Chapter 8: Silent Delivery

The next morning, the sun was nothing more than a pale coin behind the grey clouds.

Jack stood in the courtyard of his castle, leaning heavily on his brass-headed cane. Every breath he took was still cold, but the sharp, glass-like pain in his lungs had subsided into a manageable ache. The medicine and the active use of his core the previous night had done wonders for his breathing.

“Are you sure you should be walking, My Lord?” Karen asked, hovering anxiously beside him. She was carrying a worn woolen blanket, ready to drape it over his shoulders at a moment’s notice. “The wind is biting today. Your nose… it only stopped bleeding a few hours ago.”

“The movement is good for my joints, Karen,” Jack said, his voice quiet but steady. “If I sit in that chair any longer, my legs will turn to stone. I am going down to the village.”

“But—”

“I need to speak with Barnaby,” Jack interrupted gently, giving her a reassuring nod. “We have carriage wheels to reinforce if we are to haul the coal I promised. I won’t be long.”

The walk down the winding path was a reminder of his physical limitations. The path was slick with packed ice, and the freezing wind swept up from the ravine, clawing at his thin cheeks. Jack had to concentrate on every single step, planting the metal tip of his cane firmly into the frozen path just so that it doesn’t slip and make him fall. It took him nearly three times longer than it would have taken a healthy man, but he refused to stop.

By the time he reached the outskirts of the village, his thighs were trembling with fatigue, but his mind was sharp.

The village was dead quiet. Most of the handcarts remained packed in the small yards, covered in frost-stiffened tarps. The villagers who were outside moved like ghosts, their heads bowed against the wind, their faces hollow with hunger. They didn’t look at Jack as he passed. They only saw a sickly lord walking toward his own grave.

He stopped in front of a low, sturdy stone building with a massive soot-stained chimney.

The blacksmith shop.

The forge’s large wooden double doors were shut tight to keep out the wind. No smoke rose from the chimney. The iron anvil that usually sat outside on a massive oak stump was covered in a neat layer of fresh snow.

Jack raised his cane and knocked heavily on the wood of the door.

A muffled grunt came from inside, followed by the scraping sound of a wooden latch sliding back. The door swung open, revealing a man who looked as though he had been carved directly from the mountain bedrock.

Barnaby the Blacksmith was massive. He had shoulders as wide as a doorway, a thick, bushy beard that was currently white with frost, and forearms covered in old burn scars. He was wrapped in a threadbare woolen blanket, his massive hands tucked tightly into his armpits to keep them warm.

“Lord Jack,” Barnaby said. He looked down at the young, pale lord, his brow furrowing. “You shouldn’t be out in this wind. If you freeze to death on my porch, Giles will have my head.”

“May I come in, Barnaby?” Jack asked, his breath misting heavily in the cold.

The blacksmith grunted and stepped aside, allowing Jack to hobble into the dark, freezing shop.

The interior of the forge was silent and bitterly cold. The great stone hearth, which should have been roaring with heat, was empty and grey, filled with nothing but cold cinders. Racks of iron bars, heavy hammers, and tongs hung neatly on the walls, completely covered in a thin, glistening layer of frost.

Barnaby walked over and sat down directly on his anvil, wrapping his blanket tighter around himself. “If you’re here about the iron brackets for the castle gates, My Lord, I can’t help you. My fingers are so stiff I can’t even grip my master hammer, and I haven’t had a lump of coal to feed the hearth in three weeks.”

“I am actually here about the carriage wheels,” Jack said, leaning his hip against a sturdy wooden workbench to relieve the pressure on his shaking legs. “I need them reinforced with iron bands. The mountain paths are rough, and we will be hauling heavy loads soon.”

Barnaby let out a short, mocking snort, a plume of steam escaping his thick mustache. “Hauling what? Giles tells me you promised the village a miracle. High-grade fuel in two days, he said.”

“I did.”

“With all due respect, Lord Jack, you’re dreaming,” Barnaby said, shaking his head. “The old coal mine collapsed years ago. The deep shafts are filled with choke-damp. If a man goes down there, he doesn’t come back up. Unless you have a secret vault of imperial gold to buy coal from the southern merchants, we’ve got nothing to burn but our own roof-beams.”

“The Frost-Grip family has resources you do not know of, Barnaby,” Jack said smoothly, his face entirely expressionless. “I only need you to prepare the iron bands. Can you do it?”

Barnaby stared at Jack, his dark eyes studying the young lord’s pale, determined face. He looked at the thin, trembling hands gripping the brass cane, and then at the dark circles beneath Jack’s eyes.

