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“I will.”

I turned toward the mine and Grae stepped up beside me, rolling his shoulders.

“Ready to go home?”

I took a steadying breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Thirty-Five

Shadows consumed the tunnel, a thick inky blackness like swimming in the dead of night. Little offshoots disappeared into nothingness. Pits? Caverns? I couldn’t tell.

We navigated by the light of our two stubby candles. Our footsteps resounded across the spherical walls and deep into the belly of the mountain. Dripping stalactites flecked with gold glimmered along the roughly hewn walls. We descended a steep, unending trail for an hour before the ground started to even out.

How many more hours to reach the other side?

I held my candle up to the splintering beam above my head and read the Olmderian carving:The only way out is under. Wax dripped over my fingers, but I couldn’t feel the sting, not as my limbs shuddered. I stepped under the eerie omen, wondering again how many people died in this place.

“This wasn’t exactly the evening I had planned for us, little fox,” Grae grumbled, kicking something to the side. It clattered against the wall and dropped into a cavern. I didn’t want to know.

“Haunted mine shafts not in your plans?” I muttered, sticking close behind him.

“No, but the forests on the other side lead out to the easternfjords.” He wiped a curtain of cobwebs away. “With any luck, we’ll be running to them by nightfall.”

I spotted a heart carved into the wall. The tunnels were covered in names and prayers etched into the pale stone. “Sa Sortienna”sang into my mind. The song originated in these very caverns. Those sorrowful notes bled from each stone, the whole mine feeling exactly like the ballad.

“Careful,” Grae said, skidding to a halt.

I peered around him to a crack in the tunnel floor. It led to a gaping precipice bisecting the path.

“Hold my hand.” Grae swapped his candle to his far hand and grabbed my sweaty palm.

Pressing his back to the wall, he shuffled out onto the narrow bit of path clinging to the wall. I twisted sideways, looking down to the black abyss. The tips of my boots hung over the ledge as I shuffled on my heels. There was nothing to grab on to. If this tiny strip of earth gave out under my heels, we’d plummet. And, judging by the distant echoes of rubble falling into the pit, it was a long fall.

Grae reached the far side of the chasm and I leapt the rest of the distance to him. His arm yanked me upright as my legs wobbled. There were hollow caverns all around us. At any moment, the ground could give out from under us.

A skittering sound made our heads snap to the right.

“Dear Moon, let it be a squirrel,” I muttered, raising my candle higher. I didn’t spot any movement, only inch-wide holes in the rock. “Or a mole.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Grae said. “The sooner we get out of this bloody place, the better.”

“Agreed.” I lowered my hand as candlelight glinted off the shimmering pieces of ore. “If the souls who dwell in this gilded tomb knew who I was...”

Grae stepped around an overturned cart. “This was not your wish, little fox. Or your doing.”

Bugs scuttled across rotten slabs of wood.

“But would I have even questioned it—this place—if I had grown up in a castle?” I clutched my candle tighter. “If I grew up in silks and tiaras, would I have ever wondered about the humans mining our gold?”

“Who knows who we could have been,” Grae whispered, the candlelight dancing in his eyes. “But I’m grateful for who you’ve become.” He whispered the words as if they were meant only for himself.

The path narrowed, sloping downward as the tunnel pressed to shoulder width. All at once, the ceiling disappeared, opening into a massive cavern. Darkness stretched out from all sides, the air cooler. I held my candle higher, but every direction ended in shadow.

“Gods,” Grae cursed.

Two lengths of waist-high rope stretched out toward the other side. The path below our feet became so narrow we had to step one foot in front of the other. My stomach lurched as Grae stepped out onto the thin land bridge, and I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat.

I gripped the rough rope with my free hand and stepped out after him, praying the other side wasn’t too far in the distance. The sound of our heavy breaths cut through the eerie quiet. Each step made my legs feel lighter until I was shaking so badly I thought I might fall.