Ah, no." He said, "I won't understand anything."
"Are you a caster?" It was more of a doubt question.
"Yes?" He raised a brow.
Then, shouldn't you be able to grasp some knowledge? "I see." She said, left him, and moved to Javid. She saw him dismiss her presence. "I asked you a question." An annoying thing.
"And I refused to answer." He said, "Shouldn't your mind draw realization from that?"
"You are in my clan." She knew the threat in her tone.
This invited a stare from him. A simple one. "Huh?"
The world tilted.
She stepped back—froze. What?
Nothing. All was as it was.
What just happened? Ivory looked to him, saw that same coldness, neglect. "What did you do?"
"Again, the question." He picked a chiselWare, leaned to the fallen, and drilled into its leathery wings. A scar was already there. "I'm sure as highness-or-no, highHeir, all details are revealed. If not, that tarnishes the early comment." He looked to her. "It is your clan, right?"
Ivory knew indignation and felt the need for a release. "How long is this vacation of yours?" she said, "Rumors speak of a certain possibility of banishment."
"What does it matter?" He said, "Perhaps I might suddenly become a highness."
Ivory fumed, but recalled the Mother told mantra. Emotion is the thing of fruitless expense. The weak outcome—error within the intelligent one. She said, "You might find yourself left where that fallen was found."
She veered from him.
"You survived?" He suddenly said,
"What?" Ivory glanced at him.
"Repetition breeds a certain annoyance." Javid said, "I heard an attack happened here."
Is he asking about me? "Does such things even interest you?"
"No." He said, "But the details, that might."
Silence.
"I hear of a sudden whiteness…Did you cast?"
"I always could."
"Yes, of course." He looked away, and Ivory knew his interest waned. This was the thing he did. She parted, found Seadon, fiddling with a ware. A dark box—elitum-like. He saw her and said, "This is new." he raised the box.
"He made it." She spoke with hidden mockery. He saw him make it.
"I wonder whose soul he used."
That interests him? Not the question on how a not even redeemed caster could cast souls. She thought, nodded simply, and said, "Maybe the slaves." Her attention shifted to MIralin and the protean shape. What was it?
She felt the beckoning desire to question. But no. Men moved to the women. Not the other way. Argon was the supreme exception. She whirled, sensed the following of Saedon, stopped, turned to him, and said, "What?"
He cocked his head. "Uhm, Mother said I should stay with you."
What a testimony…She sighed internally. "Soon, nail would find me." She chose the softest tones. "Till then, I would want to work a bit. Or do you want to stall the seatGuard?"
She saw his trembling, fidgeting. "Well, I actually have something to do. My boats and all. Maybe next time?"
A man who chooses a boat over a woman…Ivory tasted a certain bitterness. Maybe pride? She smiled, thought so at least. "Thanks."
He beamed at her, and she knew his mind working in that foreseen pattern. I had woed her, he would think. Better to allow him to do so.
He left her then, departing through the side sliding door. This was good. The conversational silence was always a desire. Now. She passed a glance once more to Miralin, Javid, and thought, I wonder if any of them sees the greatness of my project.
She walked on.
True, the entirety of this space was her lab—hers to use. Yet, when shared with those males, the need for privacy trumped all conservations. She needed the solitude, in it, and only in it, could she stirr the mental juices. To think. To create.
Such, her now lab was far deeper into the vast room. Ahead, two metal pillars stood, a glass door between them. Observing, one saw nothing outside their own reflection. Special glass. One heated and cast with adequate properties. By the sides of the pillars were hallways deeper into the lab. castWarers worked further down. The truth was her knowledge of the true size was little, so was the way of Valor, but all knew what was hers.
She gripped the doorknob—special in the way her sole dactylogram could open the door. It parted, not slid, but opened sideways. A rare thing these days in the common era. At least, the known histories hinted at this.
Perhaps the Highness's knowledge gave a dissimilar answer.
