Rae did not sleep.
Not a wink.
He sat on the stone floor of the main hall with his back against a patched pillar and the suit laid out in front of him, and he planned.
All night.
One by one, the others had crawled into blankets. The watch changed shifts over on the walls. The cooking fire sank to red coals. Somewhere out in the woods, something screamed once and went quiet again.
Rae stayed where he was.
Every time his eyes started to close, his gaze slid back to the faint glow under the suit's ribs and the tiredness slipped away.
AUXILIARY POWER SOURCE DETECTED.
CALIBRATING…
The words had appeared on the edge of his vision hours ago, but they still sat under his skin like a second pulse.
STATUS: AUXILIARY CELL AT 79%.
ESTIMATED SAFE OUTPUT: 10–14% ORIGINAL SUIT CAPACITY.
WARNING: SOURCE UNIDENTIFIED. OUTPUT IRREGULAR.
Ten per cent. Maybe fourteen, if the conditions were right.
On the Time Ring, running field gear at ten per cent would have earned him a safety lecture from HR and a ban from touching anything important.
Here, it was the first solid way he had seen back home.
As long as the suits AI had a brain and a trickle of power, it could see. As long as it could see, it could record. As long as it could record, there was a path-thin and ridiculous and stupid, but a path-between this old fort and the Ring.
He could not walk that path yet.
But he could do the thing he was trained to do.
Fix what he had, with whatever scraps were in reach.
He broke the problem down to the simplest bits. Core power: gone. Time systems: out of reach without lab equipment. Sensors: fragile, but usable. Inner mesh: weak, still responsive. Outer shell: battered, patched, and built for the wrong sort of danger.
That last part, at least, he could work on.
This suit had never been meant for people who threw fire with their hands or hit like sledgehammer. It was built to keep him unnoticed and stealthy, not to stand in front of men with spears on a bad road.
He could change that.
His eyes tracked over chest, shoulders, ribs, noting every crack and stress line, every place that had taken the worst of it since he arrived - ribs, shoulders, lower back, thighs. The places panicked guards swung at. The spots a cultivator's stray blast was most likely to hit.
If he had metal, he could add plates.
If he had a smith, he could shape them.
He studied the suit one last time, fixing every flaw in his mind, then pushed himself to his feet as the first grey light crept through the gaps in the wall.
"Right," he murmured. "You kept me alive in that dark space. I will try to keep you alive in a fight."
He lifted the suit in his arms and went to find Mal.
Dawn left the fort yard washed in pale light. Breath steamed faintly in the cold. One of the night watch was doing a poor job of pretending he had not been asleep against the wall.
Mal was already at the forge.
When Cynthia had first learned he had once worked under a proper city smith, she had ordered the bandits into throwing together a makeshift smithy along the inside of the wall – a rough roof of old planks, a scavenged anvil, a stone-lined firepit and every stray bit of iron they could steal or drag home. Outside of drills and raids, she had put Mal in charge of anything that needed heat and a hammer.
The little forge glowed now, and Mal stood in front of it as he did in every spare moment that did not belong to training or bandit work. Sleeves rolled. Hammer in hand. The anvil rang in steady rhythm. He did not look like a man who had once been an apprentice in a clean, well-lit shop. He looked like he had been born at that anvil and had never walked far from it.
"Morning," Rae said.
"You are early," Mal replied without looking up. "Either you could not sleep or Cynthia kicked you out of your bedroll. Which is it?"
"I could not sleep," Rae said. "Too many bad ideas."
Mal gave a short grunt. He lifted the bar he was working, checked the colour, and slid it back into the coals.
"You are in my light," he said. "If you are going to stand there and brood, pull the bellows."
Rae set the suit against a post and took hold of the bellows handle. The motions had become familiar over the last weeks: slow pull, steady push, keep the heat even.
"I need your help," he said.
"You have it," Mal said. "Now stop talking. The fire does not care how you feel."
"Not with this," Rae said. "With this."
He nodded toward the suit.
Something in his tone made Mal turn.
The old man's gaze went to the chest panel, where a faint line of light pulsed under the metal.
"You got it breathing again," he said slowly.
