Jorn’s word hung in the chilled air, a fragile bridge connecting a forgotten past to the violent present. The god-touched king stood at the threshold of the foundry. His gaze, once so familiar, now held the distant, untouchable quality of a winter moon. A flicker of something — recognition, perhaps, or a predatory satisfaction — crossed his features before settling into an expression of cold authority. “Brother,” the ruler repeated, his voice smooth and empty of warmth, “it has been… generations, since last we spoke directly. Though your subtle influence has been a consistent thorn in my lineage’s side.” He stepped further into the forge, the very air around him growing sharper, the raw heat of the magma channels seeming to dim in his presence. Brynja tensed, her hand instinctively going to the hilt of the blade Jorn had given her, though it was not yet the one for her quest. Petyr, a pale shadow beside her, clutched a discarded tongs like a desperate talisman. “You wear the mantle of a tyrant,” Jorn said, his voice scraped raw by centuries of grief. “As you always intended.” The invader offered a cold smile. “That name belongs to ghosts. I am the Sovran. And the pact you so foolishly wove for our ancestor… it binds you still, little brother. It calls to me through the very air you breathe, the metal you touch.” He gestured around the vast, cavernous forge. “Such power, lying dormant. You have squandered it, hiding like a frightened rat while the world outside burns. Your guilt is a weakness.” “My guilt is a lesson,” Jorn countered, his eyes burning with an uncharacteristic intensity. “A lesson you chose to ignore.” “Indeed.” The king's gaze swept over Brynja, then to Petyr, lingering on the peddler with open disgust. “But the pact offers more than just a means to claim what is due. It offers opportunity. An army of such weapons, crafted by your hand, imbued with the raw essence of captured souls… Imagine. Invincible. The realm of Kvasir, and beyond, would bend knee to a true god, not some half-measure. Forge them for me, Jorn. And this girl,” he nodded towards Brynja, “will be absolved. Her vow broken, her soul untouched by the blade she seeks. A small price for true dominion.” Brynja’s jaw tightened. “My vengeance is mine, Sovran. Not a pawn in your games.” Jorn held the invader's stare. “You think to trick me again? You think I have not learned? Every weapon I forge for you, every soul I bind, strengthens the chains of this world, not breaks them. The answer is no. I will not be your instrument of suffering. Not again.” The ruler's smile died into glacial fury. The air crackled, and tiny shards of ice began to form on the raw stone walls. “Then you will be mine by force.” A gust of freezing wind, sharp as a winter spear, slammed into Jorn. He braced, the raw power of the attack hitting him like a physical blow. The air shimmered around the Sovran, throwing a harsh, blinding glare across the floor. Brynja, with a warrior’s roar, launched herself forward, her blade a flash of steel. She moved with impossible speed, a blur of motion thanks to the runic greaves, driving her edge toward his ribs. But the Sovran merely raised a hand. An invisible wall of force erupted, slamming Brynja backwards, sending her skidding across the obsidian floor, her head cracking against a discarded anvil. She lay stunned, struggling to rise. “Pitiful,” the god-touched king sneered, turning toward Petyr, who cowered behind a stack of slag. “And this… a rat from a fallen house, sniffing for scraps of dignity in my kingdom. What do you even hope to achieve, worm? You disgrace your ancestors merely by existing.” Petyr flinched, a flash of humiliation searing his cheeks. His eyes darted around the cavernous space, taking in the intricate network of pipes and conduits that snaked along the walls, vestiges of the Hearth's geothermal power. His gaze fell upon a large, brass valve, crudely marked with a fading runic symbol he'd observed during his prior wanderings. A desperate plan sparked in his mind. He took a shaky breath, then, with a surprising burst of agility, darted past Jorn, ignoring the furious Sovran, and sprinted towards the far wall. “Foolish whelp!” the Sovran roared, a bolt of rime gathering in his palm. But Petyr was faster, his small, unheroic frame surprisingly nimble. He reached the valve, his fingers fumbling for a second, then he twisted it with all his strength. With an iron screech and a violent hiss, a jet of superheated steam erupted from a vent overhead. The ruler shouted in raw fury as white fog engulfed him, masking his silhouette in scalding plumes. The sudden pressure change shuddered through the bedrock. “Run!” Jorn bellowed, hauling Brynja up as red seeped down her temple. “Into the lower shafts!” They scrambled, Jorn half-dragging Brynja, Petyr scrambling ahead like a terrified gopher. The labyrinthine tunnels opened before them, lit only by dull red fissures in the dark basalt. The air grew progressively warmer, then cooler, as they descended into the cooling chambers and dormant lava tubes beneath the forge. The deep pulse of the earth was their only company until the king's roar shook the shaft behind them. They didn’t stop until the very air thickened with the scent of cool, damp stone and the distant rumble of deep earth. Jorn guided them into a chamber carved naturally from obsidian, where rivulets of glacial meltwater ran down the walls, collecting in a shallow, perfectly still pool at its center. The cold here was a balm after the forge's stifling fumes, untainted by the Sovran's bite. Brynja slumped against the rough rock face, panting, the blood on her temple now a dark, congealed line. Petyr huddled beside her, shivering, his earlier bravado replaced by stark terror. Jorn leaned against an outcropping, his gaze still sharp, calculating. He could feel the residual surge of power from Brynja's greaves, a ghost of her vitality that now mingled with his own exhaustion. The connection was a constant, subtle drain. “He will follow,” Brynja rasped, her voice strained. She looked at Jorn, her eyes filled with a new, unsettling understanding. “He knows the pact. He knows… the cost.” Her gaze fell to the runic scars on his arm, then to the unmarred flesh of her own. “This power you give me… this silent speed, this strength… I feel it changing me. It feels like… a part of you, becoming part of me.” Her voice sank low, fatigue dulling her fierce face. “I fear it, Jorn. I fear what it truly is. What it drains from you. What it will take when I strike my blow.” She stopped, her chest heaving against the stone. Jorn met her gaze. He knew that terror well; it had lived in his marrow for centuries. Before he could answer, the rock shuddered with a deep, grinding resonance. The Sovran's voice rolled through the stone flues, inescapable. “The forge is now my prison as well as yours. Surrender the girl, or I will bring the mountain down upon us all.”

Three Hearts, One Anvil