Ioren crouched behind a parapet on the Riverstop city wall and massaged his forearms in silence. He had never been much of a climber, and if it weren’t for his recently enhanced strength, he would never have made it up and over the wall. The condition of the masonry allowed for it to be scaled since much of the mortar had dried up and crumbled, leaving ample room for fingers. However, Ioren could never get the hang of placing his feet in the slots, which placed the burden largely on his arms.

As he shook out the last of the fatigue in his arms, Ioren watched a small, silent figure crest the parapet in front of him. The wind blew hard this high up on the wall and actually made the girl’s dark hair move, as short as it was. A golden belt knife shimmered against her waist, painfully out of place among the rest of her rags. Petra had finally agreed to Ioren and Linoor’s plan when Ardenel had promised her his belt knife - after a bit of encouragement from Linoor. She was the easier of the two detractors to convince; Violet had been vehemently opposed to leaving Thorne at the gate as a guard. He was in no condition to be moving quickly, and someone would need to defend their exit, so he finally brought her around to the idea after much persuasion.

Petra nodded and gave a thumbs up to Ioren. They had agreed that, once inside the walls of Riverstop, they would move silently and only communicate in Cant, the language of hand signs invented in Danet to communicate without speaking in dangerous territory. He was surprised when she confirmed that she knew it, but she gave no details to her past beyond the affirmation.

Ioren held up a series of hand signs. Pointing at his chest, four-fingers, two-handed gap, two-handed beckon.

“I will advance ahead, keep four paces behind me, and follow.”

The barefoot Finder girl nodded and Ioren turned to continue along the wall. They moved quickly while crouching below the parapets, in case any lookouts were on the roofs watching the walls. Almost nobody brought bows of any kind into Danet because of their unwieldiness and the need to stay as unencumbered as possible, but they couldn’t rule anything out, especially if those awaiting them were truly here to assassinate one of the nobles in the group.

Thorne’s revelation earlier had worried Ioren, but not surprised him. There were no coincidences in Danet; the second barge was definitely following them.

Ioren approached the doorway at the top of the wall that led to a staircase within. Extinguished torch sconces lined the walls, like skeletons that once danced with life. He raised his darks to his eyes to illuminate the dark staircase and continued on. Petra moved forward and placed her hand against his upper back, allowing him to guide her through the blackness.

The soft slip of skin on stone was the only noise in the stairwell. The duo descended slowly, cautious not to break off any of the brittle stone and give their position away. Ioren’s hair stood on end as he remembered his excursion yesterday to the pyramids of the Black Beach. Before Alastair, before Ardenel, before Cantimorelius. It seemed so long ago now.

A bright light at the bottom of the stairs blinded Ioren, causing him to lower his darks back to his neck. They had come back down nearly fifty feet, on the other side of the wall they had just scaled, and were now within the walls of Riverstop. Petra removed her hand from Ioren and pressed against the wall near the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to scout ahead.

Ioren peeked his head from the exit of the staircase. It had opened into an alley between an unknown structure to his left and their target building, a large inn-type structure to his right. The “inn” as they had taken to calling it during their meeting, stood just to the left of the front gate with the crumbling portcullis, where the rest of the group awaited Ioren and Petra’s signal. If all was clear within, they would open the door and allow the others to sprint over to them. This way, if the tailing group within was watching the front gate, they would need to at least reposition before making their attack, giving the group ample time to defend their position.

It was a desperate plan, but time and information were not in their favor, so it would have to do.

Ioren approached the back door to the inn that led to the alley and motioned for Petra to come closer. Two fingers to eyes, point to the sight angle.

“When I open this door, you watch that side.”

Petra gave a thumbs up, and Ioren slowly pulled the aged door toward him. It screeched with indignant opposition as the centuries-old hinges ground together, destroying their comfortable inertia and grating violently against Ioren’s ears. If someone was within, they definitely heard that.

Ioren unsheathed his daggers and looked to see Petra had already done the same with her new belt knife. He quickly rushed into the inn to the right, as Petra followed close behind and moved to the left.

They seemed to have entered a kitchen of sorts. Cabinets lined the edges of the room, some collapsed and some still withstanding the test of time. Rusted metal implements of sorts lay scattered among the wreckage of tables within the center of the room. Hints of sunlight leaked into the kitchen from the doorway on Petra’s side, its door long since removed from the hinges. For a moment, Ioren imagined the place alive with cooks preparing breakfast for their patrons, when a lively innkeep bursts into the room, accidentally destroying the door to the ire of his wife.

Movement to his left snapped him back to the present. Petra split the air with a horizontal hand. “All clear.” Ioren mirrored the gesture and advanced toward the doorway with the missing door on Petra’s side. He leaned out into the front room of the inn. Its front wall was adorned with four large windows. All of them had long since lost their glass panes. Still, they allowed an abundance of light into the inn, illuminating the front room from corner to corner. A crumbling bar stood to the right of the doorway that led to a staircase to the second floor at the end of the room. Piles of windswept dust accumulated in front of the glassless windows.

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Ioren entered the room, motioning for Petra to follow. He checked the piles of dust that lay in front of the windows, but saw no trace of footprints or other disturbances. After turning to give Petra the “all clear” gesture, Ioren sheathed his daggers, got onto his hands and knees, and crawled beneath the windows toward the staircase. The stone grated against the coarse cloth of his shirt and pants, but he grit his teeth and continued onward until they reached the base of the stone staircase.

