Seven years ago…

  Jan Yacca was late for dinner, late for a celebration, and late for his adopted son’s tenth birthday. He reeked of sewage and grease stained the wide man’s heavy hands, but he carried his workman’s toolbox easily despite the thirty pounds of tools it held and with the other hand he swung a grain sack lightly, whistling as he crossed from the worker’s tenement to the narrow two-story home House Sullivan granted those who supported the foundry workers.

  Elise, his wife waited outside under the lantern light. She was just as beautiful as she’d been near a decade ago when she showed up with the refugees and a mewling wet babe. “Jan, I was worried.”

  “Chevel’s wife is in labor, I had to bring a cradle. Then Shiftmaster Horn’s chamber backed up.” He didn’t lean down to kiss her. She put a hand on his forehead, all the contact he wanted until he’d had a chance to scrub. “Declan?”

  “Out in the workshed. He fixed the Cherry’s sink earlier. She says it barely even leaks.” She looked over her shoulder. “I heard. No rin bonus for the emergency shifts.”

  Jan shook his head. “I’m sorry. Shits in House Sullivan said it was ‘expected.’ His heart is set on being an Arcanist. We have a lot of love, but it takes more rin than love. Bond-son or no, the boy deserves his dreams.”

  “Maybe it’s better.” Elise said. “His blood-father was loving, but he made enemies. Better our son finds a new dream.”

  “I went through the entire yard of crush, looking for some round ore I could tell him was a mana-stone. Nothing bigger than my pinky. Not a single rock. But,” Jan hefted the bag. “Shiftmaster was grateful and gave me an idea. Let’s go give our boy a gift.”

  Behind the small house stood a ramshackle shed that might have been assembled from discarded crates and strung together with metal wire. Drifts of ash from the foundry had settled against the walls and swirled in the air. A rail-thin boy sat there, eyes closed, legs crossed, trying a ‘breathing exercise’ a traveling storyteller claimed calmed his mana. His eyes popped open and a grin split the boy’s face. “Pop!” He jumped with the energy of youth and rushed to his father.

  “Shit pipe work, Declan.” Jan stood downwind. The pronouncement was all the warning the boy needed to stay back. “Your mother and I, we—we can’t afford a proper rune set. But we got you something to train with.” He dumped over the burlap bag. From it rolled a sphere, pitch black metal, corroded with pits on the surface.

  Declan tried to pick it up. Then tried with both hands. The boy had more determination than muscle, but he had the will to work a wrench and the right heart. “What is it?”

  Jan couldn’t bring himself to say a mana bearing. Or that it was used to support the thousand ton arcite cauldrons the foundry used. Or that it wasn’t so much given as ‘allowed to take’ while the cauldron was being rehung. “You’re the future arcanist. You tell me.”

  “A mana-stone?” Declan asked, his eyes growing wide.

  Perhaps what Jan said was cruel. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to refuse. “I’ve heard it said that taking control of these is a long process. You have to push your will into it, and it won’t obey you until you completely own it. It will be hard.”

  The mana-bearing slipped from his hands and dropped to the stone, cracking it and bouncing twice before settling into a divot. “Thank you!” Declan wrapped his arms around his father, shit pipe work or not. “I’m going to get started right now.”

  It took the boy’s entire strength to lift the bearing and carry it over, setting it in his lap. He closed his eyes, concentrating, as ash swirled on the wind that whistled through the crooked buildings of foundry town.

  The mother and father retreated. If it was cruel, it was a slow cruelty, the kind that would give him time to find other things to focus on. Perhaps that was for the best.

  ###

  Present…

  Declan Yacca carried a crate on his shoulder as he crossed town. Foreman Scythe’s daughter was turning eighteen today and he’d ordered a crate of dragon fruit from Erslom across the sea. A crate that hadn’t left the receiving yard, so Declan had taken the task himself. Now he jogged down the cobblestone path to the foreman’s house and slammed the front door knocker. “Delivery for Cook!”

  The door swung open.

  Declan stepped back. “Foreman Scythe, my apologies. I didn’t know you were off shift. I’ll go to the back—”

  “Nonsense.” Foreman Scythe was in charge of the foundry. Perhaps there were higher-ups, but it was Scythe himself who answered to the heirs of House Sullivan. He’d married a bastard daughter of theirs and shown his loyalty. “We’re rehanging the last cauldron today, so I’m taking the morning off to prepare. To the kitchen, please. And Jen would love to see you.”

