Chapter Twenty-One
The forest thinned the farther we traveled, the carriage wheels grinding louder against pebbled roads. The air shifted colder and thinner, carrying something mineral and sharp that sat at the back of the throat.
Mount Kael rose from the earth like a giant fist, its peak lost in low cloud, its face streaked with veins of deep red, green clinging to patches of shrubs covering some of the lower surface.
Beautiful. And yet dangerous.
The carriage slowed and stopped. The soldiers formed up around us, hands on weapons.
“Out,” the lead soldier said, pulling the carriage door open.
We climbed down. The ground beneath my boots was hard and cold, the wind cutting through our path. Jina pulled her arms around herself and shivered. Minha squinted up at the peak, her jaw set. Ranis did the same, but his face paled.
The soldiers led us to a wide opening in the mountain’s base. Above the opening, carved into the stone, was the queen’s symbol—the same circular design from the castle gates, the layered roses at its center.
The passage sloped downward, torchlight throwing long shadows across walls. I reached out and ran my fingers along the cold and rocky wall as we walked. The passage opened into a vast underground chamber, the air growing warmer.
The rhythmic strike of tools against stone reached my ears. The scrape and shift of rubble, and the low voices, stopped when they heard our footsteps.
Women and children filled the massive space below, more than a dozen of them, spread across the surface, their hands moving over the rock face with picks and chisels and bare fingers. Some knelt. Some stood on makeshift platforms of stacked stone to reach higher levels.
Their clothes were worn thin, their faces pale from lives lived underground, their hands calloused and bruised at the knuckles. For what? Extracting beauty from stone for the queen to wear and grow the kingdom’s riches.
A little girl, no older than seven, peered up from where she crouched near the base of the wall. Her eyes found mine, no fear, just a kind of tired resignation that shouldn’t be on someone that young.
My chest tightened.
“Keep moving,” the soldier behind me said.
I didn’t move. “Who are these people?”
“Workers,” the lead guard said.
“Workers get paid. And they want to be there.” Minha glared. “They don’t look happy. So they’re prisoners.”
The child had gone back to her work, small hands moving over the stone, the other hand hammering.
The queen had an entire mountain full of women and children. And somewhere deeper, past wherever these people were permitted to go, something waited that had killed everyone the queen sent to face it.
I brushed a hand where the vial pressed against my side and thought of Sable’s words. The creature at Mount Kael knows what you are. It won’t harm you.
I had to believe she was right. Because if she wasn’t, none of us were walking out alive.
“Here,” the lead soldiers showed us tools. “You don’t get to stay here rent free. Do your job. I’ll be watching you.” He pushed a short-handled pick into my hands, the metal worn smooth from years of palms before mine.
I could use this tool as a weapon and kill the soldiers, but there were children among us. I couldn’t put them in danger. Steady, Star. Not now.
“When the sun goes down, you’ll be facing the creature.”
“Says the man holding a sword,” Minha scoffed.
Jina whimpered and pushed Minha back when the soldier’s hand went up.
Ranis stood in front of them. “If you can’t be a man to fight the creature yourself, then at least be a gentleman and don’t hit someone smaller than you.”
The soldier growled and walked back to the others, talking among themselves since they had nothing better to do. The queen should be ordering these men to work, not the women and children.
I found a gap at the wall between Minha and a stranger, the rock cold and rough under my fingers as I dug.
The older woman beside me had gray threading through dark hair pulled into a low knot, deep lines fanning from the corners of eyes that still managed to look kind despite her hardship.
She worked without looking at me, her hands calloused and bruised.
She pried a chunk of stone loose, turned it over once, and there it was, a flash of red catching the torchlight.
A ruby.
She brushed the dirt off and dropped it into a wooden bin behind her, then went straight back to work. The girl beside her found an emerald and placed it in the same bin.
“How long have you been here?” I whispered.
“Long enough to lose count.” She glanced at me, just once. “I suggest you don’t talk, girl.”
“Why?”
She glanced over her shoulder before prying another stone, this one big as my thumb. “You’ll get punished.”
I matched her rhythm, pick against the surface, and waited until the sound covered my voice. “There’s a tunnel that leads to a creature.”
Her hands stilled.
“Some have tried.” She shook her head, eyes back on the rock. “None of them came back.”
“What do you know of it?”
“Why do you ask so many questions, girl?” She glared at me, then glanced quickly at the soldiers talking among themselves, then back to digging. “If you want to survive here, do as you’re told.”
Minha, Ranis, and Jina each dug out a sapphire and an emerald. We went from prying oysters to gemstones. I didn’t know how long we worked, but exhaustion made my stomach grumble.
“When do we eat?” Ranis whispered sharply. “These poor kids must be starving, mate.”
Just then the same little girl with blond hair collapsed on the dirt. Ranis kneeled beside her. “Sweetheart, you okay?”
“What’s going on?” The lead soldier stomped over.
Minha’s hand went near her dagger, and so did mine. Jina gasped, but she held tight to her pick. She might be frightened, but I knew if her friends were in danger, she would act.
“She needs food and water,” Ranis said. “If you treat the workers with poor care, you’ll get no results.”
“Not my doing.” He grabbed Ranis and pulled him up by his shirt. “You’re lucky the queen wants to send you to the creature, or I’d kill you myself. Take her to the stream toward the back if you want. Hurry. Don’t waste time.”
Ranis cradled the little girl in his arms and took her to the stream. He laid the girl’s head on his lap, scooped water in his cupped hand, and let it slowly drip into her mouth. I’d always thought Ranis was a good man, but I didn’t know how much he cared for others.
