CHAPTER 41

The guards Vax had seen at the gate when he sneaked in were gone, dismissed by Wick. Vax briefly wondered how many stealthy girls like the one he’d seen on his way in had taken advantage of that opportunity, of being able to walk out instead of sneak out. Not any of the smugglers in the Shademaster’s employ, but apprentices and messengers and thieves, each of them hankering for adventure, for something more or something better.

The unconventional path he’d followed, across ridges and rocks, looked a fair bit more dangerous by daylight, but today, they could simply follow the mountain path toward the large boulder near the entrance of the mines. While Trinket led the way, Vax stayed close to Vex.

He nudged her softly, and she glanced over and smiled.

When they left the town behind, Vax looked at Wick. Vax had only crossed paths with the half-giant once before everything fell apart, but between that and Vex’s stories, it had been enough to see how his gentle demeanor and his teasing words had made way for a heavy responsibility and a deep grief that only let up whenever Wick was with Aswin.

Right now he kept his eyes on the boulder ahead, and the half-elf who stood next to it.

Thorn leaned heavily against the rock and stared out at the town below. He’d have new scars to show for his brush with death, and he looked wan and exhausted, but he was here. In the end, that was what mattered.

Vax knew Thorn and Wick had spoken. Carefully, cautiously, comparing notes and stories, guilt and pain, comparing the Jorenn Village that was and could be.

Wick had released the survivors and captives immediately after the fight, while he’d given Thorn a place to recover in the Shade Hall, much to the discontent of many of the guards there. Sencha had stayed to look after Thorn those first few days—because she didn’t trust the Shadewatch with her foolish boy, she’d said—but Faril had led the others back to the cavern without hesitation. Freedom felt like a trap to them. Both they and the townspeople were mourning their own losses, and they needed to be able to do so in peace.

Thorn had been the last who stayed. Until today, when he’d invited the twins and Wick up to this boulder. When they walked closer, he took a deep breath and tenderly traced a spot of stone. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“To us?” Wick asked, his voice oddly stricken.

“To my sister,” Thorn said. “And to you too.”

The boulder next to him was full of names. Carved into them, magically burned into them, even shaped into the stone. Vax walked up to it and traced names shallowed by age and weather. Names that crossed others or existed on different levels, with paints that bled over carvings.

“When we still worked the mines, we left our names here,” Thorn explained. “Every single one of us, on the first day we went down below, gave our names to the rock, so the mines would recognize us. My own is somewhere on top, because I wanted no one else to be able to reach it. Anissa’s is right here.”

Vax took a step closer and, when Thorn nodded his permission, looked. Anissa’s name had been carved deep into the stone, the letters so neat, it had to have been done by magic. The deep letters were filled with small pieces of rock in all colors, slivers of gems, shards of glass, and sand to fill the spaces in between. It was chaotic, and well loved.

“I have to go back to my people,” Thorn said. “I thought it was time I left her here. She’s been with us long enough.”

“You and your people are welcome back in Jorenn,” Wick said with a sense of urgency. “I’d see to it that you are safe. It’ll be a long path for all of us, and not everyone would agree, but we can be more than our worst decisions. I cannot bring your loved ones back, but I can offer you homes and protection. While we both have pasts to reckon with, I want us to be able to look to the future and learn.”

“We don’t want to come back,” Thorn said immediately. He hesitated, and amended, “At least I don’t think so. We carry the weight of too many empty homes too. But I will take your offer back to the survivors.” He traced the name once more, and straightened. When he took a step away from the boulder, he looked more at ease than Vax had ever seen him. “Perhaps some of them wouldn’t mind.”

“When will you go back to the cavern?” Vax asked.

Thorn glanced at the sky overhead, the uneven layer of clouds and the patches of sunlight, before he met Vax’s gaze. “Today is as good a time as any.”

“Then perhaps it’s time we travel back to Westruun too, don’t you think?” Vex asked, with a smile to Vax. “We can see you safely there first.”

Thorn smiled at her with appreciation. “I’d like that.”

