Free The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III by Don Bassingthwaite

life I don’t want back. Give me a chance to rest and dry out—I’ll go and be back before dawn.”
    She frowned at him. “Can I wish you good luck?”
    Natrac grunted. “I’ll take that.”

    They all changed into dry clothes and lay down to rest, but when they rose, Natrac had already slipped out. There was an extra key to the door hidden inside a crock. Dandra broughtit out and gave it to Singe. He embraced her without a word, then he and Ashi departed. Dandra took a brief look around the apartment and left as well.
    The rain had stopped, but the streets of Fan Adar were still empty. Dandra walked from the light of one everbright lantern to the next without seeing anyone—or, thankfully, any sign of another one of Dah’mir’s herons. The need to watch for them reminded her of the time after her first escape from the Bonetree mound, when she and Tetkashtai had fled across the Shadow Marches, trying to evade the herons, Bonetree hunters, and dolgrims Dah’mir had sent in pursuit.
    It was, in fact, too much like her nights on the run. Unease stirred in her. Had the streets always been this quiet, or did they just seem that way because she was—possibly for the first time ever—utterly alone? Singe wasn’t there to support her. Tetkashtai, her constant counterpart since the moment she had awakened to consciousness, was only a memory. There was no one.
    She wasn’t sure that she liked it.
    Sound came as she crossed a walkway and descended a broad ramp to a sunken courtyard. The courtyard itself was empty except for a statue of a kalashtar woman, her crystal eyes raised to the skies, but on its far side, a short flight of stairs rose again to the porch of a low building—the community hall called the Gathering Light. Warm light and noise escaped from the building—the light making golden lines around edges of the building’s doors, the noise drifting on the air in a haze of half-heard music and speech.
    Dandra crossed the courtyard, put a foot on the lowest stair, hesitated for a moment, then pressed her lips together. You can do this, she told herself. What is it compared to what you’ve already done? She raised her chin, continued up to the porch, and pulled open one of the doors.
    In her heart, she’d half-expected all activity in the hall to pause as she walked through the doorway and those gathered within turned to stare at the stranger in their midst. Her entry, however, attracted no more than idle curiosity. A few people looked up to see who had arrived. Even fewer gave her a second look. A very few, friends of Tetkashtai—or of Medalashana orVirikhad—waved in greeting. Dandra waved back but stayed near the door, trying to look as if she were searching the hall for someone while she took stock of the environment and tried to decide what to do next.
    The main chamber of the Gathering Light was long and, for a structure in Sharn, relatively low. Doors to the side opened onto stairs that led up or down to storerooms and private meeting rooms. During the day, the community hall served a variety of purposes, from cultural education to physical training to quiet political and philosophical discussions. With night’s fall, however, the hall had come alive in its main purpose as a social hub of the community. Kalashtar and Adaran humans—far more of the latter than the former—mingled through the chamber, falling into clusters to share conversation, glasses of pale tea, and bits of hot food plucked from pots wrapped in braided straw. Around the outside of the room, they stood. Closer to the middle, they sat. In the very center of the long hall, a low circular stage had been set up. Four musicians sat on it, playing the wind and string instruments of Adar, and anyone who felt like it had joined in with their song. Music and speech clashed and broke over the crowd like waves on a beach.
    The scene was familiar enough from Tetkashtai’s memories, but as she scanned the crowd, Dandra became aware of an odd