She snapped her knives out and spun to greet whoever had spoken. But there was no one. The night was calm, nothing moved.
The grasses murmured and protested as Kaelan pushed up to his feet.
She was just about to ask Kaelan if he’d heard what she’d heard when another voice, this one gruff and low, said, “Twitchy, isn’t she?”
The first voice, higher and nasal, said, “A criminal, no doubt.”
A third gravel-filled voice asked, “Those knives certainly look stolen to me.”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Where are you?”
“Down! They’re down!”
But Hero’s warning came too late. He leapt from her shoulder. The ground undulated as if filling up with water from below or... collapsing.
She grabbed Kaelan’s tunic to throw him clear, but not fast enough. Under them, the land gave way.
They plunged.
The fall lasted less than a second, a couple of blinks, but the impact knocked the wind out of her. She choked on loose dirt. Grasses had fallen on top of her too, slicing and clawing at her with their sharp edges.
In the next moment, she was trampled upon by crushing feet, as though she were caught in a rhinoceros stampede. They pinned her, preventing her from moving and breathing, while they tied and trussed her up like a lamb set for Python’s chopping block. Grasses and dirt still lay over her face, preventing her from seeing anything. Fortunately, she had just enough time to thrust her fingers into her shadow’s vault and release her knives. An oily tasting rag was stuffed into her mouth. She was flipped over onto her stomach and slammed down again. Tears stung her eyes as her hands were roughly bound.
“You didn’t get the knives?” the nasal voice cried.
“Why didn’t you get them?” the gravelly voice demanded.
“I was tying up this one.” A hard thumping sound was followed by a muffled cry.
Magda lifted her head as much as she could, considering a boot was planted between her shoulder blades.
Kaelan was on his side, bound and gagged too, limp. Though they weren’t touching and true telepathy wasn’t possible between a Rae and a Prince until after they claimed each other, she could see his thoughts quite clearly in his reddened and watery eyes.
Now what?
A hand like an anvil barreled into her head, smashing it against the rough dirt tunnel they’d been dropped into.
The lowest voice said, “Don’t matter. She’ll hand them over... eventually.”
The hand came away, and she was flipped over again quickly, like she was no heavier than a wooden spoon. Fairies, the size of her pinky finger, darted around, casting their ghostly luminescence through the tunnel. Three squat men with long beards and faces like wet paper sacks glowered down at her.
“Elves have to learn,” the one with the lowest voice said. His beard was the rusty hue of dried blood. “This land belongs to the dwarfs.”
Though no taller than three feet, the gruff one lifted her up and threw her over his broad shoulder with apparent ease. He had a hard, yet damp scent, like the bug-covered underside of a stone.
He may have been inordinately strong, but due to his height, her forehead struck the floor every time he shifted her weight or took a step down, which seemed to be often. They moved from the tunnel where she and Kaelan had been captured to another and another, each seeming to take them farther down.
Bringing up the rear was the one with the nasal voice. He had piercing blue eyes and his pocked nose looked like a dried-up sponge glued into his fuzzy black moustache. As she attempted to keep her head clear of the ground, she glimpsed Sponge-Nose building a stone wall over the tunnel behind them. His thick hands moved in a blurred flurry. Seconds later, the entrance was filled. After giving it a pat, he caught up with them easily.
As often as she avoided smacking her head, she failed. Soon, she hung as limp as a sack of sand, gazing dully at her blood. Red drips first trailed onto dirt floors and then rough stone pavers, then onto smoother ones, and at last puddled upon dark, polished marble.
At the same time, the bobbing pale glows of fairies increased. Eventually, this was joined by the wavering flamelight of torches, which then transformed into the glinting sheen and rainbow flashes of fire burning behind cut crystal.
It grew quieter as they traveled downwards. Deafening clangs and the stomps of hundreds of boots gave way to the shuffle of softer soled feet and hushed whispers, to near silence when she and Kaelan were finally and unceremoniously dumped onto their butts.
Her head pounded. Her vision blurred. Blood ran along the bridge of her nose, skating hot and salty over her lips. But at least she was sitting up. Kaelan rolled onto his side next to her, his eyes fluttering. He, too, had a bloody wound on his forehead.
Before them rose a dais, upon which loomed a geometrically embellished throne carved from the same greenish-blue stone that made up the grand hall around them.
