Chapter 11

The next few days passed in a much more familiar rhythm than those that had come before. I woke as soon as the morning bell signalled dawn, broke fast with Yulla and her family, collected my pickaxe, and went to work in the mines. From morning until late afternoon, I pried the sunstones from the cavern walls and added them to the growing piles. Life was the same as it ever was. The only difference was, I didn't relax at the end of a long day. I returned home and carved into the rock face beside my cottage. It would take me several months to get a new room sorted, but it would be worth it in the end.

Yulla groaned and wiped the sweat from her brow, leaning heavily on her borrowed pickaxe. "I don't know how you do this every day. My body feels like it's been thrown down the chasm. Even my pinky finger hurts."

I smiled and held out a hand for the tool. "You take a break. We've been at this for hours."

"Are you going to take a break?" she asked with a meaningful eyebrow arch.

The sunset bell rang well over an hour ago. Many of my neighbors—or at least their children—would soon climb into their beds. Even though I could easily keep going, the crack of my pickaxe against stone would echo through the chasm, keeping the babes awake.

"Don't you worry. I'm stopping now."

"Good." She looked down, frowning at the ever-present pin on my tunic. "And don't forget you have another trial tomorrow."

My mood instantly soured. I'd done my best to put the competition out of my mind, focusing all my energy and effort into mining sunstones and building myself a new home. The plants had well and truly infiltrated my old cottage, but they hadn't expanded beyond that. It had kept me busy enough that Tormund, the Everstone, and all that went with it were out of sight and very much out of mind.

I had not thought of Tormund once.

Not even when I'd lain awake at night, staring up at the vaulted ceiling and wondering what he was up to in the wait between trials.

Yulla snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. "Don't you dare disappear like that on me while I'm talking to you about the trials. I know you want to pretend like they don't exist, but you'll have to participate, whether you like it or not. And you can't zone out when scaling ropes over the chasm."

I swallowed. Yulla was right, of course. I'd watched enough previous competitions to know what came next. We had to cross the chasm by a series of rails, then scale a rope to the top of the mountain, where the watchtower sat. I flexed my hands, wincing at the slight sting from my raw callouses. I'd need to wrap my palms before tomorrow morning, or the ropes were going to be a problem.

"I'm listening to you. I just…"

"Just take it slowly. You said before you didn't want to win, right?" She shrugged. "So while everyone else is rushing across the rails to get to the rope, you can take the bridge."

The bridge—it was the option for crossing the chasm for anyone who did not feel equipped to handle the rails. But not once had I ever witnessed someone actually choosing the bridge. If you were entering the Fittest Under the Mountain, you'd have trained for this very thing, and you'd feel confident in your ability to make it across.

There were no nets. There were no harnesses or ropes to save you from a fall.

Which was why taking the bridge meant you'd place lower than anyone who didn't, no matter how quickly you made it across.

"Of course I'll take the bridge," I said, heaving a sigh. "But I don't want to think about it any more tonight. It's been a long day. See you in the morning for breakfast?"

Yulla opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. "You betcha. Sleep well, Astrid. And don't forget, you have a place at mine if you ever need it."

Yulla wandered back over to her house, and I leaned on the handle of my pickaxe, considering the progress we'd made. After only a few days, we'd managed to make a small indention in the stone. Lilia's partner, Ragnar, had helped a couple of hours every evening, as well as a few others who weren't competing in the trials. Another couple weeks of this, and I might have enough shelter for the cot Jostein had found me. Right now, it perched right beside my flower boxes.

"What happened here?" a voice sounded from behind me.

I whirled, heart jerking up into my throat. Tormund stood only a few steps away, arms folded over his chest, brow raised in surprised question. My heart continued to pound. I hadn't seen him for days, and I'd kept wondering when he'd show his face. I had started to think perhaps he never would, that he'd been right about the fake Everstone, that he'd found the real one, and that he'd run back to Azraak without bothering to say, "Ha ha, I won, you lose!"

My pickaxe clattered to the stone floor, and heat flooded my cheeks. I hadn't realized I'd let go of it. "I thought you'd left."

He dragged his gaze from my plant-entombed cottage and cocked his head at me. "Very odd assumption. Not sure what could have given you that idea."

"I haven't seen you for days," I said.

"My friends and I have been preparing for the next trial." His gaze returned to my cottage, then moved on to my new dwelling—what little of it there was. "And you appear to have grown an entire garden that has kicked you out of your own house?"

The mocking tone in his voice made me bristle. "Not that it's any of your business, but…well, yes."

"And instead of trimming these vines back so you can get inside, you're building another home?" He chuckled. "You do have shears, don't you? Why not just make some space?"

I frowned. "Because I don't want to cut them back. Look at them. They're thriving."

He looked at the plants, then looked back at me. A strange expression crossed his face. "You actually mean that, don't you?"

