CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FEATHERSTONE MINES

We spent another day through the woods before the mountains flattened, exposing roads on the horizon that seemed invisible before. The illusion of solitude ended, and I felt the chilling reality of what awaited me. I was lost in my thoughts as we followed the trail away from the riverside and up an overgrown path, blocked by hedges and brush. Khine swore repeatedly for the next while as we pulled out our swords and cut our way through. We reached a marshy meadow, in clear sight of the closest road. Swirls of dust rose from the surface at the first blast of wind.

“That’s the mining road,” Khine said, covering his mouth with his hand. “They closed it when the mines were shut down. If you follow it north for a few hours, it should take you to the southern border. We’re in Lay Weng Shio now.”

“I can’t believe you made me take the long way,” I sighed.

“It’s the safer way. Do you think we would’ve gotten this far with Qun’s men at our backs?”

“I beg to differ. The kunuti was anything but safe.”

“I think you had fun.”

“I think we should examine your idea of fun, Lamang. Your head, too, while we’re at it. Do you have any physician friends? One who isn’t a quack?”

“I’m going to pretend that didn’t hurt. You could at least admit it was the scenic route. And we didn’t have to worry about Qun’s men the whole time.”

I slowly exhaled. “That’s about to change, isn’t it?”

He said nothing as we crossed the road. The sky above was orange with a hint of purple, marked with a faint scattering of stars. Khine looked up, squinted, and then turned to wrap a scarf around my neck. The movement was so swift it caught me by surprise; I stood still, feeling self-conscious as he pulled it over my mouth. And then, almost as an afterthought, he tucked my hair behind my ears. “Don’t go walking into any white, fluffy patches on the ground or on rocks or wherever you see them.” He lifted part of his shirt collar to cover his own nose.

We arrived in the first town: a run-down settlement of abandoned buildings, just as Khine said. Most of the houses had become little more than piles of moss-covered debris. Some still stood—mostly the ones with stone walls. I paused at the doorway of one such house, noting a broken bed and an upturned table.

“So Hatzhi delivered goods to these mages here,” I said, glancing at the tattered curtains on the windows. “That must mean their settlement is somewhere close. Are there any other villages nearby?”

“None that I remember,” Khine mumbled. He was staring at one of the houses.

I came up to him and paused. “Yours?” I asked, noting the wistful look on his face.

He nodded.

It was a small hut. Only the frame and the roof remained, but I could see an outdoor kitchen with a stone stove and the rusted remains of a water pump. “Sixteen years,” Khine said. “But I still remember it like yesterday. I remember…”

His eyes darted down the street and then up to one of the buildings. “The priest’s son was a miner. I was playing out here with my friends when he collapsed right there. Bleeding from the mouth and eyes. They thought he had a run-in with an evil spirit, a forest nymph of some sort, so they wrapped him up in cloth from head to toe and uttered prayers over him all night long. The healer from the next town arrived that morning, but he was dead by then.

“A huge argument erupted when my father said the boy had stumbled into a patch of featherstone the day before. The priest’s son had laughed and brushed it off, but started feeling ill after lunchtime. The overseer thought Father was making mountains out of molehills. Said we had been mining featherstone for years and no one had died yet. Except of course people had been falling ill for years, too…no one made the connection until then.

“I’ll spare you the details of what happened after. It ended with my father packing our whole family and what few possessions we had on a cart for Phurywa. Some of the miners followed, weeks or months later. My father died before the actual mines were closed down. People remembered that about him, that if he hadn’t insisted we leave, everyone might’ve fallen ill and died.”

“Your father was a hero, Khine,” I said.

He fell silent, as if the thought embarrassed him more than it pleased him. “There is the mine itself,” he murmured. “A dangerous area, for more than one reason. White dragons are attracted to featherstone. They’re immune to its effects and like to use it for their nests. It warms up their eggs, I think.”

“White dragons,” I repeated. “Gods, it’s never anything fun, is it? Don’t tell me—you wouldn’t want to meet one.”

