Ren Vale didn’t lower his mammoth ivory metal pen.
He took one deliberate step forward across the black glass floor. His heavy cobbler’s boot struck the polished surface with a dull, dry snap that broke through the roaring hum of the reverse-turning gears. The pain in his thirty-one-year-old knees flared, sharp as broken slate, but he didn’t limp. He let the stiffness settle into his stance, grounding his balance point like an oak wedge driven beneath an uneven workbench.
“You called me a hypocrite, Malphas,” Ren began.
His voice was neither loud nor wild. It was the calm, measured rasp of an artisan reading through a disputed inventory list before a town judge.
“You look at the Speculum resting against my ribs and you see a toy box of stolen lives,” Ren continued, his grey eyes fixed on the Arch-Restorationist’s pale face. “You think because I summon the Emperor or the Scribe, I’m playing the same game as your Spindle. But you’re a scrivener who spent forty years filing certificates without ever learning what gives a signed name its binding force.”
Malphas smiled faintly, though his dark, void-filled pupils flickered with a narrow spark of wariness. “A signed name is merely ink upon parchment, boy. A convention of power.”
