Chapter 56 – Neve
“ Neve!” Vale’s voice called out and torchlight flared in the darkness. “Where are you?!”
“Here!” I shouted back and began running toward him. “I’m safe and coming your way!”
He stopped, and I was at his side a minute later. Blood covered my prince, my husband, and my breath hitched.
“You’re hurt,” I breathed.
“Strike to the leg,” Vale acknowledged. “It’s superficial, though. Most of the blood isn’t mine.” His hand extended to hover over my shoulder. “What’s this?”
“Claws.”
He swallowed and his gaze then went to the scrapes marring one side of my face, my arm. “And I was batted into the wall, but I’m fine too. Much of this blood is Roar’s from when I struck with my sword.” I assured him when a feral expression came over his blood-spattered features. “Actually, I need your help to find my sword. It fell out of my hands. ”
“After you slew Roar?” Vale asked, eyes scanning the darkness. Understandable. Roar was a great warrior in his own right. But he hadn’t been appropriately armed, because why would he be? He hadn’t been expecting a fight. No one stepped foot in these mines unless he wished it.
“I didn’t kill him. Not directly anyway.” I grabbed Vale’s hand and guided him back to where I thought I lost my sword. “He shifted and chased me. At least he chased me until the moment we came across a mine shaft large enough for him to fall into.”
Vale blew out a breath. “Clever little beast.”
My heart warmed. “I need to be sure the shaft is deep enough that he won’t survive.”
“I’ll check for you,” Vale said.
I nodded; glad he understood that I did not wish to do so. “Thank you.”
As much as I’d wanted to kill Roar for what he was, for selling so many into a life of misery, I didn’t want to see the body. I was not so bloodthirsty.
We searched for a few minutes before the torchlight cast upon my sword. I retrieved the weapon, sheathed it and then nodded in the wall's direction.
The shaft gaped open wide, far more intimidating with the firelight flickering on its edges.
“I can smell his blood.” Vale’s nose wrinkled. “And it’s large enough to have devoured him whole. All that’s left is to see how deep it goes.”
“Careful.” I took the torch from his hand .
He spread his black wings. “I will be. You never know what lurks in the depths of the mountains.”
Before I could so much as wonder at what he might mean, Vale dropped into the abyss. The faint beat of his wings assured me of his controlled descent, but it didn’t take long before I no longer saw him. In his absence, a cavern opened in my stomach that did not fill until an age later, when Vale reappeared, dust in his long dark hair.
“I didn’t reach the bottom but went far enough to know that Roar would not survive the fall.” He cleared his throat. “Stars save his soul.”
The phrase was meant to comfort, to honor, and I suspected that even though Vale disliked Roar, it was a knee-jerk reaction. Polite or not, no such words would leave my lips. If Roar had earned eternal damnation in the afterworld, that was because of the choices he’d made.
“Vale!” Caelo called out, his voice far, far away. “Is there trouble?”
“None!” Vale replied. “We’ll be right there.” He looked at me. “Once we defeated the Lisika soldiers, Caelo set to helping those human women through the portal.”
I exhaled a long breath as we hugged the wall and began walking back toward the illuminated portion of the cavern. “Thank the stars they didn’t have time to eat.”
“Agreed,” he said, face wincing at his limp. “Though I’m sure they’re traumatized from what little they saw.”
Still, those women had been lucky. So very lucky. The same could not be said for those in the cages not so far away .
My throat tightened. What were we going to do with those humans?
I did not voice the question as we made our way through the darkness and into the light. When I saw Anna, she let out a sob and rushed forward, throwing herself upon me.
“I’m covered in blood,” I protested, trying not to see the guards Vale and Caelo had killed, their bodies already pushed up against a wall.
“I don’t care!” Anna wailed. “I thought that monster was going to eat you, Neve!”
I patted her back. “I’m fine.”
“Injured, though,” Caelo said, coming closer, his nostrils flaring. “Some of that blood is yours.”
“I only got a scrape,” I replied.
“Only, huh? A warrior at heart already.”
I smiled at him, and as Anna drew back, I caught sight of the female miner watching us warily. She hadn’t left the relative safety of the tunnel that brought us into this cavern. Perhaps she could not. She was shaking so badly.
“Vale,” I whispered and nodded to the miner. “What are we to do with them?”
He swallowed. “I don’t know.”
I was sure there were hundreds of miners working the mines right now, in addition to the caged humans. Those who had been fated to be food for vampires.
