Chapter 9 - Bitter Gems
Callan
I’d been to the mines a few times before the war, but once the humans invaded, all operations ceased and had only recently restarted.
I was usually looking for amethysts, spinel, and sometimes ametrine.
I’d never come looking for sapphires. They were harder to mine and far more rare, not to mention harder to imbue.
“Can I help you?” a young sun elf asked as she tidied a desk on the far side of the small office where I usually met my contact.
I didn't know her and was instantly on edge. I’d hoped to speak with the man I’d dealt with before. He was a burly sun elf who didn’t mind my unusual skin tone, but rather the shape of my ears and the size of my purse.
“Is Stoe available?”
Her eyes grew round before she pulled on her sleeves. “He’s...” Her eyes darted to the two guards I’d brought in with me before she finished. “He’s visiting family.”
“I usually speak with him, but I’ll confess, I haven’t been here since before the war.”
She picked up a large black stone, turned it over to glance at the bottom before replacing it on the stack of papers it was weighing down. She seemed far too nervous. Was it the name I’d used? Or was it something else?
“I can fetch his...replacement, if you’d like?” she asked with a tight voice.
Replacement? That implied he might not be returning.
“Whomever. I’m here for violet sapphires.”
The air seemed to evaporate from the room with my words. She took two steps back before she met my gaze again, taking a deep breath.
“Can I say who’s calling?”
No. She couldn’t. I needed to be someone else. “Cal.”
The name must have held weight, because she swallowed hard, her throat bobbing before she ducked out of the office.
I glanced back at my guards who seemed oblivious as they loitered by the entrance, leaning against the stained panel walls.
They hadn’t seen the woman’s reaction, and I was about to warn them when a sultry high-elven woman stepped through the door.
She was pretty—even for a high elf—with straight, platinum hair framing her long face and bright eyes.
Her lithe body was accentuated with a tight leather corset barely containing her breasts.
She knew exactly what she was doing, dressing as she did.
“Cal! Pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Trissa.” The woman stopped in front of me, her hands going to her hips as she leaned forward, hoping to redirect my attention to her...assets. “Stoe had such wonderful things to say about you.”
“I’m sure he did. I usually spend a fair amount of money.”
Her brilliant blue eyes glittered at the mention of money. At least I knew her main motivation.
“I hear you’re looking for sapphires?”
“Straight to business. I like you.”
“Pleasure is all mine.”
She spread a delicate sheet of white satin over the desktop, something Stoe would always do to help show the quality of the gems. Without further fanfare, she placed three oblong, purple sapphires on the satin—an array of amethysts that looked of pristine quality behind them. All raw and uncut.
“The very best I have available.” A wicked smile turned up her lips, her gaze meeting mine with confidence. “Perfect for imbuing.”
She seemed overly relaxed, boasting an air of confidence I wasn’t sure I liked as she turned one of the sapphires so I could see it from another side.
“Stoe said you knew your gems.” She rubbed her hands together, the sound of skin rubbing against skin sending a shiver down my spine.
They were rough hands, possibly calloused from the use of a weapon.
I glanced from the stones to her eyes. She watched me with mock intensity.
Her thoughts weren’t in this room. I recognized the emptiness, the distraction.
After my time in the war, I could tell when someone was in the moment or out of it, and she was most assuredly somewhere else entirely.
“How much for all of them?” If she could get straight to business, I could as well.
“Forty thousand.”
Forty thousand was enough to buy an army of thralls.
It was enough to hire an imbuing master for a year.
It was enough to feed a rural village for several months or to cover the cost of the food I had prepared each day in my kitchen for the starving people of Neeva.
It was too much for a handful of gems, no matter how perfect they were.
“Five thousand.”
The glimmer of kindness in her eyes hardened to a sharp edge. Here was the woman she hid from the world. The woman who likely killed Stoe and took his business.
“Forty thousand. Firm.”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my lips.
What she didn’t know was that I could take the gems without dropping a single gold coin down on the desk.
The crown owned the land, the mines, and everything that came out of them.
But I’d wanted to support the livelihood of my people after the hardship of the war—especially as the winter blight continued to make resources scarce.
But this? This wasn’t me supporting a livelihood. This was a woman who had taken an honest man’s business and was gouging people.
Someone yelled from outside. Unless I was mistaken, the voice was familiar—one of the two fighters I’d left to guard the office. Perhaps Magdala was right to insist I bring my usual retinue.
“Seems we have some unexpected company,” I said without moving, the color draining from Trissa’s face.
