Chapter 6
SIX
Aria
Going inside the bronze structure was like walking into a wall of humid, metallic air that smelled of singed hair and bubbling grease. It wasn't the clean, sterile heat of Kaelen’s dragon fire; this was the dirty, industrial sweat of a machine that never sleeps.
We stumbled into the shadows of what looked like an overflow foundry, a massive, cavernous room filled with cooling vats of liquid bronze and piles of discarded gears the size of carriage wheels.
The sounds of the dying city were muffled here, replaced by the low, rhythmic thrumming of underground bellows.
I leaned against a stack of copper sheets, my breath hitching in my chest. My legs felt as though they were partially numb, heavy and unresponsive, with a grinding in the sockets with every step. The gray patches on my skin, the Silvering, felt cold, like I was touching ice instead of my own body.
"Sit," Kaelen ordered, kicking a crate toward me. His face was streaked with soot, his golden eyes burning with a terrified intensity that he was barely keeping in check. "We catch our breath. Then we find the main Forge."
I sank onto the crate, grateful for the respite. Flynn was pacing the perimeter, daggers drawn, checking the shadows. Thane stood by the heavy doors we’d just breached, his massive back a solid wall against whatever might follow us.
"Let me see," Elias said, dropping to his knees in front of me.
He didn't ask permission. He took my arm, his long, cool fingers pushing back my tattered sleeve. I didn't even remember when it had ripped.
I looked down, expecting to see the static, frozen marks of gold that had marked me since I started listening to the princes while they were still in the gate.
I gasped.
They were moving.
The intricate, glowing patterns on my skin weren't fixed anymore, and they weren't just gold either.
They were squirming. Lines of gold and mercury shifted beneath the translucent gray surface of my skin, coiling and uncoiling like nests of restless vipers.
It felt maddening. A deep itch I couldn't scratch, a slithering sensation that made my stomach turn.
"They're loose," I whispered, horror rising in my throat. "The marks, they're crawling."
"Hold still," Elias murmured, his face inches from my forearm. His turquoise eyes narrowed, tracking the movement of a particularly bright line of gold as it slowly inched wound its way around my wrist.
"Is that normal?" Flynn asked, pausing his pacing to peer over Kaelen’s shoulder.
"Nothing about this is normal, Wolf," Kaelen snapped, but he didn't look away from my arm. He looked ready to cut the arm off if it would save me.
Elias traced the path of the moving light with a hovering finger. "It isn't random. Look at the geometry. Sharp angles. Intersecting paths." He looked up at me, his expression a mix of awe and dread. "It’s syntax."
"Syntax?" I asked, watching a silver line chase a gold one up toward my elbow. "You mean it's writing?"
"It's a runic script," Elias corrected. "The Silvering, it isn't just changing you. It’s analyzing you. It’s trying to solve the equation of your existence."
"Explain," Kaelen demanded, his hand finding my shoulder, his grip tight.
"She is a vessel," Elias said, his voice speeding up, the scholar taking over. "A vessel designed to hold immense power. But the vessel is cracking. The magic we poured into her, the binding, the Titan’s heart, the sheer volume of divine essence, it needs somewhere to go. It’s trying to map a path. "
He grabbed my other hand, checking the markings there. They were doing the same thing, creeping upward, inward.
"Where are they going?" Thane asked from the door, his deep voice echoing in the metal room. "They seem directional."
Elias went pale. He released my hands and sat back on his heels, looking at my chest.
"The heart," Elias whispered.
I looked down. He was right. The writhing lines on my arms, my legs, anywhere I could see, they were all flowing in one direction.
Inward. Toward the center of my chest. Toward the place where the bond hummed, where the Titan’s seed lay dormant in my pocket, where my own mortal heart was beating a frantic rhythm against ribs that felt too brittle to hold it.
"They are converging," Elias said. "It’s a pressure gauge, Aria. And a fuse."
"A fuse for what?" I asked, though I already had a pretty good guess.
"Critical mass," Elias said. "The design, Pandora’s design, it was meant to hold us as a last resort. But you aren't just holding us. You are holding the unstable energy of the Titan's heart. If those runes meet at your heart before the body is reinforced..."
"I die," I finished flatly.
"You explode. Like a star going nova," Elias confirmed. "You won't just die. You’ll turn into a magical detonation with enough force to turn this entire realm into ash."
