Page 7

SEVEN

Cerani

Cerani’s tool was steady in her hand as she scraped another long, winding line of basian crystal from its pocket in the wall. This vein was older, the rock dry and brittle under her grip, but the way the crystal sat—open, clean—made the work smoother than usual. The new gloves helped. Fewer cracks in the seal. More padding where she gripped the tool.

The improved suits weren’t perfect, but they didn’t leak around the joints or pinch at the collar. Every one of her suggestions had been implemented in this design. Jorr had been able to work the last two shifts without collapsing halfway. Even Sema had made quota without asking for a stim tab. Stavian had come through.

Cerani shut her eyes for one second. Only one. Just long enough to push his face out of her head.

They hadn’t spoken in three cycles. That was her choice. She’d been the one who ended their meetings. Who said goodbye. Who said it wasn’t safe, or fair—or real. Well, she hadn’t said that, exactly. What was real was what was all around them, and that made any attraction or affection they felt for each other irrelevant. Not when she was still in chains, and he still held the key.

But she’d meant every word. And still, it hurt more than she thought it would.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the tunnel. She lifted her head too fast. Her heart thumped, sharp and sudden.

She turned slowly. Not him. It was a mech, followed by two miners from tunnel line D. Or maybe it was C. They were coughing too hard to tell. She forced her jaw to unclench and went back to work.

This happened more than she wanted to admit. Footsteps in the corridor. Breath caught against her ribs. Hope bubbling where it didn’t belong. Sometimes it really was him, walking past in that dark uniform, wings tucked behind him. And sometimes—sometimes—his gaze caught hers.

He never spoke. Never slowed. But he looked.

And she looked back.

“Still clear?” Jorr called from a few meters away.

“Crystal’s behaving today,” she said.

He gave a low grunt as he shifted and sat back on an overturned supply crate. Their suits whispered and clicked when they moved now, but not from leaks—just the equipment doing what it was supposed to do.

“I know it was you, you know,” Jorr said.

She didn’t look up. “What was me?”

“The suit improvements. You were fixing bad seal points with salvage well before this rollout. You don’t think we noticed?”

“I noticed suits showed up with better pressure patches,” she said. “Overdue, if you ask me.”

“Funny that they arrived so soon after your private, unscheduled disappearance from third shift’s break,” Jorr said.

She kept her face neutral but jolted inside. She’d done everything possible to keep her lessons secret. Of course, they weren’t. “I told you, they pulled me out for a system inquiry.”

“Right,” he said, sticking his double tongues into his cheek. “And this system inquiry happened to line up perfectly with the rollout of suits that just so happen to match all the same repair work you were doing by hand.”

Cerani angled her body toward the wall and kept her focus on her tool. “I submitted a request for better gear like anyone else would. That’s it.”

“You expect anyone to believe that?”

She paused for one beat. “I don’t care what anyone believes,” she said.

“Well, the others do,” Jorr said. “There have been whispers.”

Cerani stopped scraping. “What whispers?”

He scratched his neck through the suit, below the helmet. “That the controller listens to you.”

Her chest constricted.

“And that maybe,” Jorr added, “there’s more going on between you two than old suits and crystal output.”

“No.” The word snapped out sharper than she meant. “There is nothing between the controller and me.”

“Didn’t say there was.” His tone stayed calm, but he didn’t look away. “I’m just saying, people notice things. How he watches you when he walks by. How his eyes follow you like he’s burned you into his frostbitten soul.”

Cerani’s hands curled around her scraper. “Whatever he feels—or doesn’t—isn’t my problem.”

Jorr raised an eyebrow but didn’t push. “Pretty clear you’ve got the cleaner end of this shaft today. Let me know if the vein splits.”

She gritted her teeth as he turned back to his spot.

Cerani returned to her work, even though her tool sat wrong in her hand now. Everything sat wrong. Her breath felt thick in her chest, heavier than the filtered air should allow. When she forced another crystal from the rock, her fingers shook—just barely—but enough.

She missed the way Stavian listened when she challenged him. The way he trusted her instincts over system reports. The way…she used to feel when he was near. Seen. Not watched. Not flagged. Seen.

And yet, every time she heard footsteps, her stomach turned in knots and her chest ached. Her thoughts became torn between the need to look and what it meant that she always did look.

She didn’t want to want him, but she did. And she wasn’t altogether happy about that.

Cerani pressed the scraper into the wall with more force than necessary. The crystal cracked too far down the seam. A clean break would’ve meant better clarity, but now? It’d downgrade to medium purity. “ Fek ,” she muttered.

