Chương 1: Solstice

The sky above the settlement had been dark for as long as anyone could remember. No sun, no stars, just gray cloud stretched over everything like a lid nobody could pry off. What light there was came from lamps swinging on tired hands, throwing weak yellow circles across the snow. A group of men in thick coats and stitched hides stood in a loose circle, pickaxes over their shoulders, empty sacks hanging from their belts.

"Can't feel my fingers," someone muttered.

"Can't feel my stomach either," another said.

"Skipped again this morning."

"Once we hit the vein, we'll have water," a third voice cut in, tired but certain.

"Pale Salt melts clean. You know that."

"Yeah. If we hit it." Nobody argued that part.

"Is everyone here?" A broad shouldered man with black hair stepped forward, breath fogging in the cold.

"I think so, Captain," the frail man beside him said, his mouth hidden behind a black mask.

"Alright." The captain drove his pickaxe into the ice.

"Listen up. Today's extraction is different. The Cinder Office found a new vein yesterday." His face hardened.

"Could be the richest one we've seen this winter. Could also be another nest for those bastards. We move in together and."

"I'm thirsty." The words weren't loud. Somehow everyone heard them anyway. Azel's face went from calm to furious.

"Which bastard said that?" The crowd parted. A thin boy stepped into the open, pickaxe resting on his shoulder. His coat looked like it had survived three owners before it found him, stitching barely holding at the seams. Pale green eyes met the captain's without flinching. His hair was the same washed out color as the Last Sea.

"Who the hell are you?" Azel's eyes narrowed.

"What's a Nameless brat doing here?" A short, middle aged miner raised his hand, awkward.

"Captain, he's with us. Got a badge and everything."

"You know him?"

"No. But he's got the badge."

"So I figured."

"You figured."

"Badge," Azel said, holding out a hand. The frail boy reached into his coat. His thumb paused on it half a second too long. His heartbeat kicked up under his ribs, quick and unwelcome. He pulled it out and held it up. Azel barely glanced at it, flipped it once, and tossed it back without a second look.

"Fine." He looked Solstice over.

"You got a name?"

"I have one."

"What is it?"

"Solstice." Azel's eyebrows went up.

"Strange name." Nobody filled the silence after that.

"Your Domain?" Solstice hestitated.

"Expansion."

"So you're useful enough to keep alive." Azel jabbed a thumb at the mountain.

"Listen. I don't know what fool lets a kid your age work the mines, but if you freeze down there, we're not carrying you back up."

"Understood." Flat. Almost bored. Solstice had learned a long time ago that "understood" ended conversations faster than anything else in his vocabulary.

"Alright." Azel turned back to the group.

"This vein hasn't been explored. We don't know how deep it goes or what's living in it. Nobody wanders off. We take the salt. We leave." A miner raised his hand.

"Captain, where are the Saltbearers? Weren't they supposed to meet us an hour ago?" As if summoned, a low mechanical rumble rolled across the valley. A squat, six wheeled crawler ground through the snow, frame furred with frost, steam bleeding from vents along its hull. It stopped in front of the group and dropped its rear hatch. Four figures climbed out, heavy coats, dark cloaks, each with a reinforced thermic canister strapped to their belt. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author. Pale Salt. Enough to keep a settlement warm for a week. Azel straightened like a man remembering he had a spine. His voice softened into something almost polite.

"Captain." One of the Saltbearers gave a short nod.

"We'll take the expedition from here."

"Glad to have you."

'Figures. He's polite now.'

"Hey." Solstice turned. A boy a couple years older fell into step beside him, grinning like they were already friends.

"You're Expansion too?" Solstice rolled his eyes.

'Oh, frost bite me… Are you deaf? Didn't you hear what I just said?'

"Yeah."

"I'm Lere. No surname, but you can use that if you need something to call me." His eyes dropped to Solstice's coat, then his wrists, and stayed there a beat too long.

"You sure you're a miner? No offense, but you look like you're about to fall over." Solstice wanted to curse him. Instead his voice came out flat and even.

"Yes." Lere shrugged, easy about it, like the doubt hadn't cost him anything.

