Integration, 15th Year

  Uern, Dykriest Region

  Three Weeks before System Reset.

  For a planet so rich in mana and essence, the underground cities of Dykriest lived far from prosperously. The region’s frigid and uninhabitable surface wouldn’t terraform until the hundredth layer of its cavernous dungeons was cleared. It was a cesspit where the universe’s unwanted gathered and its inhabitants faced a simple choice: continue until death or earn their way out.

  Above them, a storm raged, bypassing the region over. A wind, more vehement than most, whipped past frostbitten mountain peaks and found a crooked mountainside crevice, leading deep into the tenth layer. It sent rocks tumbling, snapped icicles, chilled the cavern walls, and left surface-layer monsters and unlucky adventurers hypothermic. It raged on, unstoppable, its momentum slowed only by time.

  Yet, time passed. By the time it breached the tenth layer, it was little more than a breeze, finally dying with its last breath rattling a wooden signboard on a tavern door.

  The sign read: No Refugees.

  Alex glanced back, frowning at the subtle wooden clank, then turned to face the artificially lit streets of Ruin’s Gate as he left the establishment.

  Crazy bitch, he cursed for the hundredth time. Hosting their meeting there, of all places… his ilk wasn’t appreciated on this side of the city, and he could only think she was screwing with them. The darted looks, the hushed whispers—he was well used to them, of course, but it wasn’t the treatment that bothered him now so much as the thought behind it.

  “Refugees” they called them. Not slaves, not captives—just refugees. Here, people were jealous of the Integration. Those who received no offers after their world fell to invasion were viewed with envious spite rather than the vengeful hatred more common with war. They were seen as having squandered their opportunity, as arrogant as it sounded. This would be the last time he had to put up with it.

  No matter how this next job goes…

  Alex sighed tiredly. He walked through the windless, cobbled streets with an annoyingly clear head and another man’s arm draped lazily over his shoulders.

  “Ah, geez,” Jordan said, teetering slightly. “I think I'm gonna… urr—”

  Alex ignored the older man’s bemoaning gags as they walked several blocks to the lower dwellings. Alex stopped when they reached his doorstep, noticing Jordan was still hitched to his side.

  “Jordan,” he said, somewhat annoyed, "Drop the charade. You don’t need an excuse to talk privately.”

  The older man wore a guilty grin as he looked up. Then, as Alex sent a pulse of his mana through the door’s lock mechanism, Jordan stumbled into his home clumsily enough that Alex thought it might not have been an act after all.

  Fair enough. I’d be drunk right now if I could help it.

  Any sane man would be after sitting across from their client for an hour. It gave him shivers just recalling it. Alas, Alex was sober as day—not because he had some skill or resistance to alcohol people acquired to impress women or anything. Simply, one day, after far too many bottles, he’d lost the ability to get drunk. At times like this, he found it unfortunate. Who wouldn’t want to get hammered after signing their own death warrant?

  “Warm up by the fire,” he told Jordan.

  He sent three pulses of mana through a runic formation installed on the entrance wall. The lights flickered on, revealing his home and makeshift smithy strewn with clutter and half-finished puzzles he’d never solved. The second pulse started a soft fire in the forge-turned-hearth, and the third disabled any defenses that could kill his first guest in eons.

  If anything here could, at least. Jordan didn’t show his face on the shallower levels nowadays unless he had a job in need of Alex’s talents deeper down, crippled as those talents were.

  “Thanks,” Jordan grunted. “I needed that.”

  He found a resting spot on the cold, roughly chiseled floor and began flexing his fingers by the fire’s heat. Settling in, he summoned a blanket from his inventory. He thumbed through a random book from Alex’s clutter, Pedantic Ponderings of an Apocalyptic Blacksmith, as if trying to remember how to read.

  Right, why don’t you just make yourself at home…

  Alex sighed at the shamelessness and headed upstairs. “I'll mix a concoction. Tomorrow’s gonna be enough of a headache for you as is.”

  Another grunt was his response.

