19. Niko

19

NIKO

E very curse word I’d learned from Clay rattled in my head as I followed the guard toward the western tunnel, so many giants in chains trailing after me. Fear quivered through my gut, and my heart thudded so hard, it choked my throat. With every step, I tried to make myself think like Dex. To observe the resources at my disposal and come up with a masterful plan like he would.

Except there were no resources, and so I had no plan.

Gods, I didn’t want to die down here.

The collapsed section of the tunnel came into view around the turn ahead, and my heart sank. Boulders filled the opening ahead from top to bottom, and in the light of the torches the guards held, the shadows between the rocks danced. I swore they looked like the taunting maws of hungry beasts, as if each little opening between the rocks was just waiting to devour me.

Which, basically, was true.

I swallowed hard, ordering myself to think like Dex. Like Ozias. Like anyone who might’ve known what the hell to do right now. But while I didn’t have Ozias’s skills with the earth—and what gifts I did have were suppressed anyway—I’d still done enough mining to know a death trap when I saw one.

It wasn’t just the rocks blocking the tunnel that were the problem. If you knew what to look for, it became obvious that the surrounding earth itself was clearly unstable, run through with traces of water and weaker strata of stone that would crumble the moment they were disturbed. And while someone like Ozias could have held it all steady long enough for people to get through, even he would have needed a significant amount of power, effort, and time to remold the earth around the tunnel into something that wouldn’t collapse again the moment he let it go.

Assuming it was even possible.

“Get in there, runt,” the guard ordered, coming to a stop forty feet from the pile of rubble and stone blocking the rest of the tunnel. “Start clearing that shit out.”

I shook my head. “I can’t just?—”

He tapped the bracelet on his wrist.

Every nerve in my arm screamed like my skin was on fire.

Shuddering racked me as the pain faded, and I blinked hard, somehow now lying on the ground. Chuckling, the guard looked down at me, a contemptuous curl to his mouth. “You were saying?”

I stared up at him, speechless for a moment. “The ceiling will come down if I?—”

Pain shrieked through my arm again, climbing farther, all the way to my shoulders like it had acid-tipped claws.

“Let me explain something to you, runt.” The guard’s voice surfaced past the ringing in my ears as the agony faded again. “There’s a seam of gold down there. These lazy brutes located it before a bunch of them decided to be stupid enough to let the tunnel collapse on their heads. So now you’re going to get it for us, or I’m going to watch you shit yourself while I burn up your arm with my little toy.” He held up his wrist, and the bracelet glinted in the dim torchlight. “And then I’ll do the same to every stoneskin here. Understand?”

My whole body was shaking. My eyes crept over to the other giants. Norbert was there. Brock and Ignatius too, along with so many more whose faces I recognized but whose names I’d never learned. Contrary to what it seemed when the guards arrived, they hadn’t ordered all the giants to come back to work so soon. No, they’d left about fifty in the cavern, mostly the women and children, as well as the duke and a few of his henchmen.

It wasn’t mercy. It was power. The Erenlians knew this was suicide, but each group would stay calm for the sake of protecting the other—at least where everyone besides the duke and his fellow “every Erenlian for themselves” types were concerned.

Even Norbert appeared on edge right now. He was a bully, but he didn’t want to suffer or die any more than anyone else did.

I couldn’t let the guards torture them. And I couldn’t get back to my treluria if I got my brain and body fried by the guard.

But going forward was certain death too.

“What’s it going to be, runt?” The guard rested his hand near his bracelet in implicit threat.

I shuddered again. “Okay.” Bracing myself, I climbed to my feet. On my ankle, a shackle clanked where it chained me to all the others. “I’ll get to work, like you said.”

The guard snorted derisively, like he expected the answer.

I tensed as he tapped the bracelet again, but this time, no pain followed. Instead, a tingling sensation spread through me, like a dull, muted version of when a limb would go numb and then begin waking, but across the entirety of my body. I blinked fast, my mind reeling at the sudden awareness—dim and muffled though it was—of the tiny threads of mold and fungus growing through the stone around me.

My magic was back. Just a bit, but back.

Breathless, I darted a glance at the soldier. They let us access a tiny amount of our magic every time we mined. Never enough to hurt them, not with how far away the guards stayed from us at all times in the tunnels.

