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“How many of you survived?” I demand.
“Less than a hundred,” she replies, her expression clearly annoyed with my direct question. Gaze darting around, she gathers the skirts of her long, yellow dress. “Come, and I will answer all of your questions, and you will tell me of your journey here.” Without bothering to wait for a response, Affree turns and begins walking, leaving Fort and me to follow.
I pass by Shadow, and he lifts his head. After pressing a kiss to his nose, I follow Affree as she heads toward a small alcove within the stone. She takes a seat on a plush cushion then gestures for us to follow.
“No one can hear us outside of this area.” She smooths her dress as I take a seat, but Fort remains standing. Affree doesn’t seem to care, though. “Now, my brother. Why is he not with you?”
“He went to find you,” I tell her. “And the Tenebris were still there.”
Her eyes widen, mouth falling partially open. “Did he survive?”
“Yes. But he was too injured to travel. We left him with the healer who managed to rescue my brother from the brink of death.”
“Your brother?”
“Bowman is alive,” I tell her. “A healer by the name of Alysia saved him that night. She saved Fort when he’d been poisoned, and we left Lacrae with her.”
“Alysia,” she whispers. “So that’s where she went. She was the healer I sent you here to find. When we arrived, though, she was nowhere to be seen.”
“And speaking of here, how did you get into these caves? We had to cross through Dead Man’s Land to get inside, and the door was sealed.”
“We were unaware that there was another route into these caves,” she tells us. “Until one of our elders told us of a place that is only known to dwarven royalty and the few elves to whom they entrusted the information. We used those ancient tunnels to avoid passage through Dead Man’s Land.”
The fact that she was able to get past the dangers lurking there angers me even more. How many years have those elves suffered being abandoned and forgotten? All while an entire civilization existed less than a day’s walk from them?
“Smart of you, given that the elves you trapped in Dead Man’s Land all those years ago remember exactly what you did to them.”
She pales. “What do you mean?”
“You trapped elves within the ring of obsidian.”
Affree stares at me a moment; then her gaze darts to Fort. “What did you see?”
“We saw them,” I tell her.
Her golden gaze pierces mine once more. “Impossible.”
“If it were impossible, then how would I know about it?”
Affree has no answer as she simply stares back at me, shock and something awfully close to regret on her face. “They’re alive?”
“They were this morning when they escorted us here,” Fort says.
“You’ve believed them to be dead all this time?”
“Yes. We assumed the creatures would have killed them, or—”
“So you did leave them there to die.” I push to my feet and shake my head. “You selfish bastards sacrificed your own like they were nothing. Tell me, did you even try to get them out? They weren’t even sure the dwarves still lived. Do you know what that must feel like? To be abandoned and left for dead by your own people? To spend centuries thinking you were all alone?”
“We had no choice.”
“You could have given them one,” I snarl. “Could have let them know just what it was they were signing up for when you sent them inside with that obsidian.”
Affree shakes her head. “I cannot believe they live.”
“They thrive,” I say. “An entire village with generations that have managed to survive, despite the death sentence you placed upon their heads.” Anger burns in my veins at knowing that Affree was aware of what was being done. Because while I would expect it from her, I would not have expected it from Lacrae. And if she knew, chances are her brother did, too. “Was Alysia in there when the obsidian went up?”
She shakes her head. “She was with the dwarves. We sent her in to warn them of what was coming. She was to help them seal the door then leave before the obsidian was ever set. But she never arrived when she was supposed to, so we had no choice but to move forward with our plan.”
