Three months.

  Counting down the remaining months had become a mantra, a means of keeping his mind occupied. Focusing on that was almost enough to forget the stench of sulfur, the oppressive heat, or in this case, the intense pain stinging his hands from the vibration of the pneumatic jack. Today was the first day of a new month, which meant he managed to survive thirty-three. There were a plethora of ways a mortal might catch their here in the mine — asphyxiating on poisonous gas; eviscerated by a malfunctioning charge; buried beneath a collapsing tunnel. A stint in the mines was enough to turn even the most resentful mortal into a devout zealot if it increased their chances of walking out on their own two feet rather than nailed in a box. And that is precisely what he planned to do once he was finally free after three long years of hard labor intended to teach him the humility of an honest day's work and contrition for being a degenerate thief. Free to do what, mind you, he didn’t have a clue. Surviving this sentence didn’t change the circumstances he’d find himself in after. He’d have nowhere to go and no skills to fall back on besides the ones that had gotten him pinched in the first place.

  All at once, the juttering jack died in his hands, along with every other machine in proximity. The abrupt transition from cacophony to dead silence created a disturbing vacuum. Dim orange still glowed from the lights haphazardly strung down the length of the tunnel, so they hadn’t blown a fuse again. Looking towards the other prison laborers, he was met with only shrugs and dumbfounded looks.

  “Orion Caspartine!” His name echoed indefinitely off the stone walls destroying the silence.

  “Daughter of chaos...” He cursed, shoulders drooping as he set the now useless jack against the stone he’d been shattering and stepped out into the tunnel path where the guards could see him.

  Several guards at the mouth of the tunnel snapped into motion as he stepped forward. Thinking back over the last week, Orion tried in vain to recall being anything less than his usual charming self, of doing anything that would have incurred the wrath of the guards. Besides a few snarky comments, he felt like he’d been rather obedient as of late, in no hurry to tack on a couple more months for poor behavior now that he was so close to freedom. A rising fear began to eat its way through his gut at the uncertainty of what was happening. They had never halted work like this for one prisoner. They’d usually drag them out of bed and deal with it behind the broken mine carts on the other side of the yard. Something weird was happening, and here, any break from the norm was never the fun kind of surprise.

  “Orion Caspartine?” The guard asked a second time as he and his buddies finally closed the distance.

  “Stepping forward didn’t make that obvious?” He quipped with a smirk, but the guards only stared back at him with severe expressions, so it let it fall away with a sigh as he extended his left arm, pushing up the rolled cuff of his sleeve to expose his entire forearm.

  Grabbing his wrist, the guard rubbed at the grimy coating of coal dust that obscured his identification number rough enough to give Orion a friction burn.

  He yelped, trying to yank back his arm, but the guard gripped it firmly, comparing the tattoo on Orion’s forearm to the piece of paper he held in his hand.

  “21747,” the guard repeated the number, crushing the piece of paper into a wad. “It’s him.”

The other two guards stepped forward, each latching themselves to an upper arm, but didn’t move to shackle him, which Orion thought was oddly trusting. Ushering him along, they exited the tunnel, marching him towards the lift that would carry them from the depths of the mine. Orion tried not to imagine every worst-case scenario they might be dragging him into right now, but he failed.

  The strained clunk, clunk, clunk of the lift shuddered to a stop with a wheeze, and the lead guard banged on the solid metal doors that served as the only entry in and out of the mine. As the lift hung suspended over the darkened, opened shaft, he could hear the sound of the pneumatic jacks rattling away again. Of all the things Orion wouldn’t miss about this place, it was the overwhelming onslaught of sound. Every noise was amplified by the stone, and it came in an endless, overstimulating strain. It was always loud, all the time, yet never constant enough to learn to ignore. To Orion, it was impossible — he seemed to process every sound and sensation, no matter how hard he tried to block it out. It’s why he’d begun to repeat things over in his head— it helped him go numb.

  When the heavy metal doors finally swung open, Orion instinctively flinched away from the light. Squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bleached brightness of midmorning, he couldn’t recall the last time he had been in the presence of honest-to-goodness sunshine. The guards always rushed them underground before dawn, and they didn’t resurface again until after sunset. Living in varying degrees of darkness had become a routine he no longer questioned.

  Blinking through the assault on his eyes, he turned his head away momentarily, catching sight of the makeshift altar outside the entrance to the mine. Barely more than a rotting crate covered the abundant quartz clusters, flowering weeds that sprouted in the yard, and a stubby candle in a perforated tin can erected in homage of Omri, the Paragon of Death. It wasn’t much, but it was the best a group of prisoners allowed no personal possessions could muster as any kind of offering, especially to a deity who’d abandoned them over two decades ago.

