“Let the games begin.”
Vo Ky’s voice cut sharp across the stone quarters. The tang of scorched air prickled at Duc’s nose, overpowering the sour stink of sweat and damp rock. Across the packed chamber, every other laborer lay rigid on their rough plank cots, feigning sleep. Only Duc stared at Bao, transfixed by the monstrous presence wearing the boy's skin.
Then, a crash. The wooden doorway exploded inward, heavy planks snapping off iron pins. Overseer Bor shoved through the splinters, mottled red veins bulging across his neck. He clutched a notched mining pick, iron point gleaming under the tallow torches lining the outer hall.
“You!” Bor roared, pointing the pick at Vo Ky while ignoring the shuddering men on the bunks. “You thieving rat! That stone was *mine*! I felt the surge, fool! You dared crack a Veiled Dragon’s Heart? In *my* quarry?!”
Vo Ky turned slowly, his gaze flat, devoid of fear. The crimson flicker in his eyes was almost imperceptible in the dimness. “Yours?” he asked, his tone mocking. “I believe you deemed it refuse, Overseer. A memento for a dying slave, was it not?”
Bor snarled, spit flying from his teeth. “A filthy trick! You think I’d let pure essence slip through my fingers? I’ll flay you down to the sinew!” He lunged, thick boots kicking up grit as the pick whistled toward Vo Ky’s ribs. A faint viridian mist swirled along the haft—the hallmark of the viper clan's venom technique.
Duc yelped, clamping his teeth shut as he prepared for the wet crack of crushed ribs. Bor was an enforcer whose strength had crushed cave-ins barehanded.
But the scream never came. Instead, there was a dull thud, followed by a wet gurgle.
Duc cracked an eyelid. Bor’s pick clattered against the stone floor. The brute stood frozen, thick palms clawing at his own abdomen, where Vo Ky’s emaciated fingers were sank past the knuckles into flesh. The emerald fog did not bite into the boy; instead, it spiraled backward into the overseer's gut.
“A crude art,” Vo Ky murmured, tone dry and clinical. “Gathering external Qi to ferry your own venom into an enemy. A fatal habit when the target knows how to turn the tide.” He twisted his wrist half an inch. The viridian hue flared, then collapsed backward along Bor's meridians. The overseer convulsed, irises vanishing into his skull as frothing green bile bubbled between his teeth.
“Your own rot,” Vo Ky finished, yanking his hand free with a wet rip, “drowns what little marrow you possess.”
Bor crashed back into the broken doorway, heels drumming once against the rock before slackening. Dark mossy discoloration raced across his neck, puckering the skin like scorched leather. The hall fell dead silent, broken only by shallow, terrified panting from the bunks.
Vo Ky wiped two stray drops of black blood from his knuckles against Bor’s smock. His gaze shifted slowly across the darkened cots, pinning Duc in place. Duc pressed his back hard against the timber frame, bile rising in his throat.
“Duc.” Vo Ky’s voice rang crisp through the dark. “You keep your eyes open.”
Duc flinched, scrambling backward until he hit the rough timber wall of his cot. “M-my lord,” he stammered, the title escaping his lips unbidden, a desperate plea. “I… I saw nothing! I was asleep! My lord, I swear!”
Vo Ky took a slow step towards him. The rest of the captives shrank deeper against the rock walls. “Do not lie. It wastes my breath. You saw the stone. You saw its power taken. And you watched this dog choke on his own bile.” Vo Ky nudged the corpse with the toe of a worn straw sandal. “Your masters flay men for far less.”
Duc whimpered, burying his face in his hands. “No! Please, my lord, I beg you! I’ll forget it! I’ll forget everything! I’ll dig faster, I’ll take more beatings, anything!”
“You have two choices, Duc.” Vo Ky’s voice was devoid of compassion, a cold blade. “Serve me, and live to see the outside of this maw. Serve me, and you might even gain a measure of power, if you prove useful. Or, you can die here, now, with Bor, and take your secrets to the deepest pit.” He extended a hand, not in comfort, but in a silent, chilling offer. “Choose.”
Duc stared at that hand, then at the unnaturally green corpse of Bor, then back at the faint, crimson flicker in Vo Ky’s eyes. The choice was no choice at all. This man was not Bao. This man was something ancient, terrifying, and utterly unstoppable. He was the only hope for survival, the only path away from this living hell.
He pushed himself forward, crawling on his hands and knees. He reached out, trembling, and placed his palm in Vo Ky’s, a silent vow of fealty. Vo Ky’s grip was surprisingly firm, cold as polished jade.
“Good.” Vo Ky’s mouth curled without warmth. “Now listen. This dead meat will draw hounds. Drag it down to the lower drift and bury it under loose shale. Then tell me the patrol rotations, who commands this shaft, and who checks on missing overseers.”
Before Duc could answer, a measured rhythm tapped against the stone outside. *Tap, tap, tap.* Deliberate leather boots, wholly unlike Bor’s heavy, frantic stomping. A lean figure stepped through the ruined portal, draped in slate-grey robes trimmed with gleaming metallic thread. His angular face remained impassive as his dark pupils swept past the shuddering workers, bypassed Duc, and settled on Bor’s blistered remains.
“Explain this,” the newcomer said, his voice flat as stagnant water.