The mines taught their lessons in blood and silence.
Garrett's first shift began before dawn—a sixteen-hour descent into Pit Fourteen where the air tasted of copper and something older. The work was simple in concept: chip ore from walls, load it into carts, haul it to the surface. Simple, and brutal, and designed to grind human beings into components.
The godite ore pulsed with dim luminescence, and the warmth in Garrett's chest answered it. Every time his pick struck the vein, every time his hands came near the raw crystal, he felt the heat behind his sternum flare—a call and response, like two instruments finding harmony.
The other new slaves saw colors bleeding at the edges of vision. They heard whispers. Two had to be dragged out before shift ended—one sobbing, one catatonic.
Garrett saw the same things. Heard the same whispers. But where others experienced chaos, he perceived pattern. The colors had structure. The whispers carried information, fragmented and old, like a language he'd once known and almost forgotten.
He filed it away. Kept working. Let the ore sing to whatever lived in his chest.
It was on his third day that the body became a problem.
A veteran slave—massive, scarred hands, eyes that had seen too much—grabbed Garrett's arm and spun him around.
"Kael?" The name came out like a wound. "Kael Ashford?"
Garrett kept his expression neutral. "Wrong person."
"No." The grip tightened. "I buried you. Three years ago, Thornveld borderlands. Watched the Crimson Guard cut you down."
Other workers were watching now.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Garrett said calmly. "My name is Garrett Cole. I have no memory of my past."
"Convenient." The man's voice hardened. "Kael Ashford was a spy. Thornblood agent. Got sixteen men killed when he fed our position to the enemy. Bodies disappear from Thornveld battlefields. The blood-drinkers have ways of bringing people back."
The warmth in Garrett's chest pulsed—not in fear, but in recognition. Something about this accusation resonated with whatever lived behind his sternum, like a key finding its lock.
"If I was this spy," Garrett said quietly, "why would I be here? In a slave mine? Wouldn't the Thornveld have better uses for their agents?"
The man hesitated. Logic working against emotion.
"Unless this is your cover—"
"To what? Spy on ore quotas?" Garrett let contempt sharpen his voice. "I woke up in a slaver's cart with no memory. If this body belonged to someone else, that's not my concern. I'm just trying to survive."
The grip loosened. Doubt crept in.
Then a new voice cut through.
"There a problem here?"
The speaker stood at the edge of the gathering—shorter than average, wiry, face designed to be forgotten. Rust. The mute who apparently wasn't.
The veteran released Garrett. "This doesn't concern you."
"Concerns everyone if overseers come wondering why production stopped." Rust's voice was flat, stripped of emotion. "Demos burned two surface workers this morning. You want to explain why you're holding up the line over a dead man's face?"
The veteran looked between them, calculating. Revenge versus survival.
Survival won.
"This isn't over," he said, walking away.
Garrett turned to Rust. "Thank you."
"Don't." Rust's expression didn't change. "I didn't do it for you. That idiot was going to get us noticed." He paused, studying Garrett with unsettling intensity. "But you should know: he's right about the face. I've seen sketches of Kael Ashford. Thornveld spy, executed during the border wars. You're wearing a dead traitor's body."
"I didn't choose it."
"No one chooses what they're given." Rust turned to leave. "The man who wanted to kill you—Brennan. He lost his brother in the ambush Ashford arranged. He won't forget. Sleep light."
Then he was gone.
Garrett stood alone with new information reshaping his understanding. The body had a history. Enemies. A reputation as a traitor.
And the warmth in his chest had recognized the name Kael Ashford. Had pulsed with something like memory when the accusation landed.
This vessel wasn't random. It had been chosen—or had chosen him.
That night, sleep came reluctantly.
When it finally took him, Garrett dreamed of fire.
Not Demos's fire—something older. A conflagration burning at the roots of the world, flames that didn't consume but transformed. He walked through the inferno untouched, toward a figure made of light and terrible patience.
You don't belong here, the figure said. Its voice was heat and hunger. This flesh was promised to us.
I don't care what was promised, Garrett replied. I'm here now.
Here through accident. Through cosmic spillage. The figure's form shifted, flames dancing. But accidents can be corrected.
Or they can be exploited.
Silence. The fire crackled with something like surprise.
You think yourself worthy of this vessel?
I think worthiness is determined by results, not permission.
The figure laughed—worlds cracking, stars dying. Bold. Foolish. Perhaps interesting.
The flames parted, revealing something behind the entity: a door, vast and ancient, covered in symbols that made Garrett's borrowed eyes water. The warmth in his chest blazed in response, straining toward it.
The flesh you wear carries old blood, the entity said. Older than my claim. Older than the Thornveld's marks. There are things sleeping in those veins that have not stirred for millennia.
What things?
That is not for me to say. The figure began to fade. But they are waking now. Your presence has seen to that.
What do you want?
What I was promised. But I am patient. The flames closed around the door, hiding it. Prove yourself worthy or fail. Either way, I will be watching.
And if I prove worthy?
The entity smiled with a mouth made of dying suns.
Then perhaps we negotiate.
Garrett woke gasping, the warmth in his chest burning like a brand.
Something had shifted in the night. The heat was no longer passive—it pressed against him now, demanding attention, carrying weight and intention. Like a door straining against its frame.
He pressed his palm to his sternum. Beneath the skin, beneath the bone, something moved.
The body he'd stolen was waking up.
Whatever old blood Kael Ashford carried—whatever the fire entity feared and coveted—it had been dormant. Waiting for the right catalyst.
An otherworld soul in an ancient vessel.
Him.
In the pre-dawn darkness, surrounded by sleeping slaves and the distant groan of the mines, Garrett smiled.
The thing in his chest wanted out. The entity wanted the body. Brennan wanted revenge. The church wanted obedience.
Everyone wanted something from him.
Time to start deciding what he wanted from them.
End of Chapter Two