  A breeze swept at the flame inside the can, the constellation of pockmarks in the metal flickering. Orion had never considered himself particularly religious— he’d been a toddler at the time of the Dereliction, too young to know a world graced by the Paragons, to mourn their loss or feel righteous indignation at their departure. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been abandoned. He was, however, willing to capitalize on any chance he had at leaving this place alive and intact. So, if the Paragons were still watching, even from a distance, a candle pilfered from the dry storage and a can nicked from the trash was a small effort to make on his part if it meant avoiding Omri’s gaze, whether he was still looking or not.

  A shoulder check from his right flanking guard informed him he wasn’t moving fast enough. Another small retinue of guards was waiting across the yard. But, these guards weren’t wearing the same sad tan uniform as the prison guards. The others were much more formal and official-looking. A terrible sinking feeling wrenched the bottom out of his stomach.

  “There is no reason to keep them restrained.” A broad, dark-complected man announced from the front of the group.

  “I don’t recommend that Captain” The guard at Orion’s right sneered. “He’s a tricksy bastard.”

  “Good,” the Captain replied with a pleased smirk. “Means he’s a good problem solver. Intelligent. ” He stepped forward a few paces, assessing Orion with a once over. “Smart enough to know how stupid it would be to try anything one could misconstrue as tricksy.” Relaxing his shoulders, the Captain rested his hand on his holstered firearm as casually as if he’d slipped his hand into his pocket. “Are you gonna try anything, kid?”

  “Unlikely,” Orion answered, frustrated his voice had pitched high enough to exude his discomfort.

  “At ease, gentlemen.”

  The Captain waved a dismissive hand at the other guards, and they released Orion, stepping back waiting for further instructions, which the Captain didn’t give. His attention was solely focused on Orion, uncomfortably so, as if he were a puzzle the Captain was trying to solve. Orion watched him with equal judgment, dual parts fascination, and bewilderment.

  "Larceny, petty theft, burglary. Annoying, but nothing violent I see. The Captain reviewed the offenses that had resulted in Orion’s incarceration.

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  Orion smiled. “Didn’t realize I had a fan.”

  That made the Captain laugh. “In higher places than you realize, kid.”

  Taken aback by the comment, Orion began to ask, “What are you— ?”

  But, before he could finish his question, a shadow passed across the yard, blotting out the sun like a languid blink. The Captain’s head craned skyward, one hand traveling back to his firearm, the other shielding his eyes from the glint of the sun.

  “Merciful-fucking-universe.” he gasped, eyes wide as he shoved Orion behind him into the retinue of officers he’d brought with him.

  Then, Orion heard it. A shrill, feral cry that made all the hairs on his neck stand at attention, announcing the arrival of the impending swarm that had unnerved the Captain.

  “Are those… ?” Frozen, gaping, he couldn’t even finish the sentence, couldn’t say the word out loud because that word was impossible.

Vega.

  However impossible logic dictated that to be, it certainly didn’t change the fact that it was happening. The air-born Forsaken swooped in from every direction, descending on the loading yard like starving birds feasting on scattered crumbs. One of the guards who’d escorted him out of the mine was snatched into the air, screaming and kicking as Orion was plunged into pandemonium once again. The whine of a mechanical cat in heat directed from every corner of the yard, the too-late alarm alerting everyone to what was already apparent as gunfire popped intermittently.

Sniping at the approaching monsters one by one as they broke formation from a plume into an expanding wave, the Captain yelled, “Protect the Sentinel! Get him out of here!”

  Planting his feet, the word Sentinel redirected his attention. But, he didn’t have time to question it before he’d been surrounded by the other officers, their firearms aimed at the monstrosities, all protecting him. Wings flapped, kicking up dust from the gravel that crunched under their boots. A metallic tang filled the air that Orion wanted to believe was merely spent gunpowder. They moved as a single mass, ducking and weaving like a school of fish as Vega dived and clawed at them. The officer to Orion's left was jerked away, leaving a vulnerable gap in the wall they’d formed around him, and through that gap, he could see the extent of the carnage confirming his fears. Blood, entrails, limbs, and other unidentifiable gore slathered the yard. The Vega slammed the unfortunate officer back to the ground, perching on the prone man’s chest, staring into his eyes until he became strangely subdued before promptly sinking its claws into his sternum and splitting open his ribcage.

  Then, the door on the breaker house burst open, and the coal smudged faces of a dozen juvenile offenders came poking out, as panic-stricken as Orion had been a moment ago.

  No longer interested in its eviscerated prey, the Vega twisted unnaturally in their direction. Bile rose up Orion’s throat as the creature spread its membranous wings and launched at the open door. Their screams swelled in a gruesome harmony as they disappeared back behind the door, vainly attempting to repel the Vega as it swiped inside the remaining gap where it had managed to wedge its body. The thing was as tall as a grown mortal, and even the combination of adrenaline and their collective strength wouldn’t be enough to keep the Forsaken at bay.

  “Daughter of chaos…” Orion exhaled the curse as he accepted what he had to do, attempting to break away from the protective mass through the gap left by the dead officer.

