The runecarriage began to move along the rails. Not pushed, nor pulled. It was as if the will was etched into the metal.
There was a constant thrum of power running through the rails and into the carriage's frame, which Cal felt as he settled into his seat. Vincent sat right next to him, burying his nose into the coat as he felt a slight chill. Runes lined the iron beneath the floorboards in long, interlocking chains, their glow muted and disciplined, like embers banked beneath ash.
The rails outside were no simple tracks. Each was carved with directional sigils and stabilizing arrays, guiding the carriage forward while resisting the strain of speed and mass. Steam hissed from the vents, while Cal and Vincent looked around in slight awe and puzzlement.
"I've never been on one of these before," Vincent said. "I saw a few people board these things, but I never got close to one before!"
The excitement in his voice was almost palpable, but Cal didn't seem to reciprocate such enthusiasm.
Once set in motion, the runecarriage obeyed the logic inscribed into it — accelerating smoothly, gliding over distances that would take days on foot in a matter of hours.
Cal watched as the interior lights brightened faintly, responding to the rising flow of power. The hum beneath his boots deepened, steady and unwavering, and then the world outside the narrow windows began to slide — not abruptly, but with quiet inevitability. Lamnor's outskirts blurred into dark streaks of stone and fog as the carriage committed itself to the rails.
"Well, you have now," Cal replied, his voice indifferent. "And speaking of what you've heard..."
Vincent perked up, looking at Cal. "Yeah?"
"Have you heard anything?" Cal asked. "About the Merlin Trials."
Vincent slowly looked down, trying to think of how to respond to such a question.
"Nothing that you don't know," he admitted after a moment. "Nothing solid, anyway."
He shifted in his seat, eyes drifting toward the floor as if searching for the words etched there among the runes. "You hear a lot of things when you're living there. Alleys, tavern corners, or drunk men who ramble on because they never made it past the arch."
Cal remained silent, watching him. Vincent continued on.
"I never believed much of what they said," he said. "Not until those messengers from the Empire came to Lamnor."
Cal nodded, remembering. He thought back to when those men unexpectedly came near the Hollow Anvil.
The message they came to spread. Their gaze when looking at Cal. What they said to him.
Vincent glanced back up. "Apparently, it's a way of proving what you're worth. Some people go in and come out soldiers. They get names, ranks, land sometimes. Prestige."
Cal nodded. "Yeah. All of that, I know."
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The hum of the runecarriage filled the space between them, steady and unyielding. Cal let his gaze drift back toward the narrow window, watching the blur of stone and fog outside, when Vincent shifted beside him.
"Hey," Vincent said quietly.
Cal turned his head. "Yeah?"
Vincent hesitated, fingers curling slightly against his coat sleeve. His excitement from earlier had dulled, replaced by something more cautious.
"After the tunnel," he began. "When we got back to the Hollow Anvil and we were about to sleep. The sword..."
Cal could sense where this was headed. "Yeah, what about it?"
"The sword," Vincent continued. "How'd you make it light up like that?"
Cal stiffened, just a little, not answering right away.
"I didn't," Cal said finally. "I didn't make it light up. At least, I didn't try to."
Vincent frowned at that. Not in suspicion or skepticism, but rather it came from a deep sense of genuine confusion. His eyebrows knit together in the form of someone trying to reconcile an answer that didn't fit.
"You didn't try to?" he asked.
Cal exhaled through his nose, eyes drifting back toward the window. The blur outside hadn't slowed. If anything, it seemed faster now, the rails humming with the same patient certainty.
"I mean," Cal said, trying to elaborate on his reply. "I didn't feel like I made it happen. I grabbed the hilt and then the blade lit up!"
Vincent leaned back slightly, folding his arms across his chest before speaking again. "That doesn't just happen, Cal."
"I know," Cal responded.
The hum filled the space again, heavier this time. Vincent's gaze flicked briefly to Cal's shoulder, where the sword was buried in the scabbard.
"Was it from something you touched before? Like the lumenveil mushrooms back in the tunnel?" Vincent asked.
