The Smoke Below: The Underkin Saga - Book 1

Chapter 30

Later that afternoon, Corin and Lira brought a small group of Underkin children to the town gardens.

The sun was warm, the grass soft, and the pond shimmered with reflected light. The gardens were quieter than the market had been — gentler, calmer, a place where the world seemed to breathe rather than shout. Joren had found peace here and so it had become a regular occurrence to find him sat on the bench beneath the willow tree listening to the sounds of the gardens, the gently splashing of the pond every time a fish briefly surfaced. He was here now, Corin noticed, but she left him to himself. If this was what he needed to do to heal, she would let him and be there to make sure nobody disturbed him.

The Underkin children stepped onto the grass with hesitant feet, their toes sinking into the softness. Some gasped. Some laughed. One child crouched immediately, pressing both palms flat against the ground as though greeting an old friend.

The air smelled of damp earth and sun‑warmed leaves. A breeze drifted through the trees, carrying the faint scent of flowers and the distant hum of traffic. The Underkin children inhaled deeply, their chests rising as though trying to pull the entire world into their lungs.

Birds hopped along the path, eyeing them warily until a juicy worm — unlucky enough to surface at that moment — stole their attention. The Underkin children watched them with awe — they had never seen birds before. Their eyes followed every flutter, every hop, every tilt of a feathered head. The birds seemed impossibly light, impossibly free, creatures made of air and colour.

One child whispered, “They fly without the thermal wind.”

Another murmured, “Their bodies must be light.”

A third simply stared, mouth open, as a robin landed on a branch and sang — a bright, liquid trill that made several Underkin children freeze in place, as though afraid the sound might shatter if they moved. The robin hopped closer, head tilted, curious. A child reached out a trembling hand, not to touch, but simply to be nearby.

Kesh wandered toward a group of surface children playing near the swings. He stopped a few metres away, unsure, watching them with wide eyes. His hands hovered at his sides, fingers twitching with the instinct to retreat — but curiosity held him still. The surface children were loud, laughing, shouting, kicking up dust as they ran. Their energy was chaotic, uncontained, nothing like the quiet games played in the tunnels.

One of the children — a boy with curly hair and a football tucked under his arm — noticed Kesh and wandered over to him.

“You’re one of them,” the boy said.

Kesh swallowed. “One of who?”

“The tunnel people.”

Kesh’s shoulders tensed. He had learned, in only a few days, how quickly surface people could turn cruel. Wariness tightened his voice as he said, ‘We are Underkin.’

The boy nodded slowly, as if tasting the word. “Do you… play football?”

Kesh blinked. “What is football?”

The boy grinned. “This.” He dropped the ball and nudged it gently with his foot. “You kick it. And run. And try not to fall over. You need to get it in the goal,” he said, pointing toward the football net at the far end of the field next to the gardens.

Kesh stared at the ball as if it were a sacred object. “May I try?”

The boy kicked it toward him. Kesh flinched, then stuck out his foot awkwardly. The ball bounced off his ankle and rolled sideways.

The boy laughed — not cruelly, but with the delighted energy of someone teaching his favourite game. “You’re supposed to kick it forward.”

Kesh tried again. This time the ball rolled in the right direction. The boy cheered.

Two more children joined, curious. They formed a small circle, passing the ball gently back and forth. Kesh stumbled, missed, kicked too hard, kicked too soft — but he laughed, breathless and bright, his cheeks flushed with exertion and joy. His movements were clumsy, but his smile was radiant. Children didn’t run with this much exertion in the tunnels and, at that moment, he was having the time of his life.

A girl with freckles asked, “Did you have games down there?”

Kesh nodded eagerly. “We have echo races.”

“What’s that?”

“You shout into a tunnel one at a time,” Kesh said proudly, “and see who gets the nicest echo back.”

The children giggled. “That sounds weird.”

“It is,” Kesh said. “But football is… louder.”

Corin watched from a bench, her heart tightening. The sight was almost too much — Kesh’s laughter, the surface children’s acceptance, the fragile bridge forming between two worlds. Lira sat beside her, smiling softly, her eyes bright with quiet hope.

