CHAPTER 15

“Keep going.”

Sencha walked directly in front of Vax and guided him deeper into the tunnels, where even the light of the magic lamps didn’t extend and all they had to go by were torches. Sencha held one of them, illuminating the uneven path in front of them. Others were already farther down.

One of Thorn’s followers had raised the alarm when a few guards from Jorenn’s Shadewatch stumbled too close to one of the entrances to their underground home. Vax, who’d succumbed to painful exhaustion again after his meal, had been woken up by Sencha invoking the All-Hammer’s blessing once more. Her healing magic had helped knit together some of his wounds before she’d forced him down to the lower levels of the mine, along a shaft far steeper than the gentle slope they’d followed to get to the kitchen.

It’d taken him a second to wrap his mind around the situation—and protest. “No. If my sister is in Jorenn, she’ll be looking for me. I should let them find me.” Vex’s absence was an ache that settled in his bones and rattled his thoughts. She needed to know to stay away from the Shademaster, and he hated the idea that she might worry about him. And what if the Clasp thought he’d disappeared on them? Would they take their anger out on Vex? He needed to find his way out of here and back to her as soon as possible.

Thorn had passed him by, short swords in both hands, and Vax had found himself on the other side of the man’s blades before he’d fully finished protesting.

Thorn shoved Vax against a wall and leaned in close, his eyes flashing. “If they find you here, they’ll comb through the mines and find all the rest of us too. We didn’t save your life for that. Keep your head down and keep walking.”

A handful of other miners passed them by, with weapons by their sides and angry expressions, though whether that was because they’d overheard Vax or were simply emulating Thorn’s snarl, Vax couldn’t tell.

He swallowed and nodded begrudgingly.

Once Thorn had released Vax, Sencha mercilessly continued dragging him down, past one level, through a long, winding tunnel where the stone walls were sharp enough to cut and where the air around them was becoming colder with every step. It smelled damp and fresh where he’d expected it to be stale, but no part of this underground world made sense to him.

When every trace of light from the upper levels had disappeared and the marching pace slowed somewhat, Vax raised a hand and leaned against the wall. Sencha hovered next to him, vacillating between glancing in the direction in which Thorn had disappeared and the direction that the others followed. She moved her weight from one foot to the other and back again, clearly anxious to keep going. They were surrounded by jagged edges and the darkness was hungry.

“What kind of mine is it, anyway?” Vax asked. He loosened his arms and tried to ignore the pain clawing at his back. The additional healing had helped, but Thorn’s anger had torn through that. He needed a moment to catch his breath, and he wanted to know more of this underground maze. If only so he could find his own way back to his sister.

“Ore,” Sencha snapped. She placed her hand on his back. Warm comfort spread through his torso and limbs. “You’re bleeding again.”

“I promise I don’t do it on purpose,” he muttered.

“I can take a look when we’re in the cavern down below,” she said, her voice softer now. “Aside from reapplying your bandages and giving you herbs for the pain, I’m afraid I can’t do much more for you for today.”

Vax hesitated, then continued the walk down. He could hardly demand she’d keep healing him when there were others in need of a healer’s touch too. “What kind of ore?” he asked instead, eager to keep talking.

“Silver, primarily.”

Vax missed a step and he hissed. He’d take a rooftop chase over this endless winding descent any day. “Did you exhaust it?”

“You better not be thinking about going adventuring, half-elf.” Sencha kept a careful eye on his footing. “You don’t know what lies beneath and trust me when I say, you don’t want to find out. Besides, this mine hasn’t been in official operation since the Shadewatch set foot in Jorenn Village. The active silver mines are on the far side of Jorenn Village. They still provide miners approved by the Shadewatch with good work—and the merchants with good income too.”

Her voice had taken on an edge of something harder than the kindness she’d showed him so far. Anger, perhaps. Or the same grief he’d seen with Thorn. Whichever the case, she’d told him far more than she’d intended to. “So you weren’t approved by the Shadewatch?” he asked softly. He hadn’t missed the fact that she’d never really answered his question either.

She pursed her lips and kept walking.

