THIRTEEN
Angharad
The autocar came to a juddering stop at the lip of a giant crater. The ride had turned jolting as they left the city and the roads became hard-packed dirt. Hara stared down at the enormous expanse of tiered rock and soil below, the wind whipping at her face. Vast gray plains of muddy liquid stretched for miles on the other side of the crater. Hara could smell them even from this distance.
“Those are the waste fields,”
explained Sarai, fastening a white cloth over her mouth and nose and passing one to Hara.
“The slurry gets pumped up out of the mines after processing the ore. We won’t get any closer—they’re toxic.”
Hara fastened the cloth over her own nose, finding that it did not block the smell at all. But as Sarai led her to a tunnel that descended deep underground, Hara quickly learned the masks were not for the stench. Sarai took out a squat glass cylinder and tapped it once, causing it to glow in the darkness, and Hara saw that the air was thick with dust.
A guard stood beside a rusted lift that resembled a cage. He wore a long weapon strapped to his back that Hara learned was called a gunpowder rifle. She had heard that they could fell a bear with one shot, instantly. Why would he need one here?
“Back again so soon?”
he said, his stern voice at odds with the twinkling eyes above his mask.
Sarai let out a playful sigh, setting a hand on her hip.
“Now, you wouldn’t make me submit my credit key again, would you? If it shows I’ve been here twice this month, they might not be happy about that.”
“That’s the rules,”
he said, crossing his arms. Creases at the corners of his eyes gave away his grin. Clearly, he had played this game with her before.
“And I was just telling my friend that you were one of the nice guards,”
said Sarai with an uncharacteristic sulk. Hara caught on.
“You didn’t mention that he was so tall, Sarai,”
she whispered loudly.
At this, the guard uncrossed his arms.
“All right,”
he said in defeat, pulling open the gate to the lift. He fit his credit key into the waiting slot just inside the doors.
“You’ll get me in trouble one of these days, my lady.”
“Only if you want me to,”
she said in a low voice as they entered the lift. She turned to face him, leaning against the doorway. With a well-manicured hand, she reached out to straighten the lapel of his uniform.
“You should come up to the palace one of these days. I can’t always come here to see you.”
As the lift began to descend with a groan, Hara saw the guard running his hand through his hair and shaking his head. When they were swallowed by the darkness of the mine shaft, Hara noticed that Sarai’s flirtatious manner had disappeared and she was staring stonily at the wall.
“Thanks for playing along,”
Sarai said.
“I tried finding a few weak spots to gain access, but I found the easiest way was to charm my way in.”
“And you don’t want your location tracked when you come here?”
Sarai shook her head.
“The less they know, the better. That’s why I brought my family’s autocar; no keys required.”
Hara did not ask who ‘they’ were. Whoever stood to profit off of the mines, she supposed.
“Don’t remove your mask. This mine is used for gold and copper, but there are other more insidious things in here. Arsenic and lead, for instance,”
said Sarai.
“Not to mention the gasses that build up due to poor ventilation. They have explosions and asphyxiation deaths every month.”
The lift creaked to a halt, and Hara hesitated as the door opened to a solid rock wall.
Then she looked down and realized that there was a short opening that was only as tall as her waist.
Hara felt a wave of unease.
Lights glowed from the opening, and Sarai bent over double to climb into it on her hands and knees.
Hara followed suit.
There were lamps strung upon the low ceiling, and Hara realized that the space was vast, stretching off into darkness.
Sarai pointed her to a couple of flat boards with wheels fastened to the bottoms, and they both took one.
She showed Hara how to scoot along in a reclined position, and they began to make their way through the close space.
Hara felt as though the weight of a mountain was above them, ready to crash down on this tiny sliver of air.
Hara tried to calm herself as memories of her time beneath the floorboards reared up her throat, but after several minutes of inching along on her back, her breaths puffed frantically against the fabric covering her mouth.
Finally, the close space opened and they were able to stand.
Sarai led her down a corridor of rock to an office occupied by two men.
One was barking orders while the other sat silently.
