The Iron Forest did not welcome them; it endured them. Every step Sarah, Mira, and Aryan took was punctuated by the rhythmic clink-clank of metallic leaves brushing against one another. The air was a freezing mist that tasted of copper and ancient rust. Since leaving the Magnetic Hermit's dome, the silence had become a physical weight. Aryan felt a hollow ache in his chest—not from the wood, but from the loss of the Lexicon of Timber. Without the book, he felt like a sailor without a compass, adrift in a sea of thorns.
"He's behind us," Mira whispered. Her voice was different now—fuller, warmer, lacking the mechanical rasp of the silver rot. But as her humanity returned, so did her fear. Her hand trembled as she gripped Aryan's mahogany arm. "The vibration in the ground... it's too heavy for a scout. It's him."
"The First Son," Aryan murmured.
Suddenly, a sound tore through the forest—a deep, booming horn that sounded like the groan of a dying ship. The metallic trees around them began to bend, not from the wind, but from a massive gravitational pull. From the darkness emerged a figure that made Aryan's mahogany armor feel like a toy.
He was a titan, standing nearly ten feet tall. His body was a horrific masterpiece of Ironwood—a wood so dense it sank in water and resisted any blade—and reinforced steel. His face was a mask of cold brass, but through the eye-slits, a faint, weeping amber light glowed. Unlike the puppets Aryan had fought before, this one didn't move with clockwork precision. He moved with a heavy, sorrowful gait, dragging a massive flail made of spiked gears behind him.
"Armor," the First Son spoke. His voice was a low-frequency rumble that made the iron filings on the ground dance. "You are the Armor. I am the Prototype. I am the 'Regret'."
"My father didn't make you," Aryan shouted, stepping in front of Mira and Sarah. "The Master made you."
"Your father... helped," the First Son rumbled, swinging the massive flail in a slow, hypnotic circle. "He provided the Ironwood. He thought he was building a protector. But the Master... the Master added the 'Need'."
Without warning, the First Son lunged. Despite his size, his speed was terrifying. The flail smashed into a metallic tree beside Aryan, pulverizing the steel trunk into shrapnel.
"Run!" Aryan commanded Sarah. "Get Mira to the ravine!"
Aryan met the First Son's next strike with his mahogany arm. The impact was like a mountain hitting a hill. CRACK. Aryan was sent flying backward, his wooden feet carving deep furrows in the iron-rich soil. His arm was smoking; the friction had scorched the bark.
For the first time, the "Wood-Mind" didn't offer him words of power from the Lexicon. It offered him only the raw, animal instinct of a cornered beast. Aryan looked at the Ironwood giant. He realized that this monster was what he would become if he lost his "Heart of Flesh." A hollow vessel of strength with no purpose but destruction.
"You speak of my father," Aryan panted, his human hand digging into the dirt to find leverage. "But my father gave me a choice. What did the Master give you?"
"Hunger," the First Son replied. He raised his foot—a massive block of iron and wood—and tried to crush Aryan.
Aryan rolled away just in time. As he moved, his hand brushed against something cold and hard buried in the rust. A small, metal cylinder. A time capsule. It bore the crest of the Khanna family—the same interlocking roots he had seen on Rhea's music box.
He didn't have time to open it. The First Son was upon him again.
"Sarah! The song!" Aryan yelled.
Sarah, standing on a ledge of rusted rock, closed her eyes. She began to sing. It wasn't the high-pitched siren song of the Weaver, nor was it the lullaby of the music box. It was a raw, wordless melody of grief. As the notes hit the air, the First Son's movements slowed. The amber light in his eyes flickered. The mechanical heart in his chest—a visible cage of gold wires—began to stutter.
"It hurts..." the First Son groaned, dropping his flail. "The music... it reminds me... of the rain."
Aryan saw his opening. He didn't use his fist. He ran toward the giant and placed both hands—one of flesh, one of wood—directly onto the First Son's brass mask.
He didn't try to break the metal. He tried to "hear" the grain of the Ironwood beneath. Without the Lexicon, he had to rely on the "Blood-Memory" his father had talked about. He poured his own warmth into the cold, iron-hard wood.
In that moment of contact, Aryan's mind was flooded with a vision.
He saw his father, Vikram, much younger, weeping in a dark workshop. He was working on this very giant. "I'm sorry," Vikram was whispering to the Ironwood. "I have to make you strong enough to take the Master's focus away from my son. I have to make you so terrifying that he will never look for a human heart again."
The First Son wasn't an enemy. He was a Decoy. A tragic older brother built to be a monster so that Aryan could remain a boy.
The realization broke Aryan's heart. He felt a wave of profound humanity—pity, love, and shared sorrow—flow from him into the giant.
The First Son stopped fighting. The amber light in his eyes turned a soft, glowing gold. The brass mask fell away, revealing a face made of beautiful, polished wood that looked almost human in its sadness.
"Brother..." the First Son whispered.
But the moment of peace was shattered. From the sky, a silver bolt of lightning struck the giant's back. The Silver Weaver was watching. She wouldn't allow her "Regret" to find peace.
"A touching reunion," the Weaver's voice echoed from the metallic clouds. "But a shield that refuses to strike is useless. If the Armor and the Prototype will not fight, then they shall both be melted down."
The First Son looked at Aryan, his wooden features tightening. He reached out and handed Aryan the time capsule he had found in the dirt.
"The Master is coming, Little Seed," the First Son said, his voice now a gentle rustle. "The Iron Forest is his cage. You must go to the Wall of Tears. I will hold the gate."
"No, come with us!" Aryan cried.
"I cannot," the giant smiled sadly, his body beginning to glow with an internal fire. "I was built to be the distraction. Let me finally do my job."
The First Son turned toward the approaching swarm of silver moths and the metallic constructs of the Weaver. He picked up his flail, but now it glowed with the amber light of the Seed.
Mira grabbed Aryan's hand. "We have to go, Aryan. His sacrifice... it's the only way we reach the Wall."
As they ran toward the horizon, Aryan looked back one last time. He saw the Ironwood giant standing like a lonely mountain against a sea of silver, his booming roar echoing through the trees—a sound of a brother protecting a brother.
Aryan clutched the time capsule to his chest. He had lost his book, but he had found his history.