Harriet leaned forward, a frown of concern crossing her attentive face.
“You see, I was summoned to face this massive evil, a lich tearing up the land, one that no army or warrior could take on without me. In the end, I wasn’t enough. Thousands died, including three Sovereign-ranked warriors, just so my summoner and I,” he gestured with the wand fragments, “could stand a chance against him.”
“What happened? How did the wand break?” Harriet asked.
“She detonated her soul while the wand was lodged in the lich’s skull, shattering it. We weren’t certain, but we thought he might’ve used his own mind as a phylactery. Anyway, she gave up her life, then her soul, to help me save her city.” Ori’s voice cracked. “She was so scared. And I wanted to leave, but it was too late. But right at the end, she was happy. She believed I could bring her back. So I will. That’s why I’m here, digging through books on enchanting and wand making. I’m gonna fix her phylactery and then find every last piece of her soul, even if it means diving into hell to get them.”
“Spirits,” Harriet gasped. “But reforging the wand, isn’t that just the first step? How do you plan on finding her soul?”
Ori shrugged. “Honestly, I’ve got no idea right now. I have a Soulcraft affinity, and my soul has been enchanted, or refined, or something. Beyond that? Maybe it’s in these books. I’ll figure it out.”
“And you say this lich killed several Sovereign-ranked Awakened?”
“Easily,” Ori confirmed. “Eltitus had an army of tens of thousands of undead and was on the verge of Immortality, or so I was told.”
“But you survived. And still remain a mortal. How?” Harriet frowned, and then her expression softened. “Actually, I’m sorry. I can imagine this is starting to feel like an interrogation. That’s not my intent.”
“Yeah, a little bit.” Ori’s grin took the edge off his words. “But it’s okay. As you can understand, I’m just a mortal, and I’ve had those with power try to take advantage of me before, so it’s hard for me to trust right now, especially when I don’t know why I’ve been summoned.”
“I’m starting to understand.”
“And as for why I’ve not Awakened? I pledged the entirety of my Peritia to my familiar so that she could evolve. Hopefully, she’s close to it, but until that happens, she’s on the verge of death.” Ori paused, then gave Harriet a summary of his journey from the streets of Peckham Rye to the Spring Residence of the Lunaesidhe. He skipped most of the specific details of his bonds and Crucible’s trials, but he felt he’d painted a reasonable picture of an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
“I had no idea,” Harriet said, her attention drifting as she contemplated Ori’s story. “I can scarcely imagine what you’ve gone through, and that’s only from the little you’ve told me. Though one thing is clear, despite your modest portrayal of your role. You are not just a mortal man.”
“How do you mean?”
Harriet looked aside as if thinking, and the break in her intense gaze left Ori oddly relieved. “As I cannot be forthcoming on the reasons why I summoned you, I feel as if I must make up for it in other areas.” Ori nodded, and she continued. “Although I’m mostly an open book as far as High Elven society is concerned, it is no small thing for one such as I to share information about one’s classes and abilities. I began to do so upon our first meeting, so let me continue.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Ori asked, curiosity and caution warring in his mind.
“So I can explain how I see what I see when I look at you.” Her blue eyes shone despite the brightness outside as they settled on him again. Ori’s heart raced, exhilaration at her attention competing with the fear of his talents being uncovered.
“High Elves may have up to nine classes. In no particular order, mine are Ruler, Astrologer, Herbalist, Alchemist, High Chef, Platonic Dancer, and High Bard, with two of my classes yet to be chosen.”
“High Chef?” Ori blurted.
“Yes,” Harriet said, concealing a self-deprecating smile. “It is my craft, but we can discuss that shortly. As you can observe, my chosen classes align with my role as Queen: an administrator, a diplomat, a leader presiding over a mostly peaceful queendom. My Astrologer and Ruler classes are particularly beneficial in this regard. Their passive abilities enhance perception, allowing me to understand people more deeply than most. As you may know, I can identify titles without resorting to divination or consulting the Library of Fate. Another passive enhancement is a moderately accurate sense of someone’s Presence.”
