The journey to the Verge dragged longer than Hatim anticipated, not in distance, but in toll. Kander's pace was merciless, mechanical—each step a decree. Hatim fought to keep up, his bare feet stinging against the coarse grit, ash grinding into the cracks of his soles. The air grew harsher the farther they went, sharper, like breathing through a forge's breath. It clawed at his lungs and coated his tongue with soot and bitterness.
They passed the Sinks' last dying veins—crumbling walls, sagging roofs, smoke-cured rags hanging from iron poles like surrendered flags. The ground beneath them trembled subtly now, the Akar veins here not soft pulses like the ones by his secluded training hollow, but violent, almost angry. Hatim felt them through the arches of his feet—deeper, hotter, urgent. As though this place bled with purpose and pain.
Here, Embermark shed its pretense. This was its raw skin.
The landscape warped as they climbed. Stunted flora—twisted and dark like burnt offerings—thickened into a forest of stubborn survivors. Each plant looked scarred by centuries, bark etched with soot and black veins of dried Akar sap. Their shapes bent toward the earth, as if even they bowed to the relentless weight of industry.
The air changed again—no longer just ashen but layered: the sharp sting of molten metal, the nose-curdling bite of flux, the nauseating musk of hot oil and smoldering bone-lubricants. The wind howled low and constant, like a forge-beast exhaling.
And then the sounds came—steady, rhythmic, brutal.
Clangs. Roars. Hisses. A mechanical choir of suffering and strength. The cries of distant Glimmer-Owls faded, replaced by the language of labor. Hatim flinched as a hammerstrike rang out close, his body still wired from the Sinks' ambushes. But here, that violence wasn't chaos—it was creation.
The Verge loomed like a city layered atop another, a maze of scaffolds and endless workshops fused into the cliff's bones. Giant skeletal cranes wheeled slowly above, swinging glowing spines of metal. Lifts scuttled like brass insects up sheer vertical faces, their creaking echoing between towers of smoke-streaked iron. Everywhere, Akar ran like molten nerves—golden streams pulsing through transparent conduits, illuminating the smoke-thickened gloom with a spectral glow.
Hatim's breath caught in his throat—not from awe, but from the sheer oppressive scale of it all.
"This is The Verge," Kander rumbled beside him, his voice like stone dragging over iron. "Where Embermark breathes fire into steel. Where we trade our essence for the world's bounty."
Hatim followed Kander's gesture toward the transport gates—colossal portals guarded like vaults. Beyond them stretched the black plains, dotted with titanic freighters: Akar-powered behemoths bearing the carved sigils of faraway kingdoms. They crawled like armored beasts, unloading wares that smelled of distant rains and sun-drenched lands—Aeridor's wind-hollowed timbers, Isenheim's glittering ice-shards, foreign grains still clinging to golden husks, dried meats with spices Hatim couldn't name.
His stomach growled, empty and embarrassed.
"The wealth from these trades flows upward," Kander said, his words like hammerblows—measured, cold. "To the Crowns. They sit in their high-walled gardens, sipping imported tea and breathing filtered air. They hold the rights to cultivate herbs we can't even grow in this ash. But the fire—the blood—of Embermark burns here."
Hatim's jaw tensed. His whole body itched—not from sweat or soot, but from the raw unfairness of it all. He'd lived his whole life scraping from the bottom of this city's furnace, and now he saw what had been built atop the smoke.
Kander turned, pointing to a monstrous structure squatting at the center of it all. Its surface rippled with heat like black glass. Glyphs were etched into its face like scars—binding runes of containment, glowing faintly red, as though restraining a star's fury.
"That," Kander said, "is the Ironweavers' forge. Their work outfits the Crowns, feeds the military, drives our trade. The strongest guilds bend to House patronage. You'll learn why."
Hatim stared up at the forge. It hummed—not just with power, but with something deeper. It felt alive, predatory. Like it watched him back.
This was a power he'd never imagined. Not glyphs or spells or sleek duels—but industry, ambition, and unrelenting labor. It wasn't beautiful. It was brutal. And it moved the world.
He looked down at his hands—still bruised from training, his fingers blistered, cracked. The air here vibrated with the weight of purpose, and he—Hatim of the Sinks, forgotten, unmarked—stood at its edge like a stranger in someone else's skin.
"You need more than glyphs for the Trial of Resonance," Kander said, stepping forward again. "They'll test your marrow. Not just your magic. When the Akar gutters out, when your marks run dry, what's left is you. Flesh. Will. Fire in your blood."
They ducked into a side workshop, wedged between guildhalls like a scar between stones. It was smaller, hotter. The walls sweated steam. The air was thick with burnt iron, scorched leather, and the musk of bodies pushed past exhaustion. The hammers rang here, too—but not with grandeur. This was desperate work. Apprentices strained at anvils, their arms trembling, sweat painting streaks through soot.
Hatim's pulse quickened. This was the proving ground—the crucible.
"You'll learn to shape metal," Kander said, watching him. "Not just with fire, but with truth. You'll temper your bones, open your meridians to the heat, teach your body to hold power—not just call it."
Hatim nodded, but his throat was dry. His doubts stirred again. Could he survive this? Could he become more than the boy from the ashes?
A voice broke through the din.
"Kander."
Hatim turned. A young man stood beside a glowing iron rod, muscles lean and coiled, grease smeared across his brow like warpaint. A glyph tattoo pulsed faintly on his forearm—delicate swirls of control, discipline, resonance.
Kael.
Hatim remembered the name from Lugal. Bolun's apprentice. The one who was supposed to help him—before everything went sideways.
Kael's eyes pinned him, measuring—not with hostility, but with a quiet, cutting curiosity. "He's smaller than the whispers claimed. I thought he'd come looking for coin."
Hatim flushed. Ash clung to his sweat, mixing into gray streaks. He felt stripped bare.
Kander gave the faintest smirk. "He'll grow. Teach him how to make the metal sing, Kael. And how to make himself harder than the anvil."
Kael's lips curled into a smirk of his own—sharp and amused. "Come on, Hatim. Let's see if your famed Akar can keep a hammer from shattering your arm. First, you learn the hammer's song. Then, maybe, your bones learn the rhythm."
Hatim didn't reply. He just stepped forward, jaw tight, eyes burning. Kander had left him in the hands of Kael.
Let them test him.
Let them hammer him.
He would not break.