“Open door up ahead,” Laze passed the information back to El.

  “Still no sign of anybody?” El asked in return. Five miles into the city, and they still hadn’t seen another living soul. Sure, it was a bad storm, but the absolute stillness of the city otherwise was… creepy.

  “Nothing up here,” Laze answered from right in front of her.

  “Nidina?” El asked to the woman two steps behind her.

  “Nobody. Not even tracks in the snow.”

  “Switch with me, Laze,” El said, then swapped spots with her friend. “Dayne, where’s the door?”

  “Three buildings ahead, on the right. The blue one. Door is swinging in the wind,” he said.

  Swinging in the wind? “We’re going to check inside,” she said just loud enough the other three could all hear.

  “You sure? We can probably pass by without being seen,” Dayne said.

  “Something odd is going on here,” El answered. “I’d like to have some idea what that is.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said and picked up the pace, leading them to the steps up to the squat building’s front door.

  Just like he said, the heavy wooden door swung freely in the wind, snow blowing in and dusting the discarded shoes in the entryway.

  “We really going in?” Nidina asked.

  “Yes, on me.” El put her hand on her electrum sword hilt, but didn’t draw it, and climbed the steps.

  Three pairs of shoes, two adult sizes and one child-sized, sat inside the front door, and a short hallway extended beyond. Snow covered just about everything. If the residents were home, why hadn’t they closed the door? It had to be freezing in there.

  El stepped inside, past the shoes, and peeked through another door on the left side of the hall. A kitchen, from the looks of things, with a frozen dinner sitting on the table. No people though. “Laze,” El whispered and pointed into the kitchen, then continued down the hall to a doorway on her right. A short staircase spiraled up to the second level.

  She glanced around the corner and into the room. A living room? But why was the couch overturned?

  “Dayne, Nidina,” El whispered, then pointed up the stairs. The two followed her orders without question, and she went into the living room.

  Not only was the couch flipped, but also a desk to her right, and a chair beside that. Papers lay frozen on the floor in a pool of ice from a broken flower vase. A window in the back of the room looked onto a snow-filled backyard, a wooden children’s playhouse tucked in the corner, the door hanging crooked on its hinges.

  “Signs of a struggle upstairs,” Dayne said as he joined her in the room.

  “Here too.” El gestured around the room. “There’s a playhouse in the back, go check that would you?”

  “Sure thing. I saw a backdoor around the stairs,” Dayne said, and ducked out of the room.

  “What’s going on here?” Laze asked from the door to the living room. “Kitchen literally has dinner on the table, but it’s untouched. Other than being frozen.”

  “Let’s wait for… ah, there she is. Nidina, what’s your take on this? Was it us?” El asked when Nidina came down the stairs.

  “I don’t think so,” Nidina said. “Something definitely happened here, but what would Firestorm have to gain? There’s no bodies. No blood. No damage from any of our weapons. We’re not nearly close enough to the Ember for this house to matter.”

  El glanced out the back window, footprints in the snow, but no Dayne. He should be…

  “This was the only thing in the playhouse,” Dayne said, joining the other three and holding up a frozen, stuffed, pink bear.

  “Robbers?” El asked.

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  “Where are the people?” Laze asked back.

  “Ran to a neighbor?” Dayne suggested.

  “Not likely, with this,” El said, and pointed toward the couch. “No, somebody was here when… whoever it was… arrived.”

  “Maybe they left after the trespassers did. With the storm as bad as it is, I bet people are worried about things like food,” Laze said. “Ah, that can’t be right, not with how I found the kitchen. Too much food still in there.”

  “And we didn’t see anybody in the streets. No riots or looters. I guess this could be an isolated incident, but it doesn’t feel like that,” Nidina offered.

  “Should we check another house?” Dayne asked, and gently put the stuffed bear down in the corner of the room.

  El shook her head. “I’d like to know what’s going on here if it’s going to affect our mission, but we can’t waste too much time on the mystery. Unless one of you has a good argument otherwise?”

  “I think we should get back on mission,” Nidina said. “Count ourselves lucky we aren’t having to sneak through huge crowds.”

  Dayne and Laze both nodded, though slowly.

  “Okay,” El looked to the north, like she could see the Ember through the thick walls. Well, maybe she couldn’t see it, but she could certainly feel it.

  In fact…

  “Does the pull on your Spark feel… stronger?” she asked the others.

