Akert was smaller than Rissa had expected from Katya’s descriptions; she’d assumed it would be a major city, with everything Katya had said about the market. It wasn’t.

At least, not by the standards of someone who lived in one of Earth’s cities.

Rissa guessed that she should have known better when Katya called it Akert Settlement, but somehow the idea that there would be an entire family of skilled crafters in a “Settlement” that seemed to be less than a mile in width in any direction had never occurred to her.

It was hard to tell how many people were in the Settlement, but it seemed small and quaint. The Portal location was on one end of the merchants’ square. Nearby, a “road” ran along one side of the Settlement, but it was little more than a dirt track. The actual merchant’s square was filled with small stalls. Some were little more than a table with goods on them while others were more like small buildings made of wood. Most were beautifully finished, almost pieces of art as much as functional architecture even though they were simply polished and stained wood; only a few of the simple tables seemed to be made more for function than artistry.

Rissa glanced towards Katya only to find that she’d already abandoned the rest of the group as she darted towards one of the many stalls. Rissa shook her head before she headed off after the younger woman. She took her time and looked around. The place was different than expected, but there were some large similarities to any large marketplace. A few of the vendors called out about their wares, while others seemed confident enough or busy enough to let the goods speak for themselves.

Despite her slower pace, Rissa was still close enough to hear Katya’s conversation.

The booth Katya ran up to was one of the larger ones; it was open on all of one side and much of another, with a small roof overhead to keep off the weather, clearly a permanent fixture of the marketplace. It was a pale wood embellished with a diamond pattern that seemed to be in the wood itself; Rissa wasn’t certain how that had been achieved, because it continued even where one piece of wood was joined to the next.

“How can I help you?” The shopkeeper was an older woman; she appeared to be in her early fifties to Rissa’s eye, barely showing the first signs of graying hair. “Wait, Katya? I thought you wouldn’t be home for at least another year!”

Rissa could hear the grin in Katya’s voice as she replied. “Things changed, and for once it’s a good change! I found a place we can all go that we can afford! It’s a completely new market; they’re rich but don’t have anyone who can craft with magic.”

Katya’s relative frowned. “Are you sure? Akert isn’t perfect, but it’s at least safe. We’re slowly paying down the Bond Debt; I don’t want to take on another. Do you at least have enough to pay it off? There isn’t that much left.”

Rissa walked up beside Katya. “Bond Debt? What’s that?”

“It’s what we have to pay before the Lord of Akert will let us leave.” Katya wrinkled her nose. “Well, before he’ll let any of our skilled crafters leave. He let me go because he knew my Path isn’t suited for a small Settlement like this. I never fit.”

“Mostly because you never took out a Debt yourself,” the shopkeeper interjected before focusing on Rissa. “As for what it is, Katya’s not wrong. It’s a crafter’s bane; equipment is expensive, and setting up a shop is worse. So you go to your Lord and ask for help; they pay for it all and give you a Bond Debt. If we could afford it ourselves … well, we can’t. Not when we’re starting out, and the family can’t either. Not with our own debts to pay. Even without them, I doubt it would be fast enough for the young. In any case, I’m Nadia, Katya’s aunt - her father’s sister. Who are you?”

“Rissa Latimer. I’m … huh. I guess that’s kind of a long story.” What should she say? Should she just say she was Katya’s friend? That didn’t really seem like enough.

“She’s from the world I found. It’s really weird; they were a Tier Zero world so they didn’t have magic but they have something they call technology-” Katya broke off when her aunt put up a hand in front of her face.

“Why don’t we wait until we’re all together; that way you can explain it once. Until then, take your guest to the house and get her settled in.” Nadia stopped and looked behind Rissa before raising her voice a little and calling out. “Come on up, don’t be shy. Katya’s family; she’ll get out of the way of a customer.”

Blaze sounded a little sheepish when he replied, “We’re with Katya.”

Nadia turned slowly and glared at her niece. “Make sure you tell your father about all of your company when you get them up there. We’re going to have a nice long talk tonight.”

Rissa had a sinking feeling that the “quick overnight stop to drop off Katya and tell her family a little about Earth” was about to become more involved than she’d expected.