“He’s making friends,” Lira whispered. The words filled Corin with a strange, overwhelming warmth — a feeling she could not quite describe, except that it reminded her of the quiet pride a mother feels watching her child grow.

The gardens around them seemed to glow with the feeling of hope. The sunlight caught the pond in bright flashes. The willow branches swayed gently. The air smelled of grass and warm earth. Even the birds seemed to sing more boldly, as though welcoming the newcomers.

But beneath Corin’s relief, a quiet fear lingered.

She saw it in the glances from passing adults — polite, but tight. She heard it in the whispers carried on the breeze — cautious, uncertain. She felt it in the tension that lay beneath the town’s polite smiles — a tension that had nothing to do with the children and everything to do with the unknown.

The Underkin were adapting — but the surface world was shifting around them, and not always kindly.

A pair of adults paused near the flowerbeds, watching the children play. Their expressions were unreadable — not hostile, but wary. One murmured something to the other, too quiet for Corin to hear. They moved on quickly, but the unease they left behind lingered like a shadow.

Lira noticed it too. Her smile faltered. “They’re just afraid.”

Corin nodded slowly. “Fear is a deep root. Hard to pull out.”

“But roots can be cut,” Lira said softly.

Corin wished she believed that.

She was about to speak again when she noticed Rowan approaching across the grass. His stride was steady, but his expression carried a weight she recognised — the look of someone who had been asked to deliver news he didn’t entirely agree with.

He stopped in front of her, hands on his hips, breath slightly uneven from crossing the gardens.

“Corin,” he said quietly. “We need to talk.”

Lira straightened. Corin rose from the bench, sensing the shift in his tone. “What has happened?”

Rowan glanced at the children — at Kesh laughing breathlessly, at the Underkin children touching flowers with reverence, at the surface children beginning to accept them. His jaw tightened.

“The council met this morning,” he said. “They’ve made a decision.”

Corin’s stomach tightened. “What decision?”

Rowan hesitated — just for a moment — then spoke.

“They want the Underkin children to start attending school.”

Lira inhaled sharply. Corin’s eyes widened, her breath catching.

“School?” she repeated. “Already?”

Rowan nodded. “They think it will help the children adapt faster. Learn the surface world. Integrate with the other children their age.”

Corin looked back at the children — at their wonder, their innocence, their fragile joy. “They are still healing,” she whispered. “Still learning to breathe under the open sky.”

“I know,” Rowan said softly. “I told them that. But the council pushed hard. They say it’s necessary. That it’s time.”

Corin closed her eyes briefly. She could almost feel the storm gathering — the one she had sensed in Hale’s voice, in the town’s whispers, in the tension beneath every polite smile.

“When?” she asked.

“Next week,” Rowan said. “They want to start with a small group. Ease them in.”

Corin’s heart tightened. “Ease them in,” she echoed. “As though they are stepping into water.”

Rowan’s voice softened. “I’ll be there. I’ll make sure they’re safe.”

Corin nodded slowly, though her eyes remained troubled. “Safety is not the only concern.”

“No,” Rowan agreed. “But it’s the one I can fight for.”

The children played on, unaware of the storm gathering beyond the gardens. For now, there was laughter. For now, there was sunlight. For now, there was hope and Corin was determined to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Kesh kicked the ball again — too hard — and it rolled toward the pond. The surface children chased after it, shouting. Kesh followed, laughing breathlessly. His joy echoed across the grass like a small, bright bell.

Corin closed her eyes for a moment, letting the sound wash over her.

She knew how fragile hope could be.

She had seen hope crushed beneath stone. She had seen hope burned by fire. She had seen hope buried in the dark.

But here, in the sunlight, hope felt alive again — trembling, delicate, but alive.

She opened her eyes.

The children were still playing. The birds were still singing. The pond still shimmered.

And somewhere beyond the gardens, beyond the laughter, beyond the fragile peace of the afternoon, a storm was gathering.

Corin felt it in her bones.

But for now — for this moment — she let the sunlight win.