Chapter 118: The Forge of the Fae

The Failing Heart

The Syndicate jet didn’t even make a full stop in the clearing before the ramp lowered.

I left the transport without waiting for Valda. I sprinted through the transport door into the Wyldwoods mist. My werewolf speed forced my exhausted muscles to their breaking point. The heavy lead-lined pouch strapped to my waist banged against my hip. The pouch emitted sickening anti-creation heat that resembled the Void King heart, which I was carrying.

I reached the base of the massive redwood and used the thick ironwood vines to climb up to the guest hollow that I could see in the canopy.

I dropped to my knees next to the moss bed while I gasped, "Kade!"

The sight of him made the blood freeze in my veins.

He had lost all color. His lips had turned into a frightening shade of bruised blue. His eyes were shut while his broad chest stayed motionless beneath the weight of Star-Metal plate. The slow rattling breath which sustained him during my previous visit had disappeared.

Leo sat next to his father while he used his small hands to touch his father's icy cheek. At the same time, he cried without making any sound.

Leo looked up at me while he sobbed, "Mama. Daddy won't wake up."

I choked out, "I'm here, baby" while my hands shook. I started to lift Kade's heavy body from his lifeless position. I pressed my ear to his chest, right next to the iron plate.

A heartbeat was present but it registered as an extremely faint sound. The human heart was making a soft fluttering sound because it faced the overwhelming pressure of a dead god's armor. He had minutes left. Maybe less.

Queen Lysandra's melodic voice came into the hollow when she said, "You brought the shard". She entered through the doorway while her emerald eyes fixed on the heavy pouch I wore in my waist area. "Luna Prime, you have arrived at the perfect moment. His mortal body is giving out."

I demanded, "How do I fix him?" while my feral gold eyes displayed my urgent need for information. "Tell me how to build the cage! I need to learn how to build the cage!"

Lysandra commanded, "Bring him" while she spun on her heels to walk away. "To the deep roots. To the Forge of the Fae."

The Crucible of Wood and Bone

Valda arrived just in time to help me carry him. Kade weighed several hundred pounds because his gravity magic did not function to reduce his density. We needed every bit of our combined strength to move his heavy body down into the forest area because he had both dense muscles and a Star-Metal gauntlet and chest plate that weighed fifty pounds.

The Wyldwoods base we followed led us into deep underground caves since it extended below the Fae Court territory.

The air grew intensely hot, smelling of burning sap and crushed charcoal. A massive dome-shaped cavern. The cavern contained a central fire, which produced flames that burned with emerald green color from a massive pit of petrified ironwood.

The fire area contained an anvil that showed no signs of iron but instead displayed its design through its polished appearance. The anvil showed through its design that it used the unbreakable skull of an ancient colossal beast as its material.

We laid Kade down on the stone floor which we placed near the anvil.

Lysandra explained to Elara Vance that "Black ice cannot be melted" while she handed me a heavy, long-handled forging hammer forged from hardened amber and Fae steel. "Black ice requires beating to become submissive. The material requires special handling because ordinary fire cannot be used for tempering and Fae magic cannot create it.

The heavy pitch-black Crown Shard I pulled from my pouch. The moment the Void King's core hit the bone anvil, the deafening, overlapping screams of the dead god erupted in our minds. Valda winced, clutching the sides of her head.

I yelled over the psychic shrieking, "Then how do I forge it?"

Lysandra explained to me that I needed to act as the anvil master at that point. "You must use your raw physical strength to strike the iron while you must use your own blood to temper the corrupted magic. The process of making a god cage needs complete architectural accuracy for its creation.

Lysandra looked down at Kade’s motionless body. "The Architect" is needed for this specific requirement.

The Blueprint

I dropped to my knees beside Kade. I slapped his freezing cheek, completely ignoring my own exhaustion.

I screamed Kade! Open your eyes! At that moment I lost my control. I need you! Come back to me!

His eyelashes fluttered. His ocean-blue eyes opened in a slow and painful manner. He was barely clinging to consciousness, the pain in his expression absolute.

Kade breathed his final words, "I have you" while a bloody froth on his lips showed his condition.

I pleaded with Kade to give me the blueprint. Valda rushed over, bracing his heavy back against her shoulder to keep him upright. "You have to show me how to build the cage. You have to guide my hands."

Kade forced his heavy, leaden gaze toward the black ice on the anvil.

He didn't have his tectonic magic or his World Engine logic matrix. The knowledge of the Architect was still locked inside his brilliant, Alpha mind.

