“So you will really get a bonded Ganvil from Ambraz?” Sinturkal asked again, standing across from Lirai.
Lirai raised her arms in the air in annoyance. “I just told you, I don’t know. Teacher Irwin just mentioned it in passing the other day.”
“He wouldn’t mention it if there wasn’t a reason for it,” Sinturkal said. “I’m really starting to regret my past choices.”
Lirai sighed, looking through the narrow corridor that led into the rest of the city. She knew her friend wasn’t actually regretting it, as he’d said similar things multiple times, but each time a new slot came free in the first year, he’d found a reason not to try for it.
“Are you going to come to the performance tonight?” she asked. “Irwin will be there to demonstrate some more complex musical plays.”
“You got me an invite?”
Lirai turned to her friend, wondering how much he actually heard of the things she told him. Sometimes it felt like his mind was busy with other things, and he just nodded automatically.
“The teacher said we could all bring someone, remember?” she asked, slightly exasperated.
“Faintly,” Sinturkal said, looking at the ground.
Lirai saw the lines in his face deepen, something that usually meant he was worrying. She waited for a minute, and finally had had enough.
“Sintu…” she said, drawing his attention. “What’s wrong?”
Sinturkal looked up and sighed. “Did you hear about what happened at the Exirt Portal Harbor?”
Ah… so, Teacher Irwin was right, she thought, shaking her head.
“No?” she lied smoothly, knowing she couldn’t break her promise.
“Three of those Shadow Oculithar followed one of the scouting fleets and reached the harbor,” Sinturkal said, not noticing anything. “It’s been kept quiet, but those three took out four of the battle ships. Luckily, the crews had nearly all body doubles, so they will be able to take the spare ships. The problem is, these were only three… what if ten or twenty appear? Or more?”
Lirai frowned. Teacher Irwin had told them a bit about it, but she didn’t know it was this bad.
“Aunt Lejingi says the Blackglass Council has requested help from Irwin in the form of specific cards. They are planning to have those cardsmiths that can’t grow beyond topaz-rank to be taught more fighting skills, and gifted specific cards so they can become what they call battle smiths.”
Lirai watched her friend, stunned by what he was telling her.
“What? Is this because of what Teacher Irwin said? Having cardsmiths able to fight?”
“Partially,” Sinturkal said with a shrug. “Aunt Lejingi has sent a request to all those in our family that fit those descriptions-”
“You can reach Emerald,” Lirai snapped, interrupting him as she stepped forward. “You are so close…!”
Sinturkal didn’t respond immediately, watching her quietly for a moment.
“Lirai, you know that’s not true,” he finally said. “I’m falling behind every year, and it's almost guaranteed that I’ll not be able to score high enough on this year's tests to be allowed into the sixth year.”
Lirai opened her mouth, wanting to say he was wrong, then she closed it. Sinturkal had been fast at the start, but somehow after the third year, he couldn’t keep up. She’d helped him in the evenings when needed, and knew that he’d been getting private tutoring from his family during the longer breaks. But, ever since she’d joined Teacher Irwin’s class, she’d been too busy with her own things to help him. Sometimes she wasn’t back from the Three Hundred’s Smithy, as the others had begun calling it, until deep at night.
“I already told Aunt Lejingi that I’m willing,” Sinturkal said, crossing his arms as he grinned at her. “I’ll be getting a body double card from the family vault in a month. It’s ruby-ranked, which is higher than what most of the battle-smiths will get, and Aunt Lejingi has promised that she will get me and the others of our family into the soullake-filling events when those start happening.”
“What?” Lirai said, her worry wiped away by her surprise. “Those might not happen for years. Besides, they require Chaos Whales, and…” she fell quiet as she realized something. “The Council requested Chaos Whale cards from the Guildmast- I mean, Teacher Irwin?”
“Yes, and from what my aunt said, he has agreed to hand out two of them to the two best cardsmiths who are music-based. There’s going to be a competition in two years' time.”
