Chương 75: Heart of the Dragon

++AUTHOR NOTE AT BOTTOM OF CHAPTER ++ By midmorning, the Nightglass had become the most heavily supervised delivery Drakehaven had ever received. The wagon sat outside the warehouse with its canvas pulled away, exposing three broad slabs packed into reinforced wooden braces. Each piece was large enough that Roy doubted any normal laborer would volunteer to move one without assistance. From a distance, the material looked surprisingly mundane.

Its surface was black and smooth, with only a faint smoky translucence visible where sunlight caught the edges. Up close, however, Roy could feel something wrong about the way the Weave behaved around it, as though a piece of the world had simply stopped participating in the rules everything else followed. He stood beside the wagon with one hand resting against the wooden rail rather than the Nightglass itself.

Sevrin occupied the opposite side, looking irritatingly composed for someone who had spent most of the night dealing with the aftermath of two dead Velkaryn operatives. Garrick lingered near Roy with his arms crossed and his posture tight, while Selene stood several feet away and watched the interaction with the patient neutrality expected of someone representing Bellhaven. Roy examined the nearest slab for another few seconds before finally looking at Sevrin.

"I understand what you've told us the material is, and I understand why it's valuable. What I still don't understand is why you decided Drakehaven needed three slabs of it as a gift."

"You are building a settlement centered around unusual interactions between dragons, Awakened abilities, and the Weave itself. Nightglass is one of the more unusual materials Velkaryn can provide, so I thought you might find some productive use for it."

"That sounds generous when phrased that way," Roy replied, keeping his tone calm.

"It also sounds exactly like something you would send because you knew we'd experiment with it, and you wanted to see what happened when we did." Garrick made a quiet sound of agreement beside him, earning a brief glance from Selene. Sevrin showed no visible discomfort at the accusation, though Roy had long since stopped expecting easy tells from him. If anything, the Arbiter seemed almost more comfortable when someone explicitly acknowledged the game they were playing.

"You possess an unflattering opinion of me."

"I don't think you sent this here hoping it would explode. But I also don't believe for a second that simple kindness was the only reason you decided to put something this rare into our hands."

"A gift does not cease to be generous merely because the person giving it is curious about what the recipient will do with it." Roy waited for more, but Sevrin offered nothing. That was the part he found most irritating about conversations with the Arbiter: Sevrin rarely needed to lie. Roy was nearly certain the shipment was an experiment, but certainty and proof were not remotely the same thing. Garrick's patience wore thinner during the silence.

"Two of your people are dead because this thing came here, and Talia would be dead too if Aurelia hadn't somehow dragged her back. You can dress it up however you want, but I'm not interested in pretending this was just some nice present." Before Sevrin could answer, Selene stepped closer and lightly touched Garrick's upper arm. The gesture was not forceful enough to restrain him, but it accomplished the intended effect when Garrick glanced toward her and visibly forced some of the tension from his shoulders.

"Your anger is reasonable," Selene said quietly.

"That doesn't mean it needs to decide what happens to the shipment. Whatever Sevrin intended, the Nightglass is already here, and sending it back immediately would probably become its own diplomatic statement whether Drakehaven meant it that way or not." Roy nodded. Garrick still looked unhappy, but his anger had lost some of its immediate edge.

"I don't have to like that answer."

"No, but you do have to avoid attacking our diplomatic guest while we test it," Roy said.

"Preferably for the entire day, although I'm willing to negotiate down to one hour at a time if necessary."

"I wasn't planning to attack him," Garrick replied, then glanced toward Sevrin's raised eyebrow.

"At least not right now." Selene covered a small smile with one hand while Roy turned his attention back to the wagon. Political questions could wait, because the Nightglass itself now presented a much more interesting problem. If they were going to experiment with it, Roy wanted controlled samples. Lilly solved the first obstacle with almost insulting ease.

