Chapter 103 THE BRIDAL GEARS

Chapter 103 THE BRIDAL GEARS
The red-hot iron came down fast.

HISSS.

The glowing tip stopped just a millimeter above Seraphina’s small white collarbone. The terrible heat made her shirt smoke, the smell of burning cotton filling my nose instantly. Seraphina let out a sharp, terrified shriek, her tiny fingers twisting against the heavy iron spikes that pinned her arms to the stone table.

"Aria! Help me!" she screamed, her sightless eye sockets turning toward my voice. "The fire is touching me! It hurts!"

"Get your hands off her!" I roared.

The pure, concentrated poison of my hatred boiled up from my stomach, feeding the purple core behind my ribs. I didn't care that the old me had my face, or that her skin was covered in the same purple scars I carried. She was going to burn my little sister. She was going to stitch a child into a machine forever. I didn't want to hear her future secrets. I wanted to drive my fist through her teeth until her silver eyes stopped spinning.

I lunged off the brass plates. My single black wing snapped out behind me, spraying a trail of dark, heavy smoke across the room. I raised my right arm, the sharp purple bone claw, aiming to tear her throat open.

The old me didn't move the branding iron away from Seraphina. With her other hand, she reached behind her back and unhooked a thick, rusted iron cable connected to the ceiling needles.

WHIP-CRACK.

The heavy metal line slammed into my chest like a charging horse. The force of the blow threw me backward across the room, my spine smashing into a mountain of spinning brass cogs. Hot blood poured from the wound in my side, soaking my boots.

"You think you are the first one to try revenge, Aria?" the old me whispered. Her voice was thin, tired, and full of a cold, dead weight. "I stood right where you are standing thirty years ago. I killed the Emperor. I killed the Council. I took my sister and ran. And do you know what happened?"

She leaned down, the glowing red iron bubbling the grease on the stone table.

"The sea rose anyway," she hissed, her silver eyes flaring bright. "The network collapsed. The islands fell into the trench, and Seraphina drowned in the mud because I was too proud to turn the key. I had to build this forge out of the scrap. I had to sew my own eyes shut with silver thread just to crawl back in time and fix the stitch!"

"You didn't fix anything!" I gasped, dragging my body up with my human hand. My fingers were slick with my own blood. "Look at yourself! You are just another monster wearing an apron!"

"Aria, behind you!" Kael’s voice boomed from the ventilation grate.

He didn't have his peg leg, but he was crawling across the brass floor like a mad dog, his thick leather gloves digging into the metal seams. He raised his heavy steam gun, but before his finger could find the trigger, three long silver needles shot down from the ceiling like arrows.

THUD-THUD-THUD.

The metal needles drove straight through Kael’s shoulders, pinning his massive torso flat against the floor plates. He let out a deep, choking groan, the last bit of white steam leaking out of his gun’s barrel as it slipped from his hand.

"Kael!" I screamed.

"The frame is locked," the old me said, completely ignoring his groans. She turned her silver wheels back toward Seraphina. "The grandmother’s line is dead. The father’s line is dead. Only the battery remains."

She drove the glowing red branding iron straight down into the center of Seraphina’s chest.

SIZZLE-SCREAM.

Seraphina’s body arched off the table with a terrifying, violent jerk. The blue fire of the World-Eater didn't explode out of her; instead, a massive wave of solid gold light shot out of her chest, blinding my good eye for a split second. The four iron spikes pinning her arms snapped like dry twigs, and her body began to float two feet above the stone table, her hair rising in the hot air.

The golden light didn't stay soft. It turned into thousands of thin, sharp brass wires that shot out of her skin like hair, wrapping around the old me’s arms and legs, binding them together.

The old me let out a sudden, frantic gasp. Her silver eyes spun backward in her head, the brass wires from Seraphina's body digging deep into her scarred neck.

"No..." the old me choked out, her iron diving boots losing their grip on the floor as she was pulled toward the table. "The balance... the balance is wrong! The core isn't drinking the thread!"

I didn't waste the second. I tapped into the absolute bottom of my soul, letting the purple fire of the World-Eater explode out of my skin in a massive, smoking wave. My single black wing drove me forward, my feet leaving bloody prints on the hot brass floor.

I didn't aim for the old me. I lunged straight at my sister, my human hand reaching through the blinding gold light to grab her wet shirt.

"Seraphina! Drop the line!" I screamed into the roar of the gears.

But as my fingers touched her skin, the gold wires didn't just wrap around me; they shot straight into my mouth, my ears, and my open wounds.

The room didn't disappear. It is split in half.

Through the gold light, I didn't see the forge anymore. I saw a massive, white-tiled kitchen, thousands of miles long, stretching out into a bright, silent void. Sitting at the end of a long wooden table, his face perfectly healthy, his hands covered in fresh white flour, was my father.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at a small, golden cradle sitting on the bench next to his oven. And lying inside the cradle, its tiny chest pulsing with a bright purple light, was a baby that had a single, sharp bone claw instead of a hand.

My father raised a heavy steel meat cleaver over the cradle, his silver eyes fixed on the baby's ribs.

"The first batch is always a test, Aria," his voice echoed from the white walls, right behind my ear.