The Miragelands

Now

Katrina never wanted to go back underground.

She always knew when it was time. When the wind had chapped her cheeks and lips to the point that she felt the sting even through her focus. When her muscles began to ache after hours of climbing and digging and looting through ancient ruins. When her fingertips were sore and bleeding with a hundred tiny cuts from plunging them through brambles and thorns to catch hold of useful plants.

And still, she’d have ignored those signs. She’d have stayed in the fog-enshrouded marshes, with the bruising winds and their lonely, whistling calls through the abandoned streets of the ancient city.

But she couldn’t ignore the fucking bracelet.

It was already smarting on her wrist, the golden chain pulling tight against her skin. The longer she stayed out, the worse it would get. She didn’t know what kind of spell they’d dipped it in to make it snap and burn the way it did, but it was far from pleasant. And she knew from experience that the edges were sharp enough to cut. To carve away flesh and, she didn’t doubt, even bone.

No, she never wanted to go back underground. But today was worse, because today the fog had lifted just enough to give her a glimpse of the sky. The idea of turning her back on it made her chest ache.

But she wasn’t going to lose her hand because she wanted to look at the sky. So back underground she would go.

They insisted on calling the first entrance to the city of De-ri a ‘gate.’

Gates had bars and locks and hinges. This? This was a hole. An unguarded one, since stationing mages aboveground would be the same as signing a warrant for their execution. Ten minutes up here, and they’d be snatched away, screaming and spraying blood everywhere. Like wraith treats, with a soft, magical center.

Not that Katrina ever minded seeing it. But even mages weren’t foolish enough to waste their guards like that. Unfortunately.

No, the guards waited underground. At the second gate into De-ri. Which, again, was a glorified hole, though in this case, it was at least carved into the shape of an arch.

Katrina had learned to descend the ladder from the first hole to the second one by running down it front-first, like a sailor. It was dangerous to show her back to the guards at the second gate, so she clutched her rucksack to her stomach, steadied herself with a single hand to the rail, and bolted down the rungs. As if she’d been born on a ship rather than in a palace.

It helped sometimes to think of the city that way. Just another merchant ship passing through Riles’s harbor, and she just another dextrous sailor descending to her hammock for the night.

Two years, and she still managed to startle the guards sometimes.

When her feet hit the ground, she had to suppress the urge to swear. The rotation had changed since she’d left—this morning? Yesterday? She’d lost track—but then, that made sense.

The problem was, it’d rotated to leave her with these two.

As far as she knew, Ryan and Dar weren’t related. She always thought of them as a pair, just the same. They had the same lumpy look about them, their muscles almost comically exaggerated, like caricatures come to life. Had they been among the tutors who’d been unlucky enough to get her as a pupil, she’d have doodled Ryan with a pointed nose and Dar with a bald, slightly misshapen head.

They both would have gotten thick eyebrows, though Dar’s were blond enough to be practically see-through, and Ryan’s were brown, tinged with red.

Of course they’d be here today, when the glimpse of sky had convinced her to ignore the bracelet’s warning signals for so long that the metal band was starting to bite into her skin. She needed to get to Koreth so he could tell his asshole captain to loosen it until the next time she ventured out of the city.

She wouldn’t have minded a drink, also.

But if she showed a hint of desperation to these two numbskulls, they’d use it against her in an instant. So she leaned one shoulder against the wall of reddish rock, as if she had all the time in the world to chat. As if the bracelet wasn’t stinging like a ribbon of fire, intent on eating its way to the bone.

“Hi boys,” she said. “Dusty day, eh?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes and glared at her from around that pointed nose. “Name and destination.”

Dar snickered. These two just loved the ‘who are you?’ bit. As if she wasn’t the one and only person who ever came and went from the underground city. As if anyone else were alive in all the Miragelands to stop by for a visit.

That would’ve been a fascinating Queen’s Journey. Nothing to see but rocks and ruins, from one end of this gods-forsaken place to another.

“Good harvest today,” Katrina replied, patting her rucksack. As if the guards were making conversation instead of trying to fuck with her. “Koreth will be pleased, I think.”

“Name and destination,” Ryan repeated.

If she gave them her name, they’d pretend they’d never heard it before. If she gave them a fake one—or worse, if she threatened them—they’d suddenly remember her and dig their heels in harder, claiming she was intentionally showing them blatant disrespect.

Not that they were wrong. She respected her toenails more then she respected these two oafs. But in the interest of expediency, she’d learned that the best way to deal with them was to barter.

