Siegestone: Book 1 of the Gemstones and Giants Trilogy

by E. S. Maya

  The manor doors swung open and shut. Girls entered on stiff legs and exited slumped with relief. By the time they reached the end of the line, the sun was cooking the top of Safi’s bright blonde head.

  Open and shut, and only Safi and Rebecca were left.

  Safi watched as the many inches of Rebecca’s body hardened like ice. She swallowed dryly, certain that if the redhead fell now, she would shatter into a thousand pretty pieces.

  Then she remembered: how Raven had held her on those lonesome carriage nights. How her touch had helped with more than keeping the cold away. She reached out for Rebecca’s hand, determined to take it whether the redhead liked it or not.

  Safi stopped short. Oh, my hands are shaking too.

  The manor doors parted. Out came the girl.

  “Next,” shouted the enforcer. Rebecca did not move. The man walked heavily across the deck. He put his nose frighteningly close to her pale cheek. “I said, next!”

  Rebecca did not move.

  Safi glanced at her own dark feet, then Rebecca’s peachy-white. The enforcer shouted again. Though the trees of the meadow were still, the tall girl swayed like a stalk in the wind.

  The enforcer moved to put his hands on her.

  “Don’t touch me!” Rebecca shrieked, jerking away from the man. She wrapped herself in her arms, shaking violently. “Don’t you ever touch me.”

  Safi bit her lips. Again she thought of Raven, of all her frequent beatings and her presently cut cheek. The men of Blackpoint were not patient nor gentle. Before her courage left her, she decided to do something she knew was foolish and dangerous.

  She stepped in front of Rebecca, showing her back to the enforcer.

  “Rebecca,” she said gently, reaching for her hands. The redhead began to pull away, but she caught and held them tight. “You’re going to be fine.” She squeezed the girl’s trembling fingers. “They’re just going to ask you questions and stuff. Get you some sewing work, remember? It’ll be—”

  Safi’s scalp burned. Rebecca’s hands slipped from her grasp, and the heat of the deck left her feet. It took her a moment to realize she was dangling by her hair, held by the enforcer’s gloved fist.

  “Another troublemaker today?” The enforcer turned towards the edge of the deck and thrust his red-garbed arm.

  For a moment, Safi was in flight. She heard the gasps of her fellow first-years as everything started to spin. Then the world seemed to shudder as she landed sideways on the grass. She clutched her ribs and groaned. Pain. The same pain she’d felt when the Blackpoint recruiter, Bernold, had tossed her into the carriage. Breathing became difficult, and try as she might, she couldn’t open her eyes.

  No, this time would be different. She gritted her teeth, forced her lungs to pull a breath. She pushed herself into a seated position, fixing her feet beneath her thighs. The grass bit like needles into her bare soles. She stood anyways, climbed onto the deck, and resumed her place in line.

  “Got anything else to add, Southerling?” the enforcer said.

  “No, sir,” Safi answered, heels together and hands at her sides. Like a good recruit.

  This time the enforcer thrust his finger at Rebecca’s cheek. “Now get in there. We’ve still got the boys to go through.”

  Rebecca marched through the manor doors with her head held high. Safi could hardly believe it, but the girl looked taller than before. The enforcers wasted no time in shutting the doors behind her.

  Safi couldn’t help but smile. Waiting for Rebecca, she found her body feeling sturdy and strong, and surprisingly without pain. When the manor doors received three sound knocks, the enforcers hurried to part them.

  Then she was impressed. Rebecca’s chin had reached heights she had never thought possible on a thirteen-year-old girl. The redhead strode past the enforcers, long arms swinging, crossing the wooden deck with weighty steps. Nearing Safi she slowed her pace, tying all that confidence into a meek little smile.

  Rebecca’s expression seemed to say, everything will be fine.

  Safi returned a smile of her own, hoping the girl was right.

  The enforcers beckoned the final recruit, but Safi was already moving. She passed Rebecca and her fellow first-years and pushed past the men of Blackpoint, stomping through the doorway until carpet touched the soles of her feet.

