Chapter 52
Lilias
IS ANYONE ALIVE IN THERE?
There’s no way I’m getting into that mine.
I only see one entrance, and it’s surrounded by soldiers standing at attention while Prince Syvan prances around in front of them on his increasingly irritated stallion. It’s a miracle they didn’t all see me when I first walked up here.
I tuck my hand in my pocket and run my fingers over the little miracle that saved me.
I’d been stumbling up the path in the patchy moonlight, shivering and feeling half-mad, wondering if this had all been some colossal misunderstanding.
I’m a princess, after all. Perhaps I should have commanded the soldiers to return me to Marion castle.
Or even Vsenrog. Hells, anywhere would be better than this freezing, godsforsaken mountain.
Then the clouds parted, the moon shone through the night sky, and something in the path before me glittered like a fallen star.
I froze. And when I finally moved forward, tiptoeing toward whatever it was that was suddenly shining like a beacon in the dirt, I heard the voices of Syvan’s soldiers. If I hadn’t stopped to look at the thing caught in the moonlight, I would have blundered right into the middle of their patrol.
Instead, I stepped off the path as quietly as I could, and hid beneath the scrubby trees until the voices of the soldiers receded. Clouds covered the moon once more, and whatever had shone so brightly vanished.
But now I was curious. So I held my breath and crept along the path until I found the strange bit of metal that had caught the moon’s attention.
It was a little cylinder attached to a chain. I frowned, wondering what part of a saddle that had fallen from.
And then I remembered.
Now, my fingers close around the little metal vial in my pocket.
I think of candlelight playing off Zarek’s bare chest on our wedding night, the constellations of scars on his skin, and the chain around his neck.
The way this metal tube lay in the hollow of his collarbone, yet another mystery about the man I’d just married.
I’m shivering again. I release the metal tube, then run my hands up and down my arms. I’m hiding behind one of the half-built shacks that ring the black mouth of the Dragon Mine, waiting for the gods only know what.
Waiting for the sun to rise so the soldiers can see me, I suppose. Or waiting for another miracle.
One of the men shouts. I turn, pressing my face against a gap in the wooden wall where I can see the shadowy silhouettes of men and horses moving by the mine’s entrance. Two torches flicker sullenly on either side of the dark hole.
And a man is standing between them. My breath catches, but no, it’s not Zarek. He’s too tall, and he doesn’t move like Zarek. There’s no caution whatsoever in the way that strange man stands in the light.
“Hail,” Prince Syvan calls, as his horse trots between the mine’s entrance and the wooden shacks, cutting off my view.
I strain to make out their words through the rustle of the wind and the restless shifting of their horses. Prince Syvan laughs at something I can’t hear.
“Is anyone alive in there?” Syvan asks, his voice calm and clear.
I sink back into the shadows. It’s cold in the mountains at night, and now I feel like that cold has sunk into my very bones. I can’t hear the man’s response; whatever it is, it makes Syvan laugh again.
Several of the horses begin to move away from the mine’s entrance. Syvan waves his hands, barking orders I can hardly understand.
And then he dismounts. I blink as he gets off his white horse, then leads it closer to the wooden shacks that are hiding me in their shadows. One of the men follows him.
Oh. The man with him is Lyam, who led our group when Prince Syvan was absent. My fingers twist in my skirts as Syvan hands Lyam the reins.
“Take the weapon back to camp,” Syvan says. “And watch him close. Don’t trust a word the bastard says.”
“Of course,” Lyam replies, with a nod. “What about you? Going back in the mine?”
“I’m going to make sure that bastard is dead,” Syvan replies with a grin. The moonlight makes his teeth look especially bright. “I hope he’s not.”
Lyam gives him a smile that makes a shiver race up the back of my neck. He ties Syvan’s white horse to a hitching post by the shacks. Syvan waves to him, then turns and walks past the shack where I’m hiding.
He hesitates. I hold my breath. Above him, the sky is the dull gray of old clothes.
Syvan pulls a dagger from a sheath at his waist, then twists it in the moonlight. He starts to hum under his breath, a cheery little tune that sounds like the old tavern song about cutting your heart out. My lungs ache, and my muscles burn.
Finally, Prince Syvan turns toward the mine. As his soldiers begin their descent down the mountain, Syvan walks toward the entrance, grabs one of the torches, and is swallowed by the darkness.
I take a deep breath. My heart hammers the inside of my chest, and my hands twist together as if they could stop my body from trembling.
I’m no hero. I’m no fighter. Hells, what could I possibly do against a prince of Vsenrog? Order him to stop? Gods, he’d just turn that blade on me. Or worse.
But there is one torch still flickering at the mouth of the cave.
And there is still some small chance my husband is alive in there.
“Oh, gods,” I whisper.
I wait until a small cloud has the decency to pass in front of the moon as it falls toward the mountains, and then I scurry from behind the half-built little shack like a mouse running from an owl.
I bolt directly for the mouth of the cave, my pulse screaming through my veins and my entire body expecting to feel the bite of an arrow between my shoulder blades.
But there’s nothing. No screams, no alarm, no whistle of an arrow just before it impales my heart.
I press my back against the stone wall inside the mine’s entrance.
The tunnel ahead of me is blacker than death.
I swallow hard, trying to ignore the part of my mind that’s asking what would happen if I get lost in here, if I try to follow Syvan and take the wrong path and end up falling down a pit, or breaking my legs, or stumbling across a nest of cave spiders.
Great. I close my eyes and force myself to breathe.
“You could always go back to the castle of Marion,” I whisper. “Back to Father.”
My hand drops to my waist, then my pockets. My right hand brushes the cold metal tube that once hung around my husband’s neck, and my left pushes through the hole I cut in that pocket, in what already feels like another life.
And then I feel the dagger. I wrap my fingers around the hilt of the blade Zarek gave me. And then, for the first time, I tug it free of its sheath.
I clench my jaw as I imagine what Zarek’s friend Petrys would say about how long it took me to free my weapon. Probably something about how much time I’ve just generously given my opponent to kill me.
But I’m not in a fight. And my opponent doesn’t even know I’m here.
All I need to do is hide.
My heart is still racing, but the cool weight of the dagger in my hand gives me a strange sense of calm. With my head held high, I walk back into the moonlight, take the only remaining torch, and enter the kingdom of Marion’s newest gold mine.