Vanniall looked at their reflection in a polished soul-coin. She saw a face of polished silver, with eyes like twin amethysts. She saw herself .
A spindly creature named the Silversmith stumbled into the shop, leaking starlight from a cracked carapace. He couldn’t pay his tithe. Vanniall, moved by a mercy their stern exterior wasn't supposed to feel, quietly forged the ledger. They marked the debt as "void." vanniall trans
The Gearwright, her father, stormed in the next morning. He found the ledger-keeper’s stool empty. He found a note in a flowing, graceful script: Gone to be what the forge could not make me. The debts are paid. – Vanniall. Vanniall looked at their reflection in a polished soul-coin
Vanniall’s brass fingers trembled. They could wish for wealth. For power. For escape from the Bazaar. But the truest, most desperate wish rose from their core like a song. A spindly creature named the Silversmith stumbled into
The part was simple: be the stoic, unfeeling son of the Gearwright. Keep the books. Speak in a low, grating rumble. Ignore the way your core ached when you saw the weaver-moths dance in the lantern light, their shimmering wings trailing colors you wished you could wear.