"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.
