Chapter 8 #2
“He has been in the Aurevault a long time,” he says. “When you stay in the dark that many years, when you live under conditions that are torturous for even the strongest, most youthful man…” He gestures toward himself with a tired, self-assured flourish. “…your mind starts playing tricks on you.”
“So there’s nothing down there?” I press.
Pax clicks his tongue. “I didn’t say that.”
I groan, scrubbing dust off my forehead. “Well, is there or isn’t there?”
“There are things that can’t be explained in an afternoon,” he says, “and things I’m not about to freeze my ass off in an ice cage for by speaking out of turn.”
My frustration bubbles over. “Fine, I’ll find out myself.”
I take a determined stride toward Vein Three.
But Pax’s hand clamps around my elbow so hard I gasp. When I turn to him, all traces of his usual warmth, humor, and arrogance are gone.
His expression is carved from fear.
“Do not go down there,” he says quietly. “Ever. Do you understand?”
His grip is so firm, his face so grave, that there is only one possible answer.
I nod.
He releases me slowly, as if afraid I’ll bolt toward the darkness anyway.
Before I can argue further, a deep, booming horn shakes the entire cavern, so loud and low it rattles through my bones and sends a sheet of snow cascading off the cave mouth.
In an instant, the miners move.
Almost in unison they turn toward the entrance, forming a single-file line. Axes are hung on hooks. Coats and boots follow. Each time one set is placed, a pulley creaks and lowers the next. A rhythm. A ritual. Practiced so many times their bodies move without thought.
I furrow my brow. “Is… is that it? We’re done for the day?”
Pax chuckles, but the sound carries a weary sadness. “No. That means this shift is done. We can eat, maybe get a little shut-eye before the next one starts at midnight.”
“What?” I gasp. “How many hours do you work?”
He shrugs. “Almost all of them, I guess.”
It isn’t a real answer. Nothing from Pax ever is. But the truth is clear enough. These men aren’t workers. They’re prisoners with tools. Paying debts, serving punishments, trapped in a cycle that never ends.
As he walks ahead of me, I am suddenly, desperately curious to know what brought him here. What crime—or misfortune—landed a man like Pax in the Aurevault? Maybe I will ask him. In the sliver of time between shifts.
I hang up my borrowed coat and axe, unlace the stiff boots, then brush the shimmering dust from my cloak, grimacing at how the silver flecks have ruined the delicate fabric.
I step forward and almost crash straight into Pax.
He has stopped dead at the cave entrance, staring into the white glare outside.
My gaze follows his.
Luceran’s pale blue carriage waits at the base of the stone steps. The sprites, for once not arguing, stand at attention beside the door, wings fluttering as they lower the step.
I’m almost too frightened to look, but I make myself peer through the frosted window. Ice rims the glass, clouding the view, though I know I would still see Luceran at once. Broad-shouldered. Impossible to miss.
He isn’t there.
“Seems you won’t be eating cold beans with me after all,” Pax says lightly. “Our good and noble Lord of Frostwyn summons you home.”
The jab is obvious, but guilt prickles my chest anyway. I thought I understood hardship, but the miners here… trapped in this endless cycle of labor and cold… their plight is far worse than anything I’ve endured.
My silence must give something away, because Pax huffs a soft laugh.
“Oh? Getting attached to me already? I mean, I’m not surprised, but it’s hardly appropriate.”
A reluctant grin breaks across my face. My first in what feels like a lifetime.
“Well, go on then,” he says, tipping his chin toward the carriage. “Do not keep Lord Luceran waiting.”
I nod and head for the step. The moment I climb inside, warmth envelops me.
Velvet cushions swallow my tired body, and before I can settle fully, the sprites yank the ladder up and slam the door behind me.
They flutter to the driver’s seat, immediately arguing over the reins.
One smacks the other on the head, wins the tussle, then cracks the reins with a triumphant cackle.
The horses lurch forward.
Through the window, I watch Pax raise a hand in farewell before turning back toward the mountain. He heads for the rope bridges that climb to the tiny cabins along the cliffs, homes that look colder than the mines.
Before the Aurevault vanishes behind a curtain of sleet, my gaze catches on one last image. Rollin, huddled in the corner of his ice cage, holding himself, shivering violently as snow falls over him.
I don’t know whether he’ll survive the night.
That thought haunts me all the way back to Castle Frostwyn, almost as much as the truth lurking in Vein Three.
The carriage ride blurs into drifting snow and slow, heavy blinks. At some point, exhaustion curls into me, and I doze off… until something sharp tugs at my hair.
I jolt upright with a gasp.
One of the sprites hovers inches from my face, both tiny hands tugging on my braid like it’s a mooring rope. When I scowl, it only laughs, a bright, chiming sound, before darting away into the gloom.
I yawn loudly and stretch, long and lazy, like a cat basking in the sun, then climb down and step into the cold.
The courtyard lies quiet, the wind whispering over stone and snow.
I take the steps to the main doors and lean my weight against the carved wood.
They groan as they give way, opening slowly.
I slip inside and pull them shut behind me, though I’m not sure why. Every window stands open regardless, snow drifting lazily through the air to settle in pale drifts along the floor.
As I approach the staircase, my stomach twists. Was I supposed to prepare Luceran’s dinner tonight? Is that why he summoned me back? I panic for half a heartbeat, then a warm, savory scent curls through the air.
I edge toward the dining hall and press my ear to the closed door. I hear his familiar grumbling, the clink of silverware against porcelain.