Lirai put her hands on her hips as she looked at the wall, feeling an immense desire to join that. She knew she’d not win; she was only in the top fifty of the three hundred after all, but even then. The idea of competing with the others?
“I wonder if Teacher Irwin will allow us to join,” she muttered.
“Probably not,” Sinturkal said. “Besides you all being way too busy to practice for it, those who get them need to remain on Scour.”
Yeah, I guess that makes sense, Lirai thought.
“But if there’s only two, that won't be enough to fill everyone’s lakes, right?” she said, recalling her lessons on the subject. “How can your uncle promise this? Wouldn’t the council want to focus on the top cardsmiths?”
Sinturkal smirked. “Uncle told me not to ask about those details, which usually means he is making someone a new heartcard.”
Lirai sighed. She’d learned just how much having a cardsmith that could reforge heartcards helped a family's influence, and from what she recalled, Chartermaster Lejingi was even able to make a few non-metallic and fire-type heartcards.
Eventually, I’ll make my own family, she told herself, her hands clamping.
“So, what does that mean for you?” she finally asked, looking at Sinturkal.
Somehow, he looked different now, though she couldn’t exactly explain why.
“I’ll be leaving Blackglass for a while and return to my family home in Blackglass Caverns,” he said, looking at her. “I’ll be getting private tutoring on wielding hammers, because Irwin apparently gave a large number of hammer cards to the Council. Then, I’ll be back next year to join the new Battle Smith Academy.”
Lirai stared at him for a while before shaking her head in slight disbelief.
“But I thought it wasn’t guaranteed yet? Didn’t they only request the cards?”
“My aunt says everything beyond this is just talk,” Sinturkal said. “She went to Guildmaster Irwin and had a chat last month. Apparently, her stories about knowing him were more than just that.”
“Will she join the competition?” Lirai asked, recalling that Chartermaster Lejingi was said to still have one free set of handcards and to have left them open for a specific goal. Could that be this?
“Yes, Aunt Lejingi said that Grandmaster Borekliff will be there, and she has unfinished business with him.”
Lirai shook her head to try to clear her thoughts. She faintly recalled a story Sinturkal told her about how Grandmaster Borekliff’s ancestry, Borekliff the One-eyed, had been her first love.
She stepped forward, eyes widening. “Is she going to try to seduce him?”
“What? No! I mean… probably not,” Sinturkal said, sounding annoyed. “Besides, she is ten times as old as he is.”
“So?” Lirai snorted. “Grandmaster Borekliff is over a thousand years old. Who cares?”
“He might,” Sinterukal said, and slowly Lirai guided their conversation into something completely unrelated to each of their impending futures.
I wonder how things will happen in two years, she pondered.
--
Irwin stood in the center of the smithing classroom, watching the three hundred cardsmiths working on their projects.
Some were further along than others, but all of them had grown immensely.
I guess Ambraz was right, he thought as he walked to his stone chair and sat down.
He barely believed how fast they had grown, and not for the first time in the last two years, he wished he’d done this sooner. Three hundred cardsmiths, all Crathan but two, and all of the music-type, surrounded him, and each one had a small chance to return from Exarg’s world with the ability to create cardseeds.
A short ping made him look up to see that Orlefa, one of the two Viridians, had finished and was looking at him.
Irwin got up and walked towards her working area, noticing that multiple others would be done in a few minutes. Stepping across the sound muffling line, he focused on the young Viridian.
“So, how far did you get?” he asked, already letting his soulforce senses flow across the card that lay on her anvil.
Emerald and barely over eighty percent, he thought, holding back a whistle.
That meant she was now among the top fifty, and perhaps even within the top forty.
“I missed the last part of the resonance,” she said calmly, picking up some leafy papers that showed the song she’d been practicing. “This is how far I got before I lost my balance. I think it's eighty-three percent.”