  “You’re right,” Laze said after a few seconds. “Like the Ember knows we’re close. Like it’s… eager. Do the Embers have feelings? Are they alive?”

  “Maybe that’s just how we’re interpreting it,” Nidina offered.

  “Just another question to take up with the Church later,” El said. “Feels like… maybe ten to fifteen miles to me. That’s not a short walk. We should get a move on. Dayne,” she said, and gestured toward the door, then followed the big man out.

  Like before, the snowy street was otherwise empty, and they descended the steps and trudged down the street to the north. The road itself wasn’t very wide, maybe big enough for a wagon, but certainly not big enough for a golem to comfortably fit. Mostly housing too, from the looks of things.

  “Other than golems, shouldn’t there be somebody around? Regular soldiers? Police? Militia? Something?” El asked.

  “Golems, and their controllers, make up the bulk of Guld’s forces on the front line and in the mountains,” Nidina explained. “Controllers aren’t very common, maybe one in a thousand, so they’re scooped up by the military as soon as they’re discovered. We’ll definitely have to worry about those as we get closer to the Ember.

  “Within the city like this, though, I’d expect at least patrols of their soldiers. We haven’t seen any of them in Aldrana in ages, so they must be keeping them here in the city.”

  “Are they a threat to us?”

  “Their Sparks are less than our groundies. Honestly, I think the reason they got pulled back from Aldrana is because of how ineffective they are against our flame armor. Basically no threat unless they vastly outnumber us,” Nidina answered. “Still, with what happened to the tunnel, I expected to see regular patrols within the city.”

  “Maybe they pulled everybody back to protect the Ember,” El said. “Nidina, do you have any idea which part of the city we’re in?”

  “Hrm. That’s a good question. Without landmarks it’s almost impossible to say, but if we judge by the house we just left, I think we might be in the southwestern quadrant of the city. And if I’m right about that, we’re going to need to be careful soon.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Laze asked.

  “We might be close to the golem forges,” Nidina said. “But, it really should be busier if we are. I can’t figure out why this whole section of the city is deserted.”

  “You said we’re on the southwestern side?” Laze asked. “Maybe they expected us to come over the mountains, like we did, but to come shooting. This part of the city would take the brunt of any offensive we brought.”

  “You think they evacuated the citizens in case we attacked?” Nidina asked.

  “I didn’t see a wall when we came in. Other than the mountains, which are arguably very effective, the city is defenseless from a siege standpoint. Not that a wall would do any good against the Firestorm, but it could at least slow our groundies if they got through the tunnel. But without a wall, our artillery would turn this section of the city to rubble in hours. If that. It would make sense to get the people out of here,” Laze explained.

  “Like they did in Aldrana?”

  “Yeah, just like that. As soon as they knew we were coming, and this was years ago, they pulled everybody back through the tunnel, other than the army.”

  “No, I think there is something more going on here,” El said. “Aldrana had golems. We’re, burn it, how far in now? Miles? We haven’t seen anybody. No soldiers, no golems, no citizens. If they’d pulled people back to engage us here, wouldn’t they have blocked off roads to slow our troops? Hidden golems or squads of soldiers to harry us?

  “Instead, it’s like they opened the front door and invited us in.”

  “Should we risk flying?” Laze asked. “It would speed things up.”

  El didn’t answer immediately. The snow was slowing them down and tiring them out. Would they be in any shape to fight when they finally arrived at the Ember? Flying would get them there in minutes, compared to the hours on foot.

  But, El couldn’t shake the nagging sensation in the back of her head. The Ember was so eager for them to arrive. To throw caution to the wind and rush forward. Could the Guldish Ember influence their Sparks like the Church could? Or was there something else bugging her? Some kind of trap?

  “Better safe than dead,” she finally said. “We’ll stay on foot for now. But, I’d like to avoid the golem forges if we can.”

  “That’ll take us a lot longer to get to the temple,” Nidina pointed out. “Not to mention, if it’s as quiet there as it is in the rest of the city, this is an unparalleled opportunity to get intel.”

  “Or we might be poking our noses into a hornet’s nest. No, we continue to the temple and see if we can’t get an idea of what’s going on there,” El instructed.

  Dayne glanced over his shoulder, probably to see if anybody would argue. When they didn’t, despite the extra hike it meant, he turned right at the next street to detour around the forges.

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