The Great Gate of Fort Iron-Thistle didn't just close; it sealed the world away with a boom that vibrated in Elian's teeth.

  Inside, the fort was a skeletal nightmare of obsidian and iron. Above, the lavender sky was finally yielding to a bruised, sickly moon that cast long, distorted shadows across the inner ward. Elian looked up, realizing this might be the last time he saw the sky for weeks. The architecture was aggressive—every balcony was a lookout, every stone was carved with jagged runes designed to suppress the Aura/Mana-flow of anyone trapped within its walls.

  The "Slaves" were marched past the central keep toward the Eastern pits. This was the "Sleeper Barracks," though the name was a cruel joke.

  "In! Move it, you filth!"

  The guards shoved them into a stone cell that was barely large enough for ten men, yet forty were already crammed inside. The air was a thick, humid soup of unwashed bodies, rot, and the metallic tang of Aether-fever. There were no beds, only thin layers of moldy straw that had been flattened into the dirt. Elian found himself pressed between Talin's solid frame and the cold, damp stone of the wall.

  The social order of the cell established itself within minutes. On the far side, near the only small grate that allowed for a draft of air, sat the Vanguard Unit. They were the "alphas" of the slave world—larger, meaner, and armed with the arrogance of men who were allowed to hold actual weapons, even if they were just rusted spears.

  One of the Vanguard, a scarred man with a broken nose, looked over at the mining unit huddled in the shadows. His eyes landed on Elian.

  "Look at this," the man sneered, standing up and towering over the twelve-year-old. "They're sending high-born runts to the veins now? You're going to slow down the quota, kid. And when the quota drops, we don't get our extra scrap of meat."

  Before Elian could even react, the man's heavy boot lashed out, catching Elian in the ribs. The force threw him back against the stone wall. Pain flared—sharp and blinding—but Kaito's mind remained cold, cataloging the man's reach and the way he leaned on his left leg.

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  Baraq whimpered, but Talin grabbed the boy's arm, shaking his head. Not now, his eyes said. Not yet.

  The Vanguard members laughed, stepping forward to kick at the other miners, asserting their dominance through mindless violence. Just as the scarred man raised a fist to strike Talin, the iron bars of the cell door were struck by a heavy metal baton.

  "Quiet, you dogs!" a guard roared from the corridor. "Save your energy for the dirt. Anyone making noise by the next turn of the hourglass gets no rations for three days."

  The cell fell into a suffocating, hateful silence. Elian clutched his side, feeling the heat of a bruise forming. He looked at the scarred man, his silver-grey eyes reflecting the faint moonlight from the grate. He didn't look away until the man turned his back.

  Morning didn't come with a sunrise; it came with the sound of a steam whistle that screamed through the barracks.

  The "breakfast" was a wooden bowl of grey, lukewarm gruel. It smelled of sawdust and old grease. Elian stirred it with a finger, finding a few hard husks of grain that hadn't been ground properly. It was barely enough calories to sustain a child, let alone a laborer, but he forced himself to swallow every drop. He needed the fuel. Across from him, Kaelen ate his in three silent gulps, his expression as blank as a statue's.

  "Eat it all," Talin muttered, scraping his own bowl. "The mines eat the men who don't eat the slop."

  The doors were flung open again. The morning air was even colder than the night before.

  "Vanguard! To the perimeter!"

  The scarred man and his unit were dragged away, chained together, their rusted spears glinting in the dim light. They looked back at the miners with mocking grins, as if hunting monsters in the Lawless Zone was a privilege compared to what awaited the others.

  Then came the turn of the Sappers.

  The butchery-build man stood at the head of the line, a heavy wooden crate at his feet. He didn't hand the tools out; he threw them.

  Clang.

  A heavy, iron-headed pickaxe skidded across the stone and stopped at Elian's feet. He reached down and gripped the handle. It was heavier than it looked, the wood rough and splintered. But it was the head of the pickaxe that drew his attention. It wasn't just iron.

  Etched into the metal were dark, pulsing runes that felt cold to the touch. This was the Mana-Siphon. It didn't have a battery or a fuel source; it lived off the life-force of the person holding it.

  "Grab your iron and move!" the guard barked.

  Elian hoisted the pickaxe onto his shoulder. The metal felt like a parasite, a heavy weight that seemed to pull at his very marrow. He looked at the yawning black hole of the mine entrance, the jagged obsidian teeth of the fort looming behind him.

  The "sorting" was a memory. The "weight" was now his reality.