Chapter 712: Forge (3)
"I'm pretty resistant to fire."
The attendant actually took a step back, hearing that and seeing the black flames moving.
Kaleran's face tightened. Just slightly. But in the forge's flickering light, it looked like steel hardening under pressure.
"You will not go in there," he said, voice low, sharp, final. "That would be a violation of rank, of order, and of basic respect. Harlan may be a relic, but he is still the Empire's highest-standing forge authority. You do not walk uninvited into his crucible."
Lucavion didn't even look at him.
He just let the Flame of Equinox twist once more around his fingers—faint tendrils of unmaking licking the air, distorting the heat already present with something older, colder.
Kaleran stepped forward, voice rising just slightly. "Lucavion—"
"Don't bother," Lucavion said, already moving.
He didn't raise his voice.
Didn't need to.
The sheer casualness of it hit harder than defiance. Like he wasn't arguing. Just done waiting.
And with a single flex of motion, he vaulted the low arcane boundary before anyone could finish a ward or warning. His coat trailed behind him, catching light like midnight silk, and the moment his boots touched the platform just before the sealed crucible path—