“Burning through quota already?” Jorr asked from his perch.

“Just eager to finish and get out of this fekking shaft.”

“Then I’ll try not to slow you down.”

She rolled her shoulders but didn’t answer. Not because of Jorr exactly. He was one of the miners she genuinely liked being around. But even his friendly tone felt heavier than it used to.

That was the thing about hope. It twisted your focus. Made you soft. Made the shifts feel longer and the silences shorter. Ever since she told Stavian they couldn’t meet again, things inside her had stayed too loud. Too tangled.

Three cycles.

Three sleep cycles of lying flat on the barracks slab with nothing but the walls and the recycled air and the shape of his voice haunting the edge of her dreams.

Cerani wedged the scraper into a new section of the crystal seam and focused on the old rhythm—stroke, chip, collect. Her chest burned anyway. She wasn’t mad at Jorr for mentioning what everyone else was talking about. She was mad that he wasn’t wrong. Not totally.

She’d seen Stavian looking. More than once.

Once so long that Sema whispered, “Are you sure he’s not about to arrest you or something?” Like the words were a joke. Cerani had forced a laugh. Then spent the rest of the shift trying not to remember the way his eyes had zeroed in on her like she was gravity itself and he was just waiting to fall.

Her head turned, like it always did when she heard someone coming down the shaft.

She hated that her body reacted before her brain did.

Not him. Another mech. Another guard. Another reminder she was just a designation stamped on a backlit panel. Cerani blinked sweat from her eyes under the helmet and went back to it.

This vein was shallow, and she was almost done. If her hands didn’t betray her, she could be out of here in ten, maybe fifteen peks. Back in the barracks. Back behind a door, where no one looked at her like she was something rare. Something dangerous. Something precious.

Cerani pried a final shard from the wall and set it gently in the collection box. Her breathing eased as she sat back on her heels, fingers cramping from the grip she held on the tool.

Three cycles. It shouldn’t have been enough time to miss anyone like this, but she couldn’t help it.

She knew the signs of getting attached. That hollow sting in her chest when she passed the central walkway and he wasn’t there. The need she felt to look over her shoulder every time boots echoed behind her like maybe, just maybe, the sound would stop beside her. But he never stopped. Not anymore.

Still, she caught his eyes more times than she allowed herself to admit. Always a flash of something buried behind that calm, flawless mask. Regret. Hunger. Something he didn’t dare say out loud. Something that matched what twisted low in her stomach every time they locked eyes.

But feelings didn’t change facts. He still ran the mine. She still served her sentence. And wanting him—worse, missing him—didn’t make it safer to need him.

Cerani blew out a sharp breath and turned back to the wall, forcing her gaze onto the narrow crystal seam. Her tool dug in, scraping through the brittle layer that flaked too fast beneath the surface. Focus. That’s what she needed. Just finish the shift. Get the quota. Get out. She shifted her footing and leaned into the next stroke.

The rock under her boots vibrated. She paused, thinking it was just a fleeting motion she’d imagined—until the ground rolled a second time. The rock didn’t tremble so much as moan. A low sound, deep in the spine of the tunnel. Cerani froze mid-reach, the shard of basian crystal locked between her gloves.

She dropped to a crouch and braced without thinking. The mine moved again—this time harder. A snap echoed through the shaft. Dust poured from the ceiling in thick sheets, and her wrist panel blinked red as the whole tunnel groaned under the weight.

She’d felt tremors before. The kind the system flagged with a casual warning—“Seismic ripple: E-ventilation unaffected.”

This was not another tremor.

“Jorr?” she said.

He was already standing. “This feels bad.”

The floor gave another pulse. She caught herself against the wall with her palm, and her breath snagged in her chest. She didn’t have time to reply.

Then it came.

A roar, somewhere far, but close enough. The sound folded in on itself—less like thunder and more like steel snapping. Not one strike. Multiple. Long, grinding crashes like the mine was caving in from the gut out.

Cerani turned toward the shaft exit just as the platform under them dropped slightly. It jerked back into position, too fast for stabilizers to kick in. A chunk of rock cracked off from above. Dust exploded from the ceiling.

“Move!” Jorr shouted.

Cerani crouched |instinctively, covering her head as gravel and stones poured down like sharp rain. The light fixture dangling above them sparked once, then went out. A fine cloud of powdered stone swept into the narrow space, thick enough to choke on.

Her EP suit’s light system blinked on and illuminated her immediate surroundings with cold, thin light.

