Page 66 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

Women and children filled the massive space below, more than a dozen of them, spread across the surface, their hands moving over the rock face with picks and chisels and bare fingers. Some knelt. Some stood on makeshift platforms of stacked stone to reach higher levels.

Their clothes were worn thin, their faces pale from lives lived underground, their hands calloused and bruised at the knuckles. For what? Extracting beauty from stone for the queen to wear and grow the kingdom’s riches.

A little girl, no older than seven, peered up from where she crouched near the base of the wall. Her eyes found mine, no fear, just a kind of tired resignation that shouldn’t be on someone that young.

My chest tightened.

“Keep moving,” the soldier behind me said.

I didn’t move. “Who are these people?”

“Workers,” the lead guard said.

“Workers get paid. And they want to be there.” Minha glared. “They don’t look happy. So they’re prisoners.”

The child had gone back to her work, small hands moving over the stone, the other hand hammering.

The queen had an entire mountain full of women and children. And somewhere deeper, past wherever these people were permitted to go, something waited that had killed everyone the queen sent to face it.

I brushed a hand where the vial pressed against my side and thought of Sable’s words. The creature at Mount Kael knows what you are. It won’t harm you.

I had to believe she was right. Because if she wasn’t, none of us were walking out alive.

“Here,” the lead soldiers showed us tools. “You don’t get to stay here rent free. Do your job. I’ll be watching you.” He pushed a short-handled pick into my hands, the metal worn smooth from years of palms before mine.

I could use this tool as a weapon and kill the soldiers, but there were children among us. I couldn’t put them in danger. Steady, Star. Not now.

“When the sun goes down, you’ll be facing the creature.”

“Says the man holding a sword,” Minha scoffed.

Jina whimpered and pushed Minha back when the soldier’s hand went up.

Ranis stood in front of them. “If you can’t be a man to fight the creature yourself, then at least be a gentleman and don’t hit someone smaller than you.”

The soldier growled and walked back to the others, talking among themselves since they had nothing better to do. The queen should be ordering these men to work, not the women and children.

I found a gap at the wall between Minha and a stranger, the rock cold and rough under my fingers as I dug. The older woman beside me had gray threading through dark hair pulled into a low knot, deep lines fanning from the corners of eyes that still managed to look kind despite her hardship. She worked without looking at me, her hands calloused and bruised.

She pried a chunk of stone loose, turned it over once, and there it was, a flash of red catching the torchlight.

A ruby.

She brushed the dirt off and dropped it into a wooden bin behind her, then went straight back to work. The girl beside her found an emerald and placed it in the same bin.

“How long have you been here?” I whispered.

“Long enough to lose count.” She glanced at me, just once. “I suggest you don’t talk, girl.”

“Why?”

She glanced over her shoulder before prying another stone, this one big as my thumb. “You’ll get punished.”

I matched her rhythm, pick against the surface, and waited until the sound covered my voice. “There’s a tunnel that leads to a creature.”

Her hands stilled.

“Some have tried.” She shook her head, eyes back on the rock. “None of them came back.”