  Alex rifled through his cabinets and cooler for the alchemical ingredients for a booze cure. While he was at it, he poured two glasses of his precious Earth-exported orange juice. There was no point in saving it anymore.

  He returned to find Jordan sifting dust from the anvil, a distant look in his eyes. Alex appreciated that Jordan didn’t comment on it; instead, he just took the glass he was offered. His orange juice was just a touch bluer than Alex’s, and he made a sour face as he gulped it down. The potion’s effects would take a second to kick in.

  “Well?” Jordan asked, cringing at the taste.

  Alex knew what the question entailed but took a second to raise his anti-scrying wards before answering. Straight to business, then.

  “No clue,” he said bluntly. “It was hard to get an accurate read on her with my ability. She was half a second from murdering everyone in the establishment, and I think that’s just her in a cheery mood. Us, too, though it wasn’t directed. She’s a Death Priestess—killing comes as easily to her as breathing. I get the feeling she doesn’t really view us as people.”

  Jordan grunted. He probably could’ve deduced that much himself. “But not a direct killing intent, mmh… better than outright hostile, I guess.” He stroked his chin. “So, would you say we’ve got fair odds, then?”

  Alex barely bothered giving the question any thought. Nothing stopped their client from slaughtering their whole party once she had what she wanted. Yet at the same time, it was incomprehensible that a higher being would want anything from a backwater planet like Uern, and much less, have need for a Master ranked party to get it.

  “Yeah, that tracks,” He said.

  The two shared a silent look for a second, serious expressions on their faces.

  Then their masks started to crack. Jordan guffawed and started pounding the floor, and Alex couldn’t keep his own laughter contained for long. He tried taking a sip too soon and ended up spitting juice all over the floor. “Jesus Christ, Jordan, you’re totally fucked!”

  “I know!” he snorted, wiping a tear from his eye, “I shouldn’t have made such a good name for myself! But what can I say? No one knows their way around the low twenties like I do! Hah! Who knows, it might even work out!”

  Alex had almost calmed down before Jordan’s last comment. It spurred another round of hysterics, only quelled by a resounding thud on the cobble from the neighboring wall. His wards only muddled words. They didn’t do much for boisterous laughter.

  “No seriously, it actually might.”

  “I know,” Alex said, bringing himself back. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and settled onto his throw rug. “I wasn’t lying when I said so. The odds match the gamble in both payoff and absurdity. It’s just… you must find it a bit funny, no? All these years of effort we’ve put in, struggling by our own power, and now? It all comes down to the whim of an Immortal.”

  Jordan nodded in good humor, seemingly taking it all in stride. Alex couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. Jordan hadn’t shared many details about the delve, but he’d clarified the risk as blatantly as possible. At least Alex had been given a choice, but him? Refusal isn’t an option when an Immortal tasks you with assembling a party.

  The man sighed. “Oh, it’s more hilarious than you think.”

  Alex stared blankly. “No. No shit, how close were you?”

  He did the math as he spoke. One-hundred million essence—that was the price of their freedom. An unachievable goal for most, as every crystal saved could have been used for power leveling. But Jordan was an individual contractor, and his reputation was that good…

  “That’s…that’s the thing,” Jordan said, scratching his head awkwardly. “I was already there.”

  His words stopped Alex’s thoughts in their tracks.

  “You…had enough to retire?” Alex asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Oh…”

  Then what the hell are you still doing here? Alex wanted to say.

  He sighed internally, withdrawing the pity he’d felt. Not everyone can buy out their System contract. Ten years of relentless work and tight budgeting had only brought Alex one-fourth of the way there. If Jordan had enough, God knows how, he should have cashed in immediately.

  Instead, he’d tested fate, and look what happened. The goddamn buffoon had been screwed the second the Immortal had even gotten his contact.

  “Hah! Alex, you should see the look on your face right now.”

  “I could throttle you, Jordan. If only you were stupid enough to keep your riches on your person!”

  Jordan howled with laughter, but it eventually gave way to another sigh. He lowered his voice. “Though… you’re only half right. Aye, I’ve got enough. I’ve had enough for a couple years now actually.”

