Chapter 7
SEVEN
Aria
The spiral staircase was a throat of iron and shadow, swallowing us whole. It didn't just go down; it bored into the foundation of the realm, corkscrewing through layers of rock that radiated a heat so intense it tasted like copper on the back of my tongue.
Every step was a calculated negotiation with gravity. My left knee clicked with a sound like two stones striking underwater, a dull, wet sensation that vibrated up my thigh. I felt heavy, denser than I was used to and colder than the stifling air around us.
We descended into the red gloom. The air grew thicker, creating a pressure in my ears.
To my left, the central shaft of the stairwell dropped away into a vertical abyss illuminated by the rhythmic, pulsing glow of the forge fires far below.
It looked like the beating heart of a mechanical beast. Thump.
Hiss. Thump. Hiss. The sound of the mountain breathing fire.
Then, the air pressure shifted.
It wasn't a change in the altitude or the heat.
It was a sudden, violent drop in the atmospheric weight of the room, as if the oxygen had been sucked out by a massive intake of breath.
My ears popped painfully. The runic script crawling up my neck stopped its slithering movement for a fraction of a second, freezing in anticipation.
Found you.
The voice didn't come from the shadows or the shaft. It bloomed inside my skull, behind my eyes, expanding outward like a drop of ink in a glass of water. It was regal, terrifyingly calm, and layered with the harmonics of a thousand bells tolling at once.
Hera.
I stumbled, my stiff leg catching the edge of a step. Kaelen caught me instantly, his arm banding across my chest to keep me from pitching forward, but his body had gone rigid as iron against my back.
"She’s here," Thane rumbled from above, his voice vibrating through the metal stairs. He halted, turning to look back up the spiral as if he could physically fight a mental intrusion.
Do not bother looking up, Earth-shaker, the voice crooned, smooth and cold as polished marble.
I do not need to be physically present to discipline my wayward children.
The bond you forged, it is a two-way street.
You opened the door to the mortal girl, and now you have left the windows open for me.
Did you think I couldn't hear you before?
I was always listening at the door, but the lock was tight.
But now? Oh, Aria. You are cracking. Your soul is cracking, and those cracks leave you wide open.
It wasn't just me hearing it. I saw Flynn stiffen ahead of us, his shoulders bunching up around his ears. Elias, walking behind Thane, let out a sharp hiss of pain, clutching his temples.
"Get out of my head," Kaelen snarled, the air around him shimmering with heat distortion.
Hera’s laughter didn't come through the bond this time. It vibrated directly in the rigid silver of my knee, traveling up my thigh bone like a tuning fork struck against a hard surface.
"I'm not in your head, little Dragon," she whispered, the sound resonating in the metal of my own body. "I'm in the cracks."
"It's the Silvering," Elias gasped, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "The changes, they're compromising the psychic shielding of the bond."
Now, now, little Phoenix, don’t go giving away all my secrets, Hera chided. The sensation of her amusement was like ice water trickling down my spine. You were always so smart. So desperate to be the hero of your own tragedy. But we both know who the real monster is, don't we?
The mental presence shifted, moving like a spotlight across a stage. It swept over Kaelen, dismissed Thane and Elias, and settled, heavy and suffocating, on the man in front of me.
Flynn stopped moving. He stood frozen on the step, one hand gripping the railing so hard the metal groaned under the pressure.
The Wolf, Hera whispered, and her voice dripped with a poisoned affection. The hunger. The instinct. Do you remember, little beast? Do you remember the first time I let you off the leash?
"No," Flynn gasped. It wasn't a denial; it was a plea. He shook his head, a violent, jerky motion. "Don't."
You told the girl you were ambassadors, Hera went on, weaving the memory into the air around us.
The red glow of the forge seemed to dim, replaced by a stark, blinding white light in my mind’s eye; the memory was bleeding through the bond, forced upon us all.
You told her you came to save them. But you forgot the testing phase, didn't you?
Before Pandora. Before the mortal realm.
The vision washed over me like a tsunami.
I wasn't on the stairs anymore. I was standing in snow, deep, pristine white snow, that crunched underfoot. The air was biting cold, smelling of pine resin and wood smoke. A village lay before me, a small cluster of timber huts nestled in a northern valley.
It was peaceful.
Quiet.
Then I looked down at my hands.
