The weaving took a full day and a full night. Furnace heat poured into crystal and the crystal did not crack. It learned. Lattice grew through molten stone in bright branching veins, sorting the fire into channels, and the fire fed the lattice until every facet glowed from within.
Almond worked the threads with both hands and all ninety-nine lessons, and near dawn he set the last binding, and the loom went quiet, and something new stood up out of the light.
It was tall as a siege tower, built of dark molten glass veined with rivers of white heat, and across its whole body ran a living lattice of crystal that turned slowly, endlessly, sorting the fire inside it into patterns. Four great facets orbited its head where the satellites had been. Its hooves were crucibles. When it exhaled, the air rang like struck quartz.
It knelt, and when it spoke, two voices arrived at once, gravel and glass, layered into one.
"My lord."
[Ashkryon, Sovereign of the Molten Lattice]