Irwin glanced at it, impressed.
She improved again since last month, he thought, picking up the card and examining it closer. He missed Ambraz at these moments, as his bond would have been able to tell him exactly how good it was with a glance, but having been doing it by himself for a few years did have its advantages. He’d slowly been removing his dependency that had come from hundreds of years of working with his friend.
Well, technically, those ten thousand years did help, he told himself.
“Good,” he said after a minute of focus. “It’s about eighty-two percent, though I can see why you would think it was a percentage higher. Still, even at eighty-two, it is a massive increase. I’ll have your emerald ranking stone ready in a few days. Congratulations.”
Orlefa nodded, then frowned.
“Teacher, a few Grove Elders on the Viridian Council have reached out to me again.”
Irwin sighed, shaking his head. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll tell Flowrishin tonight. You are still sure about your choice?”
Orlefa squared her shoulders, though Irwin noticed her eyes flicker to the other Viridian, a tall, wiry boy with bright green eyes.
“Yes. I know it means I’ll never be able to return home, but I have never understood why my people refuse the option.”
Irwin looked at her for a while before answering. “Mostly because they fear it will change them fundamentally… which I have warned you, is true. After you take that card and I turn it into your second heartcard, you will no longer be a Viridian. You will be a Viridian-Crathan hybrid, though most will not be able to see the difference.”
Probably, he thought, not adding that. He’d been stunned when he found out that even after all those years, there still hadn’t been a single Viridian that had taken a Crathan card. At least, none that was publicly known about.
“I know,” Orlefa said. “But I know what I want, and I don’t need to stay Viridian for that.”
“Very well,” Irwin said as he heard a few more plings indicating others were ready.
“You have the rest of the afternoon free as a reward. I’ll see you tonight at weapon training.”
“Thank you, Teacher,” Orlefa said, bowing her head before walking away.
As she did, Irwin noticed she was still holding her Soulstrum Guitar, placing it on her shoulder. It was a habit he’d seen many of the three hundred had begun picking up, especially those with Soulstrum Guitars. From what he’d been able to find out, they were seeing it as a badge of honor to have the same instrument as he had.
I wonder how Rosetta will react to this, he thought, thinking about what his otherself currently on Granvox was doing.
-- Granvox --
Irwin sensed his otherself’s attention flit to him. He quickly pushed it away, not interested in the headache he would get from parsing through the constant stream of thoughts.
“It’s not changed at all,” Ambraz said.
Irwin nodded in agreement as he looked ahead. The constant, dry heat of Granvox carried the sulfurous smell that reminded him of his own giant Volcano and Igniz. An enormous and familiar lava-spewing fish still decorated the center of the fountain that stood on the side of the square.
On the opposite side, the chaotic building that had once been a small mountain cast a massive shadow.
The golden dome that was the source of part of the Golden Friction Academy’s name gleamed in the ruddy sunlight.
I wonder if the Tappestery still exists, Irwin thought as he walked across the square.
Hundreds of people were moving around, all appearing highly busy, and nearly all accompanied by Ganvils.
“It’s a shame we can’t bring Skylar over,” he said softly, thinking about his old friend and the music they had made while here.
“Well, at least Narios Litvech still teaches,” Ambraz said. “I’m sure between him and Rosetta, the three of you can make a lot of music.”
Irwin grinned as he thought about his first Soulstrum Teacher. He’d not seen the older woman in, what to him felt like hundreds of years, while for her, only a few decades had passed.
They managed to walk across the square, into the Academy’s main entrance, and through most of the busy parts of it before someone finally spotted them.
“Irwin?”
Irwin looked aside to see someone approach him that he hadn’t seen in a very, very long time. Delavera Salvios, better known as Vera, his practical smithing teacher and the first person he’d ever seen who could become as big as a giant. She was staring at him with less surprise than he’d expect.
