Chapter 92 – Ashes from the Depths.

The first sense that returned was smell.

There was no smell of sulfur from the Glass Gorges, nor the scent of fragrant oil from the Ivory Citadel. The air smelled of damp earth, dust from old stone, and the bitter smoke of dried leaves burning over slow embers.

Diana tried to draw air into her lungs.

The pain hit instantly: a sharp stab in the right side of her ribcage seized her breath halfway. Her ribs were cracked in at least three different places. When she tried moving her right hand to touch her waist, the arm failed to obey the command. Her shoulder was dislocated, and the muscles across her back felt like a rigid, aching slab of lead.

She slowly opened her eyes.

Her vision was blurred, her vertical pupils taking time to focus in the dim light.

The ceiling above her was neither amethyst nor volcanic glass. It was a low vault of dark, rough rock traced with thin veins of dull gold that gave off no magical luminescence. She lay on a thick mat of dry straw and worn linen rags spread across the floor of a small, quiet cave.

Beside the mat, two meters away, a small campfire burned with greenish embers beneath an earthenware pot that released a thick, bitter steam.

Sitting on a stone stump beside the fire was a man.

***

He was tall, with broad shoulders and a lean, wiry frame. He wore worn gray leather trousers and a sleeveless tunic over remnants of dark iron plating that bore no guild crest or Citadel nobility seal. His hair was graying, cut to jaw-length and tied back with a leather cord, and his face showed deep old scars around tired, amber eyes.

The man held a wooden spoon, stirring the contents of the earthenware pot with slow, patient motions.

When he heard the sound of Diana's shallow breath hitching against the straw, he did not jump or draw a weapon. He merely stopped the spoon in midair, looked up, and stared directly at the Commander lying on the floor.

Diana tried to prop her elbows on the straw to raise her head, but her body gave way under the weight of physical pain.

“Lie still,” the man said.

His voice was low, raspy, and slow, with the tone of someone who had spent years without speaking to another living soul.

Diana swallowed hard, feeling her throat as rough as sandpaper.

“Where...” Diana's voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Where... are we?”

The man did not answer. He took a wooden bowl, filled it with the dark broth simmering in the pot, picked up a leather waterskin of clean water, and walked over to the mat where Diana lay.

He knelt beside the straw with measured, steady movements.

He slipped a calloused hand behind the nape of Diana's neck, lifting the Commander's head a few inches from the ground with a gentleness that contrasted with his rugged appearance, and pressed the mouth of the waterskin to her dry lips.

Diana drank the water in short, eager gulps. The liquid went down washing away dried blood from her mouth and soothing the burning in her throat.

“Who...” Diana tried to catch her breath, her dark eyes with golden rings fixed on the man's face. “Who are you?”

“Drink the broth first,” the man said, swapping the waterskin for the steaming clay bowl. “Your ribs are broken, your left shoulder blade is out of its socket, and you lost too much blood in the fall.”

***

Diana did not argue. She knew how to recognize when a body was on the brink of total physical collapse.

She took small sips of the bitter broth the man offered with the wooden spoon. The taste was terrible, bitter like raw tree bark mixed with soil, but the moment the liquid hit her stomach, a warm sensation spread through her ribs, dulling the sharp agony of her fractured bones.

When the bowl was empty, the man placed it on the ground and grasped Diana's left arm with both hands.

“This will hurt,” he warned in a neutral tone.

Before Diana could respond, the man pulled her shoulder back and drove the joint inward with a sharp, precise, and unyielding motion.

CLACK.

The bone snapped back into its socket with a crack that made Diana grit her teeth until her jaw trembled, but she did not let out a single scream. She only exhaled forcefully through her nose, her forehead drenched in cold sweat.

The man observed her reaction. He saw the two obsidian horns with golden grooves upon Diana's head and the gold rings spinning within her vertical pupils, yet his amber eyes showed no astonishment.

He simply released her arm gently and sat back down on the floor beside the mat.

“Did you pull me from the cave-in?” Diana asked, her voice firmer now that the shoulder pain had eased.

“I pulled you from the rubble before the automaton's iron plates fell on your chest,” he answered without looking at her, picking up a dry stick to prod the green embers.

“And where is this place?” Diana pressed, testing the movement of the fingers on her left hand. “Is this still the Second Circle? Or did the fall cast me into the Third?”

“It's where you landed,” the man said in a flat monotone.

Diana frowned, her usual sharp edge beginning to show signs of returning. “That isn't an answer. I have a faction in the Second Circle. I want to know the distance to the surface.”

“The surface is far,” the man answered, his tone unchanging. “And you won't be able to walk for the next two days without your ribs puncturing your right lung.”

***

Diana stared at the man in silence for several moments.

He did not carry the restless posture of an ordinary dungeon hunter, nor the stiff arrogance of the Ivory Citadel's nobles. There was an ancient discipline in the way he moved, weathered by centuries of isolation.

Diana lowered her gaze to the buckle of the man's leather belt, which was resting on the ground near the earthenware pot.

On the worn iron plate of the buckle, carved into metal corroded by time, was the relief of a scale with tilted pans and broken chains.

The symbol was identical to the runes Diana had seen orbiting in the golden sky of her mental realm when she accepted the inheritance of Greed.

—...

The System's voice resonated in the depths of Diana's soul, not with words written on a screen, but with a heavy, calm vibration that echoed straight through her chest.

The System recognized that man's presence.

That man had served the former Sovereign of Greed before the fall of the Fourth Circle.

Diana closed her right hand over the straw of the mat, feeling physical strength slowly return to her fingers as the herbal broth took effect.

She did not press for more answers. She knew badgering a man who had spent a lifetime in silence was futile.

She looked up at the dark stone ceiling of the cave, thinking of Rhea, Kael, Aurelia-Elysia, and Seraphina atop the gorge.

She had ordered Rhea to take command if she fell. She knew the wolf girl would keep the squad alive and the Bastion safe. But Diana had no intention of staying on that mat for long.

She would let the bones settle. She would drink the bitter broth.

And once she stood on her feet, she would discover exactly what this old servant of the ancient Throne was doing hidden away in the depths of that abyss.