6. Niko

6

NIKO

T he green-skinned creatures dragged me as far as the castle exit, and then the Huntsmen took over.

At least, I assumed the people holding me were still the Huntsmen. Something had jabbed my neck not long after the green-skinned creatures handed me off to the others. Whatever concoction they gave me sent my consciousness spiraling back into darkness just as it had in the forest where I was taken. A thick hood covered my head now, the fabric so dense it was hard to breathe. I couldn’t see or hear much either. A muffled voice here. A shadowy blur there. A few minutes ago, I’d woken to the feeling of wood beneath my bound hands again, along with a rumble like perhaps I was in another cart. But it stopped soon afterward, so I couldn’t be sure.

Or tell how long I’d been unconscious.

My stomach gnawed at itself, but that paled in comparison to the dread currently eating me alive.

The hands gripping my bound arms pulled me to a stop, making my suffocated world swim. Whatever they’d given me still had its hooks sunk into my gut, and if not for the fact I had nothing left inside me, I probably would have thrown up somewhere between where I woke up and wherever I was now.

Fingers tugged at the lashes around the bottom of the hood. Marginally fresher air rushed in, and I gasped, only to wince at the glare of torches when the thick fabric was yanked away.

“—just kill it and be done already.”

I blinked, frantically trying to make my eyes focus and find the source of that growling voice. I stood in some kind of tunnel of roughhewn stone with torches burning inside notches along the walls. The smoke was doing its best to escape through holes in the ceiling, but there weren’t enough of them and a haze still clung to the air, making my lungs burn. In the distance were the familiar sounds of pickaxes striking stone.

Oh gods. I knew this. A mine. They’d brought me to a mine. One of those that served as a prison for the Erenlians captured in the war.

Swallowing hard, I told myself not to panic. Dex and the others knew about the mines. They would likely suspect the queen had sent me there. And any mines they weren’t aware of, Gwyneira would likely know about.

Well, maybe. Except her father had kept her sheltered from so much about the war. About so many things, really. The locations of the mines were probably no different.

Oh, I was in trouble.

Closing my eyes tightly, I tried to slow my breathing, even as the smoky air scorched my throat. Gods help me, an Aneiran must have created this ridiculous system for letting the smoke escape. My people had mined our mountains and foothills for centuries. No Erenlian would make the mistake of thinking those tiny holes were sufficient.

“You said you needed a way to get through the collapsed sections in the west tunnel. Soldiers refused and the giants were too big. Well, here you go.”

Renewed shock snapped my eyes back open. I knew that sniping voice.

I twisted, looking over my shoulder.

My stomach dropped. The skinny man from the forest was here. The one whose eyes had glowed orange right after he shot me with the dart that let the Aneirans knock me out.

No trace of that eerie light shone in his eyes now, but the contempt for me on his face was the same. He looked like the scum beneath his shoe ranked higher in his opinion than me.

But then, from his glare, scum might outrank the disgruntled soldier next to me as well.

“He won’t last a week,” the soldier spat, irritation on his ruddy face. “What good’s that?”

“Good enough to serve the queen’s purpose, that’s what,” the skinny guy replied. “So get on with it.”

Without another word, he stalked away through the tunnel like every rock, torch, and speck of dirt offended him.

“Fine.”

I turned back to see the soldier—no, the prison guard —jerk his chin at two more men standing several yards off. “Get ‘im going, then. Fucking lazy bastard.”

The men strode toward me and grabbed my arms, hauling me with them as they started down the tunnel. I scrambled to keep my feet under me, if only to avoid the ache of being dragged somewhere yet again. But it was difficult to do that and keep searching for any indication of where they’d taken me.

Because there was nothing . Every wall was the same. Every exit from the tunnel bore nothing but thick wooden logs to hold it in place—ones carved with strange symbols, same as the damned manacle still wrapped around my wrist, suppressing my magic. There were markings to identify the tunnels themselves, but they said nothing about where the overall mine was located.

