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Savior

-From the personal diary of Corinna Venwraith, Dawnbringer

I still remember when the voices started. It began as a tickle inside my ear.

Chapter 30

“Oh, no. No, no. No. No. No, no, no, no, what the hell are you doing?”

Backlit by the afternoon sun shining through the workshop door, Kato stood with his mouth open. It wasn’t his first instinct. That had been to drag Taly off the ladder where she was disassembling the suit of Mechanica armor he’d spent the last two days trying to piece together from rusty, mismatched parts.

Skye probably wouldn’t like that, so he didn’t. Barely.

Taly glanced up from where her body was half-inserted inside the breastplate. Her eyes met his for a brief moment. “I wanted to see how it works,” she said, her fingers deftly loosening another component from inside the armor’s chest cavity. The familiar hum of magical energy pulsed through the air as she carefully placed each piece on a velvet-lined workbench—ratcheted up to be within reach while on the ladder.

He would not shake her. He wouldnotshake her. He would not—you know, if this was what Skye was having to deal with, Kato could understand the brooding. If he’d invested so much in this woman, he’d spend most of his day questioning his choices too.

“Do you know how long it took me to piece that bastard together?” He gestured towards the half-disassembled suit hanging on the chassis, wires and fluid lines spilling out like entrails. “Hours, no,daysof scavenging parts from old, discarded suits. Hours more of meticulously fitting each piece together, aligning gears, and calibrating the magical conduits. Blood, sweat, and a fair amount of cursing went into that thing! And now you’re just taking it apart like it’s some kind of puzzle for a lazy afternoon.”

From inside the breastplate, Taly’s voice echoed, “And here I thought you were supposed to be the fun brother.”

“I am fun,” Kato shot back. “I just don’t let anyone who’s absolutely clueless get their fingers in my work.”

When she emerged, she held a glowing crystal core in her hand. “Arcane stabilizer, quadrant B3, subsection delta-seven,” she called out.

Calcifer perched on a nearby bench, a smaller, ganglier version of his usual feline form. He used his tail like a quill, scribbling down the location in a small notebook.

“Wait.” Kato pointed. “That thing understands language?”

“He can copy almost any lexicon I show him, though it’s unclear if he has any understanding of what it is.”

Her hair, tied back in a messy bun, framed a face marked by focus and determination. A pair of brass-framed goggles with multi-lensed attachments rested on her forehead, and she wore a fitted leather apron, its many pockets brimming with an assortment of tools, from tiny screwdrivers to etching wands.

Taly laid the arcane stabilizer carefully on the velvet-lined bench. Beside it, laid out in neat rows, were gears and cogs, runic panels, an assortment of valve assemblies, and countless other pieces. She was dismantling the suit down to the bolts!

“Don’t make that face,” Taly said. “Skye makes that face when he wants me toknowhe’s angry, but it only makes him look constipated. And besides, Ghislain is always so stingy with its tech. How could I not take a chance to get my hands on one of these things when it so conveniently presented itself?”

Kato continued to glare, unrelenting.

“I’ll put everything back exactly where I found it. You have my word.” Then she disappeared back inside the breastplate.

Kato sighed and rubbed his thumb between his brows. She could snap her fingers and undo it in a moment. He just had to keep reminding himself of that fact…

“I’m looking for my brother,” he began. “You know, tall, annoying, probably brooding about the meaning of life somewhere? Have you seen him?”

“Nope,” she said from inside the chassis.

“Funny. You smell a lot like him. Been rolling around in more than just enchantment dust, have we?”

Taly paused, a slight flush creeping up the back of her neck, but she didn’t rise to his bait. “I’m busy, Kato. And he’s not here. I haven’t seen him since he left for Eula’s midday meeting.”

Kato was old enough to know that when a woman told him, “I’m busy,” it really meant “go away.”

But he didn’t.

He wasn’t sure what caught his attention, but it held.

Taly worked with a grace that was… mesmerizing. Something he could easily concede even as she created more work for him. Her fingers, stained with oil and aether residue, danced over the armor’s surface, loosening bolts and revealing the inner workings he knew so well. He’d spent half his life exactly where she was now, with his head inside one of these things.