Novels by Tan clipps

The sky over Aethelgard wasn't blue anymore. It was a shimmering, artificial gold, projected by the capital’s broadcast arrays. Every screen, every hovering mana-mirror, and every ocular implant in the kingdom was tuned to the same channel."Look at the screen, Kaelen," Miri whispered, her hand trembling as she pointed toward the horizon.I looked. My father’s forge—the place where I learned to breathe soot and dream in brass—was being held in the grip of massive, hydraulic pincers."Citizens of Aethelgard!" Lucius’s voice boomed from the sky, smooth and dripping with fabricated virtue. "Behold the final cleansing of the Thorne heresy. This workshop, a breeding ground for treason, will now serve a higher purpose. We melt this trash today to forge the 'Solarian Plate' for our newest Paladin division!"The pincers dropped the forge into a vat of white-hot liquid mana. I watched the anvil—the one my father used to lift me onto—dissolve into a shapeless sludge."He's doing this to draw yo

"Kaelen! They’re coming from the flank!"Miri’s scream was cut short by the wet thud of a lead pipe hitting bone. I spun around, my boots kicking up clouds of toxic rust. The scavenger gang—a pack of 'C-Rank' Jackals who had been lurking in the shadows of the Iron Graveyard—had finally found the guts to move."Get your hands off her!" I roared.One of the thugs, a man with a cybernetic jaw and a jagged bone-saw, had Miri pinned against a pile of discarded boiler plates. A gash across her forehead was leaking blood, staining her white [Cook] apron."She’s a pretty little resource, Thorne!" the leader of the Jackals laughed, leveling a mana-blunderbuss at my chest. "We heard you purified a core. We heard you fixed a Titan. Imagine what you’ll do for us once we start taking this girl apart piece by piece.""Kaelen... don't..." Miri wheezed, her eyes fluttering. "There are too many..."I looked at her. I looked at the five men surrounding her. My marrow turned into liquid ice. I had the p

"Kaelen! They’re coming from the flank!"Miri’s scream was cut short by the wet thud of a lead pipe hitting bone. I spun around, my boots kicking up clouds of toxic rust. The scavenger gang—a pack of 'C-Rank' Jackals who had been lurking in the shadows of the Iron Graveyard—had finally found the guts to move."Get your hands off her!" I roared.One of the thugs, a man with a cybernetic jaw and a jagged bone-saw, had Miri pinned against a pile of discarded boiler plates. A gash across her forehead was leaking blood, staining her white [Cook] apron."She’s a pretty little resource, Thorne!" the leader of the Jackals laughed, leveling a mana-blunderbuss at my chest. "We heard you purified a core. We heard you fixed a Titan. Imagine what you’ll do for us once we start taking this girl apart piece by piece.""Kaelen... don't..." Miri wheezed, her eyes fluttering. "There are too many..."I looked at her. I looked at the five men surrounding her. My marrow turned into liquid ice. I had the p

The Iron Graveyard was a place of ghosts, but as I moved deeper into the valley of rusted spires, the ghosts started to look familiar. The S-Rank Golem hissed beneath me, its vents cooling, but I jumped down from its shoulder before the steam even cleared. "Kaelen, wait! Where are you going?" Miri shouted, scrambling after me. "The shield is holding, but the sky is crawling with Inquisitors!" "I saw something," I said, my voice tight. "In the trench behind the slag heaps." I reached the edge of a deep, jagged fissure in the earth. It wasn't a natural formation. It was a mass grave. Thousands of bodies lay tangled in the gray silt, their skin turned to marble by the Rim’s cold. But these weren't warriors. Their collars glowed with the dull, flickering light of [Utility] classes. [Weavers]. [Plowmen]. [Tinkerers]. "Oh, gods," Miri whispered, covering her mouth. "Why? Why so many?" "System inefficiency," I growled, my eyes scanning the faces. I saw the Aethelgard stamp on their tuni

"You’re going where?" Miri’s voice went up two octaves as she stumbled over a heap of rusted gears. "Kaelen, stop. That’s the Iron Graveyard. People go there to disappear, and I don't mean they go on vacation." I didn't stop. I couldn't. The pulse in my marrow—the stolen mana, the kinetic residue, the toxicity—it was all vibrating in sync with the jagged horizon ahead. "We can’t keep running, Miri. The Skyship is still up there. Alaric isn't dead, he’s just embarrassed. Next time, they won’t send a squire. They’ll send an army." "So your solution is the Forbidden Zone?" She pointed toward the swirling vortex of gray mist and jagged metal spires a mile ahead. "It’s a dumping ground for the System’s failures! Half-finished spells, aborted realities, cursed iron—it’s the armpit of Aethelgard!" "Exactly," I said, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. "It’s a place made entirely of scrap. My kingdom." We hit the perimeter. The air turned metallic, tasting like copper and old blood.

The dust from Governor Vane’s collapsing shack hadn't even settled before the air above us curdled. A streak of white light descended from the Imperial Skyship, slamming into the cobblestones with the force of a falling star. When the radiance cleared, a man in blinding platinum armor stood there. He looked like a god carved from ivory, his cape fluttering despite the lack of wind. This wasn't a border guard. This was Ser Alaric, Lucius’s lead squire—a B-Rank Knight whose name was synonymous with "unmatched." "I was told I’d find a corpse," Alaric said, his voice smooth and cold as a glacier. He looked at the rotting timber that used to be a mansion, then at me. "Instead, I find a Scrapper standing in the ruins of a Governor’s home. Explain yourself, Thorne, before I decide your tongue is scrap too." "Alaric! Kill him!" Vane screamed, crawling out from under a pile of moth-eaten rugs. "He stole the mana! He turned my palace into a hovel! Look at my robes! They’re burlap!" Alaric d