CHAPTER 22

“Vax!”

Her brother appeared in front of her and disappeared as easily again, dashing out of the way of the Shadewatch, roughly pulling another figure with him. The guards filtered out around her to deal with the combination of ash walkers and outlaws, and the low light in the mines lent an air of chaos to the fight. Vex clung to her bow and tried to find Vax again.

Derowen placed a hand on her shoulder. She scanned the surrounding area too, her eyes sharp and concerned. “Your brother is here?”

“He’s here,” Vex repeated, nearly choking on the potent mixture of relief and worry. She’d seen him. He had to be close, but why had he ducked out of the way again?

Derowen looked at her intently. “Go find him.”

Vex pushed through the guards that encircled both her and the Shademaster, and dove deeper into the mines, where the fight around them was as desperate as the fight against the dead had been that first night. The guards who’d gone in with the Shademaster all knew that the last time a patrol found its way into these mines, three of their own were killed and only one managed to make her way out. They had all clashed with the dead, and they knew the dangers these outlaws posed to Jorenn.

And they all fought like it.

Vex knew she’d underestimated their dedication, but when she pushed deeper into the tunnels, past chambers with old picks and hammers on the walls that showed the outlaws had made their home here, past flecks of old blood on the ground that only enraged the guards more, she was grateful to have them at her back. If they could find their way through this tangle of tunnels, it wouldn’t just be about her and Vax. Perhaps they could leave Jorenn a safer place than they’d found it, where little girls didn’t have constant night terrors.

She saw a lanky figure dash through a cloud of dust and ash, and she followed in the same direction.

“Vax!”

The tunnels were everything and nothing like she expected.

Storm clouds had raged above them when they left for the mines, Derowen at the head of the Shadewatch, and Vex and Trinket not far behind. They’d been soaked through within minutes of leaving the town. Underneath the darkened sky, their vision had been obscured by a heavy sheet of rain that stretched from the hills into the valley, casting the world around them in shades of dark blue and gray, but it had still been brighter outside than in here. All the more so when lightning coursed through the sky, and loud cracks of thunder underscored the rumbling of the guards’ voices. Attacking the mines was all they’d talked about, all they’d known over the past few days, and the closer they’d come, the harder it had been to stop imagining the unknown dangers ahead, especially when those dangers involved Vax.

Now that Vex was here, all she could hear were the sounds and screams of battle. The dizzying, toxic combination of one side’s inescapable death and the other side’s imminent victory. They’d entered the mines with as many guards as the town could spare, leaving only the bare minimum on the palisades and in the Shade Hall. And they pushed through relentlessly; where one fell, the next immediately took their place. But their enemies hadn’t been as many and as ferocious as she anticipated.

The chambers she passed looked simple and homey, with rickety chairs and tables and sleeping cots. Cabinets that held dried herbs and rabbit skins. Wooden swords and a deflated leather ball in a corner, covered under a layer of dust. Shadows and chalk drawings on one of the walls.

Vex leaped out of the way when a female half-orc and two guards tumbled into one of the smaller tunnels that arched away from the main cave, a tangle of limbs and weapons. She recognized one of the guards as Nari, the scout who rode out with her. A third guard lay lifeless on the ground in the chamber behind them, and the half-orc was bloodied and limping, but she fought ruthlessly with two scimitars. Still, she was no match for the guard. When she spun an attack in the direction of a broad-shouldered dwarven woman, the guardswoman ducked underneath. Her sword sliced through the muscles of the outlaw’s lower leg and she dropped to a knee.

Following up on the guard’s attack, Nari took his sword and jammed it into the half-orc’s neck, just above her clavicle.

When Nari stumbled away from the half-orc, one of the woman’s scimitars was lodged in his rib cage, pointing up toward the heart.

Vex gagged, and farther down the tunnels Beven’s voice rang out above the fray. “The ash walkers are everywhere. We have to retreat!”

“Vax!” Vex tried again, her voice rough. She pushed forward past the bodies of outlaws and the bodies of guards, while the Shadewatch around her began to pull back, until Derowen’s voice rang through the mines. “Keep pushing through!”

The crush of bodies around her was suffocating, and the same nightmarish questions ran through her mind over and over again. What if Vax fell in the fight before she could get to him? What if he’d fallen to the ash creatures? What if she was too late?

Vax.

With the dust of the tunnels and the fight swirling around them, she found him again, a handful of steps away from her at the narrowing of a secondary tunnel. He wore the same dirty and torn clothes as when she’d last seen him, like no time had passed at all. But there was blood on the cloak, and on his dagger. There was blood on his face, and he looked at the people around her like they were the enemy. His eyes landed on her, and for the first time since the initial ash walker attack tore them apart, the world felt right again. “Stubby.” She didn’t know one word could be so full of pain and relief.

He didn’t walk toward her. Instead he held on to the tunic of another half-elven man, with dark hair tumbling around his scarred face and pure, unabating rage in every line of his body. He tried to shake himself loose. “Get out of my way, Vax.”

“No.”

“Vax.” She took a step forward, hesitantly.

Behind her, she heard the heavy footfalls of the Shadewatch and the voice of Derowen, barking orders. The fight in the tunnels had quieted. Fewer people cried out. The last remaining outlaws were bound and taken in the guard’s custody. Blades didn’t cross many blades anymore, though she did hear the dull thud of blade against bone from deeper below.

An arrow zoomed past her head and missed the half-elf by inches. Voices sounded all around her. “It’s him. It’s Thorn.” “He set more of the ash walkers loose.” “He’s responsible for all of this.”

