Ash Princess

by Eve Langlais

  However, Cam did appear more relaxed. At least the gun was back in the holster, which hung around his hips. Hips that were barely holding on to his sheet. Her gaze might have strayed a moment too long on the vee arrowing down from his defined chest. Lila noticed and nudged her. She hoped no one noticed her hot cheeks.

  “As Gorri eloquently explained,” Kayda said, shooting her friend a dark look, “the mountain ledges seem to be just for eating. And they’re not usually there for long. They prefer the warmth on the ground and the poison in the air.”

  “Good to know.”

  “How is that good?” Gorri exclaimed.

  “Because the more details you know about the enemy, the better prepared you can be to confront it.”

  Sage words that actually had Lila looking contemplative. Gorri just crinkled his brown even more obstinately.

  “I wouldn’t suggest going after dragons. Not if you want to live for long,” Kayda felt a need to say. Cockiness would get him killed. It was what had happened to all the other adults.

  “Duly noted,” was his reply. “Other than dragons, what predators do you have to watch for?”

  “Not much. The dragons eat them. We do have tunnel spiders, rodents, and roaches, but they’re not usually big enough to cause harm to the older kids.”

  “What about ghouls?”

  She almost shuddered. “Ghouls are murderous creatures killed on sight.”

  She’d only encountered one once. The memory of its all-too-human gaze in a monstrous face haunted her still. It was one of the reasons her father finally decided they needed to move from the tunnels under the Cloudring to the Necropolis.

  “It’s great and all you kill them, but they tend to multiply quickly somehow. How have you protected against them? You are, after all, living in their ideal home.”

  “The ghouls aren’t in this section of mountain. They seem to be attracted to the warmer tunnels closer to the lava rift.”

  “Until they get hungry,” he mused aloud, more for himself than them it seemed. The blanket at his hips began to slip. He grabbed it. Pity. “Where are my clothes?”

  “Drying. I’ll have them returned to you shortly.”

  Gorri had enough. “If you’re done with idle chitchat, we should question him.”

  “Good thing I didn’t wager,” Lila drawled. “I was sure your first demand was he hand over his weapons.”

  “I was getting to that. Hand them over.” Gorri held out his hand and glared at their guest.

  “Does my being armed make you uncomfortable?” Cam smirked. He pulled both weapons and laid them on the bed. “Is that better?”

  “Not really,” Gorri muttered.

  “You do realize our guest here could probably school you with his hands,” Lila remarked, drawing Cam’s gaze.

  “Finally, someone who understands things.” He eyed Lila. “Who are you?”

  “Your worst fucking nightmare if you screw up.”

  Rather than take offense, he laughed. A genuine smile lit up his face, for Lila. It bothered Kayda for some odd reason.

  “So, given the whole gang is here, I assume you’re going to grill me for information.”

  “There won’t be any grilling,” Kayda stated before Gorri could open his mouth. “But you’ll have to forgive us if we’re curious and have questions. You’re the first person we’ve seen from outside our borders.”

  “Since when?” he asked.

  Kayda kept her gaze steady on him when she said, “Since we went underground.”

  “The whole twenty years?” he exclaimed.

  “A few of the other groups used to run into the occasional Ruby lackeys, but they were closer to the border.” Lila was the one to divulge.

  “Whereas you’re close to the capital, aren’t you?” he remarked.

  “In the mountain range to the southeast of it.” Kayda saw no harm in replying; however, Gorri wasn’t having any of it.

  “Why the fuck are you answering his questions again? We found him in our tunnels. He should be explaining why he’s here.”

  “The how and why I’m here should seem obvious,” Cam stated. “The problem in Diamond is starting to spread into the Marshlands. I’m here to put a stop to it.”

  That caused Gorri and Lila to snicker, but Kayda felt sorrow. “Then I’m afraid you came for nothing. There is no way to fix this.”

  “What makes you so sure? Maybe there’s something you haven’t tried yet,” he remarked.

