Jorrin watched as Lady Hemrick sat there unaffected; the two bodies lay before her on the ground. She just delicately brushed the canvas leaving inky blood. The bodies were the Duke and Duchess before they had been desecrated. One of the servants had the grisly work of reattaching. Jorrin felt sick even thinking about it. Jorrin had met Trystan once or twice at meetings, this thing was not him.

The woman looked so young, with her hair hacked at, she reminded him of Glynna. Jorrin tasted the bile at the back of his throat; he couldn’t understand how Hemrick could just sit there so impassively. Jorrin turned away, heading towards the door.

“Cardinal, are you leaving so soon?”

“I haven’t the taste for such butchery.” Lady Hemrick turned to face him.

“Not even for the Jhin?” He faced her for a second, Jorrin felt his feet shift and turn away from, saying nothing. * Sunlight reflected off the heap of metal chained to the stand, a large circular mirror stood in the centre of the room. Jorrin looked at the lifeless metal; he loved how metal could move like muscle, and how it appeared to breathe. That was what he craved, that sense of creation gained through Heliomancy.

One might call him mad for his addiction but he did not care for what others said. Jorrin remembered what the orders had been; he was to create a creature of fire and steel, one that breathed.

He gazed at the prone form through the mirror, the time was near, time to bring life to dead metal. A shadow began to creep, on to Jorrin’s hand. It was time. Jorrin had his servant, Pordoir position the mirror, so that it would direct the sunlight on to him. Jorrin walked around the mirror, placing himself in its path. The lifeless creature stared at him.

“It is time, Cardinal; the beam will be concentrated as you wish. Have you readied yourself to channel it?” Pordoir asked. He was ever one to ask inane questions. “I am ready now, position the mirror and we shall begin.”

At once he felt a scorching sensation, he could feel the sun burning, mutating his skin. He allowed himself to become the mirror, channelling the mutating radiation of the sun. Flame encircled his wrists, the fires of the creation. He was a creator, he was the past. The birth of something caused that which came before it to be relegated to the past. From his wrists, the fire streaked and pulsed into the metal. It blazed a deep orange; Jorrin could feel the heat radiating from it, a fluttering in his stomach. This was it, this was the creation.

A primal longing awoke within him, paternal love for something inanimate. There was a shuffling from the metal pile; it began to raise itself, segments attaching to each other. A spine formed of the orange, burning steel. Then a ribcage, its legs and arms moved spasmodically, straining the chains binding it. Shoulders of hot iron blazed into the night, a sphere struck the top of the spine with great force, causing the structure to sway.

When it stopped swaying, the sound of grinding metal tore through the room as the sphere began to form a face. Then the flame died, blown out like a candle. Jorrin stared at the cold metal searching for the flame that blazed in the light of the animate. There was nothing but the cold stare of iron.

In the chest cavity, a tiny flame danced the ignition of life. The creature convulsed as though something burned through its bloodstream, perhaps a stream of molten fire, Jorrin mused. They say the eyes were a portal to the soul, a soul wreathed by flame, with the fire of intelligence. It is born; Jorrin felt excitement rush through him. My child is born.

Next Chapter: Shutters of Moonlight