After the incident at the docks, shipments were halted.

  It had been nearly two weeks since supplies had been sent from overseas, “Too much a risk to our couriers’ lives,” the higher ups had said, but Everyn suspected this wasn’t coming from her people. This was coming from the owners of the ships.

  People here risked their lives daily; this was nothing new. The navy and owners of independent shipping vessels in Blumherth just didn’t want to risk their ships.

  The possibility of Fae being around or running into a random patrol in an alleyway in the upper city was one thing. But a Demon ambush at the docks themselves? Especially one of that level? That meant they were guarding the lower city now too.

  Everyn almost couldn’t blame them.

  Regardless, this meant the vital supplies were dwindling rapidly, even more so as their population grew..

  Teams had been sent out to salvage old villages, the wreckage of smaller kingdoms, even gathering wild plants for food and medicine from the wide expanse of the countryside, but even this effort was only slowing the inevitable.

  The halls were busier than usual. A new wave of refugees arrived from the northern countries of Central Verdiante. The Fae were slowly stretching their reach to the connecting continent that was not as lucky as those protected by the expanse of ocean.

  While their hold hadn’t fully grasped this new region yet, the people were already unsafe. They’d learned from what happened to their northern neighbors.

  Though unfortunately that means they had to enter this hostile domain to even have a chance at survival. Their small countries’ sediment didn’t support cave systems. There was nowhere underground to hide and the rest of the continent would risk spies hiding among the displaced, so the only safe place they could go was, ironically, the heart of the infestation.

  People were packed as tightly as bundles of parchment into the entry foyer, doing their best to get registered and find a place.

  While the older woman who usually tended the table did have hello today, they were still overwhelmed with the sheer volume of people.

  Perhaps 50 had arrived in this group, and after being tested, they had been siphoned into this cramped space more quickly than they could be registered.

  Everyn and Ryala had to squeeze through the mass of tired frustrated refugees, ignoring their protests as they made her way to another hallway to meet with their team.

  The crushing suffocation of the horde of bodies gave way as they entered the boys’ dormitory hallway, though the echo of the cacophony of voices followed them down the stone hallway.

  Sterling and Valan’s room was smaller than that of the girls, it had been chipped away more recently to be a meager habitation. No Dewsilver leaked from this segment of the old mines and the boys’ beds were built precariously into the bleak stone hollow that could barely be considered a room.

  Sterling and Valan were waiting just outside of the uneven entryway to their abode when they arrived.

  “Countryside,” he yawned. His eyes were red with a restless sleep

  “Again?” Everyn moaned,stretching the stiffness from her spine.

  Her own rest had been less than comfortable. The sound of the new arrivals carried to every inch of these mines.

  “A village,” He continued, ignoring her whining. “Abandoned.”

  “What do they even think is there?” Valan questioned.

  “Grain,” Sterling huffed. “There’s supposed to be an underground silo.”

  “How thrilling…” Everyn muttered.

  “It is time to go,” Ryala interrupted before an argument with Sterling could fully bloom.

  The journey was unpleasant. The air was stifling with the remaining heat of the day as the last purples of dusk disappeared from the horizon. Insects thrived in the humid air, maddeningly buzzing around their sweaty faces.

  The closer they got to the coast, the worse it became. The annoying creatures turning into their more aggressive cousins. Itchy welts began appearing slowly across Everyn’s neck and hands.

  A loud smack startled Everyn as Valan’s similar frustration got to him. He wiped the guts from his hand.

  Sterling shot him a look, which was returned with one of equal annoyance.

  Ryala hadn’t been seen since they exited the cave mouth, but Everyn could guess she was sharing the same sentiment by the cluster of insects hovering mysteriously to her right.

  Even her invisibility couldn’t save her from this shared torment.

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  They were far enough from the city that the nearly full moon illuminated the roofline of a tiny village as they crested the hill.

  Valan took the lead as they approached, scouring the broken windows and rooftops for signs of movement.

  There was no reason for there to be Fae or Demon scouts this far away from anything of consequence, but people had died for thinking the same thing.

  They moved slowly through the narrow streets toward the large farmhouse at the end of the block. A torn windmill circled meekly next to the worn red building. Long desecrated fields stretched the hills behind it.

  The weathered door laid on the ground just outside the threshold, stripped of its hinges. Every other house in the village sat exactly the same.

  Windows were missing their drapes, and small vegetable gardens lining the side of some houses had been ransacked.

  Inside the farmhouse, however, house plants remained, though long dead, in their pots. The plants in the pots were herbs, non-magical, but edible.

