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They’d entered the city in an impoverished residential area, with open drains in the streets, tightly packed houses, and laundry hanging from ropes strung between neighbors’ dwellings.
Although the streets were crowded, no one made any move to intercept the obvious fugitives, nor did anyone assist the guards by making way.
Jarin and Riella ducked around a food cart, and he made a hard left into a cramped alleyway between buildings, only wide enough to enter single-file. They pounded up the uneven cobblestones until they reached another corner, turning into an even smaller walkway.
Drum-heavy music played somewhere overhead and the sounds of the street, including the guards’ shouts, became muffled by the density of the buildings.
Jarin stopped at a metal grate that lay inconspicuously among the rough cobblestones. He inserted his fingers between the metal grills and hauled the grate aside.
“You go first,” he said.
She looked down into the space he’d opened. A surprisingly fresh gust of air blew up in her face, and she could see nothing but impenetrable black. From the street, the enraged shouts of the royal guards grew louder.
“Jump!” said Jarin. “Trust me.”
The siren took a deep breath, and leaped into the darkness.
CHAPTER 30
Riella fell several times her height and landed on something soft.
Jarin climbed down into the circle of light above her. He hung from the sides of the manhole by one hand while dragging the grate back into place. Realizing he was about to jump, she scurried out of the way.
“Are you alright?” he called down, unable to see her.
“Yes! You can jump.”
He dropped through the air and managed to land on his feet, unlike Riella.
Already, her eyes were adjusting. She’d fallen onto masses of fabric piled beneath the grate for a soft landing. They were in a tunnel with stone floors and walls. It was large enough to stand in, and branched off in five directions.
“What is this place?” she asked in wonder.
“Asterius. Underground city.” He cocked his ear toward the grate, listening. “I don’t know if the guards are aware of this entrance, but we should keep moving. There’re plenty of places for us to surface, far away from here. We’ll meet the rest of the crew at the inn later.”
Riella followed him down one of the tunnels. “I hope Berolt and Drue make it past the gate.”
Jarin gave a dry laugh, which echoed slightly in the confined space. “After our entrance, I bet the guards are too distracted to pay them much mind.”
“How do you know about this place?”
Torches shone from brackets in the walls and the tunnel was remarkably clean. At each intersection, gusts of air blew through the adjoining tunnels. Some brought the briny scent of the ocean, while others smelled like spices or perfume or firelight smoke. Riella tore off her scarf and stuff it in her pocket.
“I lived down here for a while,” he replied without turning around. “Back when—“ He cleared his throat. “Back before I found my way onto a pirate ship.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard.”
“Don’t be sorry. It was a better education than any other I received. I had no other family, after I lost my parents, and I was a pariah above ground by virtue of what my mother did. But down here, it’s different. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what you’ve done.”
The labyrinth was extensive, and Riella marveled at how innately Jarin seemed to know his way. Then she noticed hand-painted signs hammered into the walls at each intersection, resembling street signs. She touched one of them.
“They’re a mirror of the street names above,” explained Jarin. “Still, it’s easy to get lost down here. Some tunnels are caved in, some are dead ends. Now and then, when the rains are heavy, the network floods. Most Klatos residents never come down here. But the tunnels have been mighty helpful to the Dark Tide Clan, for transporting goods around the city undetected.”
“Do royal guards not patrol them?”
“The tunnels were mostly built by the palace during the Zermes-Morktland war, decades ago. The resistance fighters used them to sabotage and attack the invaders. Since they were made for guerrilla warfare, the royal guards mostly leave it alone. They know a different law operates down here.”
He and Riella kept walking, slower now that they’d put distance between them and the royal guards. The walls had been painted in some stretches, depicting magical beasts and poems and warnings about what lay ahead. One rhyme in particular caught her eye and she read it aloud.