I exhaled, trying to stay calm. Okay, fine. So what if I didn’t know where I was? That wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t . There was a mine near Lumilia, and my friends definitely knew about it. Dex and the others had spent years practically making the question of how to break our people out of that one into a daily thought exercise. And given that I’d been in the castle before they brought me here, it stood to reason that this was the Lumilia mine.

Except… the Huntsmen had knocked me out. And I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious.

I pushed that worry down hard. My friends knew about other mines too. They’d still find me and get me out.

And besides, that assumed I didn’t find a way to escape first.

A resolute breath entered my lungs, and I damn well ignored the smoke that came with it. Everything would be all right.

The guards came to a stop. Bars reared in front of my face before a clank of metal followed and the barrier swung out of the way.

Roughly, the soldiers tossed me forward. I crashed to the ground and tumbled, coming to a stop with my head spinning so hard, I gagged and only barely managed to keep from losing whatever remained in my stomach.

Metal clanged as the gate closed. Footsteps followed, the soldiers chuckling as they walked away.

I lay there for a heartbeat, breathing shallowly and attempting to get my bearings. I ached all over, but I didn’t feel any injuries. No wetness from blood or wounds. Nothing broken. More symbols were engraved on the bars ahead of me, and beyond them was only another tunnel wall and nothing else I could see.

“So they’re throwing their own in here now too, huh?” someone muttered nearby.

I tensed. Oh… no.

Moving carefully because of my dizziness and apprehension alike, I rolled over to face the room.

A few torches burned where they’d been shoved into crevices in the rough stone wall, creating patches of light amid the dense shadows of the massive cave. The ceiling hung in darkness far above my head, with the firelight only barely tracing the edges of the stalactites hovering there like spears ready to fall.

And everywhere ahead of me, there were giants.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of giants, the myriad shades of their skin so coated in dust that they blended with the drab rags of their clothes and the rough rock walls around them. Small fires burned in dented metal bins at the heart of a few of the groups, providing some measure of warmth. But plenty remained along the walls, huddled beneath the torches or clustered together in the shadows.

To a person, their eyes were fastened on me, the supposed human in their midst.

“I’m not Aneiran,” I said, inching backward carefully. “I swear I don’t want any trouble.”

A scoffing sound came from one of the groups to my right. “Like we give a shit what you want.”

I tensed as a massive guy rose to his feet from beside one of the largest fires near the wall. His head looked like a rough block of stone, all blunt and square like the universe had given up before he was fully formed. His dirt-colored hair was lashed back tightly against his scalp and gleamed with grease in the firelight, and his skin was pale gray like granite and just as rough. He had a twist to his lips that spoke of cruelty and said he enjoyed it, while his eyes scraped over me with contemptuous anticipation, as if I was a bug he looked forward to crushing.

Certainty settled like a lump of stone in my gut. Clay and Lars used to tell me about guys like this one. Back when the two of them were children and their family had cast them onto the streets in the capital city, they’d avoided giants like him for the sake of self-preservation. The guy was a bully, through and through, and the way the people around him pulled away when he stalked toward me only reinforced the impression.

Several other guys got up behind him, and it didn’t take much to mark them as the bully’s henchmen. They weren’t quite as large, nor quite as intimidating, even if they would still tower over me. The contempt on their faces looked like echoes of his, as if they would as easily mirror their boss’s laughter as his rage. They existed to follow his lead, to react how he did because they wanted to belong.

But the sadism in their eyes said they loved every minute of it.

“I say we start with his arms,” the head bully commented. “Rip them off and listen to him scream.”

His buddies grinned. “Great plan, Norbert,” one of them chimed in.

Norbert? This behemoth’s name was Norbert ?

Like it mattered. His name wouldn’t stop him from killing me.

My fingers pressed into the rock, straining for any trace of nature to help me, even underground. Pain like pinprick needles stabbed into my wrist from the manacle clamped there, while my powers were just as absent as they’d been when I was dragged before the queen.

My heart raced. Dex had always insisted on training us to fight. My friends and I had spent years up in the mountains, drilling everything from individual combat to how to wage battle as a team.