  Behind her, the manor’s red double doors clicked shut.

  19

  From Whence Blood Flows

  Safi gasped. She was standing on carpet. It was the softest thing she’d ever touched. Softer than the inside of her old shearling coat. Softer than the tail of a cat. So soft, and dark red and covering every inch of the floor. Was this how all rich folks lived?

  Enjoying every careful footstep, she crept into the main hall. Here the walls were high and white, holding enough empty space to fit her old cottage several times over. The seats about the room were padded with rich, dark red leather; she ran her finger over a passing cushion and its surface felt as slippery as butter. At the end of the room she found two parallel staircases, coiling apart broadly to meet at the second floor.

  She froze when she spotted the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling’s center. So she took the long way around the room, peeking down wide hallways and reaching to touch every passing thing. It was all quite clean and expensive, even the golden candelabras and the little polished bowls, sitting empty on dark cherrywood tables. Raven must’ve lost her stones when she saw all this.

  She was examining herself in a golden hand-mirror when a man cleared his throat behind her. She spun about to face him, heart racing, hiding the fancy hand-mirror with both hands behind her back.

  Before her stood a tall figure with a square face and a short black haircut. A fine red tunic played against his thighs, and balanced upon a gloved hand was a platter filled with little crackers. Each was covered with a lumpy pink paste and dotted with tiny green vegetables.

  It looked and smelled like food. Like meat. Safi salivated.

  “I beg your pardon, young lady,” the man said. “I thought we had finished with recruits for the morning.”

  “I think I’m the last one,” Safi said, eyes not leaving the food.

  The man glanced at the platter, then at Safi. He looked surprised for a moment, then grinned, lowering the platter within reach. “Please, these are for our guests. Have as many as you’d like.”

  Safi licked her lips. Was she a guest? She hadn’t exactly finished breakfast, and lunch was hours away yet. Besides, when would she chance upon such strange, fancy-looking food again?

  She plucked a cracker between her thumb and forefinger. Down it went in two quick bites. It tasted like the fish her mother used to cook, on those rare occasions when the iron mines yielded profit. Except better, creamier, with a strange tang from the vegetables and the cracker’s satisfying crunch. She squeezed the tears from her eyes, and when she opened them, the platter was still before her, and he did say she could have as many as she wanted…

  Then the platter was then empty, and the man was brimming with happiness.

  Safi returned a smile of her own. She noticed the man’s hair was dark and his eyes were green, like Raven’s. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, she gave the room a good looking over. “It’s a real big house for just one butler, mister.”

  The butler shut his eyes and shrugged. “A lonely house for a few lonely men.” He peeked his left eye open. “I suppose it beats being cooped up in the Fivers’ Camp barracks.”

  Safi brought her hand to her lips for a giggle. The butler eyed the golden hand mirror, now held absently at her side. Startled, she fumbled with the handle before holding it carefully towards him.

  The butler clucked his tongue and shook his head, taking the mirror from her hands and setting it on the table. “Now, young lady, head up the staircase and turn to your right. You’ll enter the room at the end of the corridor. The warden is waiting.”

  Safi flopped over in a dramatic bow. Then, fixing her hair, and licking the leftov
er bits of fish from her teeth, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. At the end of its rightward hallway, the final door was shut. She held up her fist and knocked gently, hoping she’d picked the right one.

  “Come in,” boomed a voice from the other side. That unforgettable voice. The vice warden.

  Safi stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She covered her mouth and gasped. Books by the hundreds, standing ceiling-high on their shelves, framed each side of the room, striping the walls in leather spines of red and brown and indigo. She took a slow breath, inhaling the perfume of ancient forests and long-forgotten civilizations. A gap on the right wall allowed space for a bulky stone hearth, though no fire burned, and its firebox was clean of ash. Mantled above was a sword sheathed in white leather, golden-tipped at its locket and chape. Within its golden pommel glittered a trio of small blue diamonds.

