“Too close,” Lyra agreed in her high, singsong voice.
“You’d better find someplace to hide for the day. I’ll nose around the city, and see if I can gather any news or gossip. We’ll meet back here at sunset.”
News? Gossip? It almost sounded like he had come here on a spy mission, just like I had. But why? Blauberg was a busy, prosperous city, but it wasn’t terribly important in the grand scheme of things. Several platoons of Andvarian royal guards were stationed here to keep law and order, as well as to discourage thieves, bandits, and the neighboring Mortans from attacking citizens, but there was nothing of any real strategic value in Blauberg—except for the mine.
My eyes narrowed. Perhaps he was the reason those shipments had gone missing. Perhaps Prince Leonidas was the one who had been murdering my people in order to steal and stockpile tearstone. But why?
I would have to ask—before I killed him.
Leonidas’s back was to me, and he was scanning the far side of the clearing, as if making sure the girl was gone. I could probably sneak up on him before he realized I was there.
But no doubt his strix would launch herself at me the second I attacked her rider. Even though I had trained with my stepmother, Captain Rhea Hans, along with Serilda Swanson and other deadly warriors, I was still wary of a full-grown strix, especially one that had probably been schooled in aerial combat and other warfare.
So as much as it pained me, I held my position in the trees.
Leonidas scanned the clearing again, then went over and stroked Lyra’s side, smoothing his hand over her purple feathers much the same way I had rubbed Grimley’s tummy earlier. The eerie similarity and his obvious love for the creature made me shift on my feet. I had always hated how very much alike the prince and I were.
“Be safe,” he said.
“You too,” Lyra chirped back.
Leonidas adjusted the cloak around his shoulders, draping the black fabric so that it hid the Morricone crest on his coat. I held back a derisive snort. That was even less of a disguise than my short, dyed hair and miner’s coveralls. So he was arrogant, as well as duplicitous.
He disappeared into the woods, heading in the same direction the girl had gone. Lyra spread her wings and shot up into the sky, quickly climbing higher and higher until she too disappeared from sight.
A tense breath escaped my lips, although worry continued to hammer through my body, beating in time to my pounding heart. Suspecting that a Mortan noble was in Blauberg was bad enough, but knowing that a Morricone prince was here was even worse.
Especially this prince—a boy I’d met a lifetime ago, one who had grown into an even more dangerous, powerful man.
I had first encountered the bastard prince years ago in the Spire Mountains when Alvis, Xenia, and I had been fleeing from Bellona after the Seven Spire massacre. Leonidas had found me in the woods and offered me a chance to escape from the turncoat guards who had been chasing us.
Like a fool, I had believed him. But the second I had lowered my guard, he had handed me over to those same men.
I had learned a valuable, if painful, lesson that day—the only thing that truly mattered to Leonidas Morricone was his own survival.
Images flooded my mind, and my own screams echoed in my ears, but I pushed them all away, just as I had the memories of the massacre earlier. Someday, I was going to silence the screams and shove the horrific memories so deep down into my mind and heart that they would never bubble back up to the surface.
Someday—but not today.
Still, the prince and the strix were gone, so I left the woods and headed back toward the mine. If Leonidas Morricone was here to pilfer more tearstone, then I needed to figure out who was helping him. Once I had identified his source, then I could take steps to keep the precious resource out of the prince’s clutches.
And maybe, just maybe, I could finally take my revenge on Leonidas for how he had betrayed me all those years ago.
* * *
I doubled back through the alleys and over to the plaza. I paused a moment to dig a penny out of my pocket and toss it into the gargoyle fountain for luck, then fell in line with the other workers trudging toward the mine entrance.
A woman smiled when she caught sight of me. Her long dark red hair was pulled back into a braid that was partially tucked underneath her helmet. Her eyes were a light blue, and freckles dotted her milky cheeks. She was also wearing gray coveralls, and a lunch box dangled from her hand.
“Hey, Gemma,” she said in a soft, lilting voice. “Running late too?”