“Found some interesting stuff in the ruins today.” Katrina examined her nails, as if it was probably of no interest to them one way or another. Just a topic of conversation.

“You’re supposed to stick to the marshes,” Dar said. Same script every time, and still he couldn’t hide the spark in his eye that said he very much wanted to know what she’d uncovered.

Someday, she’d find a way to shove a wraith into her bag. And when he craned his neck to see inside, she’d release it right in his face. She’d watch while it drained the magic from his bones, and she wouldn’t lift a finger when it started in on his life, as it sucked and sucked and sucked, until he was nothing but a husk.

Katrina shrugged, like she hadn’t just been imagining his grisly death. “Gotta go through the city to get to the marshes.”

They’d never know it for the lie it was.

“What’d you find, hollow princess?” Ryan asked.

Hollow. So original. Like some ancient mage insult for humans could ever bother her. What did she care that she didn’t have magic anymore? Life here was much more bearable without it.

She always saved her most precious finds for barter within the city. She’d never offer up one of those just for the sake of getting inside, not when a shift change would allow her to waltz right in. So the stakes were a little higher at the moment, with the bracelet determined to eat away at her flesh. But if she produced an actual treasure now, they’d never accept anything less.

It’d been centuries since the mages had been able to venture aboveground safely, so the ancient ruins they’d left behind were hers to explore. And hers to exploit.

She dipped her hand into the outer pocket of her bag and pulled out a handkerchief, unfolding it carefully to display her find. “Tiles. From some palace, I think.”

They wouldn’t want that, obviously. It was all part of the game.

Dar frowned. Or she thought he did, anyway. Hard to tell sometimes, with those blond eyebrows of his. His brow wrinkled, in any case. “What good will those do? They’re chipped.”

The pottery maker would make great use of them, of course. But Dar was too greedy to think of that. “You’re right.” She dropped the tiles back into her bag, fingers closing around a chain instead. “What about this?”

She held out a long golden chain, letting it dangle from her fingertips like it was a true treasure instead of a worthless band of shit.

Precious metals were next to useless in this harsh world, and most of the mages were smart enough to know it. Most of them didn’t want trinkets unless they were of sentimental value—and since these mages had never lived in the city, that was a tack she’d abandoned early on.

These two were another matter entirely.

Ryan snatched the chain from her hand. “Lila would love this.”

“My grandmother would want it, too,” Dar said.

“That won’t get you laid now, will it?”

The gods wouldn’t save her from numbskulls. Neither would anyone else. If she’d learned nothing else in the last two years, she’d at least learned this: She was on her own, and she’d have to save herself.

“Tell you what,” Katrina said. “Let me in and I’ll ask Eveline to rework the necklace into two bracelets.”

Ryan tilted his head like he intended to make a counteroffer, but Dar pumped a fist. “Yes!”

“It’s a deal.” Katrina handed him the chain. “Bring it over to her shop tomorrow afternoon.”

Nothing came free in the underground; not for Katrina. But Eveline dealt with her fairly. She wasn’t a friend exactly, but she did Katrina’s bartering for her in exchange for oddities she brought back from the ruins, procuring necessities from the marketplace at a better price than the only human in the Miragelands would have been able to fetch.

A hated human, at that.

“Idiot,” Ryan huffed. “We could’ve gotten more out of her.”

Dar pursed his lips. “More than Eveline agreeing to make jewelry for Gran after they had that fight at the well three years ago?”

Making a note not to tell Eveline who the bracelet would be for, Katrina pushed past the still-arguing guards and stepped into the dank tunnel that led into De-ri, the underground city of the mages. The place was a warren of tunnels and alcoves, with a few larger halls for meeting in larger groups. As she understood it, they’d scooped the city out of the soft red stone, making use of some natural caverns one of their ancestors had found long ago.

Turning her back on the surface always made her heart sink. Like she was leaving something precious behind.

At least the city was well lit. That was one benefit of magefire, she supposed. Sconces illuminated the passageways at frequent intervals, and if it wasn’t exactly cheerful at least it kept most of the corners from becoming dowsed in shadow.

The first level of the city was rank with the smell of animals. There wasn’t much livestock to be had in the Miragelands, but they did keep chickens in the underground for eggs and meat, along with a rodent that looked to her like a cross between a rat and a squirrel. The place was as well ventilated as it could be under the circumstances, but there was no avoiding the fact that her first impression of De-ri, aside from the two guards, was always the unmistakable smell of shit.