  “Tried?” Gorri barked. “How do you stop a volcano from spewing? How do you fight a dragon when all you’ve got are daggers and arrows that barely penetrate their skin?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve done nothing to try and resolve the problem.” Cam frowned as he eyed them.

  Kayda fidgeted under his gaze. “In the beginning, there were attempts by our parents and the other adults.” She’d been too young at the time to understand what they tried, but she heard the word “storm” bandied about, and they’d discussed trying to cool the molten flow. “We were just children when it happened, but I remember them talking about the problem deep into the night. The groups that ventured forth full of grim optimism.” Her lips turned down. “Most didn’t return. As our population dwindled, our primary concern became survival.”

  “Survival doesn’t mean you give up.”

  “We haven’t given up!” Gorri sputtered.

  “Haven’t you?” Cam’s gaze met each of theirs briefly. “Thirty people are left in this graveyard. A good place to be I guess since you’re dying here.”

  “We’re not dying,” Kayda argued.

  “Maybe not quickly, but bit by bit, your group is succumbing. How long until there’s no one left?”

  Gorri took the most offense. “What else can we do?”

  “Leave,” Cam stated flatly.

  “You’re talking about exposing ourselves to the dragons. We won’t survive.” Lila was blunt.

  “Then you find a way underground. You said the mountains are filled with tunnels.” Cam glanced around the stone chamber. “Do they link with the ancient routes under the surface?”

  Kayda frowned. “What ancient routes?”

  “I only found out recently that it turns out this entire continent is riddled with them. The ancients used them for centuries after the Fall and abandoned them when the surface proved safe enough for them to return.” Cam finally gave them some information, and it roused her incredulity.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of ancient tunnels. There probably aren’t any here.”

  “Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” was Cam’s wry reply. It reminded her of his belief that dragons weren’t real.

  Kayda exchanged a glance with Lila and Gorri. “Did either of you ever hear anything about ancient tunnels?”

  Both of them shook their heads, but Gorri was the one to say, “What difference does it make?”

  “First off, those ancient passageways are linked to the kingdoms. All of the kingdoms,” Cam said.

  Lila immediately grasped the implication and exclaimed, “Are you saying there might be a way out?”

  However, Kayda shook her head. “Impossible. If there was an exit, our parents and the other adults at the time would have used it.”

  “If they knew of it,” Cam insisted. “Could be they forgot about them, or only a chosen few knew. I only found out recently about their existence myself.”

  “Then why didn’t you use one to come here?” Gorri blustered.

  Cam shrugged. “Because I didn’t want to get lost underground. Besides, I wanted to see what was going on.”

  “How did you get here? Did you just throw on a suit and walk in?” Lila queried.

  “I started out with Burton, the tank.” At their obviously blank looks, he explained. “An armored vehicle that allowed me to drive for a few days before it got damaged.”

  “Damaged how?”

  He appeared embarrassed as he muttered, “It fell
in a crack.”

  Gorri snickered.

  “Then I started to walk, only a dragon decided to have me for lunch. Whereupon I escaped, fell down a hole, landed in a river, and met you. That’s my whole story. Happy?”

  The reply caused Lila to frown. “Not really. How is it you’re not dead?”

  “My wounds were superficial.”

  Kayda wondered why he lied. Even now he looked better than before. She’d never had a chance to wrap his injuries. He’d woken and honestly she saw no reason to waste supplies given they were scabbed and healing well.

  A gleeful Gorri jumped on their guest next with his ominous prediction. “Even if you didn’t bleed to death or die of an infection, you will die of the coughing sickness.”

  “Doubtful,” Cam said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

  Which reminded Kayda of what she’d seen, or more like not seen, in the cloth she’d taken with his clothes. The one he’d hacked into. It didn’t have blood as expected. More like a gray sludge, as if he’d expelled the poison in his lungs.

  Was that even possible?

