step beside me. “What were you in for?” he asked quietly.
He probably already knew. “Treason. How about you?”
He winked. “Been here a week but it feels like years. Theft, smuggling, a little bit of this and that—”
“Quiet,” said the warden before the elf could continue.
I rolled my eyes. There was no reason for him to threaten us. We were warriors now, not prisoners. “What are you going to do? Kill us?”
The warden fixed me with his gaze. “I will if you run.”
I looked at my fellow convicts. They were dirty and thin. “We won’t run. Anything is better than the mines.”
The warden pursed his lips and stared at us for a long moment, then turned his back and kept walking.
“Is it true you met him?” The tall elf asked me, eyes gleaming. It took me a moment to work out who he meant.
“Galin? Yeah. Unfortunately.”
Another elf cut in, “So, what are the High Elves like?”
I couldn’t say they were beautiful, with golden hair, that they towered over us. Instead, I said, “Uptight. Most of them speak like they’ve got flutes up their asses.”
The elf sucked in a short breath, and his eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding.”
“King Gorm demands your fealty,” I said in my best High Elf impression.
“Are you serious? That’s how they talk?”
“She’s right,” said the tall elf. “They sound like utter knobs.”
I grinned at him then held out my hand. “I’m Ali, by the way.”
“Bo,” he replied. “So, how’d you end up in the mines?”
With a sigh, I launched into the story of how I’d literally been to Hel and back. After spending my days alone shoveling rock, it felt great to talk. And by the time I’d finished telling them how I’d descended the Well of Wyrd, we’d reached the fluvial plains. Here, we walked past fields of mushrooms: cremini, portobello, matsutake, and black trumpets. But my stomach clenched with horror as I realized something was very wrong with them. They reeked of something foul, and they were growing withered and green. Diseased. No wonder the Shadow Lords had agreed to the Winnowing. The entire city would die if we didn’t do something.
Walking through the fields, my mind slid back to happier times. Normally, every Night Elf worked in the mushroom farms, even if they had other jobs. The fungi were our main source of food, and it was a community effort to care for them. I’d spent my youth in fields just like these. Spreading spores, checking the mycelium mats, and harvesting mushrooms. I remembered when, as children, my brother Barthol and I would find a puffball mushroom and kick it around like a soccer ball until a foreman told us to stop. I wondered how Barthol was doing now. Was he starving, too?
It felt eerie here, desolate. Normally, there were groups of Night Elves tending the mushrooms. Picking off slugs, collecting spores, doing all the things necessary to keep the life-giving fungi healthy. Now, it was completely deserted.
And worse, as we walked on, we passed the old cemetery, the stones jutting from the ground at odd angles. Now, it was full of fresh, new graves. Row upon row of them, many of them small—children’s graves.
Tears stung my eyes. This was the result of our imprisonment here, being trapped by the High Elves. By Galin.
After an hour we came to the first town, though it wasn't much, a small collection of stone buildings. As we approached, excitement welled in my chest. This would be the first time I had seen my fellow countrymen in weeks. But as we followed the road into the village, we found it empty. Deserted. There were no elves to greet us.
“Where is everyone?” said Bo.
“I have no idea,” I replied, trying to hide the worry in my voice.
An hour later, we reached Myrk, the largest city in the Shadow Caverns. The hunger was cutting through my stomach so sharply now, I felt half insane.
It seemed like a world of death around me. Normally Myrk was a bustling metropolis of bright storefronts and shouting street vendors. There’d be farmers carting mushrooms, weavers carrying bundles of shimmering spider silk, jewelers in little booths selling gemstones.
Instead it was nearly empty, and a putrid stench filled the air. The few elves we saw moved furtively, slipping into the shadows as we approached.
“Warden,” I said loudly, “Where is everyone?”
The warden slowed. “I’m not sure.”
“Ali?”
I jumped as someone shouted my name. Then, warmth lit me up.
Dressed in his cave bear coat, my brother charged from across the