The flags of dawn were beginning to taint the sky by the time I reached the foot of the Blacksaw Mountains. They loomed above the small craft like some felled, misbegotten giant, and were as dark and as barren as they’d looked from a distance. There didn’t seem to be any easy way for the speeder to get up its craggy side without receiving major damage, so I halted underneath some overhanging boulders and shut it down. The darkness closed in, thick and eerie—the latter sensation not easing as my eyes adjusted to the surrounding ink.

I opened the door, grabbed the pack, and climbed out. The air was crisp, but it was nowhere near as cold here as it had been in Winterborne. No doubt the sheer distance from the sea and the arctic winds that blew off it had something to do with that.

Somewhere high above me was Drakkon’s Head, the main entrance into the Irkallan’s apiary, but I couldn’t see it from where I stood. In fact, there was nothing but rock and a few scrubby, ill-looking plants for as far as the eye could see.

I slung the pack over my shoulders and then said, “What are the chances of getting a lift up there?”

The wind immediately whipped around me and, in very little time, had encased me in a bubble of gossamer air and shunted me up the dark mountainside. About halfway, the scrubby vegetation completely gave up any attempt at survival, and the landscape became little more than a wonderland of rocks of all shapes and sizes.

The speed of my ascent finally eased and, as the gossamer started evaporating, the maw-like entrance into the mountains became visible. It was easy to see why this area had been named Drakkon’s Head—it very much looked like one of those mythical beasts had found its end here, with the tunnel’s entrance its open mouth, complete with jagged, glinting black teeth.

The air dropped me gently onto the ground. Dust stirred around my feet, smelling and looking like ash. The fierce, rocky outcrop that was the drakkon’s head towered above me, its eyes ebony pits that seemed to be aware and watching even though I logically knew they were probably nothing more than smaller caves.

I couldn’t see or hear any life in the immediate area, but the stench coming out of the drakkon’s mouth reminded me of the smell that had radiated from the three children who’d assaulted Blacklake, only a thousand times worse. It made my stomach heave and, for several seconds, I battled the urge to vomit. If I was to have any hope of getting deep into the apiary, I was going to need fresh air.

That we can provide, the wind said, just as we did before. But you should not linger here. A patrol draws close.

I swore softly, drew my knife and one of the gut busters, and walked forward. The wind chased along behind me, stirring the ash and erasing any sign of my presence.

The closer I got to the drakkon’s mouth, the more my fear of it rose. I knew it was ridiculous, knew the drakkon was merely a creation of rock and erosion, but there was a heaviness and anticipation riding the wind’s coattails that made it seem as if the whole mountain was about to come alive and consume me.

Which really wasn’t so far off the mark, given what I was walking into.

I edged along one side of the drakkon’s maw, every sense I had alert for any hint of movement deeper within the cave. The wind was urging me to hurry, warning that the patrol was little more than minutes away, but I couldn’t afford to rush. One misstep might spell the end of everything before it had even started.

As the darkness of the quickly fading night gave way to the deeper ink of the cave, my knife began to give off a soft, blue-white glow. It was a light that picked out a similar luminance within the walls and, after a moment, I realized there were long seams of glimmer stone within the black rock. Perhaps this was where the Adlin had gotten the stone for their beacons.

I shoved the knife away. I couldn’t risk the Irkallan patrol noticing the glinting stone, nor could I risk whatever guards there might be beyond this large antechamber seeing the knife’s soft glow.

I waited for the gleam in the walls to fade and my eyes to once again adjust before moving on. There were two tunnels at the far end of the chamber, one peeling off to the left and one going straight down.

As I hesitated, studying them both, the wind said, left.

I obeyed. The tunnel walls immediately closed in and the air became thick with that stomach-churning stench. The wind stirred in response, brushing away the worst of it, allowing me to move on without the threat of my stomach’s contents decorating my boots.

There wasn’t much to see. The tunnel’s walls were surprisingly smooth but held no beat of life. Not even the memory of it lingered. If this mountain had once contained earth magic, then it had been gone for centuries, if not a millennium.

The Irkallan might not have caused it, but I couldn’t help wondering who or what had—and whether it would eventually spread beyond these mountains.

No, the wind whispered.

How can you be sure? The earth has no voice in this place.

Not here, but there is life elsewhere, and she shares her secrets. Miners lived and worked in these mountains long before the Irkallan arrived. They robbed these mountains of both its minerals and its life, and then moved on to find new lands to mine and destroy.

Which perhaps explained why there was no mention of them in any history books—it had simply happened too long ago.

The deeper I moved into the tunnel, the warmer it became. Sweat trickled down my spine, and I had to keep swapping the gut buster from one hand to the other so I could swipe the moisture from my palms.

