Ysara had led Aurelia upward through two terraces and stopped beside a broad staging yard where dozens of miners were already gathering for the next shift. Carts waited beneath timber shelters along one side, while racks near the opposite wall held lamps, helmets, and enough other equipment that Aurelia could not identify half of it.
She recognized several faces right away. One older dwarf had been among the last people she treated the previous evening. A human woman near the equipment racks had spent years compensating for a damaged hip until Aurelia repaired enough of the surrounding tissue that she could finally walk without favoring one side.
Then Aurelia saw the young man from the inn. His shoulder moved normally as he pulled on a heavy work coat. The cough was gone, which should have made her happy…
“You’re going back underground?”
The young miner looked up and recognized her almost immediately. His face brightened in the same way it had after she first cleared his lungs.
“I told you I would.”
Aurelia folded her arms. “It has been one night.”
Ysara stopped beside them without interrupting. Aurelia looked toward his Status, even though she already knew what she would find. His shoulder remained healed. His lungs were considerably healthier than they had been the previous day. Nothing in his condition suggested returning underground would hurt him today. That was not the same thing as saying the work would not begin hurting him again.
“You should at least take a few days.”
His expression changed. It wasn’t defensive like Aurelia suspected. Instead, it was apologetic.
“I can’t. Surface work pays less, and sitting at home pays nothing. My household depends on the mine rate.”
Aurelia glanced toward Ysara, but the Minewarden did not contradict him. The miner gave her another grateful smile before heading toward the equipment racks.
“Thank you again,” he called back. “Seriously.”
Aurelia watched him go. Ysara waited until he was out of earshot before speaking.
“He should not be underground. His lungs were deteriorating faster than I liked even before you arrived. I moved him to a cleaner section three months ago and reduced how often he worked near active cutting.”
Aurelia looked toward her sharply, but Ysara’s expression remained as flat as ever.
“Then stop him from going down.”
“I could. I can also reduce his wages when I move him permanently to surface duty…But I cannot make his food cheaper afterward.”
The answer quieted Aurelia more effectively than an argument would have.
“You said seventeen came back to work today… How many did you tell not to?”
“Four.”
“And?”
“Two listened.”
Aurelia sighed. The staging area changed as shift time approached. Workers passed through a narrow checkpoint where names were marked against a board, equipment was inspected, and crews assembled before continuing toward the Deepmouth. Aurelia noticed Ysara checking people almost as carefully as the record keeper did. A dwarf near the lamp racks received a pointed look before Ysara stopped him.
“How is the left knee?”
“Fine.”
“It was not fine yesterday.”
“It is better today…But stiff.”
“Upper sorting.”
His expression immediately soured. “I can work.”
“You can sort.”
“I lose the lower-shaft premium.”
“You also keep the knee.”
The dwarf looked toward Aurelia as though hoping the visiting healer might intervene.
Aurelia smiled sweetly. “Upper sorting sounds wonderful.”
He muttered something neither woman acknowledged and changed lines. They made it another twenty yards before Ysara stopped someone else.
“Your cough is worse.”
The miner shook his head. “Dry air.”
“Lamp room today.”
“I worked the lamp room last week.”
“Then you already know where it is.”
Ysara kept walking before an argument ensued. By the time they reached the Deepmouth, Aurelia understood something she had missed while treating workers at the inn. Ironvale was not damaging its people because nobody cared. Ysara already knew who had been moved away from dust, who needed another week before returning to lifting, and who had already ignored instructions that morning.
The problem was that people had to choose between poverty and health - with no reasonable way to escape.
─── 🐲🐲🐲 ───
The Deepmouth was large enough that Aurelia understood the name immediately. The entrance had been carved into the mountainside at the highest active terrace, framed by enormous timber supports darkened through years of mineral dust and oil. Rail tracks disappeared into the opening beside a separate walking path, while overhead lifting assemblies moved carts between the mine yard and the descending routes toward Ironvale below.
Ysara collected a helmet and handed another toward Aurelia. “Wear this.”
Aurelia accepted it. The first sections of the mine were broader than Aurelia expected. Timber supports reinforced the main passage at regular intervals, while rails ran through its center and narrow drainage channels carried water along one wall. Lamps had been positioned frequently enough that darkness never fully consumed the corridor.
Most notably to Aurelia was that nothing felt improvised or ignored. Workers checked supports as they passed, crews stopped at marked intersections to confirm assignments, and dangerous side passages had been blocked with painted barriers. Aurelia watched one foreman count his entire group before allowing them beyond a checkpoint.
“You take safety seriously.”
Ysara glanced toward her. “We prefer miners alive.”