  Declan froze. “I’d better deliver these so Cook can get started. I already finished my work allotment. And one of Pop’s.”

  The foreman followed Declan as he navigated the grand house halls and entered the kitchen. Cook—the title went to whichever of the husband and wife duo were on duty and today it was Mrs. Cook, waved. “There’s my dragon fruit. And not a moment too soon. Declan, a treat?”

  “The boy’s got business at the Foundry today,” Foreman Scythe said. “He’s going up with me, I’ll be back for the celebration. Declan, fancy a walk?”

  He led them into the private study, a place Declan had been many times. Bookcases lined with foundry tech manuals lined the walls and formula for different arcite alloys. Over the the fireplace stood the prized possession, a silver shortsword in a glass case. The scabbard was decorated with roses and runes decorated the exposed part of the blade. Dust covered the crystal case and if it could be opened, Declan had never seen it done.

  “Ragast Sullivan himself gave my grandfather’s great grandfather that sword,” Foreman Scythe said in the same proud way he always did. Always. From the time Declan had been so small he had to be lifted to see it over the mantle. “After my grandfather slew a blazed beast that was wrecking the foundry. Said ‘A man like you needs a real weapon to keep our prized foundry safe. That’s pure arcite.”

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  A side door opened to a metal stair that lead upward, since the foreman’s house nestled next to the foundary itself like a piglet next to the mother.

  “Sir.” Declan said. “About Jen…”

  The older man sighed and put a hand on Declan’s back. “She was hoping you’d be more than friends. Still have eyes for the welder woman?”

  Declan’s stomach turned. “No sir. It’s just, Jen’s more of a sister. Sir. I mean, I’m sorry.”

  “No need to explain. We have to be up at the foundry at the bell. And you, my boy, need to be very, very quiet. You’re not sworn to the Sullivans. You don’t have an oath-stone to hold our secrets. They’d cut my fucking balls off, but this is my foundry. I want you to see.” Together they crossed the metal bridge and the guard stepped away, letting both enter the arcite foundry. The air inside was hot like a blast furnace, the mana oppressive, swirling like smoke. Vast cauldrons taller than the house stood glowing over blast furnaces, smelting ore laden with arcite into pure metal, which would be delivered to the crown’s metal workers. The first cauldrons took tons of crushed ore. Each refined it further, until the final ones poured out the precious metal in thin bars that could be pressed, rolled, forged or welded.

  Forman Scythe slapped a leather smock on Declan and put a finger to his lips, then climbed a metal ladder to the second level of the foundry, and then to the third. From there they walked a thousand paces down to the last cauldron, which sat cold and dark. In front of it stood a man in a long silver leather coat, with heavy black boots and wild golden hair that cascaded down his back. He spoke with several of the workers and then they rushed back.

  Declan’s breath caught in his throat. An arcanist.

  The arcanist stood still. From behind him, a glowing white stone laden with mana phased into existence, circling him. A rune-stone. The symbol it gave off reminded Declan of flowing waves. The rune continued its slow orbit, and a second joined it. This was fire, a carved flame glowing on it, and a moment later, a third that was a simple square, followed by a fourth stone that was sets of concentric circles, ever larger. Each stone held a slightly different distance, each orbited around the arcanist, who raised his hands.

  One after one, the runes locked into place, each glowing brighter, leaving their mark in the air before the stone itself disappeared. The rune image remained, changing, growing as the stones added their parts.

  The cauldron shuddered and groaned, lifting into the air a few inches—then a foot more. Such a machine was not meant to fly. It rolled on a vast bed of rollers when it moved, and rocked on pivots bored into the three story mounting pillars.

  But fly it did, hovering.

  “Move!” the foreman shouted, and workers rushed forward. Under the cauldron lay a bed of round metal bearings like cannon balls. Workers grabbed them with long tongs and others placed fresh, polished bearings, a process they repeated a hundred times. “Clear!”

  The arcanists’s eyes were closed tight and his face beaded with sweat as he focused. The runes faded out of existence. The cauldron groaned and dropped back into place with a clang that reverberated through the factory.

  Workers cheered.

