The sedan chair was lined with quilted crimson satin. Four nervous apprentices carried the lacquered poles, stepping as softly as cats on dry autumn leaves.
Kaelen Vance sat back against the thick silk bolster, his hands tucked inside his coarse furnace-boy sleeves, nibbling on a warm sesame flatbread.
Behind the chair, twelve sweating guards hauled thirty heavy sacks of white-oak spirit-charcoal. Sera Thorne, Mina Vance, and Elder Sterling walked close behind, each carrying their bundles of dried rations and clean bedding.
The procession climbed through the Seventh Tower’s private spiral ramp.
Along the way, dozens of senior apprentices and junior furnace overseers pressed themselves against the damp stone walls. They stared with wide, bewildered eyes.
Just an hour ago, Kaelen had been a third-class furnace boy sleeping in a charcoal alcove on the third floor. Now he was riding in an elder’s personal crimson chair as the Seventh Tower’s newly appointed “Lucky Chief Furnace Boy,” escorted by the Tower’s finest guards.
Down in the sub-basement pits, former Overseer Belen had already been stripped of his black leather armor.
Chained to a twenty-pound iron shovel and covered in greasy soot, Belen was currently weeping into a trench of burning slag. Surrounding him were the very same conscripts he had beaten three days ago, all of them smiling cold, vindictive smiles.
