The air beneath the seventh sub-tier of Low-Khorat pooled like cold grease in the lungs, smelling of crushed limestone powder, stale embalming cedar, and the sharp, metal bite of dark oak-ink dried hundreds of years ago in the dark.
Ren Vale pressed his boots against the stone-crusted flat stone slabs, his shoulder braced against the wall. Every jarring step sent a ringing ache through his right collar bone. Beneath his sheepskin apron and heavy wool tunic, the stabilizing resin splints fitted by Artificer Ren held his collarbone rigid. But the bones felt unnervingly thin. The exclusion penalty of the Living Lapidary was an unforgiving math. His skeleton had taken on the load-bearing properties of quartz. Dense, rigid, and scared of sudden impact. One bad drop from a ledge, and his upper arm bone would fracture like glass.
He unstoppered the tin flask at his hip and swallowed stone salt water. The salty, rotten-egg fluid burned his throat. But kept his skin from erupting in the weeping hives that surface water had provoked ever since the Crying Wells.
“Ren,” a voice said, clear and dry beneath the vaulted ceiling. “If you lean against that wall any harder, you’ll leave a fossil.”
