Wealthgiver I: Darkness is now available for pre-order! Order the first part of Wealthgiver here.
This is the last chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.
On a rocky slope of the western Rhodope Mountains, in a land that might turn out to be Ottoman, Greek, Bulgarian, or something else, a hand thrust from a crack in the Earth.
A bat fled into the daylight and rock scraped Nikolai's ribs. Brambles tore at his face, but he let out his breath and strained with his arms, shoving, grinding, squeezing himself out of the Sacred Depths.
This tunnel bore no signs of working. It had no air intake fans. No rain-collection grates. No periscopes or windmills. Nikolai had only found it by the smell of clean air, because no Bessians had built a fire over it. Nobody knew about it. A clearer gift …
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