The bell rang as it always did.
But the air it fell into felt heavier.
The sky sat low and unmoving, not with storm, but with that dull gray that pressed down without ever breaking. Smoke from the chimneys could not rise through it. It slid sideways along the slope instead, trapped and smeared like a stain that refused to lift.
Eryk woke slower than he had in weeks.
His hands opened on their own, but his elbows complained when he pushed himself upright. The ache was not sharp. It was wide and dull, soaked into muscle and joint alike. He waited a single breath longer than usual before standing, as if time itself had thickened overnight.
Around him, the shed woke in the same measured quiet. Straw shifted. Someone coughed and did not stop.
Outside, the yard was already moving.
Not fast. Not chaotic.
Just earlier.
Hala had the boys on water and grain both before the second bell finished ringing.
"Two runs before the sun clears the wall," she snapped. "No spills. No backtracking."
The pump handle felt heavier than it should have on the first pull. The bucket did not rise cleanly on the first draw. Tomas and Eryk worked the rope together without speaking, breath fogging thick in the cold air, hands finding the rhythm because rhythm was safer than thought.
On the third haul, the rope jerked unevenly as it wound.
Tomas frowned at it.
"They replaced it yesterday," he muttered. "Already fraying."
Eryk set the bucket down without answering.
He carried.
By midmorning, the first grain stacks were already waiting near the upper path. Sacks lay in neat rows that had not been there the night before.
More than usual.
Bran stood near the cart with two unfamiliar men. Their shoulders were dusted pale, as if they had already been too close to the quarry. They did not look at the boys. They only watched the path like it might betray them.
"They lengthened the haul," Bran said quietly as Eryk passed. "Mid-tier wants more stone before the frost deepens."
"Why now?" Eryk asked.
Bran shrugged. "Orders come down. Stone goes up."
The cart wheels groaned under the first load. The wood creaked instead of rolling smoothly when Eryk pushed. He leaned into it and felt the strain climb from his legs into his back, settle into his shoulders like a weight that wanted to stay.
By the fourth run, his shoulders burned.
By the sixth, the pain did not leave between loads.
The path to mid-tier had been widened recently, but the widening was uneven. Fresh stone filled gaps where older rock had sheared away. Flatter, yes. Not stronger. Each time the cart crossed it, the ground answered with a hollow sound under the wheels, a deep emptiness that suggested space where space should not be.
Foremen watched with folded arms.
No one intervened.
At the crest of the slope, where the downward pull eased just enough to breathe, Eryk felt his foot slip.
Not far. Not a fall.
Just enough for the cart to tug his weight forward with sudden, quiet insistence.
He caught it.
His hands bit into the wood. His knees locked. The load steadied with a soft shudder and continued up as if nothing had happened.
No shout followed.
No warning.
At the base of the ramp, an older worker took the cart from him without meeting his eyes.
"You stopped it clean," the man said.
Eryk nodded once and turned back.
On the third ascent, the hollow sound beneath the wheels deepened.
This time it answered with a crack.
A shallow fracture split across the fresh stone fill just behind the cart. Dust lifted in a faint gray breath and settled again at once.
The cart did not fall.
The foreman looked up only long enough to judge that the path still held.
"Keep it moving," he called.
They did.
No one filled the fracture.
They worked around it.
By midday, the yard smelled of dust and grain instead of stew.
The pot still steamed, but the broth inside had thinned further. More water. Less bone. The taste slid across the tongue and left nothing behind.
Eryk drank without slowing.
After the meal, Hala sent him back to hauling without comment.
He no longer needed to be told.
The second half of the day passed in longer spans of strain. The cart wheels shrieked on one descent where ice had crept back beneath the ash. The axle knocked twice in a way it had not before. A clerk passed through the upper yard once and made a brief note without stopping the work, as if the sound belonged on paper more than it belonged to the men pushing through it.
Tomas worked the pump alone for nearly an hour when the older man beside him was pulled to a temporary posting near the quarry lip.
When the man returned, he carried with him a new cough that did not leave his chest.
By late afternoon, the fracture in the path had widened.
Not enough to stop traffic.
Only enough to hold dust differently.
Chains rattled below with a higher pitch than usual.
On the final run, as the light thinned and the air grew sharper, Eryk felt something change in his own body for the first time.
Not weakness.
Delay.
His arms responded a fraction of a breath after his intent. His steps shortened. The cart's weight pressed longer into his shoulders before moving again, as if the world had begun to hesitate and he had to carry the hesitation too.
He adjusted.
Shorter strides.
More forward lean.
Less depth in each breath, just enough to keep the rhythm.
He arrived where he needed to without another slip.
When the cart finally stood empty at the end of the day, the foreman inspected it briefly and turned away.
"Back tomorrow," he said. "Same load."
No one argued.
That night the shed held the quiet that only came after sustained effort.
Not the silence of fear.
The silence of spent bodies.
Tomas lay on his side with his hands folded over his stomach, breathing rattling faintly in his throat. Bran stretched once and did not do so again. Somewhere near the far wall, someone coughed into his sleeve again and again, stopping only to draw another shallow breath.
Eryk lay awake longer than usual.
His shoulders throbbed with the memory of weight. His palms still carried the grain of the cart handle. When he closed his eyes, he saw the fracture in the stone again, the way the dust had lifted, the way the foreman had chosen not to see it.
The system had not failed today.
It had adapted.
It had taken the margin it used to have and spent it without record.
Tomorrow, the same path would be used again.
Tomorrow, the same weight would pass again.
The crack would remember.
Eryk pressed his hands slowly together beneath his ribs.
They were steady.
But the ground beneath them was no longer certain.