A heavy silence fell over the foundry. Even the thrumming bellows seemed to quiet.
I looked at the lines again. They were moving slowly, sluggish, like syrup in the winter, but they were moving. Two lines on my left forearm had already crossed the elbow.
"How long?" Kaelen asked. His voice was devoid of emotion, the terrifying calm of a general assessing acceptable losses and finding none.
Elias tilted his head, watching the slithering lights. "The rate is constant regardless of her heart rate. Physical exertion doesn't seem to accelerate it; otherwise, they would be slowing down as she calms down now. But distance... distance might."
"Distance to what?" Flynn asked.
"To the solution," Elias said, standing up and pointing toward the far wall of the foundry, toward the east. "They are seeking the Forge. The Primal Anvil. It’s a biological map, yes, but it’s also a homing beacon. The closer we get to Hephaestus’s tools, the faster the reaction attempts to complete. "
"So we’re damned if we stay, and we speed up the countdown if we go," Flynn summarized, spinning a dagger in agitation. "Fantastic options. Really top tier."
"We go," Kaelen said immediately. He hauled me to my feet. "If she stays here, she breaks down. If we get to the Anvil, we can reforge the vessel before the fuse burns down."
"It’s a race," Thane said, turning from the door. "Against her own blood."
I tested my legs. They felt heavy and clumsy. "I can move," I said, gritting my teeth against the strange sensation in my knees. "But I’m slow."
"We don't need you to be fast," Kaelen said, his eyes burning into mine. "We need you to hold together."
"Let's move," Flynn said, kicking open the far door leading out of the foundry. "Before Hera decides to start going door-to-door."
We spilled out into the alleyway beyond.
This wasn't the gleaming white city of the upper terraces.
This was the industrial heart of Olympus, the engine room the gods preferred to forget.
The streets were paved with dark cobblestones, slick with oil and condensation.
Pipes the size of redwoods crisscrossed overhead, hissing steam.
The air was thick with soot, obscuring the view of the sky, but every now and then, a flash of red lightning from the void-storm would illuminate the smoke, revealing the crumbling silhouettes of refineries and workshops.
The tremors were getting worse. The Titan beneath the mountain was waking up, and he was grumpy, making the ground roll underfoot like the deck of a ship in a gale.
"This way," Elias directed, pointing down a narrow gorge between two looming factories. "The Red Tower is the chimney of the main Forge. We follow the heat."
We ran. Or rather, they moved with divine grace, and I lumbered along in their wake, feeling like a golem made of rocks and spare parts.
"You're dragging your left foot," Flynn noted, falling back to run beside me. He didn't offer to carry me this time; he knew I needed to feel the ground to keep my balance, but his hand hovered near my waist, ready to catch me.
"My ankle feels fused," I gasped, the air burning my lungs. "Like the bones are knitting together into one solid piece."
"Just keep moving, Pup," he urged, his voice tight. "Don't look at it."
I looked anyway. The golden snake on my wrist had slithered a couple of inches higher. It was moving faster now.
"Contact front!" Kaelen barked.
We skidded to a halt.
Blocking the street ahead wasn't a squad of Sentinels or a unit of Keepers. It was a crowd.
Dozens of minor deities, nymphs with skin like birch bark, satyrs with panicked bleating voices, minor gods of hearth and harvest clutching armfuls of golden wheat, were flooding the street, fleeing the upper districts. They were screaming, a chaotic stampede of divine refugees.
"Out of the way!" Kaelen roared, his voice amplified by the dragon’s authority.
The crowd didn't stop. They didn't even see us. They were blinded by terror.
"The Void!" a dryad screamed, her wooden skin charred black on one side. "It ate the gardens! It’s eating the sky!"
They surged toward us, a tide of panicked immortality.
"They'll trample her," Thane rumbled a moment before he stepped forward, planting his feet. He didn't attack; he just became an obstacle. He expanded his presence, the mountain anchoring itself in the stream.
The crowd broke around him like water around a boulder, streaming past us, their eyes wide and unseeing.
I felt a pang of sympathy, sharp and unwanted. These weren't warriors. They were the gardeners, the musicians, the cupbearers. They were just people who happened to live forever, now faced with an end they couldn't comprehend.
