Chapter 1446: The Light of Passion

While some of Northern’s clones dealt with the reckoning of the Forest Hunters and poured poison into the heart of the Empire’s North, another was making ready for a meeting he would rather have skipped.

Bairan could only keep his sister chained to the Dark Continent for so long. Though, in truth, Northern suspected the Sword King had never once tried.

The report had come in flat and unbothered.

"The Princess escaped my watch. But I’m chasing her down."

Stripped of its polish, that meant only one thing. The man wanted to be here, and badly.

’His being here is a disaster. Oh, good stars.’

Bairan had trained what might be the strongest Tyrant alive, and now here he was, drifting toward Northern’s doorstep like it was nothing. The thought arrived just as Northern brought the hammer down. Sparks leapt off the iron in a vicious bright spray and died against the dark of the forge. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he never paid quite enough attention to the sort of people he made.

’And here I am, trying to forge another one of those monsters.’

"Lord Northern... I think that’s enough."

Ultron spoke carefully, the way a man speaks standing near something that might go off.

Northern came back to himself, back to the metal under his hammer. He looked down at it. Red, shapeless, a stubborn lump that refused to unfold no matter how many times he struck it. The forge’s heat pressed against his face, and still the thing kept its ugly shape.

Ultron hesitated again, shifting his weight.

"In my experience, some metals answer to timing. They yield only when the moment is right."

Northern raised his head slowly and gave him a look caught somewhere between disgust and confusion.

"What?"

Ultron nodded, a small smile tugging at his mouth as he watched the lump. Its red was already cooling, creeping toward blue.

"Back in my village, when I was young and we used to dig for minerals, there was a stone I knew would never break in winter, rooted or not. There are a great many of them in the north of the world."

His voice stayed light and unhurried, warm as banked coals.

"One day I would like to see the Northern continent for myself, to learn what minerals manage to survive a winter like that."

Northern said nothing. For a moment he only stared at the sullen ball of metal, the disgust unmoved on his face. Then he simply opened his hand and let the hammer go.

It fell. Where the head struck the floor, a web of cracks went spidering out across the stone.

"Ah, it’s whatever. I’ve got something more important to do."

Ultron, bent low beside the anvil, straightened to his full height.

"But why do you refuse to use my talent?"

Northern sighed and planted his hands on his hips, still glaring down at the metal.

"I can only work to the level of my own understanding of forgery. Doesn’t it run the same way for you?"

Ultron smiled and scratched sheepishly at the back of his neck.

"Perhaps. I’ve never really used it for anything but combat."

Northern gave him a strange, sidelong look.

"I honestly can’t decide whether to call you a fool or a genius, using a skill like that to fight."

He exhaled and let his hands drop from his hips.

"Anyway. I’ll be back. And next time, I’m definitely breaking it."

Ultron asked again, hesitant.

"If I may, why make such a metal at all? Did you not know it would behave like this? What is it you’re even trying to create?"

He kept his gaze on Northern. For all the height between them, the big man looked down at the lord with something close to reverence.

Northern shrugged.

"I wanted to build a suit of armor and put a soul inside it. And since it’d be a physical thing rather than just an echo, I wanted to make sure it would never break, whatever the cost. So I went and mixed a bunch of stuff together."

He chuckled.

"Guess that was a bad idea?"

Ultron, meanwhile, looked like a man watching a monster being born.

"Lord Northern, I have never seen anyone forge a metal by simply mixing things together. What did you do?"

Northern sighed and explained it as calmly as if it were the plainest thing in the world.

"Everything is the product of an equation. More than that, everything is an equation, from mass all the way down to the atom. You set one atom against another to build a greater mass, and at the bottom of every existing thing the same fundamentals hold. So I can take anything at all, and with your talent I can fold it together while it smelts and draw out something new. Something nobody has ever seen. Though who knows, maybe somebody already has. I was only trying to make something, really."

He chuckled again, quieter. "Don’t mind the rambling. I just love forgery, and it’s good to have a friend who loves it too. You know you’re free to walk out of this place whenever you like, right?"

Ultron’s eyes went wide and stayed there, fixed on the light in Northern’s own as he spoke.

’I had that light once...’

Watching the man warmed something in him he had long thought gone cold. He shook his head, still smiling.

"No. I like it better here."

Northern studied him, puzzled, then shrugged. "Okay then. Bye. You can wander anywhere you please, just mind the monsters. Ask one of the Knights to show you around. They can be dangerous, but Chrys and Eskedar know their way around well enough."

Ultron bowed as Northern turned to leave.

"Yes, Lord Northern. Take care."

And then Northern was gone from the pit of the forge, folding back into being in a hallway of the Tempest Spire. The heat and the ring of the anvil fell away behind him, traded for cool stone and the low guttering of torches, and he was already walking toward the place where his elder brother was kept confined.

"Oh, good stars. So much to do."

A tired breath left him.

"When did I ever get to sleep?"