The iron bells clanged with the merciless persistence of a headsman's axe, each strike reverberating through the stone walls of the slave quarters like a death knell.
Kael's eyes snapped open in the suffocating darkness, his body jerking awake despite the bone-deep exhaustion he was suffering from.
Around him, dozens of other bodies stirred in the cramped space, the rustle of straw bedding mixing with the metallic clink of shackles and the low groans of men whose bodies had long since passed their breaking point.
The taste of mine dust still coated his tongue from yesterday, gritty and metallic, while his lungs burned with each breath of the stale, moisture-laden air.
His joints protested as he forced himself upright, the familiar symphony of aches singing through his shoulders, back, and knees. Twenty-three years of this life had carved permanent grooves of pain into his flesh and bone.
"Move, you worthless dogs!" The voice cracked like a whip through the darkness, followed by the distinctive thud of a wooden staff striking flesh.
Kael heard Jorik yelp from somewhere across the quarters—the older man's reflexes had been slowing lately, making him an easy target for the bonded overseers who delighted in their small taste of authority over those even lower than themselves.
Kael rolled to his feet, his calloused hands finding his worn leather boots in the darkness.
The stone floor beneath his bare feet was slick with condensation that had seeped through the walls during the night, carrying with it the perpetual chill that seemed to permeate everything in this place.
He pulled on the boots quickly, their cracked leather offering little protection but better than nothing against the sharp stones of the mine.
The shuffle began—dozens of men moving in the synchronized desperation of those who had learned that the last to reach the food line received nothing but watery gruel and stale bread crusts.
Kael fell into step with the others, his iron ankle shackles adding their voice to the metallic chorus that echoed off the narrow corridor walls.
The chains had rubbed permanent raw patches on his skin, patches that never quite healed thanks to the salt and sulfur that clung to everything in the mines.
Thin shafts of pre-dawn light filtered through the barred windows high above, casting everything in sickly gray shadows.
The slave quarters stretched out like a catacomb, carved directly into the mountainside with all the care one might give to storing tools or livestock.
Which, Kael supposed with bitter humor, was exactly what they were.
"Kael." The voice was barely a whisper, but he caught it. Marcus, a younger man who'd arrived just six months ago with hope still burning in his green eyes, pressed close as they walked.
At nineteen, Marcus still carried himself like a free man, his shoulders straight despite the months of backbreaking labor. "I need to tell you something."
Kael's jaw tightened. Whatever Marcus had to say, it would mean trouble. Hope was dangerous here—it made men stupid, made them take risks that got them killed or worse.
"Not here," he murmured back, his eyes scanning the crowd for the telltale gleam of a bonded overseer's brass armband.
They reached the feeding area, a large cavern hewn from the rock with all the aesthetic appeal of a burial chamber. Iron cauldrons sat over magical heating stones, their contents bubbling with what passed for breakfast—thin gruel mixed with scraps of gristle and whatever vegetables were too rotten for the overseers to stomach.
The smell hit Kael's nostrils, a mixture of rancid fat, sulfur from the heating stones, and the underlying stench of too many unwashed bodies.
Kael grabbed a wooden bowl from the stack, its surface scarred by years of use and never quite clean.
The bonded man ladling out portions barely glanced at him as he slopped the gray mixture into the bowl, most of it missing entirely.
These were the lucky ones among the male population—men who had proven useful enough to avoid the mines, who had earned the privilege of serving their female masters directly.
They wore their brass armbands like medals of honor, as if proximity to power made them anything more than well-dressed slaves.
Finding a spot against the wall, Kael forced himself to eat the swill. Taste didn't matter—only calories, only fuel for another day of survival.
Around him, conversations hummed, men discussing rumors, complaints about work assignments, speculation about which overseers would be manning which tunnels today.
Marcus appeared at his shoulder again, settling against the wall with his own bowl. The younger man's hands shook slightly as he lifted the spoon to his mouth, and Kael felt his stomach clench with dread. That tremor wasn't from exhaustion.
"I've been taking extra food," Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible over the general murmur of conversation. "From the storage room. Just small amounts, things they wouldn't miss—"
"You fool." Kael's voice was flat, emotionless, but inside him something cold and sharp twisted in his gut. "For how long?"
"Three weeks. Maybe a month." Marcus's green eyes were wide with something between guilt and defiance. "My sister—she's pregnant, working in the textile mills. She's not getting enough nutrition for the baby, and I thought—"
"You thought." Kael set down his spoon with deliberate care, his scarred hands clenching into fists before he forced them to relax. "You thought you could steal from witches and they wouldn't notice."
Marcus's face paled. "They're just scraps, barely enough to—"
"It doesn't matter." Kael's voice cut through the younger man's protest. "They know. They always know."
As if summoned by his words, the temperature in the cavern dropped by several degrees.
Conversations died mid-sentence as every man in the room felt the unmistakable pressure of magical presence descending upon them like a suffocating blanket.
The very air seemed to thicken, becoming harder to breathe, and Kael felt his heart begin to hammer against his ribs with primal, animal terror.
She materialized from the shadows near the entrance, her footsteps silent on the stone floor despite the clicking of her heeled boots.
