The mine did not echo stone—
it echoed people breaking themselves against it.
Pickaxes struck in jagged rhythm, iron teeth scraping veins already stripped bare. Men dangled on ropes over black shafts, hands blistered, eyes hollow. Every strike was less for survival than to delay a sentence—the sentence written by the dragon above.
The koi floated in Brandon's basin, Sense spread thin. Every heartbeat in the mine pulsed the same rhythm: desperation. They weren't mining emeralds. They were mining time. If the quota failed, the load shifted. From stone to flesh. Families would pay instead.
A shout shattered the rhythm.
A miner slipped. His boot lost grip, body pitching toward the abyss. Brandon moved before thought—an order barked, Frostwing diving, claws catching rope and shoulder in one clean motion. The man dangled, pale and trembling, before being hauled back onto stone.
"Careful," Brandon said, voice steady but not cold.
The man collapsed to his knees. When he raised his head, his eyes were raw.
"Han," he rasped. "My name's Han."
Frostwing folded her wings, silent.
The story spilled like a wound. His wife devoured by the Emerald Dragon two months ago—payment for a shortfall. Two children left behind in a shack carved out of dust and grief. "They cook what I bring home. They don't cry anymore. They've grown too fast."
The koi's scales prickled. A drop fell from the cavern roof into his basin, rippling outward. He tried not to feel it. The ripples spread anyway.
The ground trembled.
Every miner froze. They knew the sound. They knew the weight.
"The dragon," someone whispered.
Chaos erupted. Tools clattered, ropes snapped as men fled. But the tremor deepened to a roar, and dust rained from the ceiling.
Outside, wings blotted the light.
The Emerald Dragon descended.
It was no subtle beast. Its body was a mountain plated in green fire, veins of light crawling under each scale. Wings unfurled wider than streets, swallowing torches and sky alike. When it landed, the mine itself seemed to bow.
Silence.
The aura didn't choke—it pressed like a centuries-old debt, crushing lungs into stone. Knees buckled. Even Brandon faltered, spear clenched, Frostwing bristling under the pressure.
The koi felt the miners' thoughts as if they were his own. Emeralds or flesh. Wives or children. That was the law carved into them.
And memory struck.
A classroom. His human self, small, soaked, pockets turned out. "Protection money" short. The bully's sneer. The teacher's cold eyes. His parents never coming. The accusation of theft branded into silence.
Different scales, same law: protection money, emerald quotas, tribute. The strong fed while the weak broke. The miners bled themselves for family. His parents hadn't even stayed to believe him. The contrast cracked something inside him, and the abyss yawned.
The dragon exhaled. Emerald light shimmered, painting the cavern. Miners fell to their knees.
The koi trembled, not from fear, but from the echo of that abyss. For once he did not feel like prey. He felt like a shard of memory sharpened into the present.
The abyss deepened. And he kept falling.
—
Far away, on thunderclouds, Joren leaned forward on Thundermaw's scarred head. Through the Link, he watched the Emerald Dragon claim the mine. His grin was bright as lightning.
"You greedy bastard," he murmured. "This might be fun."
Thundermaw growled low, thunder rumbling like dice shaken in a gambler's palm.
Joren's grin sharpened. The burden kept climbing.
"Let's see which side snaps first."
And the storm rolled closer.