I might have cut and dyed my hair and stuffed myself into a miner’s uniform, but I hadn’t bothered to change my name. Gemma was very common, thanks to, well, me.
After I had been born, the name had become quite popular in Andvari, just as Everleigh had taken on a frenzied popularity in Bellona ever since Everleigh Blair had been crowned queen some sixteen years ago. All the royals’ names were in vogue to some extent, so I had felt safe enough using my real name in Blauberg. Besides, not having to remember to answer to another name made my spying much easier.
I smiled back at the other woman. “Yeah, I’m still finding my way around the city, and I went down the wrong street. Why are you late, Penelope?”
I had met Penelope when I’d started working in the mine two days ago. There weren’t many women here, so she had come over and introduced herself. I had liked her immediately, especially given her inherent cheerfulness, and Penelope had been showing me around ever since. A few butterflies of guilt fluttered in my stomach that I was using her to gather information on the other miners, but I swatted them away. As a princess and especially as a spy, I couldn’t afford to indulge in such a treacherous emotion as guilt.
Penelope smiled again. “Oh, my daughter needed some extra help getting ready for school.”
We reached the mine entrance, and she fell silent and faced forward.
Going from the morning sunshine into the darker confines of the mine was like stepping into a different realm, as though I had traveled through a Cardea mirror, an enchanted glass that let people see and talk to each other over great distances, as well as move from one place to another. In an instant, the crisp mountain air turned ten degrees cooler, and the natural sunlight gave way to black iron lanterns filled with round fluorestones. The lanterns hung on the walls like strings of popcorn on a yule tree, while the glowing fluorestones inside ranged in shade and intensity from cool, moody blue to bright, piercing white. The combined lights and colors painted the inside of the mine a pale, muted gray.
This first, topmost level was called Basecamp, since it was the base for all the mine’s operations, both aboveground and below. The front part was an enormous hollow dome, with a hard-packed dirt floor, curved walls, and a ceiling that soared several hundred feet overhead. Carts filled with chunks of ore and buckets of tools squeaked, creaked, and rattled along the metal tracks that crisscrossed the ground. Adding to the commotion were the miners loading carts, hauling empty buckets away, and calling out directions to each other.
I drew in a deep breath to steady myself. Then I exhaled, reached out with my magic, and carefully skimmed the thoughts of everyone around me.
When I was first learning how to use my magic, Alvis had told me to picture my mind magier power as some task that I could complete, that I could control. Skimming thoughts was like leaning over the deck of my tiny internal ship and dipping my fingers into the sea of emotion that constantly ebbed and flowed all around me.
In some ways, skimming thoughts was much harder than moving objects. I could easily ignore the strings of energy surrounding people and objects, but once I dipped my fingers into that endless, churning sea, anything could happen.
Oh, I could hear people’s whispered thoughts easily enough, but dealing with their emotions was much more difficult. Alvis had told me to treat other people’s feelings as things that I could experience for a moment, then set aside. Like someone’s seething jealousy was only a pinpr
ick of pain, as though a thread master had accidentally poked me with a needle. Or boiling anger was nothing more than heat from a fireplace warming my face. Or bitter rage was merely an icy rain pelting my skin before dropping away. Brief discomforts that I could brush aside as quickly as I could close a book I had finished reading.
But try as I might, I couldn’t always close that book.
Sometimes, people’s thoughts and feelings were so strong, so vivid, so intense, that they completely overwhelmed me. Sometimes, if enough people were thinking and feeling the same things all at once—like fear, panic, dread, and terror—then my internal ship capsized in that raging sea of emotion, and my own magic crippled and paralyzed me, rendering me as useless as a fountain that had frozen over in the winter.
Just like I had been useless and frozen during the Seven Spire massacre.
A familiar combination of guilt and shame bubbled up inside me, burning like acid in my throat, but I shoved it down and focused on the people around me.
Gotta get back down into Shaft 3 . . .
Need to replace this cracked bucket . . .
Hope the baker has raspberry tarts for lunch . . .
