The hells! She could not rest, although she was weary to the bone and still feeling in her skin the way the cloud of soil and debris had raced after her like a monstrous lilu with mouth gaped wide to devour her. Digging was hard, dangerous work. Men like Mas called the shaft and conduit “the murderer,” because men did die to bring water to barren settlements.

But the hard, dangerous work meant she didn’t have to think about what she did not have, what she could not do, and how those cursed reeves had tried to trick her into enslaving herself to their cursed halls. If she was going to walk into debt slavery, at least she had done it of her own choice, with her eyes open to the consequences.

But which would be worse? Suffocating under a mass of dirt as it forced its way down your throat and nostrils? Or having your head ripped off by a bad-tempered eagle?

She wiped yet more dust from her brow. Or maybe she was just smearing it together with sweat to give herself a mottled complexion. Through a gap in the canvas, she watched the sun settle westward toward hazy peaks. Stamps and shouts from the practice ground marked the pace of the training. Men who showed promise would be allowed to join the Qin militia, an elite group being trained to the strictest and most arduous standard imaginable, and despite or perhaps because of this, young men did put in second shifts for the chance to be as tough as the sauntering Qin soldiers.

Nearby, women worked with cheerful banter in the kitchens. A pair of mules came in with fresh laundry from the washing house a couple of mey inland, closer to a good water source, where other female debt slaves worked. The shaded ground beneath the canvas grew stuffy. She dozed off.

As she often did these days after working underground, she dreamed of flying. The land below her dangling feet is seen as hollows and rises, a patchwork of color and texture like a rumpled blanket but breathtaking in each distinct detail. A tiny deer springs across a clearing, followed by a fawn. A man in a red cap crouches alone by a campfire. A wagon drawn by droving beasts glides down a road, accompanied by a trio of walking men more like ants than human beings. Black thunderclouds pile up over mountains, building strength, and after lightning flashes, a blue burst of light bolts into existence, winks coquettishly, and vanishes.

Thunder boomed, waking her. Shouts woke the alarm bell, rung thrice. Running footsteps scraped on the ground outside. She scrambled to the entrance of the women’s compound, where debt slaves gathered.

“What happened?”

“A shaft fell in,” said one of the women. Her hands were coated with grease. They watched as the men training on the practice ground ran for the supervisor’s pavilion, grabbing spades and mattocks and rushing upland. A pair of Qin soldiers rode their horses inland, with a second man astride each carrying digging implements.