He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I am more than willing to huddle close to the tantalizing warmth of his body.
At the bottom of the stairs, he takes a lantern from a peg and ducks beneath a wooden archway set into the rock face. It’s hardly large enough for a person to pass through, and I take a breath for courage before fisting my skirt and following Alaric into the dark.
I shouldn’t be nervous. I’m accustomed to living belowground. This mine shaft should feel familiar and comforting compared to Soren’s austere palace. But the deeper we shuffle into the oppressive blackness, the more the air dampens and sours—so opposite the dry clay hallways of the hillock palace, which are always spread with spicy cedar rushesand lit with glowing sconces.
“How do the miners see what they’re doing?” I ask, tripping over my own feet for the third time in as many minutes.
How am I supposed to hunt for Callahan’s gemstones in pitch-blackness?is what I really want to ask.
“The drilling site is brighter, you’ll see,” Alaric assures me.
We round another tight corner and emerge into a high-ceilinged cavern that’s only marginally brighter, even after Alaric hangs his lantern in an iron fixture. It would take dozens of lanterns to counteract the sheer size and oppressive gloom of the cavern.
“Wait for it,” Alaric says, sensing my skepticism
A moment later, the lantern light catches on a thick vein of silver ore striating the cavern ceiling, which reflects back onto another deposit near my feet and jumps to a glittering streak just above Alaric’s shoulder. On and on, the silvery glow bounces from one vein of silver to the next until the cavern glows almost as bright as midday.
“It’s stunning,” I murmur as I trace a vein of silver along the outer wall to where picks and shovels and helmets are arranged in neat rows. In the center of the space, wooden handcarts wait to be filled with excavated silver ore, all of it well-lit. “It’s ingenious,” I continue, “but also completely inefficient.”
Alaric, who’s been gazing up into the cathedral-heights of the ceiling with a proud smile, turns to glare at me. “Excuse me?”
“You’re unable to excavate all this silver ore because you need it for light.” I gesture overhead.
Alaric shrugs stiffly. “It’s too dangerous to have more than one open flame down here—too many volatile gases are released during excavation—but it doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of silver ore in the mountain. We don’t need it all.”
“Youmight not need it all, but what about the rest of us?” I ask as I inspect the walls, which are literally bursting with riches, a fraction ofwhich could change the circumstances in Tashir beyond recognition.
Their silver doesn’t matter, Ro reminds me.Focus on finding the gemstones.
But itcouldmatter. I feel it in the deepest parts of me—the same places Earth Mother’s power takes root when I’m gardening.
“What’s your part in all of this?” I ask Alaric. “The operation seems pretty straightforward.” I mime swinging a pickax at the wall. “I see no need for power.”
Alaric scoffs and places a possessive hand against the cavern wall. “I can feel which portions of the mine are stable enough to excavate—and how deeply to follow a vein. I open and reinforce new shafts before sending miners down, and stop cave-ins before they cause too many injuries. We’ve only lost three miners in the five years I’ve overseen the work down here.”
I give an appreciative nod. “That all sounds quite impressive, but I’m afraid I’m having a hard time picturing it. Will youshowme your power in action?”
“You asked me to bring you to the mines, not put on a show.”
I smile and bat my eyelashes. “Please? I showed you far more than simple gardening. We’re hardly even.”
“You are the most galling and demanding person I’ve ever met,” Alaric says, but there’s a smile in his voice”And you’re in luck because I’ve been meaning to create a new access tunnel to an older shaft on the other side of this wall anyway.”
He closes his eyes and digs his fingertips into the wall
Within seconds, a palpable surge of energy crackles through the stone—like a hive of bees buzzing back to life after a long winter. I instinctively widen my stance, half expecting a sinkhole to swallow me. Or for the ground to crest into a wave and toss me across the cavern, the way King Soren flung Haddesh across the courtyard of the hillock palace. But the trembling remains steady, and a sound like a deep-bellied sigh fills the cavern. A moment later, a divot appears in the wall just abovemy shoulder. I watch in horrified wonder as the hole slowly widens and deepens, as if a large invisible worm is tunneling through the solid rock.
It reminds me a bit of the stakes we twist into the soil of certain planting beds to support vining vegetables. Except those stakes churn out messy clumps of dirt as they spiral into the earth. Alaric’s power slices through the rock like butter. Not a speck of mud or shard of stone breaks loose. It’s as if the earth is happy to bend to Alaric’s will—just like he claimed. Like his changes are as natural as if they’d been formed by battering wind and rain over thousands of years.
I tear my gaze away from the growing tunnel and squint suspiciously at Alaric, who looks more relaxed than he has since I arrived at the Fortress. The tense set of his jaw and rigid line of his shoulders has finally gone slack. Which makes no sense. Changing something as solid as rock should be difficult. Sweat should be dripping down his face. His forearms should be quivering with effort. But Alaric and the earth appear to be sharing the load. Blending in perfect harmony, like the notes of a familiar song.
Like the incantations I sing to the bagrava.
Nausea grips my throat, and even though I can see Alaric’s tunnel widening before my eyes, it feels like the cavern walls are pressing in, threatening to crush me and everything I thought I knew about the Vanzadorian’s power.
I need it to stop. Needhimto stop.
“That’s enough!” I shriek, startling Alaric from his trance.
