"I can't help you."
The man handed the Asterite back.
"Is it really that difficult to forge? From my understanding it should work like ordinary iron."
The man snickered. "For someone who has mastered it, perhaps. But that isn't me. You need a Luminaire smith for something like this."
Kael looked at him. A Luminaire blacksmith. There were almost none left, as far as he could tell.
"Do you know where I might find one?"
"Not in this layer. Maybe the third, but I couldn't say."
Kael thanked him and stepped back onto the street.
Almost every blacksmith in Sole was a mortal operating in the first layer. Ever since motes had become the dominant tool of the world, smithing had stopped being a profitable profession. Forged items had become luxury goods rather than necessities, and the knowledge required to produce exceptional ones had been dying with each generation that chose not to learn it.
He made his way through the second layer and into the third.
He found a small worn house that looked entirely out of place between the marble buildings around it, sitting beside an old and massive willow tree.
The door creaked.
"What do you want?"
Sielle sat at a table, carving a small wooden piece with a chisel. He blew the shavings off and turned.
This was one of his private residences. And while Kael was someone he had official dealings with, it wasn't someone he wanted stepping into his house.
Kael handed him a bag containing twenty Stone Coffins.
"You're not supposed to give the next batch in two weeks. I haven't even sold previous ones yet."
"I know. I made these ahead of schedule."
Sielle scoffed, grabbed the bag, turned back, and continued on the wood piece.
Noticing Kael hadn't left, he sighed.
"What? What do you want? There are three thousand mindstones in the next room. Take them."
"Information." Kael said, leaning against the frame. "I've searched Sole for a blacksmith capable of forging Asterite and found nothing. From what I understood, Asterite should forge like ordinary iron. Apparently that isn't quite accurate."
"Asterite?" Sielle looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Where the hell did you find that?" He set the chisel down. "Asterite isn't just difficult to forge. It's nearly impossible unless every condition is met precisely."
"Which is why every book describes it as having the forgeability of ordinary iron?"
"Because it does. But only when every single condition is perfect. It has severe red hardness and a forging window of around three degrees. The books aren't wrong. They just don't mention how narrow the margin is."
Kael crossed his arms.
"I see…"
When ordinary iron heats to red it becomes almost clay-like, soft enough to hammer into shape. But metals like tungsten and Asterite, break away from that expectation. Instead of softening at that temperature they maintain the same hardness they have cold. Combined with a forging window of three degrees, the margin for error was essentially nonexistent. At best they would get one hit in before it became hard again.
"Do you know anyone who can forge it?"
Sielle leaned back in his chair.
"Have you looked in the fourth layer?"
"Not yet."
"Hmm." He sat quiet for a moment. "That would be my best suggestion. If you want to maintain appearances, that is."
"What does that mean?"
"It means there are people who could do it, but dealing with them isn't considered a good look." Sielle picked up the chisel absently. "About four years ago the youngest daughter of the Ironwood family, and by far the most gifted, rose through the ranks of her craft. She won competition after competition and eventually awakened as a Conception pathway Luminaire, which deepened her skills considerably further. Years later she was accused of cultivating Soul pathway." He paused. "She was never proven guilty. But it didn't matter. People wanted her dead by then. Whether it was her competitors trying to remove a rival or genuine conviction, nobody could say for certain. Just as things were about to turn fatal, high society intervened and stopped it. Her life was spared because of what she could do. But she was banned from Sole."
"Any idea where she is?"
"No one has. But she's rumored to live close to geothermal vents up north because of the Ember moths that live there."
It was logical, given her profession. Ember moths were unique and about Kael's size. They moved in swarms the size of clouds, with hot embers raining down from their wings continuously making the land they lived in often barren. Their nests would be the real threat. With some tempering you could get their temperature to reach a point where even Tungsten became forgable.
Kael grabbed the bag with mindstrones and walked to the door, halting just before leaving.
"What's her name?"
"Rosalie."
—
Sylvia was talking anxiously with an intoxicated rank two Luminaire when Kael walked in.
One glance was enough. The man had no interest in the motes, his attention fixed entirely on Sylvia.
Kael placed a hand on his shoulder.
"What exactly are you here to discuss? There's one mote on sale. Unless you're requesting a refinement?"
The man swatted his hand away.
"Who the—"
He looked at Kael with disgust. "Wait your turn."
"Get out." Kael stepped between the two. "Sylvia, I'll be away for a while again. I need you and Luke to manage things while I'm gone. It won't—"
He collapsed onto the counter.
Blood filled his mouth and drowned the words before they could form. A stake jutted from his chest, blood running freely along its length.