The trio made their way up the long path to the main Palace. Arrin was still in the lead, of course; neither Serenity nor Andarit was about to trust him when they couldn’t see him.

There was no sign of any of the guards until they reached the door that actually led into the Palace itself. It was open and a trail of partially dried tacky blood led from the doorway down a cross corridor.

“Which way should we go?” Andarit stared down the corridor and even took a slow step off the main path.

Serenity shook his head. “We need to get to the Lowpeak house, unless you have a better place to stay? Whatever’s going on, we don’t want to be here. We’re likely to be treated as potential enemies by both sides.” While Serenity spoke, he watched Arrin disappear into the Palace itself. There was no reason to call him back or stop him; he’d have to keep an eye out for the man, but that wouldn’t really change anything. “I’ll lead the way; I’ve been here recently, maybe people will remember me.”

Serenity also knew the way out, thanks to Aide’s assistance. Reversing the path would be easiest, but if they had to detour, he still knew where he was and he could find a path out.

The way through the Palace was as clear as the way up from the dungeon, even though there were shouts and the sounds of fighting in the distance. The one time they heard it from ahead of them, Serenity pulled Andarit into one of the side rooms; as it happened, it was the nursery, and Serenity knew an alternate path out of the Palace from there.

The moment they emerged from the Palace, both Serenity and Andarit froze, listening. A roaring sound in the distance made Serenity pale; he knew what he was hearing. “The city is burning.”

Andarit slowly turned to Serenity. “How do you know?”

“The noise. You can hear a big enough fire. It doesn’t sound like a fire anymore, it sounds like … well, like that.” Serenity bit his lip. He could get a message to Rissa using the new crystal upgrade the Voice gave him, but not until he could take the time to stop and send the message. “There’s no one at the Lowpeak house. We should leave the city instead. Let’s head for the portal; I’ll go offplanet and you can head towards Lowpeak.”

If he went offplanet, he’d have time to meet up with Rissa; he could then come back to Zon to find and rescue the missing people.

“Don’t you need the records at the house?” Andarit hesitated. She clearly wanted to head to the house rather than flee the city.

“They’d be nice, but I have the information I need.” Serenity also had pictures of all of the pages; the records were, at this point, mostly just for backup. “It’s too bad I didn’t bring them with me. It’s not like it would have been difficult, I just didn’t think it was important.”

“Let’s go to the house anyway. Even if you don’t need anything, I do.” Andarit pulled out the flyer and started to set it up before Serenity put his hand on hers to stop her.

“No flyer.” Serenity almost smiled at Andarit’s puzzled reaction. “It’s faster but far too obvious. If the only problem were the fire, a flyer would be fine, but I can’t forget the fighting. We need to be able to stay unnoticed, and a flyer can’t do that.” Serenity had a moment to wish he were back home; on Earth, a car wasn’t particularly notable. Flyers were limited to the wealthy, unfortunately.

On second thought, he wasn’t entirely certain he’d be using a car on Earth in this situation. They might not be unusual but they were still easier to notice than a couple of people.

Andarit took a couple of steps forward, then paused. “Wait, where did Arrin go?”

Serenity chuckled. “He disappeared the moment we got to the Palace. I’ve been keeping an eye out but he seems to have given up on killing you. Hopefully that’s because of the time limit and not because he’s being sneaky.”

Andarit shrugged. “As long as he’s gone. I’m still not sure why you didn’t just kill him.”

“A misplaced sense of mercy, probably,” Serenity admitted. “You shouldn’t kill everyone who might threaten you in the future, but perhaps I’m too lenient. I know the consequences of being too unforgiving; maybe I’m going too far the other way.”

He really didn’t have a good reason to leave Arrin alive. He’d have been fine killing the man in a fight, but it somehow seemed wrong to kill him once the fight was over. Keeping him alive to get information had probably been the right call; without it, they wouldn’t have known as much as they did and the two of them would probably still be in the dungeon, delving deeper.

Coming out in the middle of a city on fire wasn’t good, but it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. They might have left the dungeon only to find that whoever was attacking the royals won and was waiting for them as they left.

Serenity hoped the trip to the Lowpeak house would be without incident; it would probably make a good place to hide. The two of them couldn’t adequately defend it, but the wards on the house would help; they’d make sure that there was warning if anyone else came to the house.