The downward incline continued, gradually getting steeper. I had no sense of time or distance in this place. There was nothing to judge such things by—no sound, no light, no life.

Then the wind slapped against me, forcing me to stop. My breath caught in my throat as I listened for whatever danger might lay ahead. After a moment, I heard it—a footstep. One that was little more than a whisper, and spoke of bare feet against rock.

My fingers tensed against the gut buster, even though I knew firing it was the last thing I needed to do in this place.

Another footstep echoed, one that was oddly different to the first—it was heavier, and accompanied by an odd, scraping sound. Tension ran through me, but I resisted the urge to move, to retreat back up the tunnel. If I could hear them, they’d undoubtedly hear me.

A soft glow began to infuse the darkness, one that reminded me of the light generated by the glimmer stone in the main cave. As it got stronger, the veins in my tunnel began to glow, providing a halo of cool brightness that thankfully didn’t reach up to where I stood.

But it gave me some sense of where I now was. This tunnel ended at a T-intersection roughly fifty feet away. The intersecting tunnel was double the width of this one and, if the pathway worn into the floor’s rock surface was anything to go by, saw a whole lot more traffic.

The glow of light coming from the glimmer stone seams got stronger, the footsteps closer. While the wind gave no hint as to what might be coming, she shifted direction, drawing fresh air around me and then sweeping it back up the tunnel. Taking my scent away from whatever approached rather than toward it, I realized.

Shadows appeared and began to solidify. One small, one large.

One human in form, the other the stuff of nightmares.

My gut churned with renewed vigor.

Because the figure holding the tiny light that was causing the glimmer stone to glow so brightly was a small, stained child. One with short-cropped brown hair, a face that was thin, hollow, and grubby, and a body that only held small patches of brown skin in amongst the staining. Small rivulets of moisture ran down his emaciated torso, but did little to erase the dirt caking his flesh, and he was all but dragging his feet.

The other was an Irkallan.

Though the child continued, the Irkallan paused in the middle of the T-intersection; its antennae moved back and forth as its dark, oval-shaped eyes stared right at me. After a moment, it made an odd clicking noise, its mandibles opening and shutting as if in vexation.

I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe.

With another click, it moved on, and as the light began to fade, I slumped against the tunnel wall and breathed deeply in an attempt to calm my racing pulse.

Damn, that was close.

I grabbed the flask from the pack and took a long drink to ease the burning in my throat. Once it was stoppered and placed back, I cautiously moved forward. At the intersection I stopped again, looking carefully to the right to ensure there were no other Irkallan or children approaching, and then glanced left.

The soft light was slowly fading as the Irkallan and the child moved around the tunnel’s gentle curve to the right.

Follow the child, the wind said. He will lead you to the rest.

Which was precisely what I’d intended, and what I’d hoped.

I stepped out into the larger tunnel and padded after the two of them as quietly as I could. But my footsteps were far louder than either the Irkallan’s or the child’s, and would eventually reveal my presence. Though this tunnel didn’t appear to be guarded, it was certainly well used given the worn pathway. Just because there wasn’t much in the way of traffic right now didn’t mean there soon wouldn’t be.

I stopped again to take off my boots and socks, tucking the latter inside the former before tying them onto my pack. The smooth stone was surprisingly cool under my feet given the heat in the air, but at least without footwear any Irkallan who were near might initially think my footfalls were nothing more than another child being escorted somewhere. At least until they actually saw me.

I continued to chase the soft glow that was the only indicator of the child and the Irkallan. Their footsteps were no longer audible, suggesting it was the wind that’d driven the sound to me in the first place.

The tunnel continued to curve around, and then began to descend deeper into the mountain. Though the wind still provided me with fresh air, I was nevertheless aware that the urine and blue-cheese stench was growing stronger, suggesting I was drawing closer to the main part of the apiary. Luck had been with me so far, but how much longer would that last?

As if in answer to that question, the pale glow ahead went out. As I stopped, my gaze searching the darkness, I became aware of the footsteps. They weren’t just coming from up ahead, but also from behind.

I swore and looked around, but the tunnel’s sheer walls offered nothing in the way of cover.

Run, the wind suggested.

Unhelpful, I replied, but nevertheless did just that, switching out my gun for my knife as I pelted around the corner—only to spot an Irkallan standing twenty feet away. He rose up to his full height, his mandibles clashing as he began to emit a shrill sound. I threw the knife and, as the glittering blade spun through the air, reached back for the sword.