When the shouting man saw Sarai, he halted his tirade and waved the silent man away.
He passed them on the way out, and Hara noticed a name stitched on his filthy miner’s suit: KENTON-Nor.
“My lady,”
growled the disgruntled man behind the desk, who Hara assumed was a foreman of some kind.
“Back to collect more pebbles?”
Sarai let out a sweet little laugh and said.
“I just came back to see you, Gormun. Oh, and this is my colleague, Lady Hara. If you have any trinkets for me, I’ll gladly take them.”
“I’ve set some things aside for you. Come take a look,”
said the man, pulling out a tattered box and tossing it on his desk.
Sarai stepped forward and made little oohs and ahhs over the contents of the box.
While her head was downturned, Gormun fixed hungry eyes to her, raking them up and down her form.
As she selected some pieces, she turned to Hara and said.
“Here, take a look at these. What do you think?”
Hara peered into the box. Several shards of mineral and rock were clustered within, but one seemed to glow with that odd, hollow mist. She pointed it out.
“This one is sorbite.” She said.
Sarai nodded, picking it up and slipping it into a pouch at her waist. Then she turned to Gormun.
“Lady Hara is a Seer, and she’s helping with my research. She was curious about the brave work you do down here, and so I told her you would be happy to give her a tour.”
“Well . . .”
said the man, glancing at the smudged sheafs of paper on his desk. Clearly, they were less appealing than spending time with two court ladies because he said.
“Of course, my lady. Follow me.”
As they stepped out of the office, Hara began to hear clanking and shouting from the passages around them. There were some lights, but most of the corridors were pitch black.
“Found a gold seam up ahead—should give us a nice payload over the next six months,”
Gormun said over his shoulder.
They began to pass groups of miners.
Most did not glance up as they passed, but a few gave them dull looks.
Men and women were covered in soil from their heads to their boots, and almost none wore masks.
Many were not even wearing shirts.
They used pickaxes to swing at the walls, piling the debris into wheeled carts.
A few workers used motorized tools that sent tremors vibrating through the rock, causing Hara’s teeth to chatter.
More than once she almost stumbled over reddish mounds of rock piled along the narrow corridors.
Gormun’s explanation on rock weathering was interrupted by a deafening rumble, followed by shouts.
Gormun cursed and took off in the direction of the noise.
Left with little choice, Hara and Sarai followed him.
In a larger chamber, part of a wall had collapsed and a group of miners were frantically digging with their hands through the rubble.
“Widderstone and Colston are trapped!”
one of the workers called to Gormun.
A woman’s sobs could be heard over the ominous rumbles, and Hara’s attention was snagged by the name Widderstone.
Three men dug furiously, shifting cabbage sized rocks until an arm broke free.
Immediately, they seized it and pulled the man out.
Smaller pebbles rained down and surrounded him as he was lifted out, filling the hole he had emerged from.
A few workers tended to him while the diggers continued to pull the newly fallen rocks out of the way.
The woman was sobbing harder now, an edge of panic in her cries.
Hara could not help it.
She went to her side and put her arms about the woman’s shoulders.
“They’ll be all right, see? They got one man out, and they will get the other. Just wait and see, they won’t give up. They are moving quickly.”
“He’s all I have—all I have left,”
the woman choked, clutching onto the front of Hara’s clothing.
“The children, and now Henry . . . ”
The realization slammed into Hara.
“Your family name is Widderstone?”
The woman paused briefly in her sobbing, her shoulders still shaking.
“Yes, I am Selda Widderstone.”
“Are your children named Bess, Tabitha, Malcolm, Beatrice, and Jimmy?”
The woman’s cries stopped, and she fought to control her breathing.
“What did you say?”
The woman needed to be distracted before she descended into full panic.
“Your children. They are alive and well, living in an old mill in Little Snail. The village is caring for them, and Jimmy is about to walk any day now.”
Or he was, before Hara left.
“How—how—”
the woman said, her eyes wide and desperate as they searched Hara’s face.