Her gaze sharpened. “This is an indirect way of saying that encountering a mortal with a Presence surpassing that of someone at the Sovereign rank, a mortal with a Presence rivalling my own, is quite extraordinary. Doing so without a realm’s Grace or ancestral spirits is almost unfathomable. Then there are my racial senses, ones that both excite and warn me of your presence in the Dreaming. Yet you sit here, at once wary and unaware of the profundity of your existence.” She smiled. “I won’t disclose why I summoned you, but for these reasons and more, I knew you were the answer to my plight from the very moment you arrived.”
Ori’s heart lifted at the declaration, and he sat up straighter. It wasn’t a surprise that she could sense strength, and what she’d sensed were things he’d already begun to understand, but knowing she believed him equal to whatever lay ahead took a large weight off his shoulders. He smirked, remembering her first words to him. “Are you sure? I remember you being surprised and disappointed to have summoned a mortal human back then.”
Harriet blushed, and Ori couldn’t help enjoying the crack in her composure, the glimpse of someone less guarded and distant.
“Yes. Well, knowing our laws… I admit to having understandable expectations of whom the ritual would have found…”
“It’s okay. It would’ve been weird if you were expecting someone like me, considering what little I know of your culture.”
“I suppose it would have,” Harriet said.
Several seconds passed in silence. Ori was content to wait, while Harriet seemed to bubble with questions and comments. After a few false starts, Ori volunteered more.
“Have you heard of those on the Path?” Ori asked, using the same archaic phrasing Crucible had used.
“I have.”
“Well, I’ve been told I’m an Irregular on the Path,” Ori said.
“That would be an apt description, given what we know. Irregulars fall outside the Library’s primary ranking system. Typically, one’s rank reflects their lifeforce, level, and the requirements of the realm they’ve reached. As a result, most between Awakened and Divinity would be a match for another in the same rank. However, one facing an Irregular might meet an unfortunate surprise, given the right scenario.”
“That tracks. It’s how I’ve come to view things. Most of what I am, what I’ve become, it feels like luck.” Ori hesitated. “Even if I’ve got something going for me, I can’t help thinking others from my realm, our greatest warriors, sportsmen, leaders, would’ve survived, or even thrived, in my place. That I seem unusual to you is less about who I am, and more about what I’ve been through.”
Harriet’s gaze drifted to the floor. “Who’s to say you’re not thriving right now? While I won’t guess at numbers, many would be envious of your position. Access to the private workshops of a former Lunaesidhe Queen, and the undivided attention of its current figurehead.” Her eyes returned to him. “While you have challenges on your path, you don’t shy away, but accept them as they come. I can see why you are humble. You don’t believe in yourself, do you? Not truly. Perhaps you simply haven’t had the time to adapt to your changes. It is something I can relate to.”
“How do you mean?”
“How old do you think I am, Ori?”
“It’s hard to tell. If you were human, I’d say you're younger than me. Maybe the same age. I’m twenty-three summers old,” Ori said, once again feeling the succubus’s boon warp his language.
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“You are both right and wrong. Though I have lived twice as many summers, within High Elven society, and even on my Page in the Library, I am in my adolescence, while you’re considered an adult.” Harriet’s mouth tightened. “I am known in some quarters, quite unfavourably, as the Infant Queen. Some of this comes close to the circumstances around your summoning, but I feel it is important to know, if we are to understand each other.”
“Please. Go on,” Ori said.
“I expected, even looked forward to, hundreds of summers as a princess under my mother’s reign. Unfortunately, Fate had other plans, and now I’m facing the challenges she left behind, constantly feeling unprepared, unworthy, and if I must be honest, somewhat unwilling.”
“You don’t want to be Queen?” Ori asked, his view of her sharpening in ways that let him see her life through her eyes.
“It’s not that I do not wish to rule. I just don’t feel ready. But I must. It is who I am, who we are. Without a leader, this realm would devolve into infighting and needless bloodshed. I truly believe our bloodline is the right one to rule.”
“But you feel like your adolescence was stolen from you.”
“Yes. I wanted to be a princess, to travel this realm and many others, and truly understand cultures, both elven and beyond. Instead, I scarcely had time to grieve my mother before inauguration and naming.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. It is unseemly of me to lay such burdens on you. I only meant to say, I can understand not feeling worthy of the trials ahead.”
