Sparks the size of fireflies sprayed across the room.
"The core is fusing! Don't stop! If you stop now, the alloy shatters and takes her soul with it!"
"I'm burning!" Kaelen shouted from the north point. His face was a mask of strained fury, his golden eyes narrowed to slits. White fire blazed from his skin, so hot it scorched the air inmy lungs, tasting of ozone and melting iron. "I cannot push any harder without vaporizing the containment field!"
"You don't have to push harder, you just have to—" Flynn started.
CRACK.
The sound didn't come from the Anvil. It didn't come from the machinery. It came from above, a sickening, wet snap that sounded like the spine of the world breaking.
We all looked up, eyes stinging from the salty sweat and the oppressive heat.
The ceiling of the cavern, hundreds of feet above, was gone. The stone had not collapsed; it had simply ceased to exist. In its place was a swirling, churning vortex of absolute nothingness. The Devourer hadn't just sent its rats into the pipes; it had arrived to eat the house. The sight of it made my stomach turn.
And then, it began to rain.
It wasn't water. It was a thick, viscous black oil that fell in heavy, sluggish sheets. It smelled of rot and ancient stagnation.
"Cover!" Flynn yelled, his reflexes faster than thought. He dodged a glob of the sludge that struck the railing next to him. The metal didn't just react; it hissed and began to melt, eaten away by the void-touch.
The oil slammed into the open magma channels running through the floor.HISS.The cheerful orange light of the molten rock sputtered and died wherever the black rain touched it, turning into jagged, dead obsidian instantly. Steam, acrid and blinding, billowed up, choking the cavern.
"The fire!" Hephaestus screamed, dropping his tongs to shield his face with a leather-clad arm. "The thermal levels are dropping! The Void is smothering the heat!"
The ambient temperature in the Forge, which had been hot enough to blister skin, had plummeted. The sweat on myneck turned to ice. The white fire rolling off Kaelen flickered, dampening under the assault of the supernatural chill.
On the Anvil, the change was catastrophic. Aria’s skin lost its translucent, ethereal glow, turning a dull, matte grey. She convulsed, a violent shiver racking her frame as the cold bit deep into the unfinished transformation.
"She's freezing!" Elias cried, his hands trembling as the geometric lattice of light he was weaving began to waver in the air. "Thane! Shield the Anvil!"
I couldn't move. My feet were welded to the spot by the magic I was channeling. If I stepped away from the Southern point, the gravity well would collapse, and Aria's untethered soul would be torn out of her body by the sheer force of the vacuum waiting above us.
"I cannot break the seal!" I bellowed, the strain popping the tendons in my neck. I was holding a girl together with nothing but will and gravity. A glob of black oil struck my pauldron, sizzling against the divine steel. I felt the cold sear through the plating, biting my skin like a brand of ice, but thankfully the divine imbued metal held.
"Then bring the roof down!" Flynn shouted, kicking a piece of smoldering debris into the magma channel to create a desperate flare of heat. "Make a shield, Earth Shaker!"
The rain intensified. It was a deluge of entropy. It was landing on Kaelen, hissing as it doused his flames. He roared in frustration, steaming, trying to reignite his aura, but the cold was a physical weight pressing him down, suffocating the dragon within.
"She is dying!" Hephaestus wielded his hammer not at Aria, but at the falling sludge, batting globes of void-matter away from the girl. "The lattice is crystallizing! If she freezes now, she shatters!"
I looked at Aria. Her eyes were open, seeking mine through the steam and the darkness. They were terrified. She was trapped halfway between flesh and rebirth, unable to move, unable to breathe.
Thane,her voice whispered in my head. It was faint, cold, like a ghost trapped under ice.
I closed my eyes.
I couldn't move my body. But I was the Earth Prince. I was the memory of the mountain's roots. My reach extended further than my arms.
I reached down. Past the metal plating of the floor. Past the steaming magma channels. Past the crust of the mountain and the stone foundations of the Citadel.
I reached for the Titan.
The seed Aria had crushed, that pulsating heart of the mountain was still vibrating with power. I could feel the energy of it seeping through the foundation, vibrating the walls, shaking the supports. It wasn't just energy; it was a consciousness. Ancient. Angry. Awake.
It was overwhelming. It hit my mind like a landslide, a crushing wall of geological time and pressure.
WHO WALKS ON MY BONES?the deep earth screamed. It was a soundless roar that rattled my teeth.