The Irkallan sidestepped the knife, as I knew it would, but by then I was close enough to swing the sword. There was no finesse or skill behind the blow; there couldn’t be, given I wasn’t sword trained and had no time for anything approaching finesse anyway. All I wanted to do was stop him from alerting any of his hive mates to my presence. The glowing blade hit his left side, right at the point where his thorax joined his abdomen, and sliced the pieces of his body apart. His exoskeleton might have been no harder than butter for the ease with which the sword went through it.

As the two pieces of his body fell in different directions and his shrieking stopped, I heard the scrape of nails against stone and swung around. Another Irkallan was in the air, its razor-sharp fingernails lengthening as it arrowed toward me. I threw myself sideways and down, grunting as I hit the stone hard, but twisted around and thrust the sword upward. The Irkallan curled its body around itself, protecting its head and limbs, and presenting only its hard outer shell to the blade. It made no difference—the sword cut his spine open and the Irkallan’s innards rained down upon me. I cursed softly, swiping at the gore covering my face as I thrust to my feet. The Irkallan might be cut open from neck to tailbone, but it wasn’t finished yet. It was using its claws to drag itself up the wall, attempting to rise, even as its broken body continued to ooze black fluids and freedom only knew what else.

I strode toward it, blade held out in front of me like a lance. The Irkallan gave up its attempts to rise, and ran—not toward me but away, using its claws to drag itself along the smooth stone with surprising speed, and emitting a high-pitched sound as it did so.

I charged after him. The Irkallan twisted around as I neared and somehow jacked upright. I raised the sword and brought it down hard, but he twisted away from the blow. The blade’s sharp tip embedded itself into the floor with enough force to send a shockwave up my arms; sparks skittered through the darkness.

The air screamed a warning; I swore and twisted away from the blow. Instead of gutting me, one of its claws skimmed my left side, slicing through my uniform and down into flesh. Pain surged even as warmth began to flood down my side. I cursed, wrenched the sword free from the stone, and heaved it upwards. Again the Irkallan tried to twist away from the blow, but the spinal injury was obviously hampering its movements now, and it was nowhere near fast enough. The sword sliced into the Irkallan’s arm and pinned it to his torso, even as the blade continued cutting into his body, until it was fully sheathed in flesh. The Irkallan’s screeching stopped and life leaked swiftly from its eyes. I stepped back, pulled the blade free, and let the Irkallan slump to the ground.

For several minutes I didn’t move. I simply stood there as warmth continued to slide down my waist and the wind swirled around me, bringing fresh air but no further sound of life. Not that it meant anything, especially if others had heard what I presumed was the Irkallans’ warning cries.

I took a deep, shuddery breath and then looked down at the broken body near my feet. Wind, can you carry the two Irkallan into the smaller tunnel? There’s less likelihood of them being found so easily there.

As the air lifted the bodies of the Irkallan and carried them away into the darkness, I carefully stripped off my jacket and shirt, the left side of which was soaked in blood. The sword emitted just enough light to see the extent of the wound, and it wasn’t pretty. The Irkallan’s claws had opened me up from just under my breasts down to my hip; the upper portion of the wound was deep enough that I could see ribs, but it at least grew shallower as it skimmed down my side to my hip. I swung the pack off and fished around until I found the small medikit. I plucked one of the sealing sprays free, snapped off the cap, and then liberally applied it to the long wound. It stung like blazes, and I had to grit my teeth against the scream that tore up my throat. I waited a couple of seconds for the sealer to take hold then grabbed the sticky bandage strip and roughly wound it around my body. It might restrict some of my movements but it would also help support the sealant and stop the wound from breaking open again.

With that done, I redressed then sheathed the sword and slung the pack back over my shoulders. While I would have liked to keep hold of the sword, I’d rather not run the risk of its soft glow giving me away.

I retrieved my knife, shoved it back into its sheath, and then walked on. As the tunnel’s decline grew, the heat intensified, and moisture began to slick the walls and drift in tiny rivers across the floor, forcing me to go even slower lest I slip.

A soft pulsing soon began to invade the silence. I paused to listen, but there was no threat in the sound, and nothing underneath to indicate anything approached. In fact, that noise reminded me of a heartbeat, one that was oddly comforting.

Another curve soon appeared, this time to the left. I kept close to the wall, trailing my fingers along its surface to ensure I didn’t drift too far away from it. We Sifft might have excellent night sight but night usually had stars or the moon to give at least some light. There was absolutely nothing here. And while I wasn’t walking totally blind thanks to the assistance of the wind, keeping contact with the wall at least gave me some warning of change.

The pulsing grew stronger and light flickered somewhere ahead. I gripped the knife’s hilt in readiness and slowly edged around the tunnel’s curve.