  Only then did she notice the simple pickaxe mounted behind it. It was topped by a crescent of dull iron, chisel at one end, pick at the other. Together the weapon and tool formed the same mark on Safi’s left wrist, along with every other recruit in Camp Cronus. The pickaxe crossed with the sword.

  The emblem of the Blackpoint Mining Company.

  Looking on, she spotted a hulking cherrywood desk opposite the door. Behind it sat a blonde-haired man with a thin face and downcast gray eyes. A handsome man, with an immaculate chin and a straight nose. His left hand lay flat on the desktop, while the right, holding a black-feathered quill pen, swept silently along a sheet of paper. They were precise, smooth strokes, a series of natural movements that mimicked the branch of a tree. Behind him, the high glass doors to the balcony shone like a pair of wings.

  The man stilled his quill pen. He wiped out its hollowed groove with a thick black cloth and set the pen carefully inside a carved ivory case. He raised his head, wearing the whisperings of a smile, and nodded gently.

  From the shadows in the corner of the room, his great bulk appearing, the vice warden stepped forward. His eyes shone yellow and bright.

  Safi remembered her instructions. She went to stand at the center of the room, heels together, palms at her sides, gaze forward—straight into the sharp gray eyes of the warden.

  “Safiyas Azadi,” the warden said, reading her name off a sheet of fine paper. His voice was soft but clear. “An Abed name, though it appears to me you’re a half-breed. Not the first I’ve seen, nor the last. Don’t expect your skin color to get you any special privileges here.”

  “No, sir,” Safi said. Vice Warden Arnalus sneered from across the room. That’s right, she remembered, no speaking without permission.

  “My name is Sir Edgar Tiberonius,” the warden continued, “member of the Anderanite royal family and brigadier general of the Blackpoint Mining Company. Most importantly to you, I am the warden of the Titan Camp Cronus. Until your contract is finished, you are Blackpoint property, and, by association, my property. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Safi said. Property. At least he was honest about it.

  “Good.” The warden rose from his red leather seat and began pacing before the balcony doors, left hand resting on his sword’s golden pommel. She could see his uniform clearly now, a white jacket and trousers tailored close to his slender form. An assortment of ribbons and medals sat pinned to his left breast, clinking with each gentle footstep. A golden statuette sat perched on his right shoulder, wings outstretched, bearing the body of a cat and the feathery long-beaked face of a bird.

  A gryphon. The warden was royalty all right. There wasn’t a child in the Northern Kingdoms who hadn’t heard the tales. They belonged to the Anderan royal family, possessing the strength of a lion, the flight of an eagle, and the loyalty of a friend. Another of her father’s storybook fantasies—or so she had thought.

  “You’ll find Camp Cronus to be quite… tolerable, provided you behave,” the warden continued. “We have no leniency for troublemakers here. You’ll receive proper sleep and provisions. There will be time to rest and time to work, and plenty of work you shall do.” He looked to the vice warden. “Arnalus, read off her sentence.”

  She squeezed the sides of her dress. For just how long had Mother sold her? Ten years? Twenty?

  “Yes, warden!” Arnalus slid a sheet of paper off the warden’s desk. It looked tiny in his massive hands. “Twenty-five years!” the vice warden read aloud. He raised his yellow eyes and grinned. “The maximum sentence.”

  Safi let go of her dress and lowered her head, unbearably ashamed that her mother had done such a thing. Twenty-five years. It was hard to even comprehend that amount of time. All she knew was that she would never see home again.

  The warden said, “You should know that any attempt of escape will cause your family’s payment to be forfeit, and they shall be obligated to pay back every sovereign. Naturally, an inability to pay the fee would result in criminal punishment, ranging from servitude to death. You, however, would become a fugitive, a wanted criminal, and the Blackpoint Seekers would soon bring you to justice. And I assure you, our reach goes far beyond the Northern Kingdoms. Is that clear, Abed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Safi’s words came out like a whimper. She had never felt so foreign as she did in the fair-skinned warden’s presence. In Ashcroft, her pigment was little more than a passing comment. Here it meant something. The warden expected her to flee to the Southern Kingdoms on skin color alone.

