Azurite (Daughter of the Mountain Book 1) Read online

  Zora looked down at her feet. “Have you any idea if she wants me to call?”

  “She asked not to be disturbed, as usual,” Arvil replied. “If you need to relay a message to her I suggest getting ahold of Ashley. She can take care of it from there.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. No one on Mizra’s staff liked getting involved in the Queen’s strained relationship with her daughter.

  “Do you know how long she will be home for?” Zora questioned him again. If her mother refused to communicate her comings and goings to her daughter, Zora would force the information from one of her advisors instead.

  Arvil looked like he wanted to tell her something, but refrained from doing so. Instead he said, “On the other hand, maybe it is better if you wait for the Queen to contact you for an audience, instead of bothering her ahead of time. Now, I must be off. But just a word of advice: I wouldn’t make myself too visible while creeping around the deserted parts of Mizra, regardless of the reason.” He tapped her book. “You really should learn not to wander. Good day.” He gave her a slight bow before continuing on his way. He paused for a moment and turned back towards her.

  “I’d be careful down there. I was just checking in with Master Leatherby, and his team is planning on detonating today. I don’t want to be responsible for having to pull you out of a pile of mountain rock.”

  Detonating? Zora thought. She didn’t know what that was. Regardless, she was sure Arvil was only saying this because he felt sorry for highlighting the nearly nonexistent relationship Zora had with her mother, but she appreciated the warning all the same. She watched as Arvil’s robes faded into the darkness of the corridors as he walked away.

  Zora gave a deep sigh, trying to push away the hurt feelings surrounding her mother’s lack of interest in her. Been home for two days and not a word sent to your daughter, Zora thought bitterly. But what’s new?

  After several more minutes, Zora came to the end of the long corridor. She looked up to see bits of sunlight filtering in from the opening of an old cylindrical mine shaft that ran hundreds of feet above her. She was beneath Mizra now, and the darkness of the underground caves before her seemed to swallow up the meager light of the torches still lighting her path. A small supply station was set up here for miners who might be entering the caverns from Mizra, which was fairly unusual, but the supply station was still stocked. Zora had left some of her own belongings here including traveling boots and a cloak. She changed into them then grabbed a lantern, extra oil in a skin, and matches. She lit the lantern and held it up in front of her to illuminate the steep downward staircase that lead into the mines.

  The country of Samaria lay burrowed in the largest valley of the Anion Mountain range. The caverns underneath the mountains ran deep and long, and a large portion of them had been opened up, carved out, and reengineered until they became a massive underground network of navigable mines. Other, more remote caves still remained unmolested by human hands, and today that was where Zora was heading.

  As a Daughter of the Mountain, she knew how to traverse the geology of the caves better than any miner and had been doing so since she was a child. She could determine the direction she was traveling by the diverging gradient of the earth, ascertain her elevation by the feel of the air on her skin, and know how far she was from Mizra by the sound of rushing water through the underground springs.

  It was exploring these mines as a child that Zora first came across the fascinating cave paintings and corresponding runes that decorated the jagged blue stone. Since her discovery of these cave drawings, Zora had been obsessed with deciphering and translating the ancient runes of the dead Samarian language that accompanied the beautiful paintings. It was a meticulous and assiduous process since the original Samarian language and alphabet were no longer learned or used. The subject of the tome Milo gifted her with was ancient languages, with a concentration of those used in the north. It had relevant information on the definitions of several runes and what symbols represented an alphabet, sounds, or ideas. To Zora, the gift of the tome was priceless.

  After hours of hiking, Zora finally came across the cavern that marked the halfway point of her journey for that day. The air in the mines always blew ice cold, and it prickled Zora’s skin like needles as she took a seat on the floor between two conical stalagmites that nearly reached the low cavern ceiling. She’d recently discovered this new cave with never before seen paintings, and it was a little ways off of the main passages the miners used for travel. Zora had been going there each day for weeks, and each time she went further and further into the narrow passages of rock, adding their direction and shape to the maps she’d created in her mind.