  She stepped in before Gorri could. “I want to go back to your mission. You said you came here to cease the spread of the poison to the Marshlands. Now that you know it’s a volcano causing it, how are you planning to stop it?”

  “If I still had Burton, then the lovely stash of explosives I brought would have come in handy.” He sounded sad about losing his equipment.

  “And now that you don’t have any bombs?”

  He rolled his upper body in a way that drew her gaze and warmed her. He really should put on a shirt. “No bombs means I’ll have to figure something else out. I’ll have a better plan once I see what I’m dealing with.”

  “See it?” Gorri snorted. “The man’s obviously mentally touched. No one goes to the volcano.”

  “Why not?” Cam asked.

  “Because no one ever returns,” Kayda said softly. Many of their parents had gone with the best intentions, leaving them orphaned.

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked suddenly. “Where are your elders, or king?”

  “All gone,” Kayda stated. She’d expected this question, but the reply wasn’t easy.

  “All of them?” Cam gaped for a moment before recovering. “But surely you have a leader. Someone in the thirty left to make decisions.”

  “Our princess is the one who leads us,” Lila said, lifting her chin.

  “Princess?” Cam eyed Kayda and sighed. “Of course you are. Surely there’s someone older than you guys, someone who can tell me more about how things started and what’s been tried.”

  In other words, he wanted an adult. Not her. “I’m afraid we’re all you’ve got.”

  “Don’t get that insulted tone with me. You said it yourself. You were kids when it all began. Kids don’t notice some of the finer details. Talking to someone who remembers it all from the beginning would be useful.”

  “There is Zee,” Gorri mentioned with a straight face.

  Lila was the one to smack him. “Leave Zee alone. You know he hasn’t been right since that drake ate his daughter right in front of him.”

  The poor man had been out with a hunting group that included his daughter when it happened. Even worse, he got to hear Pelana screaming and begging her father to kill her as the dragon ate her slowly.

  Maddened with grief, the only one to survive that day, Zee was never the same after. He was also the only one who’d been a part of the repelling force in the early days.

  “Can I talk to this Zee person?” Cam asked.

  Kayda shrugged. “You could try. But first we’d have to find him. He tends to go missing a lot.” A man with a death wish who wandered the tunnels, looking to be punished.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Ain’t no one else. We’re all you got so take it or fuck off,” Gorri exclaimed.

  “Don’t get so defensive. I’m just trying to understand the situation and see what I can do to go about fixing it.”

  “Even if you had bombs, you wouldn’t make it to the volcano overland,” Lila said softly. “The area around is supposedly the most populous for dragons. There are no hiding spots for humans. You’d never make it alive.”

  “And you know this how?” he asked.

  Kayda answered for Lila. “Because her dad died there. Of the thirty people who went, only two made it back alive.” Both died not long after of their wounds.

  “How is it if they hunt so hard, I wasn’t bothered by them until I crossed the crevice?”

  “Why don’t you go ask them?” Gorri suggested.

  “I just might,” Cam snapped. “You’re not being very helpful.”

  “I’m not here to fucking help you,” Gorri growled, not backing down from the bigger man.

  “Do you have a map of your tunnels? Actually, any kind of map?” Cam asked rather than reply to the aggression being displayed.

  “There are no maps, and even if there were, you wouldn’t find anything. There are no tunnels going from here to the volcano.” Lila stated firmly.

  “That you know of.” He pinched his chin.

  “Let’s say there are. How exactly does that help you?” Kayda asked.

  “It might not help me, but it will help you.” He paused and eyed them all before adding, “If we could find some of those ancient tunnels and you head south through them, you might find a passage through to the Marshlands or Sapphire. Either kingdom will welcome you.”

  “How can you be sure they would welcome us?” Because Kaya remembered all too well how Ruby had treated the refugees who arrived at their borders.

  “It’s complicated,” he grumbled.

  Kayda crossed her arms much the way her mother used to when Kayda had been little and Mother wanted a proper answer.

