Blazing heat bled from the hammer; as Hrok swung, Aphelia felt a mirage bloom—countless silhouettes circling her, each Hrok, and yet none.
They looked like Hrok across eras, masks shifting like seasons—noble as court silk, weathered like a wanderer—each gripping that flame-like hammer, pouring focus into the broken blade like rain into furrows.
With each strike, the next hit harder; the air around Hrok turned molten, a living furnace; the power swirling made Violet’s brow knot like a stormfront, all driven by motion, not even touching Aether.
Hrok sank wholly into the rhythm; her hammering quickened like wind-lashed rain; every blow tugged at hearts like a plucked string, even Aphelia’s gaze chained to the wild cadence.
Unlike ordinary forging, she needed only the hammer’s liturgy; in that steady heartbeat under the anvil, Aphelia sensed another Aether, a rule unlike Hrok’s own, the grammar of this world.
So was Hrok grasping a new rule through her forge, like shaping law in steel?
No—not yet; the door was still shut, a lock glinting in fog.
Aphelia narrowed her eyes like a hunter in mist; Hrok hadn’t seized that Aether, but each strike drew its rule into focus like ink drying on parchment.
She had reached the threshold of a second Aether; the fog before her lay dense as winter; she lacked the beacon of godhood, no self-made lighthouse to find a place in the endless mist of rules.
Yet with relentless blows, she carved a lighthouse from the fog, catching a faint thread of light like dawn on the horizon; the light was too weak to point a clear path, but Hrok didn’t falter, walking on even if the mist swallowed her steps.
And the broken blade cradled that light like an ember nested in steel.
Imagine it: once Hrok truly forges this blade, she’ll stand peak-high above the plain, second only to Aphelia on this planet.
Her hammering grew ferocious; that rule-power swelled, ready to take shape like a storm birthing lightning; Violet raised an Aether barrier like glass over fire; Hrok slipped into egoless flow, stopped checking the furnace heat, and blazing flames burst around her like a blooming pyre.
Just one more—she needed that final strike, the kick at the gate!
Aphelia and Violet’s eyes widened like twin moons; one last push, and Hrok would step over the rule’s threshold, break free of the endless mist, and kindle her second lighthouse; two beacons in fog, and she’d surpass all that stands.
“Aaaahhhh!!!” Her roar tore free like a tiger in chains.
Teeth clenched like a locked jaw, the raised hammer wouldn’t fall, frozen in air like time caught in glass; both women held their breath, silence drawn tight as wire—at their level breath meant nothing, but every nerve pulled taut.
Aphelia and Violet were strung like a bow; Hrok was the arrow trembling on the string.
The final blow never came; her clenched arm burst with blood like rose petals torn; an unseen force hammered her, flinging her back like a leaf in gale.
“Hrok!” The name snapped from Aphelia’s lips like a whipcrack.
Aphelia flashed forward like a streak of light; Crimson Fire curled into a gentle shield like silk over steel; even so, the shock rolling off Hrok shoved her back, steps skidding like pebbles on slope.
What power backfires like this, teeth bared like a wolf?
The world’s rules are countless—some tilt to offense, some to defense; some blaze like fire, some flow like water—and the power Hrok pursued felt extreme, a blade honed past the edge.
“Violet, get a healer, now!” Her voice cut like a drawn blade.
“No. Don’t. I’m fine…” The words fluttered like torn paper.
“What nonsense is that?” Her tone slammed like a door.
Looking at Hrok, bones had to be broken, splinters like white thorns; being this hurt while wielding Aether was rare—on this Aether-thin planet, even True Gods can’t show their full might, much less self-heal like spring sap.
But Hrok only shook her head, stubborn as a rooted pine; she refused Aphelia’s hand, sat cross-legged by the anvil like a monk before a bell, and closed her eyes, breathing long and steady, sleep-smooth, ignoring pain like stones in a river.
