Two years later. Aris was ten.
The mines of the Shadow Pits were usually filled with the sounds of pickaxes and cursing, but lately, a new sound had filled the tunnels: whispering.
It wasn't the children whispering about extra rations. It was the overseers. They huddled in the flickering light of the lanterns, their faces grim, speaking in hushed tones about "border provocations" and "broken treaties."
Aris listened. He always listened.
He stood near a support beam in Sector 7, wiping coal dust from his face. His body had grown leaner, harder. The baby fat was gone, replaced by wiry muscle earned from hauling ore carts that weighed three times his own weight.
"What are they saying?" Doran asked, leaning on his shovel. At ten, Doran was already as tall as some of the adult guards, though he still had the soft eyes of a gentle giant.
"The Kingdom of Westvale moved troops near the Silver Pass," Aris murmured, not looking up from the cart wheel he was greasing. "And Eastmarch ships were spotted near the coastal cliffs. The truce is thinning."
"Does that mean war?" Mira asked. She was sitting on top of the ore pile, juggling three jagged stones. She had grown into her speed; she was restless, always moving.
"It means the King will need more iron," Aris said darkly. "And that means they're going to work us harder."
As if summoned by his words, the ground beneath them shuddered.
It wasn't a subtle vibration. It was a heave. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The lanterns flickered violently.
"Earthquake?" Lenn asked, his voice trembling. He clutched a slate tablet he used to tally ore counts.
"No," Aris said, his eyes narrowing as he felt the vibration pattern in his bare feet. "That was an explosion. Methane pocket. Sector 8."
Sector 8 was below them.
A second later, a boom echoed up the shaft, so loud it slapped against their eardrums. The air pressure shifted instantly, sucking the breath out of their lungs. Then came the screaming.
"Cave-in!" a guard shouted from the junction. "The lower supports are gone! Get back! Everyone back to the main shaft!"
Panic erupted. The narrow tunnels turned into a stampede. Dozens of children and adult slaves dropped their tools and scrambled toward the lift, shoving and clawing at each other.
"Run!" Doran yelled, grabbing Tova's arm.
"Wait," Aris barked. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the chaos like a knife. He wasn't looking at the exit. He was looking down the tunnel toward the junction. "The blast collapsed the main ramp. If we run to the lift, we'll be stuck in the bottleneck. The ceiling there is unstable."
"So we stay here and get crushed?" Mira snapped, though she didn't run. She trusted him.
"No," Aris said, his mind racing. He visualized the map of the mine—every twist, every vent. "We go down."
"Down?" Lenn squeaked. "The explosion was down!"
"The old drainage pipe in Sector 8," Aris explained rapidly. "It connects to the river outflow. It bypasses the main shaft. It's the only way out that won't bury us."
The ceiling above them groaned. A shower of fist-sized rocks clattered onto the tracks.
"Trust me," Aris said, locking eyes with them. "Form up. Doran, front. Tova, Lenn, middle. Mira, rear. Move!"
They moved. Not as panicked slaves, but as the unit they had been pretending to be in the dark.
They sprinted toward the disaster. The air grew hotter, thick with the smell of sulfur and dust. They passed miners running the other way, faces masked in blood and terror.
"You're going the wrong way, brats!" a bleeding man shouted at them.
Aris ignored him. "Doran, shield!"
Doran didn't hesitate. He grabbed a discarded wooden crate lid from the ground and held it over his head as they ran under a fracturing archway. Debris rained down, bouncing off the wood.
"Clear!" Doran shouted, his voice deepening with adrenaline.
They reached the entrance to the old drainage pipe. It was barred by a rusted iron grate.
"It's locked!" Tova cried, pulling at the bars. Her hands slipped on the wet rust.
"Doran," Aris commanded. "The hinge. Kick it."
Doran stepped back, roared, and drove his heavy work boot into the rusted hinge. The metal groaned but held.
"Again!" Aris yelled, grabbing a pry bar from the floor and jamming it into the gap. "Together! On three! One, two, three!"
Doran kicked. Aris pried.
Snap.
The grate flew inward with a screech of tearing metal.
"Inside! Go, go!"
They scrambled into the narrow, damp pipe just as the tunnel behind them gave way. A massive slab of granite crashed down where they had been standing seconds ago, sealing the entrance with a thunderous boom.
They were in total darkness.
"Is everyone here?" Aris whispered, his voice echoing in the pipe.
"Here," Mira's voice came from the black.
"Here," Lenn wheezed.
"Here," Tova said firmly.
"I'm here," Doran breathed heavily. "That... was close."
Aris slumped against the cold, wet wall of the pipe. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but his mind was clear. They had survived because they listened. Because they were disciplined.
"We follow the airflow," Aris said, standing up in the dark. "It leads to the river. We made it."
They crawled for an hour until they saw grey daylight ahead. They tumbled out of the drainage pipe onto the rocky riverbank outside the mine, gasping for fresh, freezing air.
They were covered in muck, bleeding from scrapes, and shaking. But they were alive.
High above them, on the battlements of Ironhold Keep, war horns began to blow. Not the single blast for a shift change. Not the double blast for an inspection.
Three long, deep blasts.
Doooooom. Dooooom. Dooooom.
The sound rolled down the mountain like an avalanche.
Lenn looked up, his face pale beneath the soot. "Three blasts," he whispered. "I've never heard three blasts."
Aris stared up at the fortress. He knew what it meant. He remembered the codes from his studies in the previous life, and the whispers of the guards.
"One for work," Aris recited softly. "Two for danger."
"And three?" Mira asked, her voice quiet.
"Three for war," Aris said.
The stalemate was over. The rumors were true. The Fifty-Year War was waking up from its slumber, and it was hungry.
Aris looked at his friends—their scraped knees, their thin arms. They were ten years old.
I need more time, Aris thought, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. I'm not ready to protect them yet.
But the horns didn't care.