A few minutes after Roy called her over, she stood beside the wagon with one hand raised while the uppermost Nightglass slab floated slowly from its wooden braces. The anti-Weave properties did nothing to stop the telekinetic force acting upon it from outside, and Lilly lowered the massive piece onto a reinforced work platform with the precision of someone setting down a plate. Sevrin watched her more closely than Roy would have preferred.

"Your resident Mage possesses remarkable control for a Fourth Seal."

"She's had a great deal of practice."

"That is a more accurate description," Lilly chimed in. She released the slab, confirmed it was stable, and walked away without offering Sevrin anything further to study. Roy crouched beside the Nightglass and placed two fingers against one corner. He activated Transmutation with the smallest possible area of effect, intending only to separate a thin section from the edge. The result was immediate and profoundly unsatisfying. [Transmutation Failed] There was no sensation of resistance.

Roy did not feel as though he had attempted to reshape something too strong, too dense, or too complicated for his current ability. His Weave reached the edge of the Nightglass and simply stopped providing useful feedback, as though the material existed in a place his Skill could not meaningfully touch. He tried again along a narrower point and received the same result.

"I hoped the anti-Weave property might become less significant if I affected a tiny enough section instead of the entire piece."

"A reasonable hypothesis," Sevrin said. Roy looked over his shoulder.

"You already knew this wouldn't work."

"I strongly suspected it would not. That is different." Garrick muttered something beneath his breath, though Roy chose not to investigate.. Conventional tools were still possible, but it seemed difficult to cut cleanly, and Roy wanted samples rather than random shards. Roy's attention shifted toward the nearby basin work.

"Nimbus, could you come over here for a moment? I need something cut, and before you get excited, I need it done very carefully." Nimbus lifted her head and bounded toward them with enough enthusiasm that Roy immediately raised both hands. She slowed after the first warning, then slowed again when his expression made clear that even her reduced pace was not inspiring confidence.

"I need a water jet narrow enough to cut directly along this line, and I need you to stop the instant you reach the other side." Nimbus puffed her cheeks at him and lowered her head to inspect the mark. Moisture gathered around Nimbus's mouth and compressed into an increasingly narrow stream. When she finally released it, the water resembled a translucent wire rather than a normal jet, striking the Nightglass with a sharp hiss.

For several seconds nothing happened, but then a faint groove appeared beneath the stream and began deepening as Nimbus moved carefully along Roy's chalk mark.

"Exactly like that. Keep the pressure steady and don't speed up just because it's working." Nimbus maintained the stream, her tail beginning to sway as the groove cut steadily through the slab. Tiny black fragments scattered from the contact point until the final section separated cleanly. Roy released a breath he had not realized he was holding.

"Perfect. You can absolutely brag about that later, because that was considerably cleaner than I expected." Nimbus chirped happily, then gave him a look that suggested she had expected nothing less from herself. Once Roy marked several more lines, the remaining cuts went much faster. Roy arranged the samples across a cloth-covered table and counted them twice. Selene moved closer, examining one without touching it.

"What exactly do you intend everyone to do with these?"

"Whatever occurs to them, within reason," Roy replied.

"We have several different draconic species, multiple Awakened Classes, and craftspeople with very different specialties.. Our best results have usually come from letting unusual combinations collide and seeing what survives." His eyes briefly moved toward Sevrin. The Arbiter gave no reaction, but Roy knew perfectly well this was the result he had hoped for when the Nightglass left Velkaryn.

For half a second, sheer stubbornness tempted Roy to lock the slabs in the warehouse and refuse to provide Sevrin anything interesting at all. He gathered several shards and handed them toward Selene.

"Can you help distribute these? Rowan should be able to assist, and I want one available for each drake and Awakened who can sensibly test it without immediately destroying something." Selene gave a small nod.

"Will do." Roy handed one final shard to Garrick before turning toward Sevrin.

"You should probably spend the rest of today in the Waystation. I don't mean that as punishment, but people are angry and most of them haven't decided what they want to do with that anger yet." Sevrin seemed neither surprised nor offended by the suggestion.

