These paths were designed by engineers and masons of the Broken Plains, architects who understand pressure and fire and collapse the way others understand breath.
Every inch of this mine is threaded with magic and precaution—floating supports carved of rune-bound basalt, heat sinks that pulse with alchemical cooling, fail-safe archways that collapse only inward if the Vein flares out of control.
The safety here is unmatched.
And still—someone got in.
“The guards have been on double-duty, my lord. They know the weight this task carries, but we need more men, more supplies. The Ember Vein is the very center of everything the Broken Plains works for,” Grier keeps talking as if I do not already know.
But magic is tricky to secure.
Those who truly understand it rarely do so with good intentions.
The SoulTakers know this.
They’ve learned to twist the seams, to sneak through the folds of spell-woven boundaries.
Where there is magic, there is a door.
And they’ve found one.
“Silence. I do not need a reminder of how important The Ember Vein is to Nightfall,” I growl, my voice echoing off obsidian walls that shimmer faintly in the dim glow.
The firelight responds—flickering brighter, burning taller with every step I take.
Grier Pyros, our lead foreman, flinches despite himself.
He is a good man. Loyal. But I am running out of patience for niceties.
“My Lord, I only meant?—”
“You meant to lecture me,” I snap, and sparks crackle at my heels as I move past him. “Choose better instincts.”
I do not stop. I do not look back. Because every second I spend beneath this cursed stone is a second I am not with her.
Delia.
My Shula.
The bond tugs at me constantly now.
A hot wire wrapped around my ribs, pulled taut and humming, stretching upward toward the sky where she stands—where she breathes, unaware of how the world bends around her presence.
I feel her.
The warmth of her laughter still lingers like heat behind my eyes. The shape of her hand still echoes against my palm.
Part of me is still there. With her. Always.
The rest of me is here. And it is furious.
Dagan’s presence steadies the air.
He does not speak, but the mine shifts subtly as he moves. The earth welcomes him—softening, holding.
Where his broad hand brushes the wall, the stone tightens, calms, as though reassured by his touch.
He was born of the ground.
