Cale followed Master Ulbart’s instructions precisely, tipping three drops of the shimmering pale liquid onto the infant’s tongue. The baby stirred but didn’t cry, the fevered flush in his cheeks softening ever so slightly.

  The house was still, the fire crackling low in the hearth. While he waited for Desmun, Cale decided to enjoy the time he had left with Moon, Lira, Veyra, and Senn.

  Even Xentar was present, his green glow drifting zily near the rafters, eyeing the girls with curiosity.

  "Do you want to hear a story," Cale asked, his voice carrying just enough mischief, "about a great and powerful unicorn that once ruled a forgotten forest?"

  Xentar’s light brightened at the mention.

  All eyes turned to him.

  "Please do!" Lira said, her voice full of excitement.

  Even Senn, who wore suspicion like armor, leaned forward, curiosity gleaming in her silver eyes.

  Cale began, recalling one of the tales Xentar had told him—though he wove it in his own words.

  He spoke of a unicorn born beneath the silver moon, so radiant and fierce that the spirits of the forest bowed before him. He told of a beast with hooves of lightning and a mane woven from starlight, who once faced down a fme serpent the size of a castle and emerged victorious.

  The girls gasped and clung to each other in suspense, ughing as Cale gave the unicorn a thunderous voice and a fir for dramatic heroism.

  Even Moon silently giggled, her hand over her mouth, her silent joy more vibrant than any word.

  When he finished, Xentar huffed theatrically.

  "You’ve got a decent memory," he said, hovering near Cale’s shoulder, "but the story cked a little spark. Next time, mention more about how devastatingly handsome and terrifying I was."

  Cale smirked.

  He turned to Meli, who was still by the window, peering out into the street with the baby in her arms.

  "Meli, do you have a chess set?"

  All the girls’ heads turned toward her.

  She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then walked to a shelf, rummaged for a moment, and returned with a wooden box.

  Cale opened it carefully. Inside were small, round wooden tokens etched with faded symbols.

  "I want to py with you," Senn said quickly, stepping forward with excitement.

  Chess was something she used to py often with her father. Her competitive spirit gleamed in her eyes like a bde.

  Cale nodded and began setting the pieces on the board.

  "Can I be white?" she asked.

  "Of course," he said with a soft smile.

  As she made the first move, a memory stirred.

  "Brother, you know why you never beat me at Kaelmir’s Circle?"

  The voice was deep—like grinding granite.

  A massive stone hand nded on the metallic, ornate table beside the board, as heavy and inevitable as fate.

  Brother stood there—tall, armored in obsidian and crystal, his gaze sharp as cut steel.

  He looked up, waiting.

  The elder’s hand reached for the carved pieces. They looked almost alive, shifting faintly as if caught between time.

  The white piece took the bck one.

  "It’s because you focus too much on keeping all your pieces," his brother said, his voice steady and knowing.

  He hummed, thoughtful.

  A knock sounded at the massive, metallic door.

  Then—the memory shattered.

  In the present, Cale blinked—his breath catching as the memory dissolved like smoke. His heart pounded once, hard.

  “Cale? Are you alright?” Lira asked gently, her hand resting on his shoulder.

  He turned to her, slow and dazed, his gaze momentarily unfocused. “What happened?” he asked, blinking again as if waking from a dream.

  “You just… froze,” Meli said from across the room, concern softening her usual sharpness. “You stared at the board and didn’t move a muscle.”

  Cale let out a shaky breath and forced a faint smile. “I… I might just be tired. Sorry. Didn’t mean to worry anyone.”

  Behind him, Desmun’s voice came low and calm. “Then maybe we can talk tomorrow.”

  Cale shook his head. “No. I can do it. I just need a moment.”

  He straightened slowly, pushing the weight of the memory down into the quiet pce it came from.

  “But what about our game?” Senn asked, arms crossed, lips in a tight little pout.

  Cale looked at her for a moment and sat back down, reached for a piece, and moved one of the bck tokens gently across the board.

  Senn narrowed her eyes at it. Then her mouth parted slightly. She stared.

  “I lost…” she whispered, more stunned than disappointed.