Aphelia opened her mouth, but Violet’s hand stopped her like a gate; Violet’s firm shake said enough, iron in her eyes, and Aphelia swallowed words, the sigh falling like dusk.
“What is this? She’s already probing a second Aether?” The question hung like mist off water.
Only after they left the camp did Aphelia speak, voice cool as moonlight; it was too big to escape Violet, now the Elders’ second leader in all but name.
“Aphelia, there’s nothing I can do…” Violet’s smile was wry, bent like a reed in wind.
She explained with a weary calm, the truth slow as dripping rain; it wasn’t her place, nor that she wished to leave it be.
“In fact, we kind of have to blame you, Aphelia.” The words fell like pebbles in a still pond.
“Blame me?” Her brow drew tight like a knot.
As Violet laid out the cause, Aphelia was taken aback, heart skidding like a cart on wet stone.
Hrok found that new Aether by accident, a spark under ash.
At first, she only craved to reforge the blade Brynhildr gave her; in the war with the Daemon Beast, her power hadn’t recovered, so she relied on that blade— and it worked: the beast retreated almost a year, and humans reclaimed lands like tide returning to shore.
After that, Hrok kept thinking of reforging it; but it was Brynhildr’s own sword, heavy with her mark like seal-wax; the lingering power refused Hrok’s touch, and even broken, it rejected any hand but its master—already the seed of an Artifact Spirit, a whisper in steel.
With Aether this thin, Hrok couldn’t drive out Brynhildr’s Aether; and in her heart, she wouldn’t erase Brynhildr’s trace; to the Valkyries of that age, Brynhildr carved a mark deep as a canyon.
So Hrok turned to Artifact Spirits, walking that path like a smith at midnight.
It began with ordinary weapons; then obsession burned like fever—she even reforged the arms bound to her soul; a master is a master, and on that path she broke through, making those soul-splintered weapons stronger, edges bright as morning.
But it was far from enough; for that broken blade, nowhere near enough; to restore it without touching Brynhildr’s imprint was a circle you can’t square.
So Hrok moved into this tattered camp to focus, like a hermit in ruins; whenever she had a moment, she hammered like this; even when not forging, she trained in her inner sea, minute by minute, waves folding over rocks.
Over time, she edged up to that power’s threshold through the forge, the link tightening like a knot; soon it slipped beyond her control—easy to invite a god, hard to send one away—and it wasn’t bad: it meant Hrok stepped closer to the rules, lantern brighter in night.
But Hrok is stubborn; she wouldn’t erase Brynhildr, name like a star in her sky; you don’t let go like shutting a window— it would feel like denying the road behind her.
So at the last moment, like today, the backlash shook her, injuries blooming like bruised fruit.
“This…” The word was a breath of frost.
Aphelia didn’t know what to say; deny Hrok’s past choices, cut threads like a knife? Impossible; Brynhildr’s trace is a shrine in Hrok’s heart—until Brynhildr returns, it’s her shelter in rain.
“So the knot needs the one who tied it.” Violet’s voice was soft as dusk. “Aphelia, I know it wasn’t your intent; but your past—Brynhildr’s part—marked us too deeply to erase like chalk.”
Violet patted Aphelia’s shoulder, the gesture warm as wool, and sighed.
She can’t forget Brynhildr herself, a name like a bell at night—let alone Hrok; that’s why none of the Elders will urge Hrok toward new power; they can’t do it themselves—how ask another to swallow that bitter tea?
After a long silence, Aphelia exhaled, a bitter smile inside like cold tea.
“Brynhildr… Brynhildr,” she murmured, voice drifting like smoke. “Did you foresee this the day you vanished? What a knot you left…”
To make the living pay a past life’s debt— and one so tangled— how do you repay it? If words could mend, Hrok wouldn’t bleed like this.
“By the way, Hrok’s wounds—are we really not getting a healer?” The worry rose like a tide against stone.
