Chapter 20 - It’s Either Them or You

  Quiet was not something Dravan was going to find that night. Tova, unfortunately, was not. He'd been running his balance drills for the better part of an hour, folding himself into shapes that looked more like knots than exercises. Dravan could have lived with that. What he couldn't live with was the breathing, loud and stubborn, sawing through the silence in a way that made sleep feel deliberately withheld.

  “Hey, prince, think you can keep it quiet for a few hours?”

  “If what you’re asking is for me to take a nap, then no,” came Tova’s calm reply. “My eyes might be closed, but I can feel even your slightest movement, so don’t try anything.”

  A sigh escaped Dravan. “You’re stingier than your father.”

  Tova opened one eye at that. “How much time do you have left?”

  “Not sure.” A look of worry crept into his eyes. “It’s hard to tell under a mountain. I don’t intend on waiting to find out.”

  “I’m not responsible for your mess,” answered Tova. “You could go back, admit your failure, and he might forgive you.”

  “You know as well as I do that it won’t work. Your father isn’t known for his…gentleness.” Dravan pushed himself up on his elbows. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “I suggest against it.”

  “I can’t sleep and now I can’t even get out of here?”

  “Too much of a risk, the slightest sound could alert them,” said Tova.

  “Relax. They won’t find us so easily.”

  “Not really,” Tova said, his tone flat with certainty. “Our disappearance proves our guilt. The interrogations will stop—and every effort will be poured into hunting us. And if they need help, they’ll use the miners. People who are suffering make eager hunters when someone hands them a target.”

  Dravan shrugged, and closed his eyes anyway.

  “Then we should train harder,” Elrin’s voice came, hoarse but steady.

  Tova’s eyes snapped open from his meditative stillness, and what he saw was anything but calming. “What is wrong?” Tova asked.

  “I am ready to train again,” Elrin answered, and he meant it. A rock had humiliated him. That wasn’t something he could sit with. He was nowhere close to being ready.

  “You’re not,” Tova countered, his gaze sliding meaningfully toward Elrin’s thigh.

  Elrin followed that look. The wound had not truly healed, not the way it should have; it had closed enough to hide most of its ugliness, but a noticeable hollow still gaped in the flesh, and blood seeped from it with slow patience, as if the injury had all the time in the world.

  What?

  And just right then, he felt it. Just as he always had after a deep rest. The hunger in his chest gnawed at him viciously, as though claws were tearing his insides. Excruciating, insistent, and impossible to ignore.

  I didn’t heal—

  “You didn’t heal,” Tova said, the words slicing cleanly through the thought before Elrin could finish it.

  Dravan shifted where he lay and finally turned his attention toward Elrin, brows drawing together. “Wait…you’re not Bloodkind?”

  Tova didn’t break his focus off Elrin. “Of course,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, “I should have known. Nothing comes without a price—your regeneration has one too.”

  The blue flames…Elrin remembered the way the hunger had eased after he swallowed them, the brief, terrible relief, but the thought stalled there. He already knew where it wanted to go, and he refused to follow.

  It led only to death.

  “You’re catching on, boy,” Mardukai’s voice broke into his ears like thunder on clear skies. “That is the price of power. You feed on life or life feeds on you.”

  “No!” Elrin clamped his hands over his ears, slamming his palms hard enough that pain burst bright and wet, blood smearing beneath his fingers.

  “What’s the matter?” Tova asked, his voice cutting through the panic.

  “You are destined for greatness, Elrin,” Mardukai went on patiently, his voice coming closer. “Blood will drip from your hands if you are ever to leave this place alive—to save your friend.”

  Elrin staggered to the wall and drove his head against the stone. “What if I kill myself?” he cried and drove his head again, once, twice, the impact ringing through his skull as fury and terror tangled together. “What will you do then!?”

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  Mardukai’s voice vanished at once, leaving only silence.

  Elrin waited for an answer, for a whisper. But nothing came. He slowly turned and found both Dravan and Tova watching, their silence heavier than any rebuke.

  “Let’s train,” Elrin said, blood pouring unchecked from his temple.

  “You can’t train if you can’t heal—” Tova began.

  “I said let’s train!”

  Tova only shook his head, slow and resigned.

  Elrin’s jaw tightened until it hurt. He limped to the rock, set his hands against its rough face, and pushed. The wound in his thigh tore open as if the flesh had been waiting for the excuse, the fragile healing splitting apart, warm blood spilling down his leg while pain lanced upward through his body in bright, vicious bursts. He pushed anyway, dragged, strained, but his right leg gave out beneath him, limp and useless.

  “Come on—come on!” he shouted, voice cracking as the stone refused to move even a breath.

  Hard, painful work had been the only thing keeping the hollowness at bay. If he trained hard enough, long enough, maybe it would go away. Maybe he wouldn't have to cause more deaths. Or so he thought.

  “Elrin,” Tova called from behind him, steady but close.