“I’d like that too,” Vax admitted.

“I wouldn’t,” Wick said. He kept alternating between staring at the boulder and looking over the town that spread out in the embrace of the hills. Now he met Thorn’s gaze. “But I understand it. In your place I would have left days ago. I’m grateful that you stayed and helped me figure things out.” He rubbed his face with a large hand. “Gods, rebuilding this town terrifies me, and I’m not sure I’m the right man for the job—”

“You are,” Thorn interrupted him, his tone brooking no argument.

Wick winced but acknowledged the words. “Thank you. I’ll try to live up to that.”

“Besides, I’m still here. Your guard knows where to find me, should you need me.”

“Let’s find a way to make this place better than our mistakes.” Wick held out a hand to Thorn. And Vax couldn’t help but wonder if this would mark a new beginning for them both, if something good could come out of this nightmarish place, or if in time they’d forget and go back to the way things were. The town above and the town underground, and a fracture between.

Thorn hesitated for a small eternity, then he reached out and clasped Wick’s forearm. “Tell your miners to continue the custom. The hills should know them too.”

VAX KICKED AT A PILE of ash, and in retaliation, it didn’t move. The gray and somber hills around them were as colorless as they had been the first time they both had laid eyes on them, but the difference was that they now knew what lay beneath the shroud that blanketed the place.

When they reached the shadegrass meadow they’d found on their way out of the mines, Vex stood at the edge for a long time, staring down at Jorenn Village in silence. Vax wasn’t sure that either of them would ever want to come back here.

He turned to the stack of rocks she’d placed as a way sign and tried to figure out exactly what they meant and how to read them. She’d tried to teach him survival skills on at least a dozen different occasions, but to no avail. He recognized the pattern, but not how to interpret it.

He picked up one rock and replaced it again. Then another.

“You know, I can just tell you where the bloody notebook is.” Vex’s voice held tired amusement, but amusement nonetheless.

He wasn’t so easily swayed. “I have to be able to figure this out somehow. Isn’t this supposed to be easy?”

He picked up another rock, and she chuckled.

At the edge of the meadow, Thorn laughed too, a rich, musical sound that Vax realized he’d never heard before. “I’m glad it wasn’t the lack of fresh air that made him so stubborn. I was beginning to feel responsible.”

“Oh no, he’s always been like that,” Vex supplied generously.

Vax turned around. “If you two need a moment to discuss me, I can hide out in those underground passages again.”

“If you can find the way,” Vex suggested cheerfully. She walked over and knelt down next to him, removing another set of rocks and digging at the fresh earth underneath. Within an instant, she was plucking at the fabric of his cloak.

Vax smiled ruefully and looked over his shoulder at Thorn, who smirked. “I can’t believe you found a way out here. Even I didn’t know it existed, and we’ve spent generations exploring the caverns and ways. I’m excited to find out where it leads.”

Vex pulled up the cloak and unfolded it. A blush crawled up to her cheeks. “I guess I’m good with underground spaces.”

“Better than your brother.” Thorn wiggled his eyebrows at him.

She cleaned the notebook and tossed the dirty cloak at Vax. “Believe me, I know.”

“Cute. Both of you.” Vax caught the cloak and dusted it off before slipping it on despite the streaks of mud and soil. It felt cold and uncomfortable, but it was also a decent reminder of Westruun. Of getting back on the road.

Thorn winked at Vex. “If only I’d met you first, I would’ve known I got the lesser end of the bargain.”

“I do like him.” Vex’s laughter rolled across the hills, her blush ran deeper, and it made this desolate place look brighter for a moment.

“You would,” Vax grumbled, without any real force behind it.

The teasing made them all feel better, but Vax couldn’t deny the note of finality to Thorn’s words, especially when the miner walked over to the side of the hill where a narrow passage led back underground, and ran his fingers over the stony surface.

He’d move on, and he was right to.

“Where will you go?”