  Then she looked at him, silver eyes wide with something that wasn’t quite sadness or admiration, but a deep, unspoken respect.

  Cale gave her a small, crooked smile.

  “You almost had me,” he said.

  Senn’s shoulders rose, and she turned her face, but not before he saw the faint color touch her cheeks.

  Moon watched it all, her hands folded quietly in her p, a soft smile blooming on her face.

  They left the pce, Desmun guiding him.

  "Wait," Cale said. "I need to do something first."

  Desmun stopped and offered a nod.

  Cale walked to a nearby bcksmith. Desmun watched as the boy haggled with the bcksmith for a wooden box of scrap metal, then returned carrying it in both arms.

  "For what do you need this metal?" Desmun asked. He was not the curious type, but he had never heard of Spirit Bending. After spending the night trying to find something—anything—about it, and finding nothing, even he could allow himself a moment of curiosity.

  "You will see," Cale said simply.

  Desmun didn’t press further.

  After a bit of walking, they stepped into an abandoned building and climbed to the second floor. The pce had clearly once been a shop or an apartment—sunlight filtered in through cracked and dust-caked windows, casting long shadows across the room. The wooden floor creaked with each step, worn and warped by time. Shattered furniture y discarded in corners, and the air smelled faintly of old smoke and mildew.

  Cale pced the box in the corner of the room and sat down in the middle of the floor.

  Desmun stood by the window, sharp eyes scanning outside, though part of his attention remained on Cale. He said nothing as the boy closed his eyes and began.

  Cale reached inward, calling out, seeking the soul of Flora—Desmun’s wife.

  Minutes passed.

  Desmun shifted restlessly, his gaze flicking from the window to Cale’s still form. The boy sat cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees, face calm, eyes closed.

  With every passing minute, the faint flicker of hope Desmun had felt when Cale made his promise began to wane. The thought that he might see her again—his Flora, after all these years—had stirred something in him. But the silence stretched on, and doubt crept in.

  The sun rose high, casting golden light into the room.

  He had come earlier than agreed to pick Cale up from Meli’s home—something very uncharacteristic of him. But he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t sleep. Almost twenty years had passed since he had seen her st.

  Then—

  "She is here," Cale said, his blue eyes opening slowly.

  "Where?" Desmun said, his voice sharp, eyes scanning the room.

  The metal in the wooden box stirred. It clinked softly, then louder, as if breathing. It began to rise, melting and folding in on itself, forming limbs, a torso, a neck. A human shape.

  The face shifted st. Gentle curves shaped the cheeks, the familiar line of a jaw, a delicate nose, and soft, full lips. Her brow was slightly furrowed, just as it always was when she was concerned.

  It was Flora’s face.

  Her hair, formed of shimmering strands of thin metal, fell across her shoulders like liquid silver. The construct opened its eyes. They burned with a pale blue-white fire—calm, but impossibly alive.

  "Flora?" Desmun breathed. He stepped forward, his movements slow, disbelieving.

  The construct stepped forward as well, one foot after the other, with a grace that mirrored her old self. Then she reached out.

  Her arms wrapped around him.

  Not stiff, not cold—not like metal. Somehow warm. Somehow familiar.

  Desmun’s breath caught. His knees gave way as the years of grief, silence, and longing crashed over him like a tidal wave. His arms gripped her tightly, terrified she would vanish. His calloused hand cupped the back of her metallic head as if it were flesh and bone.

  "It’s really you," he whispered, voice cracking.

  The construct leaned in, and though her mouth did not move, a whisper stirred in his mind, tender and unmistakably hers.

  "I never stopped watching you."

  Desmun broke.

  Tears spilled freely down his face as he held her, as if trying to press twenty years of silence into a single embrace.

  He allowed himself to feel whole again, for the first time in decades.

  He buried his face into the crook of her neck—metal or not, it carried her warmth. The scent wasn’t there, the softness was gone, but the essence, the soul, was undeniably hers. He clung to her as if letting go would rip her away again.

  Flora’s arms tightened, her head resting gently against his shoulder. The fire in her eyes dimmed slightly, becoming soft embers. Her spirit, bound within the vessel Cale had formed, shimmered with emotion.