  As she sat replicating the paintings and copying the runes, constant drips of water peppered the floor where small pools of liquid had formed and grown larger over the years. While some parts of the caves were easy to walk through, other paths were barred by treacherous rock formations and hanging dripstone as sharp as a knife. Although the space inside the cave was wide across, the darkness was so heavy, that without the meager light of the lantern, Zora would have been rendered completely blind.

  It was by flame light that Zora drew the strange cave runes in her journal for later comparison to what was in the tome. In this cave she’d found a painting that illustrated her ancestors hunting gazelles along the banks of the Argent River. It was basic artwork full of straight lines and little color, but Zora was more concerned about the language that went along with the story. She knew her hard work was paying off since she was now able to recognize the symbols that represented certain words like snow, water, and fire. She was now moving onto compiling the symbols that represented sounds so that she could read full sentences of ancient communication.

  After an hour, Zora got a bit bored and decided to pursue her inkling to dig a little deeper into this new cave to see what else she could uncover. She moved forward, climbing over large stones rubbed smooth by years of water movement through the cave. She clenched dearly onto poles of dripstone as she felt her way through the constricting path, sometimes having to turn sideways, or crawl on her knees just to bypass an obstructive rock formation.

  As she moved further underground, the air blew chill and damp, and the darkness moved in closer around her. Finally the cavern widened, and as she traversed it, the young woman ran her fingers along its walls to feel for any carvings or etchings that meant a drawing was present. The lantern cast a dim, exiguous path of light along the wall as she ventured further away from her set up location.

  Zora cried out in excitement when the flame light unveiled a new cave drawing that she’d yet to discover. Thrilled, she lifted the lamp up higher to examine her ancestors’ pictorial representation of their daily life. But Zora’s smile of delight slowly began to fade as she parsed the drawings, completely baffled as to what her ancestors were trying to depict.

  The illustration was of a monster. Zora could think of no other way to describe the grotesque being. It looked like a disturbingly aberrant mix between a human and a beast, having the physique of a man with two sets of layered bird wings that grew from its upper back. Its goat face sprouted an elongated snout and no eyes. The tail was that of a reptile; if Zora could guess she’d choose a dragon. It was long, scaled, and thick with muscle. Curious as to why the being had no eyes, Zora leaned in closer with the lamp to examine the drawing better. She gasped out loud. Thousands upon thousands of bleeding red eyes covered the being’s massive wings, as if that was the only thing they were made up of. Zora stumbled back out of fear, as if the fiend drawn on the wall was going to come alive any second. She’d never seen anything like this in any of the hundreds of drawings she’d recorded in her journals.

  What does it mean? Zora thought.

  It was then that she felt it, the deep agonizing pain that emanated from the scar on her midsection. It was the scar she’d received three years ago as a child. She winced as her hand went reflexively to her abdomen, waiting for the fit to pass like normal. The beas
t provoked something so revolting in Zora that it triggered the reaction of her scar. She shook her head vigorously to clear the pain away and turned to make her way back to the cave mouth and out of sight of the strange painting.

  She had been down in the caves for several hours now, and her eyes swam with fatigue. This new cave drawing had unnerved her, and the old injury on her midsection was aching terribly, so she decided to pack up for the day. It would take another hour to exit the caves to the northwest, and then she’d be able to head back to Alumhy.

  The area where the alpine Anion peaks began to transform into rocky hills was known as the Shoulder, and there was something of Zora’s located there that she needed to tend to. She made her way back to the main mine passages and moved forward until she heard the chipping and hacking of mountain rock and the groaning and grunting of the miners as they chiseled out their resources. She had entered the most recent mining location set up by Talan Leatherby. Pale light from the outside brightened the dark mine as supplies were lowered by rope and pulley down the numerous vertical shafts carved into the surface of the mountain. She passed by several miners who went about their work with a tired monotony, not even noticing the presence of a female, much less the Samarian Princess, in their midst.

