10 #2

Doven had sent two short beams. They placed them against the rock and built a triangle. The rope passed around the marked point. Teren and Bren took positions on the stairs.

Isolde set her hands on either side of the vein.

“I’ll heat a line,” she said. “Joren cools behind it with water. The difference will open a crack.”

“The air,” Kaoran reminded her.

“Three pulses. Then I wait.”

“Your body.”

“The scar is holding. My left hand is losing strength.”

Kaoran brought the strap closer and let her decide where he should support her wrist. Isolde wanted to close her eyes.

She remembered Darian waiting for a signal beside a canvas sheet, the hand she had raised for him to pull from the other side.

She could still feel the relief of that moment of cooperation.

She heard Sava on the other side of the pipe and brought her palm to the marked point.

“Tell me before you pull,” she told Kaoran.

“I will. If Ydrael’s pressure changes, we stop.”

Isolde checked the fastening herself. She nodded for Joren to ready the water.

Isolde reached for the dragon.

“We open it together.”

Ydrael answered with an image: twenty-seven hearts inside the mountain, one weak beneath the stone. His will aligned with hers for as long as they needed.

Isolde lit the line.

The rock changed from dark red to orange. Joren poured water along the trench. Steam filled the corridor. Kaoran covered his mouth and warned Bren to retreat toward the stairs.

First pulse.

The vein cracked.

Second.

Pain cut through her left hand and reached her shoulder.

Third.

Isolde withdrew the fire.

Joren threw the rest of the water. The crack followed the circle. Teren and Bren pulled the rope. The slab tilted toward the beams and hung suspended.

A head-sized hole opened. Sava appeared on the other side and pointed to an edge they could remove. Joren loosened it with the lever while Isolde held the crack without feeding it. The slab descended another handspan onto the beams.

The opening could fit a body sideways. A draft stirred Sava’s hair.

“Those who can walk first!” Isolde shouted through the opening. “Take the rope to the wounded.”

Sava appeared covered in mud. She put her arms through and let them pull her out. A woman with a bloodied face followed. Then came four men, two young people, and Emon, supported on both sides.

Kaoran treated him beside the stairs. A rod had pierced his abdomen. Removing it there could kill him.

“It stays in,” he said. “Bandage around it. We carry him out flat.”

Five workers remained on a ledge in the near section. They had climbed there when the water came in and needed to cross to the opening. Those who had just escaped passed a rope between two supports; Sava guided them one at a time. Bren counted fourteen shift workers in the corridor, including Emon.

“Twelve are still beyond the inner fissure,” Sava said. “Sel was between the two groups. With him, that’s all twenty-seven.”

Isolde went through the opening.

The space barely allowed her to stand. Water reached her thighs. The chamber smelled of blood and hot stone. Ydrael held the back wall through a root descending from the ceiling. Every vibration shook dust loose.

Sel lay beneath a plate. The machine’s bar passed through the rock and held one edge raised. His face was above water. His eyes were closed.

Isolde knelt and touched his neck.

She found no pulse.

Sava came in behind her.

“He hadn’t spoken for hours,” she said.

Isolde kept her fingers on his neck until Sava touched her shoulder. She recognized the small scar beside Sel’s eyebrow. He had stood watching the wheel as it began to turn, mud on his boots and his hands empty. Isolde withdrew her own hand from the water.

“We’ll bring him out,” she said.

“The others are still alive.”

“We open the fissure first.”

A mass of stone and metal blocked the inner passage. Knocks sounded beyond it. Isolde saw an opening near the ceiling, too small for an adult. Water rose through a crack in the floor.

“Ydrael can lift the root,” Sava said.

“He can choose whether to.”

Isolde rested her palm on it.

“There are twelve beyond it. Can you move it without losing the ceiling?”

The dragon showed the full weight: machines above the gallery, a tower of chains, and the river seeking a way out. Moving the root would collapse a tunnel farther east. Three guards were there, trapped since the cave-in.

Ydrael was holding both groups.

“We find another route,” Isolde said.

Sava looked at her.

“He’s a dragon.”

“He’s also holding up three men who helped chain him.”

“He could let them fall.”

“He’s chosen to keep them alive.”

Isolde followed the crack in the floor. Water entered from a cooling pipe belonging to the machine. If they closed the upper valve, the level would fall. The access was behind the plate covering Sel.

“We have to move him,” she said.

They built a support from the tools that remained. Sava placed a beam beside the bar. Isolde heated the far end until the metal yielded a few finger widths. The plate lowered onto the support. They freed Sel’s body and carried him beside the hole.

