Time dissolves in the dark. There is no sun, no sky, only the drip of water from the ceiling and the clang of pickaxes echoing through cavern after cavern, and no matter how hard I try not to, I cannot stop glancing toward the narrow tunnel yawning beyond the sigils.
Vein Three.
Finally, as I cough out another cloud of glittering dust, I can’t hold my tongue any longer.
“What is down there?” I ask Pax. “Was Rollin telling the truth?”
Pax pulls off his gloves one finger at a time, each movement slow and weary. Then he leans back against the wall with a long exhale.
“He has been in the Aurevault a long time,” he says. “When you stay in the dark that many years, when you live under conditions that are torturous for even the strongest, most youthful man…” He gestures toward himself with a tired, self-assured flourish. “…your mind starts playing tricks on you.”
“So there’s nothing down there?” I press.
Pax clicks his tongue. “I didn’t say that.”
I groan, scrubbing dust off my forehead. “Well, is there or isn’t there?”
“There are things that can’t be explained in an afternoon,” he says, “and things I’m not about to freeze my ass off in an ice cage for by speaking out of turn.”
My frustration bubbles over. “Fine, I’ll find out myself.”
I take a determined stride toward Vein Three.
But Pax’s hand clamps around my elbow so hard I gasp. When I turn to him, all traces of his usual warmth, humor, and arrogance are gone.
His expression is carved from fear.
“Do not go down there,” he says quietly. “Ever. Do you understand?”
His grip is so firm, his face so grave, that there is only one possible answer.
I nod.
He releases me slowly, as if afraid I’ll bolt toward the darkness anyway.
Before I can argue further, a deep, booming horn shakes the entire cavern, so loud and low it rattles through my bones and sends a sheet of snow cascading off the cave mouth.
In an instant, the miners move.
Almost in unison they turn toward the entrance, forming a single-file line. Axes are hung on hooks. Coats and boots follow. Each time one set is placed, a pulley creaks and lowers the next. A rhythm. A ritual. Practiced so many times their bodies move without thought.
I furrow my brow. “Is… is that it? We’re done for the day?”
Pax chuckles, but the sound carries a weary sadness. “No. That meansthisshift is done. We can eat, maybe get a little shut-eye before the next one starts at midnight.”
“What?” I gasp. “How many hours do you work?”
He shrugs. “Almost all of them, I guess.”
It isn’t a real answer. Nothing from Pax ever is. But the truth is clear enough. These men aren’t workers. They’re prisoners with tools. Paying debts, serving punishments, trapped in a cycle that never ends.
As he walks ahead of me, I am suddenly, desperately curious to know what broughthimhere. What crime—or misfortune—landed a man like Pax in the Aurevault? Maybe I will ask him. In the sliver of time between shifts.
I hang up my borrowed coat and axe, unlace the stiff boots, then brush the shimmering dust from my cloak, grimacing at how the silver flecks have ruined the delicate fabric.
I step forward and almost crash straight into Pax.
He has stopped dead at the cave entrance, staring into the white glare outside.
