I do,I answered. I didn't use words; I used the heavy, unyielding pressure of my will. I projected the image of the Bear, the immovable object.I am your son's son. And I need your shield.
I didn't ask. I took.
I slammed my awareness into the tear that the seed's energy had created in the crust. I grabbed the tectonic stress lines of the cavern like physical ropes. I wrapped them around my mental fists, grit my teeth, and Ipulled.
The floor of the cavern exploded upward.
It did not crack gently; it erupted. Not under the Anvil, but around it. Four massive pillars of obsidian and bedrock shot up from the magma, tearing through the iron grating with the screech of tortured metal. They moved with the speed of a striking snake, defying their immense weight.
They converged above the Anvil, slamming together with a thunderclap that shook the remaining glass from the instrument dials on the walls.
Debris and rock fused instantly under my command, creating a crude, massive stone canopy over the dais that the anvil sat on. It was a ugly, jagged thing, born of desperation, but it was solid.
The black rain hammered against the stone roof.Thud. Thud. Thud.It sounded like the drumbeats of the end of the world. But the stone held. For now. Though I knew it was slowly being eaten away.
The oil sluiced off the sides, hissing into the magma channels, but the center, the Anvil, and more importantly, Aria, was dry. My shoulders slumped for a moment.
"Heat is returning!" Hephaestus yelled, the relief evident in his gravelly voice. He was panting, his chest heaving. "Dragon! Now! While we have shelter!"
"I am trying!" Kaelen snarled. "But the air is too thin!"
He was right. I had sealed us in. The fire needed air to burn, and I had just built a tomb. The oxygen levels were plummeting as the magma consumed what was left, and Kaelen’s fire was choking.
"Flynn!" I commanded, sweat stinging my eyes, blinding me. "The vents! Circulation!"
"On it!"
Flynn moved. He was a blur of motion in the dark, cramped space beneath my stone shelter. He didn't run; he flowed, vaulting over debris and dodging the spraying steam. Hescrambled to the massive bellows mechanism where the Cyclops lay bound in Elias’s light-cage, snoring through the apocalypse.
"Wake up, ugly!" Flynn shouted.
He didn't wait for the monster to stir. He kicked the release lever on the bellows intake with enough force to dent the iron.
WHOOSH.
Fresh air from the lower tunnels blasted into the space, feeding the starving fire. Flynn was back in place a split second later as Kaelen’s aura ignited with renewed fury, turning from a sputtering white to a blinding, star-hot blue.
Aria screamed on the slab. The sound was muffled by the stone, but vibrant in the bond, a spike of pure sensation that nearly broke my focus. The color flooded back into her metal skin, turning it molten and pliable again.
"Hold the line!" I gritted my teeth, feeling the strain of holding tons of rock suspended over our heads while simultaneously maintaining the gravity anchor on Aria’s soul. My muscles screamed in protest. I felt a wet warmth on my upper lip. Blood flowed over my mouth, seeping between my lips as I breathed heavily, making the air taste of copper.
The Titan beneath me, beneath the whole mountain, struggled. The earth didn't want to be a roof; it wanted to be a weapon. The energy from the cracked seed was pulsing, sending shockwaves up my legs, trying to throw me off.
Let go,the mountain rumbled beneath me.Let us shake the fleas off.
Not yet,I snarled back, stomping my foot to reassert dominance.Wait just a little longer, ancient one.
"Elias!" I called out, my voice ragged. "How much longer?"
"Almost there!" Elias’s voice was strained, high and thin. His hands were weaving frantically in the dim blue light of the dome, tying knots in reality. "The heart is encased! The integrationis ninety percent! But the resonance... the seed energy is interfering with the lattice!"
"What does that mean?" Kaelen demanded, pouring more fire into Aria until the stone around him began to glow cherry-red.
"It means the Titan is trying to get in!" Elias yelled back, panic edging into his tone. "The earth magic from the seed... it’s merging with the star-metal! It’s too heavy for the lattice! It will crush the delicate structure!"
The connection between me and the floor, between me and the Titan, was flowing into Aria. It was leaking through my anchor. The red pulse of the heart-seed wasn't just waking the mountain; it was trying to root itself in her new body.
"She can't hold the mountain and the four of you!" Hephaestus warned, raising the hammer for another strike, his eye wild. "She needs an outlet! Thane! You have to ground the excess!"