“They’re savage. Hornless, not like your Jinsein fire-breathers, and they don’t fly so much as they hop around and glide. When the mines were running, the men scared them off the ore piles at least once a month, more often during the mating season. A doable task if you have enough people and spears surrounding the creature. Still, sometimes they’d bring a man in ripped to shreds, guts everywhere…”

“And with the men gone, it’s a good chance the mines are overrun with these things. Wonderful. So where else would the mages be? They couldn’t possibly just whisk themselves off into thin air every chance they get.”

I paused as Khine stiffened. I followed his gaze and saw figures in the distance. Taking a deep breath, I reached for my sword just as the two silhouettes drew closer: a broad-shouldered man and a tall, well-built woman. Agos and Nor. My own relief at not having to fight was quickly replaced by anger—not at them, but at the reminder that I was still Queen Talyien, a woman who needed to be followed and guarded and watched. The last few days suddenly felt like a blur. I glanced at Khine. Already I could see him crawling back into that wretched hole of these past months, the one where he didn’t have to confront the same issues that plagued my waking moments. He could do that easily enough. I, on the other hand…

My guards approached, their dirt-streaked faces betraying both delight and disappointment at the sight of me. “Beloved Queen,” Nor said. “Thank the gods. We thought the worst.”

“That’s a rotten trick, running off without us,” Agos added. “Lo Bahn arrests you in Qun’s name and then suddenly you’re not in prison and all the guards are gossiping about your escape and all you leave behind is a fucking letter that could’ve been left by anyone. ‘Went with Khine, don’t worry.’ Did you really expect us not to? You should’ve gone straight to us!”

“We had to leave as soon as possible, and I didn’t want to risk you both,” I said. “Khine told me the featherstone in this area is dangerous, and I know you wouldn’t listen even if I asked nicely.”

“You never ask nicely,” Agos said.

“You would’ve disobeyed a direct order, too. You see why I didn’t have a choice? I don’t want either of you to get hurt.”

“Since when was that a problem?” Agos snarled. He turned over to Khine. “And Lamang, this was your idea? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Leave him out of this,” I said in a low voice.

“With all due respect—what would Magister Arro say if he was alive to see this?” Nor broke in.

Her mention of Arro, instead of my father, caught me off guard.

“I understand it is not my position to scold you, but in the absence of your advisers, I feel like I have to say something,” she continued. “You are not a young girl anymore, Queen Talyien. This—what you did…running off with this man…” She turned to Khine, narrowing her eyes. He’d been silent the whole time.

“It’s not what you think,” I said. “Khine knows his way around here. My only goal is to find Rayyel. If you both serve me, then stop questioning my every move. None of this is easy for me. I haven’t forgotten my responsibilities. Captain Nor, if protecting me is the goal, then get started. Look for signs of Qun’s men.”

“We’ve been here since this morning.” Nor said. “We’ve seen nothing.”

“Then look harder,” I grumbled.

She placed her hand on her sword. After a moment of deliberation, she bowed and stepped away.

I turned to Agos. “And you,” I said. “You’re not in the guard anymore, but that doesn’t change anything. You’re here now. Either you leave and you get to do what you want, or you follow protocol. Start deferring to Captain Nor, for one thing.”

He crossed his arms. “Haven’t killed her yet.”

“Good for you. Are you going to help find Lord Rayyel or not?”

Agos glanced at Khine before staring at me with a look that reminded me of the night I slept with him: that of defiance. Was that why he agreed to it? As if in the moment, he wasn’t following an order, but going against the grain and the nature of who he was, the limitations imposed on him. Maybe I was overthinking it. Enough men wouldn’t think twice about bedding a future queen.

But Agos wasn’t just a man. Agos was the only person I knew who understood my prison in and out. We had both grown up with others defining every corner of it, every iron bar. Once in a while, he would risk the elders’ punishment and wrath to indulge my little acts of rebellion. “The princess doesn’t need another dog, Agos,” Arro had said more often than once, whenever we returned home with a mangy puppy Agos had caught for me in the streets. “Every time it rains the whole place smells like wet dog, and the rugs have more than enough fleas.” We would beg and beg until eventually he agreed, calling a servant to take the shivering ball of fluff down to the kennels for a bath.

