Chapter 178: Sunken Kiln

Ahead, beneath deeper waters, the Sunken Kiln waited.

Behind them, the sea vault was beginning to fall apart.

Stone cracked across the top of the sea vault above the trade engine. Black stone broke apart, and freezing water came pouring down through the gaps. The pump lines began to buckle under the pressure of the vault collapsing around them. White records spun in the water, crashing against each other and against the support beams, glowing brighter with each new break in the engine. The roar of water and collapsing stone drowned out all conversation.

"North pump!" Joren yelled. "Red wheel, then go with the current!"

Orena pushed ahead and turned the wheel one more rotation. A shriek came from the pump lines as water filled them all the way up to the upper exit channel. Paper and broken ledgers flowed toward the ice drain lines.

Tessa held on to the clean records in their waterproof cases. "Only the facts that keep the route clean. No ownership."

Ceryn carried the debt chime records and held on to the wall line. "Do we still have the chime?"

Nyra stood waist-deep in the black water of the sea vault. The debt chime was surrounded by a blue-black aura that kept it from calling to the broken engine wheel.

"For the moment," Nyra said. "It’s trying to force itself into a route."

Austin Veyron’s mark pulled toward the chime.

He could feel it nearby, and all the debt notes inside it: house debts, winter advances, labor notes, food lines. It would give Austin Veyron knowledge of every hunger chain ever created to profit off people’s hunger.

DEVOUR wanted the debt chime. This time, it spoke with reason. If Austin Veyron took the chime, no broker could ever control it again. If he took the chime, he could keep all the debts safe from the people who wanted to profit from them. DEVOUR always found the same lie, just worded differently.

Veyra grabbed his arm.

"Name it."

"I want the debt chime."

"What would you gain from that?"

"A route ledger I could control."

Sable lifted the broken piece of her crown from the water. "You would still be controlling it from one side."

Austin Veyron glanced at Nyra, who held the debt chime from a distance, keeping it within her boundary without ever closing her hand around it. That was the difference, he thought. She was protecting it, not owning it.

"We aren’t targeting the debt chime," he said.

The engine wheel ripped free from its pin.

A wave struck Joren and sent him over the edge.

He disappeared beneath the black water of the sea vault.

Rin jumped in after him, her tails disappearing beneath the surface. Orena wrapped herself around the pump line and tossed her rope to Rin. Veyra held the rope in place as the current tried to yank it from her hands. For a long moment, nothing appeared on the surface except the churning water and the papers floating around them.

Joren broke the surface, coughing up water.

"We need to check the side chamber," he gasped. "There are workers in the customs cage."

Rin pulled him back up onto the ledge, then dove back into the water toward the side chamber.

Austin Veyron noticed red letters flashing across the falling stone around them.

RECORDS SINK WITH THE DEBTORS.

The sea vault was trying to destroy every record of who owed what, along with the people who had carried them. ℯℯ𝘭.

"Target," Austin Veyron said, looking at his team. "The records-sink-with-the-debtors clause. Not the water. Not the vault. Not the people."

"Witnessed," Veyra replied.

"Witnessed," Sable responded.

Austin Veyron threw the white root chain into the water.

DEVOUR opened. The clause tasted like an archive door closing over someone’s hands.

RECORDS SINK WITH THE DEBTORS.

He consumed sink.

The word fell heavy into his stomach. For a brief moment, he felt every record that had been trying to sink to the bottom of the sea vault pressing against his stomach. Then he felt it release, and DEVOUR went quiet once more, settling back into the dark corner of his chest where it always waited.

The falling stone stopped rushing toward them.

The sea vault was still collapsing, but more slowly. The records that had been sinking now floated in the water. The door to the customs cage stayed half open, jammed where it had broken from its hinges.

Rin reached the side chamber first. She found two men inside the cage, holding on to the iron bars as the water rose to their necks.

"Do you need the current line to get you out?" Rin asked.

One of them nodded. The second man shook his head and pointed to a woman trapped against the cage wall.

"Her foot is stuck under the bar," he said. "She can’t swim."

Orena waded into the water with her rope. Veyra held on to the line above her, and Joren joined them once he had caught his breath. Together, they pulled the woman’s foot out from under the bar and helped all three of them toward the pump line channel. The woman held on to Orena’s neck the entire time with a look of terror on her face, but she didn’t say a word. Rin swam beside them, her tails fanned out in the water to help guide them.

The engine gave one final shudder.

Queen Ysara stood at the edge of the wheel. She was drenched, her cracked crown almost invisible in the dark water. She watched the workers being pulled through the sea vault and the clean records floating past her.

"I thought I was helping them by keeping them in debt," she said.

Tessa reached through the water and took her hand. "Then help us get the records out. Nobody needs you to be their queen."

