The ash fields of MelasOon stretched out like a dead ocean, rippling only with the slow shuffle of broken feet. Slaves moved through it in silence, wrapped in rags that might once have been white but were now the color of soot and sorrow. They bent low, scouring the black soil for diamonds—small, cold splinters of beauty buried in a dying world.
Above them, the soldiers prowled like armored carrion.
Their mouth-ware hissed as it filtered the ash from the air, inhaling clean breath and exhaling a thin black vapor. Their skeletal exo-suits clanked and whirred with every step—steel ribs where their humanity should have been.
The slaves had none of this.
No filters.
No protection.
Only lungs full of ash and fingers cracked raw by the cold.
Lina never complained.
Life had never been otherwise for her.
She didn't understand why the soldiers wore layers of wool and cotton while the slaves shivered in rags. Could soldiers feel cold under all that armor? Did even one grain of ash reach their lungs? If they were so comfortable, why did they complain so much?
The soldiers always said the mines were easier work—less exhausting, they claimed. But Lina didn't remember the mines well, only a blur of rock, darkness, and screams. And here—here she could barely lift her arms. They had only been working since daybreak, but already her bones ached.
No—soldiers didn't know exhaustion.
They did not bend.
They did not sweep.
They simply circled the slaves like wolves waiting for one to fall behind.
But Lina wasn't thinking of exhaustion.
She was thinking of Peter.
They were only one hill away from where she last saw him—near the woman's frozen body. She knew he would be there. She had left the wooden horse in the shed for him, but Peter didn't go back there. He would be here, shivering and scared and waiting for her. He had to be.
So she searched—not the ash beneath her feet, but the horizon.
Her small eyes scanned for her friend more than for diamonds.
"Keep your head down," Jaro whispered, sweeping the ash with his open palm.
"I want to find Peter," Lina answered, her voice too loud, too bright.
"The soldiers will kill you if you look for anything they didn't tell you to look for," Dalen murmured, shifting to block her from the soldiers' view while pretending to search himself.
"But I have to look," Lina insisted, stamping her foot in the ash.
"How else will I find him? If I find Peter, he can work too. He can help us look for diamonds. Why would they be angry if I'm helping?"
Dalen knelt beside her, lowering himself into the ash so they were face to face.
"They don't want Peter," he said softly.
"They don't want you.
They don't want any of us."
His hand swept the ash again, slow, steady, pretending to search.
"The only thing they want," he whispered, "is money."
"What is money?" Lina asked.
Dalen paused. His breath came out in a white cloud.
"It's… something you use to buy things," he said, though the words felt thin in his mouth—too small to explain something so large.
Lina had heard the soldiers speaking of money before, at night, behind the shed walls.
They spoke of a man named Russell—a man who wanted to buy her.
She remembered the look in Jaro's eyes when Ruk repeated the news.
The way Dalen had gone quiet.
The way Peter had cried without making a sound.
But Lina did not know what buying meant.
She did not know why the men looked as though the world had ended.
She did not know why her name suddenly felt like something that could be taken away.
She was only seven.
That night, Ruk had made a plan.
They would kill the soldiers, he said.
Two for him. Two for Dalen.
The last three together.
"There are seventy of us," he whispered.
"And seven of them. We can do it."
But Jaro had shaken his head.
"The soldiers have guns," he said.
"We do not have even a stone to throw."
Silence fell then—the kind that kills hope slowly.
Lina had spoken next.
She had cried while she spoke, but she had spoken all the same.
"It doesn't matter," she had said.
"I can work in the city, like I work here.
If you are all safe, I will be safe too."
She had only asked to keep the wooden horse—her last bit of home, her last memory of warmth.
Peter had agreed, though the agreement broke him like glass.
And Peter—Peter had sworn:
"I will not let them take you.
Even if it costs my life."
The memory tightened in her chest as the hill's slope grew steep.
Ash slid under her feet.
Her breath was sharp and cold.
They were almost at the top now.
Almost where the woman had been left to die.
From there she would see—
whether Peter still shivered beside the frozen body,
or whether the cold had taken him too.
Lina wished, more than anything, that she were taller—
just tall enough to see over the hill
and know the answer now
before her heart broke in either direction.
"What's over there?" one of the guards shouted.
"Where?" another asked.
"Footprints—goes to the distance. A child's limping, chained," a third called.
Lina still couldn't see over the hill. She shoved her way toward the top, but Dalen grabbed her by the collar. She was so eager her small body pulled at the fabric; for a heartbeat the shirt strained, nearly tearing. Dalen's grip tightened, hauling her back by the shoulder before the soldiers could notice her leap and level their rifles.
"Wait. Slowly. No sudden movement," Dalen whispered in Lina's ear.
Her heart beat like a drum in her chest. She felt Dalen's fear in the tremor of his voice—somewhere between hope and dread. She still wanted to run, but he was right: if she broke for the crest, the soldiers would shoot her like they'd shot at Peter the night before.
