💙04 - The Hammer and the Eye [Runes of Wyrd - vol 3]🤍

In the pic - Mikell Skar 💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍 A month had passed since Mikal-Finnvard's awakening, if a month could still mean anything in Muspellheim. The group had continued east, following Mikell through a realm where night never relieved travelers from the red glow of fire. Heat had become a constant presence, almost a creature walking beside them, while their clothes now carried the smell of sulfur and ash. At the end of their long journey, Surtssmiðja, Surtr's Forge, finally appeared. It had been built within a broken mountain whose walls formed a vast crown of black stone. Basalt arches surrounded an incandescent pit, and at its center stood a colossal anvil, cracked by time yet still threaded with glowing veins. No hand struck metal there, yet deep blows sometimes echoed through the mountain, as though the memory of a hammer continued its work long after its master had gone. Mikell contemplated the forge before speaking. "The ancients said Surtr guarded Muspell before the worlds even had their borders. When Ragnarök comes, he will leave this realm carrying his flaming sword, and the fire he brings will be vast enough to consume Midgard. Some claim the flames of this forge were born from that same primordial fire." He pointed toward the incandescent pit. "If we want to give our bracelets the echo of Sköll's rings, I doubt we'll find a better place." Ash, walking beside him, slowly turned her head. "By the way... how do you know all this, Mikell?" He took several seconds to answer, earning a smile from the musician. "No need to search for the right words. I'll know if you're lying." She spoke playfully, though her eyes made it clear that the warning beneath the joke was very real. Mikell sighed. "Let's say I possess knowledge I probably shouldn't have. A little like Bruno, in the end." Ash gently shook her head. "Oh, no. I think that's quite different. Loki has been watching the world through your eye long enough to leave more than his gaze behind. Perhaps some of his magic became entangled with you... and some of his knowledge followed." For once, Mikell had no mysterious answer ready for her. "That isn't unreasonable... You may even be right." "And perhaps," Ash continued with an almost irritating calm, "we'll need that same connection to create a resonance between the rings and the temporary artifacts we intend to forge." Mikell stared at her, visibly less comfortable with that part of the theory. "It's... possible." Ash raised an eyebrow. "Impressive. We're saved." "I never claimed to understand what I know," he replied with a smile. "But I think we have to try." A short distance behind them, Helena walked between Bruno and her father. During the month since his awakening, Mikal-Finnvard had told her what he had witnessed while unconscious, the voices of the elements, the fragile sprout and the strange alliance they had offered him. Helena had said very little at the time, but something had changed in the way she looked at her father ever since. She slipped her arm around his and rested her head against his shoulder. "By the way, Papa..." The Jarl gave a small smirk. "It's been a long time since I heard you call me that." Helena immediately lifted her head. "Oh, come on... I'm still allowed to, aren't I?" She laughed softly before curiosity returned to her expression. "Do you think I could do things like you someday? I mean... control the elements and all that." Mikal-Finnvard slowly turned toward her. "That is precisely why, my daughter, I don't think you listened very carefully. It isn't about controlling..." "Yes, I know!" she interrupted. "That's not what I meant, but you know perfectly well what I'm asking." The Jarl stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Listen, Helena. You already possess a gift." Her smile faded. "But I don't even know how I did it. When I spoke to Skörta through her raven, I didn't decide anything. It simply... came to me." Mikal-Finnvard gently took his daughter's hand. "And do you think I knew what I was doing when that ball of fire was about to kill you? I had no plan, no incantation, no certainty. I only knew that I refused to accept that ending. Everything else came instinctively." Helena said nothing. She rested her head against his shoulder again and continued walking with the faintest smile upon her lips. She would probably never have admitted aloud how proud she felt to be his daughter at that moment, but her father had no need to hear it. They were approaching the first arches of the forge when a strange noise suddenly cut through the roar of the flames. A metallic impact sounded somewhere ahead, followed by a strained groan. Torstein, walking at the front, stopped. A second sound rose from behind the rocks, weaker this time, almost swallowed by the depths of the forge. "Help me..." Everyone froze. They understood the words perfectly. Torstein immediately ran forward, his hand closing around his axe. He rounded a mass of basalt and found a man in his forties kneeling against the rock. No blood stained his clothes and no wound could be seen, yet his face bore profound suffering, as though his mind remained imprisoned somewhere his body had escaped long ago. Even weakened, there was still authority in his bearing. His shoulders belonged to a warrior, his hardened face carried the marks of years spent commanding others, and his hand instinctively searched for a weapon that was no longer there. Torstein took another step. Then stopped dead. The color drained from his face. For several seconds, the warrior who usually faced danger without hesitation seemed unable even to breathe. "Harald?" The man slowly raised his eyes toward him. Torstein stepped back as though that silent answer had struck him squarely in the chest. He looked frantically behind him, searching among the approaching figures. Then his voice thundered through the forge. "Skörta! Come here! Quickly!" 💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍 A month through fire and still the road runs red, I name old places I have never seen. My tongue knows tales no teacher ever told me, Knows where Surterr stood before the borders held. I make a joke before they start to wonder, Then Ash looks once... and there goes my disguise. She says a god has stared too long through me, That looking leaves a little of the watcher. Perhaps his magic leaked beneath the patch, Perhaps his memories learned the shape of mine. That's almost funny... almost, if I knew Where I end and Loki carries on. If the forge needs what he left behind Then open the furnace. Let us find out. [C1] The Hammer and the Eye Beat it red... The Hammer and the Eye There's someone in my head... Hammer! Bring it down! Eye! Open wide! Whose memory is this? I swear it isn't mine. The Hammer and the Eye! Three rings lie quiet in the hands of mortals, But iron will remember if we teach it how. Perhaps my eye can make their voices carry, A borrowed echo hammered into shape. I don't know why I understand these things... And that, dear friends, is what I understand least. My father says the fire never served him, Although I watched it change between his hands. He says the earth will answer when it chooses, As if the world could listen to a man. And something answered me inside a raven... Something I still cannot give a name. If gifts arrive before we understand them, Perhaps we're all afraid of much the same. So take the knowledge. I won't call it mine... But if it opens the road, I'll lend it anyway. [C1 repeat]