Queen Ysara looked at the debt chime held in Nyra’s field.

Austin Veyron was sure she would reach for it. Her hand moved at her side as if she wanted to. She stared at it the way a starving person would stare at a loaf of bread held out in front of her. Everything she had built her reign around was inside that debt chime.

Instead, she took a case of clean records from Tessa and tucked it under her arm.

"Where does the north exit lead?" she asked.

Joren pointed down the water channel. "Follow the current and hold on to the lines."

They followed the water toward the exit of the sea vault.

The current carried them up toward the surface beneath the north dock of Glasswake. Ice covered the tops of the walls they slid beneath, and old chains dangled in the current. Behind them, the sea vault collapsed in on itself, but the ownership records stayed blank as they fell with the rest of the debris. They followed the current as best they could. The water was freezing, and Austin Veyron clung to the line to keep himself afloat. He could feel his lungs filling with water, but he kept swimming until he felt Veyra’s hand on his collar.

They came up through a hole in the pump lines and tumbled onto the dock of Glasswake. The cold air bit at them as they gasped for breath. Sunlight broke through the clouds and shone across the ice. After the darkness of the sea vault, it almost blinded Austin Veyron.

The workers of Glasswake were there with lines and lanterns to help them. Joren’s sister was the first to help him out of the water. She held on to him for a moment, then looked at the cases in Tessa’s arms.

"Did you stop it?"

"We stopped the engine," Ceryn answered. "The broker got away."

"What about the chime?"

Nyra showed them the debt chime, still glowing inside its aura.

"We have it for now," she said.

The workers came over to help with the route records. They didn’t ask Austin Veyron about the debt notes. They opened the records and began writing the food supplies on the warehouse boards. Other workers came with blankets and warm broth, and they didn’t ask anyone how much they owed for it. Austin Veyron held on to his cup of broth and felt his fingers slowly warming. Joren’s sister took the first list of supplies to the north pier.

"Keep the port open-count," she said. "No more blue tokens or sealed bills."

Joren looked at Austin Veyron. "I can take you as far as the outer sea line, but I’ll be staying here. Glasswake needs workers who know how to work the drains."

"You want to stay?" Austin Veyron asked.

"I do."

"Then we’ll leave with a guide, not a debt."

Joren smiled for the first time since they had met him. It was a tired, crooked smile, but it reached his eyes.

Joren showed them an icebreaker at the outer pier. It was an old ship with a black hull and a heating boiler that had been fixed more times than anyone could count. The workers who sailed it wanted to keep the outer sea line open for food routes. None of them wore blue tokens as they worked to get the ship away from the dock. A few of them greeted Joren, and one even clapped him on the back.

Queen Ysara followed them aboard the ship, not as a prisoner, but as someone who was no longer leading anyone. She held one of the clean record cases and sat by the boiler as the workers got the ship ready to leave. The crew avoided her, but nobody told her to leave either. She sat with her broken crown in her lap and stared into the fire like someone who hadn’t slept in days.

Once they were away from the docks and cutting through the ice, Tessa laid out a map of the red conduit’s trail. She pinned the corners down with rope to keep it from blowing away.

"The red conduit didn’t lead to open sea," she said. "It leads to the Sunken Kiln, an old set of forges drowned beneath the ice shelf."

Ceryn followed the path of the trail. "Vordessa will be sending hunger sources to it, along with more debt notes and command fire. If the broker gives her the port’s trading paths, she can create a sovereign hunger engine."

Nyra held the heart shard and the debt chime next to each other. A blue-black aura surrounded them both, and the debt chime began to glow brighter.

"The Kiln is already calling to them," she said. "It wants the debt chime and the Caldera’s splinter."

Austin Veyron’s wrist mark began to burn.

The Sunken Kiln called to every hunger engine Austin Veyron had ever destroyed: the Hunger Emperor’s route, the Maw Core, the Cinder Citadel, the Caldera’s route, and Glasswake’s debt engine.

All of them pulled at Austin Veyron’s mind, each one trying to lead him down to the Sunken Kiln.

DEVOUR began to take over Austin Veyron’s mind once more.

Veyra stood next to him on the deck.

"Say it."

"I want to reach the source before Vordessa can."

"What would you create?"

"A sovereign hunger engine within myself."

Sable’s crown shard glowed in the sunlight off the ice.

"We won’t let hunger choose our route."

The icebreaker pushed through the ice and into the outer sea line.

The water was darker than they had expected.

Austin Veyron held on to the rail and stared down into the water. Veyra didn’t say anything to him this time. Behind them, Glasswake lit up the horizon with all the supply boards the workers had made from the records.

Beneath the ocean, the Sunken Kiln began to light up.