"No, it couldn't be," Cal shook his head. "I don't think lumenveil would do such a thing. This was different."
Vincent hesitated. "Then what was it like?"
Cal didn't answer right away.
His fingers curled slowly against his knee. The memory stirred unbidden, sharp and luminous, pressing against the back of his thoughts like light behind closed eyes.
"...I had a dream," Cal finally began. "The night before."
Vincent nodded. "Yeah, you told me."
"Let me finish," Cal insisted, relaxing his fingers. "I didn't tell you what I saw, did I?"
Vincent's eyes widened. He knew where this was going.
"In the dream," Cal started. "I saw nothing. Then almost everything. It was white. Everywhere. No ground, no sky. Just light stretching on forever."
Vincent didn't interrupt. He just nodded, motioning Cal to continue.
"I could hear whispers," Cal said. "They were faint. I could barely hear them. And they started moving around me, which just made it even weirder. There wasn't a figure in sight!"
Vincent's eyes widened in slight awe, wondering what made Cal see such a thing.
"Then I felt a... a ripple. If that makes sense. Like something tore through it," Cal continued. "And I could've sworn those voices... they merged into one."
He shifted in his seat, the memory tightening his chest. Vincent's brows drew together.
"What did it say?" he asked.
Cal hesitated. The words still carried weight, even now.
"It talked about fixing things," he said solemnly. "About understanding everything. And how no one could do it without violence... without fighting. Without..."
Vincent's eyebrows rose in eagerness, his body going still.
Cal inhaled deeply. "It said it couldn't be done without me."
The runecarriage rattled slightly in its motion, but stayed on track, nonetheless. Vincent stared at Cal, his fists clenched in anticipation.
"It told me that something was being presented to me," Cal went on. "That when things became desperate… I could call on it."
His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "But that I'd do so at my own risk."
Vincent swallowed. "Did it say anything else?"
Cal met his eyes. "Yeah, a name."
Vincent gave a look that urged Cal on.
"At the end... the voice called it Blightless Dominion."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The hum of the runecarriage felt louder now, like it was listening.
Vincent finally let out a breath. "That's it? That's... not normal."
Cal scoffed, leaning back against the seat. "You're telling me? Nothing about the past two days has been normal."
Vincent rubbed a hand over his face. "Doesn't sound like anything I've heard before. Honorifics, prayers, or something else... I've never heard that name in any of them."
Cal's gaze drifted downward, toward where the sword rested. "Maybe it isn't."
Vincent followed his eyes. "Then what do you think it is?"
Cal hesitated for a moment, his breaths deep. Then he spoke, the thought solidifying as he said it aloud.
"Maybe it wasn't just a name for what I have," he said slowly. "Maybe it's describing something."
Cal leaned back into the seat, eyes drifting upward toward the dim iron ceiling. The runes there pulsed faintly in rhythm with the rails below, steady and unchanging. He let his thoughts wander back to the moment in the tunnel — the sudden and erratic movements of the fugitive. The descriptions he was given by members of the platoon before they made it to the tunnel.
"Everything has blight," Cal said. "Corruption, sickness, rot. Everything's flawed. Even people."
He pondered on the name. Blightless Dominion.
Would it mean something of purity? Something whole and untouched? Cal thought.
What would it mean to call upon something of that nature? A balm in the weariest moments? What life would be like if that were the case.
Cal didn't speak for a while. Neither did Vincent. The silence overtook the runecarriage like fog on an ugly morning during the rainy season. The sword lay quiet in its scabbard, unassuming once more. No glow. No heat. No sign that it had ever done anything unusual at all. But Cal could still remember the way it had felt in his hand. The surge of light, the vividness of it, the certainty of the sight that fell before him.
A realization began to form, slow and reluctant.
"Maybe..." he started. "The light wasn't a reaction."
Vincent looked back up at him. "What do you mean?"
Cal hesitated. Saying it aloud made it feel more real, more dangerous. "Maybe the light was Blightless Dominion."
Vincent stared at him.
