Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Aria
Hephaestus limped around the massive, dark block of the Primal Anvil, dragging his lead-braced leg. He looked less like a god and more like a mechanic inspecting a catastrophic engine failure. He picked up a pair of tongs the length of a spear and gestured to the slab of iron.
"This is not magic, girl," the Smith God grunted, wiping grease from his forehead with a forearm scarred by eons of sparks. "Do not mistake it for a spell. Spells are poetry. This is engineering. We are about to strip you down to your very essence and rebuild you."
"You have a terrible bedside manner, old man," Flynn muttered, pacing the perimeter of the circle. He was twitching, his daggers sheathed but his hands flexing constantly, needing something to cut, something to kill. He smelled of sour fear and ozone.
"I am not a doctor," Hephaestus countered, slamming a heavy hammer onto a rack. "I am a blacksmith. And you four are the fuel."
He pointed to the floor around the Anvil. Faint, etched grooves marked the cardinal points, filled with centuries of soot and dried ichor.
"North," he pointed a crooked finger at Kaelen. "Fire. The source. You provide the initial thermal shock to soften the lattice. If it gets too cold, she cracks. If it gets too hot, she melts. No pressure, Dragon."
Kaelen stepped to the northern point. His face was a mask of rigid control, but through the bond, I felt a chaotic swirling of panic. He was terrified of his own heat, afraid that the thing that defined him would be the thing that destroyed me.
"South," Hephaestus barked, swinging his gaze to Thane. "Earth. The Anchor. When the pain hits, she will try to leave her body. Her soul will attempt to eject to escape the trauma. You have to hold her inside. You are the gravity."
Thane moved to the southern point, planting his feet like pillars. He looked at me, his brown eyes wide and sorrowful. He felt heavy in my mind, a burden of guilt that he was still struggling to lift.
"West," the Smith pointed to Flynn. "Motion. Breath. The reforging requires circulation. You must keep the energy cycling. If it stagnates, it pools. If it pools, it detonates."
Flynn took his spot, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Don't stop moving, his thoughts whispered, jagged and fast. Just don't stop.
"And East," Hephaestus looked at Elias. "Design. You hold the blueprint, Weaver. You tell the metal and clay what shape to take. You have to convince the star-metal that it wants to be a woman, not a rock."
Elias glided to his position, his robes tattered, his face pale and drawn. He looked at the Anvil with the expression of a man looking at a guillotine he had helped invent.
"And me?" I asked, sitting on the edge of the slab. The heat rolling off it was a physical wall, pushing against my skin. It smelled of deep earth and ancient, violent creation.
"You," Hephaestus said, leaning heavily on his hammer. "You are the work. You lie there and place your hands here."
He slapped the flat, dark surface of the Anvil. It hissed.
"The Anvil is a reader," he explained. "Those runes on your skin? They are a request for access. The Anvil will read the request. It will trace the lines of your essence back to the source, your heart, and it will attempt to stretch the container to accommodate the pressure."
"Attempt?" Kaelen’s voice was sharp, cutting through the heat.
"There are no guarantees in metallurgy, only probabilities," Hephaestus said grimly. "And I should warn you, the Anvil does not use anesthesia. It uses truth. To reforge a thing, you must first unmake it. You will feel every cell in your body come apart."
I swallowed, my throat clicking dryly. "Okay."
"And you four," Hephaestus swept his gaze over the Princes. "You must be calm. The bond is a conduit. If you pour fear into her while she is open and you will warp the metal. If you panic, if you waver, the imperfections will be forged permanently into her soul."
Be calm.
The command hung in the air, ridiculous and impossible.
I scooted back on the Anvil. It was an absolutely massive block of meteoric iron that seemed to absorb the light of the forge. It pulsed with a low, rhythmic thrumming that matched the beat of the Titan beneath the floor.
As I lay down I reached out my hands, holding them over the anvil where Hephaestus indicated.
My right hand was flesh, shaking, sweat-slicked, the knuckles white. My left hand was a claw of matte-grey metal, steady, cold, and heavy.
