The *Eclipse Chaser* groaned as it pierced the storm-wracked skies above the Heartforge, its bronze hull shuddering under the weight of Ophira's corruption. Eldrin braced against the observation deck's railing, his left arm encased in jagged**Origin Circuitry**, the blue veins of the **grain** now clawing at his jawline like frost on a dying tree.
Every breath tasted of molten metal and ozonethe forge's breath, thick with the promise of apotheosis or annihilation.
Across the deck, Isolde's shadowstretched unnaturally, her Holy Lance cracked and oozing black ichor.
"The gates are open,"she rasped, her voice layered with a second, guttural toneOphira's echo. She's already inside."
Liora's dagger flashed, severing a vine that slithered through the ship's vents. Then we cut her out."Her emerald eyes, usually sharp with mockery, were hollow. The Nightwatcher's revelation hung between them like a blade:*You were never human.*
Eldrin's **grain** pulsed in time with the forge's distant heartbeat. *Thud. Thud. Thud.*
---
The Heartforge wasnt a place. It was a wound.
A gaping maw in the earth, its edges fused with Titan bones, pulsed with molten light. Rivers of liquidshard-metal snaked through its trenches, hissing where they met the air. Above it all loomed the**Crucible**a floating monolith of obsidian and gold, its surface etched with runes that bled light.
Titan shit,"Nim muttered, her spider-mech's legs skittering on the unstable ground. That thing's a *prison*."
Jace adjusted the straps of his makeshift bandolier, his resurrected body still gaunt. For what?"
For us,"Tira whispered. Her **third shard** flickered, its light threaded with Ophira's black veins. The Titans didnt just split the core. They split *souls*."
Eldrin's vision fracturedftashes of a laboratory, a split shard, Ophira's hand shoving Liora into the abyss. *Which will you be? The blade or the hand that wields it?*
Liora's grip on his wrist was bruising. Focus. The forge doesn't test strength.
It tests *will*."
A tremor shook the earth. The Crucible's gates yawned open, vomiting a geyser of liquid light. And there, wreathed in flame, stood Ophira.
-_.
She was no longer just a woman.
The **fifth** and **sixth shards** pulsed in her chest and palm, their light warped by tendrils of shadow. Her raven hair floated as if underwater, her armor fused with jagged crystal. When she smiled, her teeth were needles.
Little brother,"she crooned, her voice a chorus of whispers. You kept me waiting."
Eldrin's **grain** *screamed*. Fire erupted from his palmsnot the familiar chaos-flames, but a cobalt inferno, laced with stolen shard-energy.
Ophira laughed. Still fighting? *Tsk.*" She raised a hand, and the forge*answered*.
Molten metal surged, forming a tidal wave of razored light. Eldrin barely dodged, the heat searing his cloak to ash. Behind him, Nim's mech screeched as it intercepted a second wave, its plasma cutters shattering on impact.
The forge *obeys* her!" Liora hissed, her crystalline dagger deflecting a spray of slag. We need to"
*Distract her.*"Isolde's voice was a blade. Her Holy Lance flared, its light clashing with Ophira's corruption. Eldrin*the Crucible*! Now!"
Eldrin lunged.
The Crucible's interior was a hall of mirrorseach surface reflecting not his face, but *fragments* of himself:
- A child, trembling in a laboratory. - A weapon, drenched in blood.
- A king, seated on a throne of shards.
At its heart floated the**seventh shard**a perfect sphere of liquid gold, pulsing like a captured star.
*Take it,* Ophira's voice slithered through his skull. *Become what you were meant to be.*
Eldrin reached out-and the vision *shifted*.
The laboratory. The split shard. But this time, *he* was the one kneeling. Ophira's hand wasnt pushing Liora awayit was reaching *for him*.
*'oin me," she whispered, her eyes alight with something almost like*grief*. *We were never meant to be alone."
The **grain** flared, ice and fire warring in his veins. *Weapon or man?*
A scream shattered the illusion.
Tira.
Her body convulsed outside the Crucible, the **third shard** in her chest*rupturing* as Ophira's shadow poured into her. Her human eye locked onto Eldrin, pleading-
before the feral voice snarled: *Kill her!*
Ophira's laughter was a noose. *Choose, brother. The shard-or her?"
Eldrin's fingers brushed the seventh shard.
The world *exploded*. ---
Gold and shadow fused, etching new**circuitry** across Eldrin's skin. The Crucible's voice boomed:
**WHO ARE YOU?**
Beyond its walls, Tira's screams turned to laughterOphira's laughter.
And the forge *waited*.