She was as prominent as he remembered, with skin like a burning coal, long black hair tied up in a thick ponytail that steamed and hissed as she walked, and glistening eyes. A grayish Ganvil sat on her shoulder, and Irwin could sense from the pressure that it was a rank five.
“It is you! By the Metaralion, you have changed!”
Metaralion? Irwin thought, walking towards the middle-aged woman.
She held out her hand, and as she did, her form grew until she could look him right in the eyes, a grin on her face.
“So, you grew even more?! Must be interesting if you walk around those tiny houses,” she said, shaking his hand with a surprising amount of force before turning to his shoulder. “Good to see you, Am’braz.”
“Ugh, no, it’s not,” the Ganvil on her shoulder muttered. “He is probably going to rub it in that he caught up to us.”
Vera’s eyes widened. “So, those weren’t just idle rumors? Wait, does that mean you also caught up?” she asked, fingering the pale and silvery metal clamp on her hair with a diamond inside while wiggling her eyebrows.
“Something like that,” Irwin said, grinning at the prospect of proving this to some of his old teachers. “I am here to find Narios Litvech. I assume he still teaches musical smithing?”
“That he does,” Vera said, her grin turning to a frown. “Are you telling me that with this physique, you are still using the music style? Why not go for the strength-style?”
“I sometimes use that, and fire,” Irwin said.
As they spoke, he noticed that a lot of younger cardsmiths had begun watching them and whispering, some of the girls giggling.
“Ugh, not this again,” Vera said. “Let's go and find Narios before they make up whole books this time.”
She walked away, and Irwin quickly followed her in the direction he recalled Narios’s classroom to have been.
“This time?” he asked, as he walked in line with her.
“A bit over a year ago, a Fiz’rin came here, looking for you,” Vera said. “Because he was so big, I changed my size to match, and suddenly, there were all these rumors that he and I were bonded. Silly little brats.”
“What? Who was here to find me?” Irwin asked, not really interested in the other part of her story.
“Ah, he was called Tang, I think,” Vera said, humming thoughtfully.
“Tang?!” Irwin said, stopping as he recalled the giant Fiz’rin that he had met on Igniz. He’d almost completely forgotten about him after everything that had happened.
“Oh, you do know him?” Vera said, eyebrows raised. “He was a bit odd, so I thought he was just one of those people trying to get free cards from a cardsmith.”
“I know him,” Irwin said, recalling the metal Tang had gifted him and the promise he’d made long ago, to help the man break free of his limits. “Where did he go?”
“Go? Nowhere, I think. Not with all those chained fleets capturing and killing anyone they come across. Last I heard, he was still hanging out somewhere in the city,” Vera said. “Some of my students made some odd bets and tried to follow him and get him and me hooked up. I’m sure some of them might know more. Is he a member of your family?”
“No,” Irwin said, as they continued through the Academy.
‘Kid, don’t worry. We can find him in a few days. There’s plenty of time,’ Ambraz said, seemingly understanding where his thoughts were moving towards.
A few minutes later, they walked through the familiar hallway towards the musical classroom, and halfway there, Irwin began hearing someone singing and playing a familiar instrument.
“Oh, a piano,” Ambraz exclaimed. “Haven’t heard that in ages. Perhaps you should try that again sometime!”
Irwin hummed along with the song as they reached the door and heard the piano combined with what he was sure was a violin. Vera didn’t bother being polite and pulled open the door without knocking, shrinking beneath the doorframe, before walking inside.
Irwin ducked and followed her, finding Narios Litvech, having not changed a day, looking up from a piano. A younger girl stood on the podium with him, a violin in her hands.
I guess he did manage to find someone to play it, Irwin thought as he watched Narios get up, grinning widely. The man’s sun-like eyes were glistening beneath his thick, fiery orange eyebrows while his bronzed skin wrinkled in a wide smile.
“Irwin! You managed to return, that is fantastic news!”
The closer they got, the wider Narios's eyes went as he looked up at Irwin. “You got the same problem Vera does now?”
