17. Niko

17

NIKO

I refused to die here.

Gripping the pickaxe tightly, I swung it at the rocky wall and repeated the mantra to myself silently. I didn’t know how many times the sun had risen and fallen since I’d been dragged down to this place. The surface world might as well have not existed, and the guards seemed to maintain erratic schedules all their own.

They liked to keep us disoriented, Ignatius said. To rob us of even the most basic level of stability, so that we could never relax, never rest or gain any semblance of calm. Instead, we were always on edge, waiting for them to return.

At every turn, they found new ways to be cruel.

I suspected it had been days, though. Maybe a week or more since I arrived. So far, the humans hadn’t taken me to the western tunnels, though the gods only knew what they were waiting for. The threat of being sent into that death trap hung over my head like a sword suspended on a fraying string, and at any moment it could snap and end my life.

But I was determined not to think about that. No, I would focus on the problem in front of me like Byron would. I’d keep my eyes open and wait for the first slip from the human guards, just like Dex would. I’d draw on the strength that all my friends had shown me throughout all the years we’d spent running and hiding and surviving the war, and then… then I’d escape.

Because I refused to die here.

I needed to see my treluria again.

My swing faltered as fear tried to bubble up, bringing panic on its heels.

“Keep going, scum!” a guard shouted.

My hands quivered, the fear turning into rage that had no outlet. Adjusting my grip on the pickaxe, I choked down a breath of stale, musty air and swung at the wall harder. I’d already ruled out using the tool to attack the guards. They were smart and stayed at the far end of the tunnel while they watched us. I’d never make it within a dozen feet of them before they activated the manacle wrapped around my wrist.

I’d seen what that did three shifts ago when they thought Norbert wasn’t moving fast enough. The guy was a jerk, but his screams had been the stuff of nightmares. And with what I knew of medicine and the mortal body, I had no illusions that someone my size would survive the kind of pain meant to keep giants in line. More likely it would just stop my heart.

But I fucking refused to die here.

By the time the guards called an end to the day, my back and arms had given up trying to tell me they were in pain. Mining with my friends had kept me in shape, but it hadn’t prepared me for this level of torture. Yes, the seven of us had used tools in our work. Our magic wasn’t inexhaustible and it was smart to keep some in reserve at all times. Using it all up to draw ore from the ground might have meant we were screwed in case of a cave-in.

But this was something else entirely.

The Aneirans wanted to work us to death.

At long last, I shuffled back to the massive cavern with the rest of the giants, too tired to even seethe at the guards watching us. Because it was what Dex would do, I made myself look back and watch the humans when they locked the gate again, taking note of where they put the key and what they did with the manacles on their own wrists to secure the magic in the bars. When they turned to leave, the guy in charge waved his arm at the wall on the opposite side of the tunnel, the same as a guard would do every day.

I couldn’t see any reason for the motion, but Ignatius told me the Erenlians suspected there was some kind of spell there that enabled the Aneirans to watch us from a location somewhere else in the mines. A security station of some kind. If they wanted, the Aneirans could even make their voices carry all the way down here from elsewhere, though they rarely used that spell and no one had been able to figure out its source.

More ways to make sure we never made it out of here.

Sinking down against the rock wall—it was best to keep the stone at my back so no one could come up on me from behind, I’d learned—I leaned my head against the rocks and struggled to repeat my mantra to myself, fighting to believe the words. It didn’t matter what the Aneirans did. How long it took. I wouldn’t die here. I would make it back to my treluria.

For her, I had to survive. To die would be to leave her with one less person to protect her, and I would never fail her like that.

A commotion rose as the guards returned with a single bucket of food. Tossing the contents through the bars, they laughed as the giants scrambled after the rolls of bread that tumbled across the stone floor.

I didn’t move, praying someone would miss a crumb or, gods help me, an entire roll in the chaos. I’d learned on the first day that chasing the food was a great way to get stepped on. As it was, I’d narrowly avoided that fate a dozen times that day, just trying to get something to eat.

Hungry people were desperate.

But I also hadn’t eaten in nearly two shifts.

“Here, boy.” Ignatius sat down next to me with a sigh and tore the roll in his hands in half. There was mold on the bread, but he barely seemed to notice beyond giving me the part with fewer of the tiny invaders.

I hesitated. My stomach felt like a gaping void made of hunger, but the scholar was one of the oldest people in here and he needed every bit of sustenance he could get. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Eat.”

I frowned, but I took the bread. “Thank you.”

He just grunted and began to eat, clearly too exhausted to respond.

My eyes closed in relief the moment I gulped down a bite.

“Pace yourself, son.”

Breathing heavily, I tried to slow down and do as he said.