But I had no illusions that would help me survive now. If anything, I’d be lucky to leave a bruise on any of these guys before they tore my head off.

“Yeah, you tell ‘im,” another henchman said with a grin. “Watch him bleed out.”

Norbert the Bully ignored the agreement like he expected it. Holding up a hand, he didn’t even glance over at his henchmen when they came to a stop like trained dogs.

His cruel grin widened. “But first, let’s give him a little payback for how his human buddies have treated us.” He snapped his fingers and then pointed at me.

The henchmen started forward again. I scooted backward across the rocky floor, my legs too shaky to allow me to stand in my hurry to put distance between them and myself.

“But what if this is exactly what the Aneirans want?” came a voice from somewhere to my left.

Norbert made an irritated noise. His henchmen stopped moving, as if they were suddenly torn on what their leader wanted them to do.

Rustling followed. Near where the voice originated, people moved out of the way.

An old man walked from the shadows. His face was weathered and wrinkled. There were creases in his dark gray, stone-like skin like what one often saw in the deepest parts of a cave, when water had dripped for so long that it made the rocks look like they possessed countless ripples. His gnarled hair looked like dried gray moss, tangled and grown out past his shoulders, while his equally gray beard was long and unkempt. His dark robes were so old and threadbare, it took me a moment to recognize the symbols stitched into the hem in faded gold.

The Order of Berinlian. Byron drew those for me once in a melancholy moment on a holy day for the scholars—not that anyone but he had been left to celebrate it. For a long time, he’d thought the entire Order had been destroyed, and even all these years later we’d only ever met one other monk still living after the fall of Erenelle. Dathan, my friend’s mentor, had survived because of a magical gateway that carried him all the way to the remnants of the Jeweled Coven hiding in the mountains of the Wild Lands.

But while Dathan had helped us and Byron had been my friend for years, I wasn’t so na?ve as to imagine that meant all monks of the Order could be trusted.

I hoped he was a better option than dismemberment by Norbert the Bully, though.

“Fuck off, Ignatius,” Norbert growled.

The older giant ignored the insult. “Why would the Aneirans throw this human in here except to have us kill him on their behalf? If we play into their hands, what will they do? Punish us for the murder? Use it as an excuse to send more of us into the unstable western tunnels to be crushed?”

My eyes darted across the other giants, praying they thought this was a good argument for keeping me alive and un-dismembered. But while looks of discomfort passed among some, others just stared at me like they weren’t sure they cared about Aneiran retribution anymore. Still others just watched me, their stone-like faces so unreadable, they could have been statues.

I shivered as one rose from beside the fire where Norbert had been. He was even bigger than Norbert. Even more built like a mountain that gave up halfway to becoming a man. His hair was the color of sand, tangled and gnarled like the rest, and his eyes were like ice chips that might stab me through.

The scholar, Ignatius, took the silence as an opportunity to keep speaking. “The Aneirans seek any opportunity to break our spirit. You know this. And yet they hand us this human like a boon?” The old man shook his head with a chiding expression. “It cannot be that simple.”

“The old man’s got a point,” commented the sandy-haired giant mildly.

I swallowed hard, faint hope rising that maybe someone around that fire didn’t want me dead after all.

Norbert made a rude noise. “Oh, fuck off, Brock,” he spat at the sandy-haired man. “Who cares if it’s what those bastards want? I say we take advantage of every opening we get and kill as many as we can!”

Scattered rumbles of agreement rose. Brock’s brow rose and fell like the insult mattered even less than whether I died. Sneering, Norbert gestured sharply and sent his henchmen toward me again.

I struggled to make my legs wake up and support me. If I was going to die, I’d do it on my feet like Dex would have wanted.

And I’d damn well make my treluria proud.

“Hold.”

As tense as the moment had been, it had nothing on the way the air changed around me now. Everyone in the cavern paused. Even Norbert pulled up short, though his teeth flashed in an angry grimace like an attack dog jerked to a stop by a leash.

