The sound of shattering volcanic rock echoed like a thunderclap across the cavern.
From eighty feet above on the Sector Two catwalk, Kaelen Vance looked down through his black silk blindfold. His hands stayed casually tucked into the deep pockets of his faded cotton bathrobe.
Beside him, Princess Valeria pressed her back flat against the cold stone ribbing of the ceiling vault. Her knuckles were white as she peeked over the rusted iron guardrail.
Down on the Sector One bridge, Furnace Warden Krahl looked like a demon forged from black iron.
His armor plates glowed with dark crimson heat along the seams. His eyes were small, sunken slits burning with ferocious Golden Core Late spiritual pressure that warped the humid air around his shoulders.
In his massive fist, the nine-foot molten iron whip hissed and writhed like a living serpent of fire.
“Where are the depot overseers?” Krahl roared, his voice reverberating through the acoustic pipes. “Where are the thirty guards assigned to this sector?”
A trembling junior officer crawled out from beneath an overturned coal wagon fifty yards away, his face covered in soot.
