Khara and Ethelvaed followed the Steppehawk into the Stormwall.

There was no other choice. It was going in, and that meant the heir had gone in too.

After a few seconds, a glowing orange smear appeared on the waves ahead of them. Khara wiped her eyes and clung to the front railing of the sloop. At first, she thought it was a ship, but it wasn’t moving.

It was a city on stilts.

“He’s there!” Khara yelled. She couldn’t see the steppehawk anymore, but there was no way a little airship like his would make it through the Stormwall. He was stopping here.

There was no way the sloop would make it through, either. The waves tossed them, and already, the ship threatened to tip. Water washed across the deck, and they’d lost three Aremir sailors already.

The closer they got to the stilt-city, the more Khara realized the sloop wouldn’t make it out of here in one piece. The mast was creaking, and water poured into the lower deck. Rigging had snapped. The sail ripped and its edges frayed.

When they reached the first stilt, Khara and Ethelvaed jumped. They clung to the twenty-foot-wide column of titanwood, jabbing their swords into the wood like climbing picks. Ethelvaed suspended their Familiars on a bed of air, holding his horse and her boar behind them.

They leapt just in time. The sloop tried to turn away, but a large wave caught it. It listed to the side, then smashed into a different stilt, tearing in half.

Khara grimaced, but there was no other way. They were just mortal men, servants of the Aremir family, and they didn’t matter.

Right now, only one person mattered.

“There’s no escape this time, Leursyn,” she muttered, then started climbing.

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“Wizards?” a guard exclaimed. “If there were any wizards in Lady Neria’s realm of purview, they’d have been sent here to work!”

“We are secret projects of hers,” Pirin said. He was tempted to claim he was a Wildflame, an Unbound Lord she’d turned to her cause, but the guards would notice the disparity in power. He was still a Flare, for a few more hours, at least, until his core processed all the runebond tattoos.

But on the outside, he looked like a Blaze—just without an animalistic runemark. He gestured to the glowing gold tattoos on his cheek.

“Now, show a powerful wizard the proper respect,” Pirin demanded. “Avert your eyes and allow this inspection to take place.”

Both guards did as they were told in less than a second. Their hands were trembling. A pang of regret shot through Pirin. It didn’t feel good. Worse than planting thoughts in someone’s mind and making them act as you want them to.

They were scared of him.

“Apologies, sir,” the same guard said. “We sent out a team to—”

“We received no greeting. Is there someone who knows their way around the facility who we can talk to?”

“Y—yes, sir. Right this way.”

Both guards set off down the hallway. Pirin and Myraden shared a nod, then followed. The hallway was wide enough for their Familiars to walk behind, gnatsnapper and bloodhorn side-by-side.

They followed the guards to an intersection, where the current hallway merged with a larger, ring-like hallway that wrapped around the entire first platform. Workers in white coats and guards in silver armour marched around the hallway, holding containers or sheets of parchment. A few wizards scampered past, dressed in simple tunics, but they were Lady Neria’s tools, and though they were the equivalent of a Flare, they had no real combat prowess or any martial techniques.

When they made it halfway around the platform, they arrived at a bank of windows. An ostal man in a white coat and a green sash stood in front of it, looking down, until one of the guards said, “Pardon, Mr. Tante, but there are two wizards here who are seeking to perform a facility inspection on behalf of Lady Neria.” He leaned closer and whispered something to the ostal. Pirin pretended he didn’t hear, but with his enhanced hearing, it was impossible no to.

The guard mentioned that Pirin and Myraden were very powerful and should be treated with caution. Nothing about betraying them. Pirin suspected the thought hadn’t even crossed the guard’s mind.

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“Very good,” the ostal, Mr. Tante, said. He dismissed the two guards with a flick of his hand, then looked at Pirin and Myraden. “Greetings, and welcome to Weavehome. I apologize for the messy introduction, but I hope you understand that we are on a tight schedule, and some minor things, such as greeting a visitor, may fall through the cracks.”

Pirin didn’t respond for a few seconds. He pretended to be mentally jotting it down, but really, he didn’t care at all. Finally, he said, “Yes, yes. I see.” He cleared his throat, then turned to the window. “If you don’t mind, we are on a tight schedule. We would like to see the army.”

Mr. Tante glared at them for a few seconds, then said, “Training the sprite-filth, hm? I wouldn’t think Lady Neria would allocate the resources to traitors.”

Pirin narrowed his eyes. “She showed the proper desire, so she should advance, yes?” He stepped forward. “Are you questioning the Lady’s judgment? I will add it to my report if so, and I will mention you by name, Mr. Tante.”

