The first thing Torvin felt was the weight of his brother's hand on his shoulder.

  "Tor. Wake up."

  He came awake slowly, the way he always did—reluctant, dragging himself up from sleep like it cost him something. The ceiling of their shared room was the same as always: cracked plaster, water stains in the corner, a patch where the roof had leaked last winter and they hadn't been able to afford repairs.

  "Five more minutes," he mumbled.

  Cairn's hand shook him harder. "No can do. The foreman's already at the site. If we're late again, he'll dock us both."

  Torvin groaned and sat up. The cot creaked beneath him, springs worn thin from years of use. Across the small room, Cairn was already dressed, tunic mended in three places, boots held together by hope and good leather. He was two years younger but carried himself like the older one. Had been that way since their parents died.

  "Breakfast?" Torvin asked, rubbing his eyes.

  "No time. We’ll grab something on the way." Cairn tossed him his work clothes. "Come on. Move."

  Torvin dressed quickly, the motions automatic after years of the same routine. The tunic was rough against his skin, the trousers patched at both knees. His boots were the one thing he'd splurged on, good leather, properly fitted. They'd lasted three years so far. With luck, they'd last three more.

  The mining town of Glimmer's Edge was already awake by the time they stepped outside. The eastern sky showed the first hints of grey, the sun still hiding behind the mountains. Miners streamed toward the main shaft, a river of tired men and women headed for another day beneath the earth.

  Torvin fell into step beside his brother, accepting the hard roll Cairn pressed into his hand.

  "You think about what I said?" Cairn asked quietly.

  "I think about a lot of things you say. Most of them I try to forget."

  Cairn elbowed him. "I'm serious. About the assay office. They're hiring clerks. Better pay, safer work. You could—"

  "I'm not leaving you in the mines."

  "You're not leaving me. You're getting out. There's a difference." Cairn's jaw tightened. "Ma and Pa didn't work themselves to death so we could both do the same."

  Torvin said nothing. They'd had this conversation a dozen times. He always lost the argument, but he never changed his answer.

  The mine entrance loomed ahead, a dark mouth cut into the mountainside. Torches flickered along the walls, their light barely touching the shadows beyond. The foreman stood at the entrance, a thick man with a thicker ledger, marking each miner as they passed.

  "You two," he grunted as they approached. "Shaft seven. They hit something strange down there yesterday, old stonework, maybe ruins. The boss wants it cleared and catalogued before the scholars get wind of it."

  Torvin frowned. "Ruins? How deep?"

  "Deep enough. Take a crew, see what's there. If it's valuable, there's bonus pay. If it's dangerous..." The foreman shrugged. "Don't die. I hate paperwork."

  They took their lanterns and descended.

  The mine shaft sloped gradually at first, then steeply. The air grew colder, damper. The walls changed from rough-hewn stone to something older, smoother, worked by hands that weren't miners. Torvin ran his fingers along the surface as they walked.

  "This is old," he murmured. "Really old."

  Cairn held his lantern higher, illuminating faded carvings. Warriors fighting shadows. A massive door. People bowing before it.

  "Looks like some kind of history," Cairn said. "Maybe the scholars will pay for this."

  "Maybe." But Torvin's voice was troubled. The carvings felt wrong somehow. The shadows the warriors fought, they weren't just artistic flourishes. They were watching.

  The tunnel opened into a larger chamber.

  And stopped.

  Because the chamber wasn't empty. The ceiling had collapsed, recently, from the look of the dust still settling. Rubble blocked the far end completely. And half-buried beneath it, sprawled in impossible positions, were bodies.

  Three of them. Two men, one woman. All wearing the same dark blue uniforms, the kind Torvin had only seen once before, when Wardens passed through town on their way to somewhere more important.

  "Oh gods." Cairn's lantern shook. "Tor, those are—"

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "I know." Torvin was already moving, picking his way through the rubble. "Check for survivors. Fast."

  They found one.

  A man pinned beneath a slab of stone, his face grey, his leg crushed beyond saving. His eyes fluttered open as Torvin knelt beside him.

  "You—" The man coughed, blood on his lips. "You're not... not a Warden. What are you doing down here?"

  "Saving you if I can." Torvin grabbed the edge of the slab and heaved. It didn't move. "Cairn! Help me!"

  They pushed together, muscles screaming, and the slab shifted, six inches, eight. The pinned man dragged himself free with a sound Torvin would remember for the rest of his life.

