“I don’t know.” His voice was honest. “But it’s our best bet. Niniane doesn’t care about smuggling. She doesn’t care about what people are doing. She’s focused on herself, and letting people smuggle things to get them across the countryside allows her to not give a shit about things like logistics of distribution and her people not starving.”
“But the prices you pay on smuggled goods…” Rilen said.
“Pay more to get what you need. Hungry? Here’s a non-existent sandwich, or you can pay twice as much and have this turkey dinner,” Aiko said. “It allows her to be distracted by whatever insanity she has. Savion wanted people beholden to him. Niniane doesn’t care.”
“Fine, we’ll take a chance.” Belshazzar was not pleased.
“Is there anything we need to know?” Dorian snapped.
“You already know that I was loyal to Savion before he beheaded my sister. Everything else is incidental.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dorian said.
“No, you won’t,” I snapped.
We headed down the alley as the sun rose higher in the sky. I watched as the birds and mice started scurrying around through the streets. We were quiet as we walked, but there was something… missing.
“Where is everyone?” Roran asked. “It’s well past dawn. Shouldn’t there be tons of people roaming around? Starting their day, baking bread, yelling at children?”
Glancing around, I realized he was right.
There was no one around.
Absolutelyno one.
Rilen’s eyes swept the street. “This is a farming business city, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be crawling with early worms trying to get to market and get their goods moving?”
Aiko nodded. “It should. It should have been bustling as soon as the sun was over the horizon.”
Dorian also scanned the area. “Then what’s going on? Where is everyone?”
“Let’s find this cell,” Rilen said. “Let’s actually find out if there are people here. I can’t imagine that this entire city has been abandoned.”
I noticed that our steps got far quieter as we moved down the street. There was no missing the fact that we all had our hands on our weapons, either gun or sword. I scanned the street more slowly, and listened to what was going on, but there really was nothing more than birdsong and the scrabbling of rodents we couldn’t see.
“I don’t like this,” Belshazzar stated.
“I don’t either.” Aiko pointed us down another street.
No one spoke after that.
We agreed talking at this point was a bad idea.
The houses were all two stories tall, and some had second floors that jutted out over the street, creating an overhang. The town was still well maintained, the windows clean, the doors all square above their thresholds. There was no way this town was abandoned, but they were hiding.
Another street, and Aiko led us halfway down to an angled door in front of a house. I had seen a few of these as we walked. They were entrances to the cellars of the houses. Not just that, but most of them seemed to be under houses that offered goods for sale—food, clothing, tools. I guessed it was a good way to get the goods into storage.
Aiko pointed to it, leaning down with his fist raised to knock. Belshazzar had his gun in his hand, and the rest of us had our swords out—almost without realizing we had done it. Aiko nodded and knocked.
He tapped in a pattern and stood back. A very long minute later, the sound of a bolt being slid back underneath whispered through the air, and the door was popped up. A pair of eyes stared out at us.
“What do you want?” they snapped.
“Entrance and assistance,” Aiko said.
“Who do you represent?”
Aiko glanced at me then answered, “The Breaker of the Spine.”
