Chapter Five: Furnaceborn
The scream wasn't human.
It wasn't wolf, either.
It was the sound of metal forced into motion—the shriek of rusted gears grinding back to life after a century of stillness. It tore through the steel mill like a banshee, rattling beams, shaking soot from the ceiling. Lyra's body seized mid-transformation. Torin fell to one knee, clutching his chest.
The bond flared between them. Not whole. Not healed.
But awake.
Lyra collapsed to the floor, breathing hard. Her hand still gripped the shard. It had fused with her palm, glowing red-hot. She could feel him again—deep, tangled threads pulling tight between them.
Torin staggered to his feet, his rusted skin shedding flakes like ash. Where Lyra had touched him, new skin glistened—raw but alive.
"I felt it," he whispered. "It's not just pain anymore."
She didn't respond. Couldn't. Her wolf eye was wide and glowing, but her human eye wept silver tears. Her mouth opened, and her voice came out in a dual tone—half-growl, half-song.
"They're coming."
Torin turned toward the lift shaft. A moment later, the doors rattled open.
Slag stumbled through, bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts.
"They broke containment," he gasped. "The bondless—four of them. Maybe more. They're not mindless. They're hunting her."
"Then we make them bleed for it," Lyra rasped, her claws extending.
Cinder appeared next, singed and smoking from a burn-mark sigil carved into her flank.
"I tried to hold them off. One bit through steel like it was leather. They're drawn to the shard."
"Let them come," Lyra snarled. "I've got something for them now."
---
They lured the first one into the blast furnace chamber.
It came crawling from the rafters—its body a patchwork of wire and sinew, wolf-shaped but hollow-eyed. It moved with jerks and shudders, as though dragged forward by invisible strings.
When it saw Lyra, it screamed.
Not in fury.
In recognition.
Torin's rusted blade met the creature mid-pounce, deflecting it into a heap of slag. It rose again instantly, jaws unhinged, revealing a silver tongue coiled with thorns.
"It's echoing your bond voice," Cinder growled, ears back. "Using it like bait."
"I can end it," Lyra said. "But I need it close."
She stepped forward, the shard in her palm pulsing.
The bondless construct lunged—and Lyra caught it by the throat.
The shard flared white.
And the thing remembered.
Not its name. Not its life.
But her.
It whimpered, coughed up a cascade of glowing nails, and disintegrated in her grip.
She staggered, winded. "One down."
---
The second came through the vent.
Small. Fast. Deadly.
It looked like a Gutter Child—except its eyes bled oil, and its breath stank of burnt mercury.
Slag intercepted it, throwing himself in its path. It sank its teeth into his forearm, and something in him turned—not rust, but resolve.
He held the creature in place while Torin crushed its skull with a sledgehammer.
The silence afterward was deafening.
Slag's skin began to flake—but not into rust.
Into light.
"You're changing," Lyra whispered.
He coughed. "The bond's ripple. It's not just affecting you two anymore."
---
Two more bondless broke through the walls.
They moved like memories—silent and shimmering, unfinished.
But Lyra didn't run.
She stepped forward, heart pounding.
Each time the shard pulsed, another memory returned—Torin's scent in the snow, his voice reading her poetry, the first time he held her like she wasn't monstrous.
The last time he turned away.
"You never really rejected me," she said aloud.
Torin stepped beside her. "I thought I did. I tried to. But something else got there first."
They moved as one.
Wolf and Alpha. Monster and man.
The creatures lunged.
And Lyra sang.
Not words. Not language.
The bond sang through her—an old, broken thing trying to make itself whole again.
The shard cracked in her palm.
And the bondless knelt.
One by one, they lowered their heads to the steel floor and began to weep.
Oil. Blood. Metal. Memory.
And then they were gone.
Not shattered.
Not slain.
Returned.
---
Afterward, the mill went quiet.
Torin helped Lyra to the infirmary, what remained of it—just an old cot and a cabinet of black vials. She leaned against him, trembling.
"The shard is done," she said. "It won't work again."
Torin studied her face. "We don't need it anymore."
Slag limped in behind them, his skin still glowing faintly. "We've got a bigger problem."
Lyra turned. "Vesper?"
He nodded. "She's moved her lab to the Gutter Caves. She's accelerating production. Said something about the 'final cycle.'"
Cinder emerged from the shadows. "And the children are getting sicker. They're coughing up screws now."
Lyra stood slowly. Her bones creaked. Her wolf howled somewhere deep within.
Then silence.
"No more pieces," she said. "No more rituals. We take this to the heart. Where the curse began."
Torin's eyes were steady. "The Gutter Caves."
"And when we get there?" Slag asked.
"We burn it all," Lyra said.
---
That night, as the wind howled outside the mill and snow fell in knives, Lyra and Torin stood at the edge of the territory.
The Rust River hissed behind them.
Ahead: the path to Smoketown Outpost, and beyond it, the Gutter Caves.
Lyra looked up.
The moon was red again.
Not blood this time.
Bond.
And it was hungry.
---