  This mine was set up like a squared hallway, with wooden beams built along the ceiling and sides to keep the mountain from imploding on the miners. A cloudy blue dust filled the hallway as the build up of mountain rock over thousands of years was slowly chiseled away. Large wagons lined the walls and were dragged in and out of the mine by the men as they filled them with gemstones. Usually, the wagons were overflowing with myriads of gem rock waiting to be taken to the gem piece makers for cutting and polishing, but today there was hardly anything in them.

  Without warning, a deafening boom resonated through the mine followed by a deep convulsing of the earth that threw Zora, and every one around her, to the ground. Shards of rock and dust rained down on Zora as she covered her head to avoid being knocked senseless by falling debris. She wheezed and coughed as suffocating dust particles entered her nostrils.

  “What in the name of the Creator was that, Salem?” An angered voice echoed throughout the mine once the blast subsided. “You could have killed someone, you dumb boy! I told you to stuff mold in the burrow before igniting the fuse! Go help the men up! Let’s hope your negligence didn’t cost us a whole day’s work!”

  Zora recognized the voice as Talan’s, and she could see the outline of two men arguing not far from her through the thick dust. She watched as Talan stormed off and began to help his miners up, ensuring there were no injuries caused by the rogue blast. As he got closer to Zora, the young woman scrambled up and tried to dip out of sight before he saw her. She was too late.

  “Hey, you! Girl! What are you doing down here?” Dozens of dust covered faces looked towards where Zora was standing as Talan grabbed her by the arm, causing her to drop her rucksack and tome.

  “You could get hurt traveling down here alone!” he scolded, then swung her around harshly to face him. A look of disbelief appeared in his brown eyes when he realized who she was.

  “Lady Zora? Forgive me, I didn’t realize it was you.” He released her arm and bowed low to the ground. A hushed babel waved through the group of solemn miners before they dropped their tools and mimicked Talan’s bow. For some reason, this always made Zora feel uncomfortable. She was of Samarian royal blood but never understood how that translated into the need to be exalted. While all heads were lowered, Zora quickly bent down to pick up her tome and wiped the fallen rubble off of it.

  “Talan, I sincerely apologize for interrupting your operations,” Zora began as she helped him back to his feet. She glanced around at the other men who’d been roiled by the blast.

  “Please, everyone, stand up. You must forgive me for interrupting your work, for it seems as though your day has been difficult enough already. Let me show my appreciation for all of your loyal efforts by having food and drink sent down from Mizra’s kitchens on my behalf.” The room looked grateful for her random act of generosity, even Talan. He allowed the moment to pass and then looked around.

  “Alright, back to work!” He gave a roar that sent the men right back to their duties.

  “My Lady,” Talan began more calmly now, “it would be an honor to escort you out of the mines to ensure no more harm befalls you.” Zora nodded politely as he took her hand and began to lead her around piles of rock that had accumulated during the blast.

  “When Alfred told me he used to see you wandering though the mines, I always thought it was the delusions of a senile old man,” Talan admitted to Zora. Alfred was Talan’s predecessor who’d retired only a year earlier.

  Talan Leatherby was the newest and youngest member of the Queen’s council. His father had been a miner his whole life, and Talan had accompanied his father to work on several occasions throughout his childhood. At the age of fifteen, Talan left for the university in Rienne, returning three years later to work in the mines before being chosen to take a seat on the Queen’s Council as the mining advisor once Alfred stepped down.

  “Well, it’s true. Just don’t speak of it to anyone incase word gets back to my mother,” Zora pleaded. “I’ve been studying and documenting the cave painting and runes down here since I was a child. It’s quite fascinating, really.” Talan looked impressed.

  “I have seen them, and it does incur a sort of reverence knowing such fine artistry was done by our ancestors,” Talan said. “If I come across any when we open a new mine, you’ll be the first to know.” Zora smiled at him and squeezed his hand warmly.

