Immortal: Death in love

Ashe and the Anvil

Lucius wandered alone beneath a sky the color of ash. The earth still burned where Aliath’s fire had touched it, smoldering like the veins of some wounded god. His boots sank into mud mixed with soot and blood, and his heart felt heavier with each step. He no longer knew how many days had passed since the beast tore Morgana from his arms. Sleep and waking had become one long torment, haunted by her screams echoing inside his mind.

He could still see her face, tear streaked, eyes wide with terror as the sky had opened and Aliath’s wings blotted out the sun. He had sworn to protect her. He had promised. Yet when it mattered, he had watched her vanish into fire.

“Coward,” he muttered to himself, stumbling forward. “You should have died with her.”

The land around him was a graveyard. The trees were black skeletons, rivers boiled dry, and the air reeked of iron and death. Every now and then, the wind carried the faint whisper of her name, Morgana. Whether it was memory or madness, Lucius no longer cared.

By the third night, he collapsed beside the ruins of a burned cart. His body trembled from exhaustion, his mind spiraling between rage and despair. As darkness claimed him, he whispered to the stars, “If there are gods still watching… give me strength or let me die.”

When he awoke, he was surrounded by shadowy figures. At first, he thought they were ghosts, come to drag him to the underworld. But as his vision cleared, he saw short, broad beings clad in steel and leather, their eyes glinting like embers. Dwarves.

“Still breathing, are you?” one of them grunted, kneeling beside him. The dwarf’s beard was plaited with silver rings, his armor marked with runes that shimmered faintly in the half-light. “You’re far from your kind, human. What madness brought you to the Scorched Plains?”

Lucius could barely speak. “A beast… took her. The fire winged one.”

The dwarves exchanged uneasy glances. The leader, who introduced himself as kragnir of Stonevein, frowned deeply. “Aliath,” he said in a low voice. “We felt its awakening even beneath the mountains. Come, human. You’ll not last another night out here.”

Lucius was too weak to protest as they lifted him onto a small stone, drawn sled and carried him through a narrow fissure in the cliffs. The passage descended deep beneath the earth, where glowing crystals lit the walls like fallen stars.

They entered the Kingdom of Burkhan, an underground city carved entirely of obsidian and gold. Forges blazed in every direction, filling the air with the hum of metal and the tang of molten stone. The dwarves were suspicious of outsiders, yet Thorin had seen something in Lucius’s eyes, a mix of grief and unyielding fire.

For weeks, Lucius remained among them, healing slowly under their care. They gave him food, water, and a place near the forges to sleep. But his nights were never quiet; he would wake drenched in sweat, shouting Morgana’s name into the tunnels. The dwarves pitied him, though they rarely showed it aloud.

One night, kragnir approached him by the forge.

“You dream of her again,” the dwarf said, his voice like grinding stone.

Lucius nodded. “She’s alive. I feel it. Aliath has her… somewhere near its domain.”

Thorin studied him for a long moment. “Then you mean to face the beast.”

“I mean to save her,” Lucius replied, his tone unshaken.

The dwarf gave a grim smile. “Then you’ll need more than courage. You’ll need strength forged in the heart of the mountain.”

Thus began Lucius’s rebirth.

The dwarves trained him in their ways, how to move with the weight of armor, how to strike with precision rather than rage. They taught him the rhythm of the hammer, the patience of the anvil, the breathing of the forge. His body grew stronger, his heart colder, his purpose sharper.

He learned to wield the blade of stonefire, a dwarven weapon forged from magma and starlight, rumored to wound even the creatures born of gods. It was heavy at first, nearly breaking his wrist when he swung it, but with each passing day, his strikes grew truer.

Still, at night, when the forges dimmed and the caverns fell silent, he would stare into the embers and whisper her name like a prayer. “Wait for me, Morgana. I’m coming.”

Months passed. His hair grew longer, his once gentle hands now rough and scarred. The dwarves respected him, not just as an outsider, but as one of their own. He had proven himself through labor and pain, surviving trials that would have crushed a lesser man.

On the eve of the final forge, kragnir led him into the deepest chamber of Burkhan, the Heartfire Hall, where the mountain’s core glowed in molten red.

“Few have entered this place,” Thorin said. “Here we shape weapons of oath and soul. You will forge your own blade, Lucius. It will carry your name, your grief, and your destiny.”

Lucius stepped to the anvil, the heat scorching his skin. The dwarves began to chant in their ancient tongue, voices echoing like thunder. He raised the hammer, striking the molten metal again and again. Each blow sent visions through his mind, Morgana’s smile, her scream, the moment he lost her. He poured everything into the blade, his love, his pain, his rage.

When it was done, he held the sword aloft. Its edge shimmered with crimson light, veins of fire pulsing through it like blood.

“What will you call it?” asked.

Lucius stared at the blade, eyes burning. “Heartbane,” he said softly. “For the heart I lost… and the one I will reclaim.”

The dwarves bowed their heads in silence.

Before dawn, Lucius stood at the gates of Burkhan, wearing dwarven-forged armor dark as obsidian, the sword Heartbane strapped to his back. Thorin clasped his shoulder one last time.

“You go to face death itself, human. If you fall, may the mountain remember your name.”

Lucius gave a faint, haunted smile. “If I fall, I’ll find her in the dark.”

He turned toward the tunnels that led upward to the surface. As he climbed, faint tremors shook the earth, the beast’s heartbeat, echoing through stone and soil.

Lucius emerged under a blood red sky. The horizon burned with the glow of Aliath’s domain, a wasteland of flame and shadow where the beast’s fortress loomed like a wound in the world. He felt its pull, deep and primal, like a chain around his soul.

He tightened his grip on Heartbane.

“Morgana,” he whispered, voice trembling with devotion and fury. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

And with that, he walked into the fire.