Winter had finally loosened its grip on Daelin, but it didn’t necessarily mean things had changed for the better. The snow was gone, yes, but in its place lay mud. Thick, sucking mud that grabbed at boots and refused to let go. Each step was a battle, and the ground won most of the time.

  At least on the east side of town, where appearances mattered, people had made an effort to scrape away sludge and sweep the streets clean. The west side, however, made no such pretense. Here, the roads dissolved into endless stretches of brown slop broken only by fetid puddles that reflected the sky in their greasy sheens. Filth layered on filth, grime stacked upon grime. Somehow, the whole place had managed to look even worse than Viktor remembered. A great achievement, indeed.

  Also, had it always been this packed? Or had the buildings multiplied while he wasn’t looking?

  The answer came to him soon enough. Of course, as always, the reason was his dungeon. People were flocking to Daelin, drawn by the gold and glory it promised, and they all needed to live somewhere. Those who didn’t have enough coin to buy or rent a place, or at least get a bed in some cheap, bug-infested inn, had to settle for whatever space they could find. So they ended up here. Crooked shacks sprouted everywhere, and the entire neighborhood had swollen into a chaotic sprawl, bigger and uglier than before, a slum in the truest sense of the word. No wonder Jeanne had chosen the crumbling ruins of his old castle over this festering mess.

  “I can see you’re not exactly fond of the place,” Lloyd said with a chuckle.

  “Of course not,” Viktor replied. “Is there anything here that inspires fondness? Is there something I’ve missed? A charming view? A pleasant smell?”

  “But you still came. And you don’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.”

  Well, it was not like trudging through places with questionable sanitation was a new experience for Viktor. He had been an adventurer once, after all. He had slept in caves, and he had crossed bog water that smelled worse than this entire area combined. A bit of mud under the boots wasn’t going to kill him. But that didn’t mean he had to pretend to enjoy it. He retained the right to grimace if before his eyes popped up something ugly.

  “Enough about me,” Viktor said, waving a hand to swat the subject away. “Let’s talk about you. Why do you even bother setting up that healing house anyway? I thought you had a rich dad and were never short on money.”

  Lloyd shrugged. “Just because I have money doesn’t mean I should squander it. I’ll take advantage of any privilege I have; there’s no shame in that. But I don’t want to be completely helpless without it, either. I need to be able to stand on my own feet.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “My plan was to stay in town through the winter and then go back to the castle. But now, with potential tension between Daelin and Iskora over the patch of land on the other side of the river, it seems wiser to wait until the situation settles before deciding what to do next. Which means I’ll need to stay in town longer than expected. And I need to adjust accordingly.”

  “I see.”

  Before long, they arrived at a squat, gray stone building, moss clinging to its surfaces in dull green patches. Pretty it was not. Compared to the other Sanctuaries, the ones Viktor had seen in big cities, towering things of marble with arches and polished floors, some of them impressive enough to rival kings’ palaces in scale and splendor, this mark of the Emerald Order’s presence in Daelin was, without a doubt, an utter disappointment.

  Still, stone was stone. Solid, durable, reliable. That alone placed it above at least half the structures in Daelin. Viktor wondered who had actually paid for it. The town itself, scraping together coin through gritted teeth, or the Order, deciding Daelin was just important enough to invest in a foothold here?

  The space in front of the building was crowded with people. Some sat slumped against the walls, others lying directly on the ground. They groaned, they coughed, they clutched at themselves. The patients. Waiting for their turn to be patched together by Old Tobias.

  Weaving through them was a single figure: a girl darting from one person to the next, passing a cup of water, checking a bandage, kneeling here to ask about symptoms, murmuring there to offer what little reassurance she could manage.

  Viktor recognized her at once. That thin, fragile-looking frame, that long brown hair. It was hard to miss.

  “Hey, Rhea,” he called. “What are you doing here?”

  “Quinn?” She spun around. “And Lloyd too? What are you doing here?”

  Hey, I asked first. But he answered anyway, “He’s here to help Old Tobias, while I came to have a look at Daelin’s Sanctuary, something I didn’t even know existed until yesterday.”

  Relief visibly washed over Rhea’s face as she turned fully toward Lloyd.

  “You came to help? Thank goodness. We’re nearly overwhelmed. And I’ve been really worried about Tobias. It looks like he’s pushing himself to the limit.”

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  “I’ll go inside and see what I can do for the old man, then.” Lloyd shot Viktor an obnoxiously bright grin. “You two can talk freely. I won’t be the third wheel.”

  What the hell?

  Before Viktor could formulate a proper response, the smug-looking Emerald Mage had already disappeared behind the heavy wooden door, above which perched a small statue of a robed woman with a serene expression, her merciful gaze cast down upon the afflicted who gathered at her feet.

  He turned back to Rhea. “You haven’t answered me. What are you doing here?”

  “Well... helping. Just one day per week, though. I wish I could do more, but—”

  Viktor stared at her. “You already have your work at the Guild. You’re helping Alycia. And now you’re here too? Has it ever occurred to you that this might be a bit too much?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rhea said. “Besides, I really like this place. I’ve always wanted to become an Emerald Mage, to help people at the Sanctuary, just like my sister did. And that would have been my path, if Petra hadn’t...”

