Stolen Songbird
Page 25

I did as he said, and when we were both comfortable, he continued. “Product is mostly gold down this way, but there’s all manner of glittery things hidden in the mountain. The guild keeps track of where each gang is at and gives us the numbers at the beginning of each shift. If we make monthly quota, all’s good. If we don’t…” He shrugged. “Not so good.”
“What happens if you don’t?”
“If we don’t, then someone from the gang gets sent into the labyrinth as sluag-fodder.”
I hugged my arms around my middle. “They kill one of you just because you didn’t mine enough gold? How do they decide who goes?”
Tips chuckled. “They don’t. Those maggot-gobbling guild members are too clever for that. They make us choose who has to go.”
Clever indeed. And cruel. “How do you choose?”
Tips picked up a rock, tossing it from one hand to another. Which struck me as an oddly human gesture, although I couldn’t pinpoint why. “If we’re lucky, someone will volunteer. There’s those who have had enough of the never-ending toil, the fear of cave-ins… Those who’d rather meet their end now than go on another day in the mines. And if we’re not fortunate enough to have one of those optimists in our mix, then we choose whoever is holding the gang back.”
“How often do gangs miss quota?”
Tips set the rock down. “Rare for more than a few months to pass where at least one gang doesn’t have to send someone.”
So frequent. I stirred a finger in the bits of rock by my feet, trying to imagine having to choose which one of my friends to send to their death. Not just once, but having to choose on a regular basis. The guilt would be overwhelming.
“Cover your ears,” Tips said abruptly.
I barely managed to clap my hands over my ears as the tunnels echoed with a loud boom. Dust coughed over us, but Tips didn’t look the slightest bit concerned. “We’re going to get all sorts of work done with Zoé here,” he said with a smile.
“If she’s so powerful, why isn’t she a miner?” I mused.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
Tristan’s words echoed through my mind. In Trollus, power is king. “It’s because she’s powerful that she isn’t down here.”
Tips nodded. “They know when we’re children how powerful we are likely to be, and when we get auctioned off, those like Élise and Zoé get picked up to be servants. Having more magic makes your presence…” he searched for the word, “desirable to the full-bloods. Then there’s those with little or no magic. All they tend to be good for is street cleaning and sewers. Dirty jobs that can be done by hand rather than magic. Everyone else goes to the mines.”
Down in the mines where death lurked at every corner.
“So, if you are half-blood, and you aren’t powerful, it’s better to have almost no magic,” I said, picking up Tips’s discarded rock.
“You’d think so,” Tips replied, raising one eyebrow. “Polishing sewer grates is lots easier than mining gold and a whole lot less dangerous. ’Cept if you were one to be noticing such things, it would have dawned on you that while plenty of half-bloods are born with little or no magic, there aren’t too many of them that live long enough to make it to the auctions.” He blinked. “Accidents happen.”
“I see,” I breathed. If you were at the bottom of the pack of miners, in regards to magic, then you would be first on the chopping block if your gang didn’t meet quota. It was better to be top of the pack of sewer workers, except that in order for there to be positions available, it meant eliminating the very weakest of them all. “The full-bloods don’t even need to dirty their hands,” I whispered. “You kill off your own weak.”
“When it’s your life, or someone else’s…” Tips shrugged. “Maybe you understand better now why we’re fighting for change. Cover your ears.”
The ground shuddered and another cloud of dust rolled over us. “How do you know when the explosions are going to happen?” I asked when the noise subsided.
“Been doing this a long time. I know the rhythms.”
I leaned forward. “And how have you survived down here this long?”
His face darkened, confirming my suspicions. He acted too human: trolls did everything they possibly could with magic. Even idly tossing around a rock. And I’d noticed that he was the only one that let his troll-light fade when we entered the mines. The man sitting across from me looked almost human, with his badly healed scar and eye more grey than silver. Tips was one of those with weak magic.
“I can smell the gold,” he said, voice chilly. “I always know where to dig. And since I joined this gang, not once have we missed quota.” He pointed a finger at me. “Despite what they think, a man’s value ain’t just determined by his magic.”
“Or a woman’s.” I met his glare calmly until he blinked.
“Or a woman’s,” he agreed. “Right you are about that, Princess. Now how about we go see what sort of progress our friends are making. If I leave them alone too long, they’ll dig in the wrong direction.”
We walked through the tunnels until we found Zoé and the rest of the gang sorting through rubble. I hadn’t missed Tips’s choice of words: “our friends”. Before tonight, helping Tristan had been primarily about securing my own freedom, but now I realized that my own freedom wasn’t enough. I wanted to help bring down the laws that forced the half-bloods to kill each other to save themselves. The half-bloods weren’t just my friends – they were my comrades. “You’re risking a lot telling me these things,” I said. “And bringing me down here – if we get caught…”
“The sluag would feast for days,” Tips said. “But it’s worth it.”
“Why?” The ground shuddered from a distant detonation.
Tips slowed his pace. “We are slaves caught in a cage within a cage, Princess. And for the first time in history, a future king is willing to put the lowest but largest caste of his people ahead of his own interests. Tristan’s willing to risk his own life to save ours, and there is nothing most of us wouldn’t do for him. But unless the curse can be broken…” He shook his head. “Power breeds power, and it ain’t going to cede to morality or what’s right for long. We need to be able to put physical distance between us and the full-bloods, it’s our only chance at being truly free. And that’s not something Tristan can accomplish on his own. It’s human magic that binds us, and it will be a human that sets us free. And we don’t need a stinking prophesy to tell us that.” He stopped and inclined his head to me. “We need your help.”
Put that way, the request was daunting. “I’ll do what I can,” I said.
“I know,” Tips replied. “Now cover your ears.”