  Son of a—

  “But I’m not retiring.”

  Alex looked into his eyes, and his temper faded. He knew that look; he’d seen it too many times before. It never leaves you. And you never leave it.

  The truth was, they were both too old to retire.

  “Fine,” Alex said, exasperated. “What was your game, then?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinkin’ lately—”

  “That’s never a good thing.”

  “Stuff it! I can think when I must,” Jordan chuckled. “Just… over time, it wears on me, y’know? Putting all this together, managing it… and each year, my pool of contacts gets smaller and smaller…”

  Alex nodded. A lucky few had found an out, while the unlucky ones found a different kind of end. Fewer faces remained regardless.

  “I don’t form a party with people I can’t trust, Alex,” Jordan said after a moment.

  “I know. It’s… refreshing.”

  “Mmhm, but see, there’s a difference between knowing you can trust someone to have your back and actually trusting them with it. Over time, that second group has become a dying breed for me. They keep either leaving me behind or… dying. You know I don’t keep you around just because you’re useful, right?”

  Alex’s mouth soured as he saw where this was heading.

  “If I’m getting free from this place, things will be different this time. The path I take is going to be different. Alex, the reason I keep you around is because I trust—”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Jordan,” Alex said, voice tense.

  Jordan stopped, then rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course, I shouldn’t. Silly me, right? You’ve only saved my life a handful of times.”

  “Careful with your words.”

  Alex stirred his mana in warning, imperceptible licks of pressure flickering the fire in its hearth. He owed a lot to Jordan, but mockery could only go so far.

  “I… look, I know most don’t look kindly on what happened. They can take the moral high ground all they want, but that war wasn’t human. Those of us still human by its end were living every day like we’d already died the last! Hells, I know what you did was wrong, but you wanna know a secret? It made me feel good, Alex. It saved me—from becoming the kind of broken that don’t fix no more.”

  Alex felt the urge to refute that but kept his mouth shut. Jordan had no clue what he was talking about.

  “Okay, fine, let's say I shouldn’t trust you. There still ain’t anyone else around who’s lived your life and seen the things you’ve seen. And I ain’t seen anyone else down here so dedicated to saving for their buyout. But let’s be real, you don’t have thirty or forty more years in you. Not like this, you don’t. You act like putting your life at the whim of an Immortal is such a bad thing, but if this works out, maybe it’ll reignite some passion for your craft. We could rise higher—it’d be like we’re defying the fates and all that young talk—”

  Alex held a hand up, signaling Jordan to stop. “You’re still too drunk, Jordan. Let me mix you another dose.”

  He didn’t wait for a response as he got up to leave. Odds were, they’d die in a few weeks, but some things weren’t worth discussing. No point in opening old wounds just because you see the dagger coming.

  If we pull this off… then maybe. Just not a moment before.

  Still, Jordan’s revelations couldn’t be taken lightly. Sharing about one’s wealth was a bold move, even if they also shared a coffin. It wouldn’t be a proper sleepover if Alex didn’t share a pittance of his secrets in return, would it?

  He scanned the bare room, at odds with the mess downstairs. His study desk was spare, aside from the instructional books or alchemy materials. Looking at his cramped bed, it sunk in that this would be his last night suffering its embrace. For the next three weeks, he’d sleep on rugged bedrolls in dungeon caverns. After that, it was either plush Yugar-fluffed sheets or six feet under. Demurely, he poured the last of his juice, adding an extra kick to the second dose of the booze cure.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Alex’s spirits lifted as he watched the poor man hack and cough on the ground.

  “You’re right,” Jordan choked. “My mouth got away from me.”

  Alex smiled. “Everyone and their uncle seems to fancy themselves a fate-defier these days.”

  “Ain’t that right…”

  “But actually defying the fates,” Alex continued, “those rare instances of brilliance in the face of oppression are always one-offs. And more often than not, they lead to a slow and painful demise.” He strode over, tailing a line of dust from the surface of his anvil, blowing it off his fingertip. “Jordan, if this succeeds, I won’t choose to be a blacksmith anymore.”