Ysara explained what she could as she went, but Aurelia knew almost nothing about mining. Terms involving grades, seams, waste rock, and extraction ratios began blending together after the first ten minutes. Aurelia understood individual words but not enough of the larger process to predict whether Ysara considered a given wall promising or useless.
A crew worked ahead where several miners broke stone along a narrow seam. Another group loaded the result into carts, separating obvious waste where possible before the material ever left the gallery.
Ysara spoke with the foreman while Aurelia listened. There was a section expected to remain productive for another several months, another path that had disappointed them, and then a third route requiring additional support before crews could safely continue.
Most of the technical details washed over Aurelia, but the people did not. One older miner flexed his hand whenever he stopped swinging. Another had enough hearing loss that the foreman touched his shoulder before speaking. A woman perhaps ten years older than Aurelia carried herself carefully around an old back injury that had never fully resolved.
Aurelia waited until they moved beyond the crew before asking the question that had been building since they entered.
“Was the mine always this deep?”
“No,” Ysara continued at the same pace. “The easiest workings were much closer.”
“What happened to them?”
“We mined them.”
Aurelia frowned at the obvious answer before Ysara elaborated.
“The mountain still contains iron. The problem is how much work stands between us and the useful iron. Older workings contained richer concentrations closer to the surface. Less travel. Less stone removed for the same return.”
Ysara tapped one hand lightly against the wall as they passed.
“Those deposits diminish.”
“So you go farther and break more rock for less iron.”
Ysara nodded, which was something Aurelia could actually understand. They were working harder for less, and every useful quantity demanded more distance, more stone, more support, and more time from everyone involved.
“How has Ironvale kept production up?”
Ysara did not answer immediately, which told Aurelia enough.
“Longer shifts where necessary. Less rotation. Experienced miners remaining underground longer because replacing their knowledge is difficult.”
Aurelia’s expression tightened. “Younger workers?”
“Yes.”
“How young?”
“Young enough that you will dislike the answer. We do not send children into dangerous workings… But people begin serious work sooner when there are fewer adults available to absorb it.”
Aurelia looked toward the nearest workers again. The older miners bothered her, but the younger ones frightened her. Some already carried the beginnings of the same problems that plagued the older generation. The mine was beginning to write the same future onto people before they reached middle age.
Aurelia slowed. “You’re wearing them out faster.”
Ysara stopped. For the first time during the descent, the Minewarden looked genuinely tired.
“Yes. They used to spend a lifetime becoming the workers you treated yesterday. Now, some are arriving there earlier.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
─── 🐲🐲🐲 ───
The light-duty area sat closer to the main transport routes. Ysara showed it to Aurelia after she asked why more damaged workers were not simply moved away from extraction.
The answer became obvious before Ysara finished explaining.
A woman responsible for inspecting lamps had extensive scar tissue through one shoulder. Two workers sorting samples near a broad table both carried old respiratory damage. Another man repaired cart wheels from a seated bench because one ankle could no longer tolerate a full shift on uneven stone.
“These are the safer jobs,” Aurelia said.
“Yes.”
“And they’re all already filled.”
Ysara stopped beside the sorting table. “We move people when we can, but there are more damaged miners than jobs that allow damaged miners to remain productive.”
Aurelia looked toward the workers again. “What happens when someone needs to leave?”
“Someone else covers the work.”
“And if no one can?”
“Production drops.”
Aurelia already knew why that mattered. Everything in Ironvale had been built around the mountain. Keeping someone underground damaged them, but removing them only served to transfer the burden.
Aurelia thought again about the young man whose lungs she had repaired. They encountered him again on the return route as he was helping load stone into a cart with another worker. His shoulder moved perfectly, and his breathing remained clear.
Aurelia stopped near him. “You’re going to end up exactly where you were.”
The young man looked toward her. “Eventually.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me… But I can work now.”
Aurelia struggled with the answer. “There has to be something else.”
“Maybe,” his expression remained friendly. “When someone finds it, I’ll listen.”
He pushed the cart onward. Aurelia watched him disappear around the bend while Ysara remained beside her.
“He knows,” Ysara noted. “Most of them know.”
They continued on back toward the surface. It was then when Aurelia finally asked what had been bothering her since the previous night.
“What can Drakehaven actually do?”
Ysara looked toward her as Aurelia continued.
“I can heal people, but none of that fixes this.”
“No.”
“So what do we do?”
“Make it so they do not have to give this much of themselves for the same amount of iron.”
The Minewarden remained silent until the lift reached the next level; that was all there was to it.
“If I knew how as Minewarden, I would already be doing it.”
There was no frustration in the answer. Ysara had spent years learning which miner coughed too much, which worker needed reassignment, which shaft required additional support, and which crew could handle another shift. She had optimized everything she knew how to optimize, but the problem remained.