“You’re holding up well,” Ignatius commented after a moment. “I admit, I didn’t expect you would make it this far.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond—or what that meant for how long I’d really been here. “Um, well, my friends and I mined in the mountains beyond Lumil?—”

A shriek interrupted me, and my attention snapped around to the opposite side of the cavern.

One of Norbert’s henchmen had a young female giant by the throat, while a skinny little girl cried at her side. His buddies laughed at the sight, and one of them shoved the child, sending her sprawling to the stone floor. Nearby, Brock glanced up, and tension flashed across his face—the most emotion I’d ever seen the big sandy-haired giant express. His eyes darted from the woman to someone else in the crowd, and his jaw clenched at whatever he saw.

Meanwhile, Norbert only smirked and rose to his feet. “Nadine, Nadine,” he chided. “Getting above your station now, aren’t you? Now why would that be?”

He looked in the same direction as Brock had, but still, I couldn’t tell why.

“She wasn’t trying to take more,” the woman pled. “I swear.”

Norbert made a tutting sound. “You calling us liars? The king’s own guard who act on his behalf?” He chuckled. “You know the rules. Disrespecting the king is punishable by death. You weren’t doing that, now were you?”

The woman clamped her mouth shut, her eyes wide with fear.

“Guess not.” Norbert smirked. “Brock, would you care to remind Nadine here what the price is for giving brats more than a quarter ration?”

Brock glanced again at the crowd. His jaw tightened, but after a heartbeat, the reaction vanished. Leaning back, he took a bite of his own roll and shrugged his brow as if to say he couldn’t be expected to speak with his mouth full.

The bully’s henchmen snickered. “Brock wants some of her ass too.”

Rage surged hot in my veins.

Ignatius caught my arm, stopping me when I started to shove to my feet. At my incredulous look, he only made a cautioning noise, shaking his head.

“Yeah, that bitch of his is all dried up,” Norbert agreed. “We’ll let him have the leftovers, how about that?”

His buddy’s sound of agreement made my rage burn hotter.

Yanking her closer, the henchman sneered. “Who says anything’ll be left over?” He took up a tangled strand of her hair with his free hand and sniffed it.

She whimpered.

Aghast, I looked around the cavern. None of the other giants were moving to intervene. Most were turning away like they were pretending they didn’t notice what was going on. Brock hadn’t looked up again, and even Ignatius only grimaced regretfully, as if the old giant couldn’t do a damn thing and he knew it.

Seated by a fire, Duke Ensid merely glanced at his son and his henchmen before calmly starting in on a second bread roll.

This was madness. How could they just?—

“Now…” Norbert took the woman’s chin, forcing her face toward his. “You want the brat to eat or don’t you?”

My blood boiled. “Stop!”

The bastard paused, but only to turn an incredulous look on me. “You got something to say, human?”

My heart raced. I was outmatched and definitely outsized, and there was no way in hell I wouldn’t get crushed in a fight between me and the enormous giant. They still didn’t know I was Erenlian—Ignatius insisted on keeping my identity as a dwarf a secret—but even that wouldn’t have changed my odds.

Basically, this was suicide, and a guarantee that I would never see my treluria again.

But I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing .

I tugged my arm free of Ignatius’s grasp. “Let her go.”

“What, you want a piece of her too?” Norbert chuckled. “Her cunt might be a bit big for a tiny human cock like yours.”

My fingers curled into fists. “She’s a person , not an object. You shouldn’t treat her like this.”

The giant’s brow rose. He glanced around at his buddies as if silently asking them if they heard me too. When they scoffed, his grin returned. “You hearing this, Brock?”

Brock looked up from his meal, regarding Norbert for a heartbeat before turning a flat, cold expression on me. “Humans don’t get a say in how things are run down here.”

“Any decent being should have a say against this , ” I countered.

Norbert snarled. “Wait, are you insulting us, pipsqueak? Didn’t you hear what I told my friend Nadine?” Thrusting the woman away from him, he ignored how she stumbled as he stalked across the cavern. “I represent the king, and disrespecting the king—” he grinned cruelly, “—is punishable by death.”

Behind me, Ignatius muttered something in a language I didn’t know. But the tone definitely said, “Oh shit.”

Norbert’s massive hand took my arm, pulling me up to my tiptoes.

“They want us to kill him, Norbert,” Ignatius cautioned.

“Shut up, old man.” Norbert hauled me closer. “You think you know how to keep order in this place?”

A hand caught his arm. I looked past him to Brock.

“Your father says give it a second,” he said flatly. “Humans are coming.”

“Yeah, well, how about we let them see us crush their little spy, eh?” His grip tightened, grinding my muscles against bone. “Show ‘em they don’t have the strength to survive like we do.”

