The Iron Sovereign groaned, a deep-metal shriek that echoed through the lightless arteries of the world. We were no longer sailing; we were a bullet of iron and silver, fired into the pressurized veins of the planet. Around us, the walls of the Deep-Earth Channels were not made of dirt or clay, but of primordial obsidian and raw, unpolished emerald, smoothed by eons of rushing subterranean rivers. The ship vibrated with a frequency so high it threatened to shake the very teeth from my jaw, a rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum that matched the frantic ticking of the Golden Compass on my wrist.
I sat on the floor of the darkened bridge, the only light coming from the pulsing white core of the silver-iron engine and the sickly, incandescent glow emanating from Kaelen's skin.