  “I’d heard rumors that you were developing a black powder that could blast through rock,” Zora commented. “I did not think a thing to be possible until just now! Woe be to those who try and breech our borders when we have such artifice up our sleeve!”

  Talan laughed proudly. “Aye, my Lady. The blast you just experienced was only a diminutive display of what can be done with fire powder. And the great thing about it is that it’s made from all of our resources here in Samaria! I have teams over on the east coast working day and night in the sulfur mines, and right here in the valley we are able to mine all the salt needed from the caliche already present. It was just a matter of time before it all came together.” He drew his eyebrows down until they formed a V shape on his forehead.

  “Although, I’d never thought about how such an innovation could be misused if it got into the wrong hands.” Talan paused. “The thought of my work being used for bloodshed is certainly something to think about.”

  He met Zora’s blue-eyed gaze. If there was anything that proved Zora was Evangeline’s daughter, it was the penetratingly radiant eyes both women shared.

  “Perhaps we should keep these thoughts between you and me?”

  Zora smiled, and the pair continued on in silence with only the chiseling and cracking of the mountain rock accompanying then. Zora could tell her comment had perturbed the young advisor, whose normally jovial demeanor was suddenly subdued.

  “I noticed the gemstone rock being gouged from this new mine is less than last year at this time,” Zora said as a man covered in dust clamored past them pulling an empty wagon. “That’s extremely uncommon. I’ve heard from the gem piece makers in Alumhy that the supply of stones has been dwindling off slowly. Some shops haven’t been able to meet their customer orders, which is forcing them to permanently close.”

  Zora gave Talan a look of concern. “I know production has been struggling, Master Leatherby. Although I don’t sit on the Queen’s Council, I’m still a Daughter of the Mountain. I hear and observe my people, and I know when something is awry.” Zora shivered as an unexplained chill ran up her arms.

  “From the perspective of one whose been traveling these mines since childhood, something just feels…different. The Anion Mountain range is massive, and our people have only uncovered a small fraction of what it holds, but to me it feels, I don’t know… sick.”
r />   Zora rubbed her arms quickly to dissolve the chill. Talan nodded. He understood what the young woman was saying, since he too had grown up working in the deep and dark caverns of the Anions.

  “There is no denying we’ve faced obstacles in our amount of production, Lady Zora. Hopefully, the black powder will help us uncover new deposits, in addition to some suggestions the high Queen has given me lately. She is a wise and fair Queen.” He tried to sound optimistic. The pair was nearing the end of the mine now, and the white daylight stung Zora’s eyes. People swarmed passed them pulling wagons full of rock, tools, and supplies while talking gruffly to one another.

  “Thank you, Master Leatherby, but I think I can find my way back from here. Good luck with all your endeavors. If there is anyone I’d trust to help our country in such unsure times, it’s you.”

  “Thank you, Lady Zora. You don’t know how much that means to me.” Talan give her a wide smile that lite up his dirt covered face before retreating back into the dark mine and leaving Zora alone on the northern edge of the Anion Mountains.

  She’d successfully made her way to the Shoulder where the mountains transformed into large mounds of uneven razor sharp rocks that jutted out in all directions. Zora tried to forget about the personal experience she had as a child wandering through the mines and into the tundra like she was now doing. She gripped her side as it began to ache painfully again, as if a cramp had suddenly ransacked her. That happened nearly every time she thought about that disturbing night three years ago.

  Zora chose this sterile land to set up her garden for two reasons: there was a small chance of anyone finding it, and she wanted to see if she could make something grow out of the dead land. If there were two things in life in which Zora was absolutely passionate and devoted it was ancient runes and botany. Like her teacher Milo claimed, he had little knowledge of Samarian runes, but when it came to plants he was extremely informative. This common interest brought the tutor and student even closer together as they spent hours tending to the seedlings in Mizra’s greenhouse regardless of the season. They frequently held lessons in the fortress gardens when weather permitted, as was their plan for later that day.