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1
Raven
“Keep your head down,ckara,” Hen snapped at me.
I was pretty sure ckara meant “stupid girl” in the old tongue, though I’d never had the nerve to ask. All I knew was that when Hen said it, it came with a silent warning:They’ll kill you.
I’d learned to take her warnings seriously. Without them, I would’ve been lost to the shadowlands long ago. So I should have been listening to her now, except I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding at the far end of the mineral mine. The burning torches that lined the blackened rock walls quivered as the Rathalan minemaster studied the new lot of slaves.
“Don’t look at him,” I mumbled under my breath, wishing they could hear me. Looking the minemaster in the eye was not a good idea if you want to survive for long in this place.
He paused in front of a girl with tattoos trailing down her arms. Unlike the other prisoners in line beside her with their heads bowed, her body was posed in a fighting stance, and her expression read, word for word,blaze off.
For the moment, the girl remained unbroken. But it wouldn’t last. It never did with the newbies. In about a week, the girl would look like me: a wasted shadow of herself with dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and hollowed cheeks from the meager rations. All sense of self beaten out of her by the guards. All sense of hope smothered by the darkness.
The girl’s head whipped to the side as the minemaster’s hand impacted her cheek. I flinched. A defiant worker was enough to make any of us briefly gawk. Though that wasn’t the real reason I was staring. It was the massive brown bear snarling at her side that was causing me to ignore Hen’s warning.
“She’s a Kovak,” I whispered. Hen had told me stories about the Kovak tribe, how long ago, the magic bound their souls to those of the great bears, but I’d never seen one in the flesh before. If the girl’s fearless attitude was because she thought her bear companion could protect her down here, she was sorely mistaken.
I watched as the minemaster locked a worker collar around the Kovak girl’s neck. Despite the cold rage in her eyes, she didn’t struggle as the metal clicked in place. Even if she could fight off the armed guardsandfind her way a mile back up to the surface, we were still in the heart of Malengard, the deadliest Rathalan stronghold in Eastlandra. And the Rathalans didn’t take kindly to escaped prisoners.
Her bear companion wasn’t as compliant. When the minemaster approached, the bear reared up on its hind legs and swatted at him with its sharp claws, releasing a savage roar that reverberated into the farthest corners of the cavernous mines. Tremors rippled under my skin.
“Hold that beast down!” the minemaster barked at the guards as they wrenched tighter on the chains holding the animal.
“Keep working,” Hen whispered nervously when she noticed I’d dropped my pickaxe.
“But—” My hands balled into fists like I could somehow stop this injustice.
“Do I need to remind you of what happened last time you got distracted?”
“No,” I mumbled, obediently picking up my axe. The sore lashes crisscrossing my back were the only reminder I needed. I’d had to sleep on my side every night for the past month before I could finally swing an axe without wincing.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, eyeing the guard stationed nearby to make sure he hadn’t noticed us.
Hen couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than me, maybe eighteen or nineteen, but she’d assumed the role of bossy older sister the moment we’d met. As much as I hated her constant nagging, I knew if she wasn’t around, I’d have quite a few more scars on my back—or worse. I wouldn’t say Hen and I werefriends, but she was the closest thing I had to family down here.
Once the bear had been muzzled and securely shackled, the minemaster continued to pace down the line of new workers, all from various tribes. You could always spot the newbies during their first week in the mines. Not just from the extra weight they carried on their bones or the unbruised skin under their worker collars, but because their hands weren’t yet permanently stained blue from the mineral we’re mining.
It’s called malarite—a flintlike blue substance that the Rathalans crushed, melted, and forged with iron for their weapons and restraints. When malarite touches the skin of tribespeople like us, it blocks the flow of our magic, stripping away our powers. It’s how the Rathalans control us.
Across the mine, the look of anger in the Kovak girl’s eyes had given way to anguish. When the blue-tinted metal collarencircled her neck and cut off her magic, her lifelong bond to her bear had been severed, leaving a hollow emptiness that will claw at her insides until the day she’s fortunate enough to draw her last breath. I knew the feeling well.
I glanced at Hen. “Do you think I might be a Kovak?”
She scoffed. “You must have hit your head harder than I thought. They’re not like us. They’re a warrior tribe. Not to mention, if you were a Kovak, where are all your tattoos? Where’s your bear?”
She was right about the tattoos. Hen had told me all Kovaks were painted with tattoos. I only had one. I didn’t let that dampen my hope, though. “Maybe my bear’s somewhere up there.” I pointed above my head to indicate the surface. “Maybe it’s looking for me.”
“Or maybe you’re just from one of the other tribes like I told you, ckara,” Hen said with a glare that added,Quit yammering and start working.
I sighed. It had been almost seven months since I’d been enslaved in the enemy’s mine, and I still had no memory of my past, my tribe, or anything about my life prior to the Rathalans capturing me. Hen said I must have had a serious head injury at some point, but could that be the only explanation?
The only clue I had about my former life was from a fragmented dream that haunted me night after night.
It was always the same. I’m standing on a deserted beach beside my brother. I know who he is in the dream, even though I can’t remember anything about him while I’m awake. He’s the mirror image of me. Fair skin, eyes so stormy blue they look black, hair the color of night. He stares at the ocean horizon, his eyes angry slits as he says, “She’ll pay for what she’s done.” Then a hand clamps down hard onto my shoulder. I always woke up with a start at that moment.
If this was part of a real memory, did it point to the reason I was here? Was letting the Rathalans take me a punishment for something I did? Or was my brother talking about someone else?