Ori nodded. “Thank you.” His mind drifted to the journal. “You know, if your mother’s exploits as a princess were anything to go by, it seems like she was pretty stifled by circumstances too…”
“My mother?” Harriet asked, visibly confused. “Don’t you mean grandmother?”
“Er, Arabella was your mother’s name, was it not?” Ori began.
Harriet stood and approached, her expression turning thunderous. “Show me.”
“Sure.” Ori stood, then reached for her mother’s journal. Its cover was unusually soft teal leather, worn with scratches and scuffs along the edges. Harriet opened it, her eyes scanning as she flipped faster and faster.
“You can read this? She signed this with her name?” Her voice went oddly fragile.
“Yeah,” Ori said, bewildered.
“I cannot.” She looked up, blinking hard. “What does it say?”
“It’s like a personal diary. I think she started it when your grandmother tried to teach her wandsmithing.”
“How can you read this? I don’t even know what language this is written in.”
Ori shrugged. “A trait, I think?”
Harriet closed the book, closed her eyes, then exhaled. She handed it back, then moved to the window, staring out over the garden, her gaze distant and unreadable. Still facing away, she spoke, her voice small. “Could you read it to me?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s no big deal,” Ori said.
“I ask so much of everyone. The ones I serve, the ones I depend on, and now the one I summon.”
Unsure of himself, Ori crossed half the distance between them, his mind a knot of thoughts. He wanted to solve her problems, but knew he couldn’t. He wanted to study and ignore this realm and its complications, but knew he wouldn’t. He wanted to offer support, but didn’t know how. Part of him feared his one critical vulnerability, his loneliness, was being exploited again by someone who wanted more than he could give.
His fists clenched. He forced himself past the fear and tried to see the world through her eyes.
“Okay, how about this, new rule. In this room, you’re just Harriet, or Anoriel, or whichever you prefer. You leave your crown outside the door and talk about whatever’s on your mind. As someone not from here, I won’t know anything about anything. I won’t judge. I can’t hold your opinions about so-and-so against you. So you can gossip and vent in as un-Queenly a way as you like.”
She turned back to him, eyes reddened, but with a gentle smile. “Could I cook for you as well?”
“Erm? Yes? You can absolutely cook for me if you want,” Ori said, shocked.
Harriet chuckled. “It was actually one of the things I initially wanted to talk to you about. Do you remember one of my classes being High Chef? Well, it’s been rare for me to progress my craft since my inauguration. As you might understand, not only has finding the time been difficult, but also… shall we say, finding a less biased audience?”
“Well, in that case, it would be my honour. You come here, complain about work, let your hair down, and in exchange, I get to taste your cooking.” Ori’s smile turned into a laugh as a thought struck him. “It almost sounds like we’re married.”
“Careful,” Harriet said, suppressing a radiant smile in a valiant attempt to look stricter than she felt. “Greater men have been gelded for such displays of over-familiarity and impertinence.”
“Yo, leave that ‘off with their heads’ queen vibe outside, yeah? Just be yourself, princess,” Ori said, and her laugh came easily now, the erstwhile queen looking less like a statue and more like a person.
“Thank you, Ori. That means a lot to me,” Harriet said. “I’ve never cooked for a human before, so this should be an interesting challenge. Now, about reading the journal. Sorry to press, but my mother left very little of her words behind, and I only knew her after she became Queen. So as you can imagine, I’m unreasonably eager to hear more about her, especially if you say she was still a princess when she wrote this.”
“Yeah, sure. Whenever you’re ready,” Ori said, picking up the journal, then sitting and making himself comfortable.
“Please. Go ahead.”
And so he did. For an hour, he read aloud from Arabella’s, or former Queen Iris’s, journal, starting with the perceived unfairness of taking up a craft she didn’t choose. That theme ran through most of it. There was also plenty of gossip about figures Harriet was scandalised to hear described so familiarly. Even Ori blushed as the journal edged towards details of an intimate encounter in the palace gardens.