After the animals, two stairwells diverged. The passages actually rejoined each other a few levels below, but the lefthand side took a more winding route before meeting the other in front of Koreth’s receiving chamber.

She preferred it, meandering as it was, mostly because it avoided the greenhouses. But she didn’t have time for that today, so she took the right side instead, steeling herself.

Because walking into the greenhouse was like going home.

Light in the Miragelands was strange. During the day, it felt as if it bathed the land, emanating evenly across it instead of beaming down from a single powerful source. At night, it simply faded away. She’d never stayed long enough to see if there was a moon.

The sunlight that beamed down on the vegetables and oats and animal feed of the greenhouses was unmistakably Vales-made. It was as warm and bright as a summer day on the beach. It made her want to close her eyes and bask in it, like a lizard sunning itself on a rock. It made her feel like she would close her eyes and open them to the crystal waters of Etra’s coast, dotted with white sails.

Which was ridiculous, because the man who’d placed that sunlight there, that Vales-made magic, was a reclusive asshole who lived in the darkest castle she’d ever seen, in the bone-chillingly cold northern mountains.

She tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about him.

But it was impossible not to think about the Vales when the smell of soil and growing things assaulted her from every side. The herbal spice of tomato leaves, the faintly sweet note when the potato plants were flowering, the earthy promise of carrots and basil.

And the warmth of that sunlight. She wanted so much to hate it.

Two years. Two years since she’d leapt into the magepool, expecting death on the other side. And almost getting it.

Two years she’d survived here, never knowing if she’d shut everyone else in the Vales out forever, including the king who supposedly ruled both realms. Never knowing if the light in the greenhouses, the light he’d left behind, would one day fail. Not that she cared on the mages’ behalf, but if that sun ever failed, she’d be eating dirt along with the rest of them.

He was supposed to be their king. He was supposed to find a way.

Two years, and nothing. 

She hurried through the greenhouse, jaw tight, ignoring the sting of homesickness that crawled between her ribs.

She deserved every moment of this place. Every single second.

By the time she made it down to Koreth’s receiving chamber, the bracelet was burrowing into her skin. It felt like a live thing, writhing and twisting, hungry for more of her flesh.

Urgency would do her no good, so she flung the thick curtain aside and strolled in.

Koreth had done his best to make this chamber into a throne room, even though he wasn’t the king. Katrina had pillaged the wall hangings from a crumbling estate aboveground, silky red curtains with tattered hems that were coated in dust despite the fact that Koreth had them cleaned every week. She’d scavenged for scraps of wood that the carpenters had remade into a semi-circle of chairs. She’d even brought him the mismatched candelabras—all of them lit with magefire—and every single one of the books that sat neatly along the walls.

The stone chair at the end of the room, though, had always existed. It rose out of the floor as though the stone that made up the walls and floors and ceilings had simply decided to arrange itself into the shape of a throne, a wide dais spilling out around it like an afterthought.

Koreth sat upon it now, back straight, one elbow resting on each arm. At his sides, his two captains waited like guard dogs. Ready to attack.

Or at least, Jace was. She’d had Reed tamed within the first few months.

If Ryan and Dar were like muscled bulls, these two were wolves. Thin, rangy ones, but predators just the same. Dangerous. Jace was the larger of the two, but they both towered over her. Not that it was some great feat to tower over her. Most people did, and in here they had the help of the dais.

She never knew what threat Koreth was expecting, keeping them by his sides like this. Or what he did when he wasn’t holding court in this chamber.

“You were gone a long time.” Jace was the first to speak, because Jace was always the first to speak. It sounded like a reasonable statement of fact, his tone mild and unemotional, but Katrina knew better. That glint in his eye always said he hoped today was the day he’d be allowed to slit her throat. His hair was mostly gray, adding to his wolfish aura, but she didn’t think it communicated anything about his age. He might have been twenty-five. He might have been forty.

His lips were thin, his eyes so perpetually narrowed that she sometimes thought he might be trying to squeeze them right out of his head.

Reed, in contrast, had a boyish look to him. Though that was more about the ragged fringe of auburn hair he insisted on cutting himself. His expression was caught between worried and upset, and he kept shifting his weight between his feet like he wasn’t sure whose side he should be on. Typical.

Katrina focused on Koreth. His blond hair was ruffled, but his shirt was so unwrinkled it might’ve been starched. They lived underground, but the appearance of civilization mattered to him. She’d learned to use that, whenever she could.