"Well, yes." I gestured emphatically at the world around me. "I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not like we have grass and trees in The Glass Peaks. Few living things survive down here in The Deep. Us and the daises and those vines. I'm not going to cut them back, not even a little."

His lips tilted up. "And so you've abandoned your home to them. How long will it take you to build another?"

"Six months, tops, as long as I have some help."

He shook his head. "I thought I hadn't seen you because you were too busy searching for the Everstone."

"I'm not going to find the Everstone."

"You've given up?"

"As unlikely as it seems, I don't think it's a fake," I told him. "And I'll never win the competition, so why hold out any hope? I need to focus on my life here in Steingard, and that life involves a new cottage."

"I see," he replied quietly, almost like he was…disappointed? But that couldn't be the case.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. I didn't know what to say now. As soon as he'd appeared, I'd tensed up, readying myself for some kind of fight. He must have specifically come here before the next trial to rile me up—or at least, that was what I'd expected. He wasn't doing much riling, though.

Suddenly, Yulla poked her head out her open front door. "Hallo! I hate to interrupt, but the children are playing at their friend's house, and I was just about to sit down for dinner. You care to join me?"

I narrowed my gaze at the laughter dancing in her eyes. I could have throttled her. She'd listened to me complain about Tormund for the past three days. Not that I'd had much to say, of course. Just that he was annoying. Mostly I kept quiet where he was concerned. Because I hadn't thought about him at all.

He'd rarely crossed my mind.

"I think Tormund was just on his way back to camp," I said through gritted teeth. "He has a big day tomorrow. What with the competition and all."

But Tormund's face brightened considerably as he said, "A home-cooked meal would be a welcome change. I'd love to join." He pressed his hand to my back. Everything in me tensed. "And for dessert, I have some of that chocolate left. Enough for a square each. What do you say, Astrid? You coming?"

The bastard. I couldn't say no to chocolate, even if it meant sharing a meal with my mortal enemy.

All right, so he wasn't exactly my mortal enemy, but I didn't much like him, and he didn't much like me. We were bickering competitors after the same bloomin' object, who begrudgingly spent a day together to hunt for said object. So what exactly did that make us? Not friends or allies, definitely. But not enemies, either. I could never consider someone an enemy who was willing to give me some chocolate.

Heaving a sigh loud enough for him to hear, I started to walk toward Yulla's house, all too aware of Tormund's hand still pressed against the small of my back.

"So, Tormund," Yulla said, spooning some buttered potatoes onto each of the plates, "Astrid tells me you're from Azraak."

Tormund shot me a wicked smile, and my stomach turned. "Astrid has been talking about me, has she?"

"She's had quite a lot to say." Yulla laughed. "Not all of it was good, mind you."

"Yulla," I warned.

She plopped some mushrooms onto my plate and frowned. "What? You told me he knew how much he annoys you."

I dropped my head into my hands, mostly to obscure how red my cheeks must be. They were flaming hot.

Tormund laughed. "The feeling is mutual, for the most part."

For the most part? I lifted my head but focused my attention on my very full plate. Yulla had cooked up a feast of potatoes, mushrooms, smoked fish, and moss chips. For the most part, my mind repeated to me. So, I didn't entirely annoy him? There were parts of him that felt a different way? But what parts? And what was the other feeling?

"Azraak is cold and dark, but it can be quite lovely during the winter months," Tormund began, as if he hadn't just said something incredibly outlandish about his parts not being annoyed by me. "Visitors love the hot springs in particular."

Yulla leaned forward, clasping her hands together. "Oh, I would love to visit the hot springs. I bet you use them all the time. I sure would if I lived there."

"I find them uncomfortable." Tormund gestured at the shadowy strands curling around his arms. "My body like darkness and shadows, not hot places."

Yulla nodded. "I've heard that. I suppose it must have been quite the journey for you to come here this time of year. It's still only spring, but it gets hot outside."

"It was worth it," he said quietly. "I swore to my brother I'd compete this year, and I've yet to break a promise to him."

She leaned forward and patted his arm. "Good man."

I narrowed my eyes, an argument on the tip of my tongue. But that argument quickly vanished. As grudging as I was to admit it, Tormund had his merits. He cared for his family. He'd journeyed far to help his brother, devoted to his cause. Yes, he'd antagonized me, but I'd antagonized him right back. So, in reality, he kind of…was a good man. I'd never tell him that, though.

"Good demon," he replied, winking at Yulla.

"How could I forget with your horns hitting my sunstone lamp every time you move?"

Tormund straightened in surprise, clearly unaware that he kept bashing her sunstones. And in his jolting, he hit the sunstone again. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"Bad demon," she said.

Tormund stared at her for a moment, then broke out into laughter.

A slow grin spread across Yulla's face. I shook my head and smiled. It was one of the oddest dinners I'd ever experienced, but the memory of it would last a lifetime.