  Wait. Lloyd mentioned Tobias’s previous helper had died in the dungeon, didn’t he?

  “So, your sister used to work here, huh?”

  Rhea nodded. “Old Tobias was the one who introduced her to the Order, and after she joined, she became his student. She learned magic to ease the suffering of those in need. That was her dream, and that is my dream. But... this is as far as I can go now.” She straightened. “Anyway, I should get back to work. We can talk later.”

  Viktor shrugged. “Let me help you.”

  He was already here, after all, and it was not like he had anything better to do. Standing around uselessly was just awkward. Also, befriending the local Emerald Mage was the whole point of this visit, wasn’t it?

  Rhea was stunned for a brief moment. Then, she nodded. And, for some reason, her cheeks turned a faint shade of red.

  Strange. But well, whatever. He just got on with the work.

  It was simple enough. After all, they were not healers. That honor belonged to the two Emerald Mages behind the wooden door. Their main task was to speak with the patients, then make an educated guess about who needed to be ushered inside immediately and who could afford to wait a little longer. Beyond that, they tended to those who waited, offering water, reassurance, and the occasional application of first aid.

  Bundles of herbs lay ready at the side, and Rhea handled them with practiced familiarity, knowledge that was probably passed down from her late sister. Viktor, of course, had no trouble keeping up. Adventuring had taught him many things, and treating wounds in less-than-ideal conditions had been one of them.

  Everything went relatively smoothly. With two mages working instead of one, the line dwindled at a steady pace. Before long, only a handful of patients remained.

  “Thank you, Quinn,” Rhea said, leaning against a nearby tree as she wiped sweat from her brow. Her body sagged with fatigue, but her eyes still held a faint spark. “I don’t know how I could have managed without you.”

  Viktor chuckled. “Didn’t you manage all this by yourself before today? Besides, I didn’t really do much. Lloyd is the one who did most of the heavy lifting.” He looked around, sweeping over the streets beyond the Sanctuary. “Anyway, the west side has gotten a lot more crowded than last time I was here.”

  “That’s true,” Rhea said, nodding. “So many new people. There used to be plenty of empty buildings. Now they’re all full, and new ones keep appearing.”

  Empty buildings, huh? Probably a consequence of the monster attack seven years ago. Back then, things had gotten bad enough that a lot of people had simply packed up and left. Daelin had survived, barely, and recovered enough to limp onward, but its population had never quite returned to what it had been. Until now. Now it was bursting at the seams, fueled by hope and greed in equal measure.

  “Things must be very different for you now,” Viktor said, “with people pouring in from all over the world like this.”

  “Well, it was a shock at first. Too much change, all at once. Things also get rougher. Arguments and fights happen more frequently. But it’s really not as terrible as it sounds. And I’ve gotten used to it.” Rhea smiled faintly. “There’s a bright side, too. In the past, stray monsters could wander in from time to time. Now, with so many people around, that kind of danger just doesn’t happen anymore.”

  Viktor shrugged. “Now the danger comes from other people instead.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Rhea said. “But I can manage. And I have Alycia. She looks out for me. No one here dares mess with her, especially after that one time when she blew up the house next to ours.”

  The blonde did what?

  Ah, right. Forget stray monsters and petty criminals. The most dangerous being in all of Daelin was already living here. With that in mind, what was there left to worry about?

  “I’m still surprised she’s stuck around this long,” Viktor said. “I thought she’d want to move as soon as possible. She has the money, after all.”

  “She stays because I stay,” Rhea said quietly. “She’s asked me several times to move to the east side. She said she’d buy a house there. But I declined.” The girl let out a sigh. “I know I’m practically forcing her to stay here, but... I just can’t bring myself to leave.”

  “It’s not just because you don’t want to owe her a favor, right?”

  “That’s part of it. But the real reason is... I don’t want to leave the house where I had been living with Petra.”

  Fair enough. If Viktor had been given the choice, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave the house he had been living with Vera either. But then, those Lyndorian soldiers had been kind enough to torch the thing and spared him the dilemma.

  “Hey, is that...?”

  Viktor followed Rhea’s pointing finger and saw a man sprinting toward them. Mud splashed across his clothes, but he didn’t seem to care. Another patient? But as the man drew closer, Viktor recognized he was an employee of the Adventurer’s Guild.

  “Rhea? Quinn?” the man called out, slowing to a stop in front of them, his expression shifting to surprise as he took them in. He bent forward slightly, hands on his knees, clearly out of breath. “You’re here, huh? Anyway, is Old Tobias inside?”

  “Yes,” Rhea replied at once. “What’s the matter?”

  “The Guildmaster...” the man began to speak, then decided he needed to suck in a few more breaths first. “She’s summoning every Emerald Mage in Daelin. All of them. We... we’ve got a lot of wounded people back at the Guild.”

  “What happened?” Viktor asked.

  “The outpost we set up on the far side of the river,” the man said. “It was attacked by monsters. Some people... were killed. The survivors have retreated back into town.”

  “No way,” Rhea whispered, aghast.

  That didn’t make any sense. The monsters always avoided the ruins, didn’t they?

  Also, the ones who were posted there might not have been the most capable fighters, but they had numbers and they were defending a fortified position. They should have been able to handle a couple of stray monsters. How could they have been overrun so quickly?

  Something was not right.