The workshop door stuck on its hinges again. Leonel pushed through with a shoulder and caught the edge before it slammed shut behind him. Dust spiraled through the faint light bleeding from the window's high corner, catching on the breath he didn't realize he was holding.
Two crates waited near the bench—one for pens, one for ink. He dragged the nearest closer, pried it open, and checked the foam layers once more. Nothing had shifted. The pen frames gleamed faintly in rows of twenty, each casing wrapped in dull cloth bands to prevent scuffing.
He let out a breath and rolled up his sleeves.
No servants. No tools beyond what he could carry. Just the ink, the pens, and a pair of callused hands that had spent too many nights gripping glass rods and worn brushes.
He spread the cloth across the bench surface and unrolled his tools with the care of a surgeon. The inscriber's tip was still intact—no cracks, no warp. He dipped it into the black ink first, watching the liquid cling in a slow, thick sheen.
One pen at a time.
He steadied the first frame against the block, fingers aligning the casing's edge against the rune guide he'd etched last night into the bench itself. No templates. Just a memory baked into his nerves and reinforced by failure.
His wrist moved in tiny arcs. Slow curves. Breaths held between each stroke.
A hair too wide and the rune would collapse under mana pressure.
The first casing took twenty minutes.
He didn't speed up for the second.
By the time he reached the tenth, the muscles in his thumb twitched with every lift of the tip. He set the pen down, flexed his fingers, and leaned back.
No explosions. No bubbling ink. No screams for water.
Progress.
He wiped the sweat from his temple with the back of his arm and pushed away the plate of untouched bread sitting beside the ink rack. He wasn't hungry. Not really.
He checked the runes again—each line sharp, no bleeding at the corners.
Satisfied, he set them in a fresh crate and reached for the next row.
The day passed in ink and silence.
The first break came when his neck refused to turn without popping.
He stepped outside briefly. The afternoon had faded into a flat gray sky, and the scent of coming rain settled in his nose. Sable waited near the threshold, curled under the gutter spout like a watchful shadow.
Leonel crouched, hand brushing the beast's scruff once, twice. No words. Sable didn't need any.
Then he went back in.
More pens. More ink. Red batches next—careful not to let the pigment pool along the curves of the upper rune. The blue ink needed cooling between pours. He rotated the bottles through three trays, labeled the corks with wax stamps, and wiped each neck before packing them.
The second night crept in before he noticed.
A lantern flickered above the bench, casting long shadows over the crate now filled with the first two hundred pens.
He stopped, stretched, rolled his shoulder against the beam behind him until it cracked.
No time to admire anything.
There were still eight hundred left.
The second morning came with fog.
He cracked open the window slightly, let the cold air settle against the back of his neck, and restarted the sequence. The rhythm was smoother now—hands finding familiarity in the motion. Not comfort. Not ease.
Just familiarity.
Every twenty pens, he cleaned the inscriber's tip, checked the depth of the rune slots, and adjusted the ink viscosity by a drop or two depending on room temperature.
A whisper of misalignment in batch three. He scraped the rune off with a heated blade and restarted. Slower this time.
By dusk, he'd moved past six hundred.
The ink bottles were packed as he went. Five thousand, counted and corked. Sorted by color. He used a separate tray for any bottle that didn't seal perfectly. They'd be used for testing later.
On the second night, his hands stopped listening. He nearly dropped a half-etched pen, caught it an inch before it hit the floor, and cursed under his breath.
He forced himself to stand, grip the bench edge, and breathe.
Ten minutes.
Just ten.
Then back.
On the final morning, the light broke clean through the window, brighter than it had in days.
He didn't look outside.
Only at the crate in front of him.
Only at the last twenty pens.
His hand shook once when he picked up the tool. He paused, adjusted his grip, and carved the line in two precise strokes.
This time, the rune didn't even flicker.
He finished just past noon.
His shoulders ached. Fingertips were stained gray-blue, nails ink-lined, wrists dotted with flecks of dried resin.
He stood back, ran a damp cloth over the final casing, and set it in the crate beside the others.
Then he reached for the lid, closed it tight, and locked the latches one by one.
Sable's claws clicked softly on the flagstones outside.
Leonel stepped back from the bench and looked over the quiet room, over the trays and empty vials, over the pile of stained rags and spent wax sealings.
Work finished.
But not done.
He slid the crates closer to the door, one at a time, and leaned his back against the wall.
A breeze slipped through the open window.
His fingers flexed unconsciously.
Next step: delivery.