People turned. Others drew back, clearing a path to the fire where Norbert and Brock had been sitting. Across the faces of Norbert’s henchmen, I saw flashes of fear, while Brock stood motionless with an expression so flat and unreadable, he might as well have been part of the wall.

Oh, this couldn’t be good.

By the largest fire in the room, a giant sat with his back leaning casually against the cave wall. His arms were crossed like he was lounging in a tavern, not trapped in a cage with hundreds of other Erenlians. While his clothes were faded, they didn’t appear as worn or haggard as the people’s around him, and the richness of the fabric was more than clear. He had a long, dark beard tied with a thong of tooled leather and brass, keeping it under control rather than wild like so many of the others around me, and his dark hair was lashed back as well. His skin was the color of pale marble, and there was a fullness to his face that was lacking in everyone else’s—his cheeks were less gaunt, his eyes less sunken. He ate well, I suspected, compared to everyone else here. He was older than Norbert or Brock, but younger than Ignatius. Even the few wrinkles around his eyes seemed like they were afraid of being noticed.

My mind raced, reevaluating the power dynamics quickly. Norbert wasn’t in charge here, no matter how he acted. Neither was Ignatius nor Brock.

This man ruled them all.

Frustration flashed over Norbert’s face, but it never came close to insubordination. When he glanced back, everything in his bearing made clear he was waiting on the other man’s command before opening his mouth again.

“Let the human live,” the man said. “For now. He may have information that proves useful. Ignatius, check him over. Make sure he’s not diseased.”

Small gasps and shuffling sounds rose, and anyone near me pulled back in fear I might be carrying some contagion.

Ignatius bowed his head, the subservient motion impeccable and yet somehow artificial at the same time, like the textbook definition of how to execute a bow rather than a natural action. The scholar came toward me.

I didn’t move, save for how my eyes darted between the monk and the other giants. The scholar didn’t seem to want to obey the man by the fire. But Ignatius wasn’t challenging him either.

Who was that guy? He obviously had power, and his rich clothes fit him well, so he probably hadn’t taken them from someone else. Maybe he was someone who’d been powerful in Erenlian society. A royal, even. Except Dathan said they were all dead.

Maybe he’d been wrong.

I scooted back again as Ignatius came closer. I’d never really understood how Erenlian society functioned, beyond what I read in books and what the healer who raised me had described. Some of the royals had been kind, Marnira had said. Power didn’t always corrupt—and I only had to look at Gwyneira to know that was true. But some royals could be petty and foolish, caring more for their position than their people.

I’d never understood why those ones were able to remain in power when it was clear they weren’t there to help others.

In a rustle of fabric, Ignatius sank down. “What’s your name, son?” The old man’s voice was low enough that the other giants likely wouldn’t hear—especially since they’d all retreated from me in case I might be infected with a plague.

I weighed whether to answer truthfully, but there likely wasn’t anything to be gained by lying. “Niko.”

Ignatius nodded. “Why are you in here with us, Niko?”

That question, on the other hand, was definitely dangerous. “I, um…”

Gods, what did I say? Generally speaking, Erenlians didn’t take kindly to people who looked like me or my friends. Dwarves , they called us. They’d done everything from treat us with mild contempt to make our lives a living hell. Dex had been cast out as a child, and he’d survived by hiding among the humans until they tried to kill him. Clay and Lars had spent their childhoods as punching bags for their high-society parents before being thrown out onto the streets because their parents’ friends began looking down on the whole family for having children who were “flawed.” Byron never said much about the Order, but I’d gotten the impression even he had struggled to find acceptance.

Thus, it was anyone’s guess what Ignatius would think if he found out I was a human rather than a “dwarf.”

At my anxious silence, Ignatius’s mouth thinned. “If the Aneirans tossed a human in here, they likely don’t want you to survive. Strategically, you’ve got better odds with us on your side than going alone.”

That was a good point… except for the part where I wasn’t human at all.