They weren't my hands. They were large, scarred, and covered in blood that was still steaming in the winter air. My fingers, no, Flynn’s fingers, were tipped with claws that were dripping crimson onto the snow.
Hunger, the thought echoed, but it wasn't the sexy, playful hunger Flynn usually projected. This was a bottomless, starving void. A command written in fire across his brain. CONSUME.
The view shifted. I was moving through the village, but not walking.
I was tearing across the terrain, a blur of violence that had no conscience, no hesitation.
I saw faces, men raising axes that shattered against my skin, women clutching children, their mouths open in screams that I couldn't hear over the roar of the blood rushing in my ears.
It was a slaughter. Efficient. Brutal. Total.
The snow turned red. The wood smoke turned to the smell of burning flesh.
Good boy, a voice whispered in the memory, Hera’s voice, younger then, satisfied. The wolf weapon functions within expected parameters. Lethality confirmed. Empathy centers successfully suppressed.
The vision snapped off, plunging me back into the red, sweltering heat of the forge stairs.
I gasped, clutching the railing to stay upright. My stomach roiled, the phantom taste of iron thick in my mouth.
Flynn was hunched over the railing, retching dryly. His whole body was shaking, vibrating with a self-loathing so potent it radiated off him like heatwaves.
See? Hera’s voice returned, smug and terrible. He is not a prince, Aria. He is not even an ambassador, nor a misunderstood soul. All he is, I made him. A dog I bred to kill sheep. That village was a test site. Those people were bait to see if the wolf would bite. And oh how he bit.
"Shut up!" I screamed, the sound echoing down the shaft. The runes on my neck flared, reacting to my spike of rage. "Get out!"
Kaelen squeezed my shoulder, his touch grounding, but I could feel his own horror through our connection. He remembered it, too. They all did. They were products of the same laboratory, tested in the same cruel ways.
Flynn turned slowly. His face was a mask of devastation. The amber eyes, usually so full of life and mischief, were flat and dead. He looked at me, and he didn't see the woman he had claimed in the cavern; he saw a judge.
"It–it was the conditioning," Flynn rasped, his voice sounding like it was being dragged over gravel. "I didn't have a choice. I didn't... I wasn't me."
Of course you were you, Hera whispered, twisting the knife. That is your essential nature, Wolf. Without my leash, without the Keepers' cage, you are just teeth in the dark. And you will do it again. You will tear her apart just like you tore them apart. It is what you were made for.
"Lies," Elias said from above, his voice shaking but gaining strength. "That was before the design was complete. Before we had– before we were finished."
Imperfections, Hera dismissed. The girl thinks she loves you. She thinks she has chosen. But she has chosen a blade pressed to her own throat.
Hera’s presence intensified, focusing into a pinpoint of pressure right between my eyes.
Aria. Look at him. Look at the monster. That is what you are binding yourself to. That is what you invited into your body. Do you feel the blood on his hands? It never washes off.
I looked at Flynn. He was backing away, retreating down the steps, putting distance between us. He looked terrified. Not of Hera, but of me. Of my revulsion.
He was waiting for me to reject him. Just like the world had rejected him. Just like his creators had rejected him.
My stiff, silvered leg throbbed as I forced myself to take a step down. Then another.
"Flynn," I said.
"Don't," he choked out, holding up a hand. His claws were out, inadvertently summoned by the stress. "Don't come closer. She's right. You saw it. You felt it."
"I felt her," I corrected, my voice hard. "I felt her command. I felt her finger on the trigger."
I reached him. He flinched, expecting a blow, or maybe just disgust.
I grabbed his face. My hands were clumsy, stiff with the transformation that was killing me, but I held him fast. I forced him to look at me, to see the gold and violet fire in my eyes.
"I don't care about the weapon," I snarled, projecting the thought as loudly as I could, aiming it at the ceiling, at the goddess, at the universe. "I care about the man who holds it."
Delusional, Hera sighed. Broken things love broken things.
"Get out!" Kaelen roared from behind me. He slammed his hand against the iron wall of the shaft, unleashing a pulse of raw, chaotic dragon magic, pure static interference meant to disrupt the signal.
The pressure lifted. The voice vanished, leaving behind a ringing silence and the smell of ozone.
Flynn sagged in my grip, his knees hitting the metal step. I went down with him, ignoring the scream of my fused joints.