Raven Steele's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Raven rode east for three days in the silver armor, and on the fourth morning she stopped a half-mile from the mines. The pit lay open in the rock like a mouth. Steam rose from vents around its rim. Guards moved on the scaffolds, but she could not count them from here, and she could not see the tunnels below. Her ally reined in beside her. "You still mean to ride down there?" Raven watched a shift change she did not understand. She did not know when the next one came, or which gate the workers used, or where they kept her sister. Bright armor or not, blind was still blind. She turned the horse north. There was a forge town two ridges over, built to feed the mines. Every drill bit and chain link in the pit came from its furnaces. Raven had heard a name whispered by caravan drivers who bought steel there. A blindfolded woman who ran a furnace alone. Workers who left her floor said the same thing twice: she knew every gate in the warlord's holdings because she had shod the hinges herself. Raven left the horse and the armor with her ally outside the town. She went in on foot, in a dust cloak, with coin. The furnace hall stood at the low end of the street. Heat pushed out the open door in a wall. Inside, a pale woman in black plate stood at the anvil, a strip of dark cloth tied across her eyes. She did not turn when Raven stepped in. "Shut the door," she said. "You are letting the cold in." Raven shut it. She set three coins on the bench and said what she wanted. Guard rotations at the mines. Tunnel maps. The cell block where the long-term workers slept. The woman lifted the hammer and struck once. Sparks jumped. "You are wearing someone else's shape," she said. "Under the cloak. I can hear the runes." Raven did not answer. The woman set the hammer down. "Reva Nox does not sell the warlord's doors for coin." "Then what do you sell them for?" "A face I have not met." Reva turned her blindfold toward Raven. "Take the cloak off. I do not need eyes to read a person. I need a voice that does not lie." Raven dropped the cloak. The runes on the breastplate warmed in the forge light. She told Reva about her sister. She told her about six villages that said no. She did not soften any of it. Reva listened without moving. When Raven finished, Reva walked to a shelf and pulled down a rolled hide. "Three gates," she said. "Two shifts. One tunnel the overseers do not watch, because it floods." She pressed the roll into Raven's hand. "Bring her out before the next full moon. After that, the flooded tunnel closes for the season."