Once they’d twisted and turned through another level, they reached the cavern, and it was immediately clear why Sencha called it that. The last tunnel led beyond the carved-out chambers used for mining and opened up into a large underground cave that was about the size of the clearing where Vex and he had left Trinket when they’d gone into Westruun. It felt like stepping from carefully cultivated craftsmanship into the rawness of nature—and it looked as uncomfortable as anyplace in the wild.

In the cavern, no beams were necessary to support the roof. The floor was filled with stalagmites that protruded from the rock like needles, while stalactites reached down from the rock above. A slender stream pushed between the pillars into a deep pool, and a soft blue glow illuminated the farthest edges of the cavern, where glow worms spread across rock like tiny, stubborn stars. Narrow passages led away from the shared space, and by the time Sencha and Vax made their way down, guards had already been posted at all the passages.

The vast majority of this small community appeared to be here. Thorn’s crew numbered perhaps four dozen in all, including the trio of halflings he’d seen in the kitchens, Junel, and at least three younger children, but without Thorn and a handful of others Vax had seen around the kitchen. They weren’t here for the first time either. The walls showed how often they’d stayed here. Every inch of bare wall showed intricate black drawings on splashes of bright shades. A beautiful grove silhouetted against a green background, the trees slender and gracious and reaching toward black birds silhouetted against blue. Hearts and stars and names, too. Pictures of homes, built from black paint and memories.

In the center of the cavern, the refugees from the higher levels used the same glass sphere Vax had seen previously to illuminate their work as they were gathering up bags and supplies. Sencha helped him settle down and rebandaged his wounds, but from there all he could do was sit, sharpen his daggers with a whetstone to take his mind off the disquiet of hiding, and stare in wonder up at the glowworms.

THE AFTERNOON HAD—PRESUMABLY—BLED INTO NIGHT when Thorn and the others returned. Junel had seen to it that everyone had eaten and the children were asleep on makeshift cots. Everyone went about their business in the cavern, like they weren’t hiding from roaming guards, knitting and sewing, cleaning and sharpening weapons, playing cards or sitting comfortably near one another around a small fire made out of torches. One girl sang a tragic love song that echoed hauntingly against the rocks, until two musicians with instruments took over and filled the cavern with defiantly happier tunes.

Vax had wandered toward the entrance a few times, but every time he tried, one of the miners had casually blocked his path. He’d reluctantly played a few hands of cards with the halfling trio before retreating to a quieter spot near the stream, where he could lean against one of the pillars. His back felt like it’d been shredded, and the idea that someone from Jorenn Village could be near looking for him tore him up too. His sister could take care of herself. He knew that. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her she was the strongest person he knew. Always had been. But Thorn made Jorenn sound like a death trap, and his Clasp-given assignment hardly helped make things safer. He’d walked them right into an impossible situation.

And by the looks of things, they weren’t the only ones stuck between a rock and more rocks. This was no simple heist. He’d stumbled into something big enough to make the ring look insignificant.

“If you keep frowning like that, you’ll mar that pretty face of yours.” Thorn stood over him. His face was pale and his shoulders slumped. His wavy hair fell in tangled streaks around his face. He kept fidgeting with a leather belt that wrapped around his waist like it was too big for him, both ends serpentining down.

Vax craned his neck, to try to get better sense of the man in front of him. “Is this how you live all the time?” he grumbled. “Hidden away and hiding deeper whenever danger is near?”

Thorn growled. “Well, excuse us for saving your life.”

Vax ran a hand over his face. “I’m worried about my sister, and I don’t appreciate being stuck here.”

Thorn plopped down on the ground next to him and leaned his head against the rocks. His scars stood out like raw and tired lines across his face. “I didn’t intend to drag you all the way down here either. You can blame the Shadewatch for that.”

Vax didn’t miss the slight hesitation in Thorn’s voice, and with nowhere else to go he tilted his head to face him. “Why did you do it then? Why did you save me and then bring me here? It can’t be convenient.”

“It isn’t,” Thorn said, softer. “It’s a risk, and I don’t play with my people’s lives at stake. But I also refuse to walk away when other people are in danger. You got lucky we were there. You had something in your camp we needed.”

“What?”

