The figure didn't get any closer. It sat on the grass, as if it had all the time in the world, which it had just told them.
The Brotherhood held weapons in their tired, shaky hands, and the First Forgemaster looked at them all with the calm look of someone watching kids play with something dangerous.
The First Forgemaster's gaze, while not exactly looking down, resembled that of someone who had seen this scene so often that it no longer surprised them.
"Calm down," the figure said.
The voice was warm and calm, and it had the kind of weight that came not from divine authority but from having been around long enough to know that yelling didn't help anything. "I could kill you if I wanted to."
"I've had about three thousand years to get really good at being efficient."
No one put down their weapons. Greg's prosthetic arm held a rough defensive shape out of instinct, even though the golden energy that flickered along it wasn't even enough to light a candle.