But then, while I couldn’t be sure Ignatius would be my ally, he also didn’t want me dead. That was something. Yet if my silence made him suspicious I truly was a spy, he might not intervene to stop the bullies a second time.

“I’m Erenlian,” I whispered. “A… a dwarf from the Forest of Azurine. The soldiers captured me in southern Aneira, and they brought me here.” I grimaced. “Wherever here is. But I can’t reach my magic to do anything about it.”

Ignatius went still for a long moment. “You realize that means there’s no way to verify your story,” he said finally. “Even dwarves are generally bigger than you.”

I swallowed dryly. I knew I was smaller than the others. Barely larger than a human male.

Gods, I’d never wished I was as large as Ozias or Dex more than I did at this moment.

“You’re from the Order of Berinlian, right?” I nodded toward his robes. “Did you know a scholar named Byron? Or one called Dathan?”

Ignatius was quiet again. I got the feeling he always thought before he spoke. Normally, I was the same. But right now, the silence made my heart race.

“Describe them.” His voice gave nothing away. “Something that you would only know if you’d met them while they were alive.”

Every thought abandoned me. I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to make myself calm down enough to coherently describe the friend I’d known for years.

Ignatius straightened. “They bound you.”

I hesitated, lowering my hand. “What?”

“Your wrist.” He twitched his chin at the manacle peeking past my sleeve.

“Um, yeah, I guess?” I glanced around at the other giants nervously, keeping my voice low. “What is this thing? Is there a way to take it off?”

His mouth tightened. “No. It binds our magic. Keeps us from being able to fight back. The Aneirans wear them too, but they serve a different purpose for the soldiers. The shift leaders among the soldiers can lessen the suppressive power if they choose, though. Just enough for us to access our abilities if they decide it’s needed for the mining, though that usually only happens when a tunnel is about to collapse. And it’s never enough power for us to harm them or escape.”

I shifted uncomfortably on the stone.

Ignatius’s eyes narrowed. “There may be truth to what you claim, but I would still hear an answer to my request.”

It’d hardly sounded like a request. More like a condition of whether he would believe I wasn’t a human spy. Nevertheless, I racked my mind, seeking something that would satisfy him. “Byron took his oaths on his nineteenth birthday. He said it’s all he ever wanted, to become a scholar, and he’s never wavered on holding true to that, not for a single moment since. Dathan was his mentor. When Byron took his vows, Dathan gave him the gift of a simple leather satchel that he could tuck under his robes so he could carry even more books, because Dathan said a scholar could never have too many.” I hesitated. “Byron always regretted that he couldn’t bring it with him when he fled the Aneiran assault on the temple where he lived.”

Again, Ignatius was quiet.

I glanced around, hoping none of the other giants were thinking of ways to take out their frustrations on the dwarf in their midst. That’d been a favorite pastime of Clay and Lars’ family, I recalled them saying.

Kick the dwarf. Watch him fly. Wonder how long it’ll take him to die.

Gods, the singsong words they recounted from their family’s sadistic games still gave me shivers.

“I taught Dathan many years ago when he was an initiate,” Ignatius said at last. “That sounds like him. I recall he later took on a trainee dwarf as well. He was quite proud of the young man.” The giant drew a breath as if centering himself. “Where are they?”

“I… I’m not sure at the moment. The Aneirans grabbed me in a forest when I was on my own. But I’ve been in hiding with Byron for years, and we found Dathan recently too.”

Ignatius’s eyes brightened a bit at that, so I pressed onward. “He’s been in the mountains of the Wild Lands this whole time with about twenty other giants.”

Hesitation flickered over his face, and then he sighed. “So few.”

I winced at the tightly restrained pain in his tone. “But alive .”

Ignatius nodded thoughtfully but offered me nothing more.

Movement caught my eye. Norbert was settling back by the largest fire. When he spotted me looking at him, he grinned, the sadistic expression like the promise of pain to come.

Suppressing a shudder, I turned back to Ignatius. “Who are they?” I asked, my eyes sliding to the side briefly to indicate Norbert and his friends.

