CHAPTER 29

When the Shadewatch had first attacked, fear had rolled through the cavern as thick as mud, and Vax had thought he’d felt the worst of it. But this was despair, and despair was worse. What was left of this small community—that he’d once thought was cast in rock—seemed to shatter. Theirs was a never-ending fight. Or rather, it was a fight that could only ever end one way.

Vax reached for his daggers. Next to him, his sister scrambled to her feet. Trinket swallowed the last bite of fish, but his ears pricked up and his eyes were wary.

On the ledge, elders picked up the youngest children. Everyone who could reached for their weapons. In the center of it all, Thorn flexed his shoulders, light glinting off his swords. He looked at the small community of survivors—the two-dozen-and-some people who were left—before he walked over toward Sencha.

Vax looked at Vex. “I don’t know if this counts as choosing, but …”

“We have to find a way to help? Intervene? Something? I know.” She closed her eyes briefly, and he wondered what she must be feeling. These were the people who’d been kind to her. They’d both come to understand kindness in so many different ways.

She breathed out hard. “Fuck.”

“I can go. You can—” He choked on the next words because his sister pushed her forearm against his throat and silenced him.

“The next time you suggest separating, I will use you for fucking target practice, brother.”

He threw her a grin that was too bright for these hard surroundings. “You’d have to catch me first.”

“Do not tempt me.” Vex turned to Trinket and embraced him hard, hiding her face in his fur before she pulled herself up. “Let’s do this. Stay close, buddy, the tunnels will be dangerous.”

Trinket grunted, looking between the two of them with eyes that understood too much. He nudged Vex, as if to tell them both that he’d be fine.

Vax reached for Vex’s hand and brushed it before he turned toward the miners. They’d all gotten to their feet, and Thorn seemed to be arguing with every single one of them. He stood in front of Sencha and Faril, and he held on to the notebook Vax had brought in. His face was set in a stubborn frown, and one hand clenched and unclenched by his side. He swayed back and forth. When Sencha stopped talking to him, her words not loud enough to carry but her gestures sharp and angry, he moved from one foot to the other and shook his head. “No. I’ve made my decision. It’s enough.”

He turned on his heels and intersected with Vax and Vex near the entrances to the tunnels. “The Shadewatch must have followed you. According to Crispin, they’re already inside. They’ll comb the tunnels like they did before, and they kill everyone who gets in their way.”

“I didn’t lead them here,” Vex said steadily. “I wouldn’t. If I had known …”

“Neither of us,” Vax added. “You know that.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter. They can’t keep fighting.” Thorn motioned in the direction of the rest of the group, where a teenage boy had wrapped his arms around the girl with the glaive, and Sencha still stared daggers at Thorn. No one had put their weapons away, but they were arguing among themselves.

“They’ve lost too much. They’re all grieving. And the longer that I’m here, the more I’m putting them at risk. They don’t deserve that.” Thorn looked past Vax at the depths below and something cracked in his expression, exposing a wound as bottomless as the cave. It hadn’t had a chance to scar, unlike the others. “Derowen won’t stop looking for me. She hasn’t stopped looking for me. And this needs to end.”

“What are you saying?” Vax asked.

“You need to leave.” Thorn looked over his shoulder to Faril, who stood next to Sencha, both of them trembling with rage. Catching Thorn’s gaze, the dwarf made his way to him. Thorn shook his head. “This is my fight, and I should never have made it anyone else’s. They deserve to be safe, and you deserve to be safe too.” He grabbed Vax by the arm and squeezed painfully hard. “You’ve helped us in more ways than you can even begin to understand. Get out before anyone sees you. Derowen may be loyal when it comes to her friends, but she’s lethal when it comes to her enemies, and you’ve defied her once already.”

Next to Vax, Vex grimaced. “No true friendship is built on false promises.”

Thorn managed a nod, and Vax knew he hadn’t seen the way his sister’s hands trembled, or the sadness that flashed across her face. He believed her, and he was right to. But he didn’t realize the cost to Vex. She was good at making it look like her pain didn’t matter.

When Faril reached them, Thorn pushed the notebook into Vax’s hands. “Get yourselves to safety. Get this to safety before the Shadewatch can find it. Faril will show you the path out of here. It’s narrow, so your bear may struggle, but it will lead you out before the Shadewatch comes.”

Vax wrapped his fingers around the notebook. “What will you do?”

“I’ll walk out and surrender. They have no fight with any of the others here; they are no threat to Jorenn. It’s me the Shademaster wants. It’s me she’ll get.”

