The forge smelled of smoke and blood for days. Walls had been rebuilt in haste, beams nailed where fire had chewed through wood, but the scars lingered. Every villager who passed cast wary glances at the blacksmith's home, whispering of the night silver light had torn the sky apart.
Inside, the forge was quiet. The anvil stood blackened, half-scorched from the explosion, while shattered tools still lay in corners, forgotten.
On the cot near the back wall, Lyra stirred. Her breathing had steadied, but her body remained fragile, her skin pale. The runes on her arms had faded to faint shadows, almost invisible now.
Eryan sat at her side, his arm bound in rough bandages, shoulder still bleeding where the cult leader's blade had cut deep. His hammer leaned nearby, its surface cracked from the force of destroying the pendant. He hadn't slept in two nights.
Selene brought in a basin of water, dropping a cloth into it. "You'll kill yourself before she even wakes," she muttered. "You need rest."
Eryan didn't move. His eyes were fixed on Lyra, the tension in his jaw unbroken. "If I close my eyes, I'll see her lose control again."
Selene sighed, wringing out the cloth before pressing it to his shoulder wound. "You can't protect her if you collapse first."
Kael, sprawled in the corner with a jug of wine, smirked. "He's too stubborn for rest. Besides, the girl's alive. That's more than I expected."
The Awakening
By the third night, Lyra's eyes opened. At first she stared blankly at the ceiling, her lips parting in a faint gasp. Then she turned, seeing Eryan beside her.
"…You didn't let me kill you," she whispered hoarsely.
Eryan leaned closer. "You're awake. Good."
Tears welled in her eyes. "I begged you to stop me. I—I would've burned everything."
"You didn't," he said firmly. "You're still here. That's what matters."
She shook her head weakly. "No. That pendant was the only thing keeping me stable. Without it, I'm dangerous."
Eryan's hand clenched over hers, firm and unyielding. "Then we'll forge you something stronger."
Her eyes widened. "Forge… me?"
"A weapon. A focus. Something that belongs to you alone. If your power wants to consume you, then we'll temper it like steel. Until it obeys."
Vessel
At dawn, Eryan brought her back to the forge. Her legs trembled, but he didn't let her hide. He placed the hammer in her hands again.
"It's heavy," she murmured, struggling under its weight.
"Good," he replied. "The world is heavy. Get used to it."
She lifted it, weak at first, then swung against the anvil. Sparks sputtered. The sound rang dull, uneven.
"Again."
She struck again. The hammer slipped. Again. The strike was crooked. Again. The hammer barely left a dent.
Her arms burned, her body screaming for rest, but Eryan's voice never softened. "You want to survive? Then swing until the hammer feels like an extension of you. Swing until the fire answers to you, not the other way around."
Selene watched silently from the shadows of the forge. At first she wanted to stop him, to tell him Lyra was too fragile—but as the hours passed, she saw something change.
The trembling lessened. The rhythm steadied. The girl's breath grew sharper, her strikes more deliberate.
She wasn't strong yet. But she was enduring.
Later, as the forge dimmed, Lyra sat outside, staring at the stars. Her hands were blistered, her arms numb, but a strange calm filled her chest.
Eryan joined her, dropping heavily onto the step. His bandaged arm ached, but he ignored it.
"You hate me yet?" he asked dryly.
She managed a faint laugh. "A little."
"Good. Anger keeps you alive."
Silence stretched between them. Then Lyra spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.
"…Why do you keep protecting me? Everyone else thinks I'm a curse."
Eryan stared into the dark horizon, his voice low. "Because I know what it's like to be treated as nothing but a tool. A weapon. I won't let that be your fate."
Lyra's chest tightened. She wanted to speak, but words tangled in her throat. Instead, she rested her blistered hands on the pendant's remains—the shards Eryan had saved from the explosion, now wrapped in cloth.
For the first time, she didn't feel like an experiment. She felt like a person.
The Shadow
But far beyond the village, deep in the ruins of an abandoned chapel, a council gathered. Figures cloaked in black knelt before a throne of bones.
"The vessel has awakened," one hissed. "But the seal remains incomplete."
The figure on the throne stirred, voice echoing like thunder from a hollow chest.
"Then awaken it fully. Tear the blacksmith apart if you must. The Abyss does not forgive delay."
The forge had never felt so suffocating.
Eryan stood before the half-finished greatsword, its rare materials glimmering faintly under the glow of molten fire. Every hammer strike he had given it earlier reverberated now in his mind like echoes of a war drum. His hands trembled, not from exhaustion, but from the crushing weight of what he had just discovered in the labyrinth.
The experiments. The mutilated corpses. The girl in the glass tube.
Memories of those twisted horrors flooded back, and he clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"Eryan," Kael's voice broke the silence. He stood nearby, sweat dripping from his forehead