  Elrin ignored him and shoved harder, teeth bared, breath ragged.

  A hand settled on his shoulder, firm and grounding. “Elrin,” Tova said quietly. “You’re not getting out of here unless you find the cost—”

  “I know the cost!” Elrin spun on him, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Death, Tova. Death is the cost. I have to kill. I have to slaughter—I have to take lives!”

  Tova’s gaze remained expressionless. “You know we can’t escape this mine without killing.”

  Elrin’s gaze lifted, locking onto Tova’s. “I know,” he lied.

  “No, Elrin,” Tova replied, soft but unyielding. “I don’t think you know.” He drew a slow breath. “Nobody is here by choice. Some had their families threatened, some are clinging to this just to survive. They follow orders so they can eat tomorrow, so they can sleep and wake up alive.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” asked Elrin.

  “Because we can’t hesitate,” he continued. “If we must take a life, then we do it quickly and efficiently. That’s the highest form of respect we can grant them. A single moment of hesitation could be your last.”

  Elrin said nothing. He turned back to the wall, staring at the stone with hollow eyes, until his gaze drifted past it and found Lancelot curled in on himself, somehow still asleep despite the noise, breathing slowly as if the world had not yet reached him. Elrin walked there and sat right beside the cat.

  His fingers found the lace at his neck, the worn cord Eadward had given him, and he held it tight as memory pulled him away from the damp chill of the tunnel and back to a brighter road, to the day he was first led up toward Heligsol—the academy, his small steps trying to match his brother’s longer stride.

  “Eadward,” little Elrin had murmured, his voice thin with worry. “What if they hurt me? Am I allowed to use what you taught me against them?”

  Eadward had looked down, a scowl flickering across his face before it softened into something gentler, something protective. “No, Elrin. Never use force unless your life is in danger, and even then, only do what you must in order to escape.”

  “But what if—”

  “Elrin.” Eadward’s heavy voice left no room for argument. “A life taken will haunt you forever. It is the greatest sin we can commit against one another.”

  The memory broke like mist, and Elrin found himself back in the hideout, staring at the jagged wall as the cold pressed in around him.

  Eadward…you must be so disappointed in me. But I had to. I had to kill those guards. They were going to hurt Lancelot, and my life was in danger.

  That day had been easy to justify, the fear sharp enough to drown out doubt, but it was the days ahead that twisted his thoughts into knots. If Tova was right, then more lives might stand between him and survival, and worse, between him and the strength he needed to protect anyone at all.

  But he could not heal anymore. Was that danger enough? Was it right to take lives simply to mend his own?

  I could stop the vigorous training. Take my time, like any Commonborn—like I used to, before all this. Elrin tried trying to reason his way out of it. But he knew it wouldn't work. It would take ages to reach the strength he needed.

  The questions lingered in the hollow space inside his chest, unanswered and echoing.

  The thought of killing demons had never troubled him, not once; he barely granted them the dignity of being called living, and the vow to make them pay had come to him as easily as breath. But humans were different.

  They were no monsters born of darkness, only people like him, flung into a world ruled by cruelty and sharpened by survival, each of them clawing for one more day beneath the same merciless sky. Did that make it right, what he might have to do? Would his brother forgive him if he took a life when his own was not hanging by a thread?

  He felt Lancelot shift underneath his palm.

  Then, in the absolute deafening quiet around them, faint footsteps whispered through the tunnels.

  Elrin snapped his gaze up and found Dravan and Tova already on their feet, silhouettes angled toward the passage. They murmured between themselves, words too soft to catch, then slipped into a tense, hushed argument whose edges felt sharp even in silence.

  Tova glanced back and beckoned, a small urgent motion.

  Elrin rose despite the agonizing pain in his thigh and head. Then crossed the space on careful steps, placing each foot softly as though the ground might betray him if he were careless.

  “They’re close,” Tova breathed. “It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”

  “What should we do?” Elrin asked, his voice barely more than air.

  “That’s the problem,” Tova said. “We’re divided. I think we stay quiet. They might not search this tunnel today, and that buys us time—”

  “I smelled more than a dozen,” Dravan cut in, low and certain. “They know we’re dangerous. If they suspect we’re here, they’ll come prepared. We strike first, before anyone learns anything.”

  Both of them turned to Elrin then, their eyes fixed on him, waiting, the weight of decision settling squarely on his shoulders.

  For a moment the world seemed to twist, thoughts tangling into a tight knot, because only heartbeats ago he had been wondering whether taking a human life would damn him, and now the choice stood in front of him.

  “You said death is the price of whatever power you carry,” Dravan murmured. “This is an opportunity. It’s being handed to you, Elrin. At least a dozen.”

  Elrin looked to Tova, who said nothing, yet the silence itself felt like an answer, a quiet agreement held behind restraint.

  Elrin’s hollow chest clenched with hunger at the thought.

  Then he turned back to Dravan.

  Forgive me, Eadward, he thought, and gave a small nod.