The usual chatter whispered through my mind, and no strong emotions jumped out at me. Everything was normal.
I shuffled along behind Penelope and the other miners, heading toward the main checkpoint. The domed ceiling tapered down, morphing into a much smaller square shaft that was only about thirty feet high. Before they reached the shaft entrance, every miner stopped at a table where a man was sitting and shuffling through documents.
He was a large, bulky man, with thick arms and a round stomach that was slowly giving way to fat as he advanced into middle age. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and his dark brown hair was oiled and slicked back from his forehead. His eyes were also a dark brown, as was the bushy mustache that adorned his upper lip like a trapped fuzzy, woolly worm, but his skin had the unnaturally pale look of someone who had spent more time underground than above it. The Ripley snarling gargoyle crest was stitched in black thread over his heart on his gray coveralls, marking his importance—Conley, the head foreman, and my top suspect.
Conley was one of the few people who had access to the entire mine, as well as the neighboring refinery, and if anyone could make shipments of tearstone disappear, then it was him. Especially since Clarissa—the second, or under, forewoman, the one who had died in that supposed accident—hadn’t been replaced yet.
Conley checked each person’s name off on his master list and handed them a small paper map indicating which section they would be working in. As I neared the table, I reached out with my magic again, this time focusing solely on Conley.
Gotta get more production out of Shaft 5 . . .
Can’t believe that idiot Horace broke another pickaxe . . .
Wonder if Wexel will be pleased with the latest shipment . . .
That last thought caught my attention. Who was Wexel? On the face of things, there was nothing truly incriminating about Conley’s musing. Sending out shipments was one of the foreman’s responsibilities, and it was only natural that he would be concerned about what his customers thought about their goods.
That thought skipped away in Conley’s mind and sank like a stone in a pond, but others sprang up like weeds to take its place, mostly about what he wanted for lunch—grilled pumpernickel bread piled high with red-pepper-crusted turkey, melted Swiss cheese, crunchy kale coleslaw, and extra onion dressing. He even pictured the bulging sandwich in his mind, and the image was so tempting that my own stomach rumbled with anticipation.
I could have probed a little more, but Conley might have sensed my magic. Most people didn’t notice when I skimmed their surface thoughts, but trying to hear someone’s deeper, more serious and private musings took much more power, skill, and control, and the person could sometimes feel that something was wrong, like the difference between a mild spring breeze ruffling their hair versus a cold winter wind chapping their cheeks. So I decided not to take that next step into Conley’s mind. I needed to keep a low profile until I was certain that he was the thief.
Penelope stepped up to the table and jerked her thumb at me. “Okay if Gemma and I stick together again today?”
Conley’s gaze slid down Penelope’s body, even though she was covered from head to toe with her helmet, coveralls, and boots. He leered at her before giving me the same slow, disgusting once-over. His lust bloomed in my mind like a sickly sweet rose, each lascivious thought scraping against my skin like a sharp thorn, and I had to grind my teeth to keep from snarling at him.
“Yeah, sure,” he drawled in an obnoxious baritone, and slid a map across the table. “You’re in Shaft 4 today.”
Penelope reached for the map, but Conley covered her hand with his much larger, beefier one. He leered at her again, then started stroking his index finger over her skin.
Penelope tried to smile, although her expression twisted into a grimace, and her anger, frustration, and fear sliced into my mind like daggers. Conley had done this same thing to her every time we’d gone down into the mine. When I had asked her about it yesterday, Penelope had said that she needed her job too badly to tell Conley to stop.
“Shouldn’t we get to work?” I said in a loud, pointed voice, trying to pry Penelope out of his clutching grasp.
Conley’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “I decide when you get to work, girl.”
This time, my own anger sizzled in my heart, and my tongue itched with scathing words just begging to be let loose like arrows from an archer’s bowstring. I wanted to growl that I was nobody’s girl and to keep his fucking hands to himself, but I was Miner Gemma right now, not Princess Gemma.
Conley smirked at my stone-faced silence. He pulled his hand away from Penelope’s and gave an airy wave, telling us to move along.
