The Smith God looked down at her.
"She is awake," Hephaestus whispered, terrified.
"Hit me," Aria commanded. "One last time. Break the shell."
"If I hit you now..." Hephaestus hesitated.
"DO IT!" I roared, feeling the surge in her power. "Trust her!"
Hephaestus raised the hammer.
Apollo realized what was happening. His arrogance vanished. "Stop him!"
He fired a lance of void energy at the Smith.
Thane stepped into the path. He took the blast with his chest. He didn't fall. He just roared.
Hephaestus brought the hammer down.
CRACK.
The sound ended the world.
Aria dissolved into pure, blinding white light.
The light didn't fade. It expanded. It swallowed the Anvil. It swallowed Hephaestus. It swallowed me.
The sensation of holding the fire vanished. I wasn't pouring energy into a vessel anymore.
The vessel had opened.
The chaotic battlefield, the screaming void creatures, the ruined god, it all dissolved into the silence of the bond.
I looked around in the white void.
"Aria?" I called out.
And then she was everywhere.
TWENTY-THREE
Aria
I didn't die. Death is a quiet thing, a fading of the light, a settling of dust.
This was a scream that had no end.
When Hephaestus brought the hammer down, I didn't feel the impact on my chest. I felt it in my past, present, and future.
The strike shattered theideaof Aria Pandoros.
It broke the girl who scrubbed floors in the Citadel, the trainee who memorized the rules of the Keepers, the woman who learned to fear her own heartbeat.
I dissolved.
There was no floor, no ceiling, no Forge. There was only the white. It was blinding and absolute. It tasted like ozone and liquid metal on a tongue I no longer possessed. I was drifting in a suspension of pure energy, a cloud of atoms trying to remember they used to be a person.
Hold it,a voice whispered. It sounded like Kaelen, but distant, distorted by the roar of the fire.Don't let go.