  "You’ve grown older," her voice murmured in his mind again, ced with love. "Your hair is graying. But your heart… it’s still the same."

  Desmun let out a choking ugh between sobs. "I thought I’d forgotten your voice… But I didn’t. Not for a day. Not for a second."

  She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him. Her metal fingers brushed against the tears on his cheek. "I missed you. Every day. I watched you walk through winters. I screamed for you."

  He took her hands and pressed them against his chest. "Let me make up for them—all of them."

  Cale, silent at the center of the room. He said nothing, but the room around him shimmered with a quiet reverence—as if the very world understood what had just taken pce.

  Two souls, once torn apart by death, were together again.

  Even if only for a little while.

  Desmun’s gaze moved to Cale, and without a word, he understood. He stood up and walked quietly down the stairs.

  "Take your time," he said softly.

  Cale remained seated on an old, splintered chair, staring down at his trembling hands. The memory of what had happened earlier pressed on him like a weight. The vision. The stillness. The fear.

  Would this begin to happen more often?

  Was he going insane?

  "What’s with that face?" Xentar’s voice drifted through the quiet.

  Cale blinked, lifting his gaze slightly. "I... I feel like I’m losing myself, Xentar," he whispered, voice low and frayed at the edges. He hated sounding weak, but the truth was too heavy to carry alone. He needed to speak it—just once.

  "When I froze at the table, I had another vision," he continued, flexing his fingers, opening and closing them as if testing their grip on reality. "I was pying a game—Kaelmir’s Circle, like chess—with a figure armored in obsidian and crystal. His gaze was sharp as cut steel. It’s never happened like that before. Usually, I only see them in dreams. But this time... I was awake. Wide awake. I’m scared, Xentar. Scared I’ll lose who I am."

  Xentar hovered closer, his spectral form pulsing with a soft, silver light.

  "That sounds rough," the unicorn spirit said with a tilt of his ghostly head. "Sorry I can’t fix it. I’m just the spirit of a very handsome unicorn, after all."

  A shaky chuckle slipped from Cale’s lips—fragile, but real.

  "That’s the first time I’ve heard you ugh," said the Oracle.

  His gaze shifted toward her.

  She stood poised, graceful as ever, seated on an ivory chair like a statue carved by moonlight. Her presence was strange—always strange—but there was something grounding about it, something that pulled emotions from pces deep inside him he didn’t know existed.

  His gaze turned to the sky. Deep hues of indigo and crimson bled together on the horizon. A soft breeze moved through the terrace, catching her long, blue hair and lifting it gently.

  Then—

  Cale blinked rapidly.

  "It happened again," he murmured as he stood.

  "Happened what?" Xentar asked, puzzled.

  "Another vision," Cale replied. "I was standing on a metallic terrace. A woman stood beside me. She had blue hair... wore a dress made of crystal. She was making me ugh."

  Xentar hesitated. "Maybe you need some sleep."

  Cale shook his head. "No. I need answers."

  He walked slowly back to the center of the room. Lowering himself to the floor, he crossed his legs, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

  The world fell away.

  The air seemed to hold its breath.

  His heartbeat slowed, echoing like a drum in the vast hollow of his chest. Thoughts dissolved into quiet. Down, down he sank—past memory, past pain—into the marrow of his soul.

  He was falling.

  Or rising.

  Light and shadow spiraled at the edges of his awareness. The warmth of ughter brushed against him. Then the chill of something older—sorrow so deep it had no bottom. A name. A whisper. A feeling. So close, yet just out of reach.

  And then—

  A flicker.

  Not just a memory.

  A presence.

  He moved down a corridor vast as a canyon, the ceiling so high it vanished into shadow. The walls and floors were forged from interwoven veins of metal—copper, silver, bronze, and iron—flowing like rivers frozen in pce. Crystalline gems pulsed gently from the walls, casting pale glows like consteltions. From above, luminescent stones twinkled like stars in a manmade sky.

  A massive crystal door stood before him. It groaned open, revealing a chamber he had seen countless times.

