"We have twelve hours before my graft collapses completely."Draven’s voice was barely a gravelly rasp, swallowed almost instantly by the howling blizzard ripping through the mountain pass. He leaned heavily against the wooden frame of the heavy snow sled, his body trembling violently with fever while his single human eye burned with a desperate, terrifying fire."Then stop talking and save your breath!" Jesse snapped back, their voice cracking as they pulled the thick leather harness tighter around their shoulders. Tears froze instantly on their wind-scoured cheeks, but their hands never stopped working. "You're not dying in this ditch, Draven! Do you hear me?!""Jesse, look at him," Master Lyra called out from the front of the sled, leaning on her ashwood staff as the freezing wind whipped her dark mantle around her frail body. "The violet corruption has already crept up past his collarbone. If we don't reach the subterranean entrance before the storm buries the ridge, we won't even

"We are breathing our last hour of oxygen, blacksmith."Lyra’s voice was barely a dry rasp in the stagnant, suffocating heat of the collapsed chamber. She leaned heavily against the soot-stained wall, her hands clutching the broken pieces of her staff while clouds of bitter dust settled over the rubble."Don't say that!" Jesse yelled, coughing violently as they slammed their bare, bloody fists against the mountain of crushed stone blocking the archway. "Help me pull these boulders away! Draven, give me a hand!""Jesse... stop..." Draven groaned, dragging his trembling body along the stone ledge toward them. His left arm flared with a violent, sickening purple light that cast long, grotesque shadows across the ruined forge. His breath came in shallow, agonizing wheezes. "She's right, sweetheart... the main tunnel is completely sealed...""I don't care!" Jesse sobbed, spinning around with raw, terrified fury in their eyes, tears cutting clean lines through the black soot on their face.

"If we don't open that bunker in sixty seconds, they'll crush every soul beneath our feet."Jesse threw their whole weight against the cold, dead iron wheel of the bunker door, their knuckles raw and bleeding against the frozen metal. The subterranean ceiling shook violently above them, showering their hair with fine gray dust as the deafening, rhythmic clank of heavy iron treads ground through the earth directly overhead."The hydraulic lock is completely jammed from the inside!" Lyra yelled over the bone-rattling roar, her hands frantically tracing the glowing runic lines around the doorframe with her thin copper needle. "Kaelen sealed it from the lower control room! He engaged the emergency quarantine deadbolts!""Kaelen!" Draven bellowed, slamming his flesh right fist against the thick iron plate. He staggered on his feet, his chest heaving with shallow, agonizing breaths as the dark purple fracture along his left graft pulsed with a dangerous, erratic light. "Kaelen, open the dam

"You're fighting with borrowed time, blacksmith!"Supreme General Vane’s voice thundered through the exo-frame’s vocal processors, terrifyingly smooth even beneath the deafening mechanical roar of his machine. The colossal titan-class frame lunged forward, its massive treaded feet tearing through the mud as a thirty-foot arc of violet plasma sliced through the freezing rain."I've got all the time I need to put you in the ground!" Draven bellowed, bringing his heavy forge hammer up to catch the plasma blade in mid-air.The impact sounded like an artillery shell detonating in a closed room. The shockwave threw up geysers of burning mud, turning the drizzle into blinding white steam instantly. Draven’s boots skidded backward ten feet through the slush, his new chrome arm flaring with a brilliant, blinding silver heat as he absorbed the kinetic blow."Draven, move!" Jack rumbled, stepping out from the smoke like a towering specter of dark glass. His chest plate hummed with a terrifying b

"Their heart is slowing down, Draven! I can't catch the pulse!"Lyra’s scream cut straight through the roaring wind, her shaking hands pressing futilely against Jesse’s cold throat as rain poured over them in sheets."Get out of the way!" Draven barked, his voice cracking into an agonizing, desperate roar.He didn't wait for her to move. He scooped Jesse up into his arms, pulling their limp body tight against his chest while his silver arm flared hot against the freezing storm. Mud flew beneath his boots as he sprinted across the ruined plaza toward the shattered base of the golden tree, every step shaking his entire frame."Draven, slow down!" Lyra yelled, stumbling through the ash behind him, her wet robes heavy and dragging in the mud. "If you drop them on this stone, the kinetic shock will kill them!""I am not dropping them!" Draven wept, his teeth grinding so hard he could taste iron on his tongue. "Jesse! Sweetheart, hear me! Keep breathing for me!"Jesse’s head rolled back aga