The valve appeared beneath him.

Sava closed it. The water stopped rising.

“Now we have time,” Isolde said.

They used the bent bar as a lever against the inner collapse.

The miners on the other side pushed. Each stone removed made room for another.

Isolde worked with her right hand and used her left to feel the vibrations.

When a piece supported weight, Ydrael answered with heat.

When it could be moved, the vein stayed cold.

Kaoran called from the opening.

“The air is getting worse.”

“How long?”

“An hour.”

Four paces of rubble remained.

Isolde gathered everyone able to work. She formed a chain with Sava and three miners. They passed stone, mud, and metal toward the door. Those outside removed the material through the hole.

Isolde’s left hand stopped responding. She shifted the strap to her forearm and kept pushing. Her scar began to burn with each breath.

“Say it,” Kaoran ordered from the other side.

“My hand has clenched shut. I can brace on my forearm; my side lets me breathe if I stop between loads.”

“Then Sava removes the pieces. You mark the ones bearing weight.”

Sava took a stone from her before Isolde could argue.

“I heard,” she said. “Give me something I can move.”

Isolde rested her good fingers on the edge of the next piece. She waited for Ydrael’s heat and marked another, smaller stone where the root stayed still.

From the cistern, Nia’s voice came through the pipe. She asked those trapped to repeat their names so she could check they were still conscious.

One by one, they reached Isolde.

Lorn.

Vessa.

Aric.

Pella.

Twelve names.

The map of the living extended behind the rock.

The last piece weighed more than the others. A blue beam passed through it and absorbed the heat. Isolde couldn’t cut it with fire without feeding the network.

“We pull upward,” Sava said.

“The ceiling comes down.”

“Then toward us.”

“It blocks the exit.”

Ydrael sent an image: the beam ended inside a machine on the surface. If someone released the gear, the metal would lose tension.

Isolde called through the pipe.

“Nia! I need Doven at the machine. Find the gear marked blue and cut the drive.”

The girl repeated the order. Voices traveled through the pipe, the cistern, and the laundry. Outside, Doven would have to cross the guarded yard.

Minutes passed.

Kaoran’s protected flame shrank again. Isolde noticed she had begun repeating instructions.

“We’re running out of time,” he said. “Fifteen minutes at most. Prepare to leave.”

A blow traveled along the beam.

Then another.

The metal lost tension.

Sava and the miners pulled. The piece came free of the rubble. A narrow gap appeared beside the floor. The first trapped person crawled through. The others followed.

The last was Pella, Nia’s mother. She had a broken arm and carried an unconscious boy on her back. Isolde took the boy and pushed him toward Sava.

The ceiling creaked.

Ydrael’s pressure began to withdraw from the root.

The decision came with a warning. The three guards in the eastern tunnel had reached a safe area. The dragon could let part of the chamber fall.

“Out!” Isolde shouted.

The root rose. The back wall collapsed, and water rushed in. Sava went through the hole. Isolde seized Sel’s body and pushed him ahead. The current struck her legs.

The left gave way.

Kaoran leaned in waist-deep, caught the strap on her arm, and pulled. Isolde crossed the opening as the iron door bent into the corridor.

Water filled the corridor.

They climbed the stairs with the wounded. Emon lay on a door. In the cistern, Pella reached her daughter and put her good arm around her shoulder. Bren sent them through the drain first. Varek’s watchman remained where they had left him, apart from the workers; Teren hoisted him onto his shoulders.

The drain water had nearly reached the ceiling.

Bren tied each person to the rope. They went out one at a time, held by the rope so the current wouldn’t throw them against the grates. Isolde stayed near the end. Her body had spent its heat, and her hands could barely feel the stone.

“You first,” Kaoran said.

“Sava isn’t here.”

“She’s already out.”

“Teren.”

“He’s carrying the guard.”

“Sel.”

Kaoran pointed to the bundle tied to the rope. It was ready too.

Isolde entered the pipe. She advanced on her elbows. Water pushed her toward the exit grates and kept her from choosing where to place her hands. Nia pulled from the bridge, repeating the names of those who had come out.

When Isolde saw light, she heard shouts outside.

Soren Tyre had discovered the operation.

The Guard surrounded the bridge. Doven and Mella blocked the way with dozens of neighbors. Enna tended Emon on a table. Soldiers tried to separate the families.

Isolde came out of the water with her gray cloak clinging to her body.

Soren recognized her from the report.

“Iria Thennar,” he said.

“Today you can use that name.”

The officer raised his sword.