A nearby screech sent him ducking again as another shadow passed over, dropping a scraped-out carcass into a stack of crates with a splintering crash, distracting him long enough for one of the officers to catch the collar of his coveralls. Violently whipping his neck back as the rest of his body tried to continue forward, he was dragged behind the cover of a coal car parked a few rail lines over from the train that had been their destination.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” The officer who’d grabbed him shouted, sandwiching Orion between her back and the metal wall of the car, watching the sky with the two remaining officers, firearms trained upwards.

  “You’re gonna leave those kids to die?” He barked back.

  “My orders were to protect the Sentinel.” She announced.

  There was that word again, so surreal and unbelievable it constricted his brain like a pulsing, hungry serpent. Another swell of screams rent the air, and he flinched back in the direction of the breaker house. From this angle, he could see there was another door on the side of the building. Taking a deep breath, Orion made one of those snap decisions that, in hindsight would be called brave if it wasn’t stupid enough to result in several untimely deaths, namely his own.

  “Then you’d better keep up,” Orion yelled as he dropped into a crouch, crawling beneath the coal car before bolting out the other side.

  Boots crunched behind him as the guards pursued him to the breaker house. As he crashed through the door, the breakers jumped, distracted by the perceived new threat, resulting in a lapse on their meager hold on the door. With a victorious shriek, the Vega breached further, managing to get its head and upper torso through the gap, raking claws over the chest of the breaker closest to the opening, who howled in pain before collapsing against his peers.

  Surveying the room, Orion swiped two rock hammers from the wall of available tools, swinging one like a sword, building momentum as he charged toward the door, screaming, “Run!”

  The group broke around him, racing for the opposite door— a single stone forwarding the current of a stream. The Vega launched into the breaker house just as Orion landed the hammer against its skull, sending it careening in reverse out the open door onto its back, spraying up stone and dust as its flapping wings scattered the gravel. Orion hurled the other hammer directly at its face, impacting with a sickening crunch. Dazed, it flopped its head as he readied the killing blow, but as he dropped down to land the strike, he was slammed sideways to the ground, his own skull cracking as his vision with stars.

  Eyes fluttering, his vision refocused on the six feet of ashen horror perched on his midsection, pinning him down. Hollow black eyes stared unblinking, glinting in the midmorning light. This close, he could make out the disturbingly uncanny resemblance its face bore to a mortal. Slowly canting its head, its pupils dilated, and a strange lethargy washed over him, finding it hard to resist, convincing him he had no reason to fight back at all, encouraging him to simply give in to the inevitable.  

  Gunfire blasted so close that it reverberated in his ears even after the Captain had blown half the head from the Forsaken, spraying them in blood so dark it looked black. Instantly, Orion’s survival instinct returned, yelping as he flung his hands aloft to avoid touching the mutilated corpse any more than he had to. The Captain scrubbed blood spray from his face, wiping it off on a small patch of his uniform not soaked in dark stain, and offered his marginally cleanhand to Orion. Taking a few measured breaths, Orion eventually accepted it, the Vega sliding off him in a contorted heap. As quickly as it had ensued, it was over, leaving Orion with a bizarre temporal whiplash, like maybe he’d imagined the entire thing. But, the evidence to the contrary was overwhelming. A heavy silence permeated in the massacre left behind, guards and prisoners ambling out of the mine in shocked disbelief as they joined the survivors in the yard.

  Crumpling at the waist, Orion bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, breathing still ragged and uneven, inundated by the madness of the entire situation, fighting the urge to vomit. “What in the everloving Infinite is going on?”

  “We were attacked by Vega.” The Captain replied, calmly holstering his firearm.

  “No… That’s… That’s not…” Orion waved one of his hands wildly as if he were clearing his proximity of such nonsense, allowing him to finally land on words he could manage. “Vega are extinct.”

  “Yeah, well, so were Sentinels a few days ago.”

  The matter-of-fact way he’d said it made Orion laugh at the sheer absurdity of hearing that word used for the third time, or maybe it was the blood rushing to his head. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  “Because you’ve been chosen by Her Highness, the Graced Scion Verity Starling, Heir Apparent to the Empire of Evren, to serve as her Sentinel.”

  “Huh...” Pondering that statement, he raked a hand through the dark waves that had overgrown during his sentence. “I thought Paragons had higher standards.”

  “New Paragons, new standards.” The Captain clamped a hand on his shoulder, steering him back in the direction of the regal-looking train.

  His pulse beat in his ears. From what little he knew about Sentinels, he wasn’t exactly prime material. Sentinels were upstanding, righteous citizens who swore oaths to dutifully serve and honor the patron deities who’d chosen them. They were handing him a ticket out of prison, but where would he end up once they’d realize he couldn’t cut it as Sentinel? He’d broken the law of the realms and ended up slaving away for almost three years in a prison designed to be a death sentence. He shuddered to think what the punishment was for those who broke their oath to a deity.