Chapter 15
Peytor
Five Months Ago
My legs dangled over the ledge of my designated floor.
The Crystal Mines were really just one giant hole, the size and depth of which was almost incomprehensible.
Levels of small sleeping caves and larger ones for eating and shitting were carved into the side of the hole, new ones formed each day we were forced lower into the cavern to hunt for the increasingly elusive crystals.
The sun was only visible from the top level, which was occupied by the elite guards and overseers.
It was also the only level that possessed a safety barrier that overlooked the expansive black hole.
Each subsequent level became darker, lit only periodically by a handful of glowing orbs.
I’d been shoved unceremoniously into a designated cavern on a level roughly halfway down the hole. Not far enough down that I couldn’t see any of the light, but still removed enough that sunlight was only a speck in the distance.
A small glimmer of hope.
I snorted ruefully.
A small glimmer of hope. What do you think about that, Finian?
I’d done this constantly over the past two months—spoken to Finian as if he were here with me and not ashes in the wind.
Perhaps it was my loneliness or my abject despair that forced me to converse with my dead lover. Or maybe it was because I missed him so godsdamned much.
It felt like a piece of my soul was rendered from me and reduced to ash by my sister’s Destruction Magic alongside the one person I loved above all else.
If you could see me now, Finian, I sighed, desperate to hear him speak back to me. If only one last time.
Maybe I could hear him all the time. Let my soul join the ether and intertwine with his for the remainder of eternity.
The peacefulness of that thought nearly reduced me to tears, even though I’d cried enough for a lifetime.
I gripped the edge of the ledge tighter with my fists, the minuscule crystals embedded in the rough rock digging mercilessly into my hands. Holding my pick tomorrow would be a bitch.
If I was here tomorrow.
I wasn’t the first to debate tossing myself over the ledge into the maw of the mines below, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. Fuck, it wasn’t even my first time sitting here, contemplating falling.
There were two types of people that jumped—those who regretted it and those who had already accepted their fate. You could tell the difference by whether they screamed on the way down or not.
Not for the first time today, I contemplated which group I would fall in.
Would I regret it on the way down?
Would I feel a calm acceptance?
Would I even care?
The sounds of fucking and fighting wafted up from below; an accompanied wail as whoever lost the fight was tossed over the ledge.
I didn’t need to look anymore to know what was happening.
The guards here, and even some of the prisoners, were the worst of the worst. Sent here to die in darkness and despair, cut off from their magic and hope.
The strongest of them preyed on the prisoners, using their flesh for both carnal and other more nefarious desires.
The number of men and women I’d seen with chunks carved from their bodies that festered and oozed with the lack of medical attention was alarming.
Some were a bit more subtle, with words and designs carved into their skin, eventually scarring to leave a permanent mark.
I guess the marks didn’t matter, though, as none of us were getting out of here alive.
Guards included.
I kicked my legs aimlessly as my head fell back, my long ratty hair falling between my shoulders. The caverns were hell on a person—mind, body, and soul. I’d only been here for two months, and it already felt like an eternity.
An eternity that was only elongated by the sharp stinging pain in my chest that constantly pulsed with the absence of Finian. With the betrayal of my sister.
What was there even left to live for?
“Everything.” The voice was loud in the cavern, and I nearly fell off the ledge in surprise. I quickly righted myself, scrambling back from my precious position as the sharp rocks dug into my exposed skin and ripped through my threadbare clothes.
My heart raced in my chest, a shot of adrenaline forcing me to draw ragged gasps through my mouth. I threw myself against the wall of the mines, my back groaning at the impact, but I paid no mind to the pain.
The life that was suddenly coursing through my system burned through the apathy that fogged my mind. I knew, at least in that moment, I’d be one of the screamers.
“Who are you?” I mumbled, waiting for an answer. When none came, I asked my question again, louder, even though my voice rasped from disuse. I heard a few indistinct mumblings from the occupants of the sleeping cave I’d thrown myself against, but paid them no mind.
Everyone here was speaking to an unseen voice, whether in their head or out loud.
Apparently, I’m the out-loud type.
The disembodied voice rumbled a laugh, and a pang shot through my body, threatening to break my heart into pieces. The laugh was so familiar, it was as if it were my own.
“Finian?” I whispered, and the feeling that coursed through my soul was pure contentment. Pure love. “You’re . . . here? You can speak to me?”
