“I am,” she admitted, “but my Heat just passed, and I’m on suppressants. If you have Alphas on board, I promise they won’t notice. Hide me below deck among sacks of rice, or inside a barrel. I don’t care.”
The woman didn’t speak. If she’d caught the lie about the suppressants, she didn’t show it.
“All merchants in the Nine Kingdoms know not to bring Omegas with them,” she grumbled, then spat into the river. “Too much trouble.”
JingYi opened her hand. “I understand. Then, please return my crystal.”
This time, the woman flinched. In her eyes, JingYi saw the quiet war between want and caution. She waited, palm upturned.
“Fine.” The woman harrumphed and stepped off the crate, gesturing toward the barge. “Come on, then. Stay low. No noise, no talk. We’ve no patience for trouble.”
“I’m not here to cause any. I just need to reach Bashkor.”
The woman began walking. “I’ll show you where you’ll stay. We leave once the crew’s done eating.”
JingYi followed. “Do we go straight to Aethonia?”
“Short stop in Niewberg to clear paperwork, then Aethonia.”
JingYi climbed the gangplank after the woman, her fingers tight around the rail. The mud-brown river moved in its patient way below, tugging slender reeds into slow, silken spirals. Half way up, JingYi stilled, her gaze lifting to the open water ahead.
Another boat. Another crossing. Another unknown waiting on the far shore.
Like before, there were no promises, no hand to hold. Just the barest chance—fragile and thin as silk. But this time, it was hers to claim.
She stepped forward.
If the world had carved no place for her, she would carve one herself.
CHAPTER 36
ALEXANDER
The men had been pulled from the collapsed shaft just after noon.
Scraped, dazed, and coated in limyerite dust, butalive. They’d survived the night by crawling into a side tunnel and stacking broken timbers to brace the ceiling.Alexander had worked shoulder to shoulder with the others to dig them out, sweat slicking his back, gloves torn from grit and strain.
But now, the worst was over. They stood outside in the aftermath, surrounded by rubble and disbelief.
“What do you think?” Darion muttered at his side, low enough not to carry. “Do we believe bracings fail sometimes? Old wood, poor soil, and all that?”
Alexander shook his head, still staring at the jagged ruin where the entrance used to be. “They were reinforced in the summer. We checked them ourselves.”
“Which makes it even stranger. The bracingsweresolid.”
He didn’t reply; his mind raced. Reinforced timber didn’t just give way. Not like this. Not all at once.
“Seal the mine,” he said at last. “Summon an engineer from Niewberg. I want every brace inspected before the end of theyear. No one goes in until we know precisely what failed, and why.”
Darion nodded. “Understood.”
Alexander exhaled, then turned to look toward the resting men. They sat huddled under a canvas tarp, faces dusted with crystal, eyes hollowed by exhaustion. One of them coughed sharply, and the other clutched a bandaged leg. They’d escaped, but not unscathed.
“Bring them to Parandor tonight,” Alexander said. “Princess JingYi will examine them.”
Darion’s brow arched. “She’s seeing people?”
“Her Heat has broken. She’ll want to look after them.”
