“I suppose that is my cue,” Raptan said.

  He brushed himself off and stood, careful not to disturb the board. The threads remained exactly as we had left them, balanced and waiting, tension held in a way that suggested the game had simply paused to catch its breath rather than ended.

  “The game can wait,” he continued. “We can leave it until the next time you visit, if you like.” His eyes lingered on the board for a heartbeat longer than necessary. “I believe your father has several things planned for you today, and I do not think I would find another game as satisfying as the one we are currently playing.”

  He gestured lightly toward the board, a small, precise motion. “We can put it on pause, if that is agreeable to you. It would mean leaving your thread here, unless that troubles you.”

  I nodded without hesitation. “That is fine. I doubt I will have much time to play today, or anyone else for that matter.”

  My gaze lingered on the board a moment longer, following the paths we had laid out and the fragile balance holding them in place. “I do think I should try to introduce my apprentice to the game. Perhaps Greta as well. Maybe even the rest of the class. I should find a way to do that at some point.”

  I shrugged faintly, already turning the idea over in my mind. “It is easy enough to build a board and acquire suitable thread. Putting a game together would not be difficult, if I truly wished to play. Or teach.”

  “Very good,” Raptan said, sounding satisfied.

  He turned toward the door and adjusted his armor with habitual efficiency. “Then let us go down and see if we cannot convince your instructor to finally complete his paperwork. He should be arriving in about a minute. I will send word to the guard to halt him at the gate.”

  “What about the rest of his class?” I asked. “That may cause an issue.”

  “They will not be permitted back into the city without an instructor,” Raptan replied calmly. “If we arrange this properly, he will not be leaving.”

  I hesitated. The man was insufferable, that much was true, but the children did not deserve to suffer for it. My displeasure with Randall did not extend to punishing his students.

  “Is there any way someone else could take them into the city,” I asked, “and bring them back later? They are mostly brats who have never heard the word no before, but I do not think they deserve to lose their day off because of him.”

  “That would not be difficult to arrange,” Raptan said. “One of the defenders heading into town can escort them to the guild hall and arrange for a chaperone quest. The Defenders’ Guild and the Adventurers’ Guild are sister organizations. Accommodations like this are routine.” He paused, then added, “Especially since many of the adventurers currently in the city are looking for simple work. It will not be difficult to find someone willing.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Then we should be off,” Raptan added. “He is getting close.”

  I frowned as a distant rumble echoed through the stone beneath our feet. “What is that noise?”

  “His cart,” Raptan said flatly. “He heats a metal frame with flame channels and loads the children inside. It becomes unbearably hot and moves about as fast as a dead mule. The man is lazy, and he is backed by some of the wealthiest nobles, so not much has been done about it.”

  My stomach tightened as I imagined it, the heat, the confinement, the indifference.

  “Some of the poorer trainees sustain burns because they are forced to sit near the pipes,” he continued, his voice even but edged with restraint. “They usually spend the remainder of the day in the city infirmary. Randall does not consider that a problem.”

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  His expression hardened, jaw setting. “That is why I am more than willing to correct his behavior. Ideally before another child collapses and we have to rush them to a healer.”

  We walked down the stairs, this time slowly. Raptan did not carry me the way my father had earlier. Instead, he walked ahead of us at an even pace, measured and deliberate, his boots striking the stone with a quiet confidence that suggested he had walked these steps thousands of times before.

  The stairs were steep enough to be daunting, and I understood immediately why my father had lifted me before. Even with my balance, it would have been easy to misstep. The turn midway down was sharp, forcing the path inward before opening again, and the stone beneath our feet had been worn smooth by centuries of use. It was the kind of surface that forgave no carelessness.

  I kept one hand lightly against the wall as we descended, more out of habit than fear, feeling the coolness of the stone and the faint vibration of activity beyond it. The wall was not just a barrier; it was alive with guarded motion, distant voices, and the subtle hum of systems built to monitor what approached from inside the Sea of trees.

