I reached for another flickering piece of gold in the murky water, feeling around the river stones and silt. I grasped the smooth, rounded rock and lifted it up. But what appeared in my hands wasn’t a rock at all—it was a jawbone.
A shriek caught in my throat as I stumbled backward, falling onto the mossy shore. The bone dropped back into the water with a splash, and I stared at the spot it had landed as if it might jump back out at me. What had happened to that person? Did that jawbone belong to someone fleeing Olmdere, trying to chance the Sevelde forest over the mines? Had they made it all the way to the other side only to fall at the border?
My mouth dried to sand. We were bathing in a river of golden bones.
The greed for gold warred with the desperate need to survive in this haunted place. A thousand stories could be told by this river alone, and I was a part of its legacy now.
If things went right, though, I could also be part of its future. A future where this could never happen again.
“Calla?” Grae called through the trees.
“I’m fine,” I lied, standing and dusting the moss off my fresh clothes.
I took one more look at the unmarked grave, certain I was headed in the right direction. I never wanted my kingdom to feel that desperation ever again.
I followed Grae up the deer trail toward the entrance to the mines. He put his hand on my arm and I halted, looking up to see Navin kneeling at the entrance, Sadie beside him. The dark tunnel into the earth was covered in timber, boarded shut apart from one narrow gap where the boards had been pried free. Trinkets lay strewn in front of Navin—necklaces, pieces of clothing, and little whittled figurines. My heart sank. It was a makeshift memorial to all those who didn’t make it out the other side.
“Be safe,” Hector said from behind us. “Don’t do anything heroic.”
“We’ll try,” I said, giving him a hug.
The rest of Galen den’ Mora ambled up from the creek, and one by one we said our farewells. I hugged Ora last.
“Here,” they said, pulling something out of their pocket.
“You made me a badge!” I looked down at the rusty red embroidered fox’s face trimmed in golden thread.
Ora smirked. “You’re one of us now, Your Majesty.”
“Just Calla,” I corrected, giving a mocking frown. “Always just Calla with all of you, please. And thank you. For everything.”
“I’ll hang on to it for you until you return,” Ora said, tucking the badge back into their pocket.
I chuckled. “I see what you’re doing.”
“You’d lose it in your Wolf form.” Ora shrugged as their lips quirked. “And if it gives you more reason to return, then so be it.”
My eyes welled and I gave them another swift hug. “Take care of the others.”
“I will.”
I turned toward the mine and Grae stepped up beside me, rolling his shoulders.
“Ready to go home?”
I took a steadying breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Thirty-Five
Shadows consumed the tunnel, a thick inky blackness like swimming in the dead of night. Little offshoots disappeared into nothingness. Pits? Caverns? I couldn’t tell.
We navigated by the light of our two stubby candles. Our footsteps resounded across the spherical walls and deep into the belly of the mountain. Dripping stalactites flecked with gold glimmered along the roughly hewn walls. We descended a steep, unending trail for an hour before the ground started to even out.
How many more hours to reach the other side?
I held my candle up to the splintering beam above my head and read the Olmderian carving: The only way out is under. Wax dripped over my fingers, but I couldn’t feel the sting, not as my limbs shuddered. I stepped under the eerie omen, wondering again how many people died in this place.
“This wasn’t exactly the evening I had planned for us, little fox,” Grae grumbled, kicking something to the side. It clattered against the wall and dropped into a cavern. I didn’t want to know.
“Haunted mine shafts not in your plans?” I muttered, sticking close behind him.
“No, but the forests on the other side lead out to the eastern fjords.” He wiped a curtain of cobwebs away. “With any luck, we’ll be running to them by nightfall.”
I spotted a heart carved into the wall. The tunnels were covered in names and prayers etched into the pale stone. “Sa Sortienna” sang into my mind. The song originated in these very caverns. Those sorrowful notes bled from each stone, the whole mine feeling exactly like the ballad.