Laith spread his arms wide. “Have you seen the mountains we’ve been flying over? The whole fucking Eyrie could be here flying search grids and odds are no one would find us.”

“I’m not concerned about the whole Eyrie,” Valyn replied, keeping his voice level, “I’m concerned about the Flea. He and his Wing have a reputation, in case you weren’t paying attention back on the Islands, for making a total hash of the odds. Put the birds in the air. One high, one low.”

Laith locked eyes with him, then threw up his hands. “You’re one worried son of a bitch, Valyn hui’Malkeenian.”

“It’s your job to fly,” Valyn replied. “It’s my job to worry.”

The flier snorted. “Here,” he said, tossing something overhand to Valyn. “If you’re going to worry, you may as well have one of the whistles. Yurl’s Wing had two.”

It took Laith a few more minutes to finish checking over the kettral. By the time he’d sent them into the air once more—silent black shapes slicing across the stars—Annick had returned, jogging out from behind a few pines with an arrow nocked to the string of her bow.

“Any company?” Valyn asked.

She shook her head. “No light, no smoke, no refuse or visible waste.”

“It’s not exactly thriving,” he agreed, glancing around once more.

“As I told you,” Tan interjected, “it is dead.”

“I’ll fucking say,” Gwenna added, stepping out of the doorway, lantern held in one hand, a bared short blade in the other.

“Anything inside?” Valyn asked, ignoring the monk. It was all well and good for Rampuri Tan to have his opinions, but Valyn’s carelessness had nearly cost him and his Wing their lives once already. He had no intention of spending any time in a strange city, dead or not, without running through his own protocols.

Gwenna shrugged. “Stuff that doesn’t rot: knives, pots, bracelets. Oh, and bones. A whole shitload of bones.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. It’s like every poor bastard in the place was slaughtered as they sat down to breakfast.”

Valyn frowned and turned back to the monk. “All right, so we can see for ourselves it’s empty. Where are we? What killed the people who lived here?”

“This is Assare,” Tan replied. “The first human city.”