Chapter 33: Embers in the Mountain
The mountain did not welcome them loudly, it settled around them like a weight, steady, unmoving, waiting to see if those who stepped inside were worthy of its silence. Karvendral was no ruin, it was a body asleep, and now it stirred as men and elves and beasts pressed deeper into its heart.
Thorek was the first to rise that morning, though morning in the forge was only a guess, the mountain's light did not change, and the only clock was the echo of their own voices. He had slept little, sprawled against a stone bench near the anvil, his beard crusted with dust, his dreams full of hammer strokes that had not yet fallen. When his eyes opened, they carried the brightness of a man who had waited years to stand in this hall.
Elias followed slower, shoulders aching, body still carrying the tremor of the battle at Ember Ravine even after a month's rest. He had not stopped training, not for a day, but training was not rest. His Resonance Sense hummed constantly, mapping the stone, checking for flaws, tasting the threads that still clung to the forge walls. Sometimes it was like breathing, other times like drowning, but he did it anyway. He had learned to shape fire now, not just ignite it, but coax it into form, a sphere or a stream, a thing he could hold without killing himself in the process.
Lysera sat already awake, veil draped across her lap, fingers weaving idle motions as if her body refused to be still even when her mind needed quiet. She had explored the forge's upper galleries the night before, alone, silent, ghostlike, and returned with dust on her cloak and the faintest twitch in her eyes that told Elias she had seen something of worth and had not chosen to share it yet.
Elvi sharpened a knife at the table, her quiver already strapped though she had long since run out of arrows, steel replacing feathers in her hands now. She said nothing, but the scrape of blade on whetstone was her good morning. Hale sat across from her, posture perfect even in rest, watching more than speaking, letting the squad fall into its rhythm before he gave them one.
Noll stumbled from the barracks alcove with hair sticking up in wild tufts, clutching a half-burned torch like it was a sword, his warding threads already flickering faintly around his wrist even before he had rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The boy was learning, faster than any of them had expected, but learning fast was its own danger, a thread stretched too thin could snap just as easily as one left slack.
Rook paced the forge's edge, nose pressed to stone, ears flicking at echoes too soft for the others to hear. He growled once, low, not alarm, just acknowledgment that something lived deeper in the mountain. Elias touched the wolf's head as he passed and felt the steady thrum of his companion's trust.
Thorek clapped his hands together, the sound bouncing off the chamber walls like a hammerstrike, "We wake it today," he said, eyes fever bright, "no more dust, no more silence, Karvendral has slept long enough, it is time it breathed fire again."
Elvi raised a brow, still dragging steel across stone, "You're talking about the forge like it's a woman you want to kiss," she said, dry, "just don't burn your beard off when she slaps you."
"Better to burn a beard than let a forge rot," Thorek shot back without hesitation, and for once his grin outpaced hers.
Hale set his spear down across his knees, voice calm but edged with command, "We do it carefully, the chimneys first, see if they still draw, no full fire until we know the mountain exhales."
"Agreed," Lysera added, her voice softer but precise, "the Loom runs through these stones, too much flame too soon and we may wake something we are not ready for."
Thorek grumbled, but his hands were already busy, checking chains, bellows, and vents, muttering about dwarves who left things cleaner than priests. His reverence carried weight even through the curses, the way a son might curse at a father for leaving without saying goodbye.
Elias moved toward the basin, the massive throat of the forge that had not burned in centuries. He felt it before he touched it, a hum, not alive but not dead either, a memory in stone that wanted to wake. He drew a breath, focused, and let a small flame gather in his palm. It flickered, hissed, then steadied, round and sure, a sphere of fire hanging weightless above his hand. It was no longer just a spark at the tip of his spear, it was something he could shape, control, direct.
Noll's eyes widened, hunger and awe mixed, and he whispered before he could stop himself, "How."
Elias glanced back, and for once he did not guard the answer, "Patience, blood, practice, and mistakes that nearly killed me," he said, voice flat, "but I learned to listen, not force, the Loom doesn't like being shoved, it'll burn you if you try, you coax it, you give it shape, and sometimes it lets you keep it."
Lysera's gaze lingered on him, veil still, eyes unreadable, but there was the faintest curve of approval at the corner of her mouth.
Thorek slammed a lever into place, and the chains groaned as bellows the size of wagons shifted on their hooks. Dust rained, metal sang low, and for the first time in centuries the forge exhaled. Cold air, not flame yet, but air that carried promise.
The squad stood in the forge's shadow, torches burning, hearts measured against the mountain's silence. Elias lifted his flame and let it hover over the basin, its glow catching on iron and chain, sparks of light in a chamber that had not seen fire in an age.
The mountain seemed to pause, as if waiting for permission.
Hale broke the silence, his voice level, the words simple but heavy, "Then let's wake it."
Thorek moved like a man in prayer, not with folded hands or bowed head, but with sleeves rolled and muscles taut, the prayer of a craftsman whose altar was iron and stone. He worked the bellows with steady pulls, chains clinking in rhythm, dust shaking loose in pale sheets that drifted like ghosts down into the basin. The sound filled the hall, low and patient, the voice of a mountain exhaling after centuries of silence.
Elias kept his palm over the pit, the flame still hovering, steady now, his Resonance Sense tuned wide to catch every quiver in the stone. The forge basin drank the sound like a throat waiting for wine, its walls layered with ore veins and runes that still whispered faint from when the First Forgers had carved them. He felt the pattern under it, not dead, only dormant, like coals under ash waiting for breath.
Lysera traced faint threads through the chamber, veils laid thin across the chimneys and vents, her lips moving as she tested whether the air would carry or choke. Twice her weave flickered, once where a shaft had half collapsed, once where a seal had warped, but both mended with patient adjustments, strands woven back into place until the air found its road again. She nodded once, small but sure, "It will draw, if you feed it."
