“What do we do?” Cullen looked to her. Alyss as well.
“What do you both think?” Eira could hardly ask her question before horns blasted again.
“I can probably get us out of here undetected.” Alyss moved to the wall, her focus drifting as she was no doubt charting a course.
“Ducot shouldn’t have a problem,” Eira mused. Knowing him, he probably was already scurrying back to their exit point.
“What about Olivin, Yonlin, and Noelle?” Cullen frowned. “Are they going to fight, or will they run?”
They hadn’t gone over contingencies before entering the mines. Eira cursed to herself. Maybe Lavette had been right and there should have been a more dictated plan…
“Noelle won’t run until she knows Ducot is safe.” Eira landed on the thought and hoped one of them would contradict her. Neither did.
“Then we fight?” Cullen sought out agreement from them both. Determined nods were his response. Commotion was growing at the entrance of the tunnel that led to the prison. Knights were nearing.
“We’re going out the front. At least until if—or when—we can tell the others to run,” Eira voiced what they all seemed to have agreed upon. “And, remember, we’re not heroes and this isn’t a duel. Fight to kill by whatever means necessary.”
“Eira, I’ve a man’s foot strapped to my back to bring to the pirate queen. We’re in a morally gray area at best; I’m not looking to fight fair.” Alyss’s grin suggested she wasn’t upset in the slightest about that, either.
Discussion ended abruptly as a horde of knights appeared at the opening of the tunnel, rushing down toward them. Alyss wriggled her fingers; the rock around them popped and hissed. Cullen drew in a deep breath, as if he would suck in all the air from the entire world.
And Eira…
“These are mine,” she growled softly and sprang into motion.
She raced upward toward the knights. Skidded to a stop. Thrust out her hands, fingers tense, like claws. Each finger was connected with a knight. They shuddered as her ice grew in them. Their hearts seized and they collapsed.
Eira didn’t even look back, trusting her friends to keep up. She kept running and emerged from the tunnel as a boom echoed across the mines. Cannons shot down from the southernmost tower, blasting into the path along distant rock. Eira could swear she almost heard Yonlin howling with glee.
A group of knights in the opposite tower levied opposing fire. The smaller blasts from the flashfires broke against a massive Lightspinning shield. Eira could feel Olivin’s magic cascading through the air as the shield broke into golden confetti, glittering down like a meteor shower.
“My turn,” Alyss snarled, and planted her feet. With a fearsome grin, she grabbed the open air and yanked, as if pulling an invisible rope. The rock underneath the tower that was readying their next volley against their friends gave way, sending the tower careening into the pit mine and knights scattering.
A burst of magic to Eira’s left was followed by the howl of wind. Cullen was a blur as he practically flew. His hand clamped over the mouth of one of the knights as he landed. In a blink, there was nothing more than wind and carnage where a face once was.
“That’s new!” Eira shouted.
“You’ll never believe who taught it to me.” Cullen threw a smirk back over his shoulder. Gone was the perfectly polished Prince of the Tower. In his place was a man wielding power and death with the same ease as drawing breath. “Now, I have some business with the men who hurt you.”
Another groan of rock was followed by the sounds of a second tower collapsing. Alyss panted, wiping sweat from her brow.
Fire erupted at the top edge of the mines, underneath the southernmost tower. There was Noelle, fighting from the top down to help clear them a
way. Cullen’s path would meet her halfway up. But Eira’s attention was drawn back toward the knights collecting on the lower plateau. Then down, farther still, to where the knights were slowly moving the massive plates of metal she’d seen earlier to enclose the very bottom of the mine. Cart tracks crunched and broke off in their haste to shutter off the most valuable spot. Their frantic rush further reaffirmed that was the core of their refining.
Eira’s attention volleyed between the lowest and highest points of the mine.
They should escape. She should get her friends out. But…if things had already gone sideways…why not really cut off the supply of Ulvarth’s flash beads? More than a temporary delay as the empress appointed a new overseer for the mines, they could destroy the mines entirely. Then Carsovia would have to focus on their own borders rather than on Meru. They’d be too busy nursing their wounds to support Ulvarth, and that would give them time to take him down.
“Hang in there, Alyss.” Eira squeezed her friend’s shoulder and headed down to meet the knights rushing up toward them.