"For my safety or theirs?"

"Both, probably," Roy said.

"You walking around Drakehaven asking everyone what their Nightglass sample is doing would be the worst possible use of your afternoon."

"I had no intention of conducting interviews today," Sevrin replied.

"I have enough reporting to occupy the remainder of the day, and probably most of tomorrow." Roy's expression sobered at the reminder. Whatever Velkaryn decided to do with those reports was beyond his control for now. He watched Sevrin leave toward the Waystation before taking one Nightglass shard for himself and turning it slowly between his fingers. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The piece was lighter than its appearance suggested, although still denser than ordinary glass. Roy pushed the smallest thread of Weave he could manage toward its edge and received the same empty sensation as before, with no response from Transmutation and no obvious sign that the material acknowledged his Class at all. His attention eventually drifted beyond the warehouse toward a cleared patch of ground nearby.

The foundation site for the Coordinator's Obelisk had remained untouched, but construction would start soon. A material that rejected the Weave and a monument intended to coordinate Drakehaven's expanding systems did not have any obvious reason to interact. Roy rubbed his thumb across the smoky black edge before slipping the piece into his pocket. In Drakehaven, a lack of obvious connection had never been particularly reliable evidence that no connection existed.

─── 🐲🐲🐲 ─── Garrick had spent most of the morning trying not to hit anyone, which was becoming an increasingly exhausting activity. Sevrin had been the obvious candidate, although Commander Daren would have been preferable if the elf had still been nearby.

Roy had prevented the first possibility through common sense, Selene had somehow made Garrick feel immature every time his anger became too visible, and Aegis had already demonstrated the consequences of attempting to continue a fight that everyone else considered finished. That left Garrick sitting inside the Waystation with his Nightglass shard untouched on the table before him.

Uncle stood behind the counter cleaning a cup, apparently content to let the silence continue until Garrick decided he actually wanted company.

"You know, most people look happier after reaching the end of a crisis with everyone they care about still alive," Uncle eventually said.

"I will admit that the circumstances make celebration somewhat complicated, but your expression suggests survival has personally offended you." Garrick stared at the tabletop.

"Most people probably weren't several miles away while it happened. I keep thinking about what I would have seen if I'd arrived even ten minutes earlier."

"Perhaps you would have seen something terrible. You also might have become another person Aurelia needed to keep alive." Garrick looked up sharply, but Uncle's expression remained calm. It was not the answer he had expected, which made it harder to dismiss as another attempt to make him feel better.

"I should've been there."

"You were in Bellhaven because your training required you to be there," Uncle replied.

"If you abandoned that responsibility and followed Talia around every evening in case something dangerous happened, I suspect she would eventually shoot you herself."

"That isn't what I mean. I'm supposed to be a Knight," Garrick's jaw tightened as the statuses from the battlefield returned to him.

"But that wouldn't have met anything in that situation. That's the part everyone keeps misunderstanding. I know I didn't choose to be absent, and I know blaming myself for being in Bellhaven is stupid. What bothers me is that if I had been standing beside Talia, I probably would have gone down almost as quickly as she did." Uncle rested both hands against the counter.

"Then being absent is not actually what you are angry about." Garrick shook his head.

"I'm angry because I don't want that to ever happen again. I don't want to hear that somebody I care about almost died and realize the only thing I could have contributed was another body on the ground."

"That is a much larger problem to solve."

"I know that." Garrick's eyes shifted toward the Waystation window, where ordinary life continued beyond the glass.

"I just hate that every answer seems to come down to somebody stronger showing up." Uncle waited, allowing Garrick to continue on his own. That patience was irritating in a way Garrick had never managed to explain, because Uncle rarely argued directly when he could simply give them enough silence to hear their own thoughts clearly.

"Keth was stronger than Talia, Veyra was stronger than both of us, and Daren was stronger than Orion," Garrick said.

