Did something drive them away?
“Empty?” she mouthed to Kadra, who gave the barest shake of his head, indicating the footprints in the snowy dirt, cased in half-frozen puddles from a bout of stormfall hours earlier.
All leading in. None going out.
Realization lanced through her along with a bolt of fear. If no one had left and no one was outside, then that only left…within.
Kadra’s features grew harder. Ice threaded through his eyes as they entered the granary. With the flick of a finger, he lit the oil lamps in one sconce then another, unveiling a labyrinth of brick storerooms, piled high with sacks of maize, wheat, barley, even rice—near impossible to grow in Ur Dinyé’s cracked soil. Yet, underneath the earthy scents lay something sour, cloying.
Dread gripped her tighter with their every echoing step and the lack of challenge that met them. Ahead, the hallway forked in two, the paths forming a pair of dark eyes daring them to approach.
Kadra’s steps slowed. Her heart stuck in her throat at the stillness that came over his taut features, his pupils blooming large as he stared at the left path.
What do you see?she wanted to plead.Do you say nothing because I can’t help?
“I’ll take this one,” she whispered instead.
He had barely begun to turn to her with mild surprise when she grabbed the closest oil lamp and strode into the dark, her heart beating out of her chest. Another step, three more, and her head whipped up at a familiar stench threading the air.
Blood.
She ran. Gooseflesh swept her skin as she sped through room after room, uncaring that she was dripping lamp oil in her haste because something had happened here. And it had been far worse than a nation’s worth of stolen grain.
Turning into a hallway, she recoiled. The oil lamp slipped from her shaking hands to fragment on the tile, fire licking at the spilled oil and spreading in a pool. Bile crawled up her throat at what it illuminated.
Blood undulated on the floor in thick ripples, only a tiled step stopping it from flooding the horreum. Within that red sea stood contorted bodies in the Grains Guild’s livery, piled against each other like rats who’d been petrified in the act of fleeing a ship.
She had seen Death’s work before, but this had been no gentle going into the afterlife. Jaws agape, eyes bulging, the Guildspeople lay frozen in a horrible rictus of pain. They formed a blockade in the hallway, outstretched limbs still desperately clawing for salvation from gods that had taken them anyway. Gray already mottled their skin.
What monstrous act was this?
Fire burned beside her, casting garish shadows over the dead. The dark invited her closer. She felt her feet rise over the step holding back the blood. Crimson swallowed her boots and lapped ankle-high. She could hear her breaths, ragged and fast. Yet, she walked as though caught in a dream not of her making.
The dead can hurt no one. You’ve met Death. He isn’t one to bother engendering such fear.
So, why was she shaking?
A woman lay face down at the front of the human pile, the back of her skull bashed in by the Guildsman behind her. Clumps of brain matter curdled in the liquid at her feet.
Shit. Sarai closed her eyes, forcing back memories of another night, her ruined skull, when a watery gurgle came from below. Fingers seized her ankle. A scream tore from her as she sprung back until she realized what was gripping her.
The woman with the broken skull was alive.
Blood cascaded down the Guildswoman’s face when she raised it. Sarai’s nails cut into her palms, twitching to the terrified drum of herheart.Don’t panic. You were once in this position too.Mercifully, the woman’s face was intact. Dark hair, dark eyes. She clawed up to Sarai’s knee, gripping it with such strength that Sarai had no hope of crouching.
“You—” The Guildswoman choked on a thick blood clot and spat it out. Her voice was a ragged gurgle. “You.”
Was this how I looked five years ago?Sarai swallowed and reached for calm. “Let me help you sit up—” She froze, eyes trailing to where the woman’s back should have been. She’d been bludgeoned in half, her exposed spine the only bridge between her torso and legs.
The woman followed her gaze and shrieked, part desperation, part resignation.
Sarai’s eyes burned. “There may be hope yet. I’ll ride for a healer. Wait—”
“I am out of time,Petitor,” the woman spat, propping her torso on her elbows. “You can’t save me when you brought this upon us.”
“What do politics matter when you’re at Death’s door? Let me help!”
Laughter wracked her bifurcated frame, bubbling out of her with more blood. “Help?” She bared her teeth. “Didn’tyoubring this on us, northerner? Our hourglass runs low. A reckoning has followed in your wake. The gods have spoken and call for our end. The sky itself willlaugh.”