Brock scowled. He didn’t let go of Norbert, but he didn’t say anything else either.

Trembling, I drew myself up as best I could. “This isn’t strength. A good leader takes care of the people under them. They make sure the youngest and weakest have what they need so that the souls of their people survive, not just their bodies.” Rage shivered through my voice. “And they don’t rape innocent women.”

Norbert scoffed. “Oh, please. The bitch is asking for it.”

Brock’s jaw muscles jumped.

“I think you can be better than this,” I urged, keeping my attention on the sandy-haired giant instead of the one currently on his way to crushing my arm. “ More than this.”

His ice-chip eyes returned to me.

Norbert just laughed. “What the fuck do you know?” Turning, he hauled me around and then flung me forward. Pain shot through my arm from the motion, and then my shoulder joined the chorus when I tumbled across the cavern floor.

His henchmen stalked past him, grinning viciously.

“Pipsqueak here wants to lecture us on leadership,” Norbert called to his father. “I say we show him how real leaders deal with insubordination, eh?”

Still standing where he was, Brock didn’t move to follow the others.

“Yeah,” one of the henchmen chimed in. “I want to see how quick we can tear a human apart when they don’t have their little tools to protect them!”

I scrambled to my feet and backed up, trying to keep Norbert and his buddies in view. “Please,” I said. “This isn’t who Erenlians are. This is what the Aneirans want you to become.”

Ignatius shook his head, pain and regret on his face. Nearby, Brock just looked on, his dead expression unreadable.

The bullies circled me.

“This is how they want to break you,” I pressed. “By making you hurt anyone weaker than you, when you should be helping each other survive and stay strong.”

“Well, then,” Duke Ensid offered calmly, like he had all the time in the world. Even now, he hadn’t moved from where he sat on the other side of the cavern. “I see the humans think they can tell us who we are now.”

Hate twisted Norbert’s face. “The hell they can.” He grabbed for me.

Ducking fast, I darted between him and his buddy. Whirling, the giants started after me, driving me to retreat until the gate bars bumped into my back.

The metal burned. I gasped at the bite of magic, stumbling forward a step just to escape the pain.

Norbert stopped, the hatred on his face flickering toward confusion. “What the fuck is your problem, pipsqueak? The bars don’t hurt humans.”

Oh crap.

I swallowed hard. “I… I’m not?—”

“Enough.” Duke Ensid rose to his feet.

Appearing confused and wary again, Norbert half-turned, his attention going between me and the duke. Behind him, his buddies hesitated as if they weren’t sure what to do now.

Duke Ensid scanned the room imperiously, drawing all focus to himself. His shrewd gaze seemed to be reading everyone, and when he glanced at me, there was a gleam in his eyes like he’d finally found a use for the worm on his hook.

“The arrogance of humans knows no bounds, does it, my friends?” His voice was reserved and quiet, like a leader delivering painful news. A unique bend of the stone walls where he stood amplified the sound, making his words carry through the cavern.

Rumbles of agreement followed from the crowd, and the duke nodded as if in shared understanding. “It shouldn’t shock us, not after all we’ve suffered. Yet it still does, no? For a people to be so depraved? So violent? Humans lock us up. They take our magic. They use us until our bodies break and kill any who get in their way. And now— now !” He shook his head as if dumbfounded. “They think they can tell us what strength means?”

He made a contemptuous noise, somehow communicating derision and yet also pride. “But humans don’t know us. Our history. Our legacy that will endure no matter how they try to break us down. They don’t know that true strength isn’t something they can understand. It isn’t something they could ever possess, because strength doesn’t come from humans. True strength belongs to Erenlians!”

Around the cavern, cries of agreement rose.

The duke gestured toward me as if re-introducing me to the crowd. “Yet here they are, sending in one of their own. They wrap him in spells to make it appear like their magic hurts him. They pretend he’s defenseless and trapped in here with us, when we all know they would come to his aid at the first real moment of need.” He sneered. “They think we’re such fools that we’ll trust him. That we’ll let him in on the plans that will one day set us free.”

I glanced at Ignatius, confused. Wait, what was he talking about?

The scholar’s eyes never left Duke Ensid, and his wary expression provided no answers.

With a rude noise, the duke continued, “How dare this fool think he—small and pathetic as he is—could tell us who true Erenlians are? What the power of a true Erenlian is?” The look he leveled at me was so scathing, it could have carved my flesh from my bones.

But it was his icy words that made a cold spike of fear shoot through my veins.

The duke knew I was a dwarf. He hadn’t said it outright, not yet. But “true” Erenlian was code enough for me to read between those gaping lines.

