Chapter 67
"You are going to die."
Hephaestus didn't turn to face him. The goddess sat in her elaborate, self-crafted wheelchair, her back a rigid line as she stared into the glowing forge. Her voice was flat, devoid of inflection. She wasn't threatening him; she was stating a cold, hard fact.
"That's why I'm here," Cyd said, raising his left arm. Twelve crystals glimmered in the firelight, pulsing with a gentle, expectant hum. They were waiting. Yearning for the final piece, the last god's power to complete the set.
"Even with the last blessing, it won't matter. You have no idea what you'll be facing." Hephaestus's fingers dug into the metal arms of her chair with a faint screech. "That place is…"
"Tartarus," Cyd finished, his voice light, almost conversational. "Doesn't sound like a pleasant vacation spot. I hear it's where they keep the Titans. And the former King of the Gods, Cronus."
"It's not a rumor. They are there," Hephaestus hissed, her fist clenching so tight the metal groaned. "Zeus didn't kill them. He couldn't, or wouldn't. He imprisoned them!"
"Ah. So that's the 'save the world' mission." Cyd gave a soft, humorless laugh. "I just have to go down there and… clean house. Make sure they can never crawl back out and plunge the world back into chaos."
"Have you lost your mind?"
"I wish I had. But no. I'm frighteningly sane right now." Cyd walked around to stand in front of her. He held up his left wrist, the bracer catching the red and orange light of the eternal forge. "And you were right. A blessing can be a curse."
"You can refuse." Hephaestus finally opened her eyes. They were a deep, fiery brown, but the light in them was dim, smothered by dread. "There's no one left in this world who can force you to do anything. Not even me. Please. Pretend the old fool was raving. Walk away."
"I can't," Cyd said, a tired, resigned smile touching his lips. "I'm… a hero. And I want to protect this world. The one that has all of you in it."
"They won't get out! They can't!"
"But they could be let out. You know that's possible."
"You were so close!" Hephaestus shoved the wheels of her chair forward, bumping hard against Cyd's legs to push him aside. "You never wanted to be a hero! Why put on the act now, at the very end?!"
"What are you going to do?" Cyd asked as she rolled past him toward the yawning entrance of her main forge. The heat that poured out was blistering, even from a distance.
"Work. Forge a weapon," she snapped over her shoulder, her voice cracking with emotion. "One that can kill the former King of the Gods! Just like I forged that cursed bracer that's sending you to your death!"
"You know, I've never really given you anything," Cyd said softly, reaching into his pack.
"You can stay here and work the bellows for a thousand years," she retorted, not looking back.
"Well… I can give you this." Cyd pulled out the golden apple, the words 'To the Fairest' gleaming maliciously in the forge-light.
"You're joking." Even with her back turned, Hephaestus's shoulders hunched. She couldn't bring herself to look at it. "You don't have to lie for my blessing. I gave my word. I'll honor it."
"I never lie," Cyd said gently. He walked up behind her, placed the apple carefully in her lap, and then, in a movement that surprised even himself, leaned down and wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of smoke and hot metal. "And what you forge… is never a curse."
"I have never, in all my existence, met a fool like you," Hephaestus whispered, her hands trembling as they came up to cradle the apple. "A fool who walks toward an impossible death for something that might never happen."
"I won't die. Because I have the blessing you forged for me," Cyd said, his voice firm as he squeezed her shoulders gently.
"…I see." Hephaestus took a deep, shuddering breath, then reached up and pushed his hands away. Her touch was surprisingly gentle. "Then I won't let you die."
Without another word, she pushed her wheelchair forward, crossing the threshold into the heart of her divine forge. The immense, rune-covered doors began to grind shut behind her.
"Good," Cyd said, smiling at her retreating form through the narrowing gap. "Believe in me, too."
CLANG-BOOM.
The doors sealed with a finality that echoed through the antechamber. Cyd let out a long breath he hadn't realized he was holding and slid down to sit with his back against a soot-stained pillar. In that last moment, as the doors closed, Hephaestus had glanced back. The look in her eyes—those fiery, clever eyes now dulled with a despair so deep it looked like a guttering flame—was seared into his memory.
This time… I might actually die.
