A Lost Kingdom

Chapter Two

She's blind

Kai realized this as soon as they reach the courtyard. He thought it was just that it was so damn dark everywhere. But now that he thought about it was obvious. The way Rosie talked to him and waited for other inmates to get their rations how unaffected she was to the complete lack of light in the caves.

Her clothes if he could even call them that screamed vulnerability. A simple stained beige shift tied at the waist fraying rope. No shoes either just bandages wrapped around her feet once or twice.

At first glance he couldn't see it but she bore wicked faded scars on her left arm and leg.

The girl was dirty, dirt practically stuck to her. Although blind her eyes were extraordinary, it seemed almost cruel. The right was a deep sapphire blue flecked with green and silver, the left was a gold-flecked brilliant red.

After three years in the rebellion, it wasn't a surprise that Kai was sent here. The gold mines of Demrys. A slave camp made to imprison mages in the sub-zero degree weather. Of course, not everyone here has magic, just people found in the wrong place at the wrong time.

clang...clang...clang.

It's been at least 3 hours, yet the girl - Rosie showed no sign of exhaustion save for the steady pants that were in time with her pickaxe. Kai was exhausted. His muscles burned despite the cold.

The darkness of the cave was just as unnerving as the distant wails of the thousands of inmates shoved in here. The girl either didn't care for the screams or was just so accustomed to them. There was simply no way she couldn't hear them.

"How long have you been here?" Kai asked her breaking the silence between them, the rhythm of her pickaxe slowed.

"Just over three months," She replied and resumed digging for a mountain supposedly filled with gold.

Three months. How does a blind girl last three months in the height of winter? Kai let that fact wash over him a little Before asking his next question "Why are you here?"

"Wrong time, wrong place,"

Kai figured as much, "Are you- do you have magic?" He asked quietly.

"You're nosy aren't you" She retorted.

They continued to swing at the frozen earth, and rock in silence save for the distant sounds of others doing the same thing. And... the never-ending wailing, Kai clenched his fist in anger. He was about to turn to the sound of a woman when Rosie's too small arm reached out to him.

"Don't..." She whispered her voice softer than snow. Kai whirled around to find a very very still girl. "You'll only hurt her more."

So Kai didn't do anything as the screams echoed off the cave walls, as the clanging of pickaxe against the ice mines continued.

When nightfall came Kai was relieved to dump his pickaxe in the pile the other inmates had created. He took in every detail he could in the dark. The way the bars were rusted in the more full cells, some were so still they looked dead. Kai's own cell wasn't terrible but it was just him and Rosie thank the stars.

He watched as she curled up on a small pile of dirt and promptly fell asleep. Kai watched the small body breath in and out. Her dirty blond hair covered her face as she blended into the frozen earth.

Kai slumped against the opposite wall and then he too fell asleep.