Deep in the choked arteries of the Deep-Spine mines, Dusty Digby Oval was a portrait of grim determination. His face, already etched with grit, was a mask of soot and sweat as he bellowed orders. "The support beam's holding! Get the pulley over here! Easy now—we pull together on three! One, two—!"
His voice was swallowed by a deep, groaning rumble that came not from the cave-in, but from the island itself. The very stone beneath their boots vibrated, then shuddered. A fine, perpetual rain of dust from the ceiling became a sudden cascade of pebbles.
"BACK!" Dusty roared, his voice cracking with urgency. "Everyone, pull back to the main shaft! NOW!"
His crew scrambled, abandoning their tools. Before they could clear the tunnel, the rock floor at the center of the cave-in pulsed with an angry, red light. A sharp CRACK split the air, louder than any explosion. A jagged line, thin as a hair at first, scored itself across the stone, glowing from within like the slit of a demon's eye. The smell hit them—a scorching, sulfurous reek that drove the air from their lungs.
The crack didn't just sit there. It moved. It spiderwebbed out with terrifying speed, branching like lightning frozen in stone, each new fissure weeping a thick, sluggish river of molten rock. The glowing magma, the island's angry blood, began to seep through, hissing and popping as it met the cooler air. Its path was unmistakable, a burning arrowhead pointing deeper into the mountain, towards the heart of the Ruru-Gin's world.
The cheer that shook Maru-Tinton was one of pure, tribal joy. A young Ruru-Gin rider had just set a new vertical record, clinging to his bucking ram as it scaled a near-overhang. The "RU-RU-RU!" chant was deafening.
Then the floor punched them in the feet.
The tremor that reached the city was a delayed, rolling wave of force. It wasn't a shake; it was a violent, sideways lurch that threw Ruru-Gin from their perches and sent mugs of Black-Lung Stout flying. The roar of the crowd turned into a unified scream of terror. The ancient black spires groaned in protest, raining down centuries of dust and rust.
Aurélie's hand went to Anathema's hilt by instinct, her eyes scanning for threats. Across the heaving plaza, she saw Ember. The girl was staring at the ground, frozen, as a crack—a twin to the one in the mines—snaked across the plaza floor. It glowed with that same hellish red light, illuminating the panic-stricken faces around her in a nightmarish strobe. Ember blinked, her body swaying as she struggled to stay upright. Aurélie saw the change begin—the clarity in her eyes clouding over, replaced by a widening, manic panic. The color of the lava, the violent red light, was a trigger screaming directly into her psyche.
"EMBER!" Aurélie shouted, her voice a blade trying to cut through the chaos.
It was useless. The sound was a wall: the screams, the shuddering grind of stone, the rising, gurgling hiss of magma beginning to ooze from the crack. Ember's hands flew to her ears. She shook her head violently, as if trying to dislodge a voice only she could hear. Then she turned and ran, a flash of pink hair and tattered crimson, diving into a narrow service tunnel carved between two leaning ruins.
Aurélie cursed, a sharp, venomous sound. She shoved through the scrambling Ruru-Gin, but the ground bucked again. A section of the plaza near her split open with a sound like snapping bones, a fresh gout of glowing lava welling up and cutting off the most direct path. She was forced to stagger back, watching helplessly as her charge vanished into the trembling dark.
As suddenly as it began, the tremor ceased. The silence that followed was almost worse, filled with the crackle of cooling rock, the whimpers of the injured, and the ominous, steady glug of the new lava stream cutting a glowing scar through the center of Maru-Tinton.
The Ruru-Gin, trained by generations of minor quakes, shook off their panic with remarkable speed. They scurried, checking on neighbors, righting stalls, their "Ru-ru-ru"s now murmurs of concern.
Glinty-Hoshly climbed onto a fallen slab, her presence a calm anchor. "The mountain sighs," she announced, her rustling voice carrying authority. "It is a hot sigh. The Veins run close. Teams One and Two, secure the old flood channels—divert the glowing blood away from the wool stores. Team Three, check the ceiling anchors in the Nesting Spires."
Tori-Rick jumped up, his commander's instincts overriding his youth. "You heard the Oracle! Move with the Weight! Nito-Dunc, gather the rams in case we need to evacuate the young!"
Aurélie found Charlie clinging to his chunk of machinery, his notebook clutched to his chest, his pith helmet dusty but secure. "Are you intact?" she asked, her voice tight.
"Ahem! A minor seismic event, albeit of significant localized magnitude!"
"Ember is gone," Aurélie cut through his lecture.
Charlie's academic fervor dimmed. He adjusted his round glasses. "Ah. The… the red light."
"We need to find her. Now."
Nito-Dunc rushed up to them, his copper hair wild. "Who are—?"
"We are short on time," Aurélie interrupted, her steel-gray eyes missing nothing. "She already has a head start." She looked at Charlie. "We go."
Charlie nodded, snapping his notebook shut with resolve. "Lead on."
As Aurélie and Charlie sprinted towards the tunnel Ember had used, Nito-Dunc blinked, then turned and whistled sharply. "Tori-Rick! The tall friends are running into the Deep-Wrong Tunnels!"
Tori-Rick's head snapped up. The Deep-Wrong Tunnels were old, unmapped, and whispered to be the home of the angriest "Silent Ones." Forgetfulness warred with duty, and duty won. "Gin-Becy! With me! Nito-Dunc, get two rams! We can't lose guests in a mountain sigh! It's bad hospitality!" He grabbed a burning torch from a sconce, his Gilded Tiger-Claw bouncing at his hip, and led his hastily assembled rescue squad after the disappearing surface-dwellers.
Above them all, the silver bell in the ancient arch hung silent, and the new river of fire painted the ruins of a fallen civilization in the savage, flickering light of the present danger. The mountain had sighed, and in its hot breath, a fragile, explosive girl was now lost in its darkest lungs.
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