The Prince's Mark

Chapter Sixteen

A couple of days dribbled by as Mirthal and Sakshi waited. Every few hours, Mirthal considered asking for his wagon back and leaving—Sakshi no longer considered him a threat as an elf, so he would have been able to leave at any time. But he was loath to return to solitude. Spending time with someone who might be crazy, but wasn't a threat to him, was better than being by himself.

Sakshi only returned to the village for meals and a bed. The two of them ended up spending a lot of time in each other's company, but Sakshi didn't speak much unless it had something to do with her research, her time as a Royal Scholar, or about the terrible the man who took her position. These topics didn't hold Mirthal's interest for long.

She was no Tracou, that was certain.

A man that short was unheard of in the Elven Kingdom. Even women were taller than he was! As if his height wasn't enough, his features were just as strange. His hair was a shock of white, but most important were his eyes—only rarely could you see beyond his irises. The way his pupils expanded and contracted was fascinating. Sometimes when Tracou looked at him his pupils would be round, but when he was actually angry, they turned into slits. He was just... interesting. Fun, too.

But Sakshi was okay. Aside from her weird intensity about stupid things and her bias against elves, she didn't seem like a bad person. She brought him food.

Still, her behavior made it obvious to him why her position had been wrenched from her and given to someone else.

On the third day, an earth shattering whump woke Mirthal. His eyes shot open only to see Sakshi's bag hardly a hair's breadth away from his face.

"Honestly, it's midday. Why are you always sleeping when I first get here?" Sakshi asked.

Mirthal blinked up at her. She stood above him, hands on her hips, the sun trying and failing to make itself known from behind her head. It took a few moments for his mind to catch up with his body and for him to remember her and where he was.

"I was tired," he mumbled.

"Now get up! Let's see what happened to the spade."

With the kind of annoyed and helpless sigh only someone freshly torn from dreamland could make, Mirthal heaved himself upright. The last thing he cared about was a stupid, tiny digging tool. They had done this for the past few days and Mirthal was certain nothing had changed or would ever change. At least when Tracou woke him up, he wasn't trying to prove that cats were secretly made of jade or something equally inane.

Nearly vibrating with excitement, Sakshi led Mirthal over to the yellow splash against the mountain she had created a few nights ago. Mirthal faced it and was technically looking at it, but he didn't absorb any information at all. Beside him, Sakshi went stock still.

"What happened?" she whispered.

"Hm?" Mirthal shook his head and tried again to focus. The spade stood in the same place it had for the past few days, but something was off. There was a convex bump where the spade should have been concave.

In one motion, Mirthal got onto the ground to get a closer look. He grabbed the handle of the spade to pick it up, but it didn't budge even after multiple attempts. Black rock had forced itself through the center of the rusted metal. But there was no hole.

The spade had somehow become part of the mountain.

He didn't know how to react to this information. It seemed unlikely that Sakshi had done this, especially without him noticing. How could this happen?

It was far too early in the day to be thinking about things like this.

Easing downward, Sakshi appeared to be about to sit down next to Mirthal, but she changed her mind at the last second. She wobbled, threatening to topple over. Ultimately, she managed to settle into a squat.