Atilia must have prepared his dinner.
Relief loosens my shoulders. I turn quietly toward the stairs.
“Neve Devlin!” Luceran booms from behind the door.
I freeze.
My heart drops straight into my boots.
I swipe my hands over my red hair, trying to tame it, but it’s hopeless. There’s nothing I can do about the white fur collar of my cloak either, now marred with streaks of black dust from the Aurevault.
“Neve,” he calls again, sharper this time. “Do not keep me waiting.”
“I’m coming,” I breathe, forcing my feet toward the door.
I enter the dining hall.
Luceran sits at the far end of the long table, his meal steaming before him.
One arm drapes loosely over the chair, the other tapping a slow rhythm against his knee.
He has shed his heavy coat and untied his hair; it falls in loose waves over his shoulders, tousled in a way that feels far too casual for him.
His shirt is undone down to his sternum, revealing more runes than I ever realized marked his skin.
I gulp, teeth grazing my lower lip as I fight the familiar dryness in my throat. Curse the Fae and their beauty. Curse the way my body reacts without my permission.
“Yes, my lord?” I manage.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift. Just fixes me with an icy stare.
“Come here. Now,” he commands.
I do as he says, moving quickly toward him, hands clasped before me, head bowed. Submissive. The posture makes my skin crawl, makes me loathe what I have become. Soon I stand only a few feet from him. His fingers drum restlessly against his knee, each tap echoing the frantic beat of my heart.
He tips his chin toward the empty chair beside him. “Sit.”
I gulp. “I am fine standing, my…”
“I said sit.”He kicks the leg of the chair, sending it scraping harshly across the stone toward me.
My hands won’t stop trembling as I grip the back of the chair. I circle it cautiously, as though approaching the edge of a cliff, and lower myself into it exactly where it stopped. I don’t dare move it back. I don’t dare presume to place myself properly at the table.
He watches me for far too long, silently assessing the distance between where I sit and where he clearly thinks I should be. Something unwanted and tense coils in my stomach.
Then he reaches out.
His large hand curls around the chair leg and he drags me forward in one smooth, powerful pull.
I gasp as the chair jolts, gripping the arms as if I might tumble out of it. In a single yank, I’m drawn up to the table beside him, much closer than I expected. Much closer than I can handle.
My throat is even drier than before.
“Are you thirsty?” he asks.
My eyes widen. Heat drains from my face. “Wh… what?”
“Your lips,” he says, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of the way his gaze lingers on them. “They look dry. Do you need water?”
I nod, only because my body seems incapable of doing anything else. “Yes. Thank you.”
Before I can reach for anything myself, he takes the hand-painted jug and pours water into the goblet at my place.
His movements are unhurried. Precise. Almost gentle.
When he sets the jug down, I seize the goblet with both hands and drink the entire thing in a single desperate swallow. Water dribbles from the corners of my mouth and down my chin. I wipe it away quickly, mortified.
Luceran raises one eyebrow. “More?”
“No. No, thank you,” I say too fast. He is being far too kind. Far too measured. I feel as if one wrong word will have me thrown into an ice cage beside Rollin.
Then he speaks, and the gravel is gone from his voice. The depth remains, low, resonant, humming through me like a chord struck in my bones, but the perpetual rage that usually shapes every word is… absent.
It should comfort me.
Instead, it terrifies me more.
“I should not have treated you that way,” he says. “At the mines. Spoken to you as I did. Left you there.”
He pauses, breath rising and falling, searching for the next words like they physically pain him.
“After what you did for me this morning at breakfast, you deserved better.”
Another tight swallow. A visible struggle.
“I am sorry, Neve Devlin.”
I blink.
Did I die in the mines?
Am I a ghost haunting Castle Frostwyn?
Did Lord Luceran just… apologize? To his servant? To me?
My mind empties. I don’t know what to say. I barely remember how words work. I just stare at him, open-mouthed, stunned, the emotional equivalent of a fish yanked from the sea.
Luceran’s eyes narrow. “Did you hear me?”
Gods. What am I supposed to say? Thank you? I accept?Fae don’t apologize. They don’t need to. We exist to serve, not to be apologized to. But he waits. He expects something.
“Yes, my lord,” I manage. “I heard you. I… um… accept your apology.”
He nods. Another bargain settled.
“I will not send you to the mines to work the tunnels again,” he says. “Only to handle the paperwork required of you. I assume you have learned your lesson.”
Relief floods me so quickly I nearly sag in the chair. “Yes, my lord.”
All the while, the smell of Atilia’s cooking curls through the air, warm and rich and savory, and my stomach reacts before I do. It growls so loudly I’m surprised my chair doesn’t vibrate.
Luceran notices instantly.
“You’re hungry.”
Not a question.
He pulls his half-finished plate toward himself, then refills it from the platters around him. Steaming greens, sliced meats, buttered bread, piled high.
When he sets the plate in front of me, I don’t argue. I don’t even attempt dignity. I grab a fork. His fork. That earns a sharply lifted eyebrow from him. I spear the nearest bite like I’m starving, because I am, and shovel it into my mouth, barely chewing, barely breathing.
I have never tasted anything so perfect, and after a shift in the mines, I don’t plan on stopping until the plate is scrubbed clean.
Luceran watches me in utter silence. Between mouthfuls, I notice his jaw ticking.
Is he holding back a smirk?
Impossible.
He simply sits, quiet and composed, while I devour his dinner.