“Is it just me, or does Master Willhem look happy today?”

“Happy?” Victor scoffed. “I’m not sure if the old man even knows how to smile.”

He leaned closer to his fellow apprentice, Artin.

“In fact, I heard a rumour that he pushed all the knowledge of joy, happiness and love from his mind, purged it from his brain in order to become a better Arcanist.”

Artin shoved him off.

“Don’t you have work to do, Vic?”

“Me? I completed all of my assigned tasks last night!”

“Last night? Did spending so much time with the Night Owl rub off on you after all?”

“Please don’t compare me to that guy,” Victor rolled his eyes. “All he knows how to do is work. Last time I saw him at his shop, he looked like death itself. He eats, breaths and drinks magick.”

“Which is what you should do too!” A thin, squirrely voice pierced through them, and the two apprentices snapped around to see their Master glaring at them from behind.

“Talented, but lazy, just like so many who’ve come through my doors,” Master Willhem poked Victor in the side with his walking stick.

“You must admit, I’ve been putting in more effort lately, Master,” Victor spluttered as he tried to fend off the nimble stick. “My studies have been advancing steadily as well.”

“It’s about time,” the Master grunted, before he turned his glare on Artin. “And you…”

“Me?” the young Arcanist squawked, gesturing to his workbench and pliance. “I’ve been working this whole time!”

“You call this work?” Willhem snapped. “Your sigils are sloppy, poorly aligned, this Ruohm isn’t even in the right place! Are you trying to ruin the reputation of my shop?”

“Ah…” Artin stared down at the core through his glass, “... well… damn. But this isn’t for sale, Master Willhem, this is my own project.”

“If your projects are garbage, then what does that say about my workshop?” Willhem retorted. “You’re a long way from completing your apprenticeship with rubbish like that.”

The old Master continued down the line, poking and scolding his apprentices as he went. Artin stared at his work even harder before he slumped back with a groan.

“How can he even see that? I’ve been scraping away at this damn thing all morning and I thought it was fine.”

Victor rested a hand on his shoulder and shook his head in pity.

“That old man is one of the greatest Arcanists the province has ever produced. There’s almost no chance he doesn’t have an enchanting related Mystery. Possibly two. I think poorly formed runes stand out to him like a bad smell. That’s why he always enjoyed Lukas’ work, that guy was always so precise in his work it probably smelled like a bouquet of roses.”

Suddenly he snapped his fingers.

“Of course! I recognise that pep in his step now. Lukas must be coming.”

“The Night Owl?” Artis wonders. “Why would he be coming? He already completed his apprenticeship.”

“Probably wants to nose through the Master’s books and get some advice.”

If you couldn’t find Arcanist knowledge in Master Willhem’s library, then it probably didn’t exist in the Western Province.

“Oh, speak of the kin and they shall appear,” Victor observed as a shadow darkened the door to the workshop.

The door opened, and the dark-eyed, blond-haired face of Lukas Almsfield appeared. Once again, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“Lukas,” Victor greeted him cheerfully, “you look like shit.”

“Vic,” his friend replied, “you look stupid. How are things working out between you and Lady Shan?”

“Well enough,” Victor demurred. “She is charmed by me, as all people are. It’s difficult, being this handsome and successful, but I bear the burden as best I can.”

“Uh-huh,” Lukas said, not really paying attention. “Is Master Willhem about? I sent a message letting him know I’d be in today.”

Victor and Artis shared a significant look before the latter replied.

“I think he went upstairs a few moments ago. He was down here scolding us not long before you arrived.”

“Scolding you?” Lukas frowned, then leaned forward and inspected the core under the glass. After a moment, he winced and shook his head. “You can do a lot better than this, Artis….”

“I’ve already heard it from the Master, I don’t need to hear it from you too!” the apprentice groused, flinging his arms into the air.

“He’s a bit sensitive about it,” Victor whispered, loudly, to his friend.

“Sorry if I hit a nerve,” Lukas replied, sounding not the least bit sorry. He continued to peer into the glass. “It’s just… are you drunk? Have you been concussed lately? These lines are…”

“Fine! Fine!” Artis grumbled as he snatched the core and shoved it into a drawer containing several other failures. “I’ll start again!”