Hours later, Zoé came over to where I was sorting through bits of rock. “Has he noticed?” she asked, wiping sweat off her brow and leaving a streak of grime. She’d been working tirelessly the entire time.
I sat back on my haunches, closed my eyes, and focused on Tristan. He was awake, but he wasn’t coming any closer. “I think he knows what I’m doing,” I said. “But I think he’s decided not to interfere.” I tried to smother a yawn. “He knows I’m all right.”
“We’ll start loading up soon,” Tips called over. “It’s a long walk back to the lift, and we’ve got a big haul today.” The gang all cheered, clapping each other on the back, but they were cut short by the roar of falling rock. I’d heard the sound on and off all night – both from Zoé’s efforts and from those of other gangs working nearby, but this sounded much larger. And it was coming from behind us.
“What was that?” Zoé asked, her eyes wide.
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Tips replied, but I caught the warning glance he gave to the other miners. “Load the trolleys, it’s time we got moving.”
Walking back took hours and, within the first hour, all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. And I wasn’t even carrying anything. Through a combination of physical strength and magic, Zoé and the other miners pushed the rock-filled trolleys back through the tunnels. With the exception of a few muttered oaths, the only sounds they made were grunts of effort and panting breaths. It was no small amount of relief when we could finally hear the ruckus of miners loading rock into crates at the lift.
I helped the best I could with the unloading – more because I didn’t want the other gangs to notice us than because I was any help. We were next to ride up when Tips hissed, “Guild members!” Everyone dropped their heads, shoulders slumping. I mimicked their posture and tried to conceal myself behind the other miners.
Two of the guild members got on the lift with the group ahead of us, but one remained behind. He leaned against the far wall, eyes closed and face slack with weariness as we waited for the lift to come back down. I could feel the tension in each member of Tips’s gang as we set to loading the lift, and it only escalated when the troll got on board with us.
“Cave-in?” Tips asked as the lift began to rise, moving much more slowly than when it had brought us down.
“Yes,” the troll replied. “Finn’s gang was working the south tunnel and brought the whole thing down. The one we’d closed over concerns about stability,” he added pointedly.
“Survivors?”
“None.” The troll scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “No idea what the blasted fools were doing down that way.”
“Heard they were looking short on quota,” Tips replied, tone neutral. “That tunnel was known to be rich pickings.”
The guild member straightened and glared at Tips. “And now Finn and all his gang are dead because they couldn’t accept the loss of one.”
“Easy for you to say,” Tips muttered.
All murmurs of conversation ceased. It was fair to say none of us even breathed as we watched to see what would happen. The troll’s uniform rustled as he straightened his shoulders, then in a flash, he shoved Tips hard against a stack of crates and the whole platform rocked. “Easy for me to say? I just spent the past four hours digging up fifty yards’ worth of tunnel to find only blood and unrecognizable raw meat!”
The two of them were practically on top of me. I tried to squeeze away, but there was no room. The troll had Tips by the shoulders, but he didn’t seem to be hurting him. I felt the tremble of his arm where it rested against me and realized that the guild member was genuinely upset about the death of the miners. “Half you miserable lot don’t have the power to keep the dust off your heads and you insist on going into tunnels a bloody Montigny would avoid. And when the rocks come down, I have to dig you out.”
“So don’t,” Tips said. “It’s not as though you care whether we live or die.”
Several of the gang members groaned in dismay, but Tips showed no sign of backing down. “Just be careful you don’t kill us all, or you lot might find yourselves having to do an honest day’s work.”
“Stupid half-breed!” The troll punched him in the face and I winced at the sound of cracking bone. “Every time those tunnels cave, I will dig out your miserable hide, even if there isn’t enough left to fill a bucket. That’s a promise.”
My skin prickled with the charge of magic, and several of the miners gasped aloud in surprise at a troll uttering those binding words. As I tried to struggle away from the two, the troll looked up and our eyes met. His widened in shock. My chest rose and fell in short little jerks as I waited for him to react to my presence. I was caught. He was sure to turn me in and I couldn’t even begin to think of an explanation for what I was doing down here. He opened his mouth to speak, and I held my breath.
“They aren’t my laws,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “But I have to live by them too.”
My head jerked up and down in understanding. The half-bloods were not the only malcontents in Trollus. I wondered how many more full-bloods were secret sympathizers and whether Tristan knew about them. Or whether they knew about him?
The lift lurched to a halt, and the guild member clambered off Tips and hurried through the crowd. Stunned, the gang and I set to unloading our crates and taking the gold down to where it would be sorted. All I could do was pray that the guild member wouldn’t tell anyone he’d seen me in the mines, because if he did, I would have some serious explaining to do.
CHAPTER 19
CéCILE
For days after my visit to the mines I laid low, afraid that the Miners’ Guild member would reveal my little excursion and that word would get back to the King. Before sneaking out of the palace to go to the mines, I hadn’t been too concerned about getting caught, because how bad could the ramifications be? Just more guards, or better ones at any rate. Sneaking me in and out of the palace had been surprisingly easy. Restrictions on my freedom? That was certainly possible, but not the end of the world. But now that I’d had time to think about it and stew in a pot of worry, I realized that while getting caught might not hurt me, it would hurt those with whom I’d gotten involved.
Tristan had explained the half-bloods’ situation, but I hadn’t really understood until I’d spent a night in their shoes. It was Tips and his gang who had made me feel just how little those in power valued the lives of the half-bloods, and how one small transgression could cost them their lives – lives that were already at risk every time they stepped into the mines. I realized how much they were risking by even considering a rebellion, and what failure would cost them. And knowing what I did now, being able to close my eyes and remember faces and names… it made me willing to risk my own life to help them. But to help, I needed to know more.