“I helped care for them. I come from Little Snail,”
she said, and she felt her throat ache with unshed tears of her own. She turned back to the pile of rock in time to see the men pull Widderstone out of the shifting rock.
“Look out! Move back!”
one of the men screamed, and the small group that had gathered instantly began to run. A resounding crack, deeper and more booming than the loudest thunder, echoed through the space. Hara could not think, could not move, until she felt a strong grip on her arm pull her back through the passage they had come.
Another terrifying boom sounded behind her, and thick dust filled the air as the ceiling collapsed. Hara let out a scream, but she could not hear it over the crash of rock and the shouts and slamming footsteps of the people around her. The lights were dimmed with the dust, and Hara choked and coughed and her feet stumbled, her knees landing heavily on sharp rock. She pulled herself up and ran.
Finally, she came to a corridor where the dust had not reached, and she placed her hands on her knees, feeling them tremble. Her mask was damp with perspiration, and to her surprise, tears. She looked about her, but Sarai was nowhere to be seen. The woman who was sobbing was the one who had pulled her to safety, and she went to her. They clung to each other.
“Henry,”
the woman kept saying, over and over through fresh tears.
“My Henry.”
“He’s all right. I just saw him,”
said Hara, refusing to believe that he might be dead.
“They pulled him out. He was just there.”
Then a horrifying thought curdled her stomach. Was Sarai trapped back there? Hara gained her feet and started down the hall they had come.
“Where are you going? It’s dangerous back that way!”
the woman called, but Hara had to find her friend.
The dust was beginning to settle, and Hara called.
“Sarai! Sarai!”
She turned left, then right, trying to find her way back to the collapsed chamber. Tears were blurring her sight. “Sarai!”
“Hara?”
called a voice to her right, and Hara bolted in that direction. Sarai was there on the ground, a thick line of blood coursing down her cheek and soaking into her mask, making an ugly stain.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m well,”
Hara said, her voice breaking on a sob of relief.
“But you’re bleeding.”
“I’ll be fine. I was just scratched when I fell,”
said Sarai.
“We have to go back and look for survivors,”
said Hara.
Sarai shook her head.
“Hara, you and I are not equipped for this. We don’t know how to prevent more rock from falling if we were to dig through the pile.”
“So, we leave them there to die?”
asked Hara.
“No. We alert the other foreman of the collapse and he will bring a rescue team. I saw most of the group flee from the room before the rock came down. The only one who I did not see escape was Gormun.”
Her horror only abated slightly.
“There is a woman back there, they were rescuing her husband. I want to go back to her and let her know that you saw them escape.”
Sarai nodded.
“Let us find her, and hopefully I can find a foreman.”
They were somehow able to retrace Hara’s steps, and Hara almost cried out when she saw that Selda and her husband had reunited. Sarai went to a group of men who were slapping dust from their clothes. A few had cuts on their arms or faces, but no one seemed in grave condition.
“You’re safe, oh, thank the gods,”
said Hara, making her way to the Widderstones.
“Yes,”
said Selda.
“But he’s injured, and the medic doesn’t come until the end of the month.”
Hara snatched the reticule from around her waist and knelt beside him. He had a long, jagged scratch across his shoulder that was bleeding freely. Hara performed a numbing spell with a few turns of her hands, and the pained lines between his brows disappeared.
“You’re a hedgewitch, then?”
he said in a voice rough with dust.
“Yes,”
said Hara, remembering that they were Norwenders and unafraid of magic.
“I was a healer in my village.”
He leaned his head back against the rock wall.
“Fortune favors us at last.”
She tried cleaning the wound with some rags and packed a generous amount of her infection-halting powder into the cut. With how filthy the wound looked, she did not want to close the skin and trap an infection within. She wrapped it in bandages and gave the rest of the powder to Selda.
“Apply it once a day, and it will heal without a scar in a week.”
“You are a blessing. I was just telling Henry what you told me, about the children. What is your name again, Mistress?”
Hara told them, and after many assurances that their children were well, she said.
“But why are you here? I thought the Lenwen army had taken you both prisoner, or had you killed.”
“They walked us for many miles,”
said Henry.
