Khelt did not wake. It waited.
The ash moon turned slowly beneath twin suns, casting its light across broken stone and endless pits carved into the surface like old scars that refused to heal. The air tasted of metal and dust, thick enough to cling to the lungs. Nothing here grew. Nothing healed. It only endured.
Lucas learned this on his first day in the pits.
Before dawn, the collars activated.
A low hum rippled through the slave barracks, vibrating against bone and nerve. Bodies stirred. Groans followed. Chains rattled as prisoners were herded from their cages and forced into long, staggered lines.
Lucas stepped forward with the rest.
Barefoot. Shoulders squared. Eyes lowered.
He had already learned that looking up invited pain.
The mining pits stretched across the plain like open wounds.
Vast depressions carved deep into Khelt's crust, ringed by scaffolding and rail lines. Machines crawled along the edges like insects, their drills screaming as they chewed into ancient stone.
Heat radiated upward from below, distorting the air.
The pits breathed.
Lucas felt it the moment he crossed the threshold.
A pressure. Subtle. Constant. As if the ground itself were aware of him.
"Work," the guard barked.
Tools were shoved into their hands. Crude cutters. Vibrating picks. Gloves so thin they barely dulled the burn of the stone.
Lucas stepped to the edge of the pit and climbed down with the others, iron ladders clanging beneath their weight. The deeper they went, the warmer the rock became.
The stone they mined was unlike anything Lucas had touched before.
Dark. Almost black. Veined faintly with dull silver lines that pulsed when struck. It was warm beneath his fingers. Not sun-warmed. Alive-warm.
When his pick struck the stone, the vibration traveled up his arms and into his chest. Not painful. Not pleasant. Resonant. As if the rock were answering him.
"It's… listening," he thought.
Around him, the other slaves worked in silence.
Mostly.
But silence on Khelt was never empty.
"Don't dig too deep…" one hissed.
"The planet listens," another added.
"They say the sand… remembers your footsteps… even after you're gone," a third murmured, voice breaking, carrying the weight of horrors long past.
Lucas did not turn his head. He let the words drift past him like dust. But he remembered them.
Further down the pit, an older slave stumbled. His pick slipped. The stone pulsed.
The collar discharged.
The man screamed once.
Then, he went still.
No one reacted.
Not the guards.
Not the machines.
Not the stone.
Lucas worked. Hour after hour. Each strike measured. Each breath slow.
He learned the rhythm quickly. Strike. Pause. Listen.
He learned that the stone hummed faintly at night, when the machines shut down and the pits were left to breathe in the dark.
He learned that exhaustion was safer than defiance.
It was during the third cycle that Lucas noticed the man beside him.
He was older. Not by much. Maybe five years. But his face carried decades.
Lean. Weathered. Eyes sharp despite the fatigue that weighed them down.
He worked efficiently, wasting no movement.
Not broken. Not yet.
Their eyes met briefly. No greeting. No nod.
Just recognition.
The quiet understanding of two people who knew how to survive without being seen.
Later, during the rest cycle, they were given water that tasted of rust and oil. Food that barely deserved the name.
Lucas sat against a slab of stone, head lowered, conserving energy.
The older slave lowered himself beside him.
"You're new," Tarek said.
Lucas did not answer immediately. He counted three breaths. Then nodded once.
"Lucas," he replied.
"Tarek," the older man said. A pause. "I used to trade routes… before Khelt."
Lucas glanced at him, just slightly.
"What did you trade?" he asked quietly.
"Stories. Supplies. Sometimes lies," Tarek said. A beat. "Depends who was paying."
Tarek leaned closer, voice dropping.
"Don't sleep near the old cuts," he warned.
"What old cuts?" Lucas asked softly.
Tarek's eyes flicked upward. Toward the guards. Toward the ridges beyond the pit.
"The first excavations. Before the Empire came. Before the Khar'Vael," he said. He swallowed. "They dug something they didn't understand."
Lucas felt the stone hum faintly beneath his back.
"What was it?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter. What matters is… they stopped digging."
That night, the pits went dark. Machines powered down. The air cooled slightly, though the stone remained warm.
The slaves were herded into rest enclosures carved directly into the rock.
Lucas lay awake. Listening.
The stone hummed. Soft. Almost like breathing.
"Did you hear it?" one murmured.
"It's louder tonight…" another added.
Lucas closed his eyes. Thought of Rin. Wondered if he felt this too.
At dusk the following cycle, as the suns dipped low and the sky burned amber and bone, Lucas saw them.
Figures. High on the distant ridge beyond the pits. Still. Watching.
They wore long robes, pale against the dark stone. Hoods drawn. Faces hidden. They did not move. Did not speak. They simply stood.
"Monks…" he breathed.
The guards noticed them. Lucas saw it in the way their grips tightened. In the way their helmets angled upward.
And then… they looked away.
Orders barked. Whistles blown. Work resumed. As if the figures were not there at all.
Lucas kept his eyes lowered. But he felt it. A weight. A presence. Not hostile. Not kind.
Judgment.
As the last light faded and the stone began to hum once more, Lucas understood one thing with absolute clarity:
Khelt was not empty. And whatever watched from the ridges… had noticed him.