She dropped the scraper and pressed herself against the wall, arms over her head, pressing into a support beam like it could protect her from a mine that wanted to eat itself.

“Jorr!” she shouted, coughing hard as dust scraped down her throat. “Where are you?”

His reply was a ragged cry, somewhere behind her, but the tunnel had shifted. Sound echoed wrong now—bounced back too soon, like the walls had narrowed.

Another tremor rolled under her boots. Then a crunch. Very close.

Cerani turned fast, eyes burning behind her suit display—and then a rock came down. She didn’t even hear it land, just felt the blow.

Pain ripped through her lower leg as stone crashed beside her, pinning her from the knee down. Her helmet thunked back against the wall.

“ Fek !” she hissed.

Her air filter hissed as the system compensated for the rising dust. Her entire calf throbbed, but she was still conscious. Still breathing, for now. If the tremors didn’t stop, if the whole shaft didn’t hold…

Cerani didn’t let herself look up at the ceiling just yet.

She tapped the emergency beacon on her wrist panel with shaking fingers, but her screen showed no signal. The mine collapses always took the network first. That meant she was on her own until the surface reconnected command.

“Jorr!” she yelled again.

No answer.

She shoved both hands against the large rock pinning her leg. It budged, sending searing pain up her leg to her hip. She pushed harder, digging the back of her helmet into the wall behind her.

Every limb shook from exertion as she tried to free her leg. The dust was a blur, layers thick. She could barely see where the corridor had stood. The lights on her helmet and chest didn’t offer enough illumination to reveal how badly damaged the tunnel was.

Cerani dug her heels into the dirt and shoved at the rock again. It shifted—finally. Her thigh burned. The weight pinned her calf hard enough that she couldn’t feel her boot. Still, she pushed, and with a rough cry, she rolled her knee and threw her body sideways.

The rock gave. It thudded to the side. She hissed as pain shot up her shin, but she couldn’t tell if it was broken or bruised. She crawled toward Jorr, squinting through the settling dust. “Jorr?”

A moan came from the left and she dragged herself toward the sound. The air filter kept whining inside her suit, slower now. Something snapped loose near the edge of her visor.

Then she saw him lying beneath a support beam.

“Jorr?” she said, dropping beside him.

His eyes flickered open. “Look at that,” he mumbled. “I’m bleeding inside my favorite coffin.”

“Save your energy,” she said as her gaze moved over him, assessing the damage. The tear in the side of his suit exposed a gash just above his waist—deep and wet. Blood bloomed fast at his left side. She needed to cover it and slow the bleeding. She needed to find a way to seal up the breaks in his suit. She tried to work the seams of his suit, to draw the edges together, but her gloves wouldn’t let her work precisely enough. Her hands shook as she tried to press her palm over the bleeding.

“I can’t…” she muttered. “I can’t do this like this.”

She sat back on her heels and tore at the seal down the side of her EP suit. The seal released fast, hot air licking her skin as she peeled it down to her waist. Fek , it was cold in the mine. And dangerous. But it was dangerous with or without the EP suit. Cerani pulled the seal below her chin. The strip unzipped with a faint hiss and she yanked off the helmet. The mine air rushed in.

Immediately, her lungs flinched. Not from pain, but from the shock of unfiltered air hitting her nostrils. It felt like metal scraped over fire and smelled like burned ozone, rust, and something sharp—like wet stone and bitter ash. The scent of pressure and death. This was the smell everyone feared. The one they said melted lungs and clothed breath in blood.

Cerani dragged in a slow breath. Then another.

It shouldn’t have been possible. Dust choked the air, thick as smoke, but her chest didn’t burn. Her throat didn’t close. Her vision didn’t go dark.

Her fingers moved faster now. The top half of the EP suit bunched around her waist as she pulled at the stretchable fabric bodysuit beneath. Her under-suit clung to her skin, sweat and dust caught in the seams, but she barely noticed. Cerani ripped the left sleeve off with her teeth and one hand, the fabric tearing with a wet sound.

She hastily folded the cloth and pressed it over Jorr’s wound.

Jorr gasped.

“Hold it here,” she said, forcing his hand up. “Keep the pressure steady. Tight as you can.”

“Feels like I swallowed a shovel,” he wheezed, his fingers curling over the cloth. “Don’t like this plan.”

“Yeah, well, I like your guts inside you, so do as you’re told,” she said.

He gave a weak nod, then coughed. More blood. Cerani swallowed hard.