  “Really?!” Jordan’s eyes widened. “That’s a shame… You’ve stopped making them so often, but your original works were something else, Alex. I know it’s been a while but…”

  His brows furrowed as the rest of what Alex said sank in, piercing through the booze.

  Absentmindedly, Alex rested his hand on the hilt of his magnum opus—Lys. The Dragoblade was a reminder of what he’d once had and the last bastion of pride in his craft. He sighed and sent two status displays to Jordan’s interface, making it easier for him to understand. It wasn’t odd that Jordan thought Alex was frugal with his savings. There was little other explanation now that Alex was an entire tier lower, and it was always convenient to let others believe it was planned that way.

  But it wasn’t. He walked over to the forge.

  It burned before him, tempting him to reach his scarred hand in just to be a little closer. He closed his eyes, trying to sense the fire in his spirit, the path it blazed, resonating in the center of his being with a passion hot enough to melt any metal.

  He opened his eyes. Instead, his soul was stone cold, and Jordan stared at him in abject horror as he read over what Alex had sent. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a blacksmith.

  “I can’t anymore,” Alex whispered. “It’s gone.”

  Curse: Orion’s Wrath

  Your Bloodline has been stolen.

  Your Affinity to the Fire Aspect has been sealed.

  Your Level has been locked for all crafting classes. Class cannot be upgraded.

  ________

  This curse cannot be removed.

  * * *

  It’d been twenty minutes since Alex had left Anne’s presence and he had one last room to visit. Space cracked around him, and he suddenly found himself standing outside a stone-laid hut. The sun beamed down on his neck. The surrounding overgrowth encroached upon the lone building, and the smell of charcoal embraced him even as he stood at the entrance. But none of these were the first things he noticed.

  Room 44 - Smithy

  The melodic rhythm of hammer on metal drifted gracefully to Alex’s ears, making everything he’d just experienced almost an afterthought. He closed his eyes.

  So that’s how it was.

  Nightmare had blacksmiths, especially in larger settlements—where materials could be traded and forged into weaponry for a lump sum of Essence. But there had always been something strange, something he hadn’t realized was amiss until years later when he had progressed further along his path. The elites, those near the top of the ranks, sometimes carried newly crafted weapons of unparallelled strength. And what Alex had come to understand was that none of the blacksmiths he had seen were skilled enough to have made them.

  He gripped the door handle with an uncharacteristic amount of hesitation. The clang of metal on metal pierced the wooden door as if it wasn’t even there, singing with a warm, expressive certainty that could only belong to a master at their craft. Someone who had devoted their entire life to blacksmithing. It had to be their whole world. If Alex met their eyes, he was sure he would find a mountain’s worth of depth in their gaze. Ordinarily, at least.

  He pushed past his nerves and opened the door. The sight was as he feared.

  A figure of pure bone hunched over a workbench, striking hot iron. The figure had a larger-than-average frame—once muscular, Alex imagined, if the ease of its motions was any indication. But now it was just a nondescript corpse with a hammer.

  The sight felt so wrong that Alex couldn’t even muster up a sigh. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and walked in. The undead blacksmith didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Instead, he continued his work, seemingly unbothered by the intrusion. Alex found a corner of the room and contented himself with watching as the rhythm of the blacksmith’s strikes cut straight to his soul.

  Another sound reached him now—the heavy clanking of chains as they whipped against the ground, shackled to manacles around the undead’s ankles and wrists. Each swing was accompanied by the faint shimmer of runes imbued into the metal, their purpose a mystery to Alex. It was a sad sight.

  Necromancy wasn’t as simple as people often thought. You couldn’t place some boy’s soul in a warrior’s corpse and train them to become a master swordsman. No, the man before him had once been a true flesh-and-blood master blacksmith, now reduced to this—a twisted, fractured, forgotten soul, a mere slave to the System.

  Blacksmith: 10 Nightmare tokens minimum.

  The tale was so familiar to Alex’s ears that he had to remind himself his circumstances were far different. He was conflating his hardship with a rag of bones simply because they were two souls in a place they shouldn’t be.

