“Well, whatever the reason,” he says, falling into step beside me, “it’s good to see you again. Lord Luceran’s been visiting the mines more often lately, and I’m sure you can imagine what ajoythat’s been for the men.”
As he speaks, a brutal wind lashes across the entrance, slicing straight through my layers. My skin prickles, my jaw clenches as a shiver rattles through me. I tug my coat tighter.
“It’s freezing today.”
“Coldest yet,” Pax agrees. “We’ve got fires burning all through the mine just to keep our hands from freezing to the axe handles.”
I blink. “Is thatsafe? Aren’t there explosive charges down there?”
He gives me a patronizing sideways look. “We’ve been doing this a long time, Neve. You worry about the paperwork. Let us handle the mine.”
My response is immediate and exactly what he deserves.
I shoulder past his smug, condescending grin and march straight toward the Aurevault entrance, boots crunching hard in the snow.
If he wants to handle the mine?
Fine.
I’ll handleeverything else.
I move from station to station, overseeing the weighing of ore, cataloguing each haul, marking the quality and quantity while miners shuffle past me with hunched shoulders and frost-burned cheeks.
I steady the next crate on the scale and jot down the weight when a figure slips into the edge of my vision. I go still, turning my head just enough to see it emerging from the dark throat of Vein Three.
That dreaded tunnel, the one Rollin fled from wild-eyed and incoherent, raving about a demon whispering his name. I know now those were not ravings at all. There was truth in his terror. Something lives down that shaft, something worth fearing.
I turn to Pax. “I thought that tunnel was shut down.”
He takes a step forward, straining his eyes. “It’s supposed to be.”
As the figure draws closer, it sharpens in the lantern light. Not a monster. Not a demon. A man. He moves with an eerie, unnatural slowness, each step stiff and puppet-like. His face is blank, slate-smooth and emotionless, and with every shuffling step something flickers faintly in his hand.
Pax’s head snaps back in bewilderment. “Erold? Is that you?”
The man doesn’t answer. He keeps advancing, out of Vein Three and straight toward Vein Two, where I’d just confirmed nearly a hundred miners on the manifest, and the closer he gets, the more clearly I see the object clutched in his hand.
My stomach drops. “Is that… a charge?”
Pax’s breath catches hard, because Erold has reached the edge of the Vein Two shaft. The pulley clanks steadily, hauling miners up from below.
“Erold! Stop!”
But the warning barely leaves his mouth before Erold flicks his wrist and drops the lit charge into Vein Two.
Pax lunges, throws himself over me, his entire weight slamming into my body.
A deafening, bone-rattling explosion tears the world apart beneath us.
Fire and impact collapse into darkness, everything folding into violent sound and crushing heat.
My eyes flutter open, but nothing holds its shape. Shadows warp and bend at impossible angles before sliding back into place. Men stumble through smoke-choked air, their voices distorted and echoing, every sound ringing hollow in my ears as flames spit and claw up the support beams, painting the cavern in frantic pulses of orange.
I cough hard, my chest seizing as the breath I drag in scorches my throat.
Smoke.
I cough again, ash coating my tongue. A sharp lance of pain streaks down my arm, my skull throbbing with a violent drumbeat at my temples. Through the blur, I spot Pax.
