Chapter Three: Blood and Blackened Steel
The furnace's groan echoed like a beast coming awake after a century of slumber.
Lyra staggered back, heart slamming against her ribs as a ripple of heat pulsed through the chamber. Her claws skittered across the scorched steel floor, half-human legs unsteady. The blast furnace hadn't held fire in decades, yet now it breathed like something alive—something watching.
Torin didn't move.
He stood with his hand outstretched, flakes of rust drifting from his knuckles where her paw had touched him. A shimmer passed between them, faint but undeniable, like the tail end of lightning.
The bond.
Not whole. Not dead.
Somewhere in between, like her.
Lyra's lips twisted into a grimace. "You feel that?"
Torin's throat worked. "Yes."
Another beat of silence. Another burst of heat from the furnace.
And then—a sound.
Small. Scratching.
Lyra turned sharply toward the vents near the ceiling. Shadows writhed there.
Whispers drifted down like falling ash.
"She touched him…"
"She remembers…"
"She bleeds where he flakes…"
Torin glanced upward, grim. "The Gutter Children. They've been repeating things we've never told them. Things from the bond."
Lyra's breath caught. "The bond has memories."
Torin nodded. "And someone's been listening."
Before she could speak, Slag burst through the corridor, his metal-patched form heaving. He doubled over, coughing violently—this time vomiting up a mouthful of sharp copper screws. They hit the floor like cursed hail.
"They're inside the walls," he choked. "Vesper's turned them. She's… feeding them something."
Lyra rushed to him, catching his sagging weight with her human arm.
Up close, she saw it clearly now—his veins had turned to wires. Tiny strands of copper ran beneath his skin, branching like poisoned roots. His eyes gleamed silver around the pupils.
She looked at Torin. "How much of your pack is still alive?"
Torin didn't answer.
But his silence said enough.
---
They gathered in what was once the heart of Ironclaw's strategy hall—now barely more than a rust-streaked chamber with shattered windows and rotting flags.
Only a handful of wolves remained.
Most bore signs of The Rusting.
Some had fused paws. Others blinked from behind iron eyelids.
A she-wolf sat with her tail wrapped in bandages. A young warrior's breath came with a whistle, as if something sharp had grown in his lungs.
Lyra walked the room slowly, silent. Watching. Scenting.
The air held no pack cohesion. No unity.
Only corrosion.
And fear.
"They're unraveling," she murmured. "Not just dying. Disconnecting."
"They can't shift anymore," Torin said beside her. "Their wolves are stuck. Trapped somewhere between."
Lyra felt her own state twitch in recognition.
A monstrous half-life.
"Did you ever wonder," she whispered, "why it happened to me first?"
Torin looked at her. Regret and guilt warred in his eyes. "I thought it was the rejection. That your wolf couldn't handle the severance."
"But I didn't reject you," she snapped. "I ran. Because something ripped through me like lightning that night. And I thought it was you."
She turned toward the flickering fire in the center of the chamber. "But it wasn't."
She reached into her fur-wrapped belt and pulled out the scrap she'd stolen from Vesper's notes.
Torin frowned. "What is that?"
Lyra unfolded the brittle paper.
Subject TL-01: Severance initiated 2 hours before ceremony. Secondary resonance achieved. Residual tether remains. Observation: bond not rejected—redirected.
Torin read the words.
Went still.
"She cut the bond… but not completely," he said, stunned.
Lyra nodded. "She spliced it. Redirected it. To herself. Or worse—to something older."
"The Rusting," Slag croaked from the corner.
Everyone turned.
He wiped blood from his mouth, metal filings clinging to his lips. "I heard her call it that once. Said it was… a punishment."
Torin's hands clenched. "From what?"
Slag's eyes glittered. "From the first wolves who ever dared break fate."
A long silence.
Then Lyra whispered, "The curse wasn't meant for us. But Vesper twisted it—used the cursed ore under this territory to harvest broken bonds."
Torin looked ill. "To make what?"
"Synthetic mates," Lyra breathed. "Fake fated bonds. Built from pieces of the real thing."
The pack murmured in horror.
Outside, the wind howled. The mill groaned.
And far below, something stirred in the shaft beneath the Gutter Caves.
---
Later, Lyra found herself walking the old catwalks, Cinder padding beside her.
The fox shifter's fire-marks glowed faintly.
"They're moving," she said.
"Vesper's wolves?"
Cinder nodded. "Not wolves anymore. They creak. They bleed molten metal. And their eyes…they look at you like they remember being something else."
Lyra's throat tightened.
She reached out and touched one of the old iron beams.
It flaked beneath her paw.
She whispered, "This whole place is dying with us."
Cinder looked up at her. "But you lit the furnace."
"I didn't mean to."
"Doesn't matter," Cinder said. "The bond woke something. And now it's watching."
---
That night, beneath the blood moon, Lyra's body started to change.
Not fully shift. Not back either.
Something different.
Her left side shimmered, the human skin pulsing with light. Her right paw flexed, claws retracting.
Torin stood beside her in the dark, his rusted hand trembling as it reached for her.
She grabbed it.
The spark was stronger now. Almost hot.
She could feel it—the bond, frayed and stitched, pulling taut between them.
And for a moment… her human side returned.
Her full face. Her full voice.
She gasped, "Torin—"
And then it faded.
Half-wolf again. But trembling.
Torin touched her cheek. His fingers left no rust this time.
"You're the key," he murmured. "To fixing everything."
Lyra's breath hitched. "Then why does it still feel like something is missing?"
Torin looked up at the red moon.
And in the reflection of his eyes…
She saw something metallic staring back.