I grabbed my cup of dirty water in my free hand before finding a seat against the wall of the cave. My legs screamed in protest as I folded them in front of me, using my body as a table. I took a delicate sip of the water and almost spat it back out.
It was foul.
Laced with gritty sand and other substances, I could actually feel the sediment as it stuck to my tongue and teeth.
Some days were like this, though.
Some days, we were lucky to receiveanywater.
So even though it tasted sour and filled my mouth with grime, I would drink every drop.
Just like I would eat all of whatever the unidentifiable substance was on my plate. We were rarely fed anything that passed as edible, but I learned quickly to consume what was served.
I’d watched as more than one person refused their rations before dropping dead days later while working in the warmth of the crystal tunnels. The Mage guards often left their bodies as a warning to others—which caused the stink of rot and decay to permeate the space—before forcing the prisoners to scrape the decomposing corpse off the cave floor and toss it unceremoniously over the ledge.
More than once, a prisoner or two holding the corpse would end up falling into the abyss with the dead—the hazard of not letting go quickly enough or simply being too weak to prevent the stumble that happened after throwing a large object into open space.
I poked at my food with my finger, wrinkling my nose as the slop squelched against my dirty fingertip.
It was warm, and I tasted bile in my throat.
I tried to disassociate from eating what I was now sure was shit, but felt sweat bead on the back of my neck at the prospect.
Was I really going to eat human shit?
I grabbed a hunk with my fingers and, just as I was about to lift it to my mouth, I heard the gossip of the guards. Usually, they talked about the heinous things they did to the prisoners or which prisoner was the best fuck, had the tightest asshole or best mouth. But today it seemed that they got news from the outside, and the warmth in my chest thrummed in anticipation.
“Did you hear what happened in the south?” The Earth Mage lazily guarding the entrance to the mess hall cavern asked the other man standing on the other side of the same entrance. My ears perked up at news of the outside world, but I carefully kept my face blank as I began to eat the slop on my plate.
I nearly gagged, but kept a slow, methodical pace. I needed the guards to think I wasn’t listening, wasn’t interested.
The Mages and Vessels were very loose-tongued down here in the mines and, if you listened closely, they gave away more information than they should. But I guess they didn’t care—seeing as we were all simply walking dead men anyway.
No one escaped the mines. But I was determined to be the first.
Finian said I would.
So, I kept my ears open, filing away pieces of information, even if they seemed useless at the time.
The second Mage shook his head, and the Earth Mage barked a laugh.
“Rumor has it that the gods are back. The dead were apparently raised in the Valley. You know—where we killed all those Keepers? Strange we all ended up down here, isn’t it?” The other man nodded his head noncommittally and the Earth Mage took that as his cue to keep talking. “Anyway. Then, according to my source—she’s this knockout red-haired prostitute with hugeknockers and pale white skin. She’s super fun to hit around and bruise because the marks show so nicely.”
The other man looked sick.
“Pussy,” the Earth Mage taunted. “Anyway,shesaid that the gods showed up to the rebel camp down in the south and caused fucking mayhem. Like half of them left and went north, apparently. And now Lishahl separated from the Northern Alliance.”
The other man’s eyebrows hit his hairline at that, and I thought I saw him shoot his gaze to me before quickly flicking back to the Earth Mage.
I froze, hand stuck in shit. I had to have imagined it.
Right?
I flicked my eyes up once, quickly, to catalog the features of this other man. He was not tall but not short. Medium build. Nondescript brown hair and eyes. A Vessel? I couldn’t sense his power levels very well, so it had to be. I wracked my hazy memories of the past few months but couldn’t recall ever seeing this particular guard.
Weird.
They usually were on rotation, and there were only a few dozen of them in the mines.