"The boy has escaped—you said you killed him, Dixy!" another soldier barked, angry.
"I think I did. Maybe my bullet just grazed him," Dixy answered. Lina listened to the words and felt a wind on her face; a foolish, furious hope rose in her. He is not dead, she whispered aloud. He is not here, she sighed.
"There's no blood—are you blind?" the first soldier snapped, re-shouldering his rifle.
"So what? He's probably dead from the cold. Who cares? He wasn't working anyway," the soldier who'd shot at Peter shrugged.
"What if he goes to another shed, you dumb cunt? Then we lose our job—or worse," another cried, and the men began to hurry down the slope.
"Why would we lose our jobs?" one asked.
"Kenta likes nothing more than a free slave rounding about. Gives his little prick an early rise in the morning," the first soldier said in a harsh, strident voice as they rushed away.
Lina could only pray Peter had found another shed, somewhere safer. It might have taken the cold a night to kill the woman, but she had been dead long before the frost touched her—dead when the newborn failed to breathe. Lina straightened her shoulders and peered. The footprints circled the woman at first, like a person stumbling in madness—then they ran out into the ash in a straight, deliberate line.
"Round up the slaves. We have to find that brat before anyone else does. Follow the trail, and this time you'll finish the job!" Lina heard a shout from down the hill.
Soldiers swept among the slaves, forcing them to gather and hurry.
Finish the job, Lina thought. Why would they need to finish anything? For the first time in a long while she wished she wouldn't find Peter at all. As long as she didn't see him, he could be dead—or he could be alive. But the moment they found him, that would be the moment he died.
"What's over there?" Dalen asked Jaro as the leading soldier barked from the front: "No need to sweep—move them faster!"
"Do you think Peter is still alive?" Lina asked clutching Jaro's sleeve, her voice trembling as she clung to the last thread of hope.
"If he's alive, let's hope an ash storm covers the rest of the tracks, or he won't be long," Jaro answered; his voice nearly lost beneath the clanking of chains as the slaves walked.
"Where do you think he was going?" Dalen asked again.
"Cold gets to your head faster than it gets to your heart. Who knows what that poor child was thinking," Jaro mumbled, catching his breath.
"I hope he's alive… I hope he stays alive," Lina said, her words thin as frost.
Lina looked at the woman.
Her head was blown open, and so was her chest—but still, she cradled her child in her arms.
Mother and newborn lay locked together, both turned the same deep shade of blue.
The color of everything that died here.
A blue that never faded.
Lina remembered Jaro telling Peter once:
"There is no shortage of soil on this world—no shortage of room for life. But no birds fly here, no wolves hunt here. MelasOon rejects all things that bear no chain. Here, everything either grasps a chain… or is shackled to one."
The soldiers used to bury the dead deep beneath the ash, letting the storms swallow them. But they had grown lazy—too tired, too cold, too cruel to care. Now the bodies were left where they fell, waiting for the next storm to erase them.
Until then, they remained.
Blue. Still.
Unmoving.
Watching the living from the faded pigments in their eyes.
From down the slope the lead soldier shouted something indistinct; from that distance no one could hear clearly—only the herd of boots and the metallic click of rifles as the men hurried. Two soldiers scrambled up the hill ahead while the rest drove the slaves from behind.
"Is he there?" one soldier called from the back rank. "What do you see?" he added.
"A ship," a faint voice answered from the horizon beyond the hill.
"A ship? What ship?" the first man demanded.
Lina, in the front row, could not yet see over the crest. Then the sight filled the ground below them—a wreck, a spaceship in pieces. Jaro, struggling to keep up, pushed for the hilltop but slipped; he tumbled hard, rolling down the slope. For a moment Lina thought he would die or at least crack a bone. Ruk lunged to catch him, but Dalen hauled Ruk back. One sudden move and a soldier might level a rifle at them.
Jaro hit the ground headfirst. His skull cracked; a thin trickle of blood seeped out. From Lina's vantage he looked dazed and lost. The soldiers paid him little heed; they had circled the wreck and were already herding the slaves downhill.
"You okay, old man?" Dalen called as his boot found solid ground.
"Yes…" Jaro whispered, rubbing his balding head. "There—there's the emblem of Karina."
Lina craned forward and saw it: on the ship's scorched hull, four golden daggers arced in a half-circle, pointing outward. The other half of the emblem was burnt away; only the larger intact arc remained, missing one blade.
"He's not here," one of the soldiers said.
"He must be," another countered.
Lina reached, wanting to touch the hull, but Dalen's rough hand barred her.
"Here," the leading soldier shouted, bending over a patch of disturbed ash. "He's changed clothes—wears boots too big for him." He clutched a wad of torn gray rags—half of Peter's old garments, Lina recognized from afar.