Her skin tingled. The air prickled across her face and arms, but she wasn’t burning up. No dizziness. No headache.

She pushed upright. Her leg throbbed, but she could walk.

Down the tunnel, another moan sounded. Then another. She squinted through the dust. Three more forms, all slumped or crawling, illuminated by their suits’ lights. One miner dragged herself over a pile of rock debris, her foot bent at an angle that was all wrong.

Cerani turned back to Jorr. His gray face was pale and mottled under the cracked mask.

“Keep pressing on it, alright?” she said. “You let go and I swear I’ll drag you back from the dead and yell at you.”

He gave her a look that might’ve been a grin. “Bossy.”

“Stay alive,” she shot back, and limped toward the others.

Each step hurt, but she ignored it. She had to.

The first body belonged to Rinter, one of the newer miners—thin, wiry, barely grown into his bones. He was breathing fast, shallow, and bleeding from the side of his head. His eyes fluttered, unfocused.

Cerani crouched beside him and tapped his jaw gently.

“Rinter. Hey, need you to stay with me.”

His eyes rolled toward her and then blinked. “Trying to.”

She checked his suit. The visor was cracked, but still sealed. A chunk of ceiling had slammed into his shoulder. His right arm just hung. Useless.

She stripped off her other under-sleeve and wound a makeshift brace around his forearm, tying it against his chest.

“Don’t move that arm,” she said. “Do you understand?”

He nodded. “You…no mask,” he ground out.

“Don’t worry about me.” She patted the side of his face. “Stay still. Help will be here soon.”

She didn’t know if that was true, but it needed to be said. Everyone who was injured down here needed to believe it.

Behind her, another cough scraped through the dark.

Cerani turned fast. Sema. She was hunched against the far tunnel wall, holding her foot in both hands. Her suit was torn across the thigh.

The filter on her pack blinked red, and the ground under her glistened darkly.

Cerani limped over. Her own breath scraped at her throat now, dry from dust, but not strained. Not like the others’.

“Sema?”

Sema’s mouth moved, but no sound came. Her mask was still sealed, but her suit filter was cracked wide open along her thigh—the radiation leak marker flashing in urgent red pulses. The injury ran deep, and the set of her shoulders said she could barely keep from screaming.

Cerani dropped to one knee beside her. “You with me?”

Sema blinked slowly. Her whole body trembled as her mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“ Fek ,” Cerani breathed out. She peeled back the torn edge of the suit just enough to see the damage. Her stomach turned. The gash had sliced clean through the inner lining, and her skin was blackened and puckered—burned straight through by exposed cable heat or a hit from falling metal.

Sema tried to lift her head. “Too…hot,” she choked out with clear difficulty.

Don’t move,” Cerani said, ripping the last bit of her bodysuit’s sleeve and pressing it gently over the wound. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly. “This’ll hold for a minute. Maybe two.”

Sema grabbed her wrist. “Others—help them first.”

“You need help right now,” Cerani said. “Don’t be noble. Not now.”

But she knew. Sema was fading fast. Her skin was too cold, her eyes already unable to focus. The way she clung to Cerani’s wrist made something sharp lodge in Cerani’s throat.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Cerani said. “Hey. Look here. Right here.”

Sema’s gaze flicked toward her, barely. Her breath rattled.

Cerani pressed both hands down over the cloth and made herself stay still, just long enough to slow the bleeding. It wasn’t working. The rip in the suit wouldn’t hold. Radiation seared too fast, and Sema’s face was pale beneath the grime, her lips parchment-dry.

“Sema, just stay awake,” Cerani said again. “Help is on the way. Medics will be here any moment to get you out of here and treat your injuries.” Lies. They couldn’t. Not in time.

Another tremor rocked the ground beneath them—small this time, just a reminder. The mine groaned loud above as though daring them to hope for escape. Cerani’s knee slid in the dirt from the vibration, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t—not until someone pulled her off this suffering female or the tunnel caved completely.

Then—movement. Hard-pounding footsteps.

A figure. She looked sharply to her left and saw a shape pushing through rubble. He was obscured from the dust that still hung like fog in the air.

Tall. Moving fast.

Her breath caught. He was there.

Stavian. Hope crashed through her chest harder than the rock on her leg.

He was running—faster than she’d seen him move in all their time down here. His boots slid to a stop right beside her. Relief flooded his silver eyes as they locked onto hers.

Urgency and something deeper—fear—were etched into the angles of his face. But not for himself and not for her.

“Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and hard as he dropped to his knees and reached for Sema. “I’ve got you.”