Sineater

We moved the bodies further down the alley.

There were some bloodstains on the road, but there was nothing we could do about that. Hopefully the chilly air meant there’d be rain soon and that would take care of the trail.

I knew that leaving the bodies here would mean they’d be scavenged soon. This part of town wasn’t friendly towards law and while I doubted anyone saw the altercation, I was almost certain they wouldn’t snitch on us.

“Let’s go.” I finished wiping off my sword and stood up.

Starna winced as she started walking.

“Your shoulder going to be okay?” I took a step towards her so I could look at the wound. It was deep, but mostly superficial. The thing that had me the most concerned was that she was bleeding blue. I knew there were a lot of races with blue blood, so while she might look Human, she was definitely half at best.

She sealed it closed with a thin bandage of ice, but that was only a temporary fix. “I’ll be fine.”

“I can bandage it once we get back to the ship.” There was a nagging in my mind to fix her up in the alley, but we really needed to get away from the bodies.

She eyed me. “I can wait until the ship’s doctor can do it properly.”

I chuckled as I started walking. “I am the ship’s doctor.”

“You..?” She jogged so she could catch up to me. “But you’re so young.”

“Nineteen, and I get the skepticism.” I grinned. “I promise I can fix you up as good as you were before.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t believe me.

We didn’t run into any more issues on our way to the jewelry store. Once we got there though, the shop was closed.

I banged on the door. “It makes sense this place would be closed this late at night, but…” I motioned for her to follow me. “Let’s try the back.”

The backdoor opened before I could knock. There was a dark skinned Dwarf on the other side of the door. He glared at the two of us. “Garm said you’d be along. Git in here and stop makin’ so much noise!”

He ushered us into the back room where he had tools laid out for cutting gems. Wires for making rings and chains were scattered on various benches with other tools that I didn’t recognize.

“Since Garm told you we’d be coming, does that mean he’s already on the other side?” I tried to keep my voice down since I didn’t know who else might be listening.

“Bah!”

It was the only answer I got and I had a feeling it was all I was going to get.

He led us to a table in the back corner and pulled up a trapdoor in the floor.

“Go and get out of here.” The Dwarf glared at the two of us. “And tell that man that we’re even now.”

I shrugged. “That’s up to him, not me.” I wasn’t sure where the ladder went, but all I could do was trust him.

I slid down the ladder and Starna followed after me. Before she made it to the ground, he closed the door, cutting off our light.

A soft glow appeared in Starna’s good hand.

I nodded at the light. “Thanks.”

She shrugged and looked around. “Where are we?”

“Under the city wall is all I can tell.” I looked around the small room, but there was no door that I could see.

“Sectum…”

I turned to look at her and her face had taken on an almost purple color. “Are you okay?”

“I just wanted to say I was wrong to judge you earlier. You handled yourself well against the guards.” Her face turned away.

“I live on a cargo ship, not my first time to get my blade wet.” I looked her over. “What about you? You looked like that wasn’t your first kill either.”

The color in her face drained back to normal as she looked at me. “I’m the princess’ companion. Assassins and kidnappers aren’t uncommon.”

The wall behind me slid back and I recognized the room before the familiar scaled woman stepped into the opening. “Took you long enough.”