Thorn pulled up one shoulder in a half shrug. The other arm was healing, but he hadn’t regained full movement yet. The Shadewatch healer doubted he would, given how extensive his wounds had been. “Away.” He nibbled at his lip. “I’m not trying to be secretive and keep it from you. I simply don’t know yet. I don’t think anyone will make their home in Jorenn again, but I have to talk Wick’s offer through with everyone who went back to the cavern.” He sighed. “After that … We’ll see who’s left, what we can do here while we stay, and who will want to take us.” A bottomless grief opened up in his eyes when he tried to smile, and some of his anger slipped through. “Easier to find a home though. Now that there are only so few of us left.”

“Thorn …” Vax reached out a hand, and the other half-elf flinched away from it.

That same mask of pride and determination he’d seen so many times over the past week closed over his smile. “Don’t. Don’t give me your pity or your guilt. Remember what I told you about Emryn? We made our choices.”

Vax grimaced. “Foolish bastard.”

“Apparently so.” Thorn’s shoulders dropped, and some of the tension leaked out of his stance. “It would’ve gone wrong sooner or later. You being here … made it better. And easier to bear for a little while.”

“You’re a good man,” Vax said, meaning every word of it.

Thorn smirked, but the intensity in his gaze cut through Vax. “Sometimes.”

“Anyway.” Vax looked away, and woke up the snake belt that he still carried. It had remained with him after the fight, and he hadn’t yet thought to give it back, nor had Thorn asked for it. “You shouldn’t wander around the hills alone. It’s dangerous. You’ll want this, I’m sure. To keep you company in mines so deep the light won’t reach.” He held out the belt to Thorn.

Thorn stared at him like he could look straight through him. “Keep him. I think he may be done with deep mines for a while too.”

The snake circled up and around Vax’s arm, staring between both of them, like he could understand what they were saying. “Are you sure?”

“I do actually know my way around most of these passages. If I need company for my glum monologues, I’ll talk at Sencha for a while. Tell her it’s your fault.” There was a sparkle in Thorn’s eye. A challenge too.

“I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”

Thorn wrapped a hand around Vax’s neck and pulled him closer, and his kiss said everything his words couldn’t. Behind them, Vex groaned, and with his free hand, Vax flipped her off. He felt Thorn’s smile on his lips.

When they broke apart, some of the color had returned to Thorn’s exhausted face, and he stepped back. “Thank you.” He glanced at Vex. “Both.”

She winked at him.

“Be careful, okay?” Vax asked when Thorn walked over to the narrow, jagged opening in the hillside that would lead him back underground. “Be safe.”

Thorn stared up at the sun, letting the bright light wash over his face and relax his posture. When he turned to the cave in front of him, taking his first step back into the dark, the deep longing on his face was like a gut punch. “Aren’t I always?”

Vax shook his head and gave the only possible reply. “Give Sencha my love and tell her to take care of you.”

“I will do no such thing.” Thorn laughed and with that, he let the hill swallow him. They heard his footsteps echo briefly. He whistled a cheerful tune that grew fainter with every passing step.

And then it was gone.

Vax stood staring at the jagged cave for a while. Then Vex walked up next to him and nudged him. She was still holding on to the notebook, which she handed over to him. “Where to next?”

“I still have a meeting with the fucking Clasp.” He sighed. That was one meeting he wasn’t looking forward to.

“You know,” she said. “I told you so.”

“I’ll never hear the end of that now, will I?” he asked.

“Never is a long time, brother,” she mused. “But give me another year, at least.”

He elbowed her. “As long as you need.”

He pocketed the notebook, held his sister’s hand, and together they followed the path down the hill to a narrow stream where Trinket was unsuccessfully trying to catch a fishy meal, toward the valley where horses would be waiting for them, courtesy of Wick’s Shadewatch, and from there toward the Blackvalley Path back to Westruun.

And as they made their way down, around them the wind picked up. The clouds overhead dispersed, and beams of hesitant sunlight peeked through the cover, illuminating the ashen figures that swirled around the meadow. They danced over the shadegrass, rolled along the hillside, and scattered and re-formed endlessly.