“I think we can leave things there for now,” Harriet said, eyes bright with wonder and mirth despite her flushed expression.
Ori closed the book, only then realising they were barely a fifth of the way through. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for this.”
“It wasn’t a problem at all, actually. It was kind of fun.”
“Yes. Well, I should be going for now. Poppy will be here shortly for lunch and dinner, and I’ll return for luncheon tomorrow.” Harriet paused, noticing Ori’s wry smile. “What is it?”
Ori grinned, pleased with how quickly his memory had improved. “You’re right.”
“That’s typical,” she said, half through the doorway. “Though may I ask what I might be right about this time?”
“That many men would be envious of my current situation, especially having room service from two amazing women like yourselves,” Ori chuckled.
“Yes. One should hope you’ve finally come to appreciate your good fortune.” Harriet’s laughter echoed softly as she stepped out, her demeanour a million miles from when she’d entered.
“That was so surreal,” Ori said to himself in the silence that followed. Had he really been flirting with a Queen of the Moon Elves?
He picked up Gorren’s Introduction to Enchanting and slipped back into his reading trance.
As he read, Ori made connections, increasingly excited by what he was beginning to see as magical engineering. Then one particular passage left him shaken.
Our craft permeates every facet of Fate, from the animate to the inanimate, spanning healing and necromancy, racial evolution, and the workings of the Library of Fates. These rhythms are everywhere in nature, and learning to see them is the bedrock of enchanting.
Observation matters as much as creation. Mastery is not only the manipulation of energies and materials, but an understanding of where they come from and how they interact. Consider iron sand, found as riverbank deposits. Its alchemic and paracausal traits are shaped by local river processes, and reading those processes lets an enchanter predict what grade of spell iron can be smelted, and what it can best be used for.
The rhythm of enchanting, Shaping, Infusion, Inscribing, Refinement, Quickening, Naming, and Bonding is not a rigid sequence. Stages can change order, repeat, reverse, or fall away entirely depending on the work. This flexibility is where craft advances, and where new enchantments are discovered. Quickening and Inscribing in particular demand deft control of mana.
The same principle applies to wand-making. The Yewheart tree’s growth depends on soil, climate, and ley lines, and an enchanter who observes those conditions can harvest wood with the desired properties.
Even in alchemic smithing, refining is more than purification. Iron can be altered at a deep level, binding carbon and zinc with Aether to form Aetheric Steel, an alloy prized for resilience and affinity with mana and Grace. In advanced work such as Mana Forge, multiple stages can be executed in one action, combining Infusion, Refinement, and Shaping through breath, mana, and guided Aether.
Despite this, a primary refinement is required before such a process can begin, demonstrating its nature as the most important process.
Dormant connections flared, his powers of observation retroactively scouring old memories as they resurfaced:
‘…aspirants must first choose which of the three aspects to refine… Confirmed. Mind, Body and Soul aspects have been selected…’
‘…Reactant, Reagent, Catalysts, Mana, Carnis-Synthesis. You’ll become my eleventh masterwork, my fifty-eighth aspirant to successfully walk the Path, and my first complete flesh enchantment…’
‘Yes, you can add coke and limestone to iron in the blast furnace. A simple crucible won’t do. What I offer is a way of turning iron into steel, a medium stronger, tougher, more malleable and ductile, resistant to wear and corrosion, and easier to re-shape and spring back into form after duress… Except this isn’t mere iron we’ll be steelworking, lad. No. This time, it’ll be your soul.’
‘Refining where the iron is not only purified within a crucible…’
So far, others had dictated the process he’d unwittingly undergone, higher entities shaping him to their whims. Could enchanting be the key to controlling his own transformation?
Realising enchanting’s potential, Ori saw a path to independence. It was more than a craft. It was a means to self-determination, a way to escape being a pawn of higher powers. Embracing enchanting was about seizing control and manipulating fundamental forces to carve out his destiny. The realisation sparked determination in him, rebellion against even the possibility of being moulded into something weak or superficial. He refused to be a puppet or a curiosity, something to be used, then discarded.
It was time to take a stand, to build himself strong and complete. He would not be shaped by others. He would shape himself, his own way, on his own terms.
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