The Holdfast hadn't felt this quiet since the day Lucas first arrived in chains.
The lower tunnels were sealed now — reinforced with steel lattice and rune anchors that hummed like tired lungs. Every few minutes, another tremor rippled through the walls, soft but constant, like the mountain was still breathing through cracked ribs. The miners called it afterflow. The engineers called it containment fatigue.
Lucas just called it nerve-wracking.
He leaned against a scaffold railing, watching blue veinlines pulse unevenly beneath the stone. When he squinted, he could see the flicker of instability — jagged gaps where the light dimmed for a heartbeat before surging back again. It was subtle, but once you saw it, you couldn't unsee it.
The veins weren't healed. They were patching themselves together the best they could.
"Don't lean too far," someone called from below. "If that scaffolding goes, we're out of spare legs!"
Lucas gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. He'd spent the last two hours hauling planks and supplies for the repair crews, trying not to think about what waited beneath the sealed floor. The faint golden light still burned behind his eyelids every time he blinked.
Captain Vorn stood near the command platform, her voice echoing sharply as she issued orders.
"Stabilizers on sectors four and six are holding. Good. Keep the pressure even — if you force the flow, we lose another grid."
Her attention shifted to a familiar figure emerging from the smoke and dust: Jeff.
He looked… different. Not just dirtier, but deliberate. Focused. His usual lazy grin was replaced by a faint smirk of satisfaction as he held up a small metal coil still glowing faintly blue.
"Got the surge isolated," Jeff said. "You can reroute from node three. She'll hold."
Vorn blinked. "You rerouted it manually? The core should've fried you."
Jeff shrugged. "Should've."
The nearby workers exchanged uneasy looks. One muttered, "He spliced it bare-handed. Didn't even flinch."
Another whispered, "Old guy knew exactly where to splice the current — like he's done it before."
Lucas frowned from the scaffolding. Like he's done it before.
He jumped down, ignoring the ache in his knees, and found Jeff leaning against a cracked support beam, the metal still faintly warm where he'd been working.
"You mind explaining how you just MacGyvered a magic power grid?" Lucas asked.
Jeff blinked. "Mac… what now?"
"MacGyvered," Lucas repeated, gesturing vaguely. "You know, turning junk and panic into a working solution?"
Jeff frowned. "Is that a spell?"
Lucas smirked. "No, it's a television show."
Jeff tilted his head. "Tele… what now?"
"Television," Lucas said. "You know, a box that shows moving pictures? People act, say lines, save the world before commercial break?"
Jeff gave him a blank look. "So… like a crystal theater?"
Lucas grinned. "I guess so — if crystal theater is loud and dumb."
Jeff squinted. "And people watch these… fake stories on purpose?"
Lucas shrugged. "Hey, it beats staring at glowing rocks all day."
Jeff gestured around them. "You're literally staring at glowing rocks right now."
Lucas opened his mouth, realized he had no comeback, then sighed. "Touché."
Jeff chuckled, shaking his head. "You people name your magic after actors and worship talking boxes. No wonder the veins are confused."
Lucas grinned. "Says the guy who just played electrician with living lightning."
Jeff gave him a slow, knowing smile. "Sometimes you just listen to what the walls are humming."
"That's not an answer."
"Sure it is," Jeff said. "You just don't like it."
By the next shift break, the main tunnels were calm again. The emergency bells had stopped ringing, and the faint hum of vein energy felt steadier — if still uneven.
Lucas and Jeff sat by one of the fissures near the repair bay, sipping Holdfast brew from mismatched tin cups. It wasn't good coffee. It wasn't even close. But it was warm, and that counted for something.
The fissure in front of them pulsed faintly blue. The light rippled along the rock like a slow heartbeat. Every now and then, the glow flickered gold — just for an instant — and then returned to blue.
Lucas tried not to notice.
"You ever get the feeling," he said after a while, "that this place is barely holding together? Like… the whole mountain's one bad day away from caving in?"
Jeff smirked. "You say that like it's a bad thing. Keeps people on their toes."
Lucas shot him a look. "You're seriously the calmest person I've met in this nightmare."
"Experience," Jeff said simply.
"With what? Dying?"
Jeff didn't answer, just stared at the glowing fissure. The blue light danced in his eyes. "You ever notice how the veins sing?" he said after a pause.
Lucas blinked. "Sing?"
"Not literally," Jeff said. "More like… they hum in patterns. You can feel it in your bones if you listen long enough. It's like each one's part of a bigger song, keeping time with something deeper."
"Yeah," Lucas said dryly. "That's comforting."
Jeff chuckled, the sound low and tired. "Doesn't have to be comforting. Just has to be true."
The silence that followed stretched, heavy but not uncomfortable.
Lucas sipped his drink, the bitter brew stinging his tongue. His gaze drifted to the workers repairing a nearby conduit. Sparks flew as they welded a brace into place. The rhythmic hammering blended with the faint hum of the veins.
It almost sounded like a heartbeat.
