The darkness was alive.
Kael had never known a place so cold or quiet that it made his thoughts feel loud. But the mushroom pits were both — a hole in the world where light went to die.
A week had passed since he was chained into the Vale of Chains. Maybe longer. Time didn't move here. It crawled like the mold that grew on the pit walls.
"Step careful," Mira whispered ahead of him. Her voice echoed off the tunnel stone like a ghost. "Slippery near the ledge."
Kael did as she said, placing his foot where hers had gone. The tunnel was narrow, barely enough for two thin children to walk shoulder to shoulder. The walls were slick with some sort of bioluminescent slime, faintly glowing green, casting their shadows like long insects.
They weren't alone.
Dozens of other children shuffled silently ahead of them, all in line, all roped together at the waist and neck, led by two masked overseers with brands on their forearms — fire-wrought marks that pulsed with orange heat.
The Dominors didn't need words. They had the chain.
Kael had once heard of mushrooms as food. Soft. Warm. Cooked in butter and garlic. The kind his mother had bought once a year when the caravans passed through Serrel's Hollow.
These were not those mushrooms.
They grew in clusters on the cavern walls, jagged and black, like horned ears. Their stalks were thick, wet, and occasionally pulsed as if breathing. Kael tried not to look at them too long.
"They're called dreadcaps," Mira whispered. "They eat rats."
Kael blinked. "What?"
"Watched it once. A rat ran up the wall, sniffed one. It grabbed it. Like—" she mimed something closing, fast and sharp. "Gone."
He decided not to ask more.
Their job was simple. Pick. Scrape. Drop into baskets. Don't fall. Don't touch the glowing ones. And for the love of the Four Moons, don't breathe too deeply when the spores release.
But Kael watched.
Every crevice. Every turn. Every twitch in the stone. His eyes had grown used to the dark now. The world had shades — the black of wet rock, the gray of dried fungus, the sickly green of glowing rot.
And deeper in, sometimes, there were markings.
Old ones. Faded glyphs are carved into the walls. Too worn to understand, but familiar somehow.
He began copying them in the dirt when the overseers weren't looking.
They labored twelve hours. Maybe more. No one kept time. No one dared.
By the time they were chained together again for the march back up, Kael's fingers were raw and bleeding. His knees ached. His breath rasped from spores.
But he still watched.
That night, back in the pen, Mira leaned against him without asking. Her shoulder pressed against his.
"You saw the carvings too," she said.
Kael didn't respond.
"I think this place used to be something else," she went on soft voice. "Before the Dominors came."
"Used for what?"
She tilted her head. "Magic."
He turned to look at her. "You believe in that?"
She didn't answer immediately. "My mother had the gift. Nothing big. Just could feel storms coming. Water would gather in her hands when she sang. They called her a witch."
Kael felt his chest tighten.
"They came for her too?" he asked.
Mira nodded once.
Kael lowered his voice. "The Dominors. When they asked… 'Who carries the spark?'…"
She flinched. "She didn't lie. And I tried to lie for her. But they took us both. Burned the house. I haven't seen her since."
Silence stretched between them. Not heavy — more like threadbare cloth stretched too thin.
"My father was a tinker," Kael said finally. "Didn't believe in magic. Said the mind was stronger than any spell."
"What about your mother?"
"She sang stories. Old ones. About the Thread of Thought. The Labyrinth. The Mind-Glyphs."
Mira leaned closer. "What are those?"
He shrugged. "Don't know. She died before she could finish the story."
In the distance, another scream. This one is short. Sharp. It ended abruptly.
A few moments later, a guard passed their cage without looking inside.
Kael whispered, "The Dominors… they don't want power, do they? They want to unmake it."
Mira's voice trembled. "They're afraid of it."
He thought about the glyphs on the walls again. The way they made his fingers itch. Like his blood wanted to remember something.
"I think," Kael murmured, "they missed one."
Mira looked up. "Who?"
He met her eyes.
"Me."