The light came from two rough archways carved into the tunnel’s walls—one to the right, one to the left. Within the left, I could hear someone shuffling around, and from the right, there came a murmur of conversation, though it was no language I’d heard before. And it certainly didn’t sound as if it were coming from human throats.

But then, I guessed it was logical the children born of this place would try to imitate the sounds they heard the Irkallan making rather than anything human-sounding, especially given Saska had said the children were taken away from them at birth.

I closed my eyes for a minute, gathering my strength for the task ahead, and then reached the wind. Tell me what you see.

It’s not the children. At least, not human children.

Relief spun through me, even though it was little more than a brief reprieve. So they’re Irkallan offspring?

No, the wind murmured. Adlin.

Freedom, help me…. How many?

Sixteen.

Even young Adlin were dangerous, especially if there was a number of them. If they caught my scent, I was done for.

You can kill them. You can order the breath drawn from their lungs and their threat would no longer exist.

Yes, I could, but I still had no idea where the children born to the stolen witches were being kept, and until I did discover that, I needed to conserve my strength. And surely, despite the appearance of this area being unguarded, there would be Irkallan nearby. They’d not risk Adlin roaming about unchecked—not if Saska was right and there was only a limited supply of the controlling bracelets.

I eased toward the doorways and stopped again. Both archways were inset with heavily barred cell doors, the metal glinting silver in the pale light coming from either room. I drew in a breath to steady my nerves and listened to the movement within the nearest cell while I watched the other. When the noise suggested they’d moved away from the arch, I scampered silently across.

Thankfully, no angry roars followed me down the tunnel. But it was becoming increasingly evident I was nearing a main living area; not only was that odd thrumming getting louder, but the strong breeze sweeping through the tunnel from somewhere up ahead spoke of life and a vast city.

There is a small, disused mine shaft on your right, the wind said. Take it.

I did. Unlike the circular and very smooth walls of that main tunnel, these were rectangular and roughhewn, with thick, regularly spaced wooden posts to support both the walls and the ceiling. It was obviously a remnant from the time before the Irkallan, when miners had lived and worked in this place.

A dark, slime-like moss hung in ribbons from the ceiling and oozed along the floor, making every step treacherous and forcing me to go even slower. Despite the moisture running down the walls and dripping from the moss, the heat was becoming oppressive. Every breath felt like it was burning my lungs, and my shirt and pants were so damp with sweat that they clung uncomfortably to my skin.

The old shaft made a long, gentle curve to the left and then began to drop down again. The moisture dripping from the ceiling increased, and there was now a foot-wide river bubbling down the middle of the floor—a merry sound that was somehow audible against the deepening thrum. That thrum reminded me somewhat of the hum you could hear in and around beehives, and it made me think I was at least near, if not even in, the heart of the Irkallan settlement.

But was I anywhere near the children?

The queen keeps them near her, at the very lowest level of this place, where it is deemed the safest should there be an attack, the wind said. This shaft will take you close.

Close wasn’t what I wanted or needed. Not in this place.

No. The wind hesitated. There is nothing between this shaft and where the children rest. Nothing but space.

I edged around small rockslide, and then said, Why would there be only open space? Isn’t the whole mountainside little more than a maze of tunnels and shafts intersecting various chambers, be they small or large?

There is another fall up ahead, the wind said. One that has splintered the wall between this shaft and the main tunnel. Look through it, and you will see the true breadth of the Irkallan’s city.

It was a statement that revived the ashes of fear. I didn’t want to see the true impossibility of my quest—didn’t want to know for sure the flutters of hope that still beat within me had as little chance of survival as I did.

An odd mound began to loom in the darkness ahead. As I drew closer, it revealed itself to be heavily compacted slide of rock, dirt, and thick timbers, all of which was covered by the oozing moss. To the left of this, where a timber beam had once held back the earth, was a three-foot-long seam wide enough to put my fist through. I carefully climbed the rubble then grabbed the jagged edge of the seam to hold myself up and peered out.

What I saw was almost beyond belief.

It was a vast, vertical tunnel—one that had enormous proportions. It was at least a quarter of a mile wide and beautifully cylindrical. The tunnel’s walls were lined with perfectly spaced archways that divided it into different levels, and each one appeared to be an entrance into a chamber of some kind, although most of them were dark so I couldn’t see what lay within. But there was a stunning symmetry in the construction here, because not only did each arch appear the exact same size, but it also lined up perfectly with the one above and below. A wide, continuous ramp wound around the wall and linked all the levels and rooms, and it drew the eye downward. It was a long drop. Although there had to be at least fifteen levels above me, there were at least another fifty below that I could see before the darkness simply got too deep to penetrate.

But the thrumming noise I could hear seemed to be coming from somewhere close to that deeper darkness.