  "Go," Torvin gasped. "The tunnel, up, there's a foreman, help—"

  "No time." The man grabbed his wrist, grip surprisingly strong. "Listen to me. The door. Below this chamber, there's a door. Ancient. Sealed. Something got through. Something woke up." His eyes were wild, fevered. "You have to warn them. Tell the Spire—"

  Something moved in the darkness behind them.

  Torvin turned.

  He didn't see it clearly, just a shape, wrong in every proportion, too many limbs, too many angles. But he felt it. Felt its hunger like a physical weight.

  "Run," the pinned man whispered. "Both of you. Run now."

  Cairn grabbed Torvin's arm. "Tor—"

  "Go." Torvin shoved him toward the tunnel. "Get to the surface. Warn them. Go."

  "But you—"

  "I'm right behind you. Move!"

  Cairn ran.

  Torvin grabbed the pinned man, tried to lift him, but the man shook his head. "Too slow. I'll hold it. Go."

  "I'm not leaving you—"

  "Yes you are." The man pressed something into Torvin's hand. cold metal, a shape. "Take this. It's my sigil. Broken now, but maybe... maybe it'll help. You're a good man. Don't let that change."

  Torvin looked at the object in his palm. A sigil, cracked clean down the middle. On one half, an eye over an open book. On the other, a gauntleted fist gripping a sword.

  He looked up.

  The injured man was already dragging himself toward the darkness, toward the thing that moved within it.

  "Go," he said one last time. "Live."

  Torvin ran.

  The tunnel blurred past him. He ran blind, one hand trailing the wall, the other clamped around the shard. Behind him, he heard sounds he chose not to remember. The chittering of something giving chase. The wet impact of—

  He didn't think about it.

  He just ran.

  His foot caught something and he went down hard, sliding, scrabbling, coming to rest against a wall. The tunnel forked. He couldn't remember which way led up. Everything looked the same in the darkness.

  The chittering grew louder.

  Torvin looked at the shard in his palm. It was warm. Getting warmer. And suddenly he knew things he hadn't known seconds before. How to hold a dagger. The weak points in chitinous armor. The shape of a word that could create fire.

  Ignis parva.

  He didn't understand. He didn't have time to understand.

  The thing rounded the corner.

  Torvin raised his palm and spoke the word.

  Nothing happened.

  The thing lunged.

  And then everything happened. The shard screamed, a high whine that drove into his skull like a nail, and from his palm erupted a burst of raw, formless light. Not fire. Something older. Something that burned without burning.

  The thing shrieked and recoiled, its too-many limbs flailing. The light carved into it, and Torvin saw it clearly for the first time: a nightmare given form, all wrong angles and hungry mouths.

  Then the light died. The shard went cold. And Torvin collapsed, gasping, blood running from his nose.

  When he looked up, the thing was gone. Fled, or dead, he didn't know.

  He lay in the darkness, breathing, alive.

  Then he heard it. A voice, not in his ears but in his mind. Deep. Ancient. Patient.

  Come home.

  Torvin's chest burned where the shard had been pressed against it. He touched the spot through his torn shirt and felt it: raised, scarred flesh in the shape of a broken circle. The exact shape of the sigil in his hand.

  Come home, the voice repeated. We've waited so long.

  Torvin thought of Cairn. Of his brother, running for the surface. Of the pinned man, buying him time with his life. Of his sister, because Cairn was out, but Leah was still up there, still in the town, still—

  Come home, and we'll give you the power to save them all.

  He didn't trust the voice. Didn't know what it was or why it wanted him.

  But he knew one thing: whatever had killed those Wardens, whatever had broken through the ancient seal, it wasn't done. And if it reached the surface, reached his brother, his sister, everyone he loved—

  Torvin pushed himself up.

  The voice came from deeper in the tunnels. Lower. Toward the door the dying man had warned him about.

  Torvin walked toward it.

  The door was massive. Ancient. Covered in seals and wards that flickered weakly, like candles guttering in a storm. And it was open. Just a crack. Just enough for something to slip through.

  The voice pulsed from beyond it.

  Come home, it whispered. Come home, little fragment. We have so much to give you.

  Torvin stood before it, the broken sigil warm in his palm.

  He thought of Cairn, running through the dark. Of Leah, probably still asleep in their tiny house, unaware of what stirred beneath her feet. Of the pinned man, who had given his life so Torvin could run.

  If you step through, he thought, you might not come back. You might become something else. Something worse.

  But if he didn't step through, whatever was on the other side would keep sending things through the crack. More nightmares. More deaths. Eventually, enough to reach the surface.

  He couldn't let that happen.

  Torvin stepped forward.

  The door swallowed him whole.