“I want him alive.” Derowen’s words were loud and clear, echoing around Vex and her brother and the third half-elf. Thorn, leader of the outlaws. “He needs to be brought to justice.”

Vex hissed. “Vax, what are you doing?”

Vax shook his head. His jaw worked, and he glanced over Vex’s shoulder at the oncoming guard. He seemed completely at a loss. “I’m sorry.”

Then he stepped in front of the other half-elf, shielding him, and pushed him deeper into the mines. “This is not what revenge looks like,” he said, his voice barely loud enough to carry to Vex. “Look around you, there is nothing left. Take it and run and live to fight another day. Anissa wouldn’t want you to throw your life away, and neither would Sencha and Junel.”

Thorn snarled. He stumbled and would have turned back, but Vax blocked his path. “They need you. And I need you to trust me.”

Vex stared, unable to quite comprehend what she was seeing. During all these days when she tried to stop herself from fretting, she’d worried they’d be too late. That he’d been hurt or killed in the first fight—or by these mine dwellers. She’d worried that they’d imprisoned him. She’d worried that he’d antagonize them and put himself in harm’s way.

Not this.

She’d expected to find her brother anywhere but on the other side of this fight.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “He’s a criminal.”

Vax took a deep breath. He didn’t turn to look at her. She didn’t need to see his face to know how conflicted he was. It was clear in the tense lines of his shoulders, the trembling of his hands. When he spoke, his voice was laced with a peculiar sadness. “He saved my life, Vex’ahlia. His people got me out when those dead things attacked, and they patched me up.”

“But …”

Behind him, the other half-elf still lingered, and Vax kept blocking the path.

Behind her, the Shadewatch had noticed the standoff. Their shouts echoed around them. She felt the weight of every single one of their stares.

“I need you to trust me too,” he said quietly. “They only hide out in the mines because the Shademaster destroyed their homes.”

She was stunned into silence. She couldn’t wrap her mind around her brother’s words, and her ears were ringing. Despite the questions between them and the fight around them, Vex did the only thing she could do. She crossed the few steps that separated them, and flung her arms around him. In that space between heartbeats, the world stopped, the fighting quieted, and they were all that mattered.

“Of course I trust you, you idiot.” She buried her face into his shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent of blade polish and midnight. She held him as tightly as she could, terrified he’d somehow disappear again if she let go.

Vax clung to her with the same ferocity, his presence strong and steady and there.

Behind Vax, Thorn stared at them. She heard the footsteps of the Shadewatch running toward them, and she saw the hatred in his eyes. While Vax held her, he could slip past and she wouldn’t stop him. But lines of grief crossed his face, and he shuddered. With the twins between him and the Shadewatch, he turned on his heels and ran into the shadows of the tunnel.

“Stop him! Get out of the way!”

One of the guards dashed past her, and Vex pulled apart from Vax, grabbing his sleeve in an attempt to pull him aside. Instead he squared his shoulders and reached for her hand. He kept his stance, the second guard nearly crashing into him and plummeting to the floor. He shook his head. “He deserves a fair chance.”

“He’s responsible for all of this!” she shot back.

“He isn’t,” Vax said, looking at a spot behind her.

She twisted and saw Derowen stare at them, hands folded over each other, and her face twisted with anger. In an instant, Vex felt her relief drop away and worry crash into her, and anger overrode her confusion.

She reared and punched Vax in the shoulder. Hard.

Vax arched back and rubbed his shoulder. “Vex …”

“You shit,” Vex seethed. It was such a relief to be mad. “I’ve been looking for you for fucking days and you run away from me for one of those miners? Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was?” She threw her hands into the air, and would have turned around, when Vax grabbed her and pulled her into another tight hug.

“I’ve missed you too.”

Vex stomped lightly on his foot, but she stopped struggling, letting him hold her. He still effectively blocked the tunnel, and she could hear the Shadewatch draw closer.

“I need him to get out of the way, Vex.” The Shademaster, her voice low and furious.

Vax took a step back and spoke low enough so only Vex could hear. “I can’t. They’ll kill him. Look around you. The Shademaster is dangerous. This wasn’t a fair fight, it was a fucking massacre.”

She breathed out hard, and she matched his quiet tone. “It was the only way for the Shadewatch to fight back. These people are responsible for the ash walker attacks, Vax. I’m grateful that they took care of you, but they’re a danger to everyone around them.”

“If that’s what she told you, she hasn’t told you the whole story,” he whispered, glancing over her shoulder again. She felt someone step closer. Shademaster Derowen cleared her throat.

Vex tensed. They could figure this out. Later. Outside. Together. “Please, Vax.”

“This wasn’t how I envisioned us meeting, Vax,” Derowen said loudly. “I will have the guard remove you if you don’t step aside.”

“They have to protect their homes, brother. She fights for the future of her daughter.”

Behind Vax, the two guards who’d made their way past were facing off against a trio of fading dead, their skeletal forms covered in soot and ash. The tallest of the creatures had its claws into one of the guards, while a smaller one—his posture and gait like those of a halfling—tore into the woman with his sharp teeth. The other guard, a bulky human man, swung with his sword to try to carve her free.

Other crumbling corpses pushed their way out of the tunnel, coming from the direction in which Thorn had disappeared.

Vax kept his eyes on his sister, like he was searching for something. Then he nodded. He moved aside and immediately, guards slammed past them. Vex grabbed hold of him and dragged him out of the way, while the remaining guards filtered into the tunnel in search of the leader of the outlaws.

Vax watched them run past, and his shoulders dropped. He glanced in the direction of the Shademaster once more. “Appearances can be deceiving, Vex’ahlia.”