The God-Ender's plum-dark edge beat like a wounded throat against the anvil. Jorn kept his gaze pinned to Brynja's dirt-smeared cheekbones, letting the cooling draft run over the cuts on his palms. He knew the cost now; the schematic carved into his skin demanded flesh, not brass gears, to govern the recoil. A tremor shook the foundations of the Hearth of Whispers, not from the volcano’s slumber, but from a force pressing in from outside. The flue backed up, coughing sulfur into the room as steam curdled against the low granite lintel. The Sovran stepped through the drift, boots ringing on iron scrap, crowned in cold white mantle-glass. His irises had the gray glaze of well-water skinned over with rime. "So, the last smith completes his work," the god-marked ruler said, tone dry as shaved horn. He gave no glance to Petyr, who fell back into a pile of slag-tongs, but leveled his attention at the anvil. "I felt the strike of the quench. You never grasped what our blood was shaped to endure. This was always its purpose." The monarch raised a bare palm toward the tongs. "Slide it across, Jorn. The blade forged under my star, whether you wished it or not." Jorn did not shift his stance, the amethyst sheen dancing across his scorched aprons. Brynja reached for her belt knife with stiff knuckles, holding her boots glued to the flagstones. Behind the scrap bin, Petyr choked back a dry cough. "Your plans always outrun your forge-craft," Jorn said, leaning an arm against the hammer haft. "You strip other men's hides to patch your own cloaks. It was true in the palace pens, and it remains true here." The conqueror bared small, even teeth. "Merely reading the balance of iron. You sought to blunt the curse, stubborn fool, while I saw its leverage. It takes a life to break a dominion; it was never an error in the metallurgy." He closed the distance by half a yard, gravel scraping under his heel. "Did you think the Wolf-Cloaks burned by stray lightning? That their last girl tracked your vents through the waste by simple luck, bearing that cracked keystone?" Brynja made a wet clicking sound in her throat, the color draining from her lips as she looked between the two men. "What lie is this?" she muttered, her knuckles white on her grip. A harsh bark broke from the intruder's throat. "You took the bait left on the snow, girl. My horsemen hemmed your cousins into the gorge, culled the elders, and left a single trail cleared of patrols—pointing directly toward this vent. You needed hate to hold the hilt, and Jorn needed your sorrow to fire his temper." His gaze sharpened to a slit. "A blade that slaughters a god requires a furnace fed on grievance. You were the wood, Brynja. Your bloodline's ruined pyre gave him the heat to fold this steel." Brynja took two unguided steps rearward, her shoulders hitching as brine cut clean ruts down her sooty cheeks. The knife hung loose from her limp fingers. "You herd us like oxen to the slaughtering-block," she croaked, backing against the cold stack of pigs. Jorn didn't look back at his kinsman. He shifted his weight, pivoting the heavy blade in both gauntlets so its indigo luster fell across her chest. "Brynja," he said, his gravelly tone cutting through her shuddering breaths. "This steel was never intended for your hands." Her wet lashes parted, tracking his scarred thumbs. "Then whose life does it buy?" she rasped. Jorn dragged the edge back over the horn of the anvil. He tugged open the greasy lacing of his tunic, baring the scorched brands circling his collarbone down to his sternum—the runic geometry Petyr had unrolled from the hide roll. The lines answered the blade with a deep, bruised glow. "You demanded an end to the curse," Jorn said quietly. "It ends when the iron drinks the one who cast the mold." With one continuous motion of his thick wrists, Jorn inverted the hilt, setting the broad tip against his own breastbone. Brynja lunged forward with an open hand, while Petyr let out a shrill screech from the corner. “No! Jorn, what are you doing?!” Brynja cried, her voice hoarse with renewed horror. Jorn held her stare for half a beat, his jaw set like quarried slate. "The oath holds," he muttered. Then he threw his weight forward, driving three inches of steel through the knotted brands over his ribs. A concussive crack split the forge air, purple flare scorching the soot on the ceiling. Jorn rigidified, his heels skidding as the draw of the blade grounded into his flesh. The etched runes flared into white-hot wires under his skin, locking the furnace-song into his ribcage. He dropped to one knee, the steel protruding from his torso, his breath hissing out in pale vapor. The Sovran's haughty composure cracked, his mouth wrenching sideways into a snarl. "Mule! Ingrate!" He spat the words across the flagstones, slamming a mailed fist against his thigh. "That forge-work was keyed to my dominion! You lock the door from the inside?!" Jorn remained on one knee, hands locked around the impaling blade, his vision swimming behind an indigo glaze. The internal lock had clamped down, holding the vortex of the pact within his own marrow. "No throne for you," Jorn grunted, his speech grating like slate sliding over slate. "Not from my forge." The crowned man wheeled on his heel, fingers hooking like talons as holy luminescence gathered along his forearms. He swung his arm toward Brynja where she stood transfixed, her boots anchored by horror. "Burn with him, then!" the Sovran bellowed, hurling a jagged lance of sacred radiance straight at her throat.

The Oath of the Last Smith