Elara leaned in, voice hushed, eyes scanning the room as she began explaining the plan.
But before she could get far, the bone horn blared through the mess hall, a deafening wail that drowned out every other sound.
Second shift.
Elara cursed under her breath. "Just trust me on this, Raine," she said quickly. "I know trusting a guard doesn't feel right, but… you remember two weeks ago? When Timothy and Paris vanished?"
Raine stiffened. He did. Everyone did. Two slaves gone in the middle of the night, their names never spoken again. Most assumed they had been executed in secret. But now—
"It was the guard," Elara continued. "The same one who delivered your note. He helped them escape."
Raine barely heard her. His mind was tangled in doubt, replaying the words the guard had whispered to him in the morning.
"Hope's a dangerous thing in this place. Don't let it kill you."
Then came the crack.
White-hot pain exploded across Raine's back.
His body jerked forward, knees buckling for half a second before he caught himself. A second lash followed, searing through flesh. He bit down hard, the taste of iron thick on his tongue. His vision blurred for a moment, pain spreading like molten metal beneath his skin.
The bone whip coiled at the guard's side, stained red.
"You deaf, slave?" the man sneered. His voice was thick with amusement as he stepped closer, looming over Raine's hunched body. The handle of the whip pressed into the raw wound on his back, grinding into torn flesh.
Raine sucked in a sharp breath, body screaming at him to move—but he stayed still.
"No scream?" The guard chuckled, shaking his head. "You trying to act tough, boy? You think that'll make me stop?"
Elara shot to her feet.
She didn't just tense—she moved. One step forward, shoulders squared, her breathing ragged. Her hands twitched, fingers curling as if searching for a weapon that wasn't there.
The guard barely spared her a glance, amused by her defiance.
That was a mistake.
Elara was seconds away from lunging, from tearing into him with nothing but her bare hands and sheer rage.
No. No, no, no.
Raine's hand shot out, gripping her wrist before she could do something reckless. His fingers were weak, but they tightened just enough to hold her back.
"It's okay, Elara," he murmured, forcing a smirk despite the fire licking across his spine. His voice was strained but steady. "Just a scratch."
She didn't move. Her jaw was clenched so tightly it looked like it might shatter.
For a moment, he thought she might ignore him.
Then, slowly, her fingers uncurled.
She exhaled through her nose, hands trembling as she knelt beside him, slipping her arm under his to help him stand.
Neither of them said another word.
The two of them rushed out of the chow hall, blending into the sea of bodies moving toward their next shift.
The Ossuaries—a vast underground chamber where the air hung thick with the scent of rot and marrow.
Towering shelves of polished bones stretched toward the cavern ceiling, their pale surfaces gleaming under the dim, flickering glow of spirit lanterns. Shadows crawled across the walls, twisting in unnatural shapes, stretching and shifting like something alive.
Raine stood at a stone table, a carving tool clutched tightly in his trembling hand. Before him lay a body—just another nameless slave, most likely dead since yesterday. The skin had already begun to shrink against the bone, the lips pulled taut over stiff teeth. The corpse's fingers were curled inward, as if grasping for something it would never reach.
The scent of decay burned the back of Raine's throat. He swallowed it down.
Around him, the chamber was filled with the hollow, rhythmic scrape, scrape of metal on bone. Slaves worked in silence, heads bowed, their hands methodically stripping flesh from bodies that no one would mourn. Bone Spur Sect guards prowled between the tables, watching, ensuring the work never slowed.
Raine exhaled, willing his hands to steady. He had done this a hundred times before. A thousand. It should be easy.
It wasn't.
His grip tightened around the carving tool, knuckles turning white. The blade hovered over cold flesh, its edge glinting beneath the pale light. Just another nameless body. Just another task to complete.
A sharp breath. The scent of marrow burned in his lungs. He forced himself to move.
The first incision cut through the skin with disturbing ease.
Flesh peeled away like wet parchment, exposing the raw ivory of ribs beneath. Blood no longer flowed—the body had long since emptied itself—but the scent of rot deepened, clinging to him, sinking into his skin.
Raine swallowed back the nausea rising in his throat.
Then he kept carving.
On the other side of the ossuaries, Elara worked diligently, carving away at a corpse with steady hands. A faint, almost serene smile tugged at her lips.
Hidden beneath the body's exposed rib cage were two small pieces of spirit iron, carefully stolen from the mines. Her fingers brushed against them as she worked, heart pounding in her chest. If everything went according to plan, these fragments would be their best chance at survival.
