The Golden One

The Mines

The damp walls of the mine shimmer with my movements. I try to hold the lamp steady. It's colder here, quieter. Dark cramped spaces creep me out but at least we can be alone down here. I take a deep breath trying to stay calm and keep my cleithrophobia under control. People go missing in these mines all the time, either crushed by a cave in or eaten by some of the monsters that reside in the deeper sections. I follow behind Lucas closely, keeping the oil lamp up so we can see.

I'm not a fan of confined spaces, especially ones that could collapse at any moment. I don't typically go in the mines but my father insisted that Lucas needed help carrying the ore. He gave me a wink as we left this afternoon. The old man loves Lucas and I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to arrange a marriage. Lucas has been his apprentice for a couple years now. It has been nice having him around but Lucas is not exactly my type. He is sweet and caring, popular even but I doubt he has ever thought of me in that way. We live in different worlds outside of work. He prays to the gods, does community service and has a social life. He has more friends than I can count. I just have Maya and El who I've known forever.

I can hear every little sound echoing off the walls. I can hear our breathing and our steps as we traverse deeper into the Stonia mine. We are just outside of town a couple hundred feet into the Stonia forest. It's not a bad walk, maybe a mile from the store. The back of the store has my father's forge where he and Lucas work all day.

Lucas is wearing a pair of old leather boots and a smithing apron. His brown eyes scan the walls as we move deeper and deeper trying to find any leftover scraps.We don't have enough iron for what the Oalsera soldiers ordered this month so Lucas offered to collect the ore we needed.

Lucas' family lives a couple houses down from us, we've basically known each other our entire lives but barely spoke until he started his apprenticeship with my father. He isn't really the type of person I gravitate toward.

The iron veins are bright red in this lighting, thick streaks line the walls and rust oozes out of the vein. "Hold my apron and don't go anywhere, this won't take long, he just needs a little more." I grab the apron from his hand and get comfortable on the floor of the mine. Little rocks slide under my feet as I push the woven backpack toward Lucas to use. He gets to work immediately swinging the pickax through the air. Loud clanks of iron reverberate through the passages, surely awakening anything that may have been asleep down here.

My father, Berius, found me crying after bandits attacked my home. I couldn't have been more than a year old at the time. He said I was covered in the blood of my family that they had just been slaughtered. I have no memories of them but Berius told me my mother was in the room with me when he found me. He said it looked like she died protecting me. That was 21 years ago. He was trying to trade goods when it all went down. He took me home with him to Oalsera, a town on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Dathen.

I am grateful to him for adopting me and to his wife, Brie, who I now call mom. They treat me like I'm their actual daughter.

Loud metallic pangs pulse through my head as Lucas pounds on the wall with his pickaxe. Sweat drips down his face and he pauses to remove his shirt before continuing. He reaches behind his head to pull it up and over before throwing it at me.

"What are you staring at?"

I roll my eyes at him and throw his shirt back at him. "You look like shit and smell like it too" I say, trying not to smile at his pounds of muscle.

I push myself up, not making eye contact. Quiet, I need quiet so I can enjoy the emptiness of the mine. And right now, Lucas is quite the distraction. I brush the dirt from my hands and begin toward a different section of the mine.