Chapter IX
IX
Alba
Her scream tore out of her, shredding her throat. Its echo ricocheted off the walls of the passage, over and over and over…
“Alba?” a man cried. “ Joder .” He cursed once, hoarsely, as a peninsular would.
It shocked her into silence. Finally, she could gasp for air. One breath begot another; her chest heaved with them.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”
A candle flickered beyond the man, carried by a second figure. She could see long hair falling into the first man’s face, severe features, the wink of a gold earring.
Elías.
It was his hands on her shoulders, firm but gentle. He would listen. He could help.
“There’s a baby!” she cried. “Somewhere down here. It’s crying, can’t you hear it?”
A glint as his eyes flicked past her, into the darkness beyond. She could not read his expression, not in this much shadow.
“It’s so close, I swear it is.” Her voice cracked over a sob. “It needs help. ”
She tried to turn to point down the passage, but met resistance from Elías. He moved his hands from her shoulders to tighten on her upper arms. Over his shoulder, he called: “We need to shut this passage down. The air is bad.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” the second man—the one who held the candle—said. He turned and began walking up the narrow passageway, his quick steps sending loose stones scraping against one another.
The crying lifted again, tugging on her loose threads, unraveling her. He had to let her go so that she could find the baby. Wrap it in her arms and spirit it away from this terrible place.
“Can’t you hear it?” she cried.
If he could not, did that mean she was going mad? Had she imagined it all? It was not possible. It simply was not . She could still hear the crying ringing in her ears, as if it were a room away—
“You need fresh air,” Elías said.
His hands were on her shoulders again, this time with firm pressure to force her to follow.
She stumbled, wrestled against him. She craned her head over her shoulder.
The baby’s breathing pulled ragged; it whimpered.
Her heart wanted to reach for it. Wanted to find it and find it now.
The damn candle was ruining her ability to see in the dark, but she swore that if they snuffed it out, she would be able to see the baby right there.
“We can’t leave it!” she said. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. “It’ll die down here. It’s hurt, it needs help .”
“ Stop .” His hands slid down her arms to catch her fingers and, holding them tightly, he drew her close to him and dipped his face down to hers. She avoided meeting his gaze, still trying to look back into the dark, to search the ground for a bundle of rags, for flailing arms. “Look at me.”
She obeyed. The man with the candle had moved far enough away that she could not make out Elías’s features at all. A memory of a dark courtyard flitted through her mind. This voice in the dark, woven with Champagne and the crisp, good cold. It was a week ago. It was a lifetime away.
“Focus on my voice. Don’t listen to anything else,” he said. “Don’t think about anything else.”
He began to sing. Low and rough, in a language she did not know. Something lilting, sad and heart-twistingly sweet, repetitive as a lullaby.
They were moving up the passage. The candle bobbed beyond Elías, leading them out of the dark.
Rocks shifted beneath her feet; when she stumbled, he steadied her.
Never released her hands. Every few meters he cast a look over his shoulder to check where he was going, but he kept singing.
Soft enough that it did not carry, did not echo, that even in this mine with a thousand ears and eyes, it was only for her.
His voice cracked once, maybe twice; he hit flat notes.
But he kept singing. Kept her close. Kept her steady.
When the passage was wide enough, he turned. He did not release her hands.
Then, with a blast of brilliant white light, she could see the entrance of the mine.
It was a bucket of icy water to the face. Fresh air; the sound of pickaxes. A mule’s disgruntled whinny; the clop of hooves. Voices.
A heaviness spread through her breast, seizing the beat of her heart. It wanted her down, it wanted her in stone, it wanted to consume her. It was as if a cloak of iron had been placed over her body, squeezing her ribs, causing her to stumble.
She swayed and collided with Elías, then regained her footing.
“Get your hands off her!”
She lifted her head at the sound of Carlos’s voice. He swooped in and snatched her from Elías, squeezing her hands in his as he tugged her away from the entrance of the mine and into the bright light of morning.
“Did you bring her here?” Elías snapped. His gentleness vanished; in an instant, he and Carlos were all raised hackles and bared teeth. “And let her wander off, like a fucking idiot?”
“How dare you speak to me that way,” Carlos snarled. His grip tightened on Alba’s hands. His rings pressed against her bones.
“Do you know how dangerous it is in there?” Elías said. “Bad gasses, abandoned shafts, falling rocks—people have died . She could have been hurt.”
“I don’t need to be lectured like a child about my own damn mine,” Carlos snapped. “Keep your hands off my fiancée.”
“Then keep your fiancée out of harm’s way,” Elías said archly. He turned his back on them and retraced his steps into the mine.
“My father will hear about this,” Carlos shot at his retreating back.
Without so much as looking over his shoulder, Elías raised one hand and flipped Carlos an obscene gesture. He kept walking.
To Alba, Carlos said: “I’m sorry, carino. I let him get to me.” But then he raised his voice, his eyes sliding back toward his cousin, and it was obvious that he was not speaking to her at all. “He’s an embarrassment to everyone in this family.”
But Alba was not listening. When Elías raised his hand, it had been smeared with something dark. Something that glinted in the sunlight. Something wet.
Her gaze strayed down to her own hands, and what she found caused bile to rise hot at the back of her throat.
Her hands were covered in thick, darkening blood.