Chapter 102 THE OLD FORGE

Chapter 102 THE OLD FORGE
The giant metal glove squeezed my sister's waist, lifting her high out of the splashing foam.

"Aria!" Seraphina screamed. Her tiny legs kicked uselessly against the thick, rusted iron plates of the diving suit. Her small hands clawed at the three spinning red clock-faces on the helmet, but she couldn't scratch the glass. "Aria, it's me! The old lady is taking me!"

"Let her go!" I roared.

The freezing sea water rushed into the open hole in my side, making my vision wobble. The black water was thick with grease and blood, but the fire inside my stomach didn't care about the pain. My purple core beat hard against my broken ribs. It felt like a trapped fist, screaming to punch through my own skin.

Another version of me, the thought burned my brain like hot oil. First a clone, then a grandmother, and now this old, rusted voice from the future. They keep coming. They keep hiding behind my own face to steal my family.

The hate in my chest wasn't just hot anymore; it was solid rock. They wanted to turn my sister into a steering wheel for their machine. They wanted to forge my bone claw into a battery wire. I didn't care about the master loom, and I didn't care about the city. I wanted to see every single iron mask melt into a puddle of boiling slag.

I forced my right arm down. My sharp purple bone claw dug deep into the sinking wood of the cabin floor. I didn't run. I let my single black-stained wing flap against the heavy wind, driving my body straight off the broken boat.

I flew over the white foam, my purple fingers aiming right for the three red clock-faces on the helmet.

"You are too young to understand the furnace, Aria," the older voice boomed from inside the metal collar.

The diving suit didn't dodge. The giant iron arm swung backward, the heavy metal elbow slamming straight into my chest.

CRUNCH.

The force of the blow broke my remaining good ribs. I let out a sharp cry, coughing up a thick splash of red blood as I flew backward through the air. I hit the water hard, my body sinking down into the dark bubbles. The purple smoke from my claw flickered out, leaving me completely cold in the dark sea.

Through the spinning green water, I looked up.

The diving suit wasn't sinking. A massive, rusted iron chain shot down from the upper dark, hooking into the helmet of the suit. With a sudden, violent jerk, the chain pulled the old woman and my sister upward, lifting them right out of the ocean at a terrifying speed.

"Aria!" Kael's voice came from somewhere near the surface.

I kicked my legs weakly, my head breaking the water just as Kael grabbed my torn collar with his teeth. He had crawled onto a floating piece of the cabin roof, his iron peg leg completely gone, but his thick hands were still holding his double-barreled steam gun. His single blue eye was wide and bloodshot, fixed on the chain rising into the fog.

"The forge... it's right above us," Kael gasped, spitting out a mouthful of salt water. He pointed his gun up into the dark. "They didn't build the loom under the sea, Aria. They built it on a floating island of iron. The submarine was just the elevator!"

I looked up through the thick white steam.

A massive, black iron platform, three miles wide, was hanging right over our heads, held up by thousands of thick steel cables that disappeared into the sky. The bottom of the platform was covered in hundreds of burning red furnaces that dripped boiling yellow grease straight down into the ocean.

The rusted chain was pulling the diving suit right into one of the open furnace doors.

"We have to climb," I wheezed, my human hand locking around the barrel of Kael's steam gun. My fingers were shaking, the blood from my side dripping onto the wood. "I am not letting her burn in that room."

"The gun has one shot left," Kael said, his teeth grinding together until his scars turned white. "The steam pressure is dropping. If we shoot the anchor wire, the blast will throw us up onto the platform, but the boat will sink instantly."

"Do it," I growled. "I don't need a boat. I just need her."

Kael didn't argue. He aimed the massive gun straight at the thick steel cable dangling from the floating platform. He pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The explosion of white steam was so loud it split my ears. A massive shockwave of hot air slammed into our wooden board, throwing Kael and me twenty feet into the air like feathers in a storm. My single black wing flapped wildly, catching the blast to push us toward the iron edge of the floating platform.

My purple bone claw reached out, my sharp fingers sinking deep into the rusted iron plating of the ceiling. I hung there by one arm, my legs dangling over the boiling sea, my chest screaming in absolute agony. Kael was holding onto my boot, his heavy body weighting me down.

"I’ve got you," I gasped, my teeth clicking through the black smoke rising from my skin.

With a final, desperate grunt, I swung my body forward, throwing Kael and myself through an open ventilation grate and onto a floor made of solid, hot brass plates.

The room didn't look like a palace. It looked like a slaughterhouse for machines. 

Thousands of long silver needles were hanging from the ceiling like meat hooks, all of them dripping with fresh red blood. In the center of the floor, a giant stone table was covered in millions of spinning gold gears.

Sitting on the table, her small body pinned down by four thick iron spikes, was Seraphina.

The older Aria in the diving suit stood over her, the helmet removed. Her face was old, covered in deep, jagged purple scars that looked exactly like mine, but her two eyes were solid, burning silver wheels. She held a massive, glowing red branding iron, the tip shaped like a kitchen knife.

"You are just in time for the stitch, little girl," the old me whispered, turning her silver eyes toward my face. "Your father built the frame, but I am the one who has to burn the name into her bones."

She raised the red-hot iron, aiming it straight for my sister's chest.