Aurelia resumed walking. “What happens if nothing changes?”
Ysara’s pace slowed. The question followed them through the passage for several seconds.
“Ironvale does not disappear tomorrow, or even next year. But people will retire, and others will become unable to continue. Younger people may decide there are easier lives elsewhere...”
Aurelia thought of Bellhaven, as well as Drakehaven. There were many places someone could work without walking into a mountain every morning.
“Shafts may close because we lack the people to justify keeping them open. Then the Forge receives less. Smiths would then leave, and the Shield shrinks because there is less settlement left to defend.”
Daylight appeared ahead as they reached the entrance. Ysara stopped beneath the enormous timber supports at the entrance and looked over Ironvale below.
“There may still be people living here fifty years from now. I simply do not know whether what they are living in will still meaningfully be Ironvale.”
Aurelia looked over the terraces. Smoke rose from the Ironheart, and hammering echoed from Forge Row. Nothing about the settlement looked dead, but that was perhaps the bleakest part.
─── 🐲🐲🐲 ───
They descended toward the lower terraces in relative silence. Ysara had shown her exactly what she wanted Aurelia to understand, and there was little value in forcing either of them to invent optimism simply because the tour was ending.
Then Ysara stopped; a boy waited beside one of the lower stairways. He was perhaps fifteen, lean enough that his patched work clothes hung loosely around his frame, with uneven dark-brown hair interrupted by a natural pale-gray forelock near the front. His gloves did not match: One was leather, while the other appeared to have been made from cloth wrapped repeatedly around his palm and fingers.
Ysara sighed. “You waited.”
The boy straightened. “You said she’d come back this way.”
“I did not say she would want to speak with you.”
“You didn’t say she wouldn’t.”
Ysara looked toward Aurelia. “This is Corin Halst.”
Corin gave Aurelia a quick nod, then seemed to remember that perhaps a visiting Awakened healer deserved something more formal and attempted a shallow bow halfway through the gesture.
Aurelia smiled. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
Corin looked nervous, which was almost refreshing. Aurelia had begun expecting Ironvale residents to approach every problem with enough confidence that they could probably argue with a landslide.
Corin adjusted the strap of his satchel. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Ysara started walking again.
Aurelia looked toward her. “You’re leaving?”
“I have work,” the Minewarden glanced toward Corin. “He has been waiting long enough that stopping him now will only make him return later.”
Corin looked faintly embarrassed, though Ysara did not appear concerned. She disappeared toward the next terrace after a few moments.
Aurelia turned back. “All right. What did you want to ask?”
Corin took a breath. “Teach me.”
Aurelia blinked. “Teach you what?”
“Healing.”
That was not the answer she expected. Aurelia looked him over again; no Status appeared beyond the ordinary information available for an unawakened person.
“You’re not Awakened.”
“I know.”
Corin’s response came quickly enough that Aurelia suspected he had rehearsed this conversation.
“That creates a fairly obvious problem.”
“Does it?”
Aurelia frowned. “Yes.”
Corin tightened one hand around the satchel strap. “Do all healers have to be Awakened?”
Mira immediately entered her thoughts. She was Awakened, but her knowledge and talent in medicine made her something beyond just her Class. Aurelia had spent the last several months learning precisely because her Seal did not automatically make her understand medicine.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
Corin nodded “Then that isn’t the problem.”
She paused for a moment. Eventually, she gestured toward the satchel.
“What is that?”
Corin opened it. Inside were folded cloths, bandages, salve containers, and enough miscellaneous supplies that Aurelia immediately recognized the collection as caregiving rather than mining equipment.
“My father’s old tool bag.”
Aurelia looked toward the iron token around his neck. “He was a miner?”
“Yes,” Corin nodded. “He retired early.”
The answer told Aurelia enough.
“Eventually enough things stopped working properly that Ysara wouldn’t let him underground anymore.”
“What does he do now?”
“Some work from home,” Corin shrugged. “Not much, though. I started helping him, but then other people knew I had bandages. Or knew I could change dressings. Or asked if I could sit with someone while they worked.”
Aurelia watched him. “You’ve been treating people?”
Corin immediately shook his head. “Helping… I don’t know enough to call it a treatment.”
The distinction sounded important to him; that answer improved Aurelia’s opinion considerably.
“I can clean things. Wrap injuries. Help someone get home. Make sure my father actually rests when he’s supposed to… but I want to know more.”
Aurelia folded her arms. “You’re asking because of last night.”
“Yes.”
“Because you saw magic.”
“No,” Corin looked toward the mine terraces above them. “I saw people I know stop hurting. I want to be better at helping before they get that bad.”