Witch Lyralei of the Frost Coven moved with grace like winter death, she wore pale blue robes. Ice crystals formed in the air around her with each breath, tiny diamonds of frozen moisture that caught the dim light.
Kael had seen her before, though never this close. She was young for a witch, perhaps thirty, with the kind of ethereal beauty that spoke of centuries of magical breeding.
Her skin was like polished marble, so pale it was almost translucent, and her white-blonde hair fell in a perfect cascade down her back.
But it was her eyes that marked her as something other than human—pupils like chips of black ice surrounded by irises the color of a winter sky, beautiful and utterly without warmth.
"Someone," she said, her voice carrying easily through the cavern despite being barely above a whisper, "has been stealing from me."
Men pressed themselves against the walls, trying to become invisible, their faces gray with terror. Kael felt Marcus stiffen beside him, the younger man's breathing becoming quick and shallow.
Lyralei's gaze swept across the crowd like a searchlight, and wherever it touched, men flinched as if struck.
Her magic pressed down on them, an oppressive weight that made it hard to think, hard to do anything but cower and hope to be overlooked.
"Theft," she continued, taking a slow step forward, "is a violation of the natural order. You exist to serve. Food is provided to keep you functional, not to satisfy your greedy appetites."
Another step, and frost began to form on the stone walls around her. "Someone has forgotten their place."
Marcus made a sound—barely a whimper, but in the absolute silence of the cavern it might as well have been a scream. Lyralei's head turned toward them with predatory precision, those winter eyes locking onto the younger man's face.
"Ah." The word was soft, almost gentle, but it carried the promise of agony. "There you are."
Marcus tried to run. It was instinct, the desperate flight response of prey caught in the open, but he made it barely three steps before Lyralei's magic seized him. Ice erupted from the ground around his feet, climbing his legs holding him in place as surely as iron shackles.
"Please," Marcus gasped, his face already turning blue from the cold radiating up from the ice. "Please, I was just—my sister, she needs—"
"Your sister." Lyralei's voice held a note of amused curiosity as she approached the trapped man. "How touching. You steal from me to feed a breeding sow who will produce more parasites for my mines."
She reached out with one pale hand and touched his cheek almost tenderly. Where her fingers made contact, his skin turned white with frostbite. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think your pathetic concerns mattered more than my property?"
The ice continued to climb, reaching Marcus's waist now, and Kael could hear the man's teeth chattering so violently it sounded like dice being shaken in a cup. The cold was beyond anything natural—it burned worse than fire, eating through flesh and muscle to freeze the very bones beneath.
"I'm sorry!" Marcus screamed, his voice cracking with agony. "I'm sorry, please, I'll never—"
"Oh, I know you won't." Lyralei's smile was beautiful and terrible, like winter sunrise over a battlefield. "You'll never do anything again."
The ice reached his chest, and Marcus's screams took on a quality that made several of the watching slaves retch.
The sound of tissue crystallizing and shattering was audible now, wet pops and cracks as the cold destroyed him from the outside in. His eyes bulged from their sockets, tears freezing on his cheeks before they could fall.
Kael forced himself to watch. He forced himself to memorize every detail—the way Marcus's lips turned black, the sound his bones made as they snapped from the cold, the casual expression on Lyralei's perfect face as she murdered a man for trying to feed his pregnant sister.
He committed it all to memory, feeding the ember of rage that burned in his chest, keeping it alive with images of suffering and injustice.
When it was over, Marcus stood frozen in a pillar of ice, his face locked in an eternal scream. Lyralei regarded her handiwork with the satisfaction of an artist completing a sculpture, then turned back to address the terrified crowd.
"Let this serve as a reminder," she said, her voice carrying easily through the cavern. "You exist at my sufferance. Your lives, your comfort, your very breath—all gifts that I may revoke at any moment."
She gestured casually at the frozen corpse. "Clean this up. And return to your duties. The mines won't work themselves."
She turned and glided from the cavern, her magical presence lifting like a weight removed from their chests.
For several seconds, no one moved. Then the bonded overseers sprang into action, shouting orders and cracking their staffs against shoulders and backs.
"Move! Back to quarters for equipment assignments!"
"You heard the Witch! Move your worthless hides!"
"Anyone caught staring at the ice sculpture gets to join it!"
The crowd began to disperse, men hurrying past Marcus's frozen form with averted eyes. Some crossed themselves with protective gestures learned in childhood, others muttered prayers to gods that had long since abandoned them.
But they all moved, because standing still meant attracting attention, and attention from witches meant death.
Kael remained against the wall for a moment longer, staring at what had been Marcus. The young man's green eyes were still open, forever frozen in that last moment of terror and regret.
He'd been stupid, yes, but he'd also been human. He'd loved his sister, had tried to protect her child, had acted with compassion in a world that punished such feelings with death.
This is the natural order, Kael thought, the words bitter as poison in his mind. This is how the world is meant to be.
He pushed himself away from the wall and followed the crowd back toward the quarters, his shackles adding their voice to the metallic chorus.
Around him, men whispered prayers or curses, but Kael remained silent. Words were useless here. Only power mattered, and power belonged exclusively to the witches.