No, that would never happen. Though I was not so optimistic as to think that the caged humans had not eaten the food of Isila, and therefore could go right home, they would not be slaves. Not to the vampires. Not to anyone .
“We need to take them somewhere safe,” I said.
Anna nodded vehemently.
“Neve, we’re quite far from . . . well, anywhere .” Vale turned to me. “And it’s not like we can take them to Guldtown and announce what we’ve done.”
“Is there a nearby village that they might go to?” Even as I asked, I realized how silly it sounded. Fae thought humans, with their weak senses and no magic, were so very far beneath them. The prejudice ran deep, and it was unlikely that the humans could work anywhere as free people. Anywhere other than in this deep, dark mine, that was.
“No villages,” Vale said and then cocked his head. “However, there is an abandoned dwarf stronghold where the Ice Tooth and the Red Mist Ranges meet. It’s not ideal, and quite far on foot, but they might live there undetected.”
“What are the chances of survival, though?” Caelo asked. “The mountains are harsh.”
“Not great,” Vale admitted. “It depends on the food stores they have here. And the condition of the stronghold when the dwarves left it.”
Slim, but that was still something. I’d had a slim chance of surviving when I’d escaped the Blood Court and I’d done it. I was still here. Perhaps the humans could survive too.
My chin lifted. “They deserve to have the choice of whether to stay here or move. Though staying will eventually mean slavery—still, they need to hear that. And be given an educated choice. ”
Vale nodded. “Agreed.”
“Let’s speak with them.”
I turned, found the miner still standing there, listening to everything we’d said. She waved a hand, as if to escort us back, though this tunnel had no offshoots. We fell in line, Anna coming to walk by me, tears still glittering in her dark, slanted eyes.
“Are you well?” I whispered, knowing that all of this had to be a lot for her. Who knew if maybe her own mother had entered Isila through this very mine? If Roar had sold her to the Blood Court. I was no mind reader, but I felt certain Anna had considered these things too.
“Well?” Anna turned to look at me. “Neve, I’m so proud of you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re about to change so many fates.”
Did she miss the part where the journey would be long? Brutal even. Or that when we got there, the humans, with their fragile bodies, might die anyway?
“It’s dangerous,” Anna said and kicked at a stray rock in the tunnel. “But giving them a choice—that’s what matters.”
“Yes,” I agreed, understanding her words deep in my bones. “It does.”
She reached out, took my hand, and we walked the rest of the way down the tunnel in silence.
The moment I heard voices, I steeled myself. And yet, seeing so many humans caged, still managed to suck all the breath from my lungs.
How could Roar have done such a thing? Had his father been a slaver too? Was selling bodies and souls to the vampires really how House Lisika had amassed so much wealth?
The answers lie at the bottom of a mine shaft. Splattered against the rocks. It had taken no time at all for me to end a family line and, though I wished for answers, I did not regret it.
The humans closest to the opening of the tunnel noticed us and fell silent. One by one, others quieted too. Odd, that. Before they’d cried for help, sobbed at their plight.
Then I remembered we were covered in blood. Ah, yes, that might bring up some questions.
The miner turned to me, eyes still wary, and stepped aside, as if to say ‘well, are you going to get on with it?’
A kernel of doubt seeped in, and I couldn’t help myself as I glanced back at Vale.
He nodded. “You can do this.”
He was the reassurance I needed. I exhaled, turned back to the humans, and released Anna’s hand to raise both of my own.
“We’re not here to harm you. Rather, the opposite.” I cleared my throat. “The fae who would have sold you to vampires is dead, and I’m going to release you and present you with options.” I paused. “I assume you have been told that since you’ve eaten the food in Isila, you cannot return home?”
A single sob cut through the quiet, but no one looked surprised. Roar, or one of his soldiers, had told them. Probably mocked their pathetic fates .
“I’m truly sorry for that,” I said, my voice a touch softer. “But you will not be sold to anyone. And we have a place for you to live, if you wish to go with us.”
“Let us out!” a male voice bellowed. “Let us out and then talk!”
I nodded, already knowing what I’d do to free them. “Stand back from the doors of your cages.”
In each cage, the humans backed away from the doors, and as I walked by every cage, I froze the locks. Vale and Caelo passed behind me, shattering the metal with vicious swipes of their swords.
In our wake, humans spilled out from behind the bars. Though I’d worried that some would try to flee and likely get lost in the mines, no one did. They huddled together, whispering.
When we were done and the last humans bolted for the safety of their own kind, I exhaled. I’d put all that I had into freezing those locks so that they could be shattered, and exhaustion settled into my bones.