The mines were dotted with water—stagnant, shallow pools that had collected during the last rain, to condensation from the cooling air of night, to water that trickled through deep caverns within the earth. Eira gathered it all, collecting droplets over her shoulders that grew into heavy blobs. She strolled down as the knights ran up. They stopped, levying their flashfires.
“I’ll give you one chance,” Eira called to them. “Drop your weapons, leave, and I might let you live.”
They leveled the muzzles toward her.
“Fine.” Eira sighed dramatically. “I suppose nothing can be done with those who trifle with the pirate queen.”
A few lowered their flashfires then. Their eyes widened. Eira could hear a gasp. A few recognized her with expressions of fear and confusion.
With a wave of her hand, the water she’d been collecting condensed into spears of ice, raining down on them, turning the men and women into pincushions.
More knights beyond regarded her with a mix of terror and rage.
She drew the water back to her and was on the move once more. Adela’s training was in every fiber of her muscles. It lived in her thoughts. In her marrow.
Eira hadn’t been crafted in Adela’s image by the womb, but by the hand of the pirate queen herself. And she brought death to all those who stood against her.
With every progression to the plateau, she gained more water. More power. There was an ebb and flow to the battle. Shield. Retaliate. Attack again. Except Eira was in control of the currents and they were the ones who were helpless before her.
Her body was surrounded in a frosty haze that Eira used to blink in and out of perception as needed. Illusions with one hand. Daggers of ice in the other. She could manage it all.
Eventually, the last knight standing in her way fell and Eira was before the entrance to the cavern the prisoners were kept in. She walked in, knowing better than to think all would see her as a savior. There were those like Mel, those still loyal no matter how many times they were threatened, beaten, or worse.
“Those who wish to live, leave.” Eira projected her voice from the pit of her stomach to the top of the cavern. “The era of the mines is ending at the hands of the pirate queen.”
This was what stories were made of. How Adela’s infamy and lore spread and grew. Even if she wasn’t Adela’s child, Eira was part of that story, now. And would be forever. This was the first time she was willingly using Adela’s name and it would be to her full advantage.
She was the woman with the ice blue eyes and platinum hair. The woman who ended Carsovia’s flash bead operations. The words of the Carsovia trader who had been delivering flash beads to the Pillars in the cavern echoed in Eira’s ears—Empress Hannika has no reason to fear a pirate. Eira would see about that.
They stared at her. No one moving. Eira turned and walked back through the tunnel. The echo of footsteps was chasing her, hasty, sprinting. Then, more. Eira stepped to the side as the prisoners dashed for freedom, desperate and clumsy with their frantic haste. Cullen and Noelle had just reached the plateau and stepped off to the side.
Eira saw Alyss above, clearing a path to the top rim. “What happened to no heroes?” Cullen approached.
“I don’t care about being a hero. But I do want to hurt Ulvarth by cutting him off.” Eira crossed to the edge of the plateau, looking down at
the large metal doors that closed off the very bottom of the pit. “If these mines are operational, Carsovia and Ulvarth are both stronger.”
Cullen followed her logic. “If they’re gone…the threat is diminished, for a time.”
“They’ll just make a new mine, I know,” she said grimly. “But I want to inflict as much pain as I can before we go.”
“How do you intend to end it?” Noelle asked.
“Underneath that shield of metal is the heart of the operation. That’s where they take all the shale and refine it into beads,” Eira said.
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I came down.” Noelle walked to the ledge. “You’re going to need some strong fire to get through all that metal.” She cracked her knuckles.
“We should find another way down—that door is operational somewhere. We don’t want to set off the flash shale,” Eira said with a note of caution.
Noelle shook her head. “There’s no time and it probably can only be opened from within. I can keep my fire focused.”
“You’re sure?”
Noelle snorted. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I have faith in you.” Eira patted her friend on the shoulder and stepped back to let her do her work.
A wave of heat had Eira and Cullen staggering. Noelle’s jaw was set, a look of intense focus.
Another set of knights poured out from a side tunnel, like rats being flushed out with fire and smoke. Eira and Cullen wasted no time engaging them, giving Noelle the time and space she needed. None even got close.