“I can work iron, Lord Jack. I’ve been doing it since I was a lad,” Barnaby said softly, his voice losing some of its rough edge. “But iron doesn’t bend for free. It needs heat. Real heat. Wet pine wood doesn’t get hot enough to soften a nail, let alone a carriage band. I need high-grade coal. Without it, my hammer stays on the rack, and my forge stays dead.”

Jack smiled faintly. “Then I suggest you clear your anvil, Barnaby. You might find the wind bringing you some luck tonight.”

Barnaby frowned, looking suspicious. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just be ready to work tomorrow,” Jack said, turning back toward the door. “Keep your shop unlocked.”

The walk back up to the castle was even more grueling, but Jack’s mind was racing. He had established the contact. Now, he had to deliver.

Night fell over the valley.

The blizzard had returned with a vengeance, the wind screaming through the mountain crevasses and rattling the wooden shutters of Jack’s bedroom. Inside, the small fire Karen had built had already died down to a few glowing orange embers, leaving the room dark.

Jack sat in his high-backed chair, wrapped in a thick wool cloak. He had locked his door from the inside hours ago, ensuring Karen wouldn’t disturb him.

He closed his eyes and focused on the three grey threads in his chest.

Deep below, in the subterranean vault, Rusty, Dusty, and Bones stood perfectly still. Beside them, on the stone floor of the crypt, lay two massive, bulging burlap sacks. They had been salvaged from the old grain storage, and they were now packed to the brim with gleaming lumps of high-grade coal. Each sack weighed nearly eighty pounds—far too heavy for Jack’s frail body to even lift, but to the skeletons, the weight was nothing at all.

“Rusty. Dusty,” Jack commanded mentally, his thoughts traveling down the spiritual links. “Take the sacks. We are going to the village.”

Through the connection, Jack felt the skeletons stir.

Bones, the giant, stepped back into the shadows of the tomb to remain on guard. Rusty and Dusty stepped forward, their hands gripping the burlap of the heavy sacks. With a synchronized clack of their knee joints, they lifted the heavy loads onto their shoulders.

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Jack took a deep breath, settling deeper into his wooden chair. To ensure this delivery went perfectly without any mistakes, he was going to do something highly taxing: he was going to take direct, manual control of their bodies.

He closed his eyes and pushed his mind through the grey threads.

The transition was jarring. For a second, Jack felt a wave of intense vertigo. His physical senses faded—the warmth of his small hearth, the sound of his own shallow breathing, and the feeling of his heavy woolen cloak vanished.

Suddenly, he was seeing through two separate, ghostly perspectives.

He could see the dark stone of the crypt vault, illuminated only by the faint, pale glow of the mana in his chest. He could feel the hard texture of the stone steps beneath Rusty’s bare skeletal feet. He could feel the heavy weight of the burlap sack pressing down on Dusty’s ivory collarbones, though there was no physical pain or fatigue associated with it.

“This is… bizarre,” Jack thought, his mind split between two skeletal bodies. It felt like trying to play a piano with his hands and a flute with his feet at the same time. Every step required a conscious, deliberate command.

He guided the two skeletons toward the cellar staircase.

They didn’t use the main castle doors. Instead, they navigated through the lower, drafty cellars where Gary’s grain had been stored, eventually reaching an old, half-collapsed coal-chute that led directly to the side of the castle near the stables.

The iron grate of the chute was rusted and choked, but Jack had Bones—who was still connected passively—give it a gentle, heavy push from below.

SCREEECH.

The rusted grate popped open with a low, scraping shriek that was instantly swallowed by the howling wind outside.

Rusty and Dusty scrambled out of the narrow opening, dragging the heavy sacks into the deep snow of the courtyard.

The cold was absolute, but the skeletons did not shiver. The raging wind tore at their bare bones, but they felt no discomfort. Jack focused entirely on the path ahead, guiding them down the mountain slope.

The journey was a masterclass in concentration. Because he was controlling two bodies at once, Jack had to constantly alternate his focus.

“Right foot, Rusty.”

“Left foot, Dusty.”

“Watch the ice, Dusty—”

Dusty’s foot slipped on a patch of black ice. Through the link, Jack felt a phantom jolt of panic in his own hip. He frantically commanded Dusty to throw his weight forward. The crooked-necked skeleton stumbled, his thin arms flailing wildly as he managed to plant his feet, the heavy sack of coal wobbling dangerously on his shoulder before stabilizing.