"You think that name refers to the light itself?" he asked, slow understanding etched in his voice.
Cal nodded. "Possibly. It's an assumption I have no faith in. But it's what I've got."
Vincent leaned back in his seat, arms crossing loosely as he considered that. "So, the sword did nothing on its own."
Cal shook his head, the words forming in his mouth slowly, even if saying them out loud would've been concerning. "It only glowed once I held it... I think it was because of me."
The thought settled between them, heavy but strangely precise. Neither of them spoke after that, as if both were afraid that pressing the idea too far might cause it to fracture.
------
Some time had passed without either of them noticing.
Cal only realized when the small chronometric dial embedded near the carriage's door caught his eye. The etched needle had shifted farther than he expected. An hour, maybe more, had slipped by beneath the steady hum of the rails.
Vincent stirred beside him.
Cal felt the weight before he registered what it was. A slight pressure against his shoulder. Warmth through fabric.
He glanced down. Vincent was asleep.
His head had tipped sideways at some point, coming to rest against Cal's shoulder, his breathing slow and even. One arm lay slack across his own lap, fingers curled loosely, as if he'd simply lost the fight to exhaustion mid-thought.
Cal froze.
For a brief moment, he wasn't sure what to do. Moving felt wrong. Letting it continue felt… awkward. He shifted slightly, then stopped when Vincent's brow twitched in response.
So, he stayed still, letting out a slow breath as he looked back towards the window. Within the hour, Cal had mulled over the prior conversation, trying even harder to figure out what the dream meant. He went back to old conversations, half-formed theories whispered in low voices when the Hollow Anvil had gone quiet.
Ecliptics.
People beyond ordinary limits. Strength that shouldn't exist. Abilities that bent rules others didn't even know were there. And then the term that he still had no clear understanding of came to plague him again.
Esoteric arts.
He didn't know what they meant, but he had his own guess, as he stated to Vincent when they made their way to the tunnel.
They're probably unique manifestations, different for every bearer. Not learned. Not inherited cleanly. Something awakened...
Something revealed...
The thoughts continued to churn in his mind, but at the same time, it had all felt distant. Academic. A curiosity meant for other people.
Cal swallowed.
The light from the sword hadn't felt borrowed. It hadn't felt external. It had answered him. No — it had come from him. He'd known that much the moment it happened, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it.
Blightless Dominion. The name surfaced again, unbidden.
Not a blessing. Not a prayer. Not something given freely.
Something intrinsic.
Cal's eyes widened, feeling a creeping sense of bitter truth rise in the bile of his stomach.
This makes too much sense...
His gaze drifted, unfocused, to the reflection in the darkened glass of the window. The face that stared back looked the same as it always had. No horns. No glow. No mark of difference.
Yet despite all of that, the fugitive in the tunnel flashed through his mind. The unnatural movements. The way his body had twisted and surged beyond human limits. The fear Cal had felt watching him.
The way that blood fizzed... It's just as uncommon as my sword's illumination. If it's all unique to the person, then...
His chest tightened.
He wasn't just close to it. He was standing in it. The realization settled slowly, inexorably, until there was no room left to deny it.
He was an ecliptic.
Not someday. Not potentially. Already.
And Blightless Dominion — whatever it truly was — was his Esoteric Art. The light hadn't been a reaction. It hadn't been the sword.
It really had been him. Just as he started to think so.
The truth was clear now, impossible to unsee. He wasn't as human as he'd believed. Whatever line separated ordinary men from things beyond them… he'd crossed it without noticing.
Fear followed swiftly. A cold, coiling thing that tightened his stomach and made his pulse quicken.
But beneath it — quiet, restrained, almost shameful — was something else.
A flicker of excitement.
Because for the first time, the questions haunting him weren't faceless anymore. They had shape. Direction. And they only attained such form after he left. After he made the decision to find something greater.
And for better or worse, he was finally beginning to understand himself.
Cal remained still as the runecarriage carried them onward, Vincent breathing softly against his shoulder, the rails humming beneath them — steady, patient, unyielding.