Was this his fate now? A miner?
It felt wrong. Mining was the work of Clan Valor—far from here, closer to his home in the Ashmountains, where the Valorians ruled as the Principal House. Not the work of an Ashman.
And yet.
He looked across the cave. The far wall was jagged and rough, pocked with round openings that led into further darkness. Ladders climbed up from some. Others gaped open with nothing—an invitation to fall, or to run. Froststones, small and blue, lined the entrances. But there were too few of them, their light too faint. This place would never stay cool for long. And when his own stone eventually ran out, the heat would take him.
Burning would be preferable, he thought. Clean.
Though someone was probably assigned to refill the froststones. Likely.
The cave had its own rhythm—slaves moving in quiet processions, guards flanking on both sides. A march of the damned. The Gresendent Sisters moved through the flow like dark blades, cutting straight through without a glance at the rest, escorting the newly chosen deeper inside.
He envied those slaves.
He envied the servs drifting overhead, too—translating all the despair around him into color. Blue for sadness. Black for hopelessness. Their presence only confirmed what he already knew.
This was ruin. And he had walked straight into it.
A caravan emerged from one of the wall's openings. More slaves—hollow-eyed, dragged forward like objects. Like he was. Excubitors followed behind them, different from the others. Merrin couldn't name the difference, but it was there. A pressure. Something heavier in the way they moved.
What is that?
A blow landed square in his spine before he could think further. He hit stone. The heat was immediate, his bare hands finding scorching rock. He yelped, but the sound was swallowed by the noise of the mine. When he turned, he saw no face—only his own reflection, pale and distorted in the silver of a helmet.
"Move."
The word hit the same as before. His body nearly dropped into a combat stance again—pure instinct, the same reflex that had almost gotten him killed earlier. He caught it this time. Exhaled. Stood and walked forward.
An Excubitor took the lead, moving ahead of the group and cutting a path between rows of watching eyes. The slaves already here studied the newcomers the way someone studies meat at a stall.
Slaughter would be a kindness. The thought came and left quickly.
He walked. Tripped on shallow holes in the ground. Each stumble was punished by the heat of the stone beneath him.
They stopped.
Before them was a spiraling pit. Its rim was jagged and worn from long use, lamps hanging along its edges, their light reaching partway down before giving up entirely. Below that—nothing. Pure black.
Merrin stared into it.
To him, it looked like a throat. Open. Patient. Waiting to swallow him whole.
What would it mean to just let it?
"ASSEMBLE!"
The command snapped through the cave. Merrin moved, pressing through bodies until he could see the Excubitor standing atop a large raised stone, helmet catching the lamplight.
The guard dropped down and addressed them without ceremony.
"Slaves. You will be divided into two groups: scrapers and miners. Those here are designated Miners 7, and this pit is yours."
The words had the texture of repetition, said so many times they had become reflexive.
"Every day, you will mine for Oredite, Eltium, and Iron. Each metal earns cell marks based on weight." He raised both hands—dark cloth wrapped around them, holding a small, crude disc of metal with a soft white glow at its center. "Oredite: ten marks. Iron: five. Eltium: twenty. A fist-sized amount equals the standard yield."
Would anyone survive on that?
A second Excubitor stepped forward, carrying something rusted and black. A bell. He rang it.
The sound was enormous, louder than anything Merrin had heard in the cave, piercing straight into his skull. He nearly yelped. The first Excubitor accepted the bell without looking up.
"One more thing." His tone slowed slightly. Something moved underneath it. Amusement, maybe. "You may, by fortune, be drafted into the Nightsailers. If so, count yourself among the lucky."
He rang the bell again.
The name echoed in Merrin's mind. Nightsailers. Something in it stirred—not hope, he had none of that left—just awareness. The way the guard said it hinted at something beyond these walls. But Merrin felt nothing of it in himself. Only the hollow.
"Those who feel the heat, step forward."
Then—
Heat?
The brand on his arm blazed. Something deeper, a heat that crawled through him like a burning cord wrapped around his bones. He screamed before he could stop himself.
His jaw clenched. A fist. A breath. Control. An Ashman knew the heat. He had always known it. Others around him couldn't say the same, as some collapsed immediately, and they paid for it, guards attending to their backs with swift punishment. The pain kept going regardless, fire in his veins.
Merrin stayed on his feet.
A helmet turned toward him. Featureless.
"Come."
He obeyed. They all did. The slaves moved through a corridor of armored men until they stood before the Excubitor on the raised stone. The guard dropped down, boots crunching on the ground, and pointed.
Chains lay scattered across the floor like snakes.
"Strap yourselves. Take a pickaxe. Scrape the walls. Some Eltium or Oredite may remain in the pit walls—mine it and hand it to your mine captain." He paused. "You are generously given the right to choose one."
Silence.
Choice.
The Excubitor's eyes landed on Merrin. "Would a problem arise from compliance?"
Merrin realized he had gone still again. He shook his head quickly. The guard's gaze didn't move, scanning him slowly.
Merrin looked away first. There was no point in agitation. He walked to the chains and reached for one. They rattled, not loudly, but enough.
He strapped himself in, clumsily. No one had shown him the proper way. In the mountains, they never put chains around people's waists. They would simply grab and swing.