  He sighed. “If you must know, my sister is married to the Marshland King. And the king’s brother is married to the Sapphire Queen.”

  Lila arched a brow. “Well, aren’t you connected. You’re practically a prince. I’m surprised they sent you.”

  “I didn’t give them a choice.” He didn’t elaborate.

  “I want to know why we’re all assuming he’s telling the truth. How do we know he’s not some spy?” Gorri remained disgruntled.

  Cam snorted before Kayda could reply. “A spy? For what? You have nothing. What possible reason could I have? Or are you implying I’m somehow in cahoots with the dragons?”

  “I don’t know,” Gorri blustered. “But I don’t see why we’re supposed to just trust you.”

  “Because if I wanted you to come to harm, you’d already be dead.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Gorri growled, his hand dropping to his hip.

  “If you’re going to fight, do it outside,” Kayda snapped. “I have no time for masculine posturing.”

  “Sorry,” Gorri mumbled.

  Cam, on the other hand, chuckled. “For a second there, it was like listening to my sister.”

  A compliment and yet she didn’t appreciate it. For one thing, she was most definitely not his sister. A sister wouldn’t keep sneaking peeks at his body. Which reminded her. “I’m going to see if Cam’s clothes are dried yet.”

  “I’ll do it,” Lila offered. “I’ve got to go see what my brother is up to anyhow.”

  Her little brother being an energetic handful who liked to skip out on his lessons. It left Kayda alone with the two men, one barely more than a boy and struggling with it.

  Cam still had questions. “Do you have any documents at all about the volcano and what’s happened to Diamond? Anything I can research?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing, sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to him,” Gorri huffed. “He’s our prisoner. He should be acting grateful instead of pissy we don’t have the tools he needs to complete his impossible mission.”

  “The only one being pissy here is you,” Kayda pointed out. She had to rein Gorri in before he let his temper get the best of him.


  “He’s doing it on purpose to bait me,” Gorri insisted as he stood with his arms crossed, still glaring.

  “If you call that baiting, then you’re obviously easily triggered,” was Cam’s retort.

  Which wasn’t far off the mark.

  “How good are you in a fight?” was Gorri’s next question.

  This time Kayda snapped. “Enough. We didn’t lug his heavy body an hour through the tunnels for you to attack him.”

  “I haven’t done shit. I just asked a simple question. Can he fight?”

  “A bit. You?” Cam ignored her as he focused on Gorri.

  Was it her, or had the mood in the room shifted?

  “Some.”

  Kayda wanted to roll her eyes at the faked nonchalance. “I know you want someone more your size to practice sparring with, but our guest is still recovering from his injuries.” She gestured to the livid marks that seemed to have lessened since she’d washed them a few hours before. Impossible of course.

  “I’m fine. I could use some exercise, but I can’t exactly fight in this,” Cam noted, gesturing to his sheet skirt.

  “Lila’s checking on your clothes.” The vent spewing hot air tended to help them when it came to things like laundry. A good thing since many of them didn’t have much in the way of spare clothing.

  Gorri eyed him up and down. “I got some trousers that might fit.”

  They did fit if you ignored the fact Cam was about six inches taller, making them stop mid-calf. The shirt didn’t work at all, meaning he remained bare-chested, but Cam didn’t seem bothered despite the chill in the Necropolis. One of the few places that retained a bit of the cold she’d grown up with.

  “After you,” Gorri offered, opening the door to her home.

  No one cared that Kayda thought they were being stupid. The man had almost died. He should be in bed. But no. Instead they were in the open space they called Courtyard with its fountain of cool, clean water spewing from the mouths of stone water dragons.

  Ringing the Courtyard more doorways leading to the crypts that now formed their village. Many of them empty as their numbers dwindled.

  It saddened her to hear the Marshlands might be the next victim of the blight. Hopefully they could find a place to hide from the worst of it and not have to deal with foolish men with a need to prove something.