  Alex slumped against the back wall, sighing, looking up at the wooden beams supporting the roof. It had been one thing after another since he’d arrived and it was all happening too fast to attain any semblance of equilibrium. Soon, he would be summoned by the Constellations. Twenty minutes spent stress eating birria tacos at a Mexican restaurant hadn’t prepared him for that in the slightest. Where the hell was he supposed to go from here? How the fuck did I even end up here in the first place?

  Why?

  The question echoed emptily through his head. And yet, the blacksmith’s strikes continued in an unyielding rhythm, filling the room with sound and lending Alex a calm he shouldn’t be feeling. For the undead, that question had a simple answer. He was here to swing a hammer, and as twisted as it was, Alex envied him for it.

  He knew he shouldn’t; the undead hadn’t chosen this of his free will. But it was a life Alex was never allowed to lead. It had been easy enough to tell himself he’d have no more regrets when he’d been in the comfort of a smithy. When he’d held a hammer in his hand, feeling that passion embrace him like a hearth come back to after wandering amiss in a blizzard. Then, he must be feeling such pride right now—bowing and scraping to the murderer of the woman he’d loved. Telling her how beautiful she is; how worthless he is in comparison. Besmirching what it meant to give his heart to another. Spitting in the face of Laura and all that she’d suffered.

  He tightened his fist… then let it go.

  The dead don’t care. Just let this one pass like you usually do.

  Except it was harder to do that now. He tried to let it go, but his memories were no longer behind him. He didn’t regret it, anyway. What was he going to do, spill some drink on her? Spit some snide remark? Save his pride, and wait for her assassin to serve her his head? Was that what he’d come back here for?

  No, he already knew what he had to do. The only problem was…

  I can’t.

  Alex hugged himself, a shiver running through him as he recalled her eyes. Chains rattled in his ears. He made fists again with tufts of his hair between his fingers. His veins popped and his blood boiled. He summoned his rage, if only to confirm that it was there—it was. Of course it was. He didn’t lack the will to follow it through. He needed this. More than anything, he needed to bury her and put her behind him again. Everything else came second. He was going to kill her or die trying—that was an inevitability. And yet, killing her… he simply couldn’t imagine it.

  He was weak. Chained. The Constellations could change that, but then what of this burn? His veins yearned for fire, and he was only just starting to remember what—

  Ca-Clang! Ca-Clang!

  Clang!

  Alex frowned. The blacksmith had changed the rhythm of his strikes. His hammer struck once, then again, at a lag. Then again, at a lag. Then… there was no sound. Alex looked up and saw him holding his hammer above his head.

  Huh? Why—

  CLANG!

  Wind pulsed outwards in a wave, taking Alex away from here. To a world of greener pastures filled by the calls of nature’s animals and healthy rustle of green leaves in the breeze. A place where things were simpler and the sun rose with dawn and slept at night.

  It was strange—that a pile of bones could give metal a sound so beautiful, condensing the weight of a mountain into a single blow.

  Or perhaps, the earth beneath one's feet. His strikes carry the depth of a planet itself.

  The simple, metronomic rhythm resonated deeply with Alex as it continued. The strikes drew him in, urging him to action. Urging him to find an anvil, place a hammer in his hand, and forge something—anything this second. So, he summoned his anvil and hammer.

  The anvil dropped from his inventory with a thud on the smithy’s cobbled ground and a calm settled in as the heat in Alex’s body flowed into his hammer. He couldn’t use skills here, so he didn’t bother actually forging. Instead, he copied the rhythm of the undead’s strikes with his hammer. His own efforts were a hollow mimicry in comparison, but they echoed somewhere deeper within him.

  Those strikes reminded him of his Master’s from years ago. Day in and day out, the voice of metal on metal had sung to him while he lazed about on the veranda, watching the clouds. He had been too deaf to listen, too defeated to believe there was anything left in him worth searching for—anything left to take pride in after what had already been taken.

