Morveth’s workshop was on the lowest level of the Forge Hall. Below the Mother Forge. The floor carried the pressure of magma flowing three stories above — not heat, weight. The whole level hummed with a low-frequency vibration, like a giant turning in its sleep. Morveth said it was the best environment for testing. Far from hammer blows and apprentice footsteps, you could hear metal’s own voice. Orion wasn’t sure metal had a voice, but he didn’t ask. Morveth was the kind of person who made you afraid to ask the wrong question. Not because he was harsh. Because his questions were always sharper than yours.
He placed the meteorite on the testing platform. A basalt slab, same material as his father’s anvil in Iron Kiln. But Morveth had carved guidance channels into it — forging-magic grooves that projected an object’s internal structure onto the floating observation screen. The screen showed a swirling blue vortex. Identical to the light that had poured from the probing sphere on Bonding Day.
Morveth adjusted three parameters. Temperature. Resonance frequency. Time axis. The vortex split into layers. Outer layer: radiation residue. Middle layer: memory residue. Innermost — the core — a structure Morveth himself couldn’t name. Not metal. Not magic. Like a cross-section of living tissue. He was silent for a long time.
“It’s healing itself.”
Orion stood up. “What does that mean.”
Morveth magnified the core layer. The edges of the core structure showed irregular fractures — torn, not worn. But every fracture line had fine blue fibers growing across it. Thinner than hair. Like fungal threads. Like pale roots a plant sends out in darkness. Slowly — impossibly slowly — stitching themselves together. “This meteorite is a fragment ejected during the last Rift accident. A piece of something that was deliberately broken. The person who broke it calculated every fracture angle. What they didn’t calculate: that it would heal.”
Orion braced his hands on the table. “How long ago was the last accident.”
“Older than you. Older than the Gray Bridge boy. But not by much.” Morveth shut off the screen. Placed the meteorite in Orion’s palm. Closed his fingers around it. “You have radiation accumulation in your body. Not fatal. But pay attention — not to the radiation levels. To what you lose, and what you gain. Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
Orion put the meteorite back in his pocket. Morveth led him out through an unfamiliar passage, past a workshop he’d never seen. Inside: a single smith, quenching. Red-hot iron ring into cold water. Steam hissing, blurring the window. Normal. Nothing unusual. But Orion stopped. Not because of the quench. The smith’s face was blank. Every motion precise to the millimeter — the angle of the tongs, the immersion time, the lift. Perfect. And utterly expressionless. No brow furrow. No nod. No tiny mouth twitch when the water hissed — that moment all smiths shared, that silent exchange with the metal: yeah, yeah, I know it’s hot. Nothing. His face was a mirror wiped too clean.
Morveth stood beside him. “Yesterday he was normal.”
Orion put his hand in his pocket. The meteorite pulsed once. Same frequency as the steam hiss from the workshop. It was listening too.
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