“How does Cole interpret Iblis’s will anyway? How is it that he can say so definitively Iblis doesn’t want that? In my experience, intense happiness, at the expense of everything else, can be just as destructive as other emotions.” She remembered that drunk-on-life feeling she’d gotten from Ty nine years ago when they’d first met, and she recognized it welling up in her frequently when they were together now too. Who was to say that feeling wasn’t chaos incarnate, given the way it had made her uproot her very life?
“Mostly divination with rune stones, and sometimes Iblis comes to him in dreams, but a lot of times, I think he just follows his instincts,” Lara replied, sounding bored by the idea.
“Hmm,” Ena said, pondering that.
“What? You’re suspicious of that?” Lara asked, misinterpreting her reaction. “How do witches interpret the will of Gaia, anyway?”
“No, not suspicious, just…that’s similar—very similar—to the ways witches commune with Gaia. Our matriarch will also use divination, but with bones, and Gaia visits her in dreams as well. But it’s also often just…her natural instincts that guide her, like you said.”
“Hm, yeah,” Lara said, seeming intrigued by the similarities as well. “Seems like maybe witches and daemons have more in common than we thought,” she replied, smiling widely at Ena.
“Absolutely,” Ena said, returning the smile to her new friend in kind.
Chapter Fourteen
Ena
EnafollowedLaraawayfrom the communal kitchen down a new passageway until they came to a steep, dark staircase that wound deeper into the depths of the Underworld. After about ten minutes of descending, Ena began to feel a bit dizzy and disoriented. This was deeper than she’d ever gone before, and she realized they must be going to the lower levels.
The air began to get staler the lower they went—more dank and cave-like than above—and eventually, when the staircase bottomed out, instead of being pleasantly warm as it had been above, it washot. Like sweat-dripping-down-your-back hot.
Ena fidgeted with the leather corset she was wearing over her shirt, pulling it away from her body to get some air on her skin as Lara led her down a passageway towards an open archway beyond which Ena could see the blue glow of a blazing darkrock fire.
The sounds of clanking metal and rushing air from the bellows echoed down the passageway, and as they walked throughthe doorway into the forge beyond, Ena was floored. If she thought the ingenuity of the kitchens was impressive, this was…otherworldly.
Dozens of hearths carved right into the stone walls of the cave lined the giant cavern. The glow from them lit the room so brightly, Ena had to squint her eyes.
She’d never seen this large of a forge before. Usually, in the villages along the Chasm Road, there was one blacksmith, maybe two, each with their own hearth, but this was ten times that.
Steam filled the air from where the blacksmiths rapidly cooled their metals to harden them, but unlike other forges she’d seen, there was hardly any smoke at all—she supposed that was from the darkrock, which burned cleaner than wood.
Almost every hearth was occupied by a daemon, some pounding daggers on their anvils, others shaping more delicate objects like chalices and utensils. Most of the blacksmiths were men—large and muscular, like most daemons—but Ena was surprised to see there were female daemons here, too, looking equally strong as they moved their metal in and out of the fires.
Then her eyes landed on Ty, and her mouth went dry.
He was standing at a hearth near the back of the room, shirtless. His muscles and tattoos, covered in a delicious sheen of sweat, were on exquisite display as he pounded the object he was working on. They rippled and moved as he worked, his leather-gloved hands gripping tightly to the hammer and tongs he held.
Ena moved towards him like a moth drawn to a flame. She vaguely sensed that Lara was following her, and she was glad about that, but at this moment, she only had eyes for Ty.
Ty looked up as she approached. It was loud in the forge, all the overlapping sounds of metal being shaped and the air flowing through the tuyeres, so she didn’t know if he heard heror smelled her, but either way, the look on his face made her heart pound.
His green eyes, already aglow from the light of the fire next to him, lit up, and a wide smile broke across his face. “Ena,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noises. “Just give me one sec.”
He turned back to his work for a second, which she could now see was a large axe-head, like the one he used to carry before it was taken from him at Occidens, glowing orange with heat. He pounded it a few more times, flattening the blade into a thinner, more flared shape, before dunking the head into a barrel of water next to him. Removing it from the water after a few seconds, he laid the axe-head back on his anvil before putting down his tools and taking off his gloves.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, approaching her. “What are you doing here?”
“Lara offered to show me around a bit, so I’ve been getting a tour of the other levels.”
“I see,” he said, his eyes roaming from her legs to her chest to her face in assessment. She didn’t know quite what he was assessing, or appreciating, but she was suddenly aware of the feeling of her nipples on the inside of her shirt, and Ena tried hard not to look down at his sweaty chest and think about how badly she wanted to run her fingers over his incredibly defined muscles.
Lara cleared her throat loudly, breaking the tension between them.
“It’s good to see you too,” Ty added, turning to Lara and nodding in greeting.
“Thanks, cousin,” she said, giving him a teasing smile. “Look, I’ll be right back. I want to go talk to Ferra about some stoves for the lower-level kitchen.” She gestured towards one of the femaleblacksmiths working a few stations away from Ty before giving Ena a sly smile and walking off, leaving the two of them alone.
“So, how’s your tour been?” Ty asked, taking a step closer until she could feel his body heat, even above the heat of the forge.