For the longest time, Thorn didn’t speak. He picked up small pebbles and tossed them into the stream, watching the water ripple and ease again. “Letters. Evidence.”

Vax considered it, mulling over the various options. “Evidence of what the Shadewatch did to your family?”

Another pebble. A soft plop when it hit the water. “I don’t need evidence for that. I was there. I saw it happen. I felt it happen. We all saw our lives destroyed that day.”

Inwardly, Vax cringed. “Of the Shademaster’s plans, then? She has control of the town and the guard. She’s taken control of the mines. So she’s using them for what, some kind of evil scheme? Or simply for smuggling? If she controls the silver trade in and around Jorenn, I imagine that’s profitable.” He’d never met the Shademaster, but based on what Thorn had told him and what Sencha had inadvertently shared, he imagined she was the type of person he could easily dislike.

Thorn stilled. “You pay attention.” The words held somewhere between reproachful and begrudgingly impressed. “It’s hard to fight a monster beloved by all.”

At least it made stealing from the Shadewatch a far nobler pursuit than it had previously seemed. The idea almost concerned Vax. As far as he was aware, the Clasp did nothing for noble purposes.

“We wish to go home too,” Thorn admitted. “Hidden away is how we live all the time, and it breaks you up, to go without a place where you can rest. To try to form a family from the shattered remains of what is left, while always being surrounded by the ghosts of those you couldn’t save.”

Vax swallowed and looked away. “I understand.”

“Do you, pretty boy?” Thorn tossed one last pebble into the stream and turned to Vax. “Do you know what it’s like to lose everything? To worry constantly about the people who depend on you? To think of nothing but to get rid of that cursed Shademaster, because until she’s gone, she won’t stop killing us and destroying the community we once had?”

Thorn used his words like daggers, Vax realized, and he could only respond in kind. “So how do you propose to slay your monster then? You can’t take on an entire fucking town.”

“Can’t I?” Thorn pushed to his feet. “I’m going to grab a drink. Need anything?”

He was already halfway through the cavern before Vax could mutter, “I do.” Despite Thorn’s words, it disconcerted him how well he did understand. He understood the longing and the anger in Thorn’s voice, and he understood the phantoms that stood among the people in the cavern. The trio of halflings instinctively held a place for a fourth. Sencha sat near the campfire holding Junel’s hand, while her other hand clenched and unclenched at her side.

We all saw our lives destroyed that day.

Vax reached to the inside of his cloak, where the ghosts of chalk marks still lingered. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the slight tear of scissors cutting through fabric. If he closed his eyes, the warm smell of freshly washed linen wrapped around him, mingling with the acridity of ash and burnt wood. He knew something about destruction.

If he and his sister had been home when it burned, perhaps they would’ve clung to its memory too. Some days, he wasn’t sure if they would always try to run away from it, or if he was still, constantly, trying to find it.

He certainly wouldn’t trust outsiders either.

Thorn weaved through the crowd, stopping briefly for a conversation with the half-orc and her dwarven lover, or to listen to a fiddle and a flute. A few steps farther, he wrapped an arm around a young human woman who’d distanced herself from the others to read a book. She hadn’t turned a page since she’d sat down on her own. And Thorn carried the weight of all the ghosts.

Vax waited until Thorn made his way back to him with two mugs of some spiced ale from a kettle that Junel guarded with a large wooden spoon. Thorn held one mug out to him, but when Vax accepted it, he didn’t sit down again. Instead he crouched next to the stream and stared. He carried his exhaustion like a thin veneer over the rage that coursed inside him. Or perhaps rage was the veneer over his heartache.

“I’d walk into that fucking town and kill her myself, if that’s what it took for the rest of them to live.” Thorn clung to his mug and hooked a thumb around his belt. “That’s how I want to slay my monster. The two of us, face-to-face. She wouldn’t be able to hide behind her guard, and I would pay her back for everything she took from us.”

Behind Thorn, several of the people in the cavern cast worried looks in his direction. It was impossible to miss that while Thorn tried to carry the burden, everyone here would do anything to keep one another safe, and his grief permeated all of them.