"Then Aegis arrived, Aurelia did something apparently impossible, and everyone survived because the right people happened to be strong enough at the right time."

"That is one way to describe it," Uncle replied.

"Another would be that Talia stayed alive long enough for Orion to reach her, Orion entered a battle he knew he could not win, and Aegis gave part of his own strength to Aurelia instead of keeping it for himself. Aurelia then pushed herself far enough that the System recognized her willingness to sacrifice herself. Strength mattered, certainly, but the more interesting question might be what each of them was willing to do with it." The words settled differently than Garrick expected.

He had spent most of the morning imagining himself stronger. Every version of the fantasy began with the assumption that protecting people meant becoming powerful enough to destroy whatever threatened them. That was not what Orion had actually done, though. Orion had entered a fight against someone two Seals above him because Talia needed him, while Aurelia had nearly torn herself apart just to keep Talia's heart beating.

Even Aegis, who possessed more raw power than anyone else present, had spent a substantial portion of it feeding that strength into other people. Garrick lowered his gaze to his hands.

"What does being a Knight actually mean, then? I know what Edric teaches me about fighting, but the System clearly meant something when it gave me that Class." Uncle smiled faintly.

"You are asking the wrong person. The System chose the Class for you, not me, and I suspect whatever answer matters will become considerably less useful if I hand it to you."

"You've been alive for approximately forever, so I assumed you might have collected an opinion." Garrick gave him a tired look.

"Sometimes I think you avoid giving answers purely because you enjoy watching everyone struggle toward them."

"That is an unfair accusation," Uncle said, though the small smile did very little to support the denial.

"I occasionally avoid giving answers because struggling toward them is the part that matters." Garrick leaned back and allowed the silence to return. The anger had not disappeared. It simply began changing shape.

"I don't need to be the strongest person in every room," Garrick said eventually.

"I just never want to stand there again knowing someone I love got hurt while I was safe somewhere else." His heartbeat accelerated as the words left him, though Garrick barely noticed.

"If the person is stronger than me, I will fight them anyway. If I get hurt, then I get hurt, and if protecting them costs everything I have, then they can have everything I have." Uncle's expression changed by only the smallest degree. His eyes sharpened, but Garrick was too focused on the thought finally taking shape to notice.

"I don't care what it costs me if the people behind me get to keep living," Garrick said.

"If someone comes for my family again, I'll put myself between them every single time I still have a life left to spend." The air inside the Waystation shifted. Garrick stopped speaking when golden light appeared beneath his chair. At first, the glow formed only a thin ring around his boots, but another circle soon expanded outside it, followed by a third as faint draconic patterns began spreading through the floorboards. Uncle slowly placed the cup in his hand onto the counter.

"It appears something else was listening." Garrick looked down as warm Weave began twisting around his legs.

"I didn't activate anything."

"You may not have needed to." A System window unfolded in front of him. [The Knight Has Made a Vow] [Vow: Heart of the Dragon] The golden circles widened farther across the Waystation floor, sending loose sheets of paper fluttering from nearby tables. Heat climbed through Garrick's body without burning him, gathering most strongly behind his ribs. [The dragon's heart is one of Greed] [To ensure it maintains that which it desires, it will throw its own life away] Garrick read the words twice.

The description was not what he expected from a Knight, although the more he considered it, the less strange it seemed. Dragons hoarded what mattered to them. Gold, territory, food, people, promises—it apparently did not matter what the treasure happened to be. Garrick thought about how tightly he had held Talia after realizing she was alive. If the System wanted to call that greed, he could live with the accusation. A final prompt appeared. [Confirm Vow?] Uncle remained behind the counter without offering advice.

For once, Garrick was grateful for the silence, because nothing about the decision felt uncertain enough to require someone else's interpretation.

"Yes," Garrick said, keeping his gaze fixed on the prompt.

