The precise moment Rowan's bare skin touched the raw, unfiltered violet aether, he didn't feel simple heat. He felt eternity.
It wasn't like burning his hand on a hot boiler. It was the sensation of being conceptually unmade. The ancient, raw energy surged violently up his arms, entirely ignoring his flesh and violently attacking his very existence. He screamed, a raw, primal sound, but it was swallowed completely by the deafening roar of the fracturing Shard.
"Hold it!" Rowan ground his teeth together until he tasted blood. His muscles tore and screamed in protest as he forced the two massive, drifting fragments of the crystal back toward the center. "Just... hold it!"
His shirt sleeves disintegrated into fine dust. Red, jagged cracks began to spread rapidly up his forearms, looking exactly like lightning bolts carved directly into his skin. The pain was absolute. It was ten thousand white-hot needles driven into every single nerve ending simultaneously.
The Shard aggressively fought him. It desperately wanted to explode. It pushed back against his grip with the localized force of a collapsing star.
Rowan's knees buckled under the immense pressure. He sank to the hot metal grating, his arms trembling so violently they threatened to snap.
"I can't..." Rowan gasped, his vision tunneling into dark gray. "It's too heavy."
The heavy fragments began to drift apart again. The violet light intensified, preparing to vaporize him and the entire Iron City above.
"Don't let go, you idiot!"
A heavy hand grabbed Rowan's right shoulder.
It wasn't a gentle, comforting touch. It was a grip forged of pure iron and stubbornness.
Jack stood directly behind him. He wasn't wearing any protective gear. He just grabbed Rowan's shoulder with his bare hand, squeezing tight, anchoring him.
"Jack?" Rowan choked out, turning his head slightly. "Get back! It'll kill you!"
"Shut up. You think I don't know that?" Jack roared, his good eye watering from the intense radiation.
The violet energy immediately jumped. It surged hungrily from Rowan directly into Jack. Jack screamed as the terrifying red cracks spread from Rowan's shoulder onto his own hand, traveling rapidly up his arm. His skin instantly blistered and burned, but he absolutely refused to let go. He planted his heavy boots on the grate and pulled backward with all his might, lending every ounce of his strength to Rowan's.
The fragments moved an inch closer together.
"Room for two more?"
Luca slammed his broad chest into Jack's back, wrapping his massive arms tightly around the gunman's waist. Luna instantly grabbed onto the back of Luca's coat, digging her heels in.
"Heave!" the Twins shouted in perfect unison.
The aetheric energy arced further down the line. It flowed violently through the chain of human bodies—from Rowan to Jack, to Luca, to Luna. They screamed together, a harrowing chorus of pure agony, but the massive Shard moved.
"Systems critical," Ivy whispered, stepping up right behind Luna. She threw her arms around the mechanic, hugging her tight. "Probability of survival... absolutely zero without leverage."
She added her own slight weight to the human chain.
"Hey, let me in!" Asher screamed, tears pouring down her face.
The heavy iron cockpit of the Goliath hissed open. Asher jumped down, hitting the grating hard. She didn't hesitate for a microsecond. She ran and buried herself inside Ivy's hug, anchoring the very end of the line.
They weren't legendary heroes or chosen ones. They were street rats, thieves, mechanics, and runaways. They were the discarded filth of the Ash-Dregs. And they were a family, currently holding the physical weight of the entire world on their burned shoulders.
"Rowan!" Dorothy's voice cut through the static, ringing clear and true.
She was standing directly in front of the Shard, her hands glowing with blinding, pure golden light. Tears streamed continuously down her soot-stained face as she watched her family actively burning themselves alive just to buy her a few seconds of time.
"Now, Dot!" Rowan screamed, his eyes glowing completely violet with the raw magic pouring into his skull. "Seal it now!"
Dorothy closed her eyes.
She didn't think about the intense pain in her wrists. She didn't think about the fear of the Constabulary. She only thought about her family.
Golden, luminous threads erupted from her fingertips like spun sunlight. They didn't strike the Shard like a weapon; they wrapped lovingly around it. They wove expertly through the deep, jagged cracks, stitching the violent violet crystal together with unbreakable lines of pure gold.
The Shard shrieked—a high, piercing sound of ultimate resistance.
"Hold it!" Jack bellowed, his nose beginning to bleed profusely.
The Giants pulled. They pulled until their muscles tore. They pulled until their bones groaned. They pulled until their very souls felt dangerously thin.
Rowan felt his consciousness rapidly fading to black. The painful red cracks had reached his chest. He could physically feel his heart stuttering, struggling against the influx of god-like energy.
Know your worth, his father's cruel voice whispered in the back of his mind.
My worth, Rowan thought, looking back through the blinding light at his found family, is them.
He let out a guttural roar and gave one final, desperate, agonizing shove.
The massive crystal fragments slammed together with a heavy, resonating thud.
CLICK.
Dorothy thrust her hands forcefully forward. The golden net tightened instantly.
SEAL.
A massive shockwave of completely silent light expanded rapidly from the crystal. It passed harmlessly through them, through the thick iron walls, and swept upward through the entirety of the city above.
The violent, burning violet fire vanished.
The Shard hung peacefully in the air, perfectly whole again. It pulsed with a gentle, slow, rhythmic beat—no longer a ticking bomb, but a steadily beating heart. Deep veins of solid gold ran throughout its violet surface, scarring it beautifully and permanently.
The terrifying energy drain stopped instantly.
The Giants collapsed.
They fell backward into a tangled heap of exhausted limbs and groans on the hot metal grating. Smoke rose lazily from their ruined clothes.
Rowan lay flat on his back, staring up at the dark, rocky ceiling. His arms and chest were stained black and red, permanently etched with crystalline patterns that looked exactly like broken glass embedded under his skin. He couldn't feel his fingers at all.
"Is everyone..." Rowan wheezed, his throat raw. "Is everyone alive?"
"Ouch," Luca moaned pitifully from the very bottom of the pile.
"I can't feel my eyebrows," Jack muttered, rolling heavily off of Luca.
"We did it," Asher whispered, sitting up and staring at the softly glowing Shard in absolute wonder. "We fixed it."
Dorothy crawled weakly over the grating toward them. She looked at Rowan's horrific arms. She looked at the severe blisters on Jack's hands. She looked at the deep, painful scars they would all carry for the rest of their lives.
She collapsed onto Rowan's chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
"You idiots," she cried into his shirt. "You stupid, brave, beautiful idiots."
Rowan managed, with supreme effort, to lift one trembling hand to gently pat her hair.
"We're Giants, Dot," he whispered, a faint smile touching his lips as his eyes fluttered shut and the darkness of total exhaustion finally took him. "We carry the heavy stuff."
High above them, the flickering gas-lights of the Dig Site stabilized, burning bright and steady. The violent, grinding hum of the extraction machinery changed from a pained scream to a low, contented purr.
The Iron City had finally stopped bleeding. The heart was healed.
But the devastating cost of that healing was etched permanently into the skin of the boy who had held it together.