My eyes stayed glued to Seth’s combat boots as I tried to follow in his footsteps. Strangely clean, they crunched against the rough, cold stone of the tunnel floor. Blood had soaked all the way through the synthetic leather of my sneakers. Sweat and grime cemented my socks to my feet. Still, even that felt more comfortable than the stiff silence that lingered between me and my brother.

Seth set an effortlessly urgent pace that forced me into a huffing half-jog.

Lingering patches of veilgator blood hardened on my cheek and jaw. It had taken me hours to prep the rest of the corpses, and there had been no time to clean. Frustrated and tired, I scratched at my face to clear the scabs away, but I only succeeded in driving a sharp sliver of blood beneath one of my fingernails.

I winced as the fragment drove deeper into my skin. In the end, I pulled it loose with my teeth and spit it out. A spot of my own red blood welled up at the tip of my fingernail.

I almost laughed. There was something stupidly ironic about being wounded by the dried blood of a dead parabeast.

The quick beat of Seth’s steps was growing farther away, and I shot a look at the back of his clean but well-worn olive cloak. Even though his face was hidden, I could perfectly picture the expression of icy detachment he projected.

“You’ve really got this whole ‘silent treatment’ thing down good. Definitely ready for fatherhood,” I said, just to break the icy silence.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, his expression exactly how I’d imagined. His scars—a fine line through his right brow and a thicker slash high on his cheekbone—only accentuated the coldness. He didn’t bother to respond.

Seth was the most powerful ardent in our division. The higher-ups prized him because of his prowess in battle and ability to always lead with composure. That was their word for it, at least. I called it indifference.

Stifling an irritated groan, I powered after him. The silence between us weighed heavier by the second. For a long time, the only sounds we exchanged were the hurried thudding of our mismatched footsteps on the rock.

That was, of course, until we approached the rift.

A wall of sound hit us as we left the narrow tunnel and entered a much larger cavern. At its center, looming over everyone, the expansive rift buzzed with life and blinding golden light. Makeshift stairs granted easier access to its base, which hovered a few feet off the ground. The golden rip in space and time was a sight that every ardent shared on their way in, but not all survived to see it again.

Seth started across the cavern without looking back at me. I fell behind, stealing glimpses of the various cliques and workstations to try and figure out what our unit had uncovered on this mission.

Two researchers in white lab coats huddled together nearby, speaking in hushed tones with a group of miners in hard hats. Ivory-headed pickaxes leaned against the wall behind them as the group set sample after sample of rocks embedded with glittering veins of hardened golden resin into the collection of open trunks nearby.

Along one rocky wall, about ten carvers in rubber aprons sorted and labeled the severed parabeast parts into piles. Despite the gory task of draining black blood from the monsters’ bodies, each person showed the level of professionalism and care that I’d tried to ask of Matthew.

I wonder how many times a parabeast corpse has tried to eat these guys, I thought with a scoff.

Not far off, closer to the stairs that led up to the exit, an ardent sat on a boulder with a splotchy bandage wrapped around his head. A medic in a red and white uniform knelt beside him to tend to the gash on his forearm. The ardent winced as the medic applied gel to the wound, but neither spoke, just going through the motions of their jobs. Behind the duo, more grime-covered soldiers mingled by a water station, refilling their canteens.

And then we passed the body bags.

My stomach dropped. Twenty-two black bags, all laid out in a single row in an isolated stretch of the cave. A priest stood by the first, his hand raised as he read the fallen ardent’s last rights. A medic sat nearby, her head in her hands, listening. Maroon blood soaked her forearms, and I could only imagine what she had seen in here today.

We’d lost a lot of people in this rift.

Instead of joining the other ardents in line for the cleansing stations, Seth veered left. He walked with purpose toward a man leaning against the cave wall and watching the priest’s grim procession from bag to bag.

The man saw us coming but didn’t immediately say anything, only shook his head sedately before returning his focus to the body bags. Dust powdered his spiky brown hair, and the jagged laceration on his neck probably needed attention from a medic.

“Hey, Jace,” I said, glad to see a friendly face after the shit-show that had been my day.

