The journey east led them through valleys of ash and ridges where the wind sang like flutes through the stone. The storm that had brooded above the horizon for days finally broke into a low, spiraling mist that clung to their faces and turned their breaths into ghosts. Liora felt it—the weight of unseen eyes watching from beyond sight. The Shape had grown restless.
Each step forward drew them closer to the Dreaming Forge—the third Circle. According to Maren's old journal, it was buried beneath a mountain once used by the Shapers to craft bodies for the elemental guardians. It was said that the Forge remembered every spark that had ever struck its anvil, and that those sparks could ignite again if disturbed.
Liora's veins still shimmered faintly from the encounter at the Stone Fields. In the dim light, the silver marks ran like rivers under her skin. Sometimes, when she blinked, she thought she saw the patterns shift, like living calligraphy.
Corren noticed her glancing at her arms and grunted. "They still hurt?"
"No," she said softly. "They hum. It's like hearing a language I half-remember but can't translate."
He gave a low chuckle. "Long as it doesn't start speaking back."
"It already does," she murmured.
By evening, they reached the mountain—an enormous slope of black glassy stone, cracked in long jagged seams. A single entrance gaped near its base, framed by fallen columns etched with broken runes. Faint warmth radiated from within, carrying the smell of old metal and something stranger—something like lightning trapped in smoke.
Corren drew his blade. "After you."
Liora touched the stone archway. The surface was warm, pulsing beneath her fingers like flesh. "This isn't a mountain," she said. "It's a body. The Forge never stopped breathing."
They entered.
The tunnel inside wound downward in spirals, lit only by the glow of molten seams that ran like veins through the walls. The deeper they went, the louder the sound became—a low, rhythmic pounding. At first, Liora thought it was her heart. Then she realized: it was a hammer.
They emerged into a vast cavern. At its center stood an enormous anvil carved from obsidian and rimmed with molten gold. Suspended above it was a hammer as large as a man, held aloft by no visible hand. Each slow, deliberate strike rang through the chamber, sending waves of heat through the air.
And on the anvil lay something being shaped.
It was not metal. It pulsed. It breathed.
A half-formed creature—part beast, part woman, its skin a shifting sheen of bronze and flame—struggled weakly under each strike. Each blow made it more real, more complete.
Liora stepped forward, horrified. "It's shaping something alive."
Corren swore under his breath. "Can we stop it?"
She shook her head. "If we break the rhythm, it might tear apart the circle—and us with it. We need to understand what it's forging first."
She approached the edge of the anvil's dais. The creature's eyes snapped open. They were molten gold, unblinking. When it spoke, its voice was two-layered—one human, one metallic.
"You are late."
Liora froze. "What are you?"
"I am the Third's Memory," it said. "I was the forge-fire that shaped the first bodies of the guardians. The hammer remembers. The flame remembers. And now, so do I."
"You're not whole," Liora said. "You're being rebuilt."
"Remade," the creature corrected. "Because the world has forgotten its own making. The Shape unravels, and I am the dream of its repair."
The hammer struck again, sparks scattering. The creature winced, its form flickering.
Liora glanced at the hammer. "If I step in, will it stop?"
"It will finish," the creature said. "On you."
Corren cursed softly. "That's enough talking." He reached for his weapon, but the air around the hammer crackled and threw him back. The cavern pulsed with heat, and the hammer began to move faster—ringing like thunder.
Liora's markings blazed white-hot. The veins of molten gold around the chamber flared in answer. The Forge recognized her now.
"Corren!" she shouted. "Get behind the columns!"
He hesitated, then obeyed.
Liora raised her hands. The threads under her skin leapt outward, weaving light through the air. She spoke the Shaper's tongue—the words coming not from memory but from somewhere older, deeper, as if the Forge itself whispered them into her mouth.
The hammer slowed.
The creature on the anvil lifted its head. "You would command the Forge?"
"I don't command," Liora said. "I remember."
The creature's eyes flickered. "Then shape me."
The hammer rose one final time. The flames roared upward, coiling like serpents. Liora moved instinctively, guiding the light through her palms, bending the rhythm. Each strike now fell in harmony with her breath, her heartbeat, her pulse. The molten creature screamed—not in pain, but in birth.
Then silence.
The hammer hung still in the air. The fire subsided. Upon the anvil lay a woman of metal and smoke, her body radiant and whole. When she rose, the sound of her movement was like a bell tolling underwater.
Her gaze met Liora's. "You have given me form," she said. "But you have taken something in return."
Liora swayed. Her vision blurred; the silver veins in her arms had dimmed to gray. "What did I lose?"
"Memory," said the Forge-woman softly. "Every shaping takes one."
Corren rushed forward, steadying her. "Liora, what happened?"
She blinked, disoriented. "I... I can't remember what brought me here."
The Forge-woman turned toward the chamber walls. "The Circle is restored. But the shaping has only begun. The next will not be so kind."
"Where?" Corren demanded.
The Forge-woman's molten eyes flicked toward the northern tunnel. "Where the wind sleeps and the shadows walk. The Mirror Vale."
The name sent a shiver through Liora. She didn't know why—but it felt like a place she had already been, long ago.
The woman stepped off the anvil. As her feet touched the floor, the molten veins hardened into veins of crystal, sealing the chamber in a new lattice of light.
"The Dreaming Forge closes," she said. "And I am its guardian now. Go, Shaper-child. The Circle remembers your name."
Before they could speak again, the air folded inward. The chamber collapsed into a single pulse of white light. When the light faded, Liora and Corren stood outside the mountain, the entrance sealed behind them, smooth as untouched glass.
They both stood in stunned silence for a long time. The night air was cold and thin, the stars sharp above.
Corren broke the silence first. "You all right?"
Liora touched her temple. "I'm missing something. A piece of myself. But the Forge is safe."
He looked at her with quiet worry. "How many more times can you do this?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her gaze drifted toward the north, where the horizon shimmered faintly with silver mist—the Mirror Vale's edge.
"As many as it takes," she said finally. "Until the Shape remembers us all."
They walked on into the night. The stars above seemed to shift as they moved, as if watching. And far behind them, deep within the sealed mountain, the Dreaming Forge glowed faintly—its new guardian singing a low, wordless tune that echoed through the stone.
The song was both beautiful and terrible, for it carried the sound of something ancient waking again—the rhythm of the first creation, the memory of the world before form.
The Shape had begun to dream.
And this time, it would not sleep easily.