He gave me a cruel smile. “We are more than this weak creature dreams. We are capable of more than the Aneirans know.” He turned back to the room, lifting a fist in the air. “And we are greater than any cage!”

Cries of support came from around the cavern. Proud rage took up residence on so many faces.

But not all. Even as some giants called for my head on a pike, others tried to sink back into the stone like maybe they could hide. And I wasn’t so much of a fool to think the duke didn’t notice the difference and know exactly how these people were responding to his words. The reaction was the point . To keep the biggest and strongest united in rage and hate behind him, while the others knew to stay in line.

Or else.

Turning back to me, Duke Ensid’s smirk didn’t reach his eyes. No, those were as cold as a grave. “I say it’s time to remind the humans why Erenlians make them so afraid.”

At his motion, Norbert grabbed my arm.

“My lord,” Ignatius called. “This is what they want us to?—”

“Enough, scholar,” the duke retorted without taking his attention from me. “We’ve given the humans our blood and sweat. We don’t need to give them our mercy too.”

I yanked at Norbert’s grasp, but there was no way to escape it. “I’m not human!”

Norbert scoffed. “Bullshit.”

Panic rose. I had one chance. One, and it was risky beyond measure. “I’m not, I swear! I’m a dwarf. I was found as an infant in the Forest of Azurine, and I survived the war with six other dwarves. My magic is bound just like yours, but I swear I’m?—”

Norbert grabbed my other arm, jerking me forward. “Please. I’ve known dwarves, human . They’re bigger than you.”

I stared at him. When had he?—

“How many pieces?” he continued to Duke Ensid.

The duke smiled. “One for every year we’ve been trapped here.”

My heart was racing so fast, I couldn’t breathe. Instinctively, I reached for my magic, but nothing was there. “You’re killing your own kind if you kill me! Erenlians are better than this! Erenlians are more than bullies who prey on?—”

The blaring sound of the next workday’s alarm cut me off. Footsteps carried down the tunnel.

Norbert snarled while his buddies stared at me, incredulous. “Guess Dad was right,” he spat. “Huh, human ?”

I didn’t know what to say. There couldn’t be truth to what the duke claimed. The Aneirans had thrown me in here to die, same as all the rest. They wouldn’t show up to save me now.

But maybe the gods were looking out for me, making coincidence work in my favor.

That meager hope died when I saw the faces of the giants in the cavern. This wasn’t a favor from the gods. This was confirmation in the eyes of every prisoner here that I was human and deserved everything the duke claimed and more.

And from the cruel smirk on the duke’s face, he knew it.

The guards came into view. “Get up, you lazy brutes,” the one in the lead called. “You’ve had all night to rest. Time to get back to work.”

I faltered, thrown by the blatant lie as much as their presence. And I knew protest was probably useless. My options were work or dismemberment, and none of the Erenlians would believe I was on their side regardless. But the exhaustion on the faces of the giants around me drove the words from my lips anyway. “You just threw us in here minutes ago. You can’t expect us to go back to work this soon.”

The lead guard scoffed and tapped the metal ring on his wrist.

Pain shot through me so fast and hard, I didn’t even have time to scream. My vision blacked out, and I couldn’t feel anything except the agony roaring through every single inch and ounce of my being.

“See, runt?” The guard’s words swam out of the darkness. “Your stoneskin pals here know better than to call us liars. We say you’ve had a night’s rest, then that’s what you’ve had.”

Trembling all over, I opened my eyes. I was on the cavern floor, my heart tumbling over itself just to stay beating. My breath caught in my throat, making me cough like maybe I had been screaming without knowing it. My face burned and felt tacky with blood from where it’d hit the stone floor when I fell.

Every giant around me was staring, confused distrust on their faces.

“Maybe the pipsqueak isn’t human after all?” one of the henchmen offered.

Norbert punched him in the gut without a word.

Shaking hard, I pushed away from the ground on arms that felt as limp as the branches of a willow tree.

The guard smirked at me. “These brutes thought you were human?” He snorted with disgust. “You should be so fucking lucky.”

Anger swirled in my gut for his bigotry and the duke’s alike. “You have no idea how lucky I am,” I gritted out.

I was a man who’d found his treluria. Who would be damned if he didn’t see her again.

And who was nothing like any of these bastards mocking me simply for how I’d been born.

If that wasn’t luck, nothing was.

The guard scoffed. “That so? Well, that luck of yours means we’ve got a special assignment for you today. You and these brutes alike.” He raised his voice so the cavern could hear. “We got approval from the warden to start clearing out the collapsed western tunnels.” His stained teeth showed when he grinned. “And the runt is going to lead the way.”