The final note of the Royal Horn hung in the air, a deep, multi-tonal vibration that rattled the stained-glass windows of the library.

  Arthur stood still, his hand resting on the reading table. The brief, orange spark had already vanished from his fingertip.

  Before he could process the sound, the heavy oak doors of the library cracked open. Layla slipped inside; her usually composed demeanor was gone; she was slightly breathless, her eyes wide with a quiet, suppressed panic.

  “Young Master Oliver,” she said, her voice a hushed, urgent whisper as she crossed the room. “The Royal Messenger has arrived with an armed escort of the King’s Guard.”

  Arthur turned to face her. “Where is my father?”

  “Lord Roderick has ordered the entire third floor locked down. He is convening a council in the meeting room,” Layla explained. “You are not to wander the upper halls under any circumstances. Please, stay here or return to your quarters.”

  Arthur looked at her tense expression, then offered a slow, compliant nod. “I understand Layla. I won’t cause any trouble.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief, hurrying back out to manage the frantic household.

  Arthur watched the doors click shut. His compliant smile slipped away, replaced by a calculating stare.

  He wondered if the sudden arrival of the Royal Messenger had anything to do with him.

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  Three floors above, the air in the meeting room was suffocating.

  Roderick Ashborn sat at the head of the massive obsidian table, his hands clasped tightly. On his two sides were his two advisors and the Ashborn’s Chief Forge Master. Viscountess Sylvia was notably absent; as a Lunalar, her presence during a direct Royal audit would be a fatal political misstep.

  Standing at the opposite end of the table was the Royal Messenger.

  He wore the pristine, silver-threaded silk of the Capital, his chin raised in an expression of absolute, untouchable smugness.

  “The decree is absolute, Viscount Ashborn,” he said, unrolling a parchment stamped with the golden seal of the King. “The Eastern Dukes have filled a formal grievance regarding the delayed shipments of Umbral Iron. You have exactly seven days to deliver the promised quota of refined ore to the Capital. Should you fail, the King will revoke your mining charter entirely.”

  “Seven days?” The Forge Master slammed his fist onto the table. “That is a death sentence! The ore from the lower veins is currently saturated with void taint! It’s fused to the ... completely. When we put it in the blast furnaces, the taint reacts to the extreme heat by devouring the metal. The ... melts before the corruption burns away!”

  “The king does not care for your excuses, Master Smith,” the official replied, his lips curving into a thin, mocking smile. “The king cares for results. Seven days, Lord Roderick. Or the Ashborn legacy ends with you.”

  With a shallow, mocking bow, the Messenger turned and left the meeting room. Roderick remained in his chair, staring at the closed doors. The silence in the room was heavier than iron.

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  Dusk bled into the library, casting long shadows across the bookshelves.

  Arthur had ignored the political chaos echoing through the ceilings. For hours, he had focused on the diagram mapped out on his parchment, trying to test his theory.

  He tried to bypass the zigzagging biological radiator of his arm, attempting to manually isolate a fraction of mana at his core and force it down the micro-circuit. But mana wasn’t electricity; it was a volatile fluid.

  He struggled to control the pressure. The mana either slipped—surging too fast and causing a throbbing ache in his arm—or just stagnated.

  Fzzzt. A spark of blue ignited over his finger, but it flickered violently and died almost instantly.

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  “Damn it. "This is ridiculous." Arthur exhaled a heavy, frustrated breath, rubbing his chest. The logic was right, but the control over his core was severely lacking. He needed to study the mechanics of the core itself, not just the pathways.

  Exhausted, Arthur folded his parchment and left the library.

  The corridors of the Estate were quiet. As Arthur turned the corner toward the first floor, he paused. A few yards down the hall, Layla was standing with a junior maid, holding a basket of folded linens.

  “-- I’m telling you, it was a nightmare,” Layla was whispering fiercely. “That foul beast’s blood is like black tar. I used boiling water first, thinking the heat would wash the monster's filth right out.”

  “Did it work?” the younger maid asked.