“It seemed we were always walking from one bare field or patch of woods to the next. Then our handlers changed, and we were taken into Montag,”
“Most of us were sent to work here in the mines, but I’ve heard others are doing factory work,”
said Selda.
“And are you paid at all?”
“No. We are prisoners of war. The only way we can be let go is if the Steward pays Lenwen a ransom.”
“Has anyone had their ransom paid?”
asked Hara.
They shook their heads with grim expressions.
“Not down here,”
said Henry.
So, the Lenwen crown was giving prisoners to Montag to be used for labor. Hara felt sick and heartsore. At least she could give them some comfort, knowing that their children were being well cared for.
“Hara, we must go,”
said Sarai gently by her side.
Hara took one last look at the Widderstones, and clasped their hands.
“I will do whatever I can to get you out of here,”
she whispered.
She and Sarai used the wooden boards to crawl back through the narrow crack and took the lift to the top of the mine shaft. Sarai stopped briefly to tell that guard that he needed to send a recovery team below, and his eyes widened when he took in the state of them. He ran to a waiting mobile outside of the tunnel, and they followed him.
When they stepped out into the sunlight, Hara removed her mask and took a deep lungful of sulfurous air. Both of them were coated in rusty brown dust, and the blood on Sarai’s mask matched it.
She and Sarai did not speak as they climbed into their waiting autocar and left the crater and the waste fields behind them.
“Now you know why I am trying to find an alternative to mining,”
Sarai said as they entered her laboratory. She closed the door behind them and went to a store cupboard to take out two white cloths. After wetting them at the battered work sink, she gave one to Hara.
“I can’t believe people spend hours a day down there,”
said Hara. She could still taste the dust at the back of her throat, and tears hadn’t stopped streaming from her eyes, trying to blink away the sting of grit.
“Most of the workers spend their entire lives in or near the mines. There is a worker camp near the waste fields, but many sicken if they spend too much time there. It’s poison. The waste gets into the water and the soil and it kills everything.”
“So where else do they go?”
“They stay in the mines. Though I’ve heard stories of some never waking up again since they do not ventilate the unused pockets.”
Hara put her face in her hands. She felt as though she was going to vomit.
“The foreman who was trapped . . . you seemed to be friends with him.”
“I told you that none of the mine owners like me because I am trying to put them out of business. So, I found the way around that was to become friendly with a foreman. Gormun was the one most willing to give me scraps to work with.”
Sarai pulled out the small purse she wore around her waist and reached inside to extract the bits he had given her. She placed them on the table with a sigh.
The image of a dusty arm breaking through the sand and rock, the horrifying sound as the top of the cavern cracked and collapsed, Selda’s tears—they all roared in Hara’s mind so she could think of nothing else.
Hara picked up one of the lumps of metal. By its soft feel, she thought it was lead.
“Sarai, can I trust you?”
Sarai had been staring at the metal pieces blankly, but she looked up at Hara’s soft tone.
“Of course, Hara. I think a near-death experience builds trust the way nothing else can.”
Hara closed her eyes and tightened her fist around the dull gray metal. There was a certain feel to gold, a way to tense the muscles and almost a taste on her tongue. Gradually she felt the softness of the lead begin to transform against her palm. She could sense Sarai’s eyes on her, but she only looked up when the lump in her hand felt right.
Sarai was watching her with a puzzled expression. Hara took Sarai’s hand and just like with Gideon, she placed the gold piece in her palm.
“Find a way to multiply it. I will help you in whatever way I can.”
Gideon
“They stuff the bird continuously on a diet of dates and barley for three months, and then when it reaches its desired plumpness, it is cooked and eaten whole. It’s so decadent, it’s almost sinful!”
Cecilia Lascort said, plucking an appetizer that resembled a tiny chicken from a tray.
“Here, you must try it, Lord Falk.”
“No, thank you. I’m afraid I overindulged at supper.”
“It’s poetic, don’t you think? The bird gorged in life, and now we gorge on the bird,”
said Cecilia with a coy smile, waiting for him to chuckle at her witty remark.