He reached out his trembling, freezing human hand and placed it directly over my bloodied, bruised fingers gripping the handle of the Fae hammer.

Kade gasped, "Eight sides" while his voice came through with a barely audible rattle. "The octagonal matrix functions to deflect entropy inward according to its design.

I raised myself from the ground while I pulled Kade’s hand up with my hand. I let Valda hold him up as I pulled Kade’s hand.

I opened my hunting knife and I pulled the blade on my left palm. I pressed my wounded hand down onto the Crown Shard. The black ice emitted a loud hiss as my werewolf blood boiled and sizzled when it came into contact with the anti-creation magic's inversion of heat.

Kade spoke the command "Strike" while his gaze remained fixed on the ice.

I applied all my strength to swing the heavy hammer.

CLANG!

The devastating impact caused severe destruction. A dual shockwave consisting of green fire and black shadows surged through the cavern space. The Void King produced a psychic scream that reached a peak, which attempted to destroy my mental state. I maintained my sanity by holding onto the freezing sensation that my husband had given me when he placed his hand on mine.

Kade spoke through clenched teeth as he moved his hands to control the hammer's striking angle. "Rotate... thirty degrees" Kade gritted out. "Strike."

CLANG!

I struck it multiple times after my first hit.

The extreme physical pain reached its maximum level. Each time the hammer struck down, my muscles endured additional tearing damage. My blood spread across the black ice surface, which resulted in the burning of the corrupted magic. The monolith collapsed and bent under the powerful will of a mother who was desperate and a father who was dying.

Kade maintained perfect control over his geometric guidance. He wasn’t just hitting it; he was forcing the black ice to fold in on itself. He created an impossibly seamless puzzle box of darkness.

Kade spoke his final words as he died. His body went entirely limp against Valda. "Seal it."

I let out a loud scream at Kade.

I brought down the hammer with an animalistic yet powerful shout that expressed total defiance.

CLANG!

The Vacuum

The hammer struck the last part of the black ice, which resulted in the complete closure of its seams.

The deafening psychic shrieks of the Void King instantly vanished.

The cavern descended into an intense state between loud ringing and total quiet. The emerald Fae fires lost their brightness as they dimmed.

A bone anvil displayed a completely smooth eight-sided puzzle box constructed from pitch-black ice. The box had stopped emitting any sound. The box no longer showed any temperature changes.

A significant change occurred in the cavern's atmosphere. A terrifying, rushing sound filled our ears—like a massive intake of breath spanning the entire globe.

Lysandra spoke with her emerald eyes staring at the vacuum. "The vacuum is functioning correctly."

The core still remained inside the cage, but it started to violently extract the Void King’s scattered consciousness from the atmosphere. The scattered shards across the land lost their power, which resulted in instant silence. The unbreakable Star-Metal box I had just forged brought permanent loss of their animating frequency.

The threat had disappeared. Leo was secure now.

I threw the hammer down while I turned toward Kade.

He remained completely still in Valda’s embrace. He had stopped all forms of breathing.

I shouted "It's done!" while I took his face and my blood smeared across his cheeks, which turned pale. "Kade, the shroud doesn't matter anymore! The frequency is gone! Reignite!

Nothing happened.

I pressed my forehead to his while I sobbed. "Kade, please!" I begged him to "Reignite the Engine! Wake up!

The cavern maintained its total silence for three unbearable and endless seconds.

The dead gray Star-Metal plate on his chest generated a single high-pitched sound.

A blinding explosive flash of pristine white-gold light exploded from Kade’s chest. It sent Valda and me across the room.

The liquid iron veins running up his neck erupted with light, which burned at the temperature of a newborn sun. The Star-Metal gauntlet on his arm began to hum as the divine magic returned to his body, which made all weight disappear from him.

Kade’s back arched as he took a massive desperate breath.

His eyes opened wide.

The surface appeared dull and cloudy. The surface now shone with an ocean-blue and cosmic gold storm of beautiful and terrifying intensity.

The Alpha Prime had returned.

Kade sat up, the raw kinetic gravity well around him instantly repairing the crushed stone beneath his boots. He looked at his hands, which were glowing, and he breathed the smoke-filled air, and then he focused his glowing eyes on me.

He appeared in front of me without any delay. He lifted me from the floor and pressed me to his chest, which was warm and humming with Star-Metal energy. He held me while I cried from exhaustion because I finally felt relief.

We had created the cage. We had defeated the Void.

The world finally belonged to us after the sky tore open and people started to fight.