Lindarion held Lady Valciel's gaze, his mind sifting through possibilities, through every forbidden aspect of alchemy he had studied—every warning whispered within the Academy's halls. But none of it quite explained this.
A severed hand, still pulsing. Its owner still walking.
Something that should not have been made.
Luneth was the first to break the silence. "This alchemist—who was he?"
Lady Valciel did not immediately answer. Instead, she turned, walking back toward the glass case. The candlelight cast shifting shadows across her features, emphasizing the sharp edges of her cheekbones, the measured precision of her movements.
"She," Lady Valciel corrected, "was one of our most skilled. A mind unlike any other. Ambitious, brilliant… and reckless." Her fingers traced the edge of the case, the glass clouding slightly beneath her touch. "She was meant to push the boundaries of alchemical transmutation. Instead, she overstepped them."
