Lyra moved the lamp closer and laid a finger across the chalk mark on the circulation diagram.
"Here," she said. "Not when you think she can take another breath."
Rylan nodded. Lena sat opposite him, palms against his chest, and began with a current so small he had to concentrate to follow it. Heat moved out of him. Her fingers tightened, then relaxed when he reduced the flow.
The first return soothed the obstruction below his ribs. He could feel his breathing deepen. Lena checked herself before allowing a second pass; Lyra counted at her wrist.
On the third pass, the current thickened. Lena's face changed before she could speak.
"Stop," Lyra said.
Rylan closed the flow. For a moment it dragged against him, refusing to separate from the return. Lyra broke their wrists apart as he pulled away. The last purified current struck his chest, and Lena collapsed against his arm.
[Foundation stabilized.]
[Lena: acute overload; moderate meridian damage; high contamination.]
He laid her back on the bed. Lyra called Orrin from the adjoining room. There were questions about the flow, about the moment the pulse changed, about what Lena had actually said. Rylan answered them while Orrin worked and Lyra measured out the remaining herbs. He could do nothing useful with the strength that had returned to him.
After the first crisis passed, he tried a cautious breath. The obstruction was gone. He stopped again, ashamed of how much relief the knowledge gave him while she lay shivering beside the lamp.
Lyra met him at the door. "You nearly killed her."
"I stopped."
"After the flow caught. Did you know it could do that?"
"No."
"Then say that before you tell her you can manage the next one."
He had intended to explain the recoil. Instead he looked at the marked diagram still lying on the table. They had prepared a limit. He had agreed to it. That had not made the treatment safe.
"There won't be a next one until she's recovered," he said.
Lyra opened the infirmary box. It held little beyond bandages and the last of the village herbs. "Orrin needs supplies," she said. "If you bring anything out of that mine, this comes first."
Rylan put his signet on the table. It would buy very little, but it was what he had. "Use it. The first money from the mine goes here."
He stayed until Orrin had the crisis under control. Toward dawn Lena woke long enough to ask for water and turn her face away from him. He set down the cup and let Lyra remain beside her.
Orrin sent him into the adjoining room. He lay on the mat until the pain eased enough to let him sleep for a short interval.
After sunrise, he set a wooden board against the clinic wall and tested the forearm scale at low output. The first impact hurt through it. He adjusted the circulation, tried once more and stopped before the wound began bleeding. When the sun reached the well, he summoned Mei.
She arrived looking exhausted, dark circles under her eyes. She held a receiver unit for her sound-orbs.
"Report," Rylan ordered.
Mei set the receiver on the table. A wire linked two devices she had salvaged from vanguard helmets. "Listening over a mile still works. Voice only carries between tuned pairs, and the signal fades beyond the next ridge. I can build a relay here if I use more copper." She had spent most of the night making the first pair audible until she could distinguish a word from the receiver's hiss.
"Activity on the eastern mine road," Mei said, holding up the device. "Heavy footsteps. Metal on stone. Not animals. Not a single mercenary."
"The Jade Empire?"
"No," Mei shook her head. "The nearest receiver caught rhythmic heavy steps moving east. A patrol, a hauling crew—I can't tell which from the sound alone."
Rylan frowned. If the Empire hadn't claimed the mine yet, someone else was moving in. Scavengers? Or a rival sect?
"I am going back," Rylan said. "And this time, I am securing it."
"Alone?" Mei asked. "With Elara out..."
"No," Rylan said. "You are coming with me."
Mei froze. "Me? Master, I am an Artificer. I build walls. I don't storm mines."
"You know formations," Rylan said. "You know how to spot traps. And you know the layout of a Spirit Ore mine better than anyone here."
"But I—"
"Get your gear," Rylan interrupted. "And bring tools to dismantle whatever arrays we find. We leave in ten minutes."
Mei hesitated, fear warring with duty. She looked at his shoulder, which was still stiff. She remembered how easily he had crushed her Senior Brother, but also how he had bled yesterday.
She bowed. "Yes, Master."
The return to the Spirit Ore Mine was cautious. Rylan moved with deliberate slowness, his Structural Vision active, scanning every tree and rock for the tell-tale shimmer of a trap.
Mei followed five paces behind him, clutching a rod made of conductive silver—a tool for disrupting spiritual flows.
When they reached the perimeter where Elara had been captured, the mercenary's body was gone. Only a scorched patch of earth remained where Rylan had ordered him burned. The mercenary's iron mind-shield had vanished from the marked ground.
Someone had found the site before them. That proved a visitor, not which faction had come.
"Careful," Rylan whispered.
They crept toward the mine entrance—a gaping maw in the side of a cliff.
The sound of pickaxes echoed from inside.
Rylan signaled Mei to stop. He crept to the edge of the entrance and peered inside.
It wasn't the Jade Empire.
Inside the cavern, bathed in the light of glow-stones, were a dozen figures. They were short, broad, and heavily muscled. Their skin was grey and rocky, as if carved from granite.
Earth-Kin, if the old trade accounts were right. Rylan had never met one. He could see mineral plates at their shoulders and picked hands around the mining tools; he could not tell what they wanted beyond relief from the whip.
And standing over them, directing the operation, was a human woman.
She was tall, wearing crimson robes that left her arms and midriff bare, revealing skin covered in black, shifting tattoos. She held a whip made of liquid fire.
[Ding! Target Analysis.]
[Target: Unknown Cultivator.]
[Affiliation: Crimson Lotus Sect (Rival to Jade Empire).]
[Cultivation: Foundation Establishment (Early Stage).]
[Threat Level: High.]
Rylan pulled back. The Crimson Lotus Sect.
They were here. They were stealing the ore right from under the Jade Empire's nose.
This changed everything.
Rylan looked at Mei. She was trembling again, staring at the woman in crimson.
"That's..." Mei mouthed. "That's a Disciple of the Crimson Lotus. They are... they are barbaric. They use blood rituals."
Rylan smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Perfect," Rylan whispered.
"Master?"
"The Jade Empire wants me dead," Rylan murmured, watching the woman with the fire whip. "They think I am a rogue. But what if they thought I was with the Crimson Lotus?"
He looked at Mei.
"Can you modify your flash-bombs to burn red instead of white?"
Mei blinked. "Yes. It's a simple chemical shift. Why?"
"Because," Rylan said, gripping his sword. "I am going to start a war between them. And while they fight... we take the mine."