He let his head fall back against the stone. Athena's blessing of wisdom was screaming at him, a relentless, logical alarm. Going to Tartarus was the height of idiocy. With Zeus's blessing secured, he had zero obligation to accept this suicide mission.
Pointless.
You were so close to the quiet life you wanted.
"But…" he murmured to the empty, hot air. "I guess I want to play the hero. Just once. For real. I want to protect this world. The one with… all of you in it."
Even if it kills me.
---
"Humans… are truly incomprehensible creatures."
Hephaestus stared into the churning, white-hot lake of divine magma at the center of her forge. The heat was a physical wall, warping the air.
"So fragile. So fleeting. And yet they always…" She remembered the stubborn set of Cyd's jaw, the foolish bravery in his eyes, and a laugh, wet and choked, escaped her. A single tear traced a path through the soot on her cheek and fell onto the golden apple in her lap with a soft hiss. "…do things that make you worry."
She could still feel the phantom warmth of his arms around her, the steady beat of his heart against her back. It was strange. She was sitting before a pool of liquid fire, but that was the warmth she remembered.
Perhaps because… it was the first real embrace she could ever recall.
Her mother's disgust. The pitying or scornful glances of the other gods. Her wife's blatant infidelity and mockery. Her existence had been a series of rejections, a masterpiece of divine cruelty.
"I never should have made that bracer for you," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the flames.
"But… I'm glad I was the one who got to forge your blessings."
Meeting you… was the best thing.
With infinite care, she lifted the golden apple and placed it on the surface of the magma. It didn't burn. It didn't melt. It sat there for a moment, glowing defiantly, then began to sink slowly, its golden light undimmed as it descended into the heart of the fire.
At her mental command, ingots of celestial bronze, slivers of adamantine, and other rare, nameless metals floated from racks around the chamber. They plunged into the magma around the sinking apple, dissolving instantly into streams of molten, glowing liquid.
"I will make you live."
Hephaestus pushed herself out of her wheelchair, letting her body slump onto the scorched stone floor at the magma pool's edge. The heat blistered her skin from a pace away.
"No matter the cost."
She inhaled, the superheated air scorching her lungs. Then, she reached out with both hands and plunged her arms into the lake of liquid fire.
Pain.
It was a pain beyond burning, beyond melting. It was her divine essence screaming as it was scoured raw by the primal heart of the world. Jagged, livid red lines, like cracks in porcelain filled with lava, erupted up her arms, mirroring the scars and patterns already etched on her face by her fall from Olympus.
"So… that's how these marks came to be," she gasped, a strange, almost serene smile touching her lips as she looked at the new, matching scars branding her flesh. "What a bargain. This… is far too cheap a price."
Gritting her teeth against the agony that was now her entire world, she moved her other arm deeper into the magma. The molten metals, guided by her will and her pain, began to swirl around the core of the golden apple. She wasn't just forging a weapon. She was forging a concept. A vessel of hope for one man, and a box of utter despair for his enemies.
Its name—[Pandora, Reforged]
---
BANG!
The massive forge doors flew open. A sleek, featureless black box, about the size of a large trunk, slid across the floor and came to a stop at Cyd's feet.
"Pure White Hero." Hephaestus's voice echoed from within the forge, raw and strained. She remained with her back to the door, her arms held aloft. Cyd could see the terrible, glowing red fissures that now covered them from fingertips to shoulders. "Go. Save this world."
She took a shuddering breath.
"And then… come back alive."
"Wait! Your arms!" Cyd's heart lurched. He lunged forward, ignoring the black box, aiming to rush into the forge. But he was too late. The doors slammed shut in his face with a thunderous finality.
"HEPHAESTUS!"
"It's… alright…"
Her voice, thin but clear, filtered through the metal.
"Go. Take my gift. [Pandora, Reforged]. Take the hope inside it… and come back alive."
"Or I'll curse you."
On Cyd's wrist, the final, empty socket in the jade bracer ignited. A warm, deep amber light, the color of molten metal and steadfast earth, flooded the chamber. The thirteenth crystal swirled to life.
For a moment, all thirteen blessings resonated in unison. A chord of pure, overwhelming power hummed through the air, so intense it was blinding. The black box at his feet shuddered violently.
As the light faded, Cyd looked down. Etched into the center of the box's lid, in fine, elegant script, was a new inscription:
[For My Beloved.]