But we were so far from done. I turned to find Caelo and Vale waiting for me, their swords now sheathed. Where was Anna?
I craned my neck around the warriors and a lump rose in my throat. My friend was standing with the other humans, talking to them. Was she telling them of our plan? Reassuring them?
Whatever she said, it had a visible effect on the humans. Though some wore sorrow, defeat, and a million other emotions on their faces, many looked looser. Not so terrified .
Vale shifted, so that there was a little space between him and Caelo. “We’re with you Neve. Moral support and, if you’ll have us, a queensguard.”
All my breath left me at that word. Queensguard.
I looked to Caelo, who dipped his chin, agreeing with his friend—the prince he’d sworn his own sword to. Now that sword was mine, if I wanted it.
Do I?
The question froze me inside, and though I wasn’t quite ready to answer it, I stepped between the two males, my guards. My friends. Together we approached the humans, all of whom fell silent.
Anna beamed when we stopped before the crowd of a hundred or so. Encouragingly, she nodded, and I assumed that whatever she’d told these people, they’d be receptive to our plan.
“You’re now free,” I said. “And while I have a place in mind where you might live, it’s not ideal. It’s far away, and we’ll have to walk through the mountains of our kingdom.”
“Which is where?”
Right. All that they’d seen was the inside of a mine.
“The Winter Kingdom of the fae,” I replied. “It’s always winter outside, in some form or another. Lately it has been very cold. And it will probably storm as we travel.”
Many exchanged nervous looks.
“But I think it’s the best shot you have at survival,” I added. “You cannot stay here because, one day, vampires will come. They will be looking for blood slaves to fill their bellies.” My voice hitched. “And if they take you to their kingdom, you will never again be free.”
Silence rang, until one human, a woman with a few streaks of gray in her long brown hair, stepped forward. “Anna told us you’re a noble, like the fae who caged us?”
“I am.”
“But you were also once a blood slave?”
“Since I was young.” I swallowed. “I do not wish that fate on any of you.”
The woman nodded, as if that was all I needed to say to convince her, though Anna must have said far more. “I know nothing about these kingdoms, but freedom is better than being beneath a master. And I’m willing to risk the journey for mine. I’m coming with you, no matter the dangers.”
One by one, others agreed until the entire group had chosen a chance at freedom. I exhaled, relieved, but only for a moment before the human miner stepped out of the group, a frown on her dirty face.
“And what of those who mine these mountains?”
She’d seen the dangers too. When the vampires journeyed here to pick up more slaves and found none in cages, they would still have options. The miners.
“I intended to ask you to join,” I said. “We’ll need you to help.”
Her eyebrows screwed together.
“We’ll need to pack food and warm clothing,” I explained, gesturing to some people who wore pants cut off at their knees. Wherever they’d been taken from, it wasn’t a land of eternal winter. “I’m assuming that the mining community has food and supplies?”
The female miner nodded. “We receive supplies—food, clothing . . . seeds, even.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“One of the overseers has earth magic. He set up something that helps us grow underground. It’s in a section of the mountain that we didn’t walk through.” She shrugged as if she didn’t know how the magic worked, which she probably didn’t.
“A fresh wagon filled with supplies came one moon back. I can’t say if it’ll be enough for so many.” She turned and assessed the crowd. “But we have practice in stretching things. We have to do it all the time.”
“Then come,” I said, hoping that they all would.
The more the better. These miners, being so secluded in the west, might even know how to hunt or trap animals. In the new location, that could be the difference between life and death. Growing things without a fae gifted in earth magic would be difficult, but that was an issue for later.
“Fine,” the miner said, and then, as if at a loss for what to say next, she broke from the group and headed to the stairs. “I’ll go rally the rest of the miners. Tell them what happened.”
“What of the overseers? And any guards?” From what I’d seen passing through the little city, there were at least two overseers, but the mines were vast. There could be more.
“You took care of the few guards who stay here. And the overseers are both probably dead drunk by now. We’ll take care of them.”
I swallowed and nodded as she left to climb the steps that led to the active mines. When I could no longer see her, I twisted back to the other humans, still standing there, most looking so lost, but some defiant—as if a spark had been brought to life in them.
I hoped they kept that spark and spread it into an inferno that consumed them. For that fire was what we’d all need to survive the journey to come.
Need to know what happens to Neve and Vale? If she’ll claim her title? If he’ll renounce his? What adventures they have a long the way?