Vax took a sip from his drink, and it spread like liquid heat through his body, the spices strong and the ale stronger. He wasn’t involved in this. He shouldn’t be. But this fragile community tugged at him, in ways he didn’t fully understand.

“You know there are other options,” he said carefully, pulling at the fragments of a plan. “If you’re looking for evidence of the Shademaster’s schemes, the best place to start is with the Shademaster.”

“I don’t think she’ll be open to a nice conversation over tea and biscuits,” Thorn scoffed.

“She wouldn’t have to know,” Vax said. “I assume she has notes. Letters of promise. Correspondence. A place where she keeps such things. It wouldn’t be so hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to steal in and retrieve what you need.”

“And that someone would coincidentally want to steal into town and retrieve his sister as well?”

Vax shrugged. “Do you have a problem with that?” He wouldn’t deny that. He needed Vex by his side, and he had other business in Jorenn too. But that didn’t mean the plan—as fragmented as it was—wasn’t a great deal better than Thorn’s desperation for revenge. Two birds, one stone. Three, if he was lucky and found the ring too. “Unless you have someone else who’s good at breaking and entering?”

Thorn drank deeply. “I’m almost curious about your intended pursuits in Jorenn now. Yes, I have a problem with your plan: I would have to be able to trust whomever we sent into town to find their way back here. Or to do what needs to be done if they can’t.”

“You can trust me.”

“I don’t think I can,” Thorn said, with a genuine hint of regret. “Because from where I’m standing, you’ve observed us for a day. You may think you owe us, you may even think you understand us, but if we let you go and you’re faced with the choice between us and your sister, we don’t stand a chance. So no, I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone to do right by us anymore.”

Vax didn’t have a response to that. There was nothing he could say to convince Thorn, because he wasn’t wrong. But he also wasn’t right. And he would have to find his way out of here one way or another.

After an uncomfortable silence, Vax fought to change the subject. “Who is Emryn? You mentioned he was the one to find me. I’d like to thank him.”

Thorn chugged the rest of his drink in one go. “He would’ve liked that. Emryn died of his wounds,” he said simply. “Shortly before the cursed Shadewatch appeared.”

Vax breathed out hard, the words a gut punch. “I’m sorry.”

Thorn shook his head. “So if we’re all short-fused today, understand that it’s not personal. It’s hard to lose one of our own when there are so few of us left.”

“And all to protect a stranger?” Vax supplied. He set his cup aside and wondered about the ghosts in front of him. He wondered who was holding out a hand to Emryn tonight—and whether any of them would think it was worth it to pull him out of a pile of ash. It was a debt he couldn’t repay.

Thorn’s eyes sharpened. “Do not go blaming yourself. It isn’t like that.”

“Could Sencha have used all her healing on him?” Vax shot back. “Would he have been in that position if he hadn’t seen me fall in the first place?”

Thorn dropped his cup and moved so fast, Vax had no time to stop him. He dropped down next to him, one knee on the floor, the other locking an arm in place. He had a short sword in his hand before Vax could even think to reach for his daggers, and he angled the blade across Vax’s chest. “He chose to help. Do not cheapen that choice with your guilt. We’ve lost too much already.”

Vax raised his chin and met Thorn’s rage and heartache. He recognized his loss and the impossibility of the situation. They stared at each other for a fraction of eternity before Thorn sheathed his sword and pushed himself to his feet. He swung around to find the conversations in the cavern had dimmed and most present and still awake had turned to him.

Thorn grabbed Vax’s cup from the floor, and held it up high. “To Emryn, bravest of us fools, and all the others we can’t forget.”

The words echoed through the cavern.

“To Emryn.”

“To Emryn, foolish bastard.”

On the far end of the room, a dwarf held his own tankard high and added loudly—and before one of the guards near the children shushed him—“To finding our way home.”

“To victory!”

“To vengeance,” Thorn muttered.

When he glanced back at Vax, there was an unmistakable challenge in his eyes, and then he drank deeply.

Vax reached for Thorn’s fallen cup and raised it in a salute of his own. And while the voices picked up around them again, and the music quietly resumed, this was something he understood too. The need to carve out a place—or even a moment—where pain could briefly be forgotten.