Chapter 222: No Place Like Home

Author’s note: Hi guys.

Let me welcome you to the beginning of arc two. I haven't decided on a name for the book yet. However, I decided to start it with a prologue as well. With a slightly different one this time, though. See, we're not starting with Korra's POV, but someone else's. But you can read about that in the chapter

Without further ado, enjoy!

Chapter 222: No Place Like Home - link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124040286

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Chapter 222: No Place Like Home

"This is it, ladies and gentlemen," shouted Zander Baah, their leader, as their party rode up the rise - a valley carved between the mountain ranges of Granora's Tail and Granora itself. Below, sprawled in the distance, lay their destination. The Labyrinth City of Castiana.

"At least it doesn't look like a total shithole," Ashe rasped, voice raw.

One such place lay in the south of the Sahal Empire. Munca, a city born from war, rising around the entrance to the labyrinth of Hero’s Sorrow. Or, more precisely, the settlement that clung to the fortress built on the entrance. Munca Fort had been a necessity during the Mind Wars. The empire couldn’t risk Hero’s Sorrow falling to mind mages. 

And as war does, it shaped everything. The fortress turned into a haven, a last refuge for those seeking shelter or coin. The South had little else to offer then. The living hauled the dead from battlefields, stitched up the wounded, or turned to the labyrinth. Even to mine the salt in the first floors of the depths below for a pittance in wages was better than waiting for starvation to take hold. And so in the shadow of the fortress grew a shithole, Ashe called home.

"Still a shithole," Zander muttered, as blunt as ever. He had heard her, of course - hard not to when he was right there beside her, as he had been for most of the ride up from the south.

"I don’t see a fort guarding the labyrinth’s entrance," Ashe noted, more or less siding with Zander. Munca Fort and Hero’s Sorrow was both a beacon of hope for the south and a leash around the necks of those who lived beneath its shadow. The Sahals decided who stepped into the labyrinth and what came back out.

"Maybe not, but they've got walls."

"That's not unusual, Zander," Ashe hummed, voice light but knowing. Down there, the Sahals ruled more than just the labyrinth - they controlled the city's pulse, its trade, its people. Even so, she held her judgment. It was always better to check things out for yourself, to see with your own eyes. "Most towns we’ve seen have their own."

"Not like those, though."

"True."

Still too far to make out the details, but those walls indeed looked impressive.

"What do you think, Zander? Built to withstand the attacks of a five hundred sigils strong beast?"

"At least," he said with a nod, though his gaze drifted to the forests they passed as they traveled. Esulmor. Dark stories clung to that place, whispered in inns and carried on wary tongues. The keeper at the Beyond Reach Inn had sworn it teemed with creatures no sane soul would dare provoke. Yet Ashe felt the pull, a restless itch to look, to test if the warnings rang true. Southerners knew what it meant to live in the shadow of monsters. But that wasn’t why they had come. Word had it there were coins to be made in Castiana.

“So,” Ashe said, tasting the almost unpleasant thick humidity in the air. "This is where we split up?" Her eyes swept over the rest, twenty-one souls, her friends, family, enemies - if need be. They were a nameless group, some might call them a gang, but they never saw themselves as such. They were just people trying to survive.

"As planned," Zander said with a smile that always made her heart leap.

"Then I'll see you in Castiana. Guys." Ashe waved to the others, then urged her scalehoof forward. Drawing things out would just make it unnecessarily harder. They all understood - this was where they went their own ways. If someone got caught slipping into the city, tough luck.

Ashe smirked. "Geases will keep their tongues tied." That included her. A necessary precaution. One loose tongue could sink them all. That was the whole point of splitting up - to keep the risk contained. 

Her target: the east gate.

The sun hung low by the time she reached it.

To make it seem like she had come from the empire’s east, Ashe took the long way around, tracing a wide arc through the city. Confidence carried her - she had met enough Eastern ladies chasing a thrill down South to know how to act like she had a stick stuck up her ass.

Then she reached the walls. And her confidence faltered.

"Fuck my arse," she breathed, a chill prickling along her spine. The walls weren’t just tall. That wasn’t what made her grateful she hadn’t tried to climb them. No, it was the enchantment humming through them. To the untrained eye, they were just stone, nothing more. But magic clung to them, thrumming beneath the surface, shifting like a living thing. Ashe felt it in her bones. "Almost like the walls of Munca Fort."

'Better be on top of my game.' Ashe moved forward in line, keeping her expression unreadable. She had done this plenty of times. Munca City was easy enough to enter, but the fort? That was another beast entirely. Some days, the wait stretched for hours.

An opportunity to meet fellow travelers for some. For others like her, a time to listen to gossip. Alas, Ashe didn't learn anything she didn't already know. Shadobreaker Company, one of the many Seeker companies in the city, fucked up badly and now there were empty spots to fill. 

"NEXT!" The gate guard barely glanced up before groaning. "Ah, another one of those. Off your scalehoof, ma’am - please."

[Swordsman of City Guards: 163 sigils]

'Array nothing unusual. The number of sigils, though - impressive.'

"Is that really necessary?" Ashe flashed her Citizen Card, letting condescension sharpen her tone. "Just check it and let me through."

"Not how it works here. Off. Now. Step away from the animal, ma’am."

"Come on, move your pampered ass." She didn't have to turn around to know that the voice belonged to the merchant woman sitting on the wagon behind her. She listened to her lament over waiting in line for nearly an hour - apparently not the way things usually went. On the bright side, her acting seemed to work -  at least with people standing in line. A start, but it was the gate guards she had to sway.

“Tss, the standards here," Ashe muttered, loud enough for the guard to hear, "Back in Wagon'brei, they wouldn’t dare ask this of me."

"First, I don’t think that’s true," the guard responded, voice flat. "Second, we're not in Wagon'brei. We’re in Castiana. Either get off that scalehoof or turn around. Your choice."

She didn’t hide her displeasure, showing it in every move as she followed the gate guard’s orders. Of course, she did it with that Eastern grace, the kind she had borrowed from their “ladies”.

"Happy?" Ashe asked, her voice laced with venom, as she stepped away from her scalehoof. The mare responded with a delighted neigh. No surprise there - she had made it clear more than once that if the beast didn’t keep the ride smooth, it would find itself over a fire.

"I’ll be happy when my shift’s done. Your Citizen Card?"

"