“I still hear the beckoning from home—to return to a life of servitude in order to further the great work. It is my hope that the temple can provide a remedy to their summons.”

—The Marked Emperor Savon

Zaina hardly slept, instead spending most of the night pondering her predicament. Sivanya didn’t completely trust her, which meant her life was hanging in the balance of her ability to deceive someone she was growing to respect.

There was more than respect, though—Zaina feared Sivanya, too. Remembering the look in her eyes when she held her fang to Zaina’s throat was enough to make her stomach turn and her blood run cold.

That brush with death and the sputters of chaos on patrol put mortality in the fore of Zaina’s mind. She’d almost died before, multiple times—a few times back home and on Otmonzas, once on Kaado, and a few times here and there on missions. This time felt different—usually there was little choice but to act. This was more of a slow bleed, a dark fate that had to be met head on. To run away from this fight meant leaving everything behind to its doom.

Zaina sighed. It was time to start the day, and today was important. She hoped to acquire good information about the temple while working with the excavation team.

She washed her face in a small basin on the floor and took a deep breath to prepare herself.

The walk to the dig-site was lonely, with nary a marked in sight. The sounds of heavy machinery drew closer as she approached.

“Sleep well?” Sivanya’s voice asked, making Zaina jump.

“Ah! What the hell?”

Sivanya was leaning against a tree—Zaina had walked right past her.

“It’s your first day on the dig-site,” Sivanya replied.

“Oh, so you’ll be watching me?” Zaina asked, rolling her eyes. “Making sure I don’t do anything suspicious?”

Sivanya shook her head. “Patrols are short today—I’ll be joining them once Rasmus sends out the signal. I have a feeling they’ll be sending more search parties to look for our guests.”

It was only a small measure of trust, but it was enough to make Zaina feel a little better. “Sure you don’t want help on patrols? Sounds like it might get hot.”

Sivanya’s head bobbed back and forth. “I appreciate the offer, but I think it’s a good idea for you to stay here—get to know some people. Once we head off their incursion maybe you can help us find a way to get those children back to Deonago.”

“So, then—why’d you wait for me? To see me off?”

Sivanya stepped forward. “I wanted to apologize again for last night. I know how it feels to be suspected, for guilt to be pre-assumed—it was wrong of me to put you through that.”

“I appreciate that,” Zaina said.

“Now,” Sivanya said as she clapped her hands together, “we both have long days ahead of us. You be safe, and stay out of trouble.”

“You too,” Zaina replied.

“I can’t promise anything. Get going, now—ask around for Tog, she’ll put you to work,” Sivanya said, then walked off.

Zaina breathed a sigh of relief. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that Sivanya suspected her, but there was nothing to be done for that now—she had to get to the dig-site and learn what she could.

First thing’s first—gotta talk to Tog. Whoever that is.

The dig-site looked exactly the same, with mining equipment of all shapes and sizes strewn about. Dozens of people were climbing the haphazard scaffolding barely secured against the cliff, and dozens more were scurrying about below, carrying boxes of supplies or moving the machinery. It was exactly as chaotic as she remembered it.

Not sure what information I’ll be able to get out of this, but here goes.

She walked into the maze of giant drills, shovel-heads, and tents covering tables of smaller drills and digging supplies. No one paid her any mind, even when she tried to stop them.

“Um, excuse m—”

“Sorry, in a hurry!” the marked yelled, not even turning back.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Hey, uh—”

“Come on, out of the way! This shit’s fuckin’ heavy, you know!”

Zaina frowned, missing Sivanya’s friendliness. Then, someone she recognized walked by—Ylasna, whom she’d met on her first night there.

“Hey! Ylasna! Hey!”

Ylasna, carrying a paperboard box filled with different sized wrenches, stopped and turned toward Zaina. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m—I’m Zaina. We met the other night. I was with Sivanya, remember?”

“Oh, right, right! Sorry, I’m shit with names and faces. What’s up? You decide to help us out?”

“Yeah, I’m here for the day—I did patrols yesterday.”

“All right, cool. Cool. Well, you’re gonna wanna go talk to Tog. She should be in the control tent. She’ll give you whatever job needs doing.”

“Okay, uh—where is the control tent?”

Ylasna adjusted the box and started walking off. “Closest tent to the mountain. Sorry, I gotta run—we got a driller and two shovelers down, and we gotta get ‘em back up and running before the end of the day. We’re close—real close!”

A pit formed in Zaina’s stomach. But close to what, exactly?

She wasn’t any closer to understanding what the temple actually did, but she had to play her part. Zaina walked over to the tent Ylasna had indicated—the walls were three-sided, with the open face towards the dig-site. Within was a Brudavian, a four-armed sentient with a humanoid torso and head; the bottom half was part bulbous mass and part tentacles. Two of the woman’s four eyes moved to Zaina, while the others remained focused on the multiple screens, buttons, and levers in front of her. She wore a helmet and an earpiece similar to Sivanya’s.