Hopefully, we won't have to use them. She exhaled sharply, focusing. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.
With quick, practiced motions, she began shaping the bones into crude daggers, using the spirit iron to sharpen the edges. The material scraped against bone with a grating hiss, sending fine white dust into the air. Slowly, the weapons began to take form.
Then—a glow.
A faint but unmistakable shimmer pulsed from the daggers, the spirit iron's latent energy reacting to the sharpened bone. Elara's breath caught.
Shit.
Her gaze darted around the chamber. Guards patrolled the Ossuaries, their bone armor rattling with each step. If any of them saw this, everything would be over before it even began.
Thinking fast, Elara did the one thing she knew would disgust her.
She shoved her head inside the corpse's rib cage.
The stench slammed into her with full force—rot, marrow, something sickly sweet and wrong. Her stomach clenched, bile crawling up her throat, but she swallowed it down. The glow was hidden now, trapped beneath the hollowed chest cavity, but her lungs burned from the foul air, her vision swimming.
Then—a voice.
"Number 560—what the hell are you doing?"
Elara froze.
Boots ground against bone dust as the guard approached, his tone sharp with irritation. "Get your damn head out of that body and back to work!"
She didn't move. Couldn't.
The glow was still there, faint but alive. If she lifted her head now, the weapons would be exposed.
A beat of silence.
Then—the sound of leather unfastening.
"Oh, you didn't hear me?"
The guard stepped closer, sighing as if bored. As if disappointed.
"Dumb girl."
The whip unraveled onto the floor with a heavy thud, its polished vertebrae gleaming under the lantern light. He let it drag, the bones rattling against stone as he rolled his shoulders.
"You think I won't crack your skull open just because you're a small women?"
Elara clenched her teeth, bile rising again—but this time, it had nothing to do with the corpse.
Elara braced herself.
Then—a sharp crack.
A bone fragment whistled through the air and struck the guard's helmet with a dull thunk.
He staggered slightly before snapping his head up, fury twisting his features.
"Who threw that?" he barked.
Silence.
The chamber had gone deathly still. The slaves kept their heads down, their hands still working, pretending not to have seen anything.
The guard exhaled sharply through his nose, his gauntleted fingers moving to the straps of his helmet. He unfastened it and pulled it off, long black hair falling over sharp, angular facial features. His dark eyes, cold and calculating, scanned the room.
Without hesitation, he turned and stalked toward an elderly man working at a nearby station. The old man tensed, his frail hands trembling as the guard loomed over him.
The guard leaned in close, his breath hot against the old man's face.
"Was it you, old man?"
The elder flinched. "N-No," he stammered, voice barely above a whisper.
The guard's lips curled into a sneer. "Then who did it?"
The old man swallowed hard. "I—I'm not sure—"
Before he could finish, the guard lifted his leg and stomped down, hard.
The sickening crunch of bone shattering filled the chamber.
The old man's scream tore through the silence as he collapsed, clutching his ruined foot. His bare skin had been no match for the guard's bone-plated boots. Blood pooled beneath him, his breathing ragged and pained.
But the guard wasn't finished.
He grabbed the old man by the throat, lifting him clean off the ground with terrifying ease. The elder's legs kicked weakly beneath him, hands clawing at the armored fingers crushing his windpipe.
"I'm going to ask you one more time," the guard said, his voice eerily calm. He unraveled his whip, slowly wrapping it around the old man's neck like a coiled serpent.
At that moment, the glow from Elara's weapons finally faded.
She lifted her head from the corpse's chest cavity, gasping for air. Rot clung to her skin, the stench still burning her nose. But none of it mattered.
She saw the scene unfolding before her, the old man's body writhing, the guard's sadistic smile stretching wider.
This is my fault.
Her stomach twisted. The elder was going to die.
The choked, gasping noises from the man's mouth sent a ripple of unease through the other slaves. No one moved. No one spoke. They all knew what happened to those who interfered.
Except Raine.
His fists clenched so tightly his nails dug into his palms. His heart pounded against his ribs.
Someone is going to die because of me.
He had thrown the bone.
He had to step in.
Just as he was about to move forward, to open his mouth and take responsibility, a hand pressed firmly against his chest, stopping him in his tracks.
A man stepped in front of him.
"It was me," he said, his voice steady. "I threw it at you."