"A little," Rae said. "Enough for the visor. Enough for the scanner. Enough that, if I am careful, she will not burn herself out."
Mal set the hammer down.
"Hnh," he said. "So? What do you want from me?"
Rae drew a breath.
"The armour has lost most of its strength," he said. "The shell is cracked, the plates are soft and the joints catch. It was never made for the way people fight out here. I want to lay proper pieces over what is left, brace the weak spots, give it some bite again. Something that means I am less likely to die the next time we get ambushed."
Mal's gaze shifted between Rae and the suit.
"And you came to me because…?"
"Because you're a smith," Rae said. "And because we have wagons full of scrap and no one better to use them."
Mal frowned.
"I have only worked simple pieces," he said. "Blades. Horse-Shoes. Chains. Your thing is too fine." He gestured at the suit's chest, at narrow seams and near-invisible ports. "Too many layers. One wrong blow and I'll break something you cannot fix."
Rae had expected that.
It was not the first time he had seen someone pull back from the idea of being the one who pushed a piece past the point of no return.
"You were not careful when you broke our chains," Rae said.
Mal's jaw tightened.
"Chains are simple," he said.
"Not when they are on strangers' necks," Rae replied quietly. "You did not stand there worrying about your aim. You swung. Again and again, while I screamed in fear."
Mal's mouth twitched despite himself.
"There was a fire bending madwoman threatening to burn my eyebrows off," he said. "Fear is very good for your speed."
Rae let out a short breath.
"Imagine she is behind you now," he said. "Hands warm. Looking annoyed. This only helps her. Fewer dead idiots when she drags us into fights we should not walk away from."
Mal looked back at the suit.
"At her cause," he said.
Rae nodded.
"She is pushing us into the teeth of people richer and angrier than we are," he said. "If I can stand next to her without folding, that helps. You swung for us once already. I am asking you to do it again. With more thinking, less panic."
Mal was quiet for a long moment.
Then he sighed through his nose, as if agreeing to something he had already decided.
"I do not touch your thin wires," he said. "I do not open your little boxes. I will shape plates and rings and hooks. You will do the clever part."
"Deal," Rae said at once.
"And you sort the metal," Mal added. "I will not waste my time picking through your rubbish. You want something special, you bring me the pieces first. Then I hit them."
Rae's grin came without effort.
"Done," he said. "You will not regret it."
"I regret it already," Mal muttered. "Go, before I change my mind."
⸻
They dragged an old table out of a side room and set it up in the smithy, close enough to feel the heat, far enough not to catch sparks.
Rae pulled a scrap of canvas tight across it and weighed the corners with broken chain links. He picked up a lump of charcoal and started to draw.
He began with what he knew.
Back on the Ring, the armour he had seen had fallen into two types: full shells meant for bad environments, and modular plates that locked onto a frame. Both followed the same rule cover everything first, then worry about movement. Threat first. Comfort later.
His hand followed that habit now.
A broad, solid chest plate wrapping most of his torso. Big overlapping shoulder pieces. Heavy bands around the thighs. Reinforced boots. A sealed helmet.
By the time the sun cleared the trees, half the canvas was full. Arrows pointed to anchor points and load paths. Notes marked which parts of the original shell could handle more weight and which already groaned under what they had.
In his head, he could already feel it: a shell, thick and safe.
He barely noticed the shadow that fell across the table until it moved.
"You skipped morning training," Cynthia said.
Rae jolted.
He had honestly forgotten.
"Did I?" he said, then winced at how unconvincing that sounded.
Her brows went up.
"You did," she said. "Garron tried to make excuses for you. He started talking about 'science work' and got lost halfway through."
She stepped in closer, looking down over his shoulder. Her hair was tied back with a strip of leather, her neck still damp from drills. Her gaze tracked the lines and notes in silence.
"What is this?" she asked at last.
"Armour," Rae said, straightening a little. "For the suit. Mal will help shape the pieces. I am trying to make something that will not fall apart the first time someone gets creative."
Cynthia braced a hand on the table and studied the sketch.
"This," she said, tapping the big chest plate, "weighs how much?"
"Manageable," Rae said. "If we anchor it here and here—"
"What happens when you try to turn?" she cut in. "Fast. To avoid dying."
