“I know the visage of Adela, even years younger.”
Eira allowed her parentage to remain somewhat ambiguous, neither confirming nor denying Allun’s suspicion. “How did you end up there?”
“How anyone else does; I was careless and foolish at the wrong time.” There was a bitterness to Allun’s words despite her grin stretching wider until it looked almost crazed. “Once theyrealized what they had in me, they stopped wasting my talents and put me to work.”
Eira wondered if the workshop she’d encountered on her entry to the mines had anything to do with Allun. Seemed likely.
“Then, thanks to you, they lost me, and tried desperately to reclaim me every second after that. Unfortunately they were successful.” The woman stood, a bit shaky on her feet, but more confident than Eira would’ve expected from her emaciated frame. She moved over slowly—it was as if the very shadows were trying to claw her back and she was embroiled in a valiant struggle against them.
As light sharpened her edges, Eira noticed markings etched into her forearms that were somewhere between tattoos and scars. “I’ve seen these before.” It had been on Adela’s ship, the night they were attacked.
“Ah, yes… I heard rumors that you managed to thwart someone with my work on his flesh.” Allun lifted a hand, studying her forearm as if for the first time. “Yet another reason I hoped our paths would cross again.”
“You knew about the lutenz?” How could word have made it back to Carsovia? It had been the first night Eira had controlled theStormfrost—when a Carsovian ship had attacked them. The man had markings all over his flesh that Varren had called forbidden magics.
“I do not give my work to many, so I know all those who bear it. Moreover…it is a rare thing for someone to be able to overcome it. And to do it again, you’re going to need my help.” Even the movement of lowering her arm was smug, as if she already knew Eira was eying the markings.
“How so?”
“A rune-reinforced suit of armor I made wasn’t destined for Carsovia. The specifications were for a certain elfin man.”
“Ulvarth.” Eira breathed the name. It tasted like bile and hate. The mention of Ulvarth’s armor during her first meeting with the Hall of Ministers, and what her parents had said, suddenly made a lot more sense. “It can reflect magic.”
“That was what I designed it to do.” There was a spark of fascination in Allun’s eyes. “Did it work?”
“Allegedly.”
“It’s frustrating how good I am,” Allun lamented, both sincere and coy at the same time. “If you let me out, I’ll give you the power to destroy it.”
“Gladly.” She was going to let Allun out regardless, but this was even more of a reason to.
Eira placed her hand to the lock. The runes that stretched across the bars and chain were as hot as tiny branding irons sizzling her flesh. They fought against her, sparking with magic that melted her ice and reinforced the chain. The metal went white-hot from all the power coursing through it.
Despite the pain, and frustration, a grimace that was reminiscent of a smirk crossed Eira’s lips. The challenge was almost…delightful.More, she internally commanded herself.
Eira vaguely heard the soft hum from behind the bars. Her eyes darted to Allun, who was raising a hand to her lips. The woman took the pad of her thumb between her teeth, biting through the paper-thin skin, worn down by years of imprisonment and neglect. She reached through the bars to sketch out a rune on the back of Eira’s hand that was pressed against the lock.
The woman’s movements were deft, the symbol only taking a second to make. As soon as she withdrew, a surge of power coursed through Eira. The rush made her head spin and halt all at once. Internal seas calmed where there was once a struggle.
With a burst of power, the ice snapped through the chain. The lock was twisted metal, shards imbedded into jagged ice.With wet plops, the ice collapsed as Eira withdrew her hand. She stared at the mark on the back. The drying blood was already smearing and flaking off.
“What was that?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“An enhancement rune. I’ll show you much more than that when we’re out of here.” Allun stepped out of the cell, taking a breath and holding out her hands. “I am so tired of being chained by them. The key, and my things, should be in their storerooms by the cells.”
“Do you know the way?” Eira knew a request when she heard one and she wasn’t about to waste precious time debating if it was a smart idea or not.
“I’ve a suspicion from when they took me in.” Allun pointed in the direction opposite from where they came.
Eira let her lead. Cullen’s eyes continued to dart around, his magic humming at the edge of Eira’s senses. She relaxed her own magic, conserving her energy. A few of the other prisoners seemed to notice something was amiss, but the three of them were gone before any could raise a fuss or an alarm.
They reached an open doorway. The knights didn’t even bother to keep their storeroom under lock and key when they had the people themselves sequestered. The spoils of Carsovia’s misbegotten victories against their own people were strewn about carelessly. It wasn’t a gleaming treasure room of a king, but a pile of loot, haphazardly stuffed into trunks and strewn about in a disjointed jumble.
“They take everything that seems remotely interesting,” Allun said with disdain, grabbing some keys off a nearby hook and fitting them into her shackles. One popped off the cuffs and she began to rip open trunks and haphazardly throw things around the room. “Doesn’t matter who it’s from, what they did—or didn’t do. If they come through your town and want it, it’s theirs.”
Her words illuminated the trophies in a new light. Eira’s attention shifted from the precious metals and intricately dyed silks to rustic fur coats, well-worn satchels, keepsakes that were no doubt once treasured by their owners—lockets with dented fronts, stained letters, portraits in broken frames. She knelt and ran her fingers over the stitching of a doll. Her eyes were mother-of-pearl, and dress lace, but nothing about her could’ve been valuable. She was just another abandoned memory in this patchwork quilt of upended lives and harsh realities.
“Surprised they let you keep anything in the mines.”
