The final blow landed with a sharp crack, and the stone face split apart.

  Rock broke loose in chunks and dust poured outward, thick enough to sting the eyes and coat the tongue. Several dwarves staggered back, coughing, boots scraping against the uneven tunnel floor. For a moment, nothing could be seen at all. Lantern light vanished into the haze, swallowed whole.

  Then someone lifted a lamp higher.

  The beam cut through the dust and struck stone that no living dwarf had seen.

  The tunnel opened into a vast chamber, wide enough that the lantern light barely reached the far walls. The ceiling rose high overhead, lost in shadow, supported by massive columns of granite and marble fused together so cleanly that the seams were hard to find. Veins of pale crystal ran through the stone, catching the light and reflecting it back in faint points, like stars trapped inside the mountain.

  The forge hall was silent.

  Not the silence of emptiness, but the silence of a place waiting.

  Bram stepped forward first, his boots echoing softly as he crossed the threshold. His hand was tight on his hammer, though he did not know why. The air felt heavy, not threatening, but full, as if the room itself carried memory.

  “This is no common forge,” he said quietly.

  Behind him, quarrymen and soldiers followed, slower now, their voices hushed without anyone telling them to be. Even the golems at the rear of the column stilled, their stone frames locking into place as if recognizing something older than their makers.

  Worktables stood in neat rows along the sides of the hall. Tools lay where they had been left. Tongs rested half open. Molds sat cooling, unfinished. Ledgers were stacked neatly beside anvils, pages yellowed but still legible. Nothing had been looted. Nothing disturbed.

  “It is like they walked out and never came back,” one of the younger dwarves murmured.

  Gadrik Strongstaff stood near the center of the chamber, turning slowly as he took it all in. His face was set, but his eyes betrayed him. He had read about places like this. He had argued for their existence in council halls where others had scoffed.

  And now it stood before him.

  “They did not walk out,” Gadrik said. “They sealed it.”

  Bram glanced at him. “Why?”

  Gadrik did not answer right away. He bent and lifted one of the ledgers, brushing dust from its cover. The title was written in the old script, the curling forge hand few still knew how to read.

  “Because this place was never meant to be found again,” he said at last.

  Bram straightened. “Then we had better make sure we understand what we are standing in.”

  He turned sharply. “You heard me earlier. Spread out. Every room. Every alcove. Look for starfall iron. Look for anything marked with royal seals or forge runes.”

  The command broke the stillness. Dwarves moved out, lanterns lifting and splitting the darkness into smaller pieces. The hall filled with soft footsteps, whispered calls, the scrape of boots against stone.

  Two soldiers were sent back toward the surface to report the find. Gadrik watched them go, then looked back at the forge.

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  This was not just history. This was power.

  He folded his hands behind his back, grounding himself. The old kings of Vorr-Angrun had ruled with care, but also with fear. They understood what starfall iron meant. It was not just strong. It held magic in ways other metals did not. It remembered heat. It remembered shaping. In the wrong hands, it could unmake more than stone.

  Gadrik’s thoughts drifted to the High Council. To Deepbrand. To Nezzarod.

  If this forge was intact, then so was the thing it was built to make.

  “Sir,” came a voice from the far side of the hall.

  Gadrik turned. One of the archivists, a thin dwarf with ink-stained fingers, was kneeling beside a low wall.

  “No vaults,” the archivist said. “No storage chambers beneath the outer halls. Nothing where a sensible king would hide a weapon.”

  Gadrik nodded. “Because sensible kings plan for thieves.”

  Bram approached, wiping sweat from his brow. “You sound like you already know where it is.”

  “I do,” Gadrik replied. He tapped his boot against the stone floor. “The Tir kings trusted stone more than locks. They did not hide their greatest work behind doors. They buried it beneath the one place no enemy would ever think to tear apart.”

  “The forge itself,” Bram said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  The realization spread quickly. Dwarves began gathering around the massive central forge. It was enormous, built for work that required multiple smiths and heat beyond normal measure. Its base was a solid ring of stone, smooth and unbroken.

  Bram crouched, pressing his ear to the floor. He knocked once with his hammer.

  The sound came back wrong.

  Hollow.

  He looked up. “Here.”

  Tools were brought quickly. Picks struck carefully now. No one rushed. Every blow was measured, respectful. Dust fell in small clouds. Stone loosened.

  Then a block shifted.

  A quarryman froze, then laughed once, sharp and breathless. “There is a seam.”

  They worked together, easing the stone free. Beneath it lay iron, dark with age but untouched by rust. A circular door, sealed so tightly it might have been grown into place.

  Six dwarves took hold of it. Two golems braced behind them. Muscles strained. Stone groaned.

  The seal broke with a sound like a scream.

  Dust poured out again, heavier this time. The hall vanished in gray. Someone cursed. Someone else laughed in disbelief.

  “Lantern,” Gadrik barked.

  Light was lowered into the opening.

  The chamber below was smaller, but no less imposing. Stone steps led down to a platform where a single anvil stood. And resting upon it was a hammer.

  Starfall iron.

  It was darker than normal steel, but not dull. Light moved across its surface in slow patterns, like distant constellations. The handle was wrapped in cured hide, etched with runes so old that even Gadrik struggled to read them.

  Beside it lay armor. A helm shaped to frame a king’s brow. A cuirass molded like flowing stone. An armored skirt etched with marks of authority and binding.

  No one spoke.

  Bram felt a tightness in his chest. He had expected triumph. Instead, he felt something closer to fear.

  “This is not just a weapon,” he said quietly.

  “No,” Gadrik agreed. His voice shook despite himself. “It is a promise.”

  He stepped forward, one hand pressed to the stone wall to steady himself. His knees felt weak. Not from age. From weight.

  “It is real,” he whispered. “All of it. The forge. The hammer. The regalia.”

  He swallowed. “The Heart of the Mountain.”

  Around them, dwarves bowed their heads. Some murmured prayers. Others simply stared.

  Bram looked away first. “If Deepbrand learns of this…”

  “He cannot,” Gadrik said sharply. “Not yet. Not until we decide what this means.”

  “And if Nezzarod comes for it?” Bram pressed.

  Gadrik met his gaze. “Then this mountain will burn before we hand it to him.”

  Silence settled again, heavier now.

  Bram nodded once. “Then we guard it. We tell no one beyond those who must know.”

  “Yes,” Gadrik said. “And we prepare.”

  He looked down at the hammer, then at the forge above them.

  “The mountain has remembered us,” he said. “Now we must decide if we are worthy of what it kept.”

  No one argued.

  The forge waited.