Dawn broke over Cinder not with sunlight, but with a thickening of the smog. The sky was a bruised purple, choked by the output of a thousand smokestacks running at double capacity.
Today was the Inspection.
The entire island vibrated with a nervous, frantic energy. Scaffolding was stripped away from half-finished projects. Slaves were scrubbed down with abrasive brushes until their skin was raw, then given fresh grey tunics to hide their starvation. The blood was washed off the cobblestones.
In the Design Tower, Kael Light stood before the Master Control Console. It was a wall of brass dials, glass gauges, and hissing pneumatic tubes that monitored the heartbeat of the volcano.
"Pressure in Sector 4 is climbing," a junior technician muttered, tapping a gauge with his fingernail. "It's running hot. 104%."
Kael didn't look up from his clipboard. "Thermal expansion from the morning cycle," he lied, his voice bored. "Open the auxiliary vents by 10 degrees. It will settle."
The technician nodded and turned a wheel.
Kael watched the needle. It didn't settle. It twitched upward. 105%.
The Flux-Valve was working. The steam wasn't venting; it was recycling back into the magma chamber, superheating the rock, building a pressure bomb deep beneath their feet.
"Unit 734," Baron Vance's voice crackled over the intercom system, distorted by static. "Report to the Observation Deck. The delegation has arrived."
"On my way, My Lord," Kael said.
He set the clipboard down. He looked at the technician—a young man named Stellan, a free citizen who had taken the job for the dental benefits. Stellan was innocent. He had a wife in the capital.
"Stellan," Kael said softly.
The boy turned. "Sir?"
"Check the manual release valve in the basement. I think the seal is loose."
Stellan frowned. "The basement? That's five levels down. I'll miss the arrival."
"If that seal blows during the inspection, you'll miss a lot more than the arrival," Kael said. "Go. Take the service elevator. It's the furthest point from the main boiler."
Stellan paled. "Right. Going now."
He grabbed his tool belt and ran. Kael watched him go. It was a small mercy. The basement was reinforced concrete. If Stellan stayed there, he might survive the initial blast. It was the only kindness Kael could afford today.
Kael adjusted his goggles and walked out of the control room.
The corridors were lined with Iron Guard—elite soldiers in polished black steam-armor, holding rifle-spears. They ignored Kael as he limped past. To them, he was part of the machinery. Invisible.
He reached the Observation Deck, a glass-walled blister hanging off the side of the tower, overlooking the main crater.
Baron Vance was there, bowing low to a group of men in red velvet robes. The Imperial Delegation. They wore masks of gold and porcelain, filtering the air through scented herbs.
"And this," Vance was saying, sweeping his hand toward the crater, "is the Geo-Thermal Siphon. The crown jewel of the Sultanate. We are currently extracting enough energy to power the entire Southern Fleet."
One of the delegates, a man with a mask shaped like a jackal, stepped forward. "Output is irrelevant, Baron. Stability is the concern. The Grand Artificer believes you are pushing the geological shelf too hard."
"Nonsense," Vance scoffed. "The math is perfect. We have triple-redundancy safeties." He spotted Kael. "Ah, my Senior Engineer. Unit 734. Show them the pressure logs."
Kael stepped forward. He held out a ledger. The numbers in it were entirely fabricated.
"As you can see, Your Eminence," Kael said, his voice flat, "the variance has not exceeded 2% in six months."
The Jackal took the ledger. He didn't read it. He looked at Kael. "You are the cripple? The one Vance claims is a savant?"
"I am useful," Kael said. "Nothing more."
"Usefulness is a virtue," the Jackal said. He looked out the window at the massive pipes plunging into the lava lake below. "But machines break. And when they do, the parts are discarded."
Crack.
A sound, sharp and loud like a whip crack, echoed from the depths of the crater.
The floor of the Observation Deck trembled.
"What was that?" Vance snapped, spinning around.
Kael looked at his wrist-chronometer. 08:00.
"Thermal settling," Vance assured the delegates quickly. "The rock expands in the morning heat."
Crack. BOOM.