His mouth closed again.
"And these," she went on, running her knuckles along the heavy thigh bands. "How far do your knees bend before you end up on your face? How long before those straps rub holes in you? How are you supposed to climb a slope in that?"
"It is for protection," Rae said, the words coming out defensive.
"It is a coffin with leg holes," Cynthia said flatly. "Point you downhill and you will move faster rolling than walking."
He felt heat crawl up the back of his neck.
"It would stop arrows," he muttered. "And spears. And most of Garron."
She snorted.
"Until you trip and someone uses all the gaps you left because you could not move," she said. "Why do you think we do not wear full plate? Ever seen a real line of soldiers? Those thick chest pieces are for people who stand in rows on flat ground, holding space. Not for people who run and climb and fight in scrub."
She jabbed a finger at his drawing.
"You wear this and you are going to end up like a hedgehog covered in arrows," she said. "A very slow hedgehog. With bad knees."
He could not help picturing it himself lumbering through the brush, turning into a walking target and made a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh.
"Fine," he said. "Point made."
Some of the sharpness left her face.
"You are still thinking like the place you came from," she said. "Here, you survive by not being where the blow lands. We sprint, we duck, we climb. Half the fight with a cultivator is not being under their hand when they decide to crush something. Armour that keeps you still is good for the person trying to kill you, not for you."
Rae looked down at his careful plates again.
He saw the weight now. The way the whole design assumed clean, predictable threats. Rules. Distance.
Here, Jao had flung fire like someone tossing a bucket.
Here, Cynthia broke walls with her hands.
Here, the road itself had tried to stand up and stop them.
"Right," he said quietly. "Start again."
Cynthia watched him pick up the charcoal.
"You are not going to sulk?" she asked.
"Sulking takes time," Rae said. "We have angry men hiring fire-throwers. I would like to still be alive when they stop."
That pulled a short laugh from her.
"Good answer," she said. "Show me the next one when it is not terrible. I am interested now."
She turned to go, then looked back once.
"And Rae," she added. "We still train tonight. Armour or not. You skip that as well, I will set your bedroll on fire."
"Yes, boss," he said.
When she was gone, he drew a heavy line through the big chest plate.
Then he started over.
This time he kept the idea of coverage, but stripped away anything that would lock his body into one shape.
No single huge piece. No one thing that, if it twisted, turned the whole suit into a trap.
He sketched narrow plates that followed his ribs, overlapping just enough to spread a hit without turning his torso into a barrel. He marked the vital spots on the chest heart, lungs, lower ribs for small, dense pieces, leaving the rest to the original shell and a few shaped ridges to turn blades aside.
For hips and thighs, he drew bands rather than slabs. Open along the sides. Enough to turn a spear, not enough to punish every step.
The back gave him pause.
He wanted more than cloth between his spine and a thrown knife, but he did not want a plank fixed to his back. In the end he drew a thin strip that ran along the spine, tied into the suit's harness. Protection without a board strapped to him.
The gaps bothered him.
He chewed the end of the charcoal, thinking of the messy way the last fight had gone, how blows landed where no one had meant them to land, how sweat and movement chewed through leather faster than anyone liked.
Chain, he thought.
Not the heavy mail some guards wore. That would drag at him and catch on everything. But a fine mesh, rings the size of his fingernails. Enough to bite a blade and steal some of its force before it hit plate or flesh.
He sketched it in around joints and soft spots. Underarms. Groin. Back of the knees. A narrow skirt of mesh over his lower belly and upper thighs.
When he finally sat back, hands black with charcoal, the design on the canvas looked less like a walking wall and more like a second skin with extra teeth.
He glanced at the suit.
To make this work, some of the original plates had to go.
His hand ran along the left shoulder. The composite there was cracked and warped, no longer sealing, no longer doing what it was made for. The new pieces would sit better if he stripped it.
"Sorry," he muttered. "You were never built for this anyway."
He opened the access clasps and began to dismantle, slow and careful, taking note of each piece he removed and marking it on the drawing.
On the Ring, his chief had always said: if you pull something apart and do not write it down, you deserve the trouble you get.