"Then feed it," Thorek growled, his hands still steady on the levers, sweat beading in the braid of his beard though no heat had yet touched him.
Hale gave a curt nod, the kind a commander gave when permission was already granted. Elvi rolled her shoulders and muttered, "If this mountain coughs, I'm blaming the beard."
Thorek only grinned, teeth bared, and jabbed a finger toward the basin, "Light it, shortstack."
Elias dropped his hand. The flame fell like a star, striking the cold heart of the basin. For a breath it flared bright, then guttered as if swallowed. The silence that followed pressed heavier than stone, and Rook growled low, uneasy, hackles lifting as the threads in the chamber trembled.
Then the forge exhaled.
A groan ran through the mountain, deep and rolling, stone shifting not in collapse but in remembrance. The flame bloomed again, not small now but wide, rising from the basin like a beast stretching awake. Fire licked the runes carved into the stone walls and they caught, one by one, lines of light crawling outward until the entire throat glowed with old script. The bellows pulled the fire higher, chains groaning, sparks leaping up the chimneys where Lysera's veils had cleared the way.
The air changed. Cold no longer, but hot, sharp, alive. The smell of iron and oil and soot rose, not new, but preserved, as if the last day of Karvendral's work had been sealed in and was only now let loose.
Thorek let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob, his hand pressed to the stone lip, his chest shaking, "By the Forge, she breathes, she bloody breathes again."
Elias stepped back, sweat breaking on his brow from heat that had not existed a heartbeat ago. The threads in the chamber surged, the hum rising, no longer a slow chord but a layered harmony. It vibrated through his bones, through his spear, through the fire still swirling over the basin. His Resonance Sense reeled with it, not pain, not yet, but power raw and unshaped, old as the Mythical Era.
Noll stumbled, wide eyed, hands glowing faint where his wards flared without command, "It's loud," he gasped, clutching his wrist, "too loud."
Lysera knelt at his side, pressing his hands still, her voice cutting calm through the heat, "Breathe, anchor, let it pass through, not into you."
The boy obeyed, shaky but steadying, and the wards eased.
Elvi had stopped sharpening her knife, her grin sharp as her steel, "Well, if that doesn't make the Church piss itself, nothing will."
Hale did not smile, but his eyes flicked around the chamber, weighing everything, exits, sight lines, choke points, the way the heat might fight or help them. He nodded once, not in joy, but in approval. "We can hold this," he said.
Then Rook froze.
The wolf stood stiff, nose pointed toward one of the high vents, ears flat, teeth bare. He growled, not warning of collapse, but of something living.
Elias caught it too, faint but clear, a thread not belonging to stone or fire, moving, watching.
The forge had not been empty all this time.
The fire in the forge basin roared, steady now, its light chasing long ribs of shadow up the carved walls, every flicker made the runes shift like watchful eyes. Heat poured through the chamber, real enough that Elias had to wipe sweat from his brow, but beneath it, colder currents threaded from the vents, carrying scents older than the squad's torches.
Rook paced the lip of the basin, fur bristled, his nose twitching as he turned circles, his growl a low vibration that would not stop.
Elvi dropped into a crouch near the forge mouth, dagger loose in her hand, eyes sharp on the dark vents, "Tell me that's just your beast being dramatic."
Elias shook his head. His Resonance Sense stretched thin through the stone, threads brushed his palm like strands plucked out of tune, wrong notes carried by the mountain itself. "No," he said, voice low, "something is here."
Lysera had gone still, veil spread across the chamber like a spiderweb catching air, her lips pressed white, "It is not stone. Not echo. It breathes."
Hale did not waste words. His spear tilted toward the nearest vent, his free hand signaled sharp, two fingers lifted, spread, eyes up. Elvi slipped to the gallery, soft as shadow. Thorek kept his hammer in his grip, the grin gone from his face, his teeth set. Noll pressed himself to the pillar, threads curling faint around his wrist, not flaring, waiting, the boy learning fear without letting it break him.
The forge heat popped, sparks rising, the shadows jumped. For a moment the chamber looked empty again, just old stone and fire.
Then a sound whispered from the vent, not a voice, not words, the scrape of claws against stone.
Rook barked once, sharp, and the echo went too far, bouncing from wall to wall, as if the mountain itself was repeating it. Elias felt it then, faint but certain, multiple threads brushing, shapes moving in the hidden spaces above, not one, not two, more, patient.
Thorek spat to the side, the sound hard in the heat, "Vermin," he muttered, but there was no humor in it, "always vermin in empty halls."
Elias swallowed the dryness in his mouth, his spear humming faint, fire trickling up the shaft until he clenched it down, keeping the glow small. "Not vermin," he said, because vermin did not move in patterns, vermin did not hold silence with discipline, vermin did not feel like threads woven with intent.
Lysera's veil quivered, then stilled again, her voice cold, "They are watching. Not striking. Yet."
Hale's eyes narrowed, his voice even as stone, "Then we let them watch. We do not show fear, we do not swing blind. They will reveal themselves."
Minutes stretched. The squad's breath rose in clouds despite the fire, the forge chamber alive with tension. The mountain seemed to lean closer, listening with them, waiting.
Finally, a small stone fell, dropped from a vent slit high above. It hit the forge lip, bounced, clattered to the floor.
No attack followed.
Only silence.
Elvi's voice came down from the gallery, low and edged, "Whatever they are, they want us to know they are there."
Elias tightened his grip on the spear. The threads in the walls vibrated faint, restless. Karvendral had been empty of dwarves for centuries, but it had not been empty of everything.
And now the Ashborn were no longer guests. They were intruders in something else's den.