She entered.
Within the lab was a modest space. High ceiling but a reserved width. Barely 6 meters. Dark walls, froststone dotted, with light spilling from the base-fitted lamps. Near the walls, two sleek tables were rooted, wares scattered over them. A perhaps messy display. Didn't matter though.
Ivory looked ahead and saw the Glory of valor. The Integument. Pinned against a metal board, it seemed a humanoid shape—no head. Dark with many segments, as though an armour of sorts. Fingers ended with pointy, dark claws—a strange metal, of course.
All as one. The integument was not worn in patterns. Was not in suit segments, but a wholeness. An awesome craft. She was awed by it and thought, And I must create a version of it.
A thing never before done. Of course, a certain internal aspect told her of the improbability. Integument wasn't an unknown thing—to brightCrowns at least. All knew. All had tried.
Recreation, mending. Things countless castWarers had attempted and failed. Would she? Ivory trailed her fingers over its crisp surface, bumping through the divisions. There was no pattern, no logic. No means to grasp the connection between form and function.
This was the mystery of the integument.
The first armour, they were called. According to the oral history, Ivory thought, stepped back, and reached to the side. On the left long desk, a book. She opened it, read through, and sighed.
She would have loved to study an external type integument; Ones said to have far unique structures. Perhaps the knowledge of recreation lay there.
This, however, was valors. Seal knight. A named reference to Amon seal valor—former highness. An ancestor. She thought then about its function, a sort of recollection of mental data. Ivory leaned against the side table, crossed her hands.
Seal knight. An internal type integument. Outside the usual strength and physical enhancements, it comes fitted with sharp, poisonous claws—Data end.
Ivory opened her eyes, found herself quipped by the thought processes. Even the end quotations had been latched onto her cognition. That ability to recall with clear authenticity. Once, that was seen as a force resonance. It could be.
Her regard flowed into the present, senses perked into the procession of Integument data. Compared to the seal Knight, Ivory found herself convetous of the nightingale—integument of the Fray clan. Yes, both were internal types, but the latter bore distinctive attributes. Powers. Traits that likely fit into special possibilities within the structure.
That she desired to see. That she wanted to study.
This will have to do…Ivory thought, took up another book. A board like one. On it, diagrams, map-outs of the Integument structure were viewed. Due to theocracy and preservation laws, dismantling the integument was vetoed. Fear—the thing of beasts held them in belief that undoing risked destruction.
Rightly, there was truth in that. Stripping it chanced upon failure. If I failed, that is.
Regardless, there is no way to fully learn the truth of the integument by studying the bare front of its structure. Internality is the adequate path. She thought, but knew the sure chances.
She imagined a better world—one ruled by logic rather than fruitless hysteria. Failure wasn't necessarily an evil thing. In it, progress is often trounced. Why didn't the majority see this as so? She looked away, down to her book, and shaded parts of the graph. A calming thing.
There was not much to do here, she noted. Outside the physical studies, the wonderment of the Armor was halted there. She could, of course, try analyzing the contents of the poison. Like many times. Though, as always, the results yielded the same.
The internally produced toxin was old. Impossibly old. Old—Ivory reformed the information. "At least older than 10,000 years. Older than the third and second ages."
This chanced upon the possibility of geographical changes caused by the darkening. Yet, a prospect of a rare discovery remained. Out there, likely, a plant, an animal, a mineral—something with a similar bane existed.
Same for the contrary.
She could hope upon that. Hope—that ambition killer. Ivory returned the graph, fingers momentarily trembling from the cold desk. Same for the dark walls. There was no particular reason for the intense chill, she knew; however, the capabilities of the cold symbols provided an innocuous state from fire.
This was wanted.
Same for the pure silence. The walls, she believed, were padded with special foams. Elastic tree, perhaps, or elitum. Regardless, the effect brought a state of isolation from external sounds. Even hers came lowered in a preternatural way. At least to others.