"Since we're both Expansion, you know how to create spaces, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Means I don't have to learn it." He grinned wider, like that settled something important.

"Wrap your hands," Solstice said instead, nodding at Lere's bare knuckles, already going red.

"You'll lose the feeling before the vein's even tapped out." Lere blinked, caught off guard.

"Didn't peg you as the caring type."

"I'm not. You drop the pickaxe, I do more work." Lere laughed, short and surprised, and dug a strip of cloth out of his coat anyway.

"So what made you take this job? Nameless don't usually get picked for expeditions."

"Needed the pay."

'Two days without water had a way of making a lie sound honest.'

'What I actually needed was salt in his hands and no one watching closely while he pocketed a piece of it, enough fever to crack his Saltis open and enough ice down here to melt into something drinkable. That was the whole plan. There wasn't a second one.'

'After all, this frostbitten world never handed out second chances to nameless rats.' Lere grabbed his pickaxe.

"That's it?"

"That's it." Solstice said as he looked at his pale trembling hands. Few minutes later, Azel's voice cut through the wind.

"Move out!" The expedition marched toward a fracture splitting the mountainside, lamps swaying with every step, throwing long shadows against the ice. They were maybe twenty steps into the tunnel when a body hit the ground. One of the miners near the back folded like his legs forgot how to work, convulsing, lips cracked and white. Someone shouted his name. A woman dropped her lamp trying to reach him. Solstice was already moving.

He crossed the distance before anyone else could take a second step, dropped to his knees beside the convulsing man, and started pulling at his coat.

"What are you doing?!" someone shouted. Solstice didn't answer. He stripped the coat off first, then the gloves, then checked the pockets while the man's body still jerked against the stone. A half-empty waterskin. Two chips. A folding knife with a chipped blade. All of it disappeared into Solstice's own coat before the man even stopped shaking.

"That's disgusting," someone spat.

"He's not even dead."

'Yeah, I'm disgusting. I'd rather be disgusting than dead. So shut your frostbitten mouth!' Solstice clicked his tongue.

"He will be," Solstice said, not looking up.

"Doesn't need the coat where he's going." For a second nobody moved. Then two more men dropped down beside the body, quick and ashamed, grabbing whatever Solstice hadn't already taken. Nobody looked at each other while they did it.

'Hypocrites' Azel didn't even walk back. He glanced over his shoulder, sighed like he'd seen it before, and kept walking.

"He's not the first," Azel said.

"Get back in line. We're already behind." Nobody argued that either. Solstice tucked the waterskin inside his coat and stood. Half a life, split down the middle. He'd take it. The deeper they went, the quieter the wind became, ice giving way to bare stone underfoot. Somewhere along the descent, his fingers stopped hurting. Warmth. Barely there, but there. The tunnel widened into a cavern. Pale, translucent crystal ran through the rock in veins, like rivers frozen mid flow.

The air carried a faint salt tang under the smell of wet stone, sharp enough to notice, not sharp enough to mind. The Saltbearers swept the cavern before stepping aside.

"Boys," Azel called.

"We're here. Everyone, start extracting." Pickaxes rose. Steel met salt, and the cavern filled with the rhythm of it, dozens of strikes overlapping into one long echo. Lere fell in beside him, swinging with more enthusiasm than aim.

"Bet you five chips I fill my sack first."

"You don't have five chips."

"I will. After I win." That's not how debt works, Solstice thought, and almost smiled. Almost. He tightened his grip. His stomach growled, his throat burned. He looked at the salt in front of him and thought of water, just enough to get through another day. The badge in his coat pocket didn't have his name on it. It never had. He'd taken it off a man three towns back who hadn't needed it anymore, the same way he'd take the coat off anyone who stopped moving before he did. His arms were too thin for real mining.

His hands shook by midday even when he wasn't swinging a pickaxe. Any real foreman would have taken one look and sent him back up the mountain. But nobody looked that closely at a Nameless kid holding a badge like he'd been born with it. Solstice had lied every day of his life. Today's lie would either feed him, or bury him. He breathed in.

"I'm thirsty." The pickaxe came down. CRACK.