  It was vast and silent, its heart carved from ancient stone and embedded with crystals of every hue—amethyst, emerald, sapphire, ruby. They shimmered from pilrs, crawled across the floors like frozen lightning, and hung from the ceiling like jagged chandeliers. Every step he took echoed softly, reverently.

  At the far end stood a throne of raw crystal, faceted and jagged, casting prismatic light across the chamber. Upon it sat his brother—armored in obsidian and violet crystal, towering and terrible in silence.

  He approached the throne and dropped to one knee.

  "You are changing, brother," the figure said, voice deep and cold. "She has poisoned your mind."

  He said nothing. The accusation was true.

  "I have decided. You are forbidden from seeing her again. She will be locked away, her name erased from your tongue. You will never speak to her, never y eyes on her again."

  A pause.

  "As you command, brother," he said, his head bowed low.

  But inside, he could feel the anger rise—slow and relentless. It coiled around his soul like smoke, whispering defiance.

  Cale’s eyes snapped open.

  "Did you have another vision?" Xentar asked.

  "Yeah," Cale said, his voice distant as he looked at his hands. He sat back in the chair, silent, the weight of what he had seen lingering. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, golden light bleeding across the floorboards. The time to meet Ardan was approaching.

  He stood and ascended the stairs.

  Desmun and Flora were sitting in the corner of the room. Desmun rested with his back against the wall, his arms wrapped protectively around Flora’s metallic form. Her glowing eyes were dim now, like twilight stars.

  Cale hesitated.

  "Sorry... but I need to leave," he said softly.

  Desmun’s face fell in an instant, the small smile he'd worn shattering like brittle gss. He looked down at Flora and gripped her a little tighter.

  "So... this is it?" he asked, his voice cracking. "She'll vanish when you go?"

  Cale blinked, then understood. Desmun believed this was a one-time miracle.

  "I can call her anytime," Cale said gently. "Her spirit is around you. I just need to be here to maintain the construct."

  Desmun swallowed hard.

  "Or," Cale added, "I can bind her to an object. That way you can speak with her—even when I’m not around."

  Desmun reached into his shirt and pulled out a string neckce. On it hung a small, silver ring—worn smooth by time.

  "Can you bind her to this? It’s her ring," he said, voice trembling. "She wore it the day I asked her to marry me."

  Cale nodded and took the ring. He closed his eyes, focusing. The soft wisp of Flora’s spirit drifted gently from the construct, her form dissolving into shimmering mist. The mist curled into the silver ring, which pulsed once with a soft blue-white light.

  Desmun took the ring back with shaking hands. He clutched it tightly, then held it to his chest.

  "Yes, love, I’m here," he whispered, as her voice echoed in his mind—soft, warm, and unmistakably hers.

  He opened his eyes, glistening with tears, and looked at Cale.

  "Thank you... for everything you’ve done for me today," he said. "To hear Flora’s voice after all these years—it feels like a dream I never thought would come true. I don’t know how I can repay you. But I will. I’ll give you everything I can."

  Cale shook his head.

  "You don’t need to pay me," he said. "I didn’t do it for that. I just... wanted to help."

  Desmun stepped forward, pced a hand on Cale’s shoulder, his grip firm with gratitude and sorrow.

  He left without another word, footsteps slow and heavy. The wooden stairs groaned under his weight, echoing like a quiet farewell.

  And Cale stood there for a moment longer, watching the fading light, wondering what it truly meant to carry the weight of another’s soul.

  AnnouncementSmall Update – A Change in Schedule

  Hey everyone! Just a quick update: I'll be reducing the posting schedule for Steel Lord from 4–5 chapters a week to just 2 chapters weekly going forward.

  I've decided to shift some of my focus to another story that will gain more traction. That said, I’m not abandoning Steel Lord—I still pn to finish it, just at a slower and more sustainable pace.

  I’ll be honest: Steel Lord hasn’t performed as well as I hoped, and I want to be transparent with you all. But I still deeply care about this world and these characters—and for those of you who stuck with it, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  If you’ve been following the story, I’d really love to hear your thoughts. What worked for you? What didn’t? Don’t hold back—your honest feedback helps me grow and tells me what to improve.

  Thanks again for reading this far. Your support means the world to me.

  —Lord Turtle