A second tremor, stronger this time. Dust fell from the ceiling. The tea cups on the delegation's table rattled.
In the control room behind them, a siren began to wail.
"Pressure spike in Sector 4!" a voice screamed over the intercom. "It's... gods, it's off the scale! 150%! 180%!"
Vance's face went white. "That's impossible. The relief valves should have triggered automatically."
"They must be jammed," the Jackal said, his voice calm but cold.
"Manual override!" Vance screamed into his wrist-comm. "Open the emergency flush! Vent everything!"
Kael took a step back toward the door.
"It won't open," Kael said.
Vance turned on him, eyes wide. "What did you say?"
"The emergency flush," Kael said, raising his voice over the rising roar of the siren. "It relies on hydraulic pressure from the main line. If the main line is over-pressurized... the hydraulics lock."
"Fix it!" Vance shrieked, grabbing Kael by his collar. "You built the damn thing! Fix it!"
Kael looked into Vance's eyes. He saw terror there. The terror of a man who realized his math had failed him.
"I can't fix it, Baron," Kael said. "Physics doesn't negotiate."
WHAM.
A massive explosion rocked the tower. Down in the crater, the main intake pipe—the one Adam had fitted with the Flux-Valve—blew apart.
But it didn't just blow out. Because of the reversed valve, the explosion propagated downward, into the magma chamber.
It was like firing a cannon into a swimming pool.
The lava lake heaved. A bubble of superheated gas the size of a cathedral rose to the surface and burst, sending a wave of molten rock crashing against the containment walls.
The alarms shifted from a wail to a frantic, staccato beep. Evacuation Protocol. Evacuation Protocol.
"We are under attack!" the Jackal shouted, his mask slipping. "Sabotage!"
"Guards!" Vance yelled. "Secure the delegates! Get to the dropship!"
Chaos erupted on the deck. The Iron Guard formed a perimeter around the nobles. Vance was frantically punching codes into a wall panel.
Kael didn't run. He walked to the window.
He watched as the containment wall in Sector 9—where Adam was working—began to glow cherry-red. The iron was melting.
"Now," Kael whispered.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crude device. It was a detonator, wired to the jamming frequency of the prison's collars. He had built it from scraps of the Auditor's radio.
He pressed the button.
Instantly, the red lights on every slave collar in the facility blinked out. The nitroglycerin charges were deactivated.
Kael turned to the room. The guards were too busy shielding the delegates to notice him.
He grabbed a heavy brass fire extinguisher from the wall.
Vance was at the door, trying to override the lock. "Why isn't it opening? The system is locked down!"
"Because I locked it," Kael said.
Vance turned just as Kael swung the extinguisher.
Clang.
The heavy brass cylinder connected with Vance's mechanical monocle. The lens shattered. Vance screamed, clutching his face, blood streaming between his fingers. He collapsed to the floor.
The Jackal stared at Kael. The guard leveled his rifle.
"You," the Jackal hissed. "You did this."
"The machine broke," Kael said, dropping the extinguisher.
The guard fired.
Kael was already moving. He threw himself behind the heavy oak table. The bullet shattered a vase where he had been standing.
The floor tilted violently. The supports of the tower were giving way.
Kael scrambled toward the ventilation duct he had loosened days ago. He kicked the grate open.
"Kill him!" the Jackal screamed.
Kael slid into the darkness of the duct just as the Observation Deck lurched sideways. He heard the screech of tearing metal, the screams of the delegates, and the roar of the volcano claiming its due.
He tumbled down the chute, sliding fast, the metal burning his skin. He hit the landing in the sub-level maintenance shaft and rolled to his feet.
The air here was thick with smoke. The walls were cracking.
Kael tapped his earpiece—a stolen comms unit he had tuned to the resistance frequency.
"The Anvil is broken," Kael said, his voice shaking with adrenaline. "Adam. Isolde. Begin."
From the depths of the burning mine, a roar answered him. It wasn't the volcano.
It was the sound of ten thousand slaves realizing they were free.
The Cinder Rebellion had begun.