The old scholar’s mouth tightened, and his voice dropped lower, making me strain to hear him. “They are what happens when desperate people are trapped for years with no hope of power but what they can claim over their fellow prisoners. Norbert, Brock, and their companions were young when Erenelle fell. This is very nearly all they’ve ever known. They’re now the closest thing we have to the top of a social order in this place.”

“And the man they all answer to?”

Again, he was quiet, and I worked hard to hold on to whatever shreds of calm I still possessed. I’d never thought of myself as impatient. I’d always believed other people had their reasons for the time they took.

But apparently I had a limit to my patience, and it was this.

“Duke Deter Ensid,” Ignatius said at last. “Norbert’s father and Brock’s uncle.”

Oh gods, they were all related?

Every thought of finding an ally over there instantly died.

“Once the duke was eighth in line to the throne,” Ignatius continued, “but after the deaths of the king and his family, he’s the only royal we know of who is still alive. That makes his word law.” Ignatius’s lips compressed briefly. “And makes him king.”

Oh, this was bad. I didn’t even know the man, and I could still tell this was very, very bad.

To say nothing of how the duke looked at me like a fisherman would regard a worm he was debating whether to put on a hook.

I drew a breath, trying to stay calm and focused like Byron would. Or think analytically like Dex would. One problem at a time, as the former soldier would say. Solve the most pressing issue first, then worry about the rest. “How do these bind our magic?” I asked, nodding at the manacle.

Ignatius tugged up the edge of the threadbare sleeve of his robe. Like me, he wore a band around his wrist. The metal was so tight, his skin was pinched around it, and the sight made me wince in sympathy. “Harmonic energies with the bands on the soldiers’ arms, I suspect. From what I’ve been able to tell over the years, there are traces of witch magic in these, but strange.”

My stomach churned. “Did the queen make them?”

A sharp look came into his gaze. “Possibly.”

Great. More bad things.

Focus , I chastised myself. What would Dex do?

“So.” I cleared my throat. “What happens now? When they dragged me in, the soldiers said something about the western tunnels?”

Ignatius became even more still than he’d been before, like a statue of wisdom suddenly turning fully to stone. “They wish to send you there? Those tunnels are a death sentence.”

Fear tried to bubble up higher inside me, choking my throat. I made myself breathe through it.

But Ignatius’s expression didn’t help. “I’m sorry, young man. They clearly don’t mean you to stay alive for long.”

The certainty in his voice was chilling, and my natural hopefulness struggled hard against it. My treluria was out there, waiting for me. I couldn’t lose her now. I’d just found her after longing for her my entire life.

Gods help me, I didn’t want to die before getting a chance at a life with her.

“My friends will save us,” I told the scholar as confidently as I could manage. “They’re some of the strongest people in the world, and they won’t leave me behind. They’ll figure out I’ve been taken to the mines, and they’ll make sure we all escape.”

Ignatius was silent, but in a weird way. Like he knew what he needed to say but also knew it was going to hurt.

My heart started to pound harder. “What?”

“Where do you believe we are, young man?”

“I, um…”

Oh gods, oh gods.

I drew another breath, determinedly fighting my rising tide of panic. “I’m not sure. I was in Lumilia, but even if we’re not in the mines near that city, I know my friends will…”

I trailed off at his pitying expression. Why was he looking at me like that?

But Ignatius only sighed like I’d confirmed something. “If your friends go to look at any of the known mines, they won’t find you. These are the mines of Eliantra. As far as the outside world is aware, they don’t exist.”

My mouth opened, but I couldn’t make a sound.

“Most everyone here was brought to this place over the years from other mines for one reason or another. This is where they take the prisoners they want to make disappear. The ones they don’t intend to ever set free, no matter what political changes might happen in Aneira. This entire mining complex is hidden, the ground laced with so much magic and spell-bound metal, not even a diamond witch of the Jeweled Coven would know it was here, much less anyone else. So no matter how strong or loyal they are, your friends will never find us.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, son, but this is where you are going to die.”