Kaelen’s gaze fell to the hourglass resting in his palm. It felt heavier than its small size suggested, a stark contrast to the fleeting Cinder-marks he’d received alongside it. Elder Kael’s parting gesture – a piece of polished obsidian housing a swirl of fine, dark particulate – had seemed a whimsical addition to a meager trade.
He slowly inverted it. Fine, crimson ash, unlike the ubiquitous grey of Aerthos, began its slow descent. Each grain seemed to catch the dim light filtering into his cramped bunk, a vibrant, unsettling color against the dull grey walls of the barracks.
An unfamiliar tremor ran through him. Not physical, but a subtle hum beneath his skin, echoing the strange attraction he’d felt towards the trinket in Elder Kael’s stall. Was this connected to his silent power? To the ash that was both his curse and his solace?
He watched the last speck fall. A minute, perhaps, had passed. He flipped it again, feeling the rhythmic pull of gravity on the unique dust. He focused, extending his will, a silent tendril of consciousness reaching for the crimson grains. He tried to command them, to halt their endless tumble, to reverse their flow.
Nothing. They continued their relentless slide, unaffected by his silent plea. A sharp pang of frustration pricked him. Had his unique connection to the ash truly been so impotent here?
Again, he concentrated, pouring more intent into the connection. The crimson ash ignored him, flowing with indifferent grace. His jaw tightened. Was he mistaken? Was this just an ornate bauble, a cruel jest from the old vendor?
He tucked the hourglass into a pouch, the cold obsidian pressing against his side. No use discarding it; it had cost him a piece of precious Aether-shard. A bitter taste lingered on his tongue. The day had begun with a theft of his precious resource, and now this.
A heavy bootfalls approached his bunk, scraping ash across the floor. A shadow, immense and unyielding, fell across his cot. Kaelen’s hand instinctively drifted towards the concealed blade at his hip.
“You the new meat they brought in yesterday?” The voice was a gravelly rumble, like stones grinding in an ash-pit. It was a statement, not a question.
Kaelen straightened, his posture stiff. “I am.” He met the man’s gaze, unflinching.
The man was a brute. His bare torso, crisscrossed with jagged scars, was a testament to countless skirmishes. Muscles corded his arms, rippling beneath skin like cured leather. He dwarfed Kaelen, radiating an aura of crude, unrefined power. Varrus, they called him – Varrus ‘Ironhide’, the overseer of the deep tunnels.
“Then why weren’t your hands on a pickaxe this morning?” Varrus sneered, a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes. “Thought you could sleep in? Thought Cinderhold was a soft bed, did you?”
Kaelen felt the familiar tremor of his own power stir, a cold current beneath his skin. It was an instinct, a primal defense. He pushed it down, deep, into the quiet places of his being. Not yet. Not for this.
“No one gave me direction,” Kaelen replied, his voice even, devoid of emotion. “My station was not assigned.”
Varrus barked a laugh, a harsh, grating sound. “Directions? You’re here to dig, boy. Not to be pampered. You breathe the ash, you eat the dust, you tear the rock apart. That’s your direction.” He took a step closer, his bulk filling the narrow space. “Forget it. Just follow. Move now, before I decide to teach you about Cinderhold’s morning routine.”
Kaelen felt the raw hostility, thick and suffocating. This was no argument; this was a declaration of dominance. He understood the unspoken threat, the piranha-like mentality Elder Kael had hinted at. Rookies were easy prey in this place.
Park Manho, no, Varrus, had roots here, deep and gnarled. He wielded power, not just his brute strength, but the power of fear. Kaelen saw the Cinder-Touched insignia etched onto Varrus’s forearm: three interlocking basalt shards, marking him as a Stone-Hand, a common but formidable class of Awakened.
‘Damn it,’ Kaelen thought, a bitter taste rising. ‘A simple mistake, and this beast comes knocking.’
He had planned to slip into the mines unnoticed, a single grain of ash in a storm. But his unexpected arrival had made him stand out. He was the sole survivor of the Ash-Ghoul attack on the last transport. Now, he was under scrutiny.
Kaelen hesitated, just for a breath. It was enough. Varrus’s expression hardened, his eyes narrowing to slits.
Then, the blow. A fist, heavy as a mining hammer, slammed into Kaelen’s jaw. His head snapped back, stars exploding behind his eyes, and he stumbled, crashing into the flimsy wall of his bunk. The impact jarred his teeth.
Before he could recover, Varrus was on him, a heavy boot connecting with his ribs, then his stomach. Kaelen gasped, a ragged breath escaping his lips. Pain, sharp and visceral, flared through him. He coiled, instinctively protecting his vital organs, like a desert beetle burying itself from a sandstorm.
‘Endure,’ a cold voice whispered in his mind. ‘Not yet. Not here.’
His own unique power, the ash-shaping, surged within him, a nascent tempest yearning to erupt. He could harden the air, raise an ash-wall, conjure a blade from the very dust beneath Varrus’s feet. But to reveal it now, in this confined space, against this brute, would be to invite greater scrutiny, greater danger. He was outnumbered by the system, by the unseen eyes of Cinderhold.
The kicks continued, a rhythmic thud against his curled form. His body throbbed, a dull ache spreading through his muscles, but the pain was distant, almost familiar. He’d known worse, much worse, in the desolate wastes. This was merely an annoyance, a test of his resolve.
Varrus finally stopped, panting slightly, his face flushed. “Another fuss,” he growled, “another act of defiance, and you’ll be ash for the worms. Understood?”
Kaelen pushed himself up, every movement a deliberate act of will. His jaw ached, and he tasted blood. But his gaze remained steady, fixed on Varrus’s retreating back. He said nothing.
