Kaelen Vance held the leather recipe book two inches above the glowing basalt fissure.
The violet Obsidian Earth-Fire curled around the indigo calfskin like living serpents of light.
For nearly four hundred days, those faint silver lines had remained an unsolved riddle.
Back in Ashford Town, Kaelen had first noticed them while simmering turnip broth over common kitchen charcoal.
He remembered those quiet autumn afternoons in his father’s courtyard.
The yellow leaves had drifted from the old willow tree, landing softly in the rain barrels.
Lord Donald Vance would storm into the kitchen, his heavy iron cavalry boots stomping dried mud onto the flagstones.
His father would always shout the same reprimand, demanding that Kaelen put down his foolish romance novels and practice spear thrusts in the yard.