He stretched his hand out and caught Sylvia just before she hit the floor.
The stake had gone straight through him and into her abdomen. She had passed out instantly from the shock and pain.
Behind him the drunk persona was gone entirely, replaced by an expressionless face. The man released the stake and turned to run.
Kael grabbed his collar and pulled him to the floor.
Just as he summoned a tendril another stake shot through his neck.
He clenched his jaw, hauled the man up and drove him clear past the floorboards without releasing his grip.
"WAIT!"
Kael hissed through a gurgle.
He would survive. That was a given, but Sylvia wasn't the same. She was a mortal and he still needed her alive.
He moved the tendril as precisely as he could manage, but he was one arm short and his hand shook from the pain.
'It didn't go deep. She'll be fine if I can just—'
Another stake shot through him, cracking his focus apart.
He cursed under his breath and shifted his grip to the man's throat.
"One more and I'll crush your neck."
That was what he wanted to say, but his vocal cords had been completely severed so instead he gave the man a look that communicated it well enough.
Kael grabbed the small wooden fragment protruding from Sylvia's skin and guided the tendril to stitch the last stretch of the wound closed.
Having done what he could, he turned his full attention to the man.
He lifted him by the throat, drove his hand straight into his stomach and out through his back.
The man's eyes widened, and his hands found Kael's wrist instinctively.
Kael whipped his head to the side as another stake passed a hair's width from his ear.
He reached up and pulled the stake from his throat.
"Who sent you?"
Again what he wanted to say. Again impossible.
Kael's eyes widened.
The primordial eye was struggling to heal him.
Understanding what that meant, he thrust his other hand into the man as well.
His shoulder tensed, and the muscles across his back rippled like something moving beneath the surface.
With a wet, sickening wrench the man's upper torso left the rest of him and hit the wall across the room. His lower half dropped straight to the floor.
Kael clamped a hand over his throat, grabbed Sylvia and pulled her into the clinic.
Luke stumbled down the stairs, woken by the commotion.
"What's happening?!"
He had no time to grasp the full picture, but he had become experienced enough not to fall into shock. He saw Sylvia, understood she was the priority, took her from Kael and carried her to the desk.
Kael caught himself on a shelf.
He reached for a jar and closed his fist around it until it shattered. He took the pale grass from inside, pulled the remaining stakes free one by one, and pushed the grass into the wounds.
It was a deep, cold pain.
He reached for another ingredient and did the same.
Ten minutes passed before the primordial eye managed to close the last of it.
His lungs filled with air properly for the first time since the counter.
"How is she?"
The adrenaline had left Luke entirely by now. His hands were shaking and everything he had witnessed was catching up to him all at once.
"She— She'll manage. I'm sure of it."
His voice trembled on every word.
"She'll survive. It missed her vitals."
Kael said it plainly, fully recovered, already moving toward them.
He redid the stitches more carefully this time. Then he handed Luke a small jar of rare sea moss.
"Rub this on her wounds when she wakes up."
He put deliberate weight on when rather than if. Luke nodded and tried to calm himself.
Kael made his way back to the mote shop and pulled the man up by what remained of him, causing the rest to fall out onto the floor. The shop looked like a slaughterhouse, blood and intestines painting everything they could reach.
He hadn't wanted to kill him. But the conditions hadn't allowed for restraint. Not just Sylvia, but his own healing being suppressed had made caution impossible. From the moment the first stake hit he had known this wasn't spontaneous.
His eyes moved to the wood of the stakes, and recognized it immediately.
It was the same wood from Hollow Mountain. He wanted to cross-reference it against the piece he knew he had collected in the Stone Coffin during his first visit, but he couldn't right now.
Back then, when he first entered the mountain, a branch had pierced his thigh. He didn't have control of the eye back then but already noticed the wound took longer to heal than it should.
He picked up a fragment and turned it over in his hand.
Was it because the trees had fed on the eye's tears for millennia? Or was it something stranger, a species that simply grew inside mountains and had developed properties nobody had thought to study because nobody had reason to go looking?
He didn't have an answer. But the wood was here, in the hands of someone sent to kill him, which meant someone else had thought to go looking.
Unable to question him, Kael went through his pockets instead.
Mindstones, some useless notes and a silver coin.
Not being gold was already unusual. But more than that, the image on it matched nothing he had seen before.
He rubbed the blood from its face.
A frail naked woman holding a long sword that had been driven through her own heart. On her head sat a thorned halo hanging so low it covered her eyes.
He turned it over revealing a blank side, and pocketed it.