  Now, Alex continued with his own rhythm, unable to replicate even a fraction of the undead blacksmith’s depth. Yet with each swing, he felt himself drawing closer to something. He searched in those depths, uncertain what he was looking for. An urge welled up within him, and his breathing fell into the pattern of the Fallen Feather of the Phoenix. There was no Essence in the pocket realm; he could not summon his elixir. Yet, he refined.

  His inner world took the shape of those rolling fields and mountainous forests. His strikes came closer to the beat of the master blacksmiths and the world he’d shown Alex became his own. The sun was out—roosting in the sky, reflecting the light of the one deeper within his soul. He did not need Essence to imagine that he breathed in life and that it gave him power. The fresh air was all he needed—in through his nostril, circulating towards the center of his being.

  The Phoenixes' feather falls in an infinite spiral. It drifts by wind’s currents, yet never finding its center…

  “Oh,” Alex said. “So that’s… what it means.”

  His strikes suddenly stopped and he dropped his hammer, filled with unbearable sadness. Some of it was his, some of it… He looked down at his left hand where he held his Shamshir blade. He hadn’t even meant to summon her, he hadn’t realized it was possible.

  I guess we are in a smithy.

  His inner world faded but the rhythm of the undead Blacksmith’s strikes didn’t falter. They continued, impossibly consistent to the degree of microseconds, as he slaved away at the sword he worked on. The undead had no such thing as an equilibrium. But they remembered having one, and that remembrance was what made their existence living hell.

  I want to cleanse him, Alex thought. That was his own desire, he was certain. Did the timeout penalty even activate in protection of undead? Maybe not. Or maybe the penalty was something worse.

  Laura probably wouldn’t have hesitated. Alex sighed as her loving expression appeared in his mind. Then he forced it down when the other thoughts followed, pushing the memory away.

  Instead of doing something so stupid as cutting down one of Nightmare’s most prized resources, he laid the blade out before him. The Shamshir shimmered a dark purple as the firelight flickered across her surface. A splinter of cracks began above her midsection at two-thirds her length.

  He traced them with his fingers, sorrow in his touch. The same sorrow he felt for the undead Blacksmith. He glanced at the man one more time before putting him out of mind

  We are similar in that death was not the end. But that’s it. Alex’s death had made him whole again. It had given him weapons and advantages he’d never had. It was his second chance. And this was his past. He knew what was going to happen, why would he just sit back and watch as it happened to him again?

  He opened the ‘Class’ tab of his interface to see which classes he was currently eligible for.

  A few options appeared: Blacksmith, Craftsman, and several non-combat ones, along with some Stealth options resulting from leveling the skill to Adept. As expected, spreading his skills thin across crafting, general utility, and physical combat skills left him with less combat class options than most would have.

  But there was really only one class he was looking at.

  Blacksmith Warrior - Tier 1

  Class Quest:

  Reforge your blade.

  It was exactly what Alex had known it would be. He’d met the class requirements, otherwise he wouldn’t feel the Class within reach of his soul. But the sword he’d met the requirements with had broken; there was only ever going to be one kind of quest the System assigned him for these circumstances.

  And yet, what it was asking for was impossible.

  A blade, once broken, could not be fixed without losing its original form, becoming an entirely different weapon. Or, with wounds this grave, an entirely different piece of junk. He’d known this might happen when he’d forged her, and accepted his reality for what it was back then. Now, there was no taking back the decision. He would weld her broken pieces back together, and it would ruin the temper, creating weaknesses at her weld lines, but the System would recognize her as fixed all the same. Alex would finally be granted the starting Class he’d always wanted. His life force would return; then he would retake his soul. Regrettably, she would never be battle-capable again.

  But what other choice do I have?

  Alex brushed his fingers over her splintered cracks again. That fire rose again within him. He moved her to his inventory, a deep regret burning within his soul—perhaps unearned regret because, in truth, he did have a choice.

  If only the very thought of it didn’t send a shiver down his spine.

  Your Queue to meet with the Constellations has moved up!

  1/2

  Expected wait time: 6 minutes.

  As Alex moved to close the notification, he realized the clang of metal had stopped. And this time, it didn’t start again.