We continued our duty until the sun went down.
I shivered as the cool air seeped through.
Unlike the cavern in Jeju where they’d fed us oyster and seaweed soup, we were served a bowl of stew with carrots, potatoes, and some kind of meat.
While the soldiers ate up top, we ate on the ground or on small boulders.
“Do you have a name?” I asked to no one in particular as I took a sip.
The older woman I’d stood beside while working sat on the boulder next to me, leaned close, and whispered. “My name is Hellena, but in here, we have no name.”
Another girl with a cut on her eyebrow murmured, “They dehumanize you if you have no name. You are nothing, that’s what the queen told us.”
Minha chewed on a carrot. “How did the little ones get here?”
Hellena sighed. “The orphans were sent here recently when the others were killed by the creature.”
Jina’s knuckles whitened around her bowl. “What creature?” She glanced toward the stream where the dark had thickened, then leaned closer to Ranis.
“Beyond the tunnel,” Hellena said, tracking a shape in the dirt with one calloused finger, “are pure stones, so we are told. Clear as water, and they sparkle a thousand times brighter in the sunlight. And for some reason, the creature guards them with its life.”
“How does the queen know what’s in there?” Jina scooped a potato with her fingers, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
“I suppose she heard stories,” Hellena said, her gaze flicking toward the black mouth of the tunnel.
“She sure didn’t go past the tunnel,” another girl said, then looked at Ranis. “Who is he? There are no male workers. The queen doesn’t want retaliation, so she sent only females here.”
“The queen doesn’t know my kind.” Minha pulled her shell dagger from her shirt and stabbed it into the beef.
“Where did you get that?” Hellena set her bowl down and waited. “I’ve never seen a dagger with a pearl on it.”
I’d never seen Minha’s dagger up close, but on the hilt, a single tiny white pearl was embedded.
Minha met my gaze without answering, then said, “It’s something I made. Not important.”
“I never got one.” Jina’s lips turned downward.
“Here.” Minha reached behind her waistband and handed one to Jina. “I was waiting for you to ask. I made this one for you.”
“Thanks.” Jina smiled, examining the shell blade, darker than ours.
The little girl beside me—the one I’d noticed first when I’d entered, her dark hair matted with dust, her thin soles caked black from the mine floor—started singing, her voice clear and unbroken, untouched by everything around her.
“The pearls that they took were the tears that we shed. For the sisters we lost and the mothers long dead. But the tide always turns and the sea always calls, a star in the darkness will unite us all.”
Tears pooled in Jina’s eyes. “How do you know that song?”
I fought back my own.
“Hellena taught us,” said another girl, about the same age as the one who sang but a bit taller, with a braid down her back.
So did Nam, I wanted to say.
The smallest of the girls, her curls escaping every which way, added, “Through songs we never forget. And sometimes they give us hope.”
“Don’t sing, girls.” Hellena shook her head and jerked her chin toward the soldiers, then back to us. “I’ve heard of the Seaborn. I know their songs, but I’ve never met any of your kind.” She put a fist to her heart. “I’m truly honored.”
I didn’t know what to say. To be honored to meet us, when in the cavern we were no one with no names, just like them. So I told them about King Jeju and prying oysters for him, and why.
Hellena wept, and so did the others around us.
I told them how we found out we were Seaborn, the adventures we had, the fight with the boarox and how it didn’t hurt us. Minha gawked at me when I spoke of the oclego. I told them about our blue blood, and how we could stay underwater.
I don’t know if it’s true,” Hellena said, “but I’ve heard legends of an underground city, where Seaborn grew tails in the water and legs on land.
“I don’t think that’s true about having a tail.” Minha snorted, leaning closer to the fire. “But that would be amazing.”
“Males too?” Ranis asked.
“All Seaborns.” Hellena smiled.
“One day we will all be free,” the little girl who sang said, her eyes twinkling, the fire dancing in their reflection. “One day the gods will save us all.”
There was that talk of gods again. I hoped she was right.
I leaned closer to her and whispered, careful the soldiers wouldn’t hear, “I name you Hope.”
Her dull green eyes lit up. “Hope,” she repeated, like it was the most precious word.
“Don’t ever forget,” I said.
It wasn’t about the name but the meaning. Then I named the tallest one Faith—Sunny for the smallest one—and the others, and watched their faces brighten with each name given.
A whip cracked so close the fire embers flew up like tiny lights and the air whooshed. The moment of peace vanished.
“Rise.”
When the whip came again, I’d lost my mind. Reminding me of my family getting hit for not meeting the pearl counts the king wanted. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of us.
My fast reflexes and instinct guided me. I caught the end of the whip in mid-flight, wound it around my arm, and yanked. Pain seared up my arm, but I didn’t care. I’d had worse.
The soldier lost his balance and tumbled, his golden arms clanking on the ground. The rest of the soldiers pointed their swords at me.
Minha and even Jina stood by my side, Ranis too. No dagger on display. Best not to show them, or they would take it away.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” I hissed.
I shouldn’t test their patience, but the queen didn’t want us dead. Not yet at least. We had to tame the creature. The soldiers wouldn’t harm us, or their lives would belong to the queen. Because of this, I felt empowered.
“Get going toward the creature,” the lead soldier ordered, “before I make up a story about your deaths.”
“After you.” Ranis waved a hand. “You’re the one with a sword after all.”
The lead soldier shoved him ahead. We followed behind him toward where the creature would either be our savior or our doom.