  Foreman Scythe tapped Declan and pointed to his feet. Stay here. Then he climbed down and rushed across the floor to talk to the Arcanist, shaking the man’s hand and exchanging words swallowed by the rattle and roar of the foundry. A moment later, the Arcanist spun, holding up one hand, and shouted. A single rune blazed into existence before him, a flame surrounded by concentric circles. The burners beneath the foundry roared and blazed to life.

  Fire L%45_!

  He blinked away the words in his mind, focusing on the magic. Such power. Something in Declan’s soul echoed with the magic he’d seen, and it made him eager. He waited until the foreman signaled for him to climb down and slipped out the private entrance, then back to the main house. “Thank you, sir. An actual arcanist.”

  “That was Ulysses Sullivan himself. Not one of the heirs, but a cousin. He holds their blood-rune, like most Sullivans. Comes once a year to let us change the bearings. You’ll be eighteen in two weeks, Declan. I wish we had a place for you, but the truth is, we’re making work for your pop.” Forman Scythe’s tone had turned serious. “I think you should consider looking in Teralone. There’s nothing you can’t fix. I’ve got a friend there. If you and Jen were closer…no, don’t do that. To her or you.”

  Declan gave a sharp nod. “I appreciate the advice. And thank you. One day, I’m going to be a great arcanist.”

  “Then the Sullivans could hire you to work here, with us!” Foreman Scythe said, clapping his back.

  The door to the house opened, and Cook stepped out with a dish. “For Declan. So thin, you need to eat more!”

  He would never be built like Jan, never lift a stack of crates or break a pipe loose with his bare hands. For that matter, Declan had the build of a willow, tall and thin, with narrow green eyes and hair that he wouldn’t spend a rin on cutting, so he sheared it when it was too long with hedge cutters. “A roast chicken?”

  “Marinated in hot peppers, your favorite,” Mrs. Cook said, handing him the dish. “Run on now, Jen’s in the main room, best you go quickly. Mana storm’s coming in fast.”

  From the foundry, the clanging of storm shutters dropping rang like bells, and chains rattled as doors locked closed. The mana storm would come with hail and driving rain, and crackling balls of fire that would burn a man. He considered the churning in his stomach that acted like a clock. “We’ve got some time.”

  Declan took his chicken and headed down the garden path, then out and through the worker housing, waving as he went to the men who were like an extended family. “How’s the window?”

  “Keeps the ash out and I can’t ask more. We’ll see after the storm,” a man shouted back. “Thimeaus’s burner is acting up again. Your Pop came by but it just won’t hold a flame.”

  “Gotta to get to cover, but I’ll tell him.” Declan hated arc circuits, but he marked it away and kept moving, all the way home. After he pulled the shutters closed and ratcheted them down, he climbed the chimney latter and made sure the mana arrestor was active.

  Then he circled the house, where he had a bed, and around the back to the shed he’d made his own. With a mouth full of chicken and a mind full of memories, he hefted the mana bearing in one hand. That’s what it was. He recognized it the moment he saw the workers replacing them.

  But this one had been his focus for years. Every night after school. Every morning before tasks, and for the last month since the school dismissed him, after work, he took his place, crossing his legs just as he’d heard they did, and put both hands on the bearing. For years, he’d wondered if it was just his imagination, but now the metal ball felt hot in his hands. When he pushed on it mentally, it pushed back, where once it had felt spongy, a never-ending pit that absorbed anything he offered—and he had so little to offer.

  Mana was everywhere, if what the teachers said was true, and even those who weren’t arcanists could sense it and use it to trigger imbued items or enchanted machinery. But they couldn’t draw in more power by the second. They had no arcsoul to grow and absorb mana and hold runes to shape spells. Declan felt something when he pushed against the bearing. Now it was as firm to his mind as the surface was to his fingertips. Most stories about arcanists argued about how they trained. They bathed in the blood of monsters. They drank strange potions, they performed rites naked under the moon. But what was consistent was that force of will let them control the runes.

  Declan had that, and he focused, pushing mentally against the bearing. The storm was coming and with it, mana would become just a hair thicker. He’d race the rain to the door when it came.

  He blinked and it wasn’t just dark, it was late. Storm clouds crackled on the horizon, and wind drove ash in waves. At the edge of the shack stood Mom and Pop. “Sorry, ma. I get lost sometimes.”

  “I know.” She looked to Pop and the man nodded. Then she drew something from her pocket, a blood-red ruby that glimmered in the darkness. “Son, we need to talk.”