Seven years had turned Ren from a curious toddler into a twelve-year-old architectural critic with a very dangerous hobby.
To the rest of Aethelgard, Oakhaven was a quiet, mossy cluster of houses. To Ren, it was a giant, wooden nautilus shell. The town didn’t have streets so much as it had intentions. The houses of petrified Iron-Oak didn't stand upright; they leaned inward, their gables overlapping like the scales of a sleeping dragon.
"You know, Barnaby," Ren said, balancing on the very tip of the church’s highest spire, "if the Federation ever tried to march a square formation through these streets, they’d end up walking in circles until they starved. The geometry here is just one big, leafy practical joke."
From his vantage point, the town was a glowing map of Emerald pulses. The Great Sentinel oak in the square acted as the anchor, its roots weaving through the foundation of every home. Ren watched the "Flow"—the way the town’s ancient magic filtered out the boredom of the Hundred Kingdoms and the soot of the Alchemical Empire.
The Trio of the Ash-Tree
Ren wasn't the only "unintentional" resident of the orphanage anymore. Over the years, the Ash-Tree had become a magnet for the world's discarded oddities.
Below him in the courtyard, Kael was currently turning a bucket of wash water into a sculpture of a leaping wolf. Kael was a boy of few words and very low temperatures. He came from the Frozen North, and even in the humid summers of Oakhaven, he radiated a dry, biting chill.
"Kael!" Ren shouted down, his voice full of mock-concern. "If you freeze the Sister’s laundry again, she’s going to make you wear a damp shirt for a week. The irony of a frost-mage catching a cold would be too much for me to bear."
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Kael didn't look up, but the wolf sculpture shattered into a fine mist of snow that drifted toward Ren. Ren laughed, his golden eyes tracking every individual snowflake's path. "Predictable! You always aim for the eyes."
Then there was Elara. She was sitting on the porch, her head tilted as if listening to a conversation happening three miles away. She was blind, but she was the only person who could "hear" Ren’s thoughts before he spoke them.
"Stop teasing him, Ren," Elara called out, her voice like a clear bell. "His heartbeat just spiked. You’re annoying him in D-minor today."
"D-minor is the key of tragedy, Elara!" Ren chirped, dropping from the spire and catching a lower beam with practiced ease. "I’m just trying to add some drama to his life. Without me, he’d just be a very handsome ice-cube."
The Sharpness of the Tongue
Ren’s humor was his favorite weapon. In a world of grim Inquisitors and stoic Knights, his irony was a refreshing splash of cold water—or a dagger, depending on which side of the joke you stood on.
He’d once convinced a corrupt tax collector that the trees in Oakhaven only ate people who lied about their income. He’d watched with delight as the man spent three hours apologizing to a stump while Ren "borrowed" the excess gold for the orphanage's winter coal.
"Observation," Ren mused, landing softly beside Elara. "People are so busy being important that they forget to be interesting. It’s a tragedy, really."
Elara smiled, her sightless eyes fixed on a point just past his shoulder. "Something interesting is coming, Ren. The hum of the town is changing. It sounds like... clicking. Like gears."
Ren’s smile didn't fade, but his golden eyes sharpened, dilating as they scanned the horizon. He saw it then—a faint, silver ripple in the Emerald pulse of the forest. A mechanical intrusion. The Federation was no longer just a distant rumor.
"Gears, you say?" Ren adjusted his collar, his thumb brushing the wooden eye trinket hidden in his shirt. "Well, I’ve always wanted to see how a clock reacts when you stick a golden wrench in it."
The ancient calm of Oakhaven was about to be interrupted by the cold logic of the Slate and Gold. And Ren was already preparing his opening monologue.