"And he's not alone," the soldier added, pointing. "There's a set of footprints going down from the ship to the west. The boy follows that trail in those new boots." The boot prints were larger, deeper—too large to be the child's old steps, but clear against the ash.
"Who could survive this crash?" the man who'd fired at Peter the other night asked aloud.
"Good question. Why don't you go find out?" the leading soldier sneered, rising.
"Why me, Timos?" the other grumbled.
"Because it's your fuck-up, Dixy. You're going to fix it. Tomorrow you'll get your gear—get on a hoverbike and follow their trail. Then you finish them off," Timos ordered.
"Oh wait—hold a minute. We've no rank here. You can't order me around," Dixy protested.
"Is that it? Hey, Darson—who tried to kill the slave and fucked up?" Timos barked at the men.
"Dixy," came the chorus.
"Tell me who fucked up," he demanded.
"Dixy," another repeated.
Timos turned to Dixy with a smug leer. "Tomorrow, they won't have walked far. The city's close. If they get there, you might find yourself in a cage with the slaves. Look at them—do you think how many of them like the idea of cages with you?"
"Okay… I'll do it," Dixy muttered, swallowing a mouthful of spite.
In a blink, the sky split open.
A pulse of yellow bruised into deep indigo as a starship tore through an astral rift, ripping reality like cloth. The firmament shuddered. Light fractured. Sound followed late—an echo that rolled like distant thunder.
The slaves froze.
Not in awe.
Out of habit.
Out of fear so old it lived in the bones.
Heads tilted upward in unison, like puppets pulled by a single string. Ash clung to their eyes and lashes, turning every face into a smudged shadow.
"First ship today," Dalen murmured. His voice was thin, already defeated. "That's two this week."
"Three," Ruk corrected, shifting the weight of his chains. "One came yesterday before shift change. Small one. Fast. A scout, maybe."
Dalen gestured toward the wreckage below. "You mean this one?"
The ship's shattered hull smoked, its emblem still visible through the ruin—daggers in a half-circle of gold.
Dalen squinted. "So… what is this Karina thing you mentioned?"
Jaro's jaw tightened. His fingers scratched absently at the sore red skin beneath his wrist shackle.
"A religion," he said, though the word sounded too small. "One that swings more sword than sermon."
Ruk blinked, confused. Dalen frowned.
"So… what, they're here to buy diamonds? Take slaves? Deal with Kenta?"
"Neither." Jaro's voice had gone low. Careful. "If the Karinites are here, it means only one thing."
Lina looked up at him, eyes wide.
"What thing?"
"War." Jaro's gaze followed the drifting smoke. "They don't come to trade. They come to claim. To purge. To replace."
Dalen spat into the ash. "So a new master? Kenta gets thrown out and they step in."
Jaro shook his head. "No. Not a master. They'd sooner break these chains than use them."
Ruk's breath hitched. A tremor of hope—fragile, unsteady—crossed his face.
"Freed?" he whispered. The word sounded foreign in his mouth.
Jaro didn't look at him. Didn't blink.
"Maybe that's church ships," Ruk murmured, eyes lifting toward the bruised sky. "Karina's lot."
Before anyone could answer, soldiers closed in around the slaves, herding them like cattle.
"Round up, you worthless sowaime!" Timos barked. "Back to the shed!"
Lina flinched at the shout. The ash around her feet stirred, swirling like something that wanted to flee—but couldn't.
"Doesn't matter," Dalen said, bitterness cutting his voice raw. "No one comes for us. You going to pray for help that isn't here?"
Jaro's expression tightened, eyes hollow and distant from too many winters of loss.
"'So long as there be not a thousand flashes of blue, there is no hope,'" Jaro whispered, voice quivering with something like grief. "That's what the old chants say. A thousand ships… a thousand suns in the sky."
Lina had never heard that before. Hope felt like a word she had never learned to pronounce.
Then the sky tore open again.
A second rift flared—a violet crack widening into blue fire. A cosmic wind rolled across the ash fields, shuddering every rib and bone.
"Move! Now!" a soldier roared.
Some slaves staggered forward. One—a starved man who looked more bone than flesh—hesitated. Just one heartbeat too long.
CRACK.
Light burst. The man dropped into the ash like a broken marionette. No one screamed. No one knelt. The world had taught silence well.
Two soldiers wordlessly dragged his body across the black dirt, leaving a dark smear that the wind was already erasing. They heaved him into the husk of the fallen ship, where no eyes would see him again.
"where he would blur to blue out of sight."
"Fool," Jaro muttered. His voice held no cruelty—only the weary certainty of someone who had seen this too many times. "Stared too long."
Lina dared a single glance upward.
Just one.
The sky was fading back to yellow and red.
Not blue.
Not yet.
But she held the image in her small chest anyway—
She had never seen it—but she could imagine it.
Freedom.
a thousand bursts of blue,
staking themselves across the heavens,
breaking every chain in the sky.