Kaelen Vance flicked a crumb of candied walnut shell from his sleeve as the heavy ox-wagon creaked up the last switchback of the canyon pass.
Kaelen dusted sugar from his sleeve and peered through a split in the canvas awning. Below them, the earth fell away into a massive, jagged chasm of crimson sandstone that stretched for two miles. Thick yellow sulfur smoke hung over the gorge like a bruised cloud, rising from hundreds of smoking vent holes drilled into the red rock.
This was the Sunken Cinnabar Mine.
Two days of gravel roads, three jars of candied walnuts, and forty-eight uninterrupted hours of doing absolutely nothing, Kaelen thought. That puts Track One at four hundred and forty-eight hours for a 449-times multiplier, Track Two at one hundred and eighty-eight hours for 189-times, and Track Three right at ninety-nine hours for an even 100-times.
Across the wagon bed, Mina was fast asleep under a heavy quilt, her small face peaceful despite the rumble of the iron-shod wheels. Her cheeks had a healthy, rosy color. The residual chill from her old illness had not flared once during the entire crossing of the southern ridges.
Up on the driver’s bench, Barnaby Holt hauled back on the leather reins, bringing the two grey oxen to a shuddering halt.
