As Regan steps up to the islet, Cordey staggers as if a tide catches his knees. His breath frosts and his posture stills. When he looks up, his eyes are pale and far away. When he speaks, it is not one voice but many, braided and tidal:
"The Heart-Forge beneath Menehune remembers. River-iron smelted. A thread of Abyssium, sweetened by the Fey-King’s vow. Forged for demon bane."
Cordey's hand drifts to the delicate fey rod beside the anvil and lifts it. The blue water at its tip firms like glass; with a small turn of Cordey’s wrist the waterfall splits into multiple powerful cascading streams. The chamber settles into a steady, resonant chord, each stream playing a different note.
The dark ichor, demon blood, beads thicker at the anvil’s base and threads along tiny blood-channels toward the water in the floor pattern. When the ichor touches the water its color and texture changes, becoming a lighter vibrant red. Cordey touches the tip of the rod to a spot where water and blood meet. The head of the rod draws water from the channels until it becomes a large maul made of shimmering blue water. The maul head glistens and shifts in the light yet keeps form as a enchanted smith tool.
"We bound a keeper in the steel—Warden of this place. Threshold-guard. Chain-breaker. Returner of hurt."
Cordey’s gaze finds Regan’s hammer which hums in answer. His glossy eyes then move to meet Regan's.
"You swore in chains to stand where others break. We heard. We crossed. Your oath made a place for us. The tool you gripped became our body; the pact, your breath."
Cordey touches the anvil’s face it sparks again with magical enchantment.
"Unfinished work; will be finished here."
Cordey places the water hammer on top of the anvil.
"You remember the gate bar, the stink of rust and fear. Shackles biting bone. No torch, only cold. You said, If I live, I free the bound. That word was iron. We answered. A hammer formed in your hands—cold current given shape—long enough to break links and bar. From that night, call and dismissal were yours: tide in, tide out; weapon there, weapon gone."
Cordey's head tilts, listening to voices only he hears; the water-maul resting in the anvil swirls a shade deeper.
"What you carry is older than that night. Here, long before The River Court quarreled, river-iron was smelted with a thread of Abyssium that the Fey-King sweetened and vowed would bite fiends yet spare the bearer. One head unfinished, tempered by waterfall and song, not fire, sleeping under song, laid waiting for oath to fit hand. When the last demon war ebbed, it was hidden with other demon-bane tools that were forged in the Heart-Forge through a pact with Makai and the Fey King and eventually slipped into mortal storerooms, its spirit drowsing. With your vow, we crossed into it—your promise made the bridge. The pact you bore found its body."
The waterfall’s chords rise half a tone; Regan's hammer hums with them..
