Page 16 of Of Nine So Bold

My stomach gnawed at itself, but that paled in comparison to the dread currently eating me alive.

The hands gripping my bound arms pulled me to a stop, making my suffocated world swim. Whatever they’d given me still had its hooks sunk into my gut, and if not for the fact I had nothing left inside me, I probably would have thrown up somewhere between where I woke up and wherever I was now.

Fingers tugged at the lashes around the bottom of the hood. Marginally fresher air rushed in, and I gasped, only to wince at the glare of torches when the thick fabric was yanked away.

“—just kill it and be done already.”

I blinked, frantically trying to make my eyes focus and find the source of that growling voice. I stood in some kind of tunnel of roughhewn stone with torches burning inside notches along the walls. The smoke was doing its best to escape through holes in the ceiling, but there weren’t enough of them and a haze still clung to the air, making my lungs burn. In the distance were the familiar sounds of pickaxes striking stone.

Oh gods. I knew this. A mine. They’d brought me to a mine. One of those that served as a prison for the Erenlians captured in the war.

Swallowing hard, I told myself not to panic. Dex and the others knew about the mines. They would likely suspect the queen had sent me there. And any mines theyweren’taware of, Gwyneira would likely know about.

Well, maybe. Except her father had kept her sheltered from so much about the war. About so many things, really. The locations of the mines were probably no different.

Oh, I was in trouble.

Closing my eyes tightly, I tried to slow my breathing, even as the smoky air scorched my throat. Gods help me, an Aneiran must have created this ridiculous system for letting the smoke escape. My people had mined our mountains and foothills for centuries. No Erenlian would make the mistake of thinking those tiny holes were sufficient.

“You said you needed a way to get through the collapsed sections in the west tunnel. Soldiers refused and the giants were too big. Well, here you go.”

Renewed shock snapped my eyes back open. I knew that sniping voice.

I twisted, looking over my shoulder.

My stomach dropped. The skinny man from the forest was here. The one whose eyes had glowed orange right after he shot me with the dart that let the Aneirans knock me out.

No trace of that eerie light shone in his eyes now, but the contempt for me on his face was the same. He looked like the scum beneath his shoe ranked higher in his opinion than me.

But then, from his glare, scum might outrank the disgruntled soldier next to me as well.

“He won’t last a week,” the soldier spat, irritation on his ruddy face. “What good’s that?”

“Good enough to serve the queen’s purpose, that’s what,” the skinny guy replied. “So get on with it.”

Without another word, he stalked away through the tunnel like every rock, torch, and speck of dirt offended him.

“Fine.”

I turned back to see the soldier—no, theprison guard—jerk his chin at two more men standing several yards off. “Get ‘im going, then. Fucking lazy bastard.”

The men strode toward me and grabbed my arms, hauling me with them as they started down the tunnel. I scrambled to keep my feet under me, if only to avoid the ache of being dragged somewhere yet again. But it was difficult to do that and keep searching for any indication of where they’d taken me.

Because there wasnothing. Every wall was the same. Every exit from the tunnel bore nothing but thick wooden logs to hold it in place—ones carved with strange symbols, same as the damned manacle still wrapped around my wrist, suppressing my magic. Thereweremarkings to identify the tunnels themselves, but they said nothing about where the overall mine was located.

I exhaled, trying to stay calm. Okay, fine. So what if I didn’t know where I was? That wouldn’t matter. Itwouldn’t. There was a mine near Lumilia, and my friends definitely knew aboutit. Dex and the others had spent years practically making the question of how to break our people out of that one into a daily thought exercise. And given that I’d been in the castle before they brought me here, it stood to reason that this was the Lumilia mine.

Except… the Huntsmen had knocked me out. And I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious.

I pushed that worry down hard. My friends knew about other mines too. They’d still find me and get me out.

And besides, that assumedIdidn’t find a way to escape first.

A resolute breath entered my lungs, and I damn well ignored the smoke that came with it. Everything would be all right.

The guards came to a stop. Bars reared in front of my face before a clank of metal followed and the barrier swung out of the way.

Roughly, the soldiers tossed me forward. I crashed to the ground and tumbled, coming to a stop with my head spinning so hard, I gagged and only barely managed to keep from losing whatever remained in my stomach.

---