Before Victor could say something encouraging, Lukas nodded and said: “Good idea, that one was terrible. Nice to see you both. Victor, Artis.”

He waved to the two of them and then found his way upstairs. It was uncomfortable for Tyron, being back in the workshop. Many of the apprentices still toiling away at their benches, doing bitwork and simple commissions for the Willhem commercial empire, had been there when he graduated. Over a third of them had been there before he’d even started. Still they ground away, using what free time they had to scrape away at their personal projects, hoping to improve their Skills and finally reach the standards the Master set for them.

There were more than a few envious stares drilling into his back as he moved to the far side of the room and ascended the stairs.

He found Master Willhem working with the newest apprentices in the cramped upstairs workroom. It felt like decades ago the Master had first seen him here, mistaken for a thief, working through the night.

Tyron waited respectfully until the instruction was finished before he bowed low as his teacher turned to face him.

“Lukas, my lad,” Willhem greeted him warmly. “It’s always a pleasure. Things are going well at your shop, I hope?”

“They could hardly go badly with your endorsement,” Tyron replied dryly. “For which I am truly grateful.”

The thin old man waved his gratitude away.

“Pish! That’s nothing. A plaque on a wall, doesn’t cost me anything. It isn’t often I get an apprentice who truly appreciates the craft. A little thing like that to help you get established is the least I can do.”

The two young apprentices working upstairs were staring at their Master as if he’d gone insane, and Lukas held back a chuckle. The number of apprentices Willhem had given his blessing, at this point, was two. And one of them didn’t even own a shop!

Almsfield Enchantments was the only purveyor of enchanted goods in the entire city, other than Master Willhem’s own, that carried his guarantee for quality. That assurance was a heavy burden, one that Tyron’s own apprentice, Flynn, struggled to work under. Nevertheless, it had been a huge risk for Willhem to give him that, putting his own reputation on the line, and Tyron would never forget it.

“Things seem fine in the workshop,” he observed as a way of making small talk, “not much has changed, if I’m being honest.”

The old man wheezed a laugh.

“Of course they haven’t changed. This place hasn’t changed in two decades and that’s the way I like it. I’m far too old to be changing the way I work, so I won’t! Whoever takes over after me can upset the apple cart if they choose, but I won’t.”

The old Master glanced slyly at Tyron from the corner of his eye, gauging his reaction, but the young man only smiled.

“Speaking of your successor, I did a little work with Master Halfshard recently on a set of runic armour. She’s incredible. The only other person I’ve seen work with such dense, smoothly flowing script is you.”

At the mention of her name, a complex expression flickered over the old man’s face.

“She’s an odd one, that’s for sure,” he muttered.

Tyron sensed the odd mood of his teacher and felt a little confused. Wouldn’t he be proud of having such an accomplished and highly skilled student?

“A full Arcanist like her, she’s far ahead of me in terms of skills,” he freely admitted, “I learned a lot just from working alongside her.”

“You fixed her conduits, didn’t you?” Master Willhem surmised.

“They were almost as good as mine, and I’m pretty much a specialist. She’s extremely impressive.”

“Well… that’s enough talk on Master Halfshard. For what reason have you come to visit your old Master?”

“I was hoping to have the opportunity to examine your library and pick your brain a little, Master Willhem.”

“Oh? What are you working on?”

Tyron hesitated a little. It was dangerous to reveal too much, but he’d already committed by coming this far.

“I’m interested in creating null-magick zones, leeching the ambient energy from an object in order to better enchant it.”

The Arcanist raised his brows.

“That’s fairly advanced work, I’m surprised you would be bothered to take that step. I’m not slighting the products you sell in any way, but the difference it would make for such things would be… almost undetectable.”

Tyron gave a slight smile.

“I’ve had a few commissions lately, and as a result, I’ve decided I need to work with more purified materials. I believe you do so with some of your high-end items as well, so I thought I’d look into it and see how applicable it is.”

Willhem held his chin and nodded thoughtfully, his gaze directed upwards as he thought.

