A stillness, deeper than the ash that perpetually sifted down, filled Kael’s small chamber. Miners, driven by some unseen force, had not returned. Their cots, mere wooden frames draped with threadbare cloths, stood empty. For Kael, this meant space, a rare solitude he hadn't realized he craved. He pushed himself from the cot. Joints, once stiff with exhaustion, now moved with a quiet fluidity. Dust motes, disturbed by his rising, danced in the dim light filtering through the grime-caked window. A faint hum resonated within him, a subtle connection to the world’s particulate heart. This was the gift, the burden, of his power. Fatigue, a human weakness, felt like a distant echo. Beyond the window, Aethel stretched, an endless canvas of grey. A particularly thin veil of ash today allowed a bleached, oppressive light to press down on Ash-Heart. No scorching sun, just a stark, unwavering brightness that stripped the world of color, leaving only shades of desolation. Kael moved through the narrow alleyways of Ash-Heart's settlement. Worn structures, built from scavenged metal and compacted ash-brick, leaned against each other like weary survivors. Dust, thick and soft, muffled his steps. The settlement was a crude ganglion, clinging to the Deep-Core Excavation site – a vital, yet perilous, hub. Caravans, heavily laden and armored against the shifting ash-storms and the creatures that stirred beneath, stopped here. They traded goods from the distant Sky-Spires for the raw gleam-stones ripped from the earth’s maw. Mercenary groups, much like Thorne's Awakened, frequented the place, resupplying before venturing into the deeper, monster-haunted tunnels. A raw, desperate market pulsed at its core. ‘First, I must observe,’ Kael thought, his gaze sweeping over the weathered faces he passed. Tales told were often warped by fear or hope. Only what he saw, touched, and felt with the subtle currents of ash, could he truly trust. A habit, like many, forged in the quiet desperation of his past. Market stalls, rough-hewn and covered in perpetual dust, stood largely deserted. Most of the Deep-Core miners, locked in the earth’s suffocating embrace, had gone days ago. They carried rations, their lives measured in the dwindling stores of food and the slow, agonizing scrape of pickaxes against rock. To venture out for a meal was a luxury they could not afford. Weeks, sometimes months, passed before they saw the grey light of the surface again. A miserable existence, Kael knew. A fate he would avoid at any cost. His power, vast as it was, held no sway over hunger. A gnawing emptiness churned in his gut. Since the meager meal offered by Thorne's crew yesterday, nothing. Kael sought sustenance. At the market’s rear, a plume of acrid smoke rose, carrying a scent both savory and vaguely unsettling. A small stall, little more than a leaning tarp and a blackened grate, offered skewers of sizzling meat. Behind it, an old man hunched over the coals, his form a study in ash-grey resilience. His face, a roadmap of deep wrinkles, was framed by a scraggly, dust-white beard. Goggles, one lens cracked like a spiderweb, were pushed up onto his brow, revealing eyes like ancient, smoldering embers. He seemed as much a part of the landscape as the dust itself. Kael settled onto a splintered bench. “What kind of meat?” His voice, low and raspy, barely disturbed the simmering air. “Wouldn’t do to ask, lad. Heh.” The old man’s chuckle was a dry rattle, like pebbles in a tin can. Kael nodded. Once, he’d known the names of animals, the taste of clean flesh. That world was long buried. Now, meat was simply sustenance. Even in the Sky-Spires, they spoke of ‘vat-grown’ or ‘scavenger-yield.’ In places like Ash-Heart, such distinctions rarely mattered. He plucked a skewer, the warm, fatty scent filling his nostrils, and took a bite. The flavor was rich, gamey, almost metallic. Edible. Through his cracked goggle lens, the old man observed him. “New face, eh? Just arrived?” “Yesterday.” Kael chewed slowly. “This tastes… good.” “Yesterday, then.” Rhye’s head tilted. “Must be the one from the Crust-wurm incursion. Heard they pulled you from the dust, hale as a newborn whelp.” A subtle tremor ran through Kael’s jaw. News traveled fast here, a whisper on the ash-wind. “That already?” “Heh. Little here stays secret, lad. Not for long. By the turn of the next ashfall, everyone’ll know your preference in grave-dust.” The old man’s gaze sharpened, piercing. “This isn’t a soft place. Don’t mistake it for refuge.” Kael met his stare, unblinking. “Refuge? No. I came to earn.” “Earn?” Rhye scoffed, a dry rasp. “Empty hands, empty pockets. Not even a digging pick. That’s no way to ‘earn’ in the Deep-Core.” A muscle twitched in Kael’s jaw. The old man’s words were a pickaxe striking bone. He knew. He saw too much. “You’ve been here a long time,” Kael stated, deflecting. “Since the first gleam-stone was pulled from the Deep-Core’s gut.” Rhye gestured with a soot-stained hand. “Aye, an old-timer. See those?” He pointed to the back of his stall, where piles of oddments, rusted tools, and broken trinkets lay strewn. “The first ones, like you,” Rhye continued, his voice softer, but no less chilling. “They came, they clawed, they refused the mines. When coin ran dry, they sold. First the worthless, then the valuable. Until nothing was left but the pickaxe. Then, into the dark they went.” “The useful things,” Rhye said, “they went to the Sky-Spires. The useless… they stayed. Traces left by the desperate. Heh.” His dry chuckle echoed in the quiet market. His eyes, fixed on Kael, seemed to foretell a similar