Even if the thing you were pulling apart was the last working suit you had between you and a mad world.
Once he had a plan, he needed metal.
Not just weight. The right sort.
He had seen Cynthia snap cheap blades. He had seen other pieces take strike after strike before they failed. There was a difference, and he was done pretending there was not.
He dragged the scrap heap out into the open, ignoring Garron's protest about "touching my treasures".
Old spearheads. Broken swords. Buckles. Chain links. Bent plates. Every twisted thing they had stripped from wagons and guards in the last three weeks and promised they would "deal with later".
Later had arrived.
Mal watched from the forge doorway with his arms folded.
"You are making a mess," he said.
"I am making piles," Rae said.
He dropped the helmet over his head and snapped the visor down.
For a moment the world was just cracks and ghost-light. Then the systems woke properly. Overlay lines, numbers, a faint bar along the bottom of his vision.
VISOR ARRAY: ONLINE (PARTIAL).
SCAN RANGE: REDUCED.
MATERIALS ANALYSIS: FUNCTIONAL.
"Come on," he muttered. "Help me out."
He picked up a dull grey shard from what had once been a breastplate.
The visor outlined it in white and scrolled information down the edge of his view - mass, rough composition, stress fractures. Down near the bottom, the new bar twitched.
LOCAL FIELD DENSITY: +8% ABOVE BASELINE.
ENERGY SIGNATURE: STABLE, LOW.
He set it aside and picked up a darker piece streaked with faint lines, as if smoke had been frozen in the metal.
FIELD DENSITY: +23%.
SIGNATURE: FLUCTUATING, HIGH STRAIN.
The metal hummed against his skin, a faint prickle.
"Qi," he said under his breath.
Cynthia's lessons slotted into place. Qi soaked into stone and ore. It changed how they behaved under pressure. The visor did not know the word, but it could see whatever the qi was doing inside the lattice.
He worked his way through the heap, visor flickering, calling out numbers and tossing pieces into rough piles.
"Dead," he said, dropping another shard beside the first. "Almost no field. Just weight."
"River iron," Mal said. "Worked too fast, cooled too fast. Cheap."
"Better," Rae said, sending a dark spearhead into a second pile. "More charge, fewer cracks."
"Deep iron," Mal said. "Mined close to old places. Harder to work, harder to break."
Rae paused over a short length of chain. The visor readings jumped.
FIELD DENSITY: +35%.
SIGNATURE: COMPRESSED, STABLE.
ESTIMATED STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE: HIGH AT MODERATE MASS.
He turned it in his hand.
"That looks familiar," he said quietly.
He remembered the collar round Cynthia's throat when he had first seen her, the way it had held when it had no business holding under her panic, under her heat, under a bloodline that melted other things like wax.
Of course it had. The metal had been soaked in qi deep enough to make his visor twitch.
"Well, that explains that," he muttered.
"What?" Mal asked.
"Why her chains did not snap the first time she lost her temper," Rae said. "They were made from this kind of metal. It holds more strain than it has any right to."
He set the chain aside carefully in the "good" pile.
Later, they could turn that stubborn strength to their own use.
He picked up a third piece: a thin strip with a faint blue cast.
The visor's readings sharpened.
FIELD DENSITY: +31%.
SIGNATURE: COMPRESSED, STABLE.
ESTIMATED STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE: HIGH AT LOW MASS.
"What is this?" Rae asked.
Mal came closer, frowning.
"That," he said, "is metal I told you I do not keep."
Rae looked up.
"Cloud iron," Mal said. "Fell out of the sky with a stone, long time back. I bought a little for myself before I ended up here. I use it when I cannot stand sending people into fights with nothing but hope and pig iron."
"Will it take being drawn thin?" Rae asked. "Strips along the spine. Ribs."
"If you work it right," Mal said. "If you rush it, it cracks. It likes to be argued with, not bullied."
Rae smiled under the visor.
"Perfect," he said. "We use it for the spine and the worst spots. Deep iron over a river-iron base everywhere else. Light as we can get away with."
Mal eyed him.
"You are enjoying this," he said.
"Yes," Rae said.
He was.
Sorting junk. Finding the good pieces. Matching them to a plan. Doing the best he could with what was in arm's reach, not what should have been there.