  We reached the bottom and continued toward the gate, where Raptan motioned for us to pause near the doorway that led to the barracks. From there, Randall would not see us, but we would still be able to hear what unfolded. It was a practiced position, chosen with intent, and I realized this was not the first time Raptan had staged an encounter from this exact spot.

  My father guided me forward as if it were nothing more than a routine shift change at the gate, his posture relaxed and unremarkable. While Raptan took position directly in front of the entrance, clearly visible to anyone approaching, we moved toward a narrow window set into the inner wall, half hidden by the angle of the stone.

  Another defender was stationed there, writing at a table cluttered with ledgers and loose sheets of parchment. The scratch of his quill was steady and unhurried. My father raised a finger to his lips and gently shushed the man, then lifted me and set me on the edge of the table without interrupting his work.

  The defender glanced at me, curiosity flickering briefly across his face. I looked back at him. Then I turned my attention to the window and pressed my hands against the glass, the surface cool and smooth beneath my palms.

  Only then did I realize it was there at all. From the outside, the wall appeared to be solid stone, seamless and impenetrable, but from this side it was fitted with one-way glass. The guard on duty could see out clearly while remaining completely unseen from beyond the gate.

  Through it, the world outside the wall looked slightly muted, as if viewed through still water. I could make out the approach to the gate and the barren stretch beyond, empty save for the distant figures moving toward the wall, their forms distorted just enough to remind me that this view was never meant to be shared.

  I was not certain why the design choice had been made, but I found it quietly fascinating. It spoke of caution, of preparation, of a city that preferred to watch before it acted.

  The wall, like much of the city, hid more intention than it revealed, and sitting there, waiting, I had the distinct sense that we were doing the same.

  Oliver sat beside Randall in what was clearly the safest part of the cart.

  The thing itself was a monstrosity. Two thick pipes ran along its length, and Randall was constantly forcing flame directly into them to propel it forward. The pipes extended through the body of the cart and out the rear, a crude imitation of engineering that I hesitated to even call a vehicle.

  He was maintaining some sort of fire protection spell. I assumed it was a resistance effect, the only thing preventing the cart from instantly combusting under the sheer volume of flame required to move it. Even so, heat rippled visibly off the metal, the air around it warping like a mirage.

  I could see sweat darkening the children’s shirts and trousers. Even Randall, in his usual foppish disregard for decorum, wore little more than his hat and almost nothing else. He had on what appeared to be purple boxers patterned with stars. His robe lay discarded beside him, far from the pipes, deliberately placed opposite Oliver.

  The Count’s son looked close to fainting, and he was the safest among them.

  The other children looked far worse. Their faces were flushed, their skin slick with sweat, and they shifted weakly where they sat. It looked as though their skin might begin to peel at any moment.

  Randall had forgotten, or simply ignored, that the heat of the sun in this region was already one of the deadliest aspects of the environment. Instead of mitigating it, he had chosen to amplify it, sealing the children into what amounted to an oven behind him.

  What made it worse was that he did not even possess true flame control. He could not draw heat away or regulate it properly. If he understood his own magic at all, he could have cooled the cart with ease. Fire was not only for burning. In the right hands, it could disperse heat as readily as it produced it. Heat was not a substance so much as motion, something that could be pushed, drawn, and redirected. A good pyromancer understood this. A skilled practitioner did not simply add flame; they managed flow, vented excess, and bled heat away from where it could do any real harm.

  Randall understood none of that.

  Quick update.

  Top 20 on Rising Stars (Main). Front page is genuinely within reach now. Nothing guaranteed, but the momentum is real, and faster growth absolutely helps. Thank you all for pushing this forward with me.

  7 chapters ahead as of today, technically 8. If you’re in the higher tier, there’s at least one extra chapter waiting for you tomorrow. The roadmap remains exactly as promised: 7/14/21. Once those tiers are fully established and stable, I’ll shift into building a deeper backlog after that, because that’s the point where it actually makes sense.

  The God of Iron is best god.