I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1466: How Fast Can You Fix A Mountain

The western face of the Tempest Spire looked like an open, jagged wound.

A mile-wide swath of pine forest, topsoil, and granite crags had been sheared away and thrown down into the valley below, where it lay in a heap of broken timber and grey dust. Where the ancient slope had once curved toward the peak, there was only a raw, pale cliff face showing the white veins of deep-earth menonicite.

Bairan stood at the edge of the ruin, his red-lined cloak fluttering in the icy updraft. He carried no shovel, no mason’s trowel, and no spatial storage ring. He simply stood with his hands tucked into his wide grey sleeves and his snow-white hair tied back with a single strip of black leather, looking at the mess he had made while trailing Princess Rehema up the mountain.

Behind him, Northern walked up the stone path from the caldera with his hands in his pockets.

”You plowed up three hundred yards of my carriage road,” Northern said flatly, stopping beside the Sword King. ”Hao spent forty thousand gold pieces on the drainage gutters last month.”

Bairan turned and offered a wide grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. Then he bowed deeply, dipping his head until his long white hair nearly brushed his boots.

”A minor miscalculation of momentum, my Liege,” Bairan said cheerfully, straightening up with a careless wave of his hand. ”The princess moves fast when she is anxious. I merely ensured no stray imperial eyes could follow her line. Give me ten minutes.”

”Ten minutes,” Northern repeated dryly. ”Right.”

Bairan stepped up to the edge of the sheer drop. He did not draw a weapon. He did not invoke a talent or raise his voice. He simply closed his eyes and let his breath out in a slow white plume against the bitter cold.

For two heartbeats, nothing happened.

Then the air across the entire western face went still. The howling mountain wind died mid-shriek, and the pine needles scattered over the rubble stopped trembling. An invisible weight settled over the shattered gorge as Bairan released his Moonlit Whisper, spreading it not as a blade to cut but as a vast, gentle web of unbroken Will.

The fallen rocks began to move.

It was not the grinding earth-talent of a Savant. Tens of thousands of broken granite boulders, fallen pine trunks, and slabs of loose shale rose smoothly from the valley floor, lifted by threads of Will too fine for the eye to hold. The stone slid back into the mountain’s raw face, fitting together like the pieces of an enormous three-dimensional puzzle.

Where the edges met, Bairan’s Will fused them at once, smoothing over the cracks until the granite shone like polished grey glass under the sun.

In less than seven minutes, the western slope was restored. It was no longer a rough wilderness ridge. It was a seamless, stepped rampart of fused granite, far stronger and vastly prettier than the mountain had been before Bairan destroyed it.

Bairan dusted off his sleeves with a satisfied nod. ”There. Much better. It even has proper sightlines for archers now.”

Northern studied the pristine grey slope with a flat expression.

’Good stars. I should have him plow up the east gate too, just to get free masonry work.’

An hour later, Bairan crossed the Spire’s inner courtyard toward Prince Rigel’s quarters. Rigel stood on the balcony in his fine white silk tunic, watching the white-haired swordsman approach.

Bairan stopped ten paces away. He did not offer the casual, mocking salute he gave to local lords and guildmasters. Instead, he dropped smoothly to one knee, sweeping his red-lined cloak out behind him, and bowed to Rigel with the flawless court etiquette of an ancient imperial prince.

”Your Highness,” Bairan said softly, without a trace of his usual levity.

Rigel’s fingers tightened on the marble balustrade as he stared down with wide crimson eyes. ”You... know who I am?”

Bairan rose, smiled faintly, and walked back toward the main hall.

As he passed Northern standing in the shaded archway, Bairan leaned in and dropped his voice to a low whisper.

”He smells like you, my Liege,” Bairan remarked casually. ”The same blood. The old, heavy kind that makes the air turn cold when it spills.”

Northern did not look at him, but answered begrudgingly.

”And what about it?”

Bairan offered a kind smile.

”Right. I guess I haven’t said this before...”

Northern’s head finally turned as Bairan casually spoke, with that smile frozen on his face.

”You smell like Prince Phainon. You all do.”

Northern watched Bairan walk off toward the kitchens to hassle the cooks for warm tea.

’So... that’s why huh.’

Inside the Spire’s high, vaulted study, Princess Rehema sat by the heavy stone hearth with her long white hair falling loose over her shoulders. Her resoled leather boots rested near the fire, steaming faintly as the last of the mountain snow dried out of them.

Northern sat opposite her, a wooden cup of herbal tea going cold in his hands.

”He looked at the whole Spire,” Rehema said quietly, staring into the orange embers. ”Father didn’t just glance through Rigel’s eyes, Northern. He read the stone. He read the forge. He knows what you are building here.”

”I know,” Northern said flatly.

Rehema raised her head and looked at him, her thumb working slowly over the old burn scar on the back of her hand. ”Do you know who sent the knight, Northern?”

The room went quiet.

Northern set his cup down on the low table. ”The night I was born. Three saintesses took me into the forest, and a knight in black armor slaughtered them all. I asked Anike. She said the imperial family would never have ordered my death. So who sent him?”

Rehema pulled her knees toward her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

”I don’t know,” she admitted softly. ”I remember the palace going dark for three days. I remember Mother crying behind locked doors. But Father never spoke the knight’s name. He never ordered a search. He simply closed the ledger and moved on.”

Northern leaned back in the high wooden chair.

’Closed the ledger. How convenient.’

”Father sent an unspoken message through Rigel,” Rehema continued, looking up at him. ”He told you to come home. He expects an answer.”

Northern looked out through the high lancet window toward the courtyard. Below, Prince Rigel sat on a stone bench, watching Lord chew lazily on a scrap of dried jerky.

”My answer to the Emperor,” Northern said slowly, his voice flat as a flagstone, ”will be Rigel himself.”

Rehema blinked, and her jaw tightened. ”You’re giving him back?”

”I’m giving Father his favorite son back,” Northern said, narrowing his dark eyes. ”Wrapped in my terms, carrying my mark, and completely unfit to ever sit on his throne the way he wanted him to.”

Before Rehema could reply, a piercing horn note echoed up from the outer valley gate.

Northern stood and walked to the window.

Down at the newly restored granite rampart, a lone rider in the white-and-gold armor of the Imperial Guard had reined his mount to a halt beneath a white truce flag. He carried a long wooden tube bound in brass and stamped with the roaring lion seal of the Emperor.

Oland stepped out to meet the rider, took the tube, and looked up toward the Spire’s high windows.

A minute later, Oland entered the study with the open parchment in his hand and his mouth set in a hard line.

”My Lord,” Oland said, bowing slightly. ”An imperial recall. Signed by the Imperial High Command under the Emperor’s personal lion seal.”

Northern took the scroll. He did not need to read the long, formal preamble crowded with imperial titles. His eyes went straight to the final lines at the bottom.

By decree of the Crown:

Princess Rehema Nora and Prince Rigel Reimgard are recalled to Reimhold forthwith.

They are ordered to report to the Starward Court within thirty days of this notice.

Rehema rose from the hearth and read the red ink over Northern’s shoulder.

”Thirty days,” she whispered. ”He’s calling the board back together.”

Northern rolled the parchment closed and handed it back to Oland. Cold sunlight streamed through the window and caught in his dark irises.

’Thirty days. Perfect. That gives my black-haired clone just enough time to get settled in his new office.’