"I meant what I said, and I'll stand by it." The System answered immediately. [Vow Confirmed] Golden Weave erupted throughout the Waystation. Garrick shot to his feet as the chair behind him toppled over, disappearing beneath a spiraling column of light. Loose papers lifted into the air, cups rattled across shelves, and the draconic patterns beneath his boots brightened. Then the heat struck his chest - Garrick gasped and grabbed the front of his shirt.

At first it felt like pressure, but the sensation deepened until the pressure became unmistakable pain. His heart accelerated hard enough that each beat pulsed against his fingertips. The rhythm climbed faster and faster until, without warning, it stopped. Garrick's eyes widened. For half a second there was nothing inside his chest - then the next heartbeat struck. THOOM. His entire body jerked. The sound seemed to originate somewhere beneath his sternum and yet resonate through his ribs, teeth, and spine.

Garrick stumbled backward and caught the table with one hand before another beat rolled through him with the same impossible weight. THOOM.

"That doesn't feel human," Garrick managed, his voice strained as he gripped the table.

"I'm reasonably certain hearts aren't supposed to shake the furniture." Uncle watched him from behind the counter.

"You appear to be correct about at least one of those observations." The pain intensified. Garrick could feel the organ itself changing now, and there was no merciful way to misunderstand the sensation. Muscle contracted too tightly, shifted, and expanded again as though something inside his chest were physically reshaping a structure that had existed since birth. He bent forward, teeth clenched.

Heat spread outward along his blood vessels with every distorted heartbeat, leaving his arms and fingers tingling while the golden Weave around him climbed higher.

"Uncle, my heart is doing something extremely wrong," Garrick said, breathing through another wave of pressure.

"This is usually the part where the old wise person assures me I'm not dying."

"I suspect interrupting the process would be considerably more dangerous than allowing it to finish," Uncle replied.

"If it helps, you remain remarkably alive from where I'm standing."

"That helps significantly less than you seem to think." Another heartbeat slammed through Garrick. THOOM. Golden Weave pulsed outward from his chest in response. It was heavier and denser than any heartbeat he had known, carrying a deep warmth that felt utterly foreign to a human body and somehow natural to him at the same time. His fingers tightened around the edge of the table. For an instant, he thought his nails looked sharper beneath the golden light, but the helix surged before he could focus on them.

The System appeared again. [Second Seal Unlocked] The pressure vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived. Garrick dragged in a breath and remained bent over the table for several seconds, waiting for another wave of pain. None came. His heart continued beating. Slowly, steadily… and wrong. THOOM. Garrick placed one palm against his chest and straightened. He knew what his heartbeat was supposed to feel like, and whatever now moved beneath his hand was unquestionably different.

"It changed," he said, more quietly this time.

"I don't just mean stronger. It actually feels like something else is beating in there." Uncle's gaze lingered briefly on Garrick's chest.

"A Vow called Heart of the Dragon appears to have taken its title rather literally." Garrick looked down at himself. His skin remained normal, and no scales or obvious transformation had appeared anywhere he could see. His heartbeat was the only evidence, but each heavy pulse sent a banked warmth through his body that made pretending nothing had changed impossible. Then the rest of the realization caught up with him. He pulled open his Status and stared - a grin spread slowly across his face.

"I reached the Second Seal." Uncle smiled.

"You appear to have done so." Garrick looked at the display again, then back at Uncle as if one of them might discover an error.

"No, I mean I actually reached the Second Seal. Edric is going to lose his mind when he sees this."

"I suspect he will find a way to express his pride through additional training," Uncle said.

"You may wish to enjoy the excitement before he decides your reward should involve running up a hill carrying something unpleasantly heavy." Garrick laughed, the sound carrying more relief than he expected. He pressed one hand to his chest again just to feel the altered rhythm and wondered what exactly the Vow had begun changing inside him. A new System tone interrupted the thought. It was sharper than the sound of advancement and unfamiliar enough that Garrick immediately looked upward.

Another window unfolded before him while the last traces of golden light were still fading around the Waystation. His excitement gave way to confusion as he read the new message. [Class Specialization Quest Available]