"We didn't die, Draven, but this isn't home anymore."Jesse rasped the words through a throat that burned like open embers, their fingers clutching wet stone that didn't feel like stone at all. It pulsed underneath their palm, warm and soft, like a sleeping heart buried under a thin layer of silver sand."Jesse?" Draven pushed himself up, his voice gravelly, laced with panic. "Jesse, where are you?!""Right here," Jesse choked out, reaching through the shimmering mist. "I'm right next to you. Stop moving so fast, you're going to fall."Draven froze, his breath hitching as he looked around. There was no sky. There was no ground. Below them stretched a vast, endless sea of liquid stardust, swirling in rivers of violet, deep gold, and electric blue. Broken fragments of ancient cities floating like pale icebergs drifted through the glowing void, towers leaning sideways, stone archways leading into nothingness."Jack?" Draven called out, his single human eye darting wildly across the shift

"Three hundred years of peace, and you brought my forge down anyway."The voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, smooth as polished marble and cold as winter frost. It drifted across the narrow bridge of floating silver stone where the trio stood, their boots crunching on ancient dust.Jesse gasped, shrinking back against Draven as the glowing mist at the center of the terrace gathered, shifting, sharpening into the towering shape of a man. The figure was draped in robes of spun sunlight, his face terrifyingly young, his eyes burning with a calm, psychotic arrogance that made the air freeze in Jesse's lungs."Valen," Draven spat, his voice dropping into a guttural growl as he thrust Jesse behind his body. His obsidian right arm ignited instantly, purple void fire roaring along his glass knuckles. "I cut your head off on the steps of the white palace. I watched your blood drain into the snow.""You destroyed a shell, my dear blacksmith," the spectral construct of Valen replied, taki

"If we don't forge a new horizon right now, reality will collapse into a void."Jesse shouted the warning over the deafening scream of grinding gears as they hit the metal catwalk, the impact jarring through their bones. All around them, massive cogwheels as tall as mountains spun out of control, throwing rivers of white-hot spark showers into the howling dark."Draven!" Jack bellowed, his heavy glass boots skidding against the bucklining steel grid as he caught Jesse by the shoulder. "Look at the edges of the room! The walls are dissolving!"Draven scrambled to his feet, his single human eye widening in absolute terror. The edges of the cavernous forge chamber were simply vanishing, turning into blank, silent emptiness. The ancient bronze pillars were disintegrating into black dust, erased by the failing heartbeat of the dying machine."The core is destabilizing," Draven rasped, his voice cutting through the mechanical roar. He grabbed Jesse's hand, his warm flesh fingers interlockin

"Get out of my forge, Valen!"Draven’s roar shattered the spiraling ash, his body diving headfirst into the white-hot crucible without a second of hesitation. He plunged straight into the blinding sea of spiritual fire, his flesh hand shooting through the liquid flame to lock around Jesse’s wrist."Draven!" Jesse choked out, their voice suffocated by the thick, icy shadow wrapped around their throat. "He’s pulling me into the core! Don't come down here!""I'm not letting you go!" Draven screamed back, his human eye burning red against the searing light as he yanked Jesse toward his chest. His obsidian arm ignited, a blinding torrent of void flame bursting from his knuckles to scorch the dark tendrils binding Jesse's neck. "Not today! Not ever!"Valen’s ghostly apparition materialized within the swirling fire, his shadow face contorting into a sickening, demonic sneer. "You think your little spark can burn a god, blacksmith? This hearth belongs to me! I built every brick of this realm!

"Listen close, Jesse, tell me what you hear."Draven rasped the words, his own hand clapping over Jesse’s where it pressed flat against his obsidian ribs. His jaw was locked tight, his single human eye wide with a terrifying, breathtaking vulnerability.Jesse couldn't speak. Their fingers sank deeper into the linen of Draven's shirt, feeling the rhythmic, heavy thrum beneath the cold stone surface.Thud. Thud. Thud."It's... it's not muscle, Draven," Jesse whispered, their voice cracking as a fresh wave of warm tears spilled down their cheeks. "It's not a normal heart. It feels like... like fire and light.""Is it real?" Draven asked, his voice trembling so violently it shook his entire frame. He looked down at his own chest, his flesh hand hovering over the dark glass. "Jesse, please. Tell me I'm not dreaming this. Tell me I'm not crazy.""Feel it yourself, you thick head!" Jack called out, stepping closer, his massive obsidian frame casting a long shadow across the grass. He crouche