Aurelia thought about Ysara’s request.
Make it so they do not have to give this much of themselves.
Corin was not that answer, but sometimes keeping damage from becoming worse mattered.
Aurelia sighed. “I can’t teach you to heal the way I do.”
Corin nodded. “I didn’t ask you to.”
Aurelia narrowed her eyes. “You have an answer prepared for everything.”
“I’ve been waiting several hours.”
“Apparently.”
Corin shifted his weight. “Bram isn’t Awakened, but he can fight and can teach people to fight.”
“That’s true….”
Corin looked directly at her. “So being Unawakened does not mean I can’t learn medicine.”
“No,” Aurelia sighed again. “That still isn’t the biggest problem.”
Corin waited. Aurelia looked toward her own hands.
“I’m still learning. I’ve only been studying medicine seriously for a few months. Before that, most of what I did came from my Class. Even now, I rely on it constantly. That means I’m not qualified to train someone into becoming a proper healer.”
Corin considered the objection, then nodded.
“If you’re still learning, I can learn what you know now.”
Aurelia stared. Corin continued quickly before she could stop him.
“Then when you learn more, you can teach me more.”
“That is not how qualifications work.”
“I’m not asking you to tell everyone I’m qualified… I’m asking you to teach me things you know. If I know how to clean a wound correctly because you showed me, that is better than cleaning it incorrectly because nobody did.”
Aurelia hated how reasonable that sounded.
“You are extremely persistent.”
“I know. My father already told me.”
“It was likely not a compliment.”
“He says that too.”
On that, Aurelia actually paused and laughed despite herself. Corin smiled briefly, but then his expression became more serious.
“What happens when you aren’t there?”
Aurelia frowned. “Here? I’m obviously going back to Drakehaven eventually.”
“I know,” Corin gestured vaguely toward the settlement. “That’s what I mean. What happens when someone needs help and you’re somewhere else?”
“Mira is in Bellhaven.”
“What about Drakehaven? “What happens if you’re traveling or if you’re hurt? What happens when Drakehaven gets bigger?”
That question landed differently from the others. Aurelia had spent months imagining more people coming to Drakehaven, and everything about Drakehaven’s future assumed more people. That also meant more injuries, more illness, and more responsibility.
“What happens when you get old?”
Aurelia stared at him. “That feels unnecessarily aggressive.”
Corin’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m joking.”
“Oh.”
Aurelia looked away. Roy entered her thoughts; Kaelu had forced him to confront a version of the same problem. A structure Roy created through Transmutation was useful, but a structure nobody except Roy could repair was fragile. Aurelia looked toward her hands again; Drakehaven’s answer to serious injury was currently very simple, but that wouldn’t remain true forever.
Corin shifted nervously. “I’m not saying you have to teach me.”
Aurelia looked up. “That sounded like exactly what you were saying.”
“I’m saying you should consider it.”
“That is a strategic retreat.”
“I can ask again tomorrow.”
Aurelia laughed. She looked toward the mine rising above them. Aurelia had entered the Deepmouth wondering how she could help more people, and the answer had repeatedly been that healing more people was not enough. Now a fifteen-year-old boy stood in front of her asking for knowledge rather than magic.
Aurelia still did not know whether she was ready to teach. She did not know whether Corin would travel to Drakehaven, whether she would return to Ironvale often enough to make lessons useful, or whether Mira would laugh at the idea of Aurelia calling herself anyone’s instructor after only a few months of study.
Those were real problems… but they did not make Corin wrong.
Aurelia looked toward his mismatched gloves and battered satchel.
“All right.”
Corin straightened. “That means yes?”
“That means I will actually consider it.”
His expression fell slightly, but Aurelia held up one hand.
“And before you decide that means you should follow me around until I surrender, I mean actually consider it.”
Corin nodded carefully.
Aurelia continued. “I cannot teach you Skills or promise that everything I understand can be taught without them. I am also still learning… but that may be part of the point. I teach you what I genuinely understand, and you force me to figure out which parts I only think I understand because my Class does the difficult part for me.”
Corin’s expression changed as interest replaced nervousness.
“So we learn together.”
Aurelia considered the phrase, then nodded.
“Maybe.”
Corin smiled. Ironvale’s future remained frighteningly uncertain despite that, but at least there was one fifteen year old unwilling to accept that watching people hurt was the only option available.
Perhaps caring for more people did not only mean becoming capable of healing more; maybe it meant making certain someone else knew what to do when Aurelia was not there.
She looked toward Corin. “I’ll find you before we leave Ironvale.”
His smile widened. “I’ll be here.”
Aurelia suspected that was a promise rather than a prediction. For the first time since leaving the mine, she smiled without having to force it.