Lucian stood in the middle of the square with his sleeves rolled up. Beads of sweat darkened the collar of his shirt, and he had shed the vest a little before noon.
When the wind picked up, Lucian sighed.
"It's like the weather can't make up its mind."
The smell of forge soot, wet stone, and burnt ash came along with it.
He frowned. The city's small ceremonial brazier wasn't enough.
He needed something larger.
Something people could walk to, around, through.
Something to hold what they were ready to burn.
Henrik's apprentice, a boy with soot-caked lashes and a missing front tooth, handed Lucian the final metal plate. He'd helped hammer it into a shallow half-basin, ringed with runes scratched crudely by a borrowed chisel.
"Don't know if it'll last more than a week," the boy said, half-apologetic.
"It doesn't have to," Lucian replied. "It just has to burn clean."