fate. The flavor of the meat turned to ash in Kael’s mouth. His hunger, momentarily quelled, returned as a cold knot in his stomach. He forced down the last bite, then pushed himself to his feet. “Ten motes of gleam?” Kael’s voice was sharper than he intended. “For one skewer?” Even the most exorbitant prices in the Sky-Spires rarely touched such profiteering. A single mote of gleam was a thousandth of a full shard. Rhye, unconcerned, merely flicked ash from the coals. “Everything here is precious, lad. Food, fabric, even the air. That’s the price of life at Ash-Heart.” “What if I refuse?” “Heh. An old man like me, running a stall in this place for so long? There’s a reason for that.” Rhye’s gaze drifted. Around them, other stall keepers, their faces as worn as Rhye’s, slowly turned. Their eyes, hard and cold, rested on Kael. A silent threat, stark and undeniable. ‘He’s more than just a merchant,’ Kael realized. Rhye was the market's anchor, its beating, predatory heart. To cross him was to cross them all. “Damn it,” Kael muttered, his hands clenching at his sides. “Still, your wits aren’t entirely buried.” Rhye’s lips curved into a thin smile. “Some don’t learn until their bones are picked clean.” “I don’t have motes right now…” Kael began, but Rhye cut him off. “Perhaps something else? A shard, maybe?” Rhye’s eyes, keen and knowing, fixed on Kael’s belt. The small, carefully concealed bulge where Kael kept his most valuable possession. A fragment of the Deep-Core, a tangible piece of his past, his future. Kael’s breath caught. He had survived Thorne, had slipped through Thorne’s formidable scrutiny. But this old man, with his broken goggles and dry chuckle, saw through him completely. The price of the skewer was a paltry sum compared to the gleam-stone, but to lose it here, to this vulture, felt like a deep wound. Rhye’s smirk widened. “The rumor, lad. That you carry a shard. It’ll be thicker than the ashfall within the hour. Do you truly believe you can hold onto it then?” He left unspoken the source of the coming storm. It would be his own doing. Kael’s fists tightened, his knuckles white against his dust-stained skin. He had faced monsters, starved, endured the Sky-Spires’ harsh justice. But this old man, with his ancient wisdom and ruthless pragmatism, made Kael feel like a child. Pride, stubbornness, withered under Rhye’s indifferent stare. He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that stirred the dust around his feet. The shard. It was all he had. All he’d come for. To surrender it for such a trivial thing, at such a paltry valuation… it felt like a betrayal of every struggle. “Why did I bother…” From a hidden pouch, Kael produced a small, irregular shard of pure, deep gleam-stone. It pulsed faintly, a cold, inner light. Rhye’s eyes gleamed, mirroring its luminescence. “Ah. That size…” Rhye plucked it from Kael’s palm, weighing it. “A hundred motes, perhaps.” “A hundred?” Kael exploded. “In the Sky-Spires, it would fetch three times that!” “This isn’t the Sky-Spires.” Rhye’s voice was flat, final. “This is theft!” “Lad. A treasure is but a burden if you lack the strength to protect it. Heh.” Rhye tossed the shard into a small, worn pouch, its cold light vanishing. The urge to strike the old man was a burning fire in Kael’s chest, but he suppressed it. To fight here would be to invite a storm of far greater power, to face not just Rhye but the unseen forces he commanded. Kael pocketed the ninety motes of gleam Rhye handed him – his ‘change.’ They felt like ashes, worthless. “Pretending to care, a viper’s tongue.” Rhye chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “For our first transaction, a gift. Choose an item from the back.” He gestured to the piles of junk. “That… junk?” Kael asked, disdain plain in his voice. He felt utterly defeated, yet a sliver of stubbornness urged him to claim something, anything, from this transaction. He walked to the back, his gaze scanning the forlorn collection. Rusted gears, broken tools, fragments of forgotten art. Nothing of value remained here. Anything useful would have long since been sent to the Sky-Spires, or scavenged by the desperate. Rhye watched Kael, his smile unmoving. Most newcomers, fleeced and broken, would have simply walked away. But Kael, for all his quiet anger, radiated a raw, undimmed resilience. A flicker of something untamed in this worn-out world. It was… endearing. Kael’s fingers brushed against something smooth, cool. He pulled it from the pile. A small hourglass, its glass cloudy with dust, its sand long settled. A delicate thing, utterly useless in a world where time was measured in ashfall and hunger. “No… that’s not what I meant. Why is this even here?” Kael held it up, a silent question. “No one else took it,” Rhye said, shrugging. “Came in with a caravan years ago. Pure decoration. Who carries an hourglass now?” “How about something else?” Rhye offered. Kael shook his head, a faint, almost imperceptible curve to his lips. “I doubt I’ll find anything more intact.” He clutched the hourglass, its coolness a strange comfort against his palm, and turned to leave. “Heh. Come again, lad.” Rhye’s voice followed him. “I suspect we will,” Kael muttered, his tone devoid of warmth. “An unfortunate thought.” Kael stopped at the edge of the market. He looked back at the old man, his eyes like chips of flint. “Then, old Rhye. Let’s hope we don’t.” He walked away, the desolate landscape stretching before him, the useless hourglass a quiet weight in his hand, a strange symbol of a time long past in a world that had forgotten how to measure it.

A Price in Ash