Saska had said the queen and the breeders lay at the heart of the apiary, within earth that still held life and heat. But there was no life in the walls I could see, no voices to be heard. Did that mean this shaft held the workers, and that the queen, breeders, and perhaps even the witchlings they’d bred lived somewhere else?

No, said the wind. They reside in the chambers above the current flood line.

There’s water at the base of it?

Yes. The vertical tunnel once had another fifteen levels, but over the generations, the water that leeches through this dead rock has flooded them.

How close will this tunnel get me to the queen’s level?

Not close enough.

Which again was not what I wanted to hear. I shifted sideways and tried to see what was nearby but there was nothing to be seen. It was almost as if nothing had been built into the tunnel’s walls along this section.

The path does pass by three feet below your position, the air said. But because all the old mining shafts near here are unstable and constantly flooding, the Irkallan decided not to use this area.

I blinked. And how would the collective consciousness of the air know something like that?

Because we asked the earth.

Air can’t interact with earth.

Unless there is a conduit. You were that for Saska; when her death ended the weight of three ruling that we were not to help you, that ability to interact with earth was opened to us.

Interesting. So the earth is aware of our approach?

Yes. But it cannot help until you once again step onto ground that holds life and hope.

Which again, wasn’t overly useful when to get to such a place I’d also be in the midst of the queen’s lair.

I thumbed the sweat away from my forehead and eyes, and then squeezed past the rockfall and continued forward. But the mine shaft was narrowing, the going getting rougher, and though I had no idea how much time had actually passed in the world above, I had a bad feeling it was running out, for both me and for those soldiers who were to provide diversionary midmorning attacks. This place had at least sixty-five levels of Irkallan and who knew how many inhabited each level. In some ways, it didn’t even actually matter; the truth was, the Irkallan could put forth a force far greater than any of us had imagined, and their queen had already shown a willingness to waste her soldiers if it achieved the desired outcome.

Unless I did something about it—unless I diverted the queen’s attention away from the upcoming attack—the outpost forces would be overrun and slaughtered.

I continued out down the ever-narrowing mineshaft, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Rockfalls were more frequent and the pathway so slick with water and slime that I had to grab the roughly hewn walls to keep upright. Despite the heat in the air, my feet were so cold from constantly being in the water that I was beginning to lose feeling in my toes and it forced me to keep stopping so I could rub some life back into them.

Inevitably, I reached a rockfall that there was no getting past. But it had, at least, brought some of the inner sanctum’s wall down with it. The gap wasn’t quite wide enough for me slip through, but given the wet decay gripping the rock surrounding the fall area, I didn’t think making it bigger would be all that hard.

I squatted on my heels and carefully peered out. I was five levels above where I needed to be, but at least I could see the water now. It was a vast lake that lapped at the edges of the circular path that swept down into its ink and then disappeared. Its black surface was mirror smooth—I blinked. This was the black mirror Saska had mentioned. It wasn’t any sort of magic; it was a lake that was at least fifteen stories in depth and getting deeper. A lake the Irkallan feared to go near.

And that one fact made it the perfect place to hide the bracelets, because surely if the Irkallan could have drained this lake they would have rather than letting it slowly consume their home. And those bracelets, with their ability to control the thoughts and actions of others, were surely better left in some place where they were never likely to resurface than taken back to Winterborne where they’d undoubtedly be studied and perhaps learned from. Such technology had already proven to be dangerous in the wrong hands and—from what I’d witnessed over the last few days—there seemed to be more than a few such hands in amongst those of the Upper and Lower Reaches.

I studied the areas immediately above the water line, trying to find some indication of where the queen was. After a second, I spotted an arch that not only broke the symmetry of the rest, but also looked newer. If the Irkallan were constantly having to retreat from the water line, perhaps that newer arch was an indicator of where the queen and her breeders now lived.

The levels immediately above this larger arch were as still as the rest of them. Although I had no doubt there would be guards I couldn’t see, it was odd that there was very little in the way of movement in this place. Of course, that might just be because the sun would have risen by now and, while the Irkallan weren’t nocturnal, they did tend to be more active at night. It was a fact that might also explain why soldiers hadn’t flooded the tunnel when I’d killed those two Irkallan. Maybe there’d been no one close enough to hear their cries for assistance.

I leaned forward and saw that the curving path passed by this breach in the wall. Getting out of this mine shaft wasn’t going to present much of a problem, but working my way down the remaining five levels of the vertical tunnel to that larger arch would be fraught with danger. I really didn’t like my chances of doing so unseen.