Cullen’s power swirled through the air against Eira’s. Their magics were two hearts beating, pulsing in time with each other. They caressed, brushing like ribbons of silk. The air throbbed with raw power. Ice crackled. Linking her magic with his was effortless, barely a thought. Every movement was as natural as her own—as if he were merely an extension of her. The chaos of more towers falling, the stampede of prisoners escaping, and the roar of Noelle’s fire all faded away.
For a moment, it seemed as though they had killed off all the knights there were. Noelle paused in the lull to catch her breath, breathing heavy. The world had quieted.
Then, the sound of a new horn in the distance.
Alyss slid down the side of the mine on a chute of her own making, arriving at their level. A mole was on her shoulder that leaped off and took the form of a man.
“There’s more coming,” Ducot reported hastily. “A lot more.”
“How close are you to breaking through?” Eira looked back to Noelle. “Close.” Noelle nodded.
“We need to go, now.” Ducot crossed over, grabbing Noelle’s wrist. She spun with a smile, grabbing his face and kissing it.
“First I want to make these people tremble in fear at the might of Solaris,” Noelle said. “You go up, help Olivin and Yonlin.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’ll be right behind,” Noelle reassured him.
Ducot eased away, stepping backward as Noelle turned to the edge once more. The muscles in his jaw bulged. But he said, “You all heard the lady, let’s go.”
Eira hesitated. “Noelle, are you sure?”
“You know my family had mines for Western Rubies, right?” Noelle said without looking back. “Mines like this shouldn’t exist.”
Eira remembered what Noelle had told her and what she’d read in history books. She knew the stories of the conditions of the Western mines decades ago.
“This isn’t your family’s mines,” Eira said. “This isn’t on you.”
“Go, Eira, I won’t be far behind.” Noelle glanced over her shoulder with a slight smile. “You’re not the only one who wants to bring this place to its knees.”
Eira relented. They’d come this far with her putting her trust in her friends; she wouldn’t stop now.
The three of them began running—Ducot back on Alyss’s shoulder in his mole form—leaving Noelle to continue blasting through the door. They sprinted up and up, toward the top rim of the mine to buy Noelle more time by thwarting knights along the way. When they emerged, it was to a wall of cavalry in the far distance. Olivin and Yonlin braced themselves.
“Are we leaving?” Yonlin called down from the tower where he was manning a cannon.
“Where’s Noelle?” Olivin asked. Then, hastily when he saw the blood covering Eira, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Most of it isn’t mine, and what is, Alyss already healed.” Eira glanced back down into the mines. “We need to buy her some more time.”
“No… They’re right, we need to go,” Cullen disagreed, staring in disbelief at the distant riders. “This is beyond us. We don’t have the element of surprise or tunnels to separate them out. We need to get Noelle and leave.”
“Noelle made her choice and we should respect it,” Eira attempted to say.
Ducot was already shifting back into his human form with a jump off Alyss’s shoulder. “This changes things! Order her.”
He was right. Eira could see it. But should she really try to order Noelle against her wishes? She looked back down, screaming, “Noelle, enough!” Her friend either didn’t hear over the roar of fire, or chose to ignore the command. “Noelle!”
“I’m not leaving without her,” Ducot declared, back in his human form. Worry was seeping into his voice. He stared at nothing, not the knights, and not Noelle. But his face was twisted with panic, as if by sense alone he knew how tenuous their circumstances were.
“We won’t,” Eira assured him.
“I’m going to get her,” Cullen announced. “Cullen—”
“I can help her get through the metal. Fire burns hotter with air.” “I should go; I can open her channel,” Eira countered.
“They need you here for that very reason. I can only help her in this task. You can help everyone.” Cullen took a step closer and grabbed Eira by the waist. He pulled her to him, hips flush, and kissed her in front of everyone. A kiss that tasted almost too sweetly of goodbye. “I love you.”
“Come back and bring her with you,” Eira whispered.
“You’re not rid of me yet.” Cullen grinned, and descended once more, the wind under his heels as he leapt into the open air.
Eira turned, eyes stinging, rage swelling. Suddenly her determination to end the mines had vanished. The knights were riding hard against the open plains to the northwest and all she wanted was to flee with the people she cared about most.
But Eira didn’t let her fear and worry show. Instead, she announced, “We’re buying them time. And then we’re getting out of here. All of us.”