“Hey! I don’t have a problem,” Vera retorted, though she didn’t sound too annoyed. Instead, she cracked her neck and turned to Irwin. “I’ll go and find some of my students and see if they know where Tang went and get back to you. Where are you staying?”
“Ambraz’s chambers, near Brazardian’s home,” Irwin said.
“I should have known,” Vera said, shaking her head. “Well, I’ll find you here or there. Don’t let Narios bully you into playing songs all afternoon!”
Narios shook his head as Vera left, turning to Irwin.
“So, please tell me you continued practicing the Soulstrum Guitar?”
Irwin summoned his instrument, holding it up slightly for Narios to see. Although it was almost the same as it had been, it radiated a powerful soulforce signature that he knew the sensitive smith would be able to sense. He was proven right as Narios actually took a step back, turning pale.
“How… how…”
Irwin shrugged, deciding to let his old teacher slowly acclimatize to what he was feeling. He let his fingers strum the guitar’s soulforce strings, looking at the young human girl who was watching him curiously.
“Have you played that song together yet?” Irwin asked, getting a quick nod. “Good, if you start, I will follow along.”
The girl took a quick look at Narios, who was breathing raggedly, sitting on a bench head in his hands. She paled slightly, then quickly raised her violin and began playing.
Irwin waited for a few moments, then fell in line, making sure to keep the power of his soulstrum guitar as light as possible.
A minute later, the girl had lost all her worries, smiling widely as she sped up into the middle part of the song.
Irwin followed with practiced ease, and he saw that Narios had managed to regain himself. The teacher was watching him, nodding along until the song was finished.
“Lokpeh, you did great,” he said, getting up. “But I think it's time for you to head to your dorm. I need to talk with my friend, alright?”
“Yes, teacher Narios,” the girl said, quickly walking back, her violin vanishing. She looked at Irwin, seemed unsure, bowed slightly, then turned and ran out of the classroom.
“Now look what you did, you scared the girl with your weird reaction,” Ambraz snapped, flying up and around Narios.
“Oh, well, sorry about that,” Narios said sarcastically, staring at Ambraz. “Next time you sense someone with ten times the power of any single other person you have ever seen after only a few years, let me know how you feel, yes?”
“Hah, ten times? Your senses aren’t as good as you think,” Ambraz said, landing on the piano. “Perhaps the kid should stop holding back a bit.”
Irwin saw Narios open his mouth, clearly in disbelief, and read to say something when he closed it with a snap and turned to Irwin.
“Please tell me he’s just playing around?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Irwin said, part of him still wondering why Tang was here. “I was wondering how Rosetta is doing and if you think she has some time to see me.”
“Rosetta is doing fine, but she’s no longer in the city,” Narios said, grimacing. He sighed and beckoned Irwin towards the small table in the corner. “Do you remember her stories about her son?”
Irwin nodded, a bad premonition growing as he remembered he had been the captain of a small merchant ship.
“Well, he ran into the Chained… He used a teleport ability to move himself and his crew back, but that meant he lost both his ship and all the merchandise on it. Rosetta sold her apartment so they could buy a small estate far out of the city, and the three of them have been there ever since.”
Not nearly as bad as I had thought, Irwin thought, letting out a sigh of relief.
“I can send her a message, though,” Narios said. “I’m sure-”
Irwin felt a slight shock run through Ambraz as the Ganvil landed on his shoulder. He didn’t hear what Narios said, turning to Ambraz.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Brazardian asked if I could see him. He said some librarian was asking for us…”
Irwin stared at the table, a host of thoughts running through his mind. He barely noticed that Narios had stopped talking and was now looking at him.
Ambraz flew up, then away.
‘I’ll be back when I know more,’ his bond told him. ‘Don’t worry.’
Irwin watched him disappear in one of the many Ganvil Corridors high in the ceiling.
Right…