My gaze returned to the unmoving surface of the lake. Five stories was a hell of a jump, but it was also a survivable one into water, especially when I was Sifft rather than an ordinary human. Stronger bones came with the heritage. And if I dropped into the water quietly enough, they’d barely see or hear me enter the lake. The problem was the water itself, and the fact that I wasn’t the world’s greatest swimmer. Hell, I could barely even dog paddle—a fact that had amused Ava and April no end whenever we’d spent our days off in the sea over at West Range.

But it was the best choice. Taking the winding pathway might be dryer, but it also came with a bigger risk of being seen.

I glanced at the wet and fractured rock. I needed to widen the seam by another foot, at the very least, if I was to have any hope of getting my shoulders and butt through it. Thin, I was not.

Wind, can you keep an eye on things outside and warn me if there’s any movement nearby?

Yes.

Thanks. I shoved my sleeves further up my arms and then got to work. It took a lot longer to break open a wide enough space to get through than I’d thought—not because the stone didn’t break away easily enough, but because I had to place each piece down carefully, ensuring it didn’t move or cause the main slide to shift in any way.

With that done, I swung the pack around and opened it up. I’d munched on the cheese and bread as I’d driven to the mountains, so there wasn’t much left, but it was doubtful I’d need the rest of it given getting out of this place was highly unlikely.

I dropped the food onto the ground, covered it up with some soil, and then shook out the cloth to ensure there were no crumbs left. While the M185 blocks appeared plasticky and were more than likely waterproof, I doubted the same could be said of the detonation timers and pop caps. I wrapped them carefully in the cloth, then tore off an edge of my soaked shirt to keep it in place. With that done, I repacked the bag, checked there was no one on the outside walkway, and carefully eased through the hole I’d created. Once I’d dragged the pack out after me, I shoved it on and kept low as I scrambled across to the edge.

It really was a long way down. There was no way known I was going to hit the water without making an audible splash. Could you ease my speed as I near the water?

Yes, the wind said, but wait—there is movement below.

I waited, staring down at the black water, my pulse racing and my gut churning. It wasn’t so much the fear of the situation or of being discovered, but at jumping feet first into that ink and never coming up. If I had to die in this place, I wanted to do so fighting the enemy and taking some of the bastards out with me, not by being sucked into the murky depths of an inky lake.

Right, the air said. All clear if you’re quick.

I thrust to my feet and stood on the edge, but didn’t immediately jump. I continued to eye the dark water, imagining in my mind how I needed to slip into the water, putting it out into the general consciousness of the air in the vague hope that it would be so.

Then, with as deep a breath as I could take, I stepped off the edge. The air didn’t interfere, and it certainly didn’t hinder the speed with which I dropped—not until the very last moment. I entered the water feet first and with very little noise, but the sheer iciness just about tore a gasp from my throat. It was only force of will that kept my mouth clamped shut. As I plunged deeper, the backpack’s bulk hit the water, acting like something of a brake and just about tearing my shoulders out of their sockets. Then my head was under, the iciness and darkness all around me, and disorientation and fear set in. I closed my eyes—I couldn’t see anyway, so there was no point in keeping them open—and concentrated on holding my breath, on not panicking as I waited for the moment when the fall stopped and the natural buoyancy of my body kicked in and told me which way was up.

It seemed to take forever.

But as my lungs began to burn with the need for air, I finally stopped heading down and instead began to float. I kicked my feet as hard as I could and surged upward, breaking the surface with a rather unwise gasp. Thankfully, it didn’t immediately appear there were any Irkallan around to hear it. As I sucked in deep breaths, I turned around to see where the ramp was. It was across the other side of the shaft, but I didn’t dare risk swimming—or at least, paddling—directly across to it. Instead, I gently kicked to the nearby wall and kept close to its shadowed side, trying to make as little noise as possible. By the time I reached the submerged portion of the walkway, my body was shaking with both the cold and effort, and my legs initially refused to support my weight. I staggered out of the water and then gently shook my arms and feet, trying to get my blood flowing again and some warmth back into my digits.

Be still, the air warned. There is a patrol above you.

I stopped moving but the water continued to drip from my body and uniform, and it was all I could do to clamp my lips down in an effort to stop my teeth from chattering.

From the level above me came the soft scrape of nails against stone. I carefully pushed back against the wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. The clicking of mandibles came from directly above me, but I dared not look. My skin might not be as pale as Saska’s, but it was still light enough to be seen by a keen eye even in this ink.

A heartbeat later came a second clashing of mandibles, this time to the right of the first. Obviously, they were having a discussion of some sort, and I wished I could understand what they were damn well saying…. The thought trailed off.

I had heard and understood the Irkallan queen twice now, but both times had been when my skin—my stained skin—had been in contact with my knife.