Was Agos angry because I chose to approach Khine instead of him that night? I wondered if perhaps Agos didn’t know what to think of himself without me, the way I couldn’t reframe my life without Rayyel in it. We’d been told what we would be before we could even make the decision ourselves, and Agos had been entrusted with the task of protecting me from the moment I was born. He took pride in it once. Maybe he wasn’t sure what he was now. He had come here against General Ozo’s orders—never mind that he didn’t belong in the army anymore. The things that once gave meaning to his life, that gave his world sense, were all gone. I wanted to free him, to tell him it was all right to move on with his life, but I knew he would take it as an insult, a patronizing attempt at masking his failures with pretty words. Of course he would. He was Oren-yaro, too. The day he abandoned his beliefs would be the day I abandoned mine.

“Since we have everything cleared up…” Khine broke in.

Agos turned, and for a moment it looked like he would hit him. My muscles tensed as I prepared to intervene. But Agos simply stared, his jaw clenched. He would know there was no turning back if he went down this road. He could defy me with words, but I wouldn’t let him get away with open treachery—not even him.

“I was just telling the queen we need to go down to the mining road,” Khine continued. “Believe it or not, I was quite pleased to see the both of you after our talk of white dragons. That greatly increases the odds of us walking out of those mines alive.”

“Should’ve considered that in the first place,” Agos snorted.

“Well, since you’re already here insisting you die of suffocation with us…” Khine gestured and began to walk. I folded my arms over my chest and turned to follow him.

Agos whistled to Nor and they caught up, their shadows as tall as prison towers behind me.

As we walked, Khine explained that featherstone was popular in the cities as a building material, that it didn’t catch on fire and was useful for a variety of purposes—from making warmer walls to mixing with water as mortar. It was particularly valuable to builder-mages, because it offered micro-connections to the agan—not enough for large spells, but it did the trick to enhance runes in order to stabilize buildings and bridges, among other things. After word of its danger got out, some of the mines got shut down, but not all. Work continued in the mines that had good road connections to towns far enough not to feel the side effects, and builders continued to use the material, reasoning that mixing it with cheaper alternatives rendered its unique properties inert.

People die. The world turns.

My father had tried to show the commoner’s world to me when I was little—visits to the rice terraces and farms on the foothills, or to the small fishing villages along both sides of the River Agos. I remembered enjoying the fresh air and the marked contrast with life at court, and sleeping at the crook of my father’s arm, one of the few times I remembered him as my father and not Warlord Yeshin. But listening to Khine’s stories made me aware of how fabricated those experiences had been. How much did I really know of people’s hardships, I who could return to a palace where I would be clothed and fed without anyone losing a finger? The gift of perspective, to a woman in my position…

I tried not to think it over too much. I was too far away from home to do much about it. But I did resolve to examine the conditions of the iron mines up the mountains where our lands bordered the Ikessars’ and the villages that relied on them. Ruling Jin-Sayeng was supposed to mean more than simply juggling the warlords’ whims. It was too easy to forget that sometimes.

We reached the entrance to the mines. There were upturned carts with missing wheels and mounds of dirt piled along the sides of the narrow road. “Don’t turn around,” Nor said, before I could take a step into the darkness, “but I think we’re being watched.”

“Mages?” I asked.

Nor grimaced. “Qun’s men, I think. A scouting group.”

“I wonder how long they’ve been here.”

“The rest must be in the other town,” Khine said. “It’s closer coming from An Mozhi, about an hour from here. This one’s closer to Phurywa.”

“We came from Phurywa,” Nor said.

Khine looked up in surprise.

“The road led straight to there,” Nor explained. “We travelled with your siblings, Lamang. With news of Queen Talyien’s escape and you gone from the inn the next day—we had no choice but to ask for their help. They decided to come with us—Anzhao didn’t feel safe anymore, not with Qun rampaging like a madman.”

“Are they well?”

Nor nodded. “We saw your mother, too.”

Khine’s face tightened. “Did she look healthy?”

