Orin Gearshade's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The copper rose collapsed inward that morning, its petals folding like paper in a fire. Orin heard the metal shriek as heat warped the joints he'd spent days perfecting. He grabbed the stem with bare hands and yanked it from the heat channel, but the damage was done. The petals had fused together in a twisted knot. He'd pushed too much heat through too fast, and the metal couldn't handle it. His first real bloom—the one visitors came to see—was ruined. He set the twisted rose next to the metal tree he'd built last week. That piece had its own problems—green patina spread across the brass branches like a disease, and rust streaked down the bronze bark in orange lines. The gearblooms he'd attached to the branches showed the same decay. Time and weather were eating his work from the outside while his mistakes destroyed it from within. He touched one corroded branch and a flake of metal came off in his hand. Even his successes were temporary. The storage vault behind his conservatory told a worse story. Molten metal had escaped during an experiment two nights ago, flowing where it shouldn't have gone. The heat had warped the crystalline walls he'd installed and melted the door hinges completely. Black scorch marks traced the path the liquid metal had taken before it cooled. He'd tried to create a system that would feed his flowers automatically, but instead he'd nearly burned down the only shelter he had for his tools. The vault door hung crooked now, useless. Orin walked to the cistern he'd built near his workbench and stared at his reflection in the water. The iron framework was warped from an earlier failure, and the glass panels were shattered where pressure had built up wrong. Crystalline formations had grown inside from minerals in the water, making patterns he hadn't planned. He'd meant to build something that worked perfectly, but instead he'd made a collection of broken attempts. His hands were burned from grabbing the rose. His best work was rotting. His storage vault was wrecked. The forge-garden wasn't teaching him how to succeed—it was showing him every way he could fail. He sat down on the ground and looked at the ruined rose in his hand. The metal was still warm.