Petra was quicker than he in her crawling, and quieter, too. He was impressed by her work thus far, and began to question her original story of failure in Danet. She was far too experienced to have only been here a year, and far too capable to have only encountered failure thus far. She was lying about something.

Ioren dispersed the thought as he advanced up the steps to the second floor. It was a two story inn, so the guest rooms would be located on this floor. As he reached the top of the stairs and turned into the hallway, he froze in place, startled. With wide eyes he thrust out an open palm toward Petra: “STOP!”

At the end of the hall lay a crumpled mass beneath a gray cloak. Boots stuck out from beneath the cloak, giving the appearance of a sleeping person. If it were a person, Ioren estimated their size to be even smaller than Petra. What is a child doing here?

Ioren turned to update Petra. One finger. Connected thumbs. Point forward.

“One person up ahead.”

Petra responded quickly. Overhand stab. Forehead slap.

“Kill, idiot!”

“No, it’s a child,” Ioren quickly signed back in silence. Petra’s mouth opened to protest, but instead she signed her response in Cant.

“And? Do you want me to do it?”

Ioren shook his head in disbelief and gestured for her to stay put and keep watch. Crouching low, Ioren squinted along the floor of the hallway, but found no tripwires or other signs of traps. He moved quietly, barefoot, toward the crumpled mass at the end of the hall. Each time he passed a doorway to a room he swiveled his head quickly to scan the interior. Luckily none of the doors still stood in the doorways, and the windows of the rooms had dispelled any lingering shadows.

With a single dagger out, Ioren reached with his other hand to remove the rough cloak from the mass on the floor. He heard a slight click as a hand shot out from beneath the cloak and grabbed his wrist. Suddenly, an aura of darkness enveloped him and the figure, spreading through the entire hallway, until the two were the only things visible within the black void.

Ioren, disoriented from the sudden darkness, moved to stab the hand that seized him. Another hand shot from the cloak to grab his other wrist and revealed the figure beneath. It was a child of perhaps twelve years old, pale white and hidden within a baggy gray cloak.

“Do not fear, bonded one,” the small figure demanded of him. “I am a friend.”

Ioren heard the pitter patter of skin on stone and hoped Petra would be able to escape. He had stupidly walked right into an obvious trap, endangering everyone.

“What is this trap?” Ioren asked angrily, still resisting the child’s grip. He was incredibly strong and held fast, even against Ioren’s new strength. “Release me!”

“I am afraid I cannot,” the child responded calmly. The smooth tone in the face of a daggerpoint chilled Ioren to the bone. “Please, relax.” As he finished his request the child squeezed hard against Ioren’s wrist, causing him to squeal in pain and drop the dagger. The child kicked it away quickly and released Ioren, who jumped backwards away from him.

Ioren spun and searched for an exit, but everything around him was black. It reminded him of Cantimorelius’s infinite void, except he could still feel the cool stone against his feet through the blackness. This must be a trick. An artifact. I can escape.

Ioren felt the air around him wildly as he searched for the wall. He finally smashed his knuckles against stone, causing them to drip blood that he ignored.

“As I said, it would be best to relax,” the child said as he approached Ioren with a small glass tube in his hand. It was filled with white sand. Another artifact?

“Place your hand on here and we will exit the voidsphere,” he said gently. With a shaking hand, Ioren reached out to the tube.

“Eliminate them!” The child yelled to nobody in particular before breaking the tube down the center. Somewhere below them a door slammed open. The white sand spilled out of the glass tube and began to arrange itself into patterns on the floor. Images of white marble stone began to emerge in the patterns of the sand, which quickly expanded further into intricately woven red and gold rugs and spread up the walls in beautiful tapestries until the sand had constructed an entire room. The gilded windows to Ioren’s right stretched floor to ceiling and poured golden sunlight into the room, temporarily blinding him with its brilliant reflection on all of the gold. The child that had been standing beside him scrambled out of the sunlight into the corner of the room, breathing heavily as he stared at the windows.

Ioren looked up from his place on the marble floor. Tapestries depicting epic battles of massive armies wrapped the length of the marble room. The room was rather small, and contained only a golden chandelier hung above two black couches facing one another, both inlain with silver embroidery patterns. Each couch rested on its own red rug. It would be rather gaudy in today’s fashions, though Ioren sensed these objects were older than he could imagine.

A slight movement caught his eye as a figure in black robes stood up from one of the couches. His robes had blended in perfectly with the couches, and his hands were so pale they reflected the light much the same as the silver embroidery. His head was immaculately bald, and the skin on his face was stretched so taut he seemed to have nothing beneath it but a skull.

“Incredible. A newly bonded one,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. He stared intensely at Ioren’s hand with his beady black eyes, set so far back in his emaciated face it seemed that his soul was staring out from within. “You must have many questions for us.”

Ioren shivered as he turned away from the man’s piercing eyes. He stared out the wide windows at the magnificent landscape beyond. The dry lands of Danet stretched on endlessly until finally reaching the Continental Divide in the distance, interrupted by sparse dunes, hills, and Danetian birch forests. Judging by the breadth of the view, Ioren guessed they were hundreds of feet in the air. He dared a glance downward and realized the town below them was Riverstop. The robed boy had somehow brought them to the top of Riverstop Keep.