I quickly wrapped my fingers around the hilt, but for several heartbeats, nothing happened. Then warmth began to throb through the weapon—warmth whose beat uncannily matched the throbbing that filled this place—and then both the glass blade and hilt started to glow softly. Thankfully, the sheath countered the blade’s glow, but tiny beams of brightness were leaking out between my fingers, forcing me to tug my jacket sleeve over my hand in order to hide it.

“Movement,” one of the Irkallan said. Its voice was oddly broken, as if it were coming through a microphone that wasn’t working properly. The queen’s orders had come through similarly garbled, so obviously whatever magic was allowing the knife—and even the bracelets—to translate the Irkallan language had its restrictions. “Below.”

“Yes. The mirror, it moves.”

“Water drips?”

“No.”

“Cannot scent anyone who should not be.”

“No.” The Irkallan paused. “Should place guard?”

“Waste. Attack coming from above.”

So I was right—the outposts were on the move. And that really did mean that I had to get moving if I wanted any hope of stopping their forces from getting overrun.

“Yes,” the other Irkallan said. “Fight not ours.”

“No.” There was a whole lot of frustration in that one word.

After a few more minutes, the two of them moved away. I swung the pack off and fished around until I found the bracelet. Then I carefully tore off another strip of shirt end, found a suitably heavy rock, and tied it and the bracelet together.

Right, I said to the wind, can you take this bracelet into the middle of the lake and carefully drop it in?

Fingers of air wrapped around the bundle in my hand and swept it away. I bent, grabbed a handful of the wet ashy soil that stained the rocks here, and rubbed it over my face and hands. With the possibility of my skin giving me away so easily taken care of, I cautiously made my way up the ramp, keeping as close to the wall as possible. As it curved around to the next level, I saw the two guards on the level above me. Unlike the ones I’d come across in that wide tunnel, these two were armed, and although the weapons were shaped like the long staffs the Adlin sometimes used, these were made from metal rather than wood. They also had blunt ends rather than sharp, which suggested they were something other than a spear. They were strapped crossways across the Irkallan’s backs, and I hoped like hell that’s exactly where they remained. I had no desire to discover just what those staffs were capable of.

I continued creeping around until I reached the level of the larger archway. I padded across to the shaft wall and hunkered down, scanning both this level and the ones above me. Aside from the two Irkallan who’d heard my movements coming out of the lake, there were another two coming back down the circular path. Four Irkallan didn’t seem anywhere near an appropriate number of guards given the size of this place, but I guessed centuries of never being infiltrated had given them reason enough not to be overly concerned about such an event.

It at least gave me a fighting chance of getting close to my targets.

I edged toward the large arch, but the scrape of nails told me an Irkallan was approaching. I swore and quickly looked around. The walkway was an open space, and there was no place to hide other than a nearby smaller arch.

Anyone in there? I asked the wind.

Many. And stirring.

So I either killed the Irkallan who approached from the queen’s tunnel or I chanced my luck with those who were only just stirring.

No need for you to do either, the wind said.

I guessed that was true, although it didn’t mean there would be no effort on my part. Communing with the wind might not be stealing much of my strength right now, but it would soon enough.

I hesitated, and then said, Take the breath of those within the smaller room and make it safe.

The air moved away from me, leaving barely enough freshness to breathe. The stink of the place hit, so thick and heavy it was felt like a blanket was smothering my senses. I gagged, and heard the approaching Irkallan briefly pause.

I held my nose closed to stop some of the stench reaching down into my throat, and slowly—carefully—backed away. The footsteps resumed, faster than before.

I ducked into the small archway and pressed my back against the wall. The footsteps reached the walkway and paused again, and the clicking of mandibles bit through the air, the sound one of agitation. I didn’t move. I didn’t even dare wrap my fingers around my knife lest the slight glow give me away.

After another few seconds, the Irkallan moved away. I peered cautiously around the corner; it wasn’t just one, but three. One of them was huge and an odd almost blue color, while the other two were smaller and the usual lavender. Was the larger one a general of some kind? Or maybe even the queen’s consort? Did the Irkallan have such things, given they appeared to be a matriarchal society?

I pulled back and glanced around the room. When the air had said many, it hadn’t been kidding. The room was only as wide as the archway itself, but it was long. The entire length of the left wall and part of the end wall of the room were lined with sleeping pods that had been cut into the stone. There were five levels of them and, like the archways themselves, each one was perfectly lined up with its neighbors. My gaze ran the length of the room as I did the calculation—seventy-five Irkallan, just in this room alone. Holy hell….

I studied the doorway at the far end of the room. Where does that lead?

Into another sleeping quarters.

Are there Irkallan within?

Yes.

Will going that way enable me to get to the larger tunnel?

No.

