Eithan raised his hands. “Surrendering myself into your custody, good sir.”

Jai Long’s spear wavered. “And why is that?”

“As just punishment for my many sins and imperfections. I am a cursed man, wracked by guilt.”

He smiled.

Slowly, Jai Long lifted his spear, then gestured for a Sandviper to come forward. A short man in furs scurried out, carrying a collar.

“I will be placing a restrictive collar on you,” Jai Long said, holding out the iron loop. “It is scripted to inhibit your madra.”

“A wise and prudent decision,” Eithan said, bowing forward to present his neck.

As though fearing a trap, Jai Long crept forward step by deliberate step, collar in one hand and spear in the other. Eithan sighed, but waited with all the patience he could muster.

Finally, cold iron snapped around his throat. “Adroitly done,” Eithan said, straightening up and clapping his hands together. “Now, the previous group is already in the Ruins. I’ll go on and catch up—we’re wasting valuable mining time.”

Jai Long stood over him, spearhead glowing with madra. The young man had a decision to make. And Eithan smiled pleasantly at him until he made it.

Jai Long took one step to the side, the light in his spear fading.

Wise decision.

Chapter 13

The square hallway was wide enough for all twenty miners and their five Sandviper escorts. Three of the guards moved in front, two in back, but most of the prisoners didn't seem to need guarding. They stumbled along with empty gazes, all of them with wounds both old and fresh.

Each of the prisoners, including Lindon, carried one of the scripted iron barrels that Fisher Gesha had called mining equipment. It was light enough for the rest of them, with their Iron bodies, but Lindon's arms began to burn after half an hour of carrying it. By the time he started sweating and pushing to keep up with the rest of the pack, they still hadn't passed the first hallway.

The hall itself would have been worth a closer look, if it didn't take all his concentration to stay upright with the barrel. Script ran along the walls, with runes etched deeper than his fingers and wider than his hand. It must have continued for miles, judging by how long they'd traveled.

He couldn't even comprehend the scale of a circle like that. It must only be a small part of whatever mechanism drew in vital aura from all over the region, which made it more ambitious than anything he'd ever imagined.

They finally came to a stop in a room shaped like a cylinder, where five other hallways identical to their own had ended. The room was smaller than he'd expected, and while they weren't crowded, he could see why the Sandvipers hadn't taken more miners.

His first question, when one of the guards raised a torch, was why this room had been made of a different type of stone. Unlike the blocks of the hallway, these were splashed with darker shades of color, as though the blocks had been spattered with...

He missed a step.

Fragments of bone were more common than pebbles on the floor. All clean, and none larger than his thumbnail. A distinct scent of copper and rot lingered in the air, and the stone was stained twice as high as his head.

Whatever happened here, it hadn't left any bodies. The dead had been blasted apart.

The old miners had begun to huddle together, setting their barrels down in the center and gripping the handles. A handful, including Lindon and Yerin, glanced around as though waiting for instruction.

The same guard Lindon had seen before, the bored-looking Sandviper woman with the sword, tapped her weapon against the stone to gather their attention. “The activation script for your harvesters is on your handles,” she said, in the tone of someone who had repeated the same instructions for so long that the words came out on their own. “If you stop mining, we leave you here. If you run, we leave you here. If you harass or disobey a guard, we leave you here. Meal comes at midday. When battle starts, don't panic or run, just trust us to cover you. You panic, and we'll leave you here.”

With that, she turned and took up a position covering two tunnel mouths. Three of the other guards did the same, though one continued to patrol among the miners.

Lindon set up next to Yerin, who was still pale and shaking from the venom.

“We’ll pay them back for this,” Lindon said. “A hundred times over, we’ll pay them back.” It wasn’t the sort of thing that would comfort him, but he suspected Yerin would appreciate revenge more than sympathy.

She smiled in one corner of her mouth even as she gripped the harvester's handles. “Master always said I should get captured once or twice. Shows spine when you break free.”

The guard shouted at them to work before Lindon could respond, but his spirits lifted. If Yerin hadn't given up, there was still hope.

If nothing else, running the harvester would be good exercise for his madra. If he got his hands on a few scales, he might even be able to advance while he was down here.

Now that he'd settled on a goal, Lindon grabbed the handles and sunk his spirit into the script.

The harvester activated almost immediately, drawing Lindon's senses to the aura in the air around him...

He swallowed back a scream.

It was a silent storm, a chaotic gale of blinding color that flashed and blasted in every direction as though it would tear everything apart. He couldn't pick a single aspect out of the maelstrom—anything, maybe everything. It felt as though it would peel the flesh from his bones with sheer force, though it passed through him harmlessly.

When the harvester began, it pulled the slightest breath of that aura from the air, running it in a corkscrew pattern through the center of the iron barrel. The energy circled between the crystal chalices at the bottom—purifying the aura and converting it to madra, no doubt—and Lindon's spirit was only necessary to keep the script running so that the process continued. The crystals were steadily filling up, and when they were full, he supposed the final stretch of script would activate and pop out a scale.

He wasn't sure, because he had to release the harvester when his core ran dry. He leaned over the barrel, panting heavily.

The Sandviper guard wore the hide of a bear-like dreadbeast and had an axe in one hand. Lindon had to flinch as the man stalked closer, growling.

“Back to work,” the man spat, jabbing him with the butt of his axe.

Lindon met the man's eyes, trying to look earnest. “I'm sorry, honored elder, but I'm only—”

The man hit him again, hard enough that the room spun in a haze of pain. “Don't give me that look. You think you're getting out of here? The dreadbeasts are coming, and they're going to...Where's your collar?”

He swung the axe harder, and if Lindon hadn't let himself collapse with the blow, it would have broken his shoulder.

“What have you done with it?” the man roared, lifting his axe again. Lindon sputtered out protests, holding up a hand to protect himself. Yerin moved, standing in front of him.

Something skittered across the floor like a stone across the surface of the pond, and the guard tripped.

His foot flew out behind him, and for an instant, Lindon expected him to plant his face in the floor. But he was still a Gold, and he caught himself with one palm against the ground, flipping upright. He spun around, pulling a second axe from his belt.