Hot Enough to Break

The first night they spend together, his whole chest goes molten — and the crack runs deeper.Ivy didn't accept the locked gate or the note. She came back, and Soren — against every centuries-old instinct that tells him he's a tool — let her in. For the first time, the forge-keeper lets himself be wanted all the way, and it is molten and warm and the closest thing to whole he's ever felt: seams flaring gold, clay softening and re-setting against her, the forge-thrum singing through them both.But every degree of that heat is written on his body as a deepening crack — and the town's lore-keeper delivers the cruel truth. There's only one cure, and it's the forbidden one: fire a true-name token and place his unmaking in Ivy's hands. No golem ever has.The closer they get, the worse he breaks. And when the choice finally comes, Soren does the thing his whole life trained him to do — he refuses, seals the yard, and goes cold rather than trust her with the power to end him.Ivy returns at dawn to find him dormant. Dark seams. Still as fired stone.