  But twenty-five years was a long time. By then she’d be well beyond marrying age. And where would she even go? She imagined the long years, growing old in the Titan Camp, watching Wulf and Raven and all of her friends leave her behind. Off to live their lives and never see her again.

  There had to be another way.

  “Understand, Safiyas, that we do not wish for your time here to be unpleasant,” said the warden. “You’ll find that both men and women can live long, fulfilling lives under the care of the Blackpoint Mining Company. Why, some of the older servants you’ll meet here are volunteers staying well past their release date. Some stay under our protection and guidance for life.”

  Safi frowned. After twenty-five years, what other choice did they have?

  “And because we have your well-being in mind, we allow each recruit to choose his or her role at Camp Cronus. You might be a cook or a cleaner, or perhaps you have some sewing skill? Some girls have even learned tanning or carpentry. We have a fully functioning community here, and about every job you would find in a normal town. Is there anything in particular you’re interested in?”

  “Yes, sir,” Safi said. There was only one job in all of Camp Cronus she wanted. She remembered the man in the purple cape and the words he spoke in the dark. He who finds a Siegestone earns his freedom.

  She met the warden’s gray eyes. “I’d like to be a miner.”

  “You what?” The vice warden sprang towards the center of the room. Safi fought the urge to cower before his presence. A giant in his own right, he carried the musk of a working man under all those fine clothes. “You dare make a mockery of the warden? Of this camp? Have you any idea the station of the man you’re speaking to?”

  His words left Safi trembling. Tears welled in her eyes. “I wasn’t fooling,” she managed to choke out.

  Arnalus took another step and raised an open hand. “Why you!”

  “Enough, Arnalus,” the warden said calmly.

  The vice warden lowered his arm.

  Warden Tiberonius lowered himself into his chair. He leaned forward and folded his hands, elbows propped up on the desktop. “It seems our little Abed is serious. Safiyas, do you know what goes into working in the Titan mines? It’s back-breaking labor, every day, from dawn till late afternoon.” He eyed her up and down. “I suggest you choose a job more fitting of your stature. Is that understood?”

  Safi glanced up at the vice warden. His yellow eyes were upon her, his lips in a tight scowl. Shivering, she looked back at Warden Tiberonius. “I still want to be a miner,” she said.

  Arnalus spun on his heel
to face the warden. He thrust a thick finger directly in Safi’s face. “Warden! Allow me to teach this Southerling a lesson! In all my years, never have I experienced such insolence in this room!”

  The warden merely smiled. He touched two fingers to his cleanly shaved chin. “Perhaps we should give the girl a chance to prove herself.”

  “Warden!” protested Arnalus.

  The warden gestured to the sword and pickaxe that formed the Blackpoint emblem mantled above the fireplace. “That pickaxe is the very same as the ones used in the Titan mines. If she can lift it by herself and carry it from this room, she may train with the boys to become a miner. If not, she’ll spend her first two years cleaning after them, scrubbing their clothes and emptying their latrines.”

  Grinning, Arnalus stomped up to the hearth and reached high for the pickaxe crossed with its sibling sword. He took the haft in his fist and jerked the digging tool from its mount. Then, carrying the pickaxe in one hand, he stomped over to Safi and dropped it unceremoniously at her feet.

  The entire room shook from the impact.

  “Do we have a deal, Safiyas?” asked the warden. “Or would you choose a different job?”

  Safi looked down at the pickaxe, pressing its shape into the red-carpeted floor. “We have a deal, sir.”

  The warden’s smile was full of amusement. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  After a few nervous breaths, Safi stood over the pickaxe. She bent at the waist and reached with both arms. The wood felt cold and smooth in her hands—still new, unused. She couldn’t quite get her fingers all the way around the haft. A pulse of uncertainty hit her, and for a moment she drew her hands away. Then she remembered the wardens were watching, that it was too late to change her mind now.

  In a rush of excitement, Safi held fast to the digging tool. She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes, and pulled with all her might.