Novel & Cerita Refined Iron Sand Chapter 2

Cold bit into my skin. Stone pressed against my cheek. Every breath felt like glass in my lungs. I tried to move. Couldn't. Arms wouldn't respond. Legs felt distant. Wrong. My eyes cracked open. Darkness. Not complete. Faint orange glow from somewhere. Torchlight maybe. The world tilted when I tried to sit up. Stomach lurched. Bile burned my throat. Iron. I smelled iron. Blood. Old and new. My hands found cold metal. Chains. Heavy ones looped around my wrists. Connecting to a ring bolted into stone.

Not even dust was falling anymore. I lowered my arms slowly, my whole body trembling. The rocks above us—they weren't rocks anymore. They were melting. No, not melting. Breaking down into something finer, lighter. Golden sand poured from the ceiling in slow, impossible streams, catching the dim light like it was made of stars. I turned to Kael, my mouth hanging open. His eyes were wide—wider than I'd ever seen them, the green almost swallowed by black. He stared at the sand, then at me, then back at the sand.

The Iron Salt They smelled it long before they reached it. Rust. Blood. Oil. Burnt salt. The sea around them was stained with a metallic sheen, thick as ink. Birds avoided it. Fish did not swim it. The water groaned beneath the boat like it had bones. Jonas stood at the bow, eyes narrowed. “This isn’t just decay. This is… history. Dying over and over again.” Sefina nodded, clutching the Testament. Its edges were curled with heat, the script shifting like molten iron beneath the surface.

Shoving me inside, Janet crouched down and looked in through the flap. “Change into whatever fits best, you’re a lot scrawnier than those two were,” she ordered. “Hurry up now, we need to get back to the porridge.” Thankfully, she stood up and walked a few feet away to talk to another female rogue, leaving me alone. I quickly pulled out my two inhalers and used each before hiding them under one of the thin and ragged blankets. At once, I was both energized and feeling very feverish. While I removed my clothes, everything except the shirt I had taped around my body, and dressed in the remnants of the poor deceased sisters wardrobe, I went over the layout of the camp in my mind.