Gideon smiled and hoped it didn’t too closely resemble a grimace, then he took a sip of his wine and went in search of other company. He had only come to this soiree because Cecilia’s father, Professor Lascort, was an expert in rare minerals. There was very little Gideon had been able to glean from the library’s resources about sorbite, and he wondered if it was because most texts on magic had been removed. Rather than waste more time socializIng, he decided to seek out Lascort in earnest.
He entered the next room and leaned against a pillar, craning his neck above the crowd to see if he could catch sight of the professor. His search was interrupted by a warm, familiar voice.
“Gideon, welcome back,”
said Robert Winthrope, his hand extended from the sleeve of an immaculate dark suit. Sarai’s brother was tall and gentlemanly, a fine specimen of man that rivaled Gideon in popularity among the ladies at court. Gideon should have hated him, but it was impossible to dislike Robert. He was as close to a friend as any in Gideon’s circle, and his closest companion now that his men-at-arms were lost.
“Robert,”
Gideon said, taking his hand and giving it a hearty shake.
“Dismal crowd. Has everyone gone away to the country early this year?”
Robert chuckled.
“Court would seem small and dull to me, too, if I’d spent half the year roaming the peninsula.”
“Funny, small and dull is exactly how I’d describe the southern kingdoms,”
said Gideon. Then he noticed the subtle detailing on Robert’s lapel and caught a whiff of some spicy musk, and he became annoyed. Gideon was accustomed to being the best-dressed person in the room, but the man was impeccable.
There was an unspoken competition between them that stretched back to childhood; unspoken because Gideon was quite certain Robert wasn’t aware of it.
“How is it possible you’ve grown more good looking in my absence?”
Gideon grumbled.
“How many of those have you had?”
asked Robert, gesturing to his glass.
Unfortunately, Cecilia Lascort’s odious company had driven him to his cups, and Gideon was halfway between sloshing and sloshed. Gideon brought his glass to his lips, downing the dregs.
“Sarai seems to have made friends with the guest you brought to court. She brings her up every chance she gets,”
said Robert.
“Tell me, is she available?”
Gideon almost choked on his mouthful of wine. “What?”
“I’ve seen her around the justice chambers, and she’s rather comely. I’d like to make an acquaintance, if you wouldn’t mind introducing us,”
said Robert.
There it was.
Gideon knew it was only a matter of time before Hara was noticed by the bachelors at court, despite her status as a witch. None of them were worthy of her; slimy cads and lechers to the last man. He would sooner flog himself before he made it easy for them, but Robert was different.
Of all the dandies and vagabonds at court, Robert was sincere. Robert was virtuous. Robert baked pies for widows and orphans, probably.
Despite his perfection, which was a terrible flaw, Gideon couldn’t help but like him. Everybody liked him. And he knew without a doubt that Hara would like him. He was exactly the kind of man she should be with, all wholesome and honorable. His family was wealthy and charitable, and she already got on well with Sarai.
He could just see Hara strolling the Winthrope estate, her hand in Robert’s arm as their adorable dark-eyed children chased Seraphine.
Gideon flexed his jaw and swallowed the uncomfortable lump in his throat.
“She’s here to work, Rob. She is decidedly unavailable,”
said Gideon with a stony expression.
Robert laughed.
“Is she that dedicated? No wonder she and Sarai get along. Well, if she could ever spare an evening, would you introduce us? I would ask Sarai, but she’d never let me hear the end of it.”
“What do you want with a witch hunter?”
asked Gideon irritably.
“There’s nothing wrong with making an introduction—unless—are you after her?”
said Robert, catching onto Gideon’s sour mood at last.
Blessedly, Gideon was saved from having to answer by an interruption at his elbow. Then he fought to suppress a groan when he saw who it was.
“She’s not bad looking for one of them,”
said Farrington in that weedy voice that Gideon couldn’t stand. His cousin was weaselly and conniving without the Falk charm. He was the sort to talk loudly about his incoming inheritance at the deathbed of a family member. Or eavesdrop at parties.
