Page 20 of Of Nine So Bold

“I… I’m not sure at the moment. The Aneirans grabbed me in a forest when I was on my own. But I’ve been in hiding with Byron for years, and we found Dathan recently too.”

Ignatius’s eyes brightened a bit at that, so I pressed onward. “He’s been in the mountains of the Wild Lands this whole time with about twenty other giants.”

Hesitation flickered over his face, and then he sighed. “So few.”

I winced at the tightly restrained pain in his tone. “Butalive.”

Ignatius nodded thoughtfully but offered me nothing more.

Movement caught my eye. Norbert was settling back by the largest fire. When he spotted me looking at him, he grinned, the sadistic expression like the promise of pain to come.

Suppressing a shudder, I turned back to Ignatius. “Who are they?” I asked, my eyes sliding to the side briefly to indicate Norbert and his friends.

The old scholar’s mouth tightened, and his voice dropped lower, making me strain to hear him. “They are what happens when desperate people are trapped for years with no hope of power but what they can claim over their fellow prisoners. Norbert, Brock, and their companions were young when Erenelle fell. This is very nearly all they’ve ever known. They’renow the closest thing we have to the top of a social order in this place.”

“And the man they all answer to?”

Again, he was quiet, and I worked hard to hold on to whatever shreds of calm I still possessed. I’d never thought of myself as impatient. I’d always believed other people had their reasons for the time they took.

But apparently I had a limit to my patience, and it was this.

“Duke Deter Ensid,” Ignatius said at last. “Norbert’s father and Brock’s uncle.”

Oh gods, they were all related?

Every thought of finding an ally over there instantly died.

“Once the duke was eighth in line to the throne,” Ignatius continued, “but after the deaths of the king and his family, he’s the only royal we know of who is still alive. That makes his word law.” Ignatius’s lips compressed briefly. “And makes him king.”

Oh, this was bad. I didn’t even know the man, and I could still tell this was very,verybad.

To say nothing of how the duke looked at me like a fisherman would regard a worm he was debating whether to put on a hook.

I drew a breath, trying to stay calm and focused like Byron would. Or think analytically like Dex would. One problem at a time, as the former soldier would say. Solve the most pressing issue first, then worry about the rest. “How do these bind our magic?” I asked, nodding at the manacle.

Ignatius tugged up the edge of the threadbare sleeve of his robe. Like me, he wore a band around his wrist. The metal was so tight, his skin was pinched around it, and the sight made me wince in sympathy. “Harmonic energies with the bands on the soldiers’ arms, I suspect. From what I’ve been able to tell over the years, there are traces of witch magic in these, but strange.”

My stomach churned. “Did the queen make them?”

A sharp look came into his gaze. “Possibly.”

Great. More bad things.

Focus, I chastised myself.What would Dex do?

“So.” I cleared my throat. “What happens now? When they dragged me in, the soldiers said something about the western tunnels?”

Ignatius became even more still than he’d been before, like a statue of wisdom suddenly turning fully to stone. “They wish to send you there? Those tunnels are a death sentence.”

Fear tried to bubble up higher inside me, choking my throat. I made myself breathe through it.

But Ignatius’s expression didn’t help. “I’m sorry, young man. They clearly don’t mean you to stay alive for long.”

The certainty in his voice was chilling, and my natural hopefulness struggled hard against it. My treluria was out there, waiting for me. I couldn’t lose her now. I’d just found her after longing for her my entire life.

Gods help me, I didn’t want to die before getting a chance at a life with her.

“My friends will save us,” I told the scholar as confidently as I could manage. “They’re some of the strongest people in the world, and they won’t leave me behind. They’ll figure out I’ve been taken to the mines, and they’ll make sure we all escape.”

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