Finian hummed in thought before his voice echoed around me again. My head swiveled each way, trying to find him. To lay eyes on him. But his body was absent. And it appeared that no one else could hear him.
“I’m in your head, Peytor. Courtesy of Fate,” Finian playfully admonished, and I relaxed, some of the adrenaline leaving my system, which resulted in shaky hands and a cold that crept through my veins.
“So I’m crazy, then,” I mumbled to myself as I gazed at my torn and calloused hands.
I knew they were the best-looking part of me, too.
I hadn’t seen a mirror since before I was taken from Hestin, but, judging by the bedraggled appearance of the other inmates that were brought in with me at the same time, I could only guess I looked . . . haggard.
Would Finian even recognize me if he saw me today?
“I would recognize you in any form, in any place or time. Because my soul knows yours,” he said, and my eyes filled with tears.
I don’t even know my soul anymore. I clutched at my chest at the admission.
“You have to let your anger go, Peytor. It won’t—can’t—serve you for what comes next.”
I sighed and closed my eyes, reveling in hearing his voice again. I sent a silent prayer to the gods or whoever heard my desperate plea on the ledge.
“Fate is always listening, Peytor. Even if it doesn’t seem that way,” Finian admitted, and I smiled slightly.
Creepy. His responding laugh was a balm to my soul, the only medicine that could fix me. I miss you. So. Much. I really couldn’t even define how much I yearned for him—for his touch, for his mere presence, but I tried to push as much emotion as possible into my thoughts.
“I know. I miss you too.” Finian sounded sad, but resolved. “But there is so much more to live for. I’ll be here. I’m always here. But you have a purpose outside of me. You always have.”
There’s no Hestin left to stand against the Warlord. He owns it now, fully, and I’m trapped here. Useless. Dying. I’m little help to anyone.
Finian scoffed at my pitiful thoughts.
“There’s always something that can be done.” Finian’s voice was firm, but his next statement was laced with an urgency. “I don’t have much time left here, Peytor. But you must know that this is not the end for you. You have a purpose. And you need to be ready to fulfill it.”
Don’t leave me. I didn’t want to focus on his other words. What purpose could I possibly have here? I was debating throwing myself over the ledge for gods’ sake. I was lower than low.
“I’m always with you. Always. That’s what happens when you love someone as completely as you loved me. You are mine, and I am yours. And I will happily share you with another, when that time comes.”
This time I laughed out loud, but it wasn’t a happy sound.
I will never love another, Finian. You were, are, my heart. My soul. The reason I breathe. It was you and I, and then you were stolen from me.
“Can something you hold with love in your soul ever truly be stolen from you?” Finian’s voice was fading, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying desperately to hold onto whatever this was. I needed him.
Finian. My voice was a cracked and desperate plea, even in my own head.
“My borrowed time is at an end—Fate’s power is no longer infinite. He will send someone for you, but you need to become that man I fell in love with all those years ago. Find a way, Peytor. There is always a way,” Finian urged as his voice lowered to barely a whisper. “I love you. Endlessly.”
Finian? Deafening silence met my plea and I called for him again, this time out loud and with a voice full of pain and desperation. “Finian?”
But he didn’t respond.
My breaths came in pants as my heart rate increased again. I had him and lost him, again. Tears formed in my eyes as they tracked unbidden down my face.
I was broken beyond all repair.
As I sat in my misery, allowing my sadness and desperation to swallow me whole, I felt something. A small glimmer in my sternum. A warmth radiating from deep within. I clutched at my chest through my dirty shirt, my broken nails leaving bloody scrapes on the skin over my heart.
Finian.
I smiled, then, as tears continued to track down my dirt-encrusted cheeks.
“Always with you.” I heard a whisper before it faded again.
Always, I called to him, a sad thing that was laced with love and devotion. I felt a pulse in my chest before it faded. Gone, but still there, deep in my soul.
I sat like that, feeling for Finian in the recesses of what made me, me, for what felt like hours. Eventually, sleep called to me and I knew I would need to answer. Especially if I were to survive this place.
I wasn’t sure how that would happen or what it would look like, but the lingering warmth in my chest forced me to hold onto some sort of hope.
I crawled to my sleeping cave, curled up in a ball against the rock floor, and fell asleep to thoughts of Finian.