But the thought came anyway: he would fall.
And in that, a kind of peace.
Perhaps I should jump.
The padlock clicked shut. Rusted but firm. He bent and lifted a pickaxe from the ground. It had a froststone core—dim, blue-glowing, washing cobalt light across his hand. Still warm, but not burning. Better than he had expected.
The other scrapers watched him.
He could read their faces easily enough. Not hatred. They thought him foolish. A martyr, maybe. But he had chosen this.
Was it a mistake?
The chains were old. Rusted. They would almost certainly break. But someone had to go first, and it appeared that someone was him.
What importance does my life have, anyway?
A bitter smile, crooked and useless. He slid the pickaxe between the chains at his waist, where it rested like some decision. His last one, maybe. After this, there was only the descent. Only the dark.
He walked to the lip of the pit and looked down.
The hole was carved in an oval shape, its rim worn smooth by time—or by Casters, more likely. The stone walls spiraled downward in rings, layer by layer. Lamps dotted the walls at wide intervals, their white light buzzing and frantic. Between them, darkness filled every space the light couldn't reach.
He stood there.
Five heartbeats.
He did not move. Could not. Fear had his legs.
Just jump, he told them.
They didn't.
He looked at the chain trailing from his waist and disappearing into the black below. It didn't look strong. Not even close. And wasn't that the point? Wasn't death what he had been walking toward this entire time?
A minute passed.
Behind him, clicks of the tongue. Sighs. Sharp words. Slaves, apparently, had no patience for hesitation. Some cursed him quietly in whatever words they could get away with muttering.
Merrin heard all of it.
He stood at the edge anyway.
Just jump.
His body didn't move.
The desire to fall fought something older and deeper—the Ashman in him. Among his people, taking your own life was a disgrace. A mockery of the ash that marked their skin.
But I don't have that anymore, do I?
The stones below would be sharp. The fall short. The pain brief, and then—release. A return to the hands of the Almighty.
Or ruin.
That thought hit harder than the rest. He staggered back, surprised by his own reaction. What if damnation waited instead of peace? The Church was clear on this: those who took their own lives were denied the light.
I can'--
"Move!"
The voice came with a lash—an actual whip cracking across his back. Merrin stumbled.
"Get in there!"
A kick followed. And then he was over the edge, weightless for one suspended moment, and then gravity remembered and pulled him down.
I'm going to die!
His mind went blank with panic. He fell—fast—the chain shuddering and rattling as it unspooled. Merrin grabbed it with both hands. His palms burned, the metal biting in. The air rushing past his face cool from nearby froststones, but he barely felt it. He wanted to live. He understood that now, clearly, with his whole body.
The chain groaned.
Then—snap.
A glint caught his eye as a link tore free, one rusted segment dangling loose. He hit the pit wall hard, pain exploding across his side. Shouts rained down from above, distant and broken up by the distance.
The chain hadn't snapped completely. It held—barely—swinging him against the rough stone wall. But barely was the keyword. One more failure and he would fall the rest of the way.
There's always quiet before the end, he thought. One mistake and that's it.
"Please don't snap," he whispered. "Please, Almighty."
Tears ran down his face, salt on his lips. He was afraid, and he admitted it to the darkness, because who else was there to hear him? He looked down. The pit's depth waited below, patient and dark, and he wanted no part of it. He didn't want to join whoever else had fallen to the bottom before him.
Please. No.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Then—stillness.
The chain had stopped trembling. He didn't dare move. If he shifted even slightly, whatever fragile balance existed would break. He knew it the way he knew the heat of the mountains.
Voices fell from above. Curses. Mockery. And—praise?
Did they think he had done this on purpose? That he'd held on through skill rather than luck?
"Get to it!" an Excubitor called down.
Merrin flinched, the brand on his arm flaring with pain. He looked up slowly. Blood was running down his arm and dripping from his elbow.
And there was the chain.
In the pale flicker of a nearby lamp, the links shone. Black—not rusted. Clean and solid. The corrosion was gone. Every rusted patch had been replaced by something whole and new, as if the chain had never aged at all.
What?
Did I see it wrong?
He hadn't. He was certain of what he'd seen moments ago. But the chain now was not what it had been.
Casted iron? Some kind of Eltium? He didn't know. He had no framework for it.
His arm still burned. The pain would become unbearable soon, and if he panicked and thrashed, the fall would finish what the snap had started.
There was only one option left.
Mine.
Merrin breathed in slowly and reached for his pickaxe. The tool was cold in his hand—rusted, dim, the froststone core barely functioning.
It's useless, he thought. But it's all I have.
He drew his arm back and struck the wall.
Dust spilled into his face. He struck again. And again.
No thinking now—just motion. The rhythm of the work pressed the pain back, replaced it with the numbness creeping into his fingers. He didn't look up. He just worked.
After a while, other chains began to roll down from the rim above. Slaves descending in the dim light, one by one, like shadows. Merrin could track their movements clearly—even in the dark, his eyes found the shapes easily. It was something Ashmen were known for, their sight in low light.
But that was the mountains.
Here, no one knew. No one cared.
Down here, he was alone.