"Focus, Aria," Kaelen said, grabbing my arm and pulling me through the throng. "They are not your concern."
"They're terrified," I whispered.
"So are we," Flynn muttered, shouldering a panicked centaur out of the way. "Difference is, we have a plan. Sort of."
We broke through the crowd and turned a corner, emerging into a vast, open square dominated by machinery.
And there it was.
The Red Tower.
It wasn't a building; it was a volcano contained in iron. A massive, conical structure of red brick and black metal rose hundreds of feet into the smoky air, venting plumes of fire that licked at the bruised sky. The heat radiating from it was intense enough to dry the sweat on my skin instantly.
"The Forge," Elias breathed.
But between us and the massive iron gates of the tower lay a wasteland of discarded experiments. Automatons that hadn't worked right, piles of celestial bronze scrap, and pools of waste that bubbled with toxic colors.
And standing in front of the gates were the hounds.
Not flesh and blood dogs. These were metal. Automatons shaped like wolves, but the size of horses, crafted from bronze and silver. Their eyes were rubies, glowing with internal fire. There were six of them, pacing back and forth in front of the entrance, steam venting from their nostrils.
"Hephaestus’s guard dogs," Flynn said, appreciating the craftsmanship even as he drew his daggers. "Clockwork hellhounds. Lovely."
"They will not let us pass," Kaelen said, drawing his sword. The blade ignited, but the fire looked dim compared to the inferno of the tower behind the dogs.
"I can't fight them," I said, leaning against a pile of scrap metal. I could feel the runes on my arm, a tickling, burning sensation, diving deep under the muscle, aiming for the chest cavity. "I'm... heavy. Kaelen, I feel so heavy."
Kaelen looked at me, then at the hounds.
"We clear the path," he ordered. "Thane, stay with her. Flynn, Elias, on me."
"Try not to get chewed on," Flynn said, rolling his neck.
They charged.
The hounds reacted instantly. Gears whirred and the metal beasts lunged with a speed that defied their weight.
Kaelen met the leader of the pack in mid-air, a clash of sword against bronze teeth that sent sparks showering like fireworks.
Flynn slid underneath another one, his daggers seeking the gaps in the plating, severing parts of it in a way that made black liquid spray across the pavement.
Elias used his gravity magic to slam two of the hounds together, crunching their metal frames.
I watched, my vision blurring.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart beat against my ribs, terrified, as the golden lines drew closer.
"Thane," I rasped.
The Bear Prince turned from watching the fight, crouching beside me. "I am here, Little One."
I looked at Thane, and over his shoulder I saw Kaelen decapitate one of the hounds, kicking the carcass aside. He was standing at the massive iron gates of the Forge, pounding on the metal with the pommel of his sword.
"It's sealed," Flynn shouted, kicking a limping metal wolf away. "It’s high-grade wards, Kaelen! We can't break it!"
I pushed myself off the scrap pile, mentally preparing to slowly get myself across the empty area to the door that Kaelen was pounding on.
Thane was right there though and he scooped me up and ran, his heavy strides eating the distance. We dodged the wreckage of the clockwork hounds, arriving at the gate just as Elias dismantled the last guardian.
Kaelen was attacking the door, slashing at the metal, shouting, desperate.
"It won't open!" he yelled as we arrived. "The mechanism is locked from the inside! It ignores the dragon fire!"
"Put me down," I whispered to Thane.
He set me on my feet, supporting my weight. I leaned against the warm iron of the gate. I could feel the vibration of the great hammers inside, the heartbeat of the mountain’s industry.
I placed my hand on the metal. The gray skin of my palm hissed against the iron.
I pushed my will into the slithering mass of runes on my skin.
I focused on the urgency, the explosive potential, the sheer need for transformation.
It wasn't anger but desperation that I sent, the same way it had been desperation that allowed me to take control of Steve's orders and stop him back in the cavern.
Reforge, I projected into the iron. Unmake me. Remake me. Please.
The iron groaned.
The massive gears inside the door began to turn, grinding centuries of rust into dust.
"It's opening," Flynn breathed, stepping back.
The gates swung inward, revealing a long staircase that spiraled downward. At the very bottom was a faint red light, giving the whole thing the appearance of an eye looking up at us.
Not creepy at all.
"Welcome to the outer layers of the forge," Elias said, sounding grim. "Let's get moving."