Chapter 2

The cavern had been one grievous mis-step in a week-long trek through the terrain. The bandits were just as relentless in their pursuit as cougars given a hint of freshly spilled blood. The group of mages had gritted their teeth, snarled at them, and pushed through looping caverns, subterranean tunnels, and secret passages. Lux had been through most of them at least once, remembering them as the military corridors Demacia used to wage war against their enemies. Her fingers gladly touched the charcoal stains of beacons long dead, and her head bowed to the skeletons of the warriors long gone.

"Momma look," cried a toddler, clutching his mother's frayed tunic with one hand. His chubby forefinger pointed at the spider crawling out of an empty eye-socket, waving its legs and scuttling off. The mage grabbed and folded his little palm within hers. "We mustn't point fingers at them, baby, they might get angry." She murmured a prayer to the goddess and trudged on through the waters of the cave bottom. Water dripped from stalactites, arcing in the gusts that howled through the hollowed stone. Before and behind her moved the group of twenty weather-beaten mages led by the Light of Demacia herself. Some of them were former soldiers of a country that hated their kind.

Lux's light flickered across the walls, eager to meet the bigger source waiting for it at the end of the tunnel they were moving through. One of her companions, a girl named Elvenna had nearly cried when she saw the exit. "Milady, that's it! We'll hit the town of Bernsdale in two days and we can move on to Fjeldjord. We're free, we're finally free!" Another mage, far past his prime interrupted her passionate outburst with a head-shake. "They're still behind us, Elvenna, lest you lose sight of what ails us."

"Oh come on, Cassion," she snapped, eyes narrowing. "They're probably still in that gorge we crossed two days ago. A landslide and a boulder-rain of that magnitude won't let them catch up with us that easy."

"Very confident of your powers, aren't you lass?" asked Cassion as he walked past her, handing her his torch. The mouth of the cave stood above a landing over a steep rock-climb. Freshwater flowed through the cracks between jagged rocks and crevices, trickling off Lux's fingers. Her wand tip dipped and rose in a pattern, her ears keen to the steady rumble of a waterfall further up. She turned around to face all of her group and spoke up, voice bolder than that of the Demacian girl she once was.

"Just a little more further, everyone. We'll be one step closer to home."

And yet be all the more away from it.

Her chest had heaved throughout their journey with guilt and anxiety, making her lose sleep when the toddler, Tomas, had caught a fever. She had spent all her time with him and his family then, fetching wood to heat water, hugging him to keep him warm and standing vigil in his grandfather's place. Cassion had betrayed no emotion in his face that night, but she knew his gratitude as the days went by.

Lux at times had wished that she were as stoic as him and Garen. As she waited her turn to climb up the rock wall, thoughts of her kingdom came running back to her.

I wonder how Garen's doing. He should've told mother and father about this by now, she thought, as water gurgled and laughed underneath her feet, flowing to feed some aquifer deep within the bosom of the caverns.

They must be terrified, and Aunt Tianna. . . I'm so sorry for letting you all down. I'm sorry everyone, I wish I had been smarter to see through his words. How foolish was I? Ignorant, naive, and stupid.

Played you like an Ionian fiddle, he did. Like a weak, wooden marionette to dance for him when he pulled the strings. And you imbecile, you fell for him didn't you? All it took him to woo you, charm you, you ditz were honeyed words and a handshake.

You could've listened to the Warden when he had warned you. But no, she thought on bitterly as she hit a stone into the pool nearby with the tip of her wand.

You had to fall for him, think about marrying him once you had convinced everyone at the Council to magically stop hating mages, and then actually go and. . . You were naive and stupid. Aunt Tianna was right in calling you a jumpy little schoolgirl with her head stuck in the clouds.

"Yes?!" she asked, looking up. The hand of a fellow mage hung before her, open and inviting. "Come on, lass," said Cassion, "we don't have time to waste pondering on what we can't change." His other hand had its fingers firmly lodged into the crevices, and he helped her up the climb. Her knees scraped the edges of the exit, and the freshest draught of air she had breathed in weeks filled her lungs. She had nearly lost the scents of plants, mud and life in the musty odors of the caves. Lux offered her hand to the elder mage, but he waved her off with a confident laugh.

"No thank you, little darling. I'm alright."

Luxanna's smile faded from her face in a heartbeat. Her pupils increased in diameter, as did the old man's. His grip slipped and he plummeted backwards, hitting the pool surface with a splat. Her fingers gripped her wand and ignited the tips into balls of fiery light. Her shot missed as the bandit slammed into her from the outcrop above them, fixing her forehead in the range of her crossbow.

She didn't know what Elvenna had screamed. The next thing she remembered was waking up, pinned beneath the rotting corpse of the bandit. Her eyes saw a patch of what was presumably Hinterlandian ivy growing out of a gigantic wall. Rock walls surrounded the twenty mages at all sides, and amid the boulders were the contorted bodies of Elvenne and Cassion.

"You could've avoided the unnecessary bloodshed, little mage," wafted a voice through the newly made oculus above their heads. The single light beam piercing through the dusty interiors of their cage grew thinner as the woman stood over the opening. Lux pushed the body off her and shouted, "Buck off, bandit. Our answer is still no and it always will be!"

"A terrible decision, noble, to play with the lives of the people who trust you. Try again in a few hours, perhaps a clear mind might help."

Day after day, they would hear Chantelle repeat the same question, her voice sharp as Garen Crownguard's blade.

"Would you pledge yourselves to our cause, Demacians, or die in this hole?"

Day after day, a Lux delirious from the touch of the Hinterlandian ivy would repeat her answer before fainting.

"No."

She was mourning the loss of her people, fingers running through the soft hair of the feverish baby when the stone bounced off her shoulder. The orb of light in her free hand flickered before collapsing in on itself, and she realized that she was out of mana. Her gaunt eyes caught the urchin boy looking at her through the oculus of the cage, a primal hunger burning in them. The boy smiled at her and lifted something wrapped in dirty rags. He shook it at her and lowered it into the pit hole.

The boy introduced himself as Nero and assured her that his companions were keeping an eye on the bandits, who had gone to eat supper.

"Some bread, missus," he continued his whispering as he loosened the twine bit by bit. "I'll try to bring some every day. I stole this from a rich, muscular man this morning. He won't miss it anyway."

Lux smiled as she caught the package with both her feeble hands, the hunger of three days making them shake. She looked at the boy and managed to speak.

"Thank you."

Nero's brown eyes sparkled, and he combed back his brown hair. Lux thought that he looked like a rabbit with his buck teeth as she unwrapped the package. The fresh aroma cleared the stench of death, excreta, and rot in the hole.