The Glass Veins

The wind, even in summer, carried the scent of wet rock and metal, a chill that sank into the bones and never truly left. Jozef knew that smell like his own breath, had known it for seventy-odd years in this valley, maybe more. His boot heels scraped the path to the mine mouth, a black maw in the side of the mountain, framed by skeletal timbers. Each step was a groan from his bad knee, a quiet complaint swallowed by the vast indifference of the landscape. The sun hadn't quite cleared the eastern ridge, but the air already held that grey, pre-work light, thick with the promise of more dust, more grit, more silence broken only by the pickaxe and the cough.

They called them 'crystal flowers,' those veins of pure, gleaming quartz that shot through the granite. Not like the delicate petals of a garden, mind you. More like jagged shards, embedded deep, cold and sharp. They shimmered under the lantern light, catching the sweat on a man’s brow, mocking him with their impossible clarity. Pretty things, if you didn’t know the cost. Jozef knew the cost. He’d watched his father spit blood, then his brothers, then half the men he’d started with, all of them choked by the dust that was the invisible pollen of those beautiful, cursed blooms.

Elara, though, she saw them different. Just the other day, she’d come running, her small hand clutching something she’d found tumbled down from an old spoil heap. A shard, clean and bright, the size of her thumb. 'Look, Deda! A piece of the moon!' Her eyes, wide and innocent, reflected its frosty light. Jozef had seen a thousand like it, chipped off the wall, swept away as waste. But in her hand, it looked almost magical. He’d grunted, told her to be careful, the edges were sharp. He didn’t tell her about the dust that got in your lungs when you hacked it free, the way your chest tightened, day by day, until breathing was a luxury. He couldn’t. Not yet.

Every swing of the pick, every scrape of the shovel, it was for her. For the bite of bread on the table, the thin blanket against the winter cold. This mine, it was a beast that fed on men and gave back glittering stones. He’d been feeding it his life, piece by bloody piece, since he was barely taller than Elara. The air down there, it was heavy, close, like a shroud waiting to settle. The sound of tools on rock, the distant rumble of carts, the low curses of tired men – that was the music of their lives. No birdsong here, just the ceaseless grind, the damp, the dark.

Elara didn't understand why the men coughed so much, why their faces were always caked with grey. She only saw the gleam when the merchants came, those slick city men in their fine coats, their eyes sharp as the crystal itself. They paid good coin, enough to keep the valley alive, barely. Sometimes, they’d leave a broken, discarded piece, and she’d hoard it, polish it with a bit of rag, imagining it a star fallen to earth. She’d press it to her cheek, cool against her skin. Jozef would watch her, a knot tightening in his gut. The mine, it called to young hands, promising treasure, hiding its true hunger.

One Tuesday, the roof shuddered. Not a deep tremor, just a sudden crack, a shower of fine gravel. Everyone froze, breath held. Jozef’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He saw young Petyr, barely eighteen, his face drained of color, his hands shaking on his pick. A larger slab, maybe a foot across, peeled away from the ceiling, crashing where Petyr had stood moments before. A close call. Too close. Old Man Grigor, next to Jozef, just spat. 'She wants her due,' he rasped, his voice rough with years of dust. Jozef didn’t need to be told. The mountain was always listening, always waiting.

He remembered his own first day, the awe of seeing those gleaming veins for the first time, thinking them truly beautiful. A fool, he’d been. A hungry fool. The promise of coin, of lifting his family out of the dirt farm, that had blinded him. Now, his hands were gnarled, his back a permanent curve. He’d traded his youth, his health, for these brittle, cold stones. And what did he have? A shack, a cough, and a granddaughter he couldn’t bear to condemn to the same fate. But the valley offered little else. The choices were narrow, hard as the rock itself.

Elara had started asking questions. Persistent ones. 'What's it like, Deda? Is it really dark?' Jozef would tell her it was no place for girls, filled with bad air and falling rock. He’d invent tales of goblins and rock spirits, anything to keep her away. But she had that hunger in her eyes, the same spark that made her try to catch butterflies, or climb the highest apple tree. A spirit too wild for the valley, too precious for the mine. He knew she watched him go, every morning, her small figure silhouetted against the grey dawn, her eyes fixed on the black mouth of the tunnel. And he felt the pull, the heavy weight of her future, pressing down on him, deeper than any rockfall.

One night, the coughing fit was worse than usual. It tore through him, ripping at his chest, hot and wet. He woke Elara, her little face creased with worry in the candlelight. She brought him water, patted his back, her touch light and frightened. He saw his own death in her eyes, and worse, her future. Who would care for her? The mine, it would take her, too. It always did. The company men didn’t care for old miners or orphaned children. They cared for tonnage, for the gleaming 'crystal flowers' that lined the pockets of men in distant cities.

The next morning, Jozef woke to an empty bed beside him. A cold dread, colder than any morning air, clenched his stomach. He stumbled out of the shack, his heart a frantic drum. He saw her. A tiny figure, no bigger than a shadow, making her way towards the mine entrance. She held a small cloth bag, probably for collecting more 'moon rocks.' His throat burned, raw. 'Elara!' he croaked, but his voice was thin, swallowed by the wind. She paused, turned, her face pale, startled. Her hand, though, was already reaching for the heavy wooden door.

He wanted to scream, to yank her back, but his legs felt like stone. The mountain loomed, the mine door waiting, a hungry maw. He saw her hesitate, saw the glint of the 'crystal flower' she held, catching the first weak rays of sun. It was beautiful, yes. But it was a beauty that swallowed lives whole. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he would rather tear the mountain down with his bare hands than let it take her too.