Chapter 13
Iwake with a yawn that cracks my jaw, stretching until my toes brush the end of the mattress.
My ridiculous hair lies across the pillow like a tangled fishing net, red strands clinging to my cheek as I roll onto my side.
I rub the sleep-haze from my eyes, blink once, then again, and that is when I see it.
Something sits on the small table beside my bed. Something that most certainly was not there when I collapsed into sleep last night.
I push myself upright so fast the blankets knot around my waist. A book. The book. The one he tore clean down the spine.
My hand flies to my mouth as I stare at it. The leather is smooth again, the binding whole, the pages aligned perfectly, as though his furious hands had never touched it at all. There is not a tear in sight. Not even a crease.
Beside it, glinting faintly in the morning light, lies an ornate brass key looped with a pale blue ribbon. My breath catches as I reach for it, fingers trembling while the ribbon slides silkily over my skin. A key to the library. It has to be.
A tiny, traitorous smile tugs at my lips, one I immediately try, and fail, to smother. Instead, I flip open the book, skimming the pages, tracing the words like greeting an old friend. The familiar scent of ink and parchment rises, and excitement pools warm in my chest.
He mended it. He returned it. He left it for me.
I do not know what that means, but I know what it is not. It is not anger, and it is not indifference.
This is a peace offering. The best a male like Luceran Frostwyn can manage.
And it is enough.
I dress for the day. Armored against the cold. Armored against… whatever this day brings.
As I descend the stairs, I try to steady my thoughts. I do not know what to expect when I see him. Do I smile? Do we speak? Should I pretend the book and key never appeared?
By the time I reach the bottom step, I remind myself, as sternly as I can, that neither gift is a token of friendship. We are not friends. I am his servant; he is my lord. He did not offer peace, only permission.
Atilia is probably right. I let my imagination wander far, far too easily.
All this means is that I no longer have to fear his wrath echoing down the halls every time I breathe.
A gentle wind slips through the open windows of the entrance hall, billowing the long curtains. I turn toward the kitchen to begin his breakfast, but a familiar high-pitched squeak pulls my attention back.
The sprites hover in the open doorway, jittering impatiently. Their almond-shaped heads bob sharply toward the courtyard.
I frown and approach them.
When I reach the threshold, the carriage is waiting at the base of the steps, horses stamping clouds of steam into the morning air. One sprite zips downward to unlatch the door, the other lowers the ladder with ceremonial flourish. They both gesture frantically for me to climb inside.
I blink. Did I lose track of my duties? The days have blurred together. Perhaps it is time to return to the mines to complete my accounts, and maybe it’s for the best to slip away before I risk any awkward encounters after yesterday’s spectacularly emotional apology.
I close the door behind me, descend the stairs, and climb into the carriage. The sprites snap the reins, and with a jolt, we’re off, over the bridge, through the swirling snow, into Brunemar’s endless ivory expanse.
Soon the towering arches of the Aurevault rise through the mist. Snow falls in thick, uninterrupted sheets, and miners trudge in single-file patterns through knee-deep drifts.
The carriage shudders to a stop, but it isn’t a sprite who opens the door.
It’s Pax.
Helmet tucked under his arm, black curls tumbling in perfect dark waves, a smile bright enough to melt ice.
He bows playfully. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” His grin softens, and something almost like relief flickers across his face. “Why have you been away so long?”
I keep my expression composed.
“I’ve been busy at Castle Frostwyn,” I say as I rise in the carriage, smoothing my coat. I glance down, expecting the sprites to lower the step.
They don’t.
Pax notices too. He steps forward, arms lifting as though he means to help me down, like I’m some helpless maiden in a bard’s tale.
I fix him with a flat stare. “That won’t be necessary.”
Right on cue, the sprites blitz down from the driver’s perch, slamming into Pax’s side with enough force to shove him a full pace back. He stumbles, laughing under his breath, while the sprites lower the step with obvious pride.
I step down onto the crunchy snow, brushing past Pax before he can recover his charm.
“Well, whatever the reason,” he says, falling into step beside me, “it’s good to see you again. Lord Luceran’s been visiting the mines more often lately, and I’m sure you can imagine what a joy that’s been for the men.”
As he speaks, a brutal wind lashes across the entrance, slicing straight through my layers. My skin prickles, my jaw clenches as a shiver rattles through me. I tug my coat tighter.
“It’s freezing today.”
“Coldest yet,” Pax agrees. “We’ve got fires burning all through the mine just to keep our hands from freezing to the axe handles.”
I blink. “Is that safe? Aren’t there explosive charges down there?”
He gives me a patronizing sideways look. “We’ve been doing this a long time, Neve. You worry about the paperwork. Let us handle the mine.”
My response is immediate and exactly what he deserves.
I shoulder past his smug, condescending grin and march straight toward the Aurevault entrance, boots crunching hard in the snow.
If he wants to handle the mine?
Fine.
I’ll handle everything else.
I move from station to station, overseeing the weighing of ore, cataloguing each haul, marking the quality and quantity while miners shuffle past me with hunched shoulders and frost-burned cheeks.
I steady the next crate on the scale and jot down the weight when a figure slips into the edge of my vision. I go still, turning my head just enough to see it emerging from the dark throat of Vein Three.
That dreaded tunnel, the one Rollin fled from wild-eyed and incoherent, raving about a demon whispering his name. I know now those were not ravings at all. There was truth in his terror. Something lives down that shaft, something worth fearing.
I turn to Pax. “I thought that tunnel was shut down.”
He takes a step forward, straining his eyes. “It’s supposed to be.”
As the figure draws closer, it sharpens in the lantern light. Not a monster. Not a demon. A man. He moves with an eerie, unnatural slowness, each step stiff and puppet-like. His face is blank, slate-smooth and emotionless, and with every shuffling step something flickers faintly in his hand.