His droopy eyes flicked between Robert and Gideon, and his thin lips curled in a smile.
“Have you bedded her yet, Gideon?”
“I dearly do not wish to be sick and waste the expensive vintage I’ve been enjoying, so would you please step back a few paces, Farrington?”
said Gideon, flicking his hand dismissively.
“That is no way to speak about a lady, Farrington,”
said Robert sternly.
“Would you tolerate someone speaking of bedding Lady Josephine in such a crude manner?”
Lady Josephine was Farrington’s mother and Gideon’s great aunt. Gideon felt as though he were about to retch.
“You’re both making me ill. Now please, I must find the man I came here to meet so I can escape this accursed party.”
“Who are you looking for?”
said Robert.
“Lady Cecilia’s father.”
“He’s over there,”
said Robert, raising his glass towards the fireplace.
“Thank you. And Farrington—stay away from Lady Hara. She’s likely to turn you into a newt in her shock. She’s not accustomed to seeing such a sallow complexion among the living.”
Ignoring Farrington’s grumbled swearing, Gideon spotted an elderly man with the burgundy velvet cap of a scholar sitting before the fireplace. Gideon made his way through the crowd and stood before him.
“May I join you?” he asked.
“By all means,”
said the man, grasping his drink with both hands as it rested on his ample stomach.
“You are the only young person who seems to value an old codger’s company.”
Gideon took the upholstered seat beside him.
“I am Lord Gideon Falk. You are Professor Lascort, are you not?”
“I am. Are you looking to brush up on your studies in the midst of a party?”
The professor chortled.
“My, the youth of today have changed.”
“It’s more of an intellectual curiosity,”
said Gideon.
“Tell me, what do you know of a substance called sorbite?”
“Sorbite . . . ah, witch’s mirror. I’ve come across it once or twice, and there is said to be a large deposit of it somewhere in the mountains where the fae folk live. But no one has mined for sorbite in years. Why do you ask?”
“A friend of mine is researching it,”
he said.
“And I told her I knew just the person to ask.”
The old man chuckled, flattered.
“Well, let me see. Sorbite is a scrying material. All witches can see visions of the past, present, and sometimes even the future with the aid of a scrying stone, depending on their level of skill. Moving images of people and things. But sorbite is different from other scrying stones. It allows witches to physically access the realm where these images live.”
“I’m not sure I understand,”
said Gideon.
“It allows them to access the dimension where the past, present, and future are kept. A witch would see what their mind interprets that space to be. For some, it is a formless space, for others an empty room, a hall of mirrors, or a pool of water to swim through.”
“When you say it is a physical space, what do you mean? How can a solid mineral turn into a space?”
“Think of it this way. If there was a piece of sorbite as large as a door, a witch could walk through it into the realm-between-realms. For you and I, it would be a solid rock like any other.”
“You said it was called the witch’s mirror . . . why is that?”
“It reflects a witch’s power, rather like a mirror reflects light. Not very useful, unfortunately, since a witch must be touching it at all times for the power to be transferred to the stone.”
“Would it be possible to capture the reflected power somehow?”
asked Gideon.
Lascort bridged his fingers in thought.
“It is an intriguing notion. Perhaps sorbite could act as a conduit, imparting power from one source to another.”
“So anything that touched it could become enchanted,”
Gideon murmured mostly to himself.
“It is definitely possible. Perhaps that can be a new experiment for your friend. If they found a way to harness a witch’s power with sorbite, it would be a world-changing invention, to say the least.”
With a horrible feeling clenching his chest, he suspected that someone had already made that discovery. Hara’s idea that sorbite and the mysterious power of the river were somehow connected looked more conceivable.
When he entered Hara’s room that evening, it appeared empty at first.
“Hara?”
he called softly, and then he heard a soft splash from the adjoining room.
He rounded the corner to find Hara almost entirely submerged in her bathtub, the water touching her chin. Bleary eyes met his from under the dark ribbons of her hair. She looked absolutely dreadful.
“Hara, what’s happened? What is the matter?”
