Three days had passed since the Field of Redis had been set ablaze by one man's defiance. The world was still trembling, still speaking of the Blood Crusade's rout. Yet Kalem, Lord of Armaments, Abyss-Slayer, stood not upon a throne, but beside his anvil, beneath a battered tent of weather-stained cloth and blackened thread.
Near the outer fringes of Arsenic City, his humble forge sat among old trees and softer winds. The tent was half-open, revealing a collection of minerals dredged from the deep Abyss, each strange in color and weight. Stones that shimmered like stormlight, ores that whispered when touched. At the center of it all: a runic anvil, pulsing dimly with its own fire—carved in lines older than the known empires.
Kalem was at work, bare-chested, arms shining with sweat and old scars, his body caught between human and something else.
His arms and legs were long, built for reach, yet knotted with strength—sinew bound over strange bones. His skin was pale, not with sickness but stillness, and marked with white scars that seemed written by knives. His eyes glowed faintly, a soft, constant light, as though embers burned behind his gaze.
In his hand was a hammer with no name, broad and deep as a bell, ringing a rhythm only he understood.
He was building a wheel.
Each spoke was etched with runes, the rim layered in alternating metals, forged so tight they sang. He worked with focused ease, hammering, adjusting, shaping. Where others sweated and swore, Kalem simply moved—swift, silent, unbothered by heat or time.
Garrick stood nearby, arms folded, watching.
"You surely have built yourself for attracting maidens," Garrick remarked, half-smirking.
Kalem didn't look up. "You think so?"
"I mean," Garrick said, stepping closer, "if the maiden were raised on ghost tales and liked her men looking half-soulbound."
Kalem grunted.
"You've the look of a thing made in a storm," Garrick continued. "Not quite human. Not quite monster. Those children you swing knives for would cry if they saw you like this."
Kalem paused in his hammering, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm.
"One did," he said. "On the road to Arsenic. Thought I was a demon. His parents nearly called a priest."
Garrick chuckled.
"Well, they wouldn't be entirely wrong," he said, eyeing Kalem's shoulders and how they moved—too fluid, too sharp. "Does light hurt you?"
"Since when did sunlight hurt a man?" Kalem replied, turning a fragment of abyssal ore over in his palm.
"To Vampyres, it's fatal," Garrick said. "There's stories. A race of pale creatures, long-limbed, who drink blood and shun the sun. Born from grave-dirt and night."
"Vamp—what?" Kalem blinked.
"Vampyres," Garrick said, nodding sagely. "They feed on corpses, whisper from crypts, wear shadows like cloaks."
Kalem raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, my preference is apple syrup. Not throats."
Garrick laughed—properly this time, a sound from the belly.
"Good to know," he said, tapping the rim of the wheel Kalem had half-forged. "And this thing?"
"It's a seed," Kalem muttered.
"A wheel that's a seed?"
"A seed of war. A tool of speed. A gift for when peace runs faster than our blades."
"...You're being cryptic again."
Kalem smiled faintly. "It's a design I thought up in the field. Between breaths."
Behind them, the forge hissed. The runes on the anvil pulsed, feeding the flame without coal or wood. Kalem returned to the wheel, adjusting the runic spacing with a chisel of bone-metal.
Nearby, a hawk flew low and dropped a scroll into Garrick's hand. He caught it without turning.
"A message from Isolde," he said after reading. "She's back in the marble towers. Nara's with her. They're arguing with some guild scholars. Seems the High Curator tried to claim credit for identifying your Abyss ore."
Kalem didn't stop working. "He's welcome to the credit, so long as he doesn't try to name it."
"He already did," Garrick said dryly. "Called it Kalemite."
Kalem actually winced.
"Stars help us all," he said.
Garrick sat down on a nearby crate, watching the light flicker over the edge of the forge.
"You think it's over?" he asked after a long pause. "The Red Oath. The fighting. You killed their Blood Lord. Sent the rest home covered in ash."
Kalem didn't answer at once. He struck the rim of the wheel again, letting the ring echo before he spoke.
"They'll return," he said. "But not the same way. It'll take years, maybe decades. But they'll try again. Their faith burns too long to be snuffed in a single day."
"And you?"
"I'll be here. Forging. Waiting. Thinking."
"For what?"
"For something better than this."
A wind passed through the tent.
Outside, Jhaeros and Lyra were waiting by the path, the Everwood crystal in Lyra's hand still active. They had been watching for some time, saying nothing. Just watching their friend, scarred and strange, build a wheel from ruin and memory.
Inside the tent, Kalem placed the final rune on the wheel and stood back. It hummed now—a low sound, steady and deep.
Garrick raised a brow. "That's not just a wheel."
"No," Kalem said. "It's the beginning of something new."
He set it on the bench beside the forge, then turned to Garrick.
"Fetch me the starlight glass. And the shadow-oil. We're making more than weapons now."
Garrick nodded, rising.
"I suppose this is how peace begins," he said. "With wheels and old friends."
Kalem smiled faintly, his glow dimming a shade.
"No," he replied. "Peace begins when we build more than we break."