Of course not. I mean, why would things be that easy? I peered around the archway again; the three Irkallan had disappeared. I checked the locations of the walkway guards and then quickly slipped into the wider archway.

Almost immediately I felt the stirrings of life. Not within the darkness, but in the earth itself. While the ground under my feet remained lifeless, I could hear the distant heartbeat of it, a siren call that almost seemed to be begging me to come closer, to hurry.

But the latter would be foolish in a place like this.

Slowly, carefully, I moved deeper into the wide tunnel. The walls here were as smooth and as black as any of the others I’d seen, but as I crept farther in, I realized that instead of glimmer stone, the veins in this tunnel were slivers of brown earth. I gently brushed my fingers across one—and was just about blown backward by the power and force of the voices that immediately answered. It was very evident the earth, while it had no real beef with the Irkallan themselves, didn’t like the deadness they were spreading beyond these blackened, lifeless mountains.

But that deadness wasn’t really surprising given the situation. Normal earth witches were trained almost from birth to shape earth and use the power within it without damaging the soil. The only time real damage had ever occurred was during the war, when the witches had drawn so much power from the ground that they’d killed an entire district. It was doubtful the witchlings born here in the Irkallan stronghold had any such training. From the little Saska had said, the women were kept in a constant state of pregnancy, and their offspring were taken away—or killed—at birth. That meant the stained children raised by the Irkallan would have had to find their own way around their developing powers, in much the same way as I had. Subsequently, their control would, at best, be patchy, and they were more likely to drain the earth even as they commanded it.

I continued down the tunnel cautiously, my fingers itching to brush the widening seams of live earth. But I resisted—I had no idea where the children currently were; if they were awake—as the Adlin young had been—then I risked one of them sensing my presence via the earth.

This tunnel ends in fifty feet, the air said. It opens up into the first chamber.

Something in the way that was said had the hair along the back of my neck rising. And what might that chamber be used for?

It is the chamber the breeders reside in. The wind paused. The women are also there.

I didn’t want to see that. Didn’t want to witness the atrocities I’d barely glimpsed in Saska’s thoughts. Is the queen also there?

No. She resides in the next chamber. There is a hall that links the two—the children are kept in the rooms that feed off this hall.

Leaving me with no choice but to go through the first chamber and all its breeders. Are there guards?

Twenty, at least, in the first chamber. Double that in the queen’s.

Meaning my chance of getting through unseen was right up there with my chances of survival.

If I were lifted along the roofline, would they see me?

Yes. They will feel the air movement. It is still and heavy in the chamber.

Which didn’t mean I couldn’t do it—just that I probably needed something to distract the guards from actually noticing my presence.

Can you steal the breath from them?

Yes, but the departure of so much air will be felt by both those who guard the hall and the queen’s chambers. You will get to neither the children nor the queen if that happens.

I silently swore but continued to creep closer. Once I was near the end of the wide tunnel, I squatted on my heels and studied the area. Though it was as dark as anywhere else in this place, my eyes were well used to it by now. The chamber was large and rectangular. There was another wide archway directly opposite this one, and between the two there were a dozen smaller doorways. The wind told me the various chambers catered to the needs of the breeders—they were cleansing areas, food preparation and medical areas, fertilization rooms, and even nurseries—and that the latter had human babies in it, their little bodies fed with the milk being pumped from the breasts of the women.

I briefly closed my eyes, ignored the horror in my heart, and silently ordered the air to steal the breath from their lungs. Whether it would set off alarms or not, I had no idea. I guess I’d find out soon enough.

As tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, I turned my attention to the breeders. The entire central portion of the chamber was filled with them. There had to be hundreds of them here. They were all sitting in either well-padded lounging or birthing chairs, and each of them was looked after by at least one attendant. I could only see one of the witches. She lay flat on a bed to the right of this tunnel, in amongst a group of heavily pregnant Irkallan. The first thing I noticed was the fact there were no bracelets on her wrists. The second was that—although she was gaunt enough to appear little more than a skeleton—her belly was so extended she looked ready to burst. She wasn’t moving—she was barely even breathing—and there were a multitude of tubes in her arms as well as pumps attached to her breasts. I wondered if the stuff being fed into her veins was keeping her alive or merely keeping her sedated. Either way, it was no way to live.

And no way I could save her.

I dragged my gaze away from the awful sight and studied the guards again. They were evenly spread around the chamber, and every one of them had one of those strange metal staffs at their back.

There really was no way I was getting across this room without either being spotted or attacked, even if the air did project me across. I also had no doubt that the minute I did appear, the whole damn apiary would come alive and I’d be swarmed—and dead—in minutes.

Which really only left me with the one option—I needed to create a distraction.

It was time to make some noise.