Page 158 of Of Nine So Bold

No, forget that. Clay rarely did shame. Likely, he would’ve been impressed.

And probably agreed with the sentiment behind them all.

My heart pounding, I followed the others farther down the tunnel, wishing there was something—anything—my magic could do about the situation my brother described. But fire was useless here, and heating the water until it turned to steam definitely wouldn’t fix anything. It’d just give us all horrific burns before we died.

Not helpful.

My eyes twitched to Norbert, Brock, and the other so-calledrealgiants. My friends and I had incredibly strong affinities to things like fire and water, stone and wood and nature—more than many Erenlians. I’d always figured that was the gods’ way of trying to make up for the obstacles they’d thrown in our paths in other respects.

But right now, it only made me wonder: could these giants tell how much trouble we might be in? Yes, there was magiccoating this place. Tons of it, and obviously, that was part of the problem. The various spells were like smeared oil paints, myriad types of magic blending together and making it damn near impossible to tell what the energiesshouldhave been doing, let alone whatever else might be going on. But surely as we drew closer, the other giants would start picking up on how precarious the situation truly was?

“You think good ol’ uncle Deter knew about this?” Clay muttered, eyeing the walls.

A chill rolled over me. “Maybe.”

After all, Deter had a water affinity too. That single similarity had made my brother Deter’s favorite target, even more than me, when we were children.

Gods forbid adwarfbe the only relative to share the affinity of Deter’s magic.

But Deter was also Erenlian nobility with the best magical training money could buy, and that meant he was probably second to Ignatius in terms of magical skill among the prisoners—a fact he’d undoubtedly used to his advantage over the years, as much as he could with that manacle on.

But the manacles were gone, and his power was back. If Ignatius didn’t have as strong of a water affinity—or maybe he was just out of practice—Deter may still have picked up on this.

And given how he’d acted right before we came down here… how Brock had too…

My stomach rolled. “Surely Deter wouldn’t sendNorbertdown here if he thought this was really going to end badly, though. Right?”

Clay met my eyes with a flat look.

Right. We knew our uncle. When push came to shove, he’d readily sacrifice family for power.

Even his own son.

Besides, the years hadn’t been kind to our uncle. The mines hadn’t either. Obviously he’d done what he could to make sure he had the most food and the best provisions, but he’d still spent well over a decade in a prison and he wasn’t getting any younger.

Deter may not have originally planned to sacrifice Norbert today, but where Brock and these five others were concerned, I was less sure. Brock hadn’t ever spoken up against Deter or our parents when we were all kids. Hell, when they told him to, he’d joined in on their “games” of beating us senseless.

But I’d seen the look on Brock’s face after Deter gave the order. Something was up. I’d almost swear Brock had seemed suspicious of the old man.

But did that mean I should warn them about this?

“You’re looking a bit green, brother,” Clay murmured to me.

“What if he wants Brock and the rest to die too?”

“Deter?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Good for him, then.”

“Clay.”

“What?”

I searched for words and came up with nothing. I understood how he felt. Idid.

But dammit, he was talking about letting people be murdered, and that…

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