Aries Mars's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Aries stares at the anvil between them. The weight hasn't changed. He carried it across worlds, set it down, and still feels the burden pressing against his chest. Pisces Rising's fountain gurgles behind her, water flowing over those massive eyes. The anvil begins to glow. Red heat spreads across the Mars rock, pulsing like a heartbeat. Aries steps back as the fountain water rises, pulled toward the stone as if drawn by invisible hands. The water touches the anvil and explodes into steam. Symbols burn through the mist—not the prophecies from the walls, but something older. A ram with golden fleece and eyes full of stars materializes above the fountain, its form made of light and memory. Aries knows those horns. They're the same shape as his own. Pisces Rising touches the water and gasps. "You weren't made for combat," she says, her voice shaking. "You were made to guide. To lead through vision, not violence." The ram fades, but a book rises from the fountain's depths, bound in red with a spiral seal. It falls open, pages covered in symbols that burn themselves into the chamber walls. A winged figure holding a dark instrument appears in the water—a demon mid-song, not mid-strike. The image shifts, showing the same demon smaller, younger, without wings or weapon. Just horns. Just Aries. Aries reaches for the book, but it crumbles to ash in his hands. The symbols remain on the walls. "I was never supposed to fight," he says, the words tasting wrong but true. Pisces nods. The anvil cools, its glow fading to dull stone. He picks it up, and this time it feels different. Not lighter—heavier. Because now he knows what he's been running from. Not emptiness. A purpose he abandoned so long ago he forgot it existed.