  He lifted his head to find that the blacksmith had suddenly turned to look at him. The skeleton’s gaze was hollow, yet tension hung in the air, making Alex shiver. It wasn’t the intensity of the stare but the feeling—as though he were laid bare before the impassive glance of a creature powerful enough to kill with a mere thought. The sensation was fleeting, and Alex might have thought he imagined it if he were the type to doubt his instincts.

  But the skeleton didn’t speak, merely turning back to his work.

  What the…

  Alex glanced again at the clinking chains, momentarily stunned. After all this time ignoring him, why had it… hell, was this thing even human? He had no clue what that had just been about, but he decided it was very wise he did not attempt to Cleanse the blacksmith.

  As the metal’s ringing resumed, it consumed his attention once more. Apprehension left him and he got the sense he could listen to the blacksmith all day and never get bored.

  He watched with fervor as sparks spat from molten metal. The skeleton placed the piece in the furnace, heating it further, then Alex’s attention shifted to the fire itself. It burned incredibly hot at the smithy’s heart, white flames flickering at its edges. Now, Alex listened not to the rhythm but to the melody of his hammer, searching the depths within himself until he found what he was looking for.

  Fire.

  When was it? When had the fire disappeared from his soul? Had it been when Earth had fallen? Perhaps even before, when Laura had lost temperature in his arms. Or perhaps he’d lost it gradually over a long, long time.

  Regardless, the fire yearned to ignite again. His heart stilled, and his eyes glazed over as if lost in memory. Once—only once in his life—Alex had given himself to flame and blazed his path forward without hesitation, defying fate, using anything and everything as tinder and torching himself in the process. Now, he walked to the forge, to that fire, where it beckoned once more.

  It burned in its pit, tempting him as it always did. It was whispering for him to reach in, feel its warmth, to remember. He had burned himself once, suffering third-degree burns down his arms after Earth’s fall—a hideous wound, even with the aid of healing potions.

  Enraptured, Alex didn’t give it a second thought now.

  Flames licked his hands. Coals seared his wrists. His skin blistered, blackened, cracked, and bled. Yet, he accepted the blaze allowing it to course through him, burning the monotone gray that corrupted the world in its absence.

  His fire.

  Your Bloodline has grown.

  A new trait has been unlocked.

  Hands of the Sun God

  Your hands are that of the sun itself, Fire is their warmth, and burns are their badges. They will not be harmed by its touch.

  An affinity has been awakened:

  Fire

  Alex opened his eyes to a world blurred with orange. Fire suddenly had more shades than ever before, flicking in colors that shouldn’t exist yet felt so right. His bloodline and affinity were what completed him. Even if he could only grasp embers of that magnificent flame—it was his.

  But it wasn’t always.

  The world’s blur faded as tears evaporated on his cheeks. This fire had been forgotten—stolen from his being, leaving him incomplete. Yet its absence left just enough remembrance for him to recognize the wrongness of his existence. It was only now, with those senses reignited, that he could even comprehend how much he’d lost.

  I’ve come back, but Lys is gone. I’ll never know what she was saying…

  Delirious, Alex slumped against the smithy’s wall. He watched as the blackened burns receded, leaving behind hands like dark coals. They curled into tight, smoldering fists, cracks fuming like burgeoning fault lines. Then, as the last embers tapered off, they went slack.

  Later, Alex would have his revenge. For now, he could only mourn.

  For himself, in remembrance of that fire. For Lys, who had let him glimpse it again at his very end. Then for his Undeath’s Bane, for the resolve she’d given him... and for what he knew couldn’t be. He sat, waiting out the timer, listening to the melody of the hammer strikes. He spared some mourning for the undead blacksmith, too, that pitiful thing.

  When Alex looked up, he met blacksmith’s gaze again. The runic lights on the chains flickered.

  “If you feel such loss,” the skeleton said, “then you should listen closer to her voice.”

  “What?”

  “Listening to that voice, keeping it intact—that is how a blade is reforged.”

  Alex gaped as the skeleton turned back to his work. Then he opened his mouth to—

  Your wait to meet with the Constellations has ended.

  You are being summoned.