Pax’s head snaps back in bewilderment. “Erold? Is that you?”
The man doesn’t answer. He keeps advancing, out of Vein Three and straight toward Vein Two, where I’d just confirmed nearly a hundred miners on the manifest, and the closer he gets, the more clearly I see the object clutched in his hand.
My stomach drops. “Is that… a charge?”
Pax’s breath catches hard, because Erold has reached the edge of the Vein Two shaft. The pulley clanks steadily, hauling miners up from below.
“Erold! Stop!”
But the warning barely leaves his mouth before Erold flicks his wrist and drops the lit charge into Vein Two.
Pax lunges, throws himself over me, his entire weight slamming into my body.
A deafening, bone-rattling explosion tears the world apart beneath us.
Fire and impact collapse into darkness, everything folding into violent sound and crushing heat.
My eyes flutter open, but nothing holds its shape.
Shadows warp and bend at impossible angles before sliding back into place.
Men stumble through smoke-choked air, their voices distorted and echoing, every sound ringing hollow in my ears as flames spit and claw up the support beams, painting the cavern in frantic pulses of orange.
I cough hard, my chest seizing as the breath I drag in scorches my throat.
Smoke.
I cough again, ash coating my tongue. A sharp lance of pain streaks down my arm, my skull throbbing with a violent drumbeat at my temples. Through the blur, I spot Pax.
Soot streaks half his face, blood carving a too-bright line from temple to jaw and matting his hair. He is shouting orders, shoving dazed miners toward the exit.
They limp, stagger, clutching burned hands, broken arms, faces ghost-pale with fear. Behind them, the tunnel belches fire, chewing upward, devouring timbers in violent bursts.
But my eyes are fixed on Vein Two as another flume of fire bursts up the shaft, and through that column of flame, charred to a crisp yet somehow still moving, comes Erold.
His skin is a ruin of melted flesh, sliding off bone in blackened strips, but his eyes burn white, and they are locked straight on me.
He stalks forward, that ruined mouth twisting into a crooked grin, rows of razor-sharp teeth glinting where human teeth should be. It can’t be. Pax knew his man. Erold is a miner. Not a monster. He can’t be the thing from the lake.
Unless… unless it wears Erold’s face the same way it knew my father’s voice.
Around us, chaos reigns, the Aurevault trembling and shedding stone as flames lick the cavern ceiling, but no one sees him. No one notices Erold walk through the madness with single-minded purpose, straight to me.
He gets close enough that he is horrifying to look upon. The smell alone makes my stomach seize, burned flesh and something far fouler. His blackened skin cracks and falls away as he reaches for me.
I scramble back, my hands clawing at the rock, fingernails snapping. Tears blur my eyes. My back hits the wall, and when those huge, flayed hands reach for me at last, I scream.
It’s enough to draw the attention of two miners, who sprint to help. I drag myself upright, lungs burning, trying to get my feet beneath me. I take my eyes off them for only a second before I hear a sickening crack.
I whip back around to see one miner already crumpled on the ground, eyes staring, body still, while Erold wraps his hands around the second miner’s head, and with a brutal, effortless wrench, snaps his neck. The man collapses on top of the first.
“Neve!” Pax calls.
He’s sprinting toward me, lifting an axe from the floor as he runs. He swings it up, teeth gritted, fire exploding behind him.
Erold, if it truly is Erold, glances over his shoulder at Pax’s charge, but there’s no fear there. Not even concern. He turns back to me, opens his mouth, and black ichor spills over his lips, dripping thickly to the ground.
“Another time,” he says.
And then the white light behind his eyes snuffs out as quickly as blowing out a candle. His broken, charred body collapses into a lifeless heap.
Pax reaches me, drops the axe, staring at what remains of the man he once knew. But there’s no time for questions. I couldn’t answer them anyway.
He grips my arm hard and yanks me toward the main tunnel. “Move!”
We run shoulder to shoulder, miners streaming past us in a panicked tide. The cave groans louder this time, angrier, pebbles raining from the ceiling. The floor trembles beneath my boots, the vibration running straight up my spine.
But from behind us, I hear screams that turn my blood cold.
Raw, agonizing, they slice straight through the roar of the fire and the pounding in my skull. I twist, vision swimming, just in time to see a plume of flame erupt from Vein Two, the heat slamming into my face like an open furnace.
“There are still men down there,” I rasp, my throat sandpaper and smoke. “We can’t just leave them.”
Pax doesn’t stop. His grip only tightens as he drags me harder toward the entrance.
“There is no saving them, Neve,” he bites out. “We save ourselves, or we die with them.”
I stumble after him for a few steps, my body limp, my mind still clawing its way through shock, until something inside me snaps taut.
No.
I wrench my arm free and plant my feet. He spins toward me, confusion and panic flashing across his face.
“What are you doing? We don’t have time to stop!”
“Then go without me,” I say, breath shaking, but resolve solid as steel beneath it. “People are alive in that tunnel. I have to help them.”
His expression hardens, fear sharpening into anger.
“Your bravery is admirable,” he grinds out, “but if you go down there, you will die.”
I look at him the same way I looked at Luceran on the frozen lake. With the quiet, immovable certainty of someone who has already stepped past the point of reason.
Someone who refuses to run while others burn.
My voice is hoarse but steady when I say, “I’m going.”
And before he can grab me again, before he can drag me kicking and screaming toward safety, I turn and sprint straight for the tunnel, toward the fire, toward the collapsing stone, toward the screams that I will not ignore.
Behind me, Pax slams his fist into the wall and lets out a furious curse.
But I don’t look back.
I run.