For the first time since the corridor, it felt like his own work.
The first attempt was ugly.
They started with one side only. If it failed, Rae wanted at least half a suit he could still move in.
Mal forged the deep iron plates at the anvil, working them thinner than he ever would for a caravan guard. Rae kept the fire steady and called out whenever the visor showed the inner pattern starting to twist in ways it did not like.
"Now," he said, and Mal lifted the glowing plate to the anvil.
Hammer. Turn. Hammer. The metal took shape under a steady rhythm.
They made a narrow rib plate, a thicker patch for the lower chest, and a strip of cloud iron for the spine. At Rae's marks, Mal punched neat holes where they could bolt into the suit's hard points.
Once the metal cooled, Rae hauled everything back to the table and began to fit it.
Bolts through anchors. Thin leather between old shell and new plate so they did not grind each other down. Straps and buckles wherever he needed play.
He had to refit the left rib plate three times before it stopped biting into his armpit.
By the time he climbed into the suit and sealed everything, the sun was sliding toward the trees.
"Moment of truth," he muttered, tightening the last buckle.
The extra weight sat on him, noticeable but not crushing. The suit's inner harness creaked once, then settled.
He walked a slow circle inside the smithy. The new plate tugged when he twisted. The strip along his back held him straighter than he liked.
He stepped out into the yard.
Cynthia was already there, leaning on the fence with her arms folded, as if she had been waiting.
One eyebrow lifted.
"You did not tell me you were stealing my smith," she said.
"He came willingly," Rae said. "I only lied a little."
"About what?" she asked.
"I told him you would be sad if he said no," Rae said.
Mal made a noise somewhere between a cough and a choke.
"It is not a lie," Cynthia said. "I would have been sad. And you are annoying when I am sad."
She pushed off the fence.
"All right," she said. "If you are going to steal training time and good metal, you can at least show me whether it was worth it."
She took two wooden practice swords from the rack and tossed one his way.
He caught it on instinct, the new plates shifting as he moved.
"Garron!" she called. "You can laze around for once. I need the new idiot."
A cheer went up from near the cookfire.
The others drifted closer, trying and failing not to stare.
Rae swallowed.
"Rules?" he asked.
"Do not die," Cynthia said. "If something feels wrong, say so. If I hit something that sounds wrong, we stop and Mal cries."
"I do not cry," Mal said.
"You will if I break your cloud iron," she said.
They squared off on the packed dirt.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"Close enough."
She moved first.
Even holding back, she wasted no motion. The wooden sword came in fast on his left.
The visor marked the line of the blow, a faint trace of light with a red glow at the point of impact if he stayed where he was.
He stepped in and down, bringing his blade up to meet hers.
Wood cracked on wood. The force ran up his arm, into his shoulder, and into the new rib plate. The deep iron rang. The mesh under his skin warmed and spread the hit across a wide patch of his side.
It hurt, but it hurt like a bruise instead of a break.
"Better," Cynthia said.
She pivoted and came in again, this time for his unarmoured right. He tried to twist; the strip along his spine complained, and he turned too slowly. Her blade thumped into his upper arm instead of his ribs.
"Bad," she said. "You still cannot twist fast enough. That strip is too stiff."
They kept at it.
Every exchange gave him something new to fix.
Left plate holds, but the edge bites. Loosen the strap.
Spine strip too long; catches when he bends. Shorten it.
Thin chain over his hip catches her blade and drags it off line. Good. Add more.
Gap under his arm wide enough for a knife. Cover it.
They went on until his lungs burned and his arms shook and the visor's polite warnings turned into outright nagging.
AUXILIARY SOURCE AT 52%.
RECOMMEND: DISABLE NON-ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS.
"Enough," he panted, stumbling back. The inside of the helmet felt like an oven.
Cynthia lowered her sword at once.
"Any tears?" she asked. "Cracks? Bad noises?"
He ran his hands over plates and straps.
"No," he said. "Just bruises. And poor life choices."
"Good," she said. "Tomorrow we build the right side. Then you do all of this again with Garron, because I will not always be the one swinging at you."
"That was you being gentle?" he managed.
