She felt the scalding heat of boot treads mashed against her neck - as if the Ceirvani brute still held her to the molten iron within the mines.
One moment, the scent of ore and sage caressed against her cheeks in thick swathes of smoke and the next-
A cold sweat bled through Chyrie's turbulent visions as she backed away from the roaring forge. Her calloused fingers traced over the phantom pains, leathery skin distorted from those moments before she broke.
Brutal scarring on her neck and shoulder remained, marking her a traitor.
She swallowed roughly, unwrapping and tightening the bandages on her palms. Powdered for grip. The steam baking her exposed frame a soothing lull to the chill in her bones.
Chyrie blinked - purging both molten flesh and wicked screams from her senses - and gripped a canister of water. Despite the taste of ash, she managed to ground herself, gaze bearing down on her sloppy cast in the corner.
The iron had split, cracking down the center and leaving a useless scrap of metal in its wake. Warped beyond repair.
Exhaling sharply, Chyrie slumped against the cavern wall and tipped her head back. A prison. Her home, her most prized possession, had become nothing more than a prison.
Iron bars had become the teeth of Courmasse Mines, a legendary forge now bound to the whim of her captor. Chyrie flinched as the wretched gate opened, its squeal as grinding as a newly hatched drake. It took every ounce of strength not to snarl at her visitor.
Without lifting her gaze, she could make out the sweeping green tunic, sliced on either side for breathability. Gold embroidery, finely sewn loafers, as if the rock beneath his feet couldn't stain them in an instant. Such finery was a waste in the mines, sure to be torn or scorched.
Yet the billowing charcoal smoke evaded those thin legs, wafting over the short frame with each step.
Her fingers gripped the gravel beneath her.
Those idiotic, tractionless shoes stopped next to her anvil, still rippling with heat waves.
"Chyrivelle," a sinister voice purred.
A guttural growl rumbled in the back of her throat, but Chyrie refused to lift her head, to answer such a summons.
No. Not for him.
"Rise, Chyrivelle," he said with pure command this time.
The oath sizzled in her veins, but she managed one deep breath, then another. No. The word dampened the static of his demand.
Fingers much too pale gripped her chin and yanked upwards.
Chyrie hissed, her scalp scraping against stone walls. She was certain the hatred brimming within those topaz eyes was mirrored inside her own. She couldn't fight the snarl peeling her lips back, the urge to sink her canines into that boney hand all-consuming.
"Your highness," she ground out.
Spitting in his angular face - those hollowed out, vengeful eyes framed by a sharp chin and cheekbones that rivaled the cliffs of Sikshan forest - was a mistake.
One Chyrie took pride in as her saliva dripped from those jutting features.
Her skull connected with bedrock, his hand on her throat.
"You wretch," he snapped. "You ungrateful wretch!"
"Mind yourself, Anryth. I might be contained by the blood oath, but I am not without my claws."
In reminder, Chyrie flexed her hands, her dirt crusted fingers revealing sharp nails that lengthened at will.
Anryth retracted slightly, gaze darkening.
To her dismay, the King of Rymedör released her jaw and took a step back. He slowly stalked through the chamber, rubbing the saliva off his jaw, then lifting pieces of rubble and flicking them into the forge as if they were mere insects. Chyrie watched the molten iron bubble and pop in response, careful to keep her eyes away from Niukka's Hearth and what lay beyond it.
He gripped her latest cast with no more reverence than the first he'd burdened her with.
This would not be the first time nor the last time she'd failed his critical eye. If only he'd known to look harder, to see with every sense to the pile buried away from them. Just beyond the forge, tucked where no one might see, were two finished blades.
Chyrie decided from day one Anryth would only look upon the scraps.
She couldn't trust him to uphold his end of the agreement. Not yet, at least.
"The legendary heir of steel, now nothing more than a common smith," Anryth mused. "Perhaps the prophecies lied or maybe your parents were mistaken, because this- this is worthless."
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the broken sword-to-be into a deep pool of magma.
Chyrie winced when the metal sang to the depths, her eyes flickering to the slow stream of molten rock as it traversed down the cavern walls. An endless cycle of heat seeping into the earth and back into the planet's core. A timeless hourglass with no beginning or end save for five shining cylinders against the far left wall.
Magma filled each container until they were topped off - Anryth appearing in all his finery to drain them.
Her mind went numb as he pulled the lever for the third time, draining the tubes back into the earth. Every heartbeat robbed her of another prayer. The same containers crafted to store silver and gold, harboring the mine's wonders and imbuing quartz, now a death knell.
Sweat dripped from her brow, heat flaring against the tension as Anryth turned to face her.
A proud people.
The Emberian fae were a proud people.
Chyrie swallowed back the parched bile in her throat and leveled her gaze upon him again.
"Surely you didn't come here for petty insults," she replied.
Her gut twisted. She'd rather him gut her where she knelt instead of this lethal dance. A dangerous idea lurked in the gallows of her mind, a thought she only dared whisper into the forge on her darkest nights.
Chyrie's stomach clenched.
To goad him might offer a fate worse than death.
"You'll never find peace," she said, watching him carefully. "You will hunt us to extinction, extinguish our land and slaughter our people, but there will never be peace in revenge."
Anryth glared daggers into her.
"What would you know of revenge?"
Chyrie glanced from the bars imprisoning her within the mines to the tips of black bleeding into her lengthy copper hair. The braids did very little to conceal the effects his blood wrought inside her veins. Two thick tails woven together on either shoulder, the crown layer spun into a wrap and bound behind her head.
Her mother's styling - when she was alive.
Those screams haunted her dreams most of all.
"Were our roles reversed, you'd have been gutted long ago," Chyrie murmured. "I will never forget the sound of their heads rolling across the floor and one day I hope to repay such kindness."
Her threat, leveled upon him with such heat, seemed to rock the man.
Anryth hid his shrinking with a calculated move around her anvil, propping his elbow against a padded edge.
"You forget our deal, Cruel One," he seethes, jaw working itself tight. "Four swords in three months time. You, your brother, and your court will duel for your freedom or you will die by the weapons you lived to make."
"You could just kill me now and save your soul an afterworld of torment."
Her body trembled with nerves, both fear and fury warring as she waited. An offer and a plea.
Anryth weighed her words for only a moment as he approached, the roaring hearth drowning her baited breath as he leaned down. Lower. A hand pressed on the rock above her as his hand braced there, allowing his lips to rest against the shell of her ear as he spoke.
"I hate you so much," he whispered. Anryth's voice broke, emotion clogging his next breath. "So much, I cannot even bring myself to kill you."
Chyrie blinked, the sentiment left settling to the bottom of her gut.
She hadn't registered the elf's quickness as the iron gate swung shut again, locking in his wake. Such a brief moment, sympathy might have lingered if only with his presence.
But Anryth was gone.
Voices sounded beyond the cell walls, likely guards discussing his travel back to Courmasse. The seat of her power and the throne he chose to dictate from until she'd forged the weapons he craved.
Another, more hushed voice, lingered. An accent she didn't recognize.
Her heart was hammering against the confines of her body, still shaking from such bitter nearness. She could've killed Anryth, would've too if not for the binding of blood. The very thought of harming him only offered throbbing pain.
Waiting, the world shifted beneath her.
She was not dead.
Magma poured into the first cylinder, lining the bottom now. A clock set anew.
Chyrie's hands quaked as she hauled herself to her feet and tightened the wrappings on her palms again. One final adjustment to the protective sleeves guarding her elbow and forearms and she was set.
Every moment, every hour was worth something.
She would survive.
So Chyrie picked up her tongs and prepared to forge a new sword.