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Chapter 3 - Rust

  The night air swept into the forge as Daméas stepped outside. The wind sliced through the night, sharp and cold like a blade drawn in silence. From the city below came only faint murmurs, the breath of a world unaware. But within him, the storm was rising. With each step, it grew louder, more relentless, shaking loose the walls he had built around his thoughts. He clenched his fists. The Oracle’s voice refused to fade. Her words echoed in his mind. Clear. Cold. Inescapable.

  "The metal is strong, but the heart of man is weak."

  What had she meant? Was she speaking of him, of his own heart, brittle and betrayed? Or was she warning him of some impending treachery, a lie already weaving its dark threads around the sanctuary he once called home?

  Doubt seeped into his thoughts like heated iron pressed against skin. Each breath he drew was poisoned by suspicion. Certainty, once his strongest ally, crumbled into silence. There was no turning back. He had to know.

  His footsteps rang out through the sleeping veins of the city, each echo a heartbeat carved in stone. The walls leaned closer with every stride, as if the alleys themselves were breathing, folding inward like the petals of a dying flower. Shadows gathered in corners where the stars dared not look, and the air thickened with a silence that tasted of prophecy. It felt as though the path beneath him had slipped from the realm of men and now led through a hidden seam in the world’s fabric, once sealed by fate, now quietly beginning to open.

  He reached the threshold of the house. His house. Their house.

  It loomed above him, stately and proud, a monument to his triumphs. Thick columns held up the shadowed roof, and behind the veiled windows, oil lamps cast restless shapes on the walls—phantoms dancing in quiet mockery. And now, it pulsed with an unfamiliar rhythm, as though the house itself remembered something he had forgotten. He climbed the steps, breath shallow, like a gladiator walking into the arena of the gods, summoned for a duel written long ago in a script he never chose to read.

  As his hand touched the door handle, laughter rang from within. A laugh he would know in any world, in any lifetime

  érissa.

  His heart clenched. Every instinct begged him to walk away, to preserve the fragile image he still held of her. But there was no sanctuary in denial. He opened the door.

  What he saw struck him like a war hammer.

  érissa sat near the hearth, a cup of wine cradled in her hand. Her smile was radiant, her eyes alight with a warmth he hadn’t seen in months. But it wasn’t for him.

  Facing her, seated with deliberate grace, was a man. Or something that wore the shape of one.

  He wore a tunic embroidered with gold thread, flowing and elegant, fit for a royal court. But it was the mask that stilled Daméas’s breath. A fox—smooth, white, serene. Stylized but expressive. It glinted in the firelight like porcelain polished with secrets. Behind it, eyes that watched with unnerving calm.

  The Fox did not speak.

  He simply turned his head, slowly, toward Daméas. And even with the mask, Daméas felt it—a gaze that pierced, dissected, catalogued. The kind of gaze that did not need truth, because it already possessed it.

  The Fox tilted his head, ever so slightly. A gesture that could have been respect. Or mockery.

  Then he stood. The movement was fluid, like water flowing uphill. He drifted into the shadows at the rear of the house.

  Daméas followed instinctively, every nerve braced for confrontation.

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  But the corridor was empty.

  No doors had opened. No footsteps sounded. The Fox had vanished, leaving no trace but the chill clinging to the walls.

  Daméas returned to the main room, breath short, fury simmering beneath the surface. He locked eyes with érissa.

  "Who was that?"

  His voice was harder than he intended.

  She did not flinch.

  "An invited guest."

  Her tone was cool, composed. Too composed.

  "In our home. At this hour?"

  She lifted an eyebrow. Almost playfully.

  "Our home," she corrected.

  He wanted to shake her. To force the truth from her lips. But instead, he clenched his fists tighter.

  "Don’t lie to me."

  Her gaze shimmered, a fracture in the calm, letting through a flicker of irritation. She placed her cup on the table with the patience of a slow-burning threat, then rose and stepped toward him. Her fingers touched his chest, cold and measured, not the warmth of a lover, but the memory of something once alive and now turned to stone.

  "What if I told you the truth, Daméas? Would you believe it?"

  She leaned closer.

  "You’ve changed. You’re not the same. You no longer see me—you see only your forge. Your fire. As if nothing else deserves your gaze."

  He pushed her hand away, heart pounding.

  "Stop avoiding the question. Who was that man?"

  She held his stare for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she answered.

  "A merchant. He came to commission a blade."

  Too easy. Too polished.

  He didn’t believe her.

  "You’re lying."

  She gave a slow shrug.

  "Believe what you like."

  Her calm was unbearable.

  He stepped back, wrestling with the fury pressing against his ribs.

  A silence followed, thick and suffocating. Finally, he whispered:

  "I’ll find the truth, érissa."

  A flicker of a smile touched her lips.

  "I’m sure you will."

  She turned away, as if the confrontation had never happened. As if none of it mattered.

  But it mattered.

  Daméas stood there, frozen.

  In his forge, he was a god. Creator of divine steel. Master of flame.

  But here—here he was nothing more than a man slowly unraveling in his own home.

  And for the first time, he feared the Oracle had seen clearly.

  Perhaps his heart was already rusting.

  The Fox had left no trace, and yet Daméas could still feel the presence. A lingering tension in the air. As if the creature hadn’t left at all, but simply slipped behind the veil of visible things.

  There was something ancient in that presence. Not divine, not demonic. Just… practiced. Calculated. The Fox had spoken no words, but Daméas felt as though he had been judged.

  The way he moved, the way he disappeared—he was not merely a man.

  He was an omen.

  Daméas sat in the chair érissa had left vacant. The fire crackled quietly, casting long shadows against the walls. He could almost see the Fox sitting there, watching.

  He ran a hand over his face. The mask. The elegance. The silence.

  This wasn’t about a commission. This was a ritual. A performance.

  And érissa had smiled.

  Not out of fear. Not even guilt.

  But familiarity.

  She had known the Fox. Maybe for years. Maybe always.

  Daméas remembered stories whispered among apprentices, tales of masked envoys who visited masters of the forge in times of war or upheaval. They never gave their names. They didn’t need to.

  They came when the world was about to change.

  He stood, staring into the hearth.

  The blade on his bench. The prophecy. The Fox.

  Everything pointed to one thing:

  Something had been set in motion.

  And he was already too deep inside to escape it.

  He turned toward the window, where the city slumbered under a thin veil of stars. Somewhere, deep in the alleys, the Fox was still walking. Still watching. Waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  For him to forge something?

  Or for something to break?

  Daméas did not know.

  But he would.

  He had to.

  Because next time the Fox came, it wouldn’t be for wine and silence.

  It would be for blood.

  Who do you trust least right now?

  


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