Chapter 35

  Ren woke to noise.

  Not the usual background hum of the forest camp, but the sharp, controlled chaos of a military machine shaking itself awake.

  Voices barked orders. Warriors practiced at the range. Boots pounded against packed earth, rhythmic and heavy. The sounds of the Order awakening.

  The entire feel of the camp had changed overnight.

  Shadow-Initiates moved in disciplined lines, each carrying sealed satchels or freshly oiled weapons. The ones above them — the Writ-Bound, maybe thirty or forty strong — stood in tight formation near the southern cliff, receiving final orders. They wore reinforced leathers marked with fractal-threaded emblems and carried wands, blades, or hybrid tools strapped to their backs.

  Ren had never seen so much firepower in one place.

  And I’m not going with them, he reminded himself. I’m staying behind. Cooking.

  He forced the sour taste of envy down and turned toward the quartermaster’s tent — one of the few permanent structures in the camp, built into the rock face with enchanted iron supports and thick stone walls.

  The entrance was guarded by two Writ-Bound, each wearing identical bone-white cloaks trimmed in black. They didn’t stop him, just nodded and stepped aside.

  Inside, the noise shifted from drills and shouting to focused clanking and hissed spellfire. The Quartermaster’s Hall was bigger than it looked from the outside — an entire circular chamber hollowed out from stone, sectioned off by heavy steel partitions and glowing runes.

  There were racks of gear everywhere: enchanted blades lined in velvet trays, armor pieces floating in stabilizing arrays, magical talismans soaking in jars of faintly pulsing liquid.

  And at the far end, the artificers.

  He saw five of them — three human, one scaled dragon-kin, and a stout dwarf.

  The dwarf glanced up as Ren approached and grunted. “Saito, yeah? You’re early.”

  “Wanted to see it,” Ren said. “The arm.”

  The dwarf gestured to a thick obsidian table nearby. A shape rested under a gray tarp, faintly humming with embedded runes.

  “Prototype Unit Nine,” the dwarf said. “Latest revision. Fully modular. Bonded alloy exo-sleeve over a core-threaded skeleton. Adaptive grip, pressure response, even sensory nodes. Doesn’t look like a real arm — we’d have needed to add too much weight for that — but it’ll respond like one. Stronger, too. And far tougher than meat.”

  He flipped the tarp off with a casual swipe.

  Ren stared.

  It was beautiful — in the way swords or thunderstorms were beautiful. Matte-black metal, etched with faint silver traces like veins. The fingers were fully articulated, ending in slightly curved tips. No nails, no fake skin, no illusion of humanity — just smooth, functional precision.

  It looked like something meant for the battlefield.

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  The dwarf walked over and tapped the socket joint. “We’ll calibrate it to your mana and those Threads of yours, bond it to your shoulder stub using this anchor over here, and then we should be all set.”

  The cold-looking dragon-kin added, “Don’t worry — we tested this on six other initiates. Only two of them screamed during the procedure.”

  Ren didn’t laugh.

  “She’s joking,” the dwarf said, then shrugged. “Mostly.”

  One of the humans came over holding a tray of thin, glowing needles. “These bad boys will calibrate to your specific mana composition. You’ll need to spend the next few days getting used to it, and even then, it’ll take a bit longer to fully sync. You’re not going to be punching holes in steel right away, but by raid day, you’ll be serviceable.”

  Ren ran a hand through his hair and gave a short nod.

  “I’m ready.”

  The dwarf snorted. “Nobody’s ready for the first graft. But at least you’re not whining.”

  Then the pain came — hot, precise, and laced with a chilling cold that almost felt like it was burning him. But Ren couldn't cry out. He wouldn’t. He needed to prove he was ready.

  He gritted his teeth and focused on the metal hand as it locked into place. A soft hiss escaped the seams, and the anchor fused with his shoulder stub like molten wax hardening into shape. Runes flared once, then dimmed. The world tilted slightly—his balance thrown off as the arm's weight and input flooded into his nerves all at once.

  “Alright,” the dwarf muttered, half to himself, checking a glowing slate. “Mana channels are reacting nicely. Give it a flex.”

  Ren raised the arm. Slowly. The fingers moved a second later, a half-beat of lag that already irritated him. The movement wasn’t graceful—it felt like trying to guide water through a cracked pipe—but the fingers curled. They responded. He could feel the resistance, the strength in them. It wasn’t like his old arm. It wasn’t him. But it was close.

  “Lag will clean up once it syncs,” said the human with the needles. “You’ll want to start with small movements. Gripping, twisting, holding. No high-load use until we give you the clear.”

  “You’ll also want to test how much mana it draws passively,” added the dragon-kin, tapping a pressure rune near the wrist. “We reinforced the frame, so you shouldn’t bleed through Mana or you Threads unless you really overdraw.”

  Ren turned the wrist slightly, watching silver traces glow along the palm, then fade again.

  “Ten days, right?” he asked. “Until the cave team leaves?”

  The dwarf raised an eyebrow. “Nine and a half now, technically.”

  “Then let’s get started.”

  He spent the rest of the day inside the quartermaster’s hall. Every hour was a storm of small adjustments—learning the arm’s tolerances, pushing the edge of movement until the feedback stopped feeling foreign. They gave him practice tools: weighted stones, enchanted grip testers, delicate glass vials if held too tight. Ren broke three. Then stopped breaking any.

  He didn’t eat until evening. Didn’t speak much, either. Just moved and moved and moved, running drills until the lag began to fade. Until the metal fingers flexed almost at the same time he thought to move them. It would never be perfect. It would never be the same. But he didn’t need it to be. He just needed it to work.

  By dusk, the artificers had mostly cleared out. The dwarf tossed him a wrapped ration and told him not to pass out. Ren muttered thanks and stepped outside, blinking against the red-orange horizon.

  The camp was even busier now. Training circles had been marked into the rock with chalk. Spells and barriers shimmered in the distance where the casters practiced in tight groups. Smoke curled from the northern wing, where alchemists were being pushed to the brink preparing potions of all kinds.

  Ren felt like he was seeing the Order for the first time. Not the cozy forest base he’d stumbled into when Ethan saved him—this was a war machine. A sharpened point being leveled at something too dangerous to leave untouched.

  And he had a place in it. Maybe not on the front lines. But important.

  The food he made mattered. The right dish, the right infusion, the right mana attunement could mean the difference between a team surviving the first engagement… or not making it past the entrance.

  Ten days.

  He had ten days to refine everything he knew.

  He took a deep breath, flexed his new arm one more time, and walked toward the provisioning tent.

  Time to cook.