“Four of those body bags have boneforgers in them,” he said by way of a greeting.

I swallowed my retort. I knew he meant it as a word of caution, but I couldn’t help hearing a rebuke. After all, there I was, thinking about how hard my day had been, while four forgers lay right in front of me, cold and wrapped in plastic.

“How many total?” Seth asked.

“Twenty-six.” With a ragged cough, Jace spat a wad of bloody phlegm onto the ground. “The trainees already started carrying them out.”

“There’s nothing more you can do now,” my brother replied. “Get yourself to a medic.”

Jace shook his head. “There’s still a few ardents in worse shape than me. I’ll go after them.”

I raised a brow, tapping a finger on my neck. “You sure about that? Your head looks like it’s barely hanging on.”

Jace snorted. “What, this little scratch?”

In the silence that followed, Seth let out a steady breath, setting his hand on Jace’s shoulder. They stood there for a moment in silent solidarity, like they could read each other’s thoughts. Jace rubbed his eyes. A muscle tensed in his jaw. But he didn’t say anything else.

Seth and Jace side by side was a sight that frequented my childhood memories. But while Seth had always been serious, even as a kid, Jace used to smile and joke around with me. Growing up in the orphanage, he’d been a buffer that made my brother’s constant cool disapproval almost bearable.

“You still want a ride?” Seth asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Jace pointed to his wound. “If you’ve got time to wait for my beauty treatment.”

I snickered. Seth only said, “Meet you at the car,” and patted Jace’s back one last time before gesturing for me to follow him. More ardents had begun to flood out of the tunnel, and the line through the rift had gotten longer.

But we didn’t get far.

Seth stopped abruptly, and I skidded to an awkward stop behind him. He let out an almost inaudible grunt and, with only a brief glance over his shoulder, gestured for me to stay put.

Despite the fact that he was treating me like a puppy still in training, when I saw where he was headed, I was happy to stay behind.

He walked briskly toward a man in a black suit surrounded by people with clipboards. I couldn’t see the suit’s face from here, but I could guess it was someone from management.

The clang of metal on metal rang through the cavern, and I perked up at the familiar sound of boneforgers at work. It took a few seconds of scanning the chaos, but I eventually found a group of three boneforgers working on iron tables near the exit. One of them lifted a hammer into the air, and his golden raden glowed as he encased the forging tool with energy. With a grunt of effort, he hammered the sword pinned to the workstation beneath him, and it instantly snapped back into shape.

I watched him work while I waited, not really thinking about anything, just… watching.

“Torrin,” a gruff voice said behind me.

I flinched in surprise as a familiar boneforger with a scar on one cheek ambled toward me. Taj, a twenty-something who had joined the corporation’s ranks shortly after I did, gave me a curt nod. His arms were wet with blood and chunks of gore up to his shoulders, and he’d managed to smear some across his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “I need more of that solvent.”

“For your face?” I pointed at the black smears. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

He snorted and tried to rub some of it off with the back of his sleeve, but it was already clotted. “No, smart ass. Anyway, I need three bottles.” He looked meaningfully at my bag.

I could only shrug in response. “I used up everything I had today. All out.”

“Shit,” he grumbled, clicking his tongue.

I didn’t feel too bad about it. I’d offered to trade off duties with some of the other boneforgers so I’d have more time for extracurricular projects like preparing the solvent, but they’d never taken me up on it.

“Maybe by the time the next rift opens, you’ll have some extra?” Taj asked, already moving away.

“If I have time. See you, Taj.”

“Yeah, all right. Later,” he answered half-heartedly before melting into the constantly moving crowd of ardents and workers.

I shook my head, reminding myself I didn’t owe these guys anything. Taj was all right, but outside of the rifts, he treated me like a pariah, just like the rest of the forgers. Unless they needed something, of course.

Casting a final glance at the cluster of boneforgers, I turned my back on them and began searching the crowd for my brother. Not far away, the posse of clipboard-wielding men and women had congregated tightly around Seth and the man in the black suit. Their well-groomed appearances and freshly pressed outfits looked weirdly out of place amid the blood, sweat, and dust.