“This kind of thing has an effect when you want to imbue a specific affinity of magick into an object directly, which does increase the efficacy of enchantments which deal in the same type of energy. I remember I made a sword for the Chirn’s. I used an obsidian shard for the blade, cleansed it of energy and filled it to the brim with fire magick. When I finished working on it, the sword was so damned hot it could melt steel.”

He laughed.

“They had to pay me to make a special hilt and gloves so anyone could hold the thing. Right, this should be interesting then. Come this way, my boy.”

With a hop in his step, the old man turned and led them back downstairs, out of the workshop and next door, into the library. The guards on the door, and the librarian who worked inside were only too happy to wave the owner in, whereas an apprentice would likely get a kick in the shin.

It wasn’t often the apprentices were given the chance to actually enter the building, normally they’d make their requests through a slot in the wall and have the book delivered. Tyron had been in a few times, but never to the restricted sections towards the back, which dealt with the Master’s personal collection. When he noticed Tyron’s odd look, his Master waved his concerns away.

“I keep these volumes back here because there’s no real application for ninety-nine percent of students. It’s not hard, or particularly dangerous to do, but the benefits are so low outside of specific applications that it’s a waste of time for students to dedicate themselves to it. The number who will get the chance to do that sort of work is…”

“Low? I presume that’s because you have the market cornered, Master Willhem,” Tyron chuckled.

Everyone in the city knew who the best Arcanist was. If you wanted extreme, high-end enchanting done, then you went to Willhem. However, the old man worked alone, refusing any help, and at this stage in his career, he only accepted a handful of commissions a year. Only the top, top spenders had a chance to purchase his personal work. For everyone else, they could commission his shop, which would mean the work was performed by his senior apprentices, or the few paid Arcanists he kept on staff, and overseen by the Master. Or you could work with Master Halfshard, or any of the few dozen other high-end shops in the city.

But if there was one thing everyone in the empire knew about the Nobles, it’s that they obsessed over having the best.

“That’s… true,” Willhem acknowledged. “But it won’t be for long. As I mentioned the last time we spoke, I’ll be retiring soon, and I’d like to have someone I can trust to leave in charge of my store.”

The old Master gave him a significant look. Tyron shrugged uncomfortably.

“Without an Arcanist Primary Class…” he began, but Willhem threw his hands in the air before he could finish.

“You could change your Primary. It’d be hell. It’d be expensive. You would never be as good as if you’d Awoken it, but you would still be the best damn Enchanter I’ve seen in a long, long time. You’ve a gift for the magick, boy! I can’t understand why you’re so dead set on keeping your Curse magick. You aren’t using it, you aren’t going out to the rifts to fight against the kin. It’s such a waste of your talents.”

The old man was worked up, his pale face turning red, but Tyron’s expression firmed.

“It pains me to disappoint you, Master Willhem,” and it genuinely did, “but for personal reasons that have to do with my family, I refuse to give it up. Were this not the case, I would gladly take you up on your offer, and acknowledge the honour that you show me. I’m terribly sorry, but I cannot do this.”

He bowed low at the waist towards his teacher, who mastered himself with some difficulty.

“So you said before, lad,” he said roughly, before he coughed. “Well… well I suppose that’s the end of that.”

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Master Willhem. Truly. When I had nowhere to go, your workshop was a refuge for me. If ever you need anything from me, you have only to ask.”

“For the time being, I’ll be the one doing you the favours,” he grumped, returning to his usual, somewhat cantankerous mood. “Take these two volumes, they’ll be more than enough to get you started. If I’m not mistaken, from the base level knowledge there, you’ll be able to figure the rest out on your own.”

“I’ll have them back to you safely before two weeks have passed.”

“Good.”

The air was still awkward between them, but they parted on good terms after discussing Tyron’s work for a while. It truly was a shame. Being offered the keys to the Willhem empire was a dream to every Arcanist in the entire province, and Victor would probably punch him in the face if he ever found out that not only had his friend Lukas been offered that fortune, but turned it down to boot. Were he anyone else, Tyron would accept, and put himself through the torture required to meet the Master’s expectations. But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Tyron Steelarm, and he didn’t want wealth, or status, or the acclaim of the nobles.

He wanted revenge. He wanted them to burn. And then he wanted to strip their flesh, stuff their souls back into their unliving corpses and bind them to his service for all eternity.