Cane entered his room a short while later, frowning at the pile of small animal heads neatly arranged beside the bed.
HOOACH.
Pudding fluttered in and landed heavily on his perch. The falcon-owl hybrid stared at Cane for a long moment, then turned away with exaggerated disdain.
Shaking his head, Cane knelt and began collecting the remains—rabbit, snake, squirrel.
"You're right," he murmured. "I shouldn't have left you alone. I'm sorry."
Pudding blinked once, accepting a gentle pat on his oversized head.
"Range: close," Cane said, changing into a sleeveless shirt and locking the door behind him. A moment later, he stepped onto the transport rune.
The smithy welcomed him like an old friend. Cane slipped on his blacksilver mask, letting Jonas Ironfist take over.
BAD... BAD...
"I know," Cane said aloud, feeding scoops of coke into the forge. "Seems like everyone's mad at me. I was only gone two days."
Chimi's small voice still carried a trace of irritation, but she gave a grudging thanks for the fresh fuel.
Cane hefted a solid ingot of Salt metal—his own creation—and set it on the workbench.
"Tonight," he said, "I'm making a blade. One that can stand beside my star-forged weapons."
He immersed effortlessly. The silver-cobalt alloy welcomed him with a deep bluish glow, like an ocean under a new moon. Overhead, twin stars flared—starlight casting clarity across the twilight world of metal.
Within, the nodes revealed themselves. Shatter. Heavy. And—Magneto.
"I want to try something different," Cane whispered. "If rebonding oxidized metal inverts the node's effect… what happens if the metal's enhanced first?"
He withdrew Blue and lightly tapped the alloy, embedding a mythic frost rune. A crystalline shimmer laced through the ingot.
Then—one by one—he activated all three nodes.
The effect was instant. The alloy jerked from his grasp as magnetic pull surged. It slammed into the workbench with a resounding clang, metal shrieking as it fractured into thousands of shards. Each shard stuck where it landed—shattered, heavy, magnetized.
Cane winced, shaking out his fingers. Even prepared, the force had numbed his hands.
Then came the decay. The shimmering fragments began to oxidize, crumbling to rust before his eyes.
He stepped forward, drew a breath—and immersed again.
Starlight bloomed above. The rust-world stretched before him, breathtaking—dull browns glittering with memory. He moved quickly, bonding, purifying, layering. The twin stars dimmed under the weight of his fatigue.
And then it was done.
From ruin, the blade emerged: a longsword, razor-straight and impossibly fine. He shaped the last strands of rust—and the stars winked out.
Cane collapsed beside the bench, breathless, his fingers still echoing with starlight.
Cane's consciousness faded. Overuse and exhaustion pulled him into darkness. For a long time, he lay motionless on the smithy floor.
Slowly, his twin stars—those pulsing aspects of power—began to recover. But something had changed.
Where once the blue star orbited the white, now the white circled the blue.
The center had shifted.
He woke suddenly, blinking against the forge-light shadows. His head pounded, his limbs unsteady. Bracing himself on the workbench chair, he managed to rise.
There it was—resting in plain sight. As if it had always been there, waiting to be discovered.
Cane slipped off his mask, pulled his robe over his sleeveless shirt, and stored the blade in his ring before stepping out into the night.
He tapped his psi rune.
Cane:Where you at, Fergis?
Fergis:I'm onshore, near the Starsong. Going over runes with Archmage Telamon.
Cane:This late?
Fergis: Been practicing on rune paper for hours.
Cane:Wait for me.
The walk wasn't far—but it felt endless. Cane stumbled through the dark, every step heavier than the last.
He spotted Fergis ahead, standing between Telamon and Ignasius.
Telamon looked up and blurred to Cane's side, catching him as he staggered.
"You've drained your reserves completely," the Archmage said, voice sharp with concern. "It's not safe to be walking in this state."
"Yes, sir," Cane murmured. "But I have to see Fergis."
In an instant, Telamon shifted, bringing him directly to the fire mage.
"After this," he said, "you go to Tower Seven. No classes for two days."
Fergis whistled softly. He'd seen Cane tired—but this was different. "You look half-dead. What happened?"
"I made you something." Cane pulled the longsword from his ring. Black as midnight, it shimmered faintly with power.
Both Telamon and Ignasius turned to look. The air shifted.
Fergis hesitated. "Cane, you know I trained with blades, but fire mages can't hold steel and cast. It's one or the other."
"Take it," Cane said, holding the sword out with shaking hands.
"Fine." Fergis grasped the blade—and mana surged. The blade erupted in flame.
Fergis froze. "Is this...?"
"A flame blade?" Ignasius asked, awe creeping into his voice.
Telamon shook his head. "No. A mythical flame blade. Cane, how did you—?"
"I figured out how to invert enhanced metal," Cane said, breathing heavily. "The glacial mythic rune flipped…"
"…into a fire rune," Fergis finished, eyes wide. Mana flowed down his arm, into the blade like it had always belonged.
He turned toward a boulder.
"Meteor."
A jet of flame roared from the blade, striking the stone with enough force to make it glow.
"It's also a focal," Telamon murmured, studying Cane's stars. He noticed the change immediately. "This process—this inversion—is why you're in this state."
Cane nodded.
Fergis frowned. "Brother, your safety matters more than a sword."
"Fire sword focal," Cane corrected. "So you don't want it?"
Fergis let the flames die down and clutched the blade to his chest.
"Let's not get carried away," he muttered. "This has my name written all over it."
"It's yours," Cane said, swaying again. Ignasius reached out to steady him. "You should name it."
Fergis nodded slowly, eyes still locked on the weapon.
"Thank you. This blade's name is Azar."
Sophie clucked her tongue in disapproval as she helped Cane out of his clothes. "Look at you…"
Cane sat on the bed, arms falling limply to his sides. "Sorry."
"Are you?" She kissed his forehead. "What am I going to do with you?"
Cane snorted. "What do you want to do?"
"Seriously?" she said, raising a brow. "Getting fresh when you can't even sit up without help?"
"I was only teasing," he muttered.
Sophie made him eat several spoonfuls of soup before allowing him to collapse into bed.
She lay beside him, her eyes full of quiet worry. "I get so scared for you sometimes." Her fingers traced the familiar lines of his face. "If something happened to you, I think I'd die from heartbreak."
She hugged him tightly, then kissed his forehead again.
"Seems like I love you… right?" she whispered. "This is how a woman in love acts. Not that I'd know—but a girl hears things."
Sophie blushed. "I'm rambling…"
She curled against him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Dawn came, and Cane didn't stir. Sophie pulled the blankets up and shared her warmth.
Pudding swooped in—silent, for once. He perched, blinking once before closing his eyes.
Sophie slipped from bed long enough to use the room's psi communicator, placing an order through the kitchens under Telamon's authority.
She climbed back in and laid her head on Cane's shoulder. "Everyone spoils you," she murmured. "Even the Archmage."
She sighed heavily, hugging him tight. "Oh man… I have it bad."
"Have what bad?" Cane cracked one eye open, still glowing faintly with starlight.
Sophie blushed against his shoulder. "Hunger. I didn't eat enough yesterday."
"Oh…" He stirred. "I'll get you something if you want."
She wrinkled her nose, then kissed him—long, slow, and lingering. "That's very sweet… but you'd collapse halfway and I'd have to carry you back."
"I bet I could make it," Cane muttered.
"Rest," she said, smoothing his hair. "I ordered a cart for 8 a.m."
She watched his eyes drift shut again, her hand on his cheek.