"I keep thinking this is all a mistake," Lucas said quietly. "Me being here. This world. Whatever that thing down there was."
Jeff looked over, one brow raised. "Mistake, huh?"
"Yeah," Lucas said. "Someone, somewhere, messed up. I was just—" He stopped, exhaling sharply. "I wasn't supposed to be here."
Jeff leaned back, resting his elbows on his knees. "Most mistakes change the world," he said. "Some even save it."
Lucas snorted. "That sounds like something an optimist would say."
Jeff smiled faintly. "No. That's something a survivor says."
Lucas stared at him for a long moment. "You talk like someone who's been through this before."
Jeff didn't look away from the fissure. "Maybe I have."
Lucas opened his mouth to press him, but the older man's tone shifted before he could.
"You did good down there," Jeff said. "Most people freeze the first time the mountain tries to eat them."
Lucas frowned. "I didn't exactly save the day."
"You survived," Jeff said. "That counts."
Lucas shook his head. "Tell that to the miner who didn't."
Jeff went quiet for a moment. The hum of the veins filled the silence. "You can't start measuring your worth by who you couldn't save," he said finally. "That's a road that doesn't end."
"I could've done something," Lucas muttered. "I have a healing skill, and I—"
"Did everything you could," Jeff interrupted, firm but not unkind. "You think being able to help means you're supposed to fix everything. It doesn't work that way."
Lucas stared at his cup. "Feels like it should."
Jeff shrugged. "Then you'll learn. The veins take. They always do. Question is what you give them in return."
For a while, neither of them spoke. The fissure's light pulsed faintly against the walls, washing their shadows in waves of blue and silver.
Lucas thought of the miner's final breath, the flash of pain, the golden light that followed. He thought of the Heart's whisper and the way the energy had burned through his veins like fire and purpose at once.
He didn't say any of that out loud.
Finally, Jeff rose, dusting his hands on his trousers. "Come on. You look like you're about to drown in your thoughts."
"Where are we going?"
"Figured you'd want to see how the place looks without all the screaming."
They walked through the newly stabilized corridor. The air felt lighter now, though the faint smell of ozone lingered from the last energy surge. Runic stabilizers dotted the walls, glowing like quiet sentinels.
Lucas noticed the repair crews had carved new channels into the stone — shallow grooves lined with smooth, mirrored metal. Blue light flowed through them like tiny rivers, guiding the current toward the core.
"Those weren't there before," he said.
"New stabilizers," Jeff replied. "Vorn wants to redirect the flow. Keep the charge balanced."
Lucas studied the lines closely. "You helped build these?"
Jeff gave a modest shrug. "I drew a few circles."
"Those 'circles' saved half the Holdfast."
Jeff grinned. "Then I should probably stop calling them doodles."
They passed a section where the veins branched upward toward the higher tunnels. Lucas felt the faint thrum beneath his feet, steady but uneven, like a drumbeat half out of rhythm.
"Still feels… wrong," he said softly.
"Because it is," Jeff replied. "But that's the thing about the deep. It remembers every scar."
Lucas looked at him. "You sound like the Heart."
Jeff froze for just a heartbeat — then smirked. "So you've heard it too, huh?"
Lucas frowned. "You know about it?"
"Everyone's heard stories," Jeff said. "Most just pretend they didn't."
"What kind of stories?"
Jeff's eyes glinted in the dim blue light. "Depends who's telling them. Some say the Heart keeps the veins alive. Others say it's what kills them."
"That's… reassuring."
Jeff chuckled softly. "You'll find this place has a lot of reassuring stories like that."
When they finally reached the dorm wing, the air was heavy with fatigue and lamp smoke. Workers dozed in bunks. Someone hummed softly — a tune that might've been a lullaby or a prayer.
Lucas sank onto his bed, the old frame creaking under his weight. Jeff dropped into the bunk across from him, pulling off his boots with a groan.
The silence between them wasn't awkward anymore. Just… real.
"Jeff?" Lucas said after a long pause.
"Yeah?"
"You ever wonder if this place is trying to tell us something?"
Jeff turned his head, one eye half-open. "It's always talking. Most folks just forget how to listen."
Lucas stared at the ceiling, the faint glow of the veins tracing thin lines above him. "You think the veins remember us?"
Jeff's voice softened, almost lost to the hum. "Oh, they remember everyone."
Long after Jeff's breathing evened out, Lucas lay awake, watching the dim blue veins pulse along the walls. Every pulse seemed to match his heartbeat now — slow, deliberate, alive.
He thought of the miner again. Of Jeff's strange confidence. Of the whisper that had called him Mender.
Sometimes you just listen to what the walls are humming.
He turned his head toward Jeff's bunk. The older man was already snoring, but for a brief second, Lucas could've sworn the faintest shimmer of gold flickered across his eyes.
He blinked, and it was gone.
Lucas sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Most mistakes change the world," he muttered under his breath, echoing Jeff's words. "Guess I just hope this one doesn't end it."
The veins answered with a soft hum — steady, like breathing.
And somewhere, deep below, the Heart pulsed once in reply.