  “Work? It nearly ruined the Young Master clothes!” Layla sighed, “The heat just baked the blood straight into the linen. I had to soak it in a basin of freezing water and scrub it with lye soap until the blood cracked apart.”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow.

  Boiling water baked it in. Freezing water and alkaline soap cracked it apart. It was a fascinating chemical reaction. He filed the information away in the back of his mind, stepping out of the shadows and continuing quietly toward his room.

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  Evening descended over the estate.

  The grand dining hall was fully seated, yet the silence was absolute. Roderick sat at the head of the table, looking like a hollowed-out ghost. Beside him, Cecilia picked nervously at her food. Across the table, Viscountess Sylvia and Elara maintained a polite, rigid silence, perfectly aware that this was a crisis they could not legally interfere with.

  Arthur sat quietly, with Aria next to him.

  The modest dinner tasted like ash. Arthur pushed a piece of roasted meat around his plate, observing the tension. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, laced with the careful hesitation of a concerned son.

  “Father?”

  Roderick blinked, pulling himself out of his dark reverie. He looked at Arthur, trying to force a reassuring smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Yes, Oliver. What is it?”

  “What did the Messenger want?” Arthur asked, his tone perfectly innocent.

  Roderick sighed, too exhausted to hide it. “The king had given us a seven-day ultimatum. We deliver the refined ore, or we lose the mining rights.”

  “But can’t we just prepare the order and deliver it?” Arthur pressed gently.

  “After the rampage, the Void-taint corrupted the Umbral Iron. When we try to smelt it, the heat required to burn the taint ends up melting the iron alongside it. It’s an impossible task.” Roderick said, his voice thick with defeat.

  Arthur took a slow sip of his water and set the crystal glass down.

  “You know, I heard Layla complaining earlier in the hall,” he said, looking up. “She was talking about my clothes from the woods. She said when she tried to wash the void-beast's blood out with hot water, the heat just fused the taint deeper into the fabric.”

  Cecilia looked confused by the sudden talk about laundry, but Sylvia's eyes slightly narrowed, her sharp mind catching the parallel.

  “But then she said she changed her method,” Arthur continued, his voice steady. “She soaked the fabric in freezing water and scrubbed it with lye soap. It cracked right off, like magic.” Arthur finished the sentence with a perfectly childish smile.

  The silence in the dining hall shifted.

  Roderick’s eyes widened upon the potential realization; the exhaustion vanished from his face, replaced by a wild, desperate hope.

  “I will excuse myself now. Continue dinner without me." He said abruptly before shouting for the guards to summon the Chief Forge Master.

  Viscountess Sylvia stared at the empty doorway, then slowly turned her gaze to Arthur. There was a profound calculating depth in her eyes. Arthur simply returned to eating his meal, acting as though he had merely relayed a servant’s gossip.

  By the heavy double doors of the dining hall, Marcus stood guard.

  The High Mage hadn’t said a single word. But Marcus’s eyes lingered on the back of Arthur’s head.

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  An hour later, Arthur walked the quiet, moonlit corridors back toward his bedroom.

  He stopped by a tall glass window overlooking the inner courtyards. Down below, bathed in silver starlight, he saw Marcus standing in the gardens with his daughter, Aria. The High Mage was pointing up the constellations, tracing the shapes in the sky. Aria was smiling, laughing quietly at something her father said.

  Arthur watched them through the glass.

  Suddenly, a sharp, suffocating pang hit his chest. It had nothing to do with his mana core.

  An unbidden memory surfaced—a fragmented image from a world light-years away. The smell of engine oil and coffee. A cramped garage bathed in a yellowish light. A man with grease on his hands, laughing as he handed a much younger Arthur a wrench.

  “You have to look at the whole system, kid. Not just the broken part.” As the grief flared, Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.

  He opened, and then after a moment, the grief hardened into cold, unyielding resolve. He would find a way back home.

  Arthur turned his back on the starlit garden and walked into the darkness of the hallway, heading straight to his room.

  (To be continued...)

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