I knew the mine better than most of the overseers.

  Every tunnel, every shift in air, every creaking timber—I had learned them all. Running errands gave me access. Skinning game, repairing leather packs, hauling powder kegs… it let me listen. Let me see which shafts were active, which ones were abandoned, which ones were dangerous.

  And one day, I found it.

  A collapsed side chamber—small, tight, half-choked with dust. But near the rear wall, there was a sliver of wind. A crack. At first, I thought I imagined it. But the breeze was there, faint and cold. It tickled the back of my neck. I started working at it with a prybar and hammer—just a few minutes at a time, just deep enough to stay hidden. Weeks passed. The crack widened.

  Eventually, I could slip through.

  The gap led to a narrow crevice that wound up through the rock, tight as a birth canal, but climbable. It took me halfway up the ridge. Enough to breathe free air. Enough to disappear.

  That’s when I began gathering supplies—slowly, in pieces. A bit of jerky here. A roll of leather there. Flint and steel. Oil. A half-full water bladder. A bedroll stitched from ragged wolf pelts. All hidden in that dark, secret chamber behind the breach.

  And, of course, my pistol.

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  Crude. Flintlcoklock. Ugly as sin.

  But it fired.

  I made more powder, packed shot into pouches made of scrap cloth. Even crafted a small fuse bundle with extra powder for… insurance. I didn’t just plan to sneak out.

  I planned to die.

  Or so they would think.

  The day came during a scheduled blasting run. Midday. Two full teams were drilling holes and planting charges deeper in the mine, prepping for a big expansion. Noise. Confusion. Loose oversight.

  Perfect.

  I grabbed a spare fuse coil from a cart—cut to a special length the night before—and attached it to a small powder keg. Just enough to cause a collapse. I placed it in one of the unused support shafts leading toward my hidden chamber. I scattered some tools and a torn piece of my own shirt near the blast point.

  The signal came. Miners pulled back. Overseers counted heads.

  I made sure to be seen walking into the mine.

  Then I lit the fuse.

  I ran.

  Crawled through the narrow gap. Slipped into my hidden chamber. Covered the hole with a hide-wrapped plank I’d prepared. And waited.

  The fuse burned low.

  BOOM.

  The mine shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. Shouts echoed through the shafts. Timbers groaned. The false collapse worked like a charm—violent, messy, loud.

  To them, I had died.

  Crushed beneath the rocks. Gone.

  But I was alive.

  Alive… and free.

  When the tremors passed and the dust settled, I slipped through the crevice, scaling my way out under the cover of dusk. The wind hit my face for the first time in years. Cold. Clean. Wild.

  I didn’t look back.

  I walked for days, sleeping in hollows and feeding on dried meat. I followed the ridgelines northward, toward no place in particular. I didn’t care. I was no longer a slave. No longer a boy. The mountains were wide. The forests vast.

  And I carried thunder in my hand.