“We didn’t stay very long,” Nor said. “We left as soon as we knew how to get here.” It wasn’t really much of an answer, and Khine looked lost in thought as we strode deeper into the tunnel.

“How did you know we were coming here in the first place?” I asked.

Agos snorted. “Lo Bahn.”

“Inzali filed a complaint over Lo Bahn’s arrest,” Nor said. “Qun had no choice but to let him go the next afternoon.”

“Came up to him, then,” Agos added. “Threatened to beat the shit out of him so he would tell us where you went.”

“That must’ve worked well,” I remarked.

“He deserved to have his skull bashed in for what he did to you.”

Nor scowled. “I told Agos that violence leads to nowhere. You’re right, my queen—Lo Bahn didn’t flinch. What he did ask for, in exchange for this information, was if he and his children could travel with us. He didn’t think he could trust anyone else in the city.”

“He’s there, then? In Phurywa?” I asked.

“I believe he’s planning his next move with his steward.”

Agos cleared his throat. “So what are we looking for, exactly?” he asked, waving the torch. His voice was muffled behind his shirt, which he had pulled up to cover his mouth at Khine’s insistence.

“Anything that stands out,” Khine spoke up. “Your Rayyel—”

“He’s not my Rayyel,” Agos growled.

“Her Rayyel, then,” he corrected, “is looking for mages. But the work here stopped a long time ago, so what we need is something that says otherwise…”

“I think we have to talk about Qun’s men first,” I said. “A more pressing concern.”

Agos snorted. “Bastards. Think they know it’s the queen?”

“I don’t think so,” Nor replied. “Didn’t seem like they were at all interested when we passed by. But someone’s bound to figure it out soon enough. We have to act before they do.”

“Ambush them?” Agos asked, cracking his fists.

“There’s only four of us. I counted six heads.”

Agos snorted. “That a yes or a no?”

Nor smiled. “I suppose if they’re not expecting it…”

We split. Khine whistled before I could walk a step and pointed at a white patch on the ceiling. I nodded and made a wide berth around it. A few steps ahead of us, Agos dropped the torch and stepped on it, covering us in near-darkness. Daylight was dying, reduced to a thin, pale shaft by the entrance.

I breathed against the scarf while I gripped my sword and waited. It didn’t take long. I heard voices deep in conversation, echoing through the tunnels. I was starting to wonder if maybe we should’ve agreed on a signal before Agos rushed straight for the last man who walked in. He cut him from behind before I could blink. Nor appeared a second later, dropping the one next to Agos’s victim. This left four very alert soldiers, who swarmed them.

I picked the smallest target in the hopes of felling him just as fast as my guards did. No such luck; the man turned on me with such speed that I completely forgot my plan of attack. It was all I could do to defend myself. I heard Agos yell at me to fall back, but I couldn’t even do that. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Khine follow, as if waiting for an opening.

“No!” I found myself screaming. “Don’t—”

The soldier turned. Another soldier moved towards us, but Agos grabbed him by the shoulder and struck him in the face with a closed fist.

I turned back to my opponent, who had smashed his elbow into Khine’s belly. He had decided to get rid of Khine before me, which was almost smart of him. Almost. The momentary distraction was all I needed. I slashed low, catching him across the thigh. He realized I was the one he needed to worry about and pushed Khine away to get to me.

I stepped back, smiling.

“Fucking bitch thinks she can fight,” he said.

“Think you can prove the fucking bitch wrong?” I crooned.

He laughed, brandishing his sword as he approached. I detected a swagger in his step and kept walking backwards. If I could lead him into the darkness, I might have an advantage, if my eyes adjusted before his did. I had been in the dark longer and was confident they would.

I heard footsteps. The soldier opened his mouth to speak, but he could only utter a grunt. A blade appeared through his belly. I was about to praise Khine for his efforts when I realized that he was too far away. Nor and Agos were still busy with two soldiers near the tunnel entrance.

The soldier made a gurgling sound, spilling blood as he was kicked away from the blade. I saw a torch, and then the figure holding the torch, and then my husband’s face.