The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

into the mines and start working. It felt as though the hard part was over, when in reality it was only just beginning.
  The men in front of her were dressed identical to all the others. Browns were the choice colors of everyone here. From their pants, shirts, and skins, all of them were brown. To see someone that wasn’t tanned from the sun here was rare. Jane and her family would have been lily white-skinned if they had been allowed to live in the city. They had the freckles and the light hair to prove it. Instead they were all darkly tanned from long days in the sun and dry heat.
  The man in front of her coughed hard. She recognized the sound. That had been the same cough her entire family had heard for the months her mother had hacked in the corner of their tent. It wasn’t a normal cough, both wet and dry at the same time. Too much sand lodged in the lungs would do that to a person. They called it the sand sickness. As far as any of those who lived in Silnarra could figure, people inhaled too much sand and eventually it just stopped them from breathing.
  Pulling a small square of fabric out of her pocket, she leaned forward to tap the man on the shoulder. “You could use this, I’m guessing.”
  As he nodded at her, she was surprised to find him rather handsome. She couldn’t see much of him underneath the full red beard on his face, but he had kind eyes. Sky blue and framed by crow’s feet, he was the kind of man that looked like he laughed often. “I thank ye. Blasted cough will get the better of me.”
  It likely would. Not many lived through the sand sickness. She was about to answer him when he started coughing again, pressing the cloth to his mouth as a few specks of blood were splattered against it. By her count, he didn’t have much time at all.
  “First time in the mines?” He asked her once he managed to stop coughing.
  She nodded in response, nerves making her shuffle her feet as the line seemed to move far too slow for her liking.
  “Ah it’s not so bad.” He turned fully to her, sticking out a hand that now had smudges of blood across it. “Simon.”
  The last thing she wanted to do was touch that hand, but she reached out anyways. “Nice to meet you Simon. I’m J-Joseph.” She stuttered the name out.
  “Well Joseph, welcome to the team. You stick with me and I’ll get you through yer first day.” They shuffled forward in the line. “Tomorrow yer on yer own.”
  They were outfitted with the uniforms of the mines. Hard hats were handed to them, the lights checked to be sure that they would click on when the button on the side was pressed. Pick axes seemed to be the weapon of choice, so Jane picked up one of those instead of the shovel that she would have originally chosen. It was a good choice in the end. She was able to follow Simon to the elevator that would take them down a few levels into the depths of the mines.
  The door screeched as metal against metal locked them into the elevator. She had never been in something like this before. Her heart picked up speed, jaw working as she grasped the edge of the elevator to try and ground herself.
  “You’ll be alright boy.” Simon said from beside her quietly, a wry grin on his face. “It ain’t never been an elevator to kill one of us yet.”
  If she hadn’t already been swallowing when the elevator started moving down, she would have screamed. Her stomach swooped up to the area around her throat and she was certain that this was the end for her. She tried to hold her breath the whole way down.
  The heavy clang of the elevator hitting the ground softly had her swallowing once again to keep the bread inside her belly.
  “See boy? You made it through.” Simon slapped a heavy hand against her shoulder, rocking her forward.
  Each man that walked out in front of her had a slumped shouldered lope that made her question this plan. Clicks echoed around her as each man snapped the switch on his helmet to illuminate the ground in front of them. It was easy to follow what everyone else did, but she still had to take a deep breaths as she stepped into the pitch black of the mines.
  There were no lights down here at all, just the few bobbing beams of those with helmets. Cold and damp, the mines were so very different than where she had come from. Jane could hear the slight dripping noise as water slid from the ceiling to the ground. The floor underneath her feet felt slippery but she couldn’t look down to see what she was stepping on. Simon was moving forward and she couldn’t afford to lose sight of him.
  The walls glimmered as they walked past, reflecting the light of their helmets.
  “It’s not what I thought it would look like,” she said.
  Simon glanced over his shoulder at her, pick axe slung over this shoulder. “Oh aye, it never is. People up top seem to think that we’re digging holes down here. These mines were here long before us.”
  “Were they?”
  “Of course! All the shafts are as smooth as a baby’s bottom. We don’t dig any of the new shafts, we just try to widen ‘em enough until we hit something.”
  She swallowed hard. “Hit what?”
  “Stones! What else are we looking for down here?” Another coughing fit wracked his frame, making the giant man before her curl into himself. “We want those gemstones that’ll make us rich.”
  The tunnels before them seemed to continue longer than she would have ever dreamed. Every now and then one of the men in their group would veer off down a tunnel, each marked carefully with a colored arrow.
  “What are the arrows for?” Jane