I hesitated.
A wave of static crashed into me through the connection in my chest.
It wasn't a sound. It was a scream of four distinct voices overlapping into a cacophony of doubt.
I will burn her, Kaelen’s voice echoed in my head, a roar of fire that he was desperately trying to dampen. I am destruction. I don't know how to create, only how to turn things to ash.
I am not strong enough, Thane’s thought rumbled beneath it, a tectonic groan of insecurity. I failed the ridge. I failed my brothers. I will drop her. I will lose her soul.
I am chaos, Flynn’s mind skittered, a frantic scratching. I am the wolf. I break things. I bleed things. I don't know how to heal.
It is my fault, Elias’s guilt was a high, keen whine, a mathematical proof of his own failure. I wrote the code. I built the trap. The variables are all wrong.
The noise was deafening. It battered against the inside of my skull, drowning out the roar of the bellows. They were petrified. They were supposed to be my anchors, my fuel, but right now, they were drowning, and they were dragging me down with them.
I looked at where my hands hovered over the Anvil. The heat coming off it felt like a warning.
Don't touch, instinct whispered. Run. Hide. Freeze.
I couldn't do it. How could I let them in when they were terrified of themselves? How could I open the door to a storm?
"Aria," Kaelen’s voice was strained, tight. He saw my hesitation. He felt my recoil.
"It's too loud," I whispered, pressing my hands to my ears. My metal fingers clinked against my skull. "You're too loud."
"We are tryin—" Flynn started, but his voice cracked.
"No," I snapped, turning to look at them. I saw the fear in their eyes. The same fear that had been there since the Gate. The fear of monsters who had been told they were monsters for so long they had started to believe the label.
Hephaestus watched, his hammer resting on the floor, his expression unreadable. He wasn't going to help. This wasn't metallurgy anymore.
I looked at Kaelen. The Dragon. The leader who thought he had to carry the sky.
I looked at Thane. The Bear. The wall that thought it was only good for stopping blows.
I looked at Flynn. The Wolf. The hunter who hated his own teeth.
I looked at Elias. The Phoenix. The visionary blinded by the past.
If I waited for them to be ready, I would be a statue before the hour was up.
They couldn't save me. Not like this.
I had to lead them.
I closed my eyes. I didn't push the noise away. I didn't try to block the static. I took a breath of the sulfurous, burning air, filling my crystallizing lungs until they burned.
Listen to me, I projected, my mental voice cutting through their panic like a blade.
The static faltered.
You are scared, I told them. Good. Be scared. Fear means you have something to lose. But do not dare tell me you are weak. Do not dare tell me you are monsters.
I opened my eyes. "You are the Princes of Olympus," I said aloud, my voice rasping with the metallic timbre of the change.
"You survived the betrayal. You survived the dark.
You survived the Gate. Kaelen," I looked at him.
"Burn for me. Thane," I looked at the giant.
"Hold me. Flynn," I caught the wolf's amber gaze.
"Keep my heart beating. Elias," I nodded to the weaver. "Fix the pattern."
I didn't give them time to doubt. I didn't give them time to think.
I slammed my hands onto the iron.
CLANG.
The sound wasn't in the room. It was in my soul.
The Anvil woke up.
It didn't feel like heat. It felt like judgment. A white-hot interrogation ripped through my palms, racing up my arms, seeking the core of who I was. It tore through the silver, tore through the flesh, and grabbed the bond with the force of a gravity well.
I screamed.
It wasn't a vocal sound. My throat locked instantly. It was a silent, internal shriek as the Anvil asked a question in a language made of fire and weight, WHAT ARE YOU?
And the princes, shocked out of their panic by the sheer violence of the connection, answered.
Kaelen roared, and the fire hit me.
Thane grounded, and the weight hit me.
Flynn moved, and the pulse hit me.
Elias wove, and the logic hit me.
I arched back, my spine popping, and the world dissolved into white.