She dumped the herbs out onto the floor, the pile of plants the healers had taught her to harvest. They could grow some here in the greenhouses, with the help of their king’s gifted sunlight and their combined mage powers, but the ones that grew aboveground were more potent. No one seemed to know why.

Jace was glaring at her, and she wanted to snap at him that he hadn’t asked her a question, only made a comment. But the question was implicit—‘Where have you been?’—and she’d only be punished for insolence.

“I had to go farther today,” she said.

Reed lifted an eyebrow, like he didn’t believe her. Well, Reed could suck it.

Koreth edged forward, his ass practically hanging off the throne. “And?”

Katrina reached into the outer pocket of the rucksack and produced the book she’d procured for him. It was a small, fat volume with a leather cover, the ink on the pages still legible. If she’d been able to read the ancient language, which she couldn’t. She doubted he could either.

In truth, she’d found a mostly intact library months ago. Enough to let her bring back a book a day, even stacks of books every day, had she wanted to. But the books kept Koreth contained, and she’d decided it was best to dole them out piece by piece. To make him think they were difficult to procure.

She’d killed his father, after all, and he hated her for it. She’d be a fool to forget that.

Judging by the way Jace’s lip curled as Koreth beckoned her forward, Jace didn’t think books were enough to make up for it.

Koreth took the book from her almost reverently, fingers curving around the edges like a caress. He was obsessed with them, whether he could read them or not.

“Jace,” Koreth said. “The bracelet.”

Jace curled his fingers into a fist. “We should make her wear it longer. As a lesson.”

Her chest tightened. It was all she could do to hold his gaze, to keep her expression neutral. To keep them from seeing her panic. Jace’s lip twisted, so she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

The mages kept her around because she was useful, because she could access the aboveground when they could not. She brought plants and artifacts, and she gave them news about what was happening—though she kept the choicest bits of information to herself, like today’s thinning fog, the strange purple tint to the sky. 

But if they should decide to leave the bracelet on long enough to cause serious damage—beyond the permanent band of scar tissue that had collected beneath it—then she would have outlived her usefulness.

Koreth would have her killed. And this time, he’d make sure it stuck.

Reed shifted his weight. “I don’t know if that’s necessary.”

“You don’t get a vote, Reed, because you’re fucking her,” Jace said mildly.

Reed stepped back, head dipping. Like a dog, submitting to its betters. Not that she expected anything more. She’d chosen so, so poorly with him.

Koreth raised a hand. “Enough. Release the bracelet.”

The last thing Katrina wanted was to move toward Jace, let alone allow him to touch her. But she did it anyway, forcing herself to look him in the eye.

Jace grabbed her forearm, jerking her toward him so hard that she tripped on the step, barely managing to keep her balance. His fingers pressed into her flesh, hard enough to bruise. A threat. Or worse, a promise.

And then he paused, dragging a fingertip up her forearm. His touch sent a spike of dread crawling along her spine, and she had to sink her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from wrenching her hand away, pain or no. It was a power play. A reminder that he was the one with the iron-working magic. He was the one who decided when to end the pain.

Reed, in all his uselessness, said nothing at all.

Finally, Jace tapped the bracelet, and a brief sensation of warmth flashed through her, as though his iron-working magic had flooded into the vein beneath the metal.

As soon as it began, it was gone. The bracelet loosened, and Katrina couldn’t stop herself from letting out a breath of relief.

Jace shoved her hand away, as if it disgusted him. “She murdered your father, Koreth. You should have her executed.”

Katrina bit back a mouthy response about the fact that she was standing right here, or that Koreth’s father had tried to murder her first. Half of her survival in De-ri depended on swagger, but that didn’t mean shooting her mouth off. Especially when Jace was in a mood.

You never say the right thing, Princess, the voice in her head said, but not to worry. I’m here to say it for you.

She’d dove through a magical pool to save the Vales and landed in a barren world. She’d survived two years among mages who all wanted to kill her. She’d run and climbed and strengthened her body aboveground, in the shadow of the circling wraiths. She’d slept with a knife under her pillow, a knife she knew how to use. And still, Declan’s voice haunted her.

She shoved it away.

“I would have her executed.” Koreth’s answer was matter-of-fact. “But I put our people’s well-being first. She’s useful.”

Jace pressed his lips together. “Koreth—”

Koreth waved a hand. “Get out. Both of you. I have business with the hollow. Alone.”