“She’ll kill you,” Vex said bluntly.

Thorn shrugged. “Not immediately. She wants me alive, and perhaps she’ll make the mistake of meeting me face-to-face when they’ve captured me.” He hooked his fingers around his serpentine belt, and his smile was a smile of knives.

I’d walk into town and kill her myself, if that’s what it took for the rest of them to live. 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. Vax remembered exactly what Thorn had told him that night.

“It’s not right,” Faril argued, his hands running over the too-large glasses once more. “Every one of us would fight to the death for you.”

“Tinyn already has,” Thorn snapped, and the words brought another crack in his façade. Faril flinched like he’d been slapped, and Thorn sighed. “Fuck. I’m sorry. This is why there are no other options. It’s done. No more.”

“And the others?” Vex asked.

“The tunnels are narrow. Single file. A way for a runner to call for help or a messenger to escape. This place was never meant for all of us. We’ll take our chances here,” Faril said, the words a challenge.

Thorn unhooked his two swords. He leaned them both against his shoulders, and the blades reflected elements of him. The silver ring in his left ear. The scars across his face. The tense lines along his jaw. And his desperate determination. “So take your chance and go. Get out.”

Thorn leaned in and stole a kiss, and Vax’s fingers dug into his shirt, feeling ragged wounds and scars underneath—a moment of comfort in this place where comfort was no longer to be found.

“Go.” Thorn let him go and harshly pushed him toward the other side of the plateau, far from the ledge that held the survivors, past the tunnel that would lead him to the Shadewatch.

When he passed them, every single survivor stood to watch him. He didn’t look back, not once.

Faril’s jaw worked when he watched Thorn leave, then he pushed past the twins and stamped toward a new passage in this endless maze of tunnels, chambers, and dangers that lurked below.

They made it to a jagged scar in the wall, where Faril muttered something under his breath. He made a throwing motion with his hand, like he was scattering crumbs, and sparks of pale-blue light spread out from him and clung to the outline of the cave. “Just keep walking,” he said. “The only way is up.”

Vex stepped in first—and all hell broke loose behind them.

HALF A DOZEN SHADEWATCH BURST out of the main tunnel and onto the plateau, weapons raised and shields held high. Two of the guards dragged a bloodied and struggling Thorn with them, and wrestled him to the ground. “Shademaster wants him alive!” another guard warned, but that didn’t seem to stop the first two from roughly pulling Thorn’s arms back until one of them snapped.

The tallest guard—a human man with an impressive red beard, a mace in one hand, and Thorn’s swords in the other—barked orders at the other miners. “Drop your weapons and surrender! If you resist we’ll drag you out by force!”

The guards continued to bind Thorn like he would disappear if they let up. Thorn didn’t struggle. He turned his head toward the other miners—who all stood to face the inevitable, clinging to swords and kitchen knives and picks—and nodded.

The guard shouted something else, but Vax couldn’t make out what. The words didn’t register.

One by one, the miners let go of their weapons—until only Junel still held on to their knives. Despite the impossible situation, the gnome clung to them, their knuckles pale from their death grip. Until the Shadewatch shouted again and, with a desperate snarl, they flung the knives into the hollow deep.

Thorn slumped to the ground. Faril keened. Vex reached out to grab Vax’s arm, and it was the only thing preventing him from running back in.

“We can’t help,” Vex whispered, and she held on tightly. “We can’t.”

“I need you to run.” The dwarf’s attention shifted to Vax. “Run and don’t look back, do you understand?”

Vax’s jaw clenched. “Faril …”

“No.” Faril’s nostrils flared, and he could feel the raw power radiate from him. “This was our fight long before you came here. If you want to do right by us, by him, by Tinyn and everyone we’ve lost, then take that notebook and get out of here. Now.”

It was the most he’d heard Faril speak in all his days with the miners, and the dwarf’s musical voice was rough with sharp edges. Like broken glass, or broken hearts. Faril’s fingers dug into Vax’s skin, and he didn’t let go until Vax slumped. “I will.”

“Go.”

Behind them, the Shadewatch were talking vigorously and pointing in Faril’s direction. One of them whistled and shouted something to the man in charge before he began to walk over. Vax saw the recognition in their posture, even though Vex tried to push herself back into the darkness of the passage. Trinket grunted and followed. Vax looked at his sister and she looked back at him, and as one they moved.

“Run!” Faril snapped his fingers, extinguishing the lights around them, before stepping between the twins and the Shadewatch.

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t meant to be enough. But it didn’t matter.

They ran.