Penelope scuttled away from the table. I followed her, and we stepped into the smaller square shaft, which was lined with gray metal lockers and wooden benches. Several miners were stuffing their lunch boxes into the lockers, while others were sitting on the benches, tying their bootlaces.
Penelope opened her locker, stowed her lunch box inside, and pulled on a pair of thick gray canvas gloves. I did the same with my own lunch box and slipped on my own gloves. Penelope waited until the other miners left before she faced me.
“You shouldn’t talk back to Conley,” she said. “He can make your life very difficult, both here in the mine and out in the city.”
“More difficult than he’s making yours?”
She grimaced. “Things can always be worse.”
Penelope was right. I should have kept my mouth shut, but sometimes, despite my best efforts to keep her contained, Princess Gemma got the better of Spy Gemma. After all, what was the good of being a bloody princess if I couldn’t help people? My father and grandfather had drilled that duty into me ever since I was a child, and seeing and hearing about all the amazing deeds that queens like Everleigh Blair of Bellona and Zariza Rubin of Unger had done over the years made me want to live up to their fine examples.
But I couldn’t fix this situation—at least, not as Miner Gemma. Once I discovered who was stealing the tearstone, though, Princess Gemma would return to the mine and put Conley in his proper place—and out on his lecherous ass.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. My mouth has a mind of its own. It gets me into trouble.”
That much was always true, whether I was Miner Gemma or Princess Gemma.
Penelope smiled, leaned over, and bumped her shoulder against mine. “All is forgiven. Now let’s get to work.”
She shut her locker. I did the same and followed her into another, even smaller shaft where several miners were standing beside a large metal cart fitted with wooden seats. The cart was sitting on metal tracks that ran for a few feet before dropping down into what looked like a round, deep well filled with blackness.
Penelope and I climbed into the cart with six other miners. The driver released the hand brake,
and the cart rolled forward, then started its descent down a steep slope into that waiting well of blackness. No one spoke as the cart creaked along the tracks, and the darkness was so absolute that I felt as though I were dead and buried six feet under. Only it was worse than that, since we were going much, much deeper.
Even though I couldn’t see anything, my magic let me sense Penelope shifting in her seat beside me, as well as the movements of the other miners, and the rigid tension that radiated off them all, as though their arms, legs, and spines had transformed into stiff, unyielding boards. Most of the miners were veterans who had been working in these shafts for years, but there was always a bit of uncertainty going so far underground. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of a mountain that could so easily crush them to dust.
Still, we Andvarians were sturdy stock, and this was how we had made a living for generations on end. I was just as proud of my countrymen and -women’s heritage as Bellonans were of their gladiators, or Ungers were of their complicated dance routines. It took a whole lot of heart and even steadier nerves to venture this far down into the dark. Some legends claimed that Andvarians had liquid ore running through our veins, right alongside our blood, a sort of magnetic energy that compelled us to dig deeper and deeper into the Spire Mountains.
I had always loved those old fairy tales, and I had begged my mother, Merilde, to read them to me over and over again as a child. My favorites had been the stories about Queen Armina Ripley, who was supposedly the first person to ever befriend a gargoyle by chipping it out of a wall in a mine near Glanzen. The gargoyle had been so grateful to be free of its stone prison that it had vowed to protect Armina and her family for all time.
The cart skated over something on the tracks, loose rocks probably, and the jerking motion made me bump shoulders with Penelope. She tensed again, as did the other miners, but I remained calm and relaxed. I selfishly loved being this deep underground.
Hundreds of miners might be toiling away inside the mountain, but the thick stone walls blocked their thoughts, leaving me in relative blessed silence, certainly far more silence than I ever experienced at Glitnir, with its scores of servants, guards, and nobles roaming the halls, not to mention the gargoyles perched on the rooftops. I didn’t often get such a prolonged, quiet reprieve, and I was going to enjoy every moment, no matter how dangerous the journey and the work itself was.
Capture the Crown Page 3