  The furniture was dirty but intact. A canvas portrait of a small family still hung over the hearth.

  This town had been looted, but haphazardly. Whoever came through here didn’t consider the nails in the furniture or the cloth of the canvas. They didn’t know the houseplants were edible.

  Hopefully this lack of care meant they hadn’t found the silo.

  Passing through the home and out the back door, they found themselves at the edge of the field. All grain was gone, and weeds had taken over the once carefully maintained rows.

  A small cabinet that had once held tools was torn open, its contents long ransacked.

  “Hatch,” Valan nodded his head toward the corner of the home, next to the cabinet, shrouded in its shadow. Tall grass had overtaken a small panel of weathered wood.

  Even as they approached, it was practically invisible. The wood could be easily disregarded as a piece of broken shutter. The only thing distinguishing it from the rest of the scrap in the dilapidated village was a small, rusted, metal latch to hold the door shut against heavy wind.

  The ear piercing screech of rusted metal spilled across the silent landscape as Everyn pried the unforgiving metal apart, the hinges pressed against the house complained nearly as loudly as the wood revealed a dark chasm.

  Valen stared into the abyss, “The grain is untouched, but the ladder is cracked. It'll never hold, but there’s a platform that looks safe enough. The drop’s not too far--”

  A soft thump interrupted him, wood below creaking softly as a light body landed in the darkness below.

  Everyn’s heart skipped a beat as she realized the hovering swarm of insects had vanished. Ryala had jumped into the darkness.

  Sterling let out a long, slow breath, annoyed but unconcerned, “Wait here, Valan, to help get the grain and us back up when we’re done.”

  Valan reached into his pack, passing Everyn the cloth sacks he’d been given for grain retrieval.

  Everyn took them, not waiting for Sterling's order before dropping to land on the platform alongside her friend.

  “No flame,” Ryala’s voice echoed softly through the cavernous room, a ghostly whisper. “Landing agitated the dust.”

  The expanse was pitch black. The only thing Everyn could see was the vague silhouette of her other two teammates against the starry sky from the hatch above. Even moonlight couldn’t penetrate the darkness down here.

  A final set of boots hit the old wood.

  “No fire,” Everyn passed on the message. “Grain dust.”

  She could hear Sterling murmuring and incantation a moment before a small blue creature, sprung forth from the darkness. Its glow momentarily blinded Everyn as it bobbed gently over Sterling’s hand, illuminating a good portion of the space before them.

  Ryala shimmered into visibility, her shroud broken by the bright intrusion.

  The silo was indeed large, the bright glow of the Spark Wisp didn’t even stretch to its nearest corners. The space was easily as wide as the house, extending well under the main road beyond the building.

  A slender wooden bridge extended into the void, flanked by two thin safety rails, the grain that this place contained reached just barely a quarter of the way up to the walk from here, tapering thinner as it reached into the dark.

  “Poor harvest,” Everyn murmured.

  Sterling took a few steps forward, toward the edge of the platform, "Unfortunately," he agreed. “Those fields should have yielded far more than this.”

  “This place is enormous,” Ryala crept onto the edge of the bridge, squinting to see as far as she could. “There is no way they expected to fill it. Even with those fields.”

  “Hmmm,” Sterling mused, “ “Valan,” he spoke into his collar. “We’re going further in, Stonecomm only.”

  “Why?” Valan’s voice came back through their stones. “There’s plenty of grain right here. Just grab it and go. So we can get away from these gods forsaken bugs.” Irritation piqued in his voice.

  “Something’s off about this place,” Everyn piped up. “It’s far bigger than it needs to be. It would have taken so much manpower to build for seemingly no reason.”

  “So? They over estimated,” Valan hissed. “Get the grain and go. Mission accomplished.”

  “You don’t understand,” Everyn looked up at his silhouette above. “It's bigger than the house, maybe even bigger than the town and there’s hardly any grain.” She looked back to Sterling with a wide grin. “My guess is illegal alchemical growth.”

  Sterling rolled his eyes, unamused, “You would hope that, wouldn’t you?”

  “That home was quite nice for a simple miller,” Ryala surmised.

  “I don’t disagree, Ryala, but when have we ever been that lucky?” Sterling replied.

  “Well clearly something’s weird here,” Everyn slid past Ryala onto the bridge. “If it’s not growers, maybe it was smugglers,” She shrugged. “Could be silks, spices, stolen valuables. Whatever it is, we could use it.”

  “Or it could just be an overzealous miller, so don’t get your hopes too high.” He warned, following her out onto the narrow bridge.