“Then follow,” Varrus commanded, not bothering to look back. He strode out of the barracks, his heavy steps shaking the floorboards.
Kaelen gritted his teeth. His face was a mess, his body a map of bruising. The awakening, his mastery over ash, had dulled the worst of the impact, granting him resilience. Without it, he might have been broken.
‘I don’t know about the others,’ Kaelen thought, a cold, hard vow settling in his chest, ‘but you, Varrus Ironhide, will pay for this in ash and blood.’
---
Varrus paid no mind to Kaelen’s wounds, marching him through the dimly lit tunnels that led deeper into Cinderhold’s core. Miners were expendable goods here, tools to be used until they broke, then discarded. Their well-being was irrelevant.
They reached a wide antechamber, the air thick with mineral dust and the metallic scent of excavation. A weary miner, Joric, waited by a stack of equipment. His face was a roadmap of exhaustion, etched with the perpetual gloom of the underground.
“Gear this one up,” Varrus ordered, jerking a thumb at Kaelen. “Standard issue. Dock the cost from his first yield.”
Joric, without a word, handed Kaelen a heavy pickaxe with a handle wrapped in worn leather, a helmet fitted with a dull, phosphorescent lamp, and a stiff canvas backpack. “Pickaxe and rations,” Joric mumbled, avoiding Kaelen’s eyes. “Deducted. Aether-shards go in the pack.”
Kaelen weighed the pickaxe in his hand. “No instruction? No guide on the lodes?”
Varrus snorted. “Instruction? It’s a pickaxe, boy. You swing it at the wall until rock breaks. Even a cave grub knows that.” His voice rose again, sharp and dangerous. Joric flinched, stepping back quickly, knowing the overseer’s temper.
Varrus was known as the ‘Tyrant of the Tunnels’. Even a slight misstep could invite his wrath. Miners feared him, and rightfully so.
Kaelen felt a cold bewilderment. They were sending him into the earth, into a maze of tunnels, with nothing more than a crude tool and a threat. It was an outright death sentence, thinly veiled as an assignment.
“Throw this waste into tunnel 813,” Varrus commanded, his voice echoing in the chamber. “Move, before I lose my patience.”
Joric, pale and trembling, grabbed Kaelen’s arm. “This way, new blood.” He pulled Kaelen along, deeper into the maw of the earth.
As they disappeared into the labyrinthine passages, Varrus’s voice followed them, a final, chilling decree. “Don’t even think of coming out without a full pack, boy! Remember my words!”
Kaelen felt a surge of cold fury. ‘That son of a bitch. He truly means to bury me here.’
He vowed again, a silent, iron-hard promise. Varrus Ironhide would fall. It was only a matter of when.
---
They descended, the air growing heavier, smelling of damp rock and ancient dust. The tunnel, carved by countless human hands without the aid of machines, was impossibly narrow, forcing Kaelen to hunch his shoulders.
Joric, still avoiding eye contact, spoke in a low voice. “Lucky, you are. Caught the Captain on a bad day.”
“Bad day?” Kaelen asked, the word a rasp in his throat.
“Lost his coin at the Ash-Den, they say.”
“There’s a gambling den here?” Kaelen’s brow furrowed.
“Ash-Den, Black Market, Pleasure Pits… this Cinderhold has it all,” Joric muttered, his voice laced with resignation. “Take my advice, stranger. Stay clear. You work hard, you bleed, just to make others rich or happy.” Joric had been in the tunnels for five long cycles. Most who came with him were now either crippled or dead, their bodies claimed by the deep earth or the overseers.
“If you mean to save your soul and see the outside world again, stay sharp,” Joric warned. His voice held a genuine, albeit weary, concern.
“What kind of place is tunnel 813?” Kaelen asked, a premonition of dread forming in his gut.
Joric rambled on about the tunnels, how to navigate the forks. “See the marks? Red arrows go deeper, blue lead up. Always blue when you’re done. Don’t get lost.”
Kaelen estimated they’d descended several hundred meters already. He knew, instinctively, that his assigned tunnel was not ordinary. A fleeting thought of escape surfaced, a flicker of hope. But the desolate ash-wastes outside Cinderhold stretched for leagues, a certainty of dehydration and slow death. His chances were better here, however slim.
‘First, solidify my abilities,’ he resolved. ‘Confirm what I can truly do. Plan.’
Joric stopped at a particularly cramped opening, darker than the rest. “This is 813.” He gestured with a trembling hand. The darkness inside seemed to swallow the meager light of Kaelen’s lamp, a beckoning void.
“Just… go in there. Start breaking rock.” Joric swallowed hard. “Bad feeling, this one. Four men before you. Never came out.”
“Misfortune?” Kaelen asked, a bitter irony in the word.
“They died,” Joric clarified, his voice barely a whisper. “No one knows how. Just… stopped breathing. So no one goes in. That’s why Varrus sent you. New blood. Expendable.” Joric met Kaelen’s gaze then, his own eyes full of shared misery and guilt. He was a cog in a machine, unable to defy orders.
“Hope you come out, new blood. Alive.” With those words, Joric turned, retreating into the deeper tunnels, leaving Kaelen alone at the mouth of the dreaded passage.
Kaelen stared into the blackness of tunnel 813. Everyone assigned there died. Varrus had sent him to his death, a direct consequence of his bad mood. His fist clenched around the pickaxe handle.
‘Varrus Ironhide,’ Kaelen swore again, the name burning on his tongue, ‘you will definitely die by my hands. I swear it by the ash that binds this world.’ He took a deep, steadying breath, his lamp casting wavering shadows as he stepped into the gaping darkness.