Either she hadn’t expected whoever had just drawn a sword outside, or she hadn’t anticipated me bringing guards.
“Forty thousand, Cal, or no deal,” she said with desperation in her voice.
I plucked up one of the sapphires, holding it in front of the wisplight across from me.
“I can feed half the city of Neeva with forty thousand. Five thousand, or you’ll be giving them to me.” Her eyes grew large.
I wasn’t sure if she finally realized who I was or if she thought me so brazen to threaten her when I was clearly being ambushed.
“I don’t think you’re in any place to negotiate,” she said.
Steel clanged against steel, and a body slammed into the outside wall of the office. She flinched, but I held firm, trusting my guards were skilled enough to hold their own.
“I don’t think you know who I am.” I tipped my chin, half tempted to pull my mask down so she could see my whole face—if it wasn’t obvious enough already with me being one of the last of the frost elves in all of Telrain. “The mines belong to the cro—”
The door was obliterated as a man was thrown through it and to the floor at my feet. It was one of my guards. I had my sword in my hand in an instant. I turned so I could see the woman in my peripheral vision as she swept the gems into a sack and backed toward the rear door.
Before she could get far, I slid in beside her, stabbing my blade into the wood next to her face. “I don't think we were finished discussing business.”
She wasn’t smiling anymore—no friendliness or charm left for me. Only an angry sneer that tugged her lip up.
“Cal, or should I say, Prince Callan, I’ve no interest in dealing with the likes of a sadistic killer.”
Her words hit harder than a slap across the face.
A sadistic killer? I was many things. Selfish, entitled, arrogant—frankly, a monster—but I was not a sadistic killer.
Had I killed many people? Yes. Would I likely kill many more?
Absolutely. But it wasn’t because I wanted to.
It was because I needed to in order to survive.
I had a choice to make. I needed the sapphires, and this was the only place I could get them.
She had three of them in her possession.
I could take them, but it would probably require killing her, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to prove her right.
I reached for her throat with my gloved hand, closing my fingers around her neck and squeezing.
Her eyes went wide, not expecting this turn of events. Perhaps she thought her men could handle my guards easier. But I hadn’t paid enough attention to whether they were holding their own or not, and I made the error of glancing over.
I felt the steel as it slid through my flesh and into the muscle of my thigh.
I wasn’t new to being stabbed, though it would make leaving in a hurry significantly more difficult.
I wrenched the dagger from my leg, twisting it free of her grasp, and without a second thought, I thrust it into the side of her head.
She went rigid. Her eyes rolled before she dropped the bag of gems and slumped to the ground, her body convulsing with the last desperate attempt at life.
I turned back to the chaos, ignoring the pain in my leg, the blood soaking through my pants.
I’d deal with the wound after I’d killed the final fighter who’d just put his sword through my last guard’s chest. He was tall and completely covered from head to foot with black leather, his green eyes peeking from between a hood and a face mask.
I swung wide, smacking his blade away before stepping forward, forgetting that my thigh was a bloody mess.
The pain sent me to a knee, but thankfully, the fighter was injured as well.
He clutched at a laceration across his midsection.
I held my position on my knee, thrusting up before he could recover from my initial swing.
My blade sank deep into the underside of his jaw and into his skull. He collapsed in a heap.
I struggled to my feet before limping back to retrieve the bag of gems beside Trissa.
“Fuck.”
The pain in my leg hit me all at once. It was still bleeding badly, and I needed to stitch myself up.
I tore a strip of fabric from the woman’s cloak and tied it around my upper thigh, cinching the tourniquet as tight as I could tolerate.
It would have to do. I stood straight as the girl who’d greeted me came through the back door.
My blade was ready in an instant. I held it level with her nose as she stood in the doorway, her hands held in surrender and eyes wide with fear.
“Please, Highness. I had n-no-nothing to do with the ambush.” The color had drained from her face. “I was told if I complied, they’d let Stoe go.”
Perhaps the old merchant wasn’t dead after all.
“When you find him, tell him to stay out of trouble.”
She swallowed hard, her eyes crossing the room from one lump of indiscriminate elf to the next.
Her eyes met mine with conviction. “There are powerful forces in this world who would see you dead, Highness.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck at her words.
I’d known my father’s war against the humans had been unpopular, but this was confirmation that the rumors of rebellion I’d executed Heirod for were more true than I liked.
Someone was indeed trying to destroy the royal family. Or at the very least, destroy me.
“Tell them I’m not so easily killed.”