But this man was standing so much nearer than any of the guards had come in the entire time I’d been here.

The guy just smirked like he could see what I was thinking. “Any idea you get in that rocky head of yours about taking this from me and getting those stoneskin abilities of yours back, trust we’ve already thought of it. So get your ass moving, runt, or we’ll see how the little stoneskins like paying for your laziness.” He tapped the bracelet meaningfully. “Or maybe I’ll just send them down here in your place. They’re tiny. Maybe they’ll fit between the stones better than you. After all, we like having them to remind you brutes to stay in line, but it’s not as if we need all of them for that.”

My gut clenched. Kids? He’d hurt the kids in that cavern?

I’d kill him first.

The thought came out of nowhere, but it was as hard as stone and burned like lava in my veins. I wasn’t a killer. Never had been. I knew death happened in nature, but the wanton killing that humans and Erenlians and others engaged in was anathema to me.

But this? This was rage. Protective, defensive rage built of the gods only knew how many days in this place, where this sick bastard and all his buddies threatened to harm children if I didn’t crawl into a death trap, simply because our lives didn’t mean as much to them as the potential for fucking gold .

Still smirking, he shoved my shoulder to get me moving.

That was his next mistake.

Side-stepping his hand, I grabbed his wrist and spun. For once, the fact I was only slightly taller than an average human worked in my favor, giving me the angle I needed. I slammed an elbow backward into his midsection but I didn’t let his arm drop. No, that I pinned above me and shoved upward with my shoulder, dislocating the joint.

Dex always insisted we needed to know how to fight. He’d made us train constantly over the years, all to make sure we could protect ourselves if necessary.

Gods willing, I’d get the chance to thank him someday.

The guard screamed, but my attention was on the other Aneirans in the hall. They reached for the bracelets on their wrists like they all were racing to be the first to burn my nerves to crisps.

“Stop or I kill him!” I barked.

The other guards froze, their eyes going from me to the man I’d pinned and back. I got the feeling this guy was in charge somehow, and like the duke’s henchmen, when the guy in charge wasn’t giving them orders, they weren’t sure what to do.

“Unchain them.” I jerked my chin toward the giants, never taking my gaze from the Aneirans.

“This won’t work,” gasped the man I held. “You won’t?—”

I yanked his arm upward higher, and he choked on a scream. Keeping my attention on the others, I suppressed a wince at the sickening feeling of tendons and ligaments stretching beyond what was natural.

Violence wasn’t my way. But there wasn’t a choice.

“Unchain them,” I repeated. “Now.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” snapped the guard I held, his voice breathless with pain.

None of the other humans moved. Some even eased their hands away from their bracelets, a strange look on their faces, like they weren’t as worried about stopping us anymore.

Which made no sense.

My eyes darted around the tunnel, but I couldn’t see anyone else coming. Couldn’t hear any shouts or running footsteps.

This didn’t make sense.

I was also burning time.

Exhaling sharply, I thought hard, letting the endless days of forcing myself to study the guards even when exhaustion made me want to weep play back in my mind.

Right.

Gripping his arm tightly, I reached over with my free hand and pressed my fingertips to the bracelet in the pattern I’d seen the humans use.

Nothing happened.

The guard I held let out a rasping chuckle. “They don’t work for stoneskins, runt.”

I must have gotten the pattern wrong. I pressed my fingers to the metal again. And again. And again.

Nothing.

Desperation drove a furious cry from my lips. Gods, no. I had to get out of here. Find my treluria. Save these people before the Aneirans sent kids down here in my place.

“Let me go,” the man continued, “and we’ll make your death quick.”

My hand clenched down on his arm, and he grunted in pain. “Then you release us,” I said, tossing a quick look at the other guards. None had moved to put their hands anywhere near their own bracelets, waiting to see what their leader would do. “You fucking reach over and push the sequence to?—”

Pain screamed through my nerves like my entire body had been dropped into the heart of a volcano. I lost the tunnel, the world, in a blinding wave of agony that abated only long enough for me to hear the other giants screaming.

What… what happened ? I’d been watching them, dammit. How had the Aneirans…

The guard’s voice came near my ear. “Backup security system, asshole. We’ve got eyes on you everywhere.” He chuckled. “You’re all going to die for this.”