Crescent Betrayal, The Ring That Remade Him

The Weight of the World

The hardest part of saving someone is realizing that holding onto them might be the very thing that kills them.

Lincoln knelt in the dust, the salvaged everflame core from the supply depot sputtering in his hands. Its light was sickly, barely holding back the dark. Beside him, Santiago shivered, his skin pulled tight over bones that seemed to be turning to glass. The air in the chamber was cold, but the heat radiating off the old man was feverish and wrong.

“You have to breathe,” Lincoln said, his voice tight. “Santiago, please. Just breathe.”

“I’m trying,” Santiago wheezed, his eyes unfocused. “It’s just… so heavy. The air is so heavy.”

Lincoln watched the way Santiago’s chest rose and fell. Ragged. Broken. He looked down at his own hand, pressing it against the stone floor to steady himself, and he saw it—a thin, black vein snaking up his wrist, pulsing under his skin. The toxicity of the mine was getting inside him, too. Eating them both alive.

“We need to move,” Lincoln said, though he knew it was a lie the moment the words left his lips.

“I cannot.” Santiago tried to sit up, but his shoulder gave way and he slumped back against the rock. “Leave me, Lincoln. You know I cannot make another mile.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to.” Santiago’s voice was surprisingly strong. “Look at me. I’m done. If you carry me, we’ll both be dead before the next shadow passes.”

Lincoln looked away. He couldn’t bear the resignation in Santiago’s eyes. “I promised my mother I’d protect you. I promised I’d get us out of here.”

“Your mother would want you to survive.” Santiago grabbed Lincoln’s sleeve, his grip weak and trembling. “She would not want you to become a martyr for a dying old man.”

“Stop.” Lincoln’s throat tightened. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not dying. We just need time. We need a safe zone.”

“There is no safe zone in hell,” Santiago murmured.

Lincoln stood and paced the small, cramped cave. He needed to think. He needed to be the strategist the System demanded he be. He pulled the folded survey map from his tunic—the one from the overseer’s ledger—and studied it in the flickering light. His finger traced the lines. There. A narrow fissure, marked as an abandoned survey pocket, shielded by natural rock formations. Stable. Hidden.

“I found a place,” Lincoln said, kneeling beside Santiago. “It’s sealed off. I can block the entrance so no scavenger can find you.”

“And you?” Santiago’s voice was barely a whisper. “Where will you go?”

“Deeper. There’s energy down there—I can feel it. Raw, dangerous, but enough to power the forge. I can make medicine. Stronger light. A way out for us.”

“That’s a death trap. The deep layers are where the constructs are. Those things aren’t animals, Lincoln. They’re machines. War engines.”

“I know.” Lincoln folded the map and pressed it into Santiago’s hand. “But I have to go.”

“Why?” A single tear cut through the grime on Santiago’s cheek. “Why risk everything for me?”

“Because you’re the only family I have left.” Lincoln’s voice was raw. “Do you think I want to leave you? Do you think I want to be down there alone?”

“Then stay.” Santiago pleaded. “Just stay here with me until the end.”

“No.” Lincoln stood, his heart hardening like forged steel. “I refuse to let the end be here. I refuse to let Cressida win.”

He packed his supplies with quick, efficient movements—the last ration bar, the dagger, the ring. Then he paused, looking at the ring in his palm. The Forge Master signet. His mother’s last gift. He knew the System had come through it, but he also knew he couldn’t leave Santiago with nothing. A promise needed weight.

He leaned over and grabbed Santiago’s hand. He pressed the ring into the old man’s palm and closed his fingers around it. “On my mother’s soul, I will come back. I will find what we need, and I will be back before this light dies.”

“Lincoln—” Santiago’s voice cracked.

“Don’t.” Lincoln shook his head. “Don’t say goodbye. It isn’t goodbye.”

He hauled Santiago to his feet and guided him toward the alcove—the fissure he’d identified on the map. Tight, but it opened into a secure pocket. Lincoln cleared the debris and created a soft bed of loose fabric and dust.

“Get inside.”

Santiago moved into the darkness, his body limp. “What if you don’t return?”

“I will.” Lincoln pushed a massive slab of stone into place, sealing the entrance. He left a small gap for air—enough for Santiago to breathe, small enough to hide him from sight.

“I’m trusting you,” Santiago whispered from behind the rock.

“And I am saving you.” Lincoln didn’t know if he was saying it to Santiago or himself.

He turned his back on the safe zone and started walking toward the deep tunnel. His heart felt like it was being ripped from his chest. Every step away from the alcove was a step into a nightmare.

The air changed as he moved deeper—cold, metallic, heavy. His cough returned, deep and rattling. He clutched his side, the black veins on his arm pulsing with the rhythm of his own fear.

He stepped over a pile of rusted metal. The air around it felt wrong—charged, prickling against his skin. His veins throbbed in response, a dull ache spreading up his forearm. No System ping, no blue light. The ring was behind him now, clutched in Santiago’s hand, and Lincoln felt its absence like a missing limb. He would have to rely on his own senses until he returned.

He reached a junction where the walls were lined with strange, glowing runes. He stopped, his head spinning.

“What are you?” he whispered, reaching out to touch the stone.

The runes flared. The ground groaned beneath his feet. He pulled back, hand shaking.

“Too deep,” he murmured. “I’m too deep.”

He turned to look back the way he had come, wanting to run back, wanting to check on Santiago. But he couldn’t. He had made his choice.

He didn’t notice the shadow that detached itself from the ceiling behind him.

It was massive, a multi-legged construct of brass and bone. It hung in the air, silent, waiting. It skittered across the ceiling, metal claws making no sound, passing directly over the entrance to the safe zone where Santiago lay sleeping.

The creature stopped, sensing something. It tilted its head, a rhythmic clicking sound coming from its center. It looked at the rock Lincoln had moved to seal Santiago in.

Lincoln took another step forward, deeper into the dark, completely unaware that his path had just intersected with a monster that did not need to hunt. It only needed to find.