I didn't dodge. I didn't raise a shield.
I raised my left hand.
The grey, translucent metal of my arm pulsed. The gold veins beneath the skin flared molten bright. I didn't block the attack; Icaughtit.
The wave of void energy hit my palm and stopped.
It hissed, violent and angry, trying to eat through the metal. I felt the cold bite of it, the hunger of the Devourer, but my new nerves didn't interpret it as pain. They interpreted it as knowledge.
Energy type? Necrotic. Frequency? Dissonant. Volume? High.
Solution? Invert.
I closed my fingers.
The star-metal responded to my will, crushing the void wave. I squeezed, forcing the energy to collapse in on itself until it was nothing but a dense, heavy sphere of black light in my palm. The heat of Kaelen’s fire surged down my arm, meeting the cold void.
Hiss.
Steam erupted from my fist. I opened my hand. The attack was gone. All that remained was a pinch of grey ash, which blew away in the updraft of the waking mountain.
"No," Apollo whispered, lowering the lyre. The black smoke leaking from his eyes stuttered. "You consumed it?"
"I am a lens," I told him, the realization settling into my lattice like a cooling stone. "I take the light. I take the dark. And I focus it."
I looked at the Princes. They were battered, bleeding, staring at me as if I were a stranger. Kaelen looked devastated, his golden eyes wide with the fear that he had lost the woman to the weapon.
I am still here,I sent the thought to him, wrapping it in the warmth of the heat he had given me.But the house has been renovated.
Hephaestus limped forward, ignoring the shaking ground. He stared at my arm, at the way the bioluminescent light pulsed in time with the Titan’s heartbeat beneath us.
"The Anvil," the Smith God breathed, looking at the massive block of iron behind me. "It didn't finish. The alloy... it’s hungry. It wants to circulate."
He was right. I felt an itch deep in my chest. I had absorbed the power of the Princes, and I had neutralized Apollo’s strike, but I was still a closed circuit. The energy was building up, pressure rising behind my ribs. If I didn't find an outlet, I wouldn't shatter, I would go supernova.
I turned toward the center of the Forge.
There, beneath the shattered remains of the ventilation hood, was the source. The Primordial Flame. It wasn't like Kaelen’s fire. It was the white-hot tear in reality that Hephaestus used to power the mountain. It spiraled deeply into the heat of Olympus, a vortex of pure creation.
It called to me. My metal skin sang in response.
"Aria," Kaelen warned, pushing himself to his feet. "Get away from the intake. That fire unmade the Titans."
"I know," I said, walking past him. My footsteps rang like bells. "That is why I need it."
"What are you doing?" Elias gasped, sensing the shift in my intention.
"I am not a container," I said, stepping to the edge of the pit. The heat blew my hair back, hot enough to strip flesh from bone, but it felt like a summer breeze on my new skin. "I tried to hold it all. That was the mistake. I shouldn't be holding the power."
I looked back at Apollo, who was gathering shadows for another strike.
"I need to circulate it."
I didn't hesitate. I stepped off the edge, falling into the white heart of the flame.
TWENTY-FOUR
Aria
