The Calrinth halls, a minor aristocratic lineage within Sheath, shared the hewn fortress on the city's upper tiers, where the tower's light bathed it in perpetual day. High, mirrored ceilings loomed over corridors lined with portraits of ancestors. Everything polished to perfection, always striving to brighten their halls with the light of the tower through contraptions and arrangement. Unlike most households, Vale had always thought theirs as labyrinthine. A twisting of the precious space they perched upon. The Calrinths might have only been given a small lower section of the horst, but they have spend their years expanding into the stone, a singular focus to make more for themselves.

Vale's gaze now followed those mirrored contraptions, where the light of the tower today was not pure but in the colors of the Climb. She could see the faint outline of the tower tournament playing out in the narrowing distance.

Most of the Calrinth family had gathered in their opulent viewing room, a chamber adorned with artifacts and tapestries that spoke of their lineage's long history. It was positioned above the balcony where the main family would present themselves. In this room, one could sit in any place and always see the tower spectacle in some surface or other. Fitting the room, the occupants were equally splendidly dressed while Vale wore simpler grey and earthen colored garments, almost worker clothes, to the chagrin of her mother.

Having reached the viewing room, but already wanting to escape the chatter, Vale descended to the balcony. As Vale leaned against the marble balustrade, she fingered a dull shard of golem heart that hung from her neck. Her father joined her, his voice booming as he pointed out each competitor's house and speculated on rivalries within the Climb.

"Look there," her father gestured towards a young caster scaling a particularly treacherous stretch of terrain visible through the distant shimmering light. "That one belongs to House Grenver. Seven seasons now in, still got 2 tickets. He is close to breaching the highest ranks." He continued, "The boy might have potential, but he lacks imagination." Vale wanted to laugh at the irony.

Another spectator on the balcony following the fights jolted her from her reverie. "What the dark…They broke it." Vale gave him a sidelong glance but said nothing as her attention returned to the tower lazily scanning for what might have prompted the outburst.

The young Grenver was moving again, scaling an overhang with a deftness, but otherwise unremarkable. That wasn't it.

Her breath hitched. A team was observing enemies getting a quest—that was common enough among casters—but there was a red flash. It was akin to what she had observed in her experiments. The caster fed shards to a statue.

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Vale watched, her fingers tracing the edge of the golem heart shard around her neck. The fragment's surface was cold, its inner light dormant, but they looked similar enough. "What did they break?" she asked from the man beside her.

"Hm. It was a damned golem heart. No hesitation. Wish I knew what they got for it.", he shook his head.

Vale's mind was racing—she was right. The shards were able to be used.

She watched as one by one shards vanished into the statue, before the two casters pocketed the rest. And finally as they departed, she saw Unlorm find one more, and himself attempt to give it to the statue.

Everyone at the viewing had by now realized or been told what happened and the agitated crowd both below and behind her had fallen into loud discussions and exclamation of the meaning of they just witnessed.

Clasping the shard from around her neck, Vale retreated off to the side. She held it wrapped in her wrists and whispered an incantation she had been refining for months—a spell not meant for golems but for flesh.

The shard responded, thrumming, and then as in the tower, it flashed, as it had done numerous times before. Weak, contained. Barely a reflection on Vale's face as she observed it through the opening in her hands where the shard lay.

Just like it. A voice intruded upon her focus—a younger cousin with wide eyes "What are you doing?".

Vale held up her fist towards the tower, "Trying to catch the light." before she returned the shard back under her clothes around her neck. Her cousin leaned forward, trying to catch another glimpse of whatever had captivated Vale's attention so thoroughly, but Vale's glare eventually drove him off.

While other discussions slowly abated, Vale remained focused on the tower's light playing out across the surfaces—possibilities now echoing through her mind. This observation was a crack in the world as Vale knew it, that breached the boundary of her own endeavors. The applications of golem hearts had always been rigidly defined—fuel for those hulking sentinels that did essential work for Sheath's survival. No other use could be tried as the golems and Sheaths survival was too intertwined. Shards happened only after the magic was gone. When it ran out, and the heart was ejected from the now rigid creature. Dropping to the ground, they would shatter. Leaving shards of what basically was like any other crystal or glass. Oh people used them for decoration. Rarity begs value. Vale had received hers on her 15th birthday. A macaber gift, considering the failure it signifies. But Vale didn't think her mother had intended a slight, for all her disagreement.

The shard on her necklace had become the focus of much of her freetime in the last 2 years, ever since it had lit up during one of her history classes when they had to recite old magic. These shards can do more.

Her focus returned to the Climb playing out across mirrored reflections throughout the room; casters ascending tiers bathed in light, using their skills and powers—to survive another day, against time and enemies. Vale realized that time was also a problem for her—the dwindling season meant her free time was at an end.

Vale's mother had made her way over to her. "I knew you would latch onto this."

"They used it. Broke a hale heart and just used the shards", Vale replied.

Her mother scoffed. "That's what we need them for. They wasted it. Probably some superstition. Barbarians. Golem shards are for golems—everyone knows that."

Vale finally looked up at her with an unwavering gaze. "Not anymore."