, but the tal listens before I do.' And then he… waved away."
Lucavion was already biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
Kaleran sighed through his nose, clearly fighting the urge to incinerate soone. "And I suppose his inner crucible is still locked."
"Yes. Triple-sealed," the attendant confird. "You know how it is when he—"
"I know," Kaleran cut in. "I just thought perhaps this once, he would rember that the rest of us are bound by linear ti."
There was a beat.
Then Lucavion tilted his head, calm as dusk.
"Well," he said, "if he doesn't want to co to us—how about I go to him?"
Both Kaleran and the attendant turned at the sa ti, necks snapping like marionettes mid-swing.
The look they gave him was sowhere between disbelief and the quiet despair usually reserved for children about to touch an open fla.
The attendant gaped. "You—what?"
Kaleran spoke slowly, like addressing soone dangerously concussed. "You do realize why no one goes to him while he's working. That the heat beyond the crucible door isn't just forge-heat. It's condensed divine resonance. That entire section is lined with mirrored mana-steel and still glows white. If anyone could walk through it without vaporizing, don't you think we would have by now?"
Lucavion didn't flinch.
Instead, he raised one hand casually—almost like shrugging off a coat.
A faint shimr rose around his fingertips, then coiled around his palm, dark and silent.
Not fla.
Absence.
The [Fla of Equinox] flickered into being, void-black fire with a silver-blue sheen that didn't glow so much as consu the light around it. A heat that wasn't hot. A fire that didn't burn—it unmade.
Lucavion glanced at the faint edge of it, then at them. "I'm pretty resistant to fire."
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