She smiled, quick and sharp.
"If I really used my hands," she said, flexing her fingers, "that suit would be scrap. You know that."
"Yes," he said.
"Good," she said again. "This is for the rest of it. Knives. Arrows. Men with clubs and more confidence than sense. The more of that you can ignore, the more attention you have left for the things that will actually kill you."
She tapped his helmet with the tip of her sword.
"Like wherever the next cultivator is standing."
The next few days fell into a rough rhythm.
Mornings were for the yard, with no armour. Just legs, lungs, balance and footwork until his vision blurred and Garron slapped him on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth. Cynthia's drills were simple and merciless.
"Again," she said when he mistimed a block.
"Again," when he tripped on a step she had already made him repeat a dozen times.
"You are not trying to be clever," she told him. "Clever comes later. First you teach your body to do the stupid things properly. Step. Block. Strike. When that sits in your bones, then you start thinking."
Afternoons, when she finally let him go, belonged to the forge.
He and Mal turned the sketch on the canvas into metal one piece at a time. They tested how thin they could work the deep iron before it stopped being armour and turned into wishful thinking. They learned which way the cloud iron wanted to be hammered. They fought with straps that stretched and buckles that slipped.
Every time they finished a new section, Rae climbed into the suit and took it out into the yard.
Every time, Cynthia found something that needed changing.
"Too much weight on your shoulders," she said one day, as he wheezed after only a few exchanges. "You will exhaust yourself before the fight even starts."
"Here," she said the next, rapping his elbow with her knuckles. "Anyone halfway awake is going to aim for this once they realise your chest is not worth the effort."
"The plates over your hips are arguing with your legs," she complained another afternoon. "You cannot lift your knee properly. Do you want to fall every time you step over a log?"
He listened, swore, and went back to Mal.
Piece by piece, the suit changed.
Old composite plates came off and went back in as backing under the new chain mesh. Deep iron ribs were reshaped to sit cleaner along his sides. The stiff spine strip was cut down and turned into overlapping scales that moved with him. Chain grew wherever Cynthia's blows naturally wanted to land.
By the end of the week, when he stepped into the yard in the full set for the first time, the weight settled on him in a way that felt, if not natural, then at least like something his body could learn.
He could twist without plates catching. He could lift his arms without slicing his own elbows. He could crouch and push off without feeling like he had a box strapped to his chest.
"Better?" Cynthia asked.
"Less like a coffin," he said. "More like…a very insistent hug."
"Good enough," she said. "Sword."
They ran the drills again.
This time, when Garron joined in, Rae did not go straight to the ground. He was still slower, still weaker, still kinder than he should have been. He still lost more than he won. But he knew where his feet were. Most of the time he knew where the next blow was coming from. He knew when to trust the plates and when to move.
Cynthia strapped a knife to his belt and insisted he learn to fight with both sword and blade. Evenings turned into hours of awkward steps and clumsy cuts until the basic patterns started to stick.
Stab. Step. Cut. Back off.
Simple shapes, hammered into him the way Mal hammered heat into iron.
Under all of it—the drills, the bruises, the slow tightening of his movements—he dragged himself from useless to something just above it.
"Barely passable," Garron said cheerfully one night, clapping him on the shoulder.
"High praise," Rae said.
"It is," Cynthia said. "Five weeks ago you were a slave who swung a knife like he was solving a maths problem. Now you swing like you want to stay alive."
Rae looked down at the suit.
Deep iron over patched composite. Fine lines of chain glinting between plates. A faint, steady light under the chest panel where the spirit stone sat.
If Cynthia let her full heat loose on him, it would still be like putting a clay cup in front of a hammer.
But against everything else blades, arrows, panicked men in bad armour it was something.
Armour meant for this place, not a relic of another life.
He had reached it the only way he knew how: with stolen scrap and stubbornness, one bad version at a time, until it stopped being awful.
He rested his palm over the chest, feeling the slow, muted pulse of the spirit stone through metal and cloth.
"Home is still impossible," he said to himself. "But dying is optional."
Then he picked up the wooden sword again and stepped back into the ring, because if this world insisted on being insane, he could at least try not to be completely useless while it kept trying to kill him.