"An irritatingly self-sufficient municipality," Aetherion repeated, his voice laced with a dry amusement that didn't quite reach his eyes. He leaned back against the heavy mahogany desk, his arms crossed over his chest. "I’ll take that as a compliment, though I suspect you didn’t travel three days through the mountain passes just to offer me a critique of my administrative style."Elodie Immortelle stopped in the center of the hall, her sharp, obsidian eyes scanning the room. She wasn't looking at the dust—there was none—but at the structural reinforcements Aetherion had installed. Her gaze lingered on the central archway, where the Prism Core sat, pulsating with a rhythmic, healthy warmth."I’m here to confirm what the local reports have been whispering," Elodie said, her tone softening just a fraction, though her posture remained rigid. "You haven't just halted the collapse, Aetherion. You’ve anchored the entire sector. The spatial

"Hold still," Zinnia said, slamming a heavy leather satchel onto the dining table. "If you knock over my tea, I’m using your structural blueprints as kindling."Aetherion didn't look up from his desk, his chisel delicately tracing the stress lines on a slate slab. "That satchel weighs at least twenty pounds, Zinnia. What did you do, rob a courier wagon?""Worse," she said, unbuckling the brass clasps with a sharp click. "I talked to the valley postmaster. He had to hire two extra draft horses just to haul your morning mail up the mountain switchbacks."Aetherion paused, his chisel hovering an inch above the stone. "The valley postmaster doesn't even like coming up here. He thinks the cliff face is cursed.""Well, he likes money," Zinnia said, upending the satchel.A cascading avalanche of parchment, thick cream envelopes, and heavy wax seals spilled across the oak table, knocking over Aetherion’s ink pot. He caught the pot with a lightn

"Read that one out loud, and make sure you enunciate the panic," Zinnia instructed, tossing a grease-stained scroll directly onto Aetherion’s drafting square.Aetherion caught the rolling scroll with two fingers, his eyes scanning the frantic handwriting before looking up. "The Blackwood village magistrate says their primary timber dam is bowing outward like a swollen lung. He’s offering fifty gold marks and three crates of winter provisions if we leave within the hour.""Fifty marks?" Zinnia echoed, her hands stopping their furious packing of the leather supply roll. "That’s not an ordinary repair fee. That's 'the world is ending and we have no engineers left' money. How old is the Blackwood structure?""Built during the early expansion era," Aetherion said, already sliding his heavy iron-topped mallet into its canvas holster. "Mostly dry-stacked granite blocks bound with pine pitch and iron pins. If the spring melt is pushing against it like

"That's not just bowing, that's an active structural collapse waiting to happen," Aetherion shouted, his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the Blackwood river as spray drenched his face. He planted his boots firmly in the churning mud, his eyes locked on the massive stone-and-timber dam fifty yards ahead. The entire center section was visibly bulging outward, groaning under the immense, unrelenting weight of the spring runoff.Zinnia stepped up beside him, her hands flaring with a brilliant, steady amber light that sliced through the driving rain. "The lower cottages are entirely in the flood path. If that core lets go now, the whole village will be washed down-river before nightfall.""They won't have to worry about the village if we don't relieve the pressure right this second," Aetherion replied, his fingers already unbuckling the heavy leather strap of his masonry hammer. "Give me light on the eastern retention joint. The stress fractures are concentrated

Zinnia stepped around the drafting table, her fingers tracing the freshly inked borders of Cassian’s ledger before she looked up at Aetherion. "He’s right about one thing, at least. If we’re going to keep dragging ourselves through freezing mud every time a regional dam threatens to collapse, we need more hands. Better hands."Aetherion set his charcoal pencil down with a sharp click, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied the proposal. "You want to formalize the apprenticeships. Turn the workshop into something permanent.""Not just a workshop," Cassian corrected, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the mahogany surface, his rings catching the warm amber glow of the wall lanterns. "A guild. A proper regional chartered institution. The Rim Builders Guild. Think of the legal protections, Aetherion. If you have an official charter recognized by the High Archive, Elodie can never again slap you with an illegal spatial anomaly fine. Every stone y