Gideon said, dashing into the room and crouching next to the tub. He reached down to feel her brow, but she was not ill. Then he noticed how chilled the water was.
“How long have you been in this bath?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t notice it getting cold,”
she said, her voice slightly rough. She gave a light cough and brushed her hair out of her face. Then she sat up and murmured a soft command. As the water began to drain from the tub, Gideon got up to fetch a robe. When he returned, she stepped out of the tub and he tried his best to not let his eyes linger on her wet skin. She slipped into the long robe and he made to guide her toward the fire, but she said.
“Could you lay with me on the bed?”
Gideon nodded, worry making his chest ache. He had never seen her so wretched. He drew back the covers and she climbed into the bed. Feeling rather odd getting into bed fully dressed, he nevertheless climbed in after her. In all the scenarios he’d conjured in late-night fantasies, he had not expected the first time in bed with Hara to be like this.
She curled up within his arms and rested her head on the pillow close to his.
“I went to the mines today with Sarai,”
said Hara, and a wave of understanding washed over Gideon. Of course he had visited the mines, but he’d stayed above ground or toured the established seams, never the new excavations. His father entertained mine owners and so he heard the stories. Explosions, cave-ins, loss of workers. He could only imagine what she’d seen.
He felt a slight touch of frustration at Sarai for bringing Hara to such a dangerous place, where something terrible had obviously happened. Then she began to speak, and as she did, the ache in his chest grew into horror. She told him of the man and woman she met and how she had taken care of their children back in her village.
“But what is the most terrible about all of this is that Lenwen is turning over their war prisoners to Montag to be used for free labor. So long as villages get raided and the war goes on, the mines and the factories have a never ending supply of workers. Why would Lenwen do such a thing?”
It was as terrible as it sounded, and yet Gideon was not surprised.
“I have heard my father speak of the money troubles the Lenwen crown is experiencing. If they are desperate enough, I would not be surprised if they were selling prisoners to our industries.”
“But surely that is illegal,”
said Hara, and he almost wanted to laugh at her innocence, if it were not so tragic.
“Who would hold them accountable? Norwen would surely condemn them—that is, if they aren’t doing the same with Lenwen prisoners—but they are already at war with each other. Montag wouldn’t condemn them, and Mycan is too far removed from the war; they are not a player.”
“It’s not right. I could have died today, but they risk death every moment they are down there. For what?”
she said, burying her face against his chest.
“I know,”
he said, gently rubbing a hand up and down her shoulder.
“I wish there was something we could do to stop it.”
“I have done something,”
said Hara, and he could hear a note of fierceness enter her voice.
“I made gold for Sarai. Copper, too.”
“What?”
gasped Gideon, holding her away from his chest so he could see her face. It held none of the panic that seared through his body. Did she not realize the risk she was taking.
“Hara, how could you do that?”
“I trust Sarai. You said so yourself. She is someone who is inherently good.”
“That isn’t the point. Secrets have a way of getting out. Someone will ask how she got ahold of raw gold and precious metals to work with. Every mine owner has her on their black list.”
“I told her to say she got them from a jeweler,”
said Hara.
“It would take a fortune for the amount of gold she needs. The piece you made in the meadow was enough to make a mine owner rich.”
“I don’t care. If she can use it to put an end to the suffering, I will take whatever harm comes to me.”
Her naivete shone from her eyes with such earnestness, and Gideon had to hold back a groan.
“You don’t understand, Hara. The mine owners would never allow her discoveries to see the light of day, even if she was successful. Their livelihood depends on the mines, and they are old friends with Corvus. They would let a thousand innocent prisoners die or sicken before they’d close the mines. They would find a way to silence or arrest Sarai. And you . . . I don’t know what they would do.”
He gripped her by the arms, suddenly fearful.
“Hara, there are other ways. We could petition Corvus to review the working conditions.”
“Why would he care? According to Sarai, the mines are creating immense profits as they are.”
“I don’t know, but we need to try. If it means upending the entire mining industry, I will find a way. But I need to keep you safe,”
said Gideon, and he wrapped her in his arms again, trying to make her feel his resolve.