“That is unnecessary, sir,” he said. “I will cooperate.” He motioned toward the bank of lattice windows on the wall. They faced toward the inside of the dome, providing a view over an atrium in the center of the platform.

Hundreds of forges dotted the floor. Fires burned in stoves and workers pumped bellows. Smoke wafted up to the ceiling, turning the air cloudy. He could barely see the blacksmiths far below, pounding a brassy-golden steel into longswords, spearheads, and shields.

Woodworkers fashioned the shafts for spears and bows at the edges of the massive forge, and finally, they assembled the weapons and placed them on racks.

Every weapon had ornate carvings and moulding. They took smooth shapes, with rounded edges and swooping accents. An army to control the Mainland would need to look the part.

“We have been maintaining a steady rate of production,” Mr. Tante said. “Every Weaveling has a weapon by now.”

Pirin raised his eyebrows. He was tempted to ask how many Weavelings there were, but a trusted wizard of Lady Neria would know that already.

“May we see the Weavelings?” Pirin asked.

“Yes, sir. Right this way.”

They marched around the hallway another third of the way around the platform, dodging other workers and guards. Their Familiars caught a few stares from the guards. Even if the Neria family enforced a specific type of Familiar for the wizards who worked at the facility (which would be most likely, if they were using the Essence to create complex fabric wraiths), Pirin had excuses lined up in his mind in case anyone inquired. Neria needed different types of wizards, or preferred wind mages for her secret project, and so on.

They reached the edge of the dome and stepped out onto another open-air walkway. Rain and wind battered them as they crossed between domes. It wasn’t exactly cold outside, being so close to the equator, but the wind and rain didn’t make Pirin warm either. He glanced back at Myraden, but the sprites had adapted better for the cold.

The next platform was a little wider and taller, and more light glimmered on its outside. They were just torches—signal torches—and a few windows.

Mr. Tante pushed open a door, and they stepped into a sheltered hallway much like the first platform’s hallways. But here, porous rocks hung at the rigid edges between the walls and the ceiling. Windstones.

Pirin analyzed them with his spiritual sight. They all had the same runes carved in them. If a gust of wind blew through them, the stones would all shake and vibrate, resonating with the same rune-pattern and altering the whistling of the wind to transmit whatever sound the original stone picked up.

“An ingenious system, don’t you think?” Mr. Tante said. “Widespread windstones for announcements and alarms, if needed. Without the outside winds of the Stormwall, there wouldn't be enough current for such a large system.”

“Very,” Pirin said, nodding professionally. He wished he’d brought a sheet of parchment so he could at least pretend to jot down notes.

Confidence. Just be confident.

“We are getting further away from the Featherflight,” Myraden whispered.

“We’ll be fine,” Pirin whispered back.

They reached another bank of windows, and Mr. Tante halted. He motioned toward the windows again and said, “And this is the sewing floor.”

Pirin raised his eyebrows and peered through the glass.

They stood a few storeys above the floor of another massive atrium. On the far side of the room, workers brought in golden yellow fabric that glowed in Pirin’s spiritual sight. It wasn’t as bright or powerful as the elixirs, and it hadn’t yet become a wild-treasure, but it had absorbed enough Essence pellets to be prime wraith-making material.

The fabric rushed down an assembly line. Workers cut and formed it into shapes, then sewed it together in the shape of men. They had thick wooden bones and wound-up, Essence-soaked string for muscles. Halfway across the room, workers inserted a core of manifested Essence into their guts and applied the last patch of fabric. The Essence gradually de-manifested and poured into the wraiths’ flesh, creating a weak system of channels. Tiny strips of fabric whirled beneath their outer shell, allowing them to move like any other wraith would—just in the shape of a man.

“It didn’t take long to siphon enough sailmaking material from the Company’s main production for this project,” Mr. Tante said. “And I assure you, we are using it to the best of our ability, however, it can take weeks to create a Weaveling from start to finish, not to mention giving them combat training.”

“They can be trained?” Pirin asked.

“Oh, yes, sir,” said Mr. Tante. He stepped out of the way of a group of Neria-company guards. “They are excellent learners. We use a complex process of forming their inner wraiths which develops their soul to a greater extent than any other wraiths at the same power-level. They don’t have enough Essence to use arcane techniques, mind you, but they would be a match for any Catch-stage wizard. They are superior to any army of mortal men.”

Pirin realized he had a skeptical look on his face. He wiped it away quickly, but Mr. Tante still must have seen.

“I assure you, this army is more effective than any group of wizards. We have five-hundred wizards working here, and we didn’t funnel any advancement resources to them. Over the past decade, we have crafted an army of one hundred thousand wraiths, and ninety percent of them are ready for deployment. That is more value than any wizard could provide, and they will serve the Company well.”