“Hello,” Zaina said, waving. “I’m—”

“Zaina, right? Sivanya told me we’d have you for the day. You know how to drive a shoveler?”

Zaina frowned. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Eh, fine. In that case you’ll go work with Geramad. You know Geramad?”

“No, I—”

One of the woman’s arms tapped the earpiece, and she said, “Geramad, control tent. Got a body for you.” While she spoke her other three arms were pushing buttons, pulling levers, and typing on keyboards with masterful timing and precision, like a well-choreographed dance. Without missing a beat she said to Zaina, “I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re not stupid and you don’t need the safety talk. Just be careful, okay? Last thing we need is anyone else getting hurt right before we get in. Geramad will be here shortly. He’ll show you what to do. Got it?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so.”

“Good. We’re real close, kid—real close. I have a good feeling about today. That’s a rare occurrence, so don’t ruin it for me, all right?”

Tog’s tone and attitude reminded Zaina of Xyrthe. I’d hate to sit in on a conversation between those two. Or maybe they’d get along well.

Before long a six-and-a-half foot tall Altomaran stepped through the door—his ragged, shaggy fur was reddish-brown and caked in dirt and sweat, and he wore a tunic stitched together from rags. The undercoat on his face and neck was a brighter red. His eyes, large, intense, and nested beneath curved, bushy eyebrows, honed in on Zaina; he blew a snort through the tusks on either side of his frowning mouth.

“This the body?” he said, his voice gruff and deep.

“Yes. Take her with your group. Show her the ropes. Don’t let her get hurt.”

“I’ll try,” the Altomaran, presumably Geramad, said. He didn’t bother to wait for Zaina before turning and walking back toward the dig-site.

She jogged to catch up with his brisk pace. “So, what are we doing?”

“I’ll show you,” he said curtly. Apparently not everyone was as friendly as Sivanya.

He led her to the exposed wall of the temple, where a carefully coordinated dance was taking place. He stopped and said, “Watch.”

Zaina did exactly that. A driller came forward, rolling on wheels twice as tall as Zaina; there was a great hiss as the drill tipped downward toward the earth, then a crack and a boom as the drill punched into the earth. The rock must have been tough—the ground barely gave. The drill sank in to about a foot’s depth, then gave a screech as started to rotate. It turned faster and faster, but couldn’t punch further in. After a minute or so at top speed, the drill pulled out and the driller reversed.

“Rock here’s tough,” Geramad remarked.

Once the area was clear five drillermechs walked up, though their armor seemed less like an actual drillermech suit and more like repurposed warsuits. Each held a massive steel pick and went to the spot where the driller had softened the ground, rhythmically striking the ground to loosen as much of the stone and dirt as possible. Once they had dug out roughly another foot of the temple wall, they stepped back.

Next, a shoveler came in, its single mechanical arm holding a steel trough. It scooped along the temple walls, pulling all the loose earth and stone away. It scooted all of it off to the side in a massive heap.

Zaina was fascinated by all of this, but she was wondering what her part was. She wasn’t left wondering long—a troupe of people, twenty or thirty, came around the mountain to the dig-site. Each pushed large, empty wheelbarrows.

“Here’s us,” Geramad said, already walking over to join them.

Zaina tagged along. The group swarmed the pile of earth and rock, loading as much as they could fit into each wheelbarrow and then heading back the way they came. Geramad picked up a spare wheelbarrow and joined them. Zaina didn’t need to be told what to do; she grabbed another spare wheelbarrow, the last one, and went to work.

They loaded it all by hand. Zaina desperately tried to match the pace of the others—people who had started loading after Zaina were leaving before her. She scooped a few handfuls of dirt before Geramad stopped her and said, “Focus on the rocks. We don’t care about the dirt right now.”

“Makes sense,” she said, then heaved a rock into the wheelbarrow. It only took her about two minutes to fill up. She didn’t bother waiting for anyone to tell her what to do next—she followed the person who had left before her, a Raolgrian woman pushing a heaving load of rocks.

They walked around the mountain on a well-tread path wide enough to fit a few wheelbarrows at once. The path was lined with trees growing out of the mountainside every which way, though the problematic ones had already been cleared. The path winded up and around to the mountain’s other side. From here Deonago loomed in the distance, only a mountain range away.

Zaina knew they were close when wheelbarrows started coming back toward them. They came to a sheer cliff face, a drop of a few thousand feet. The Raolgrian in front of Zaina tipped her wheelbarrow over the edge, sending the rocks tumbling to the ground below.

“Is anyone down there?” Zaina asked as the woman turned around and headed back to the site.

“Let’s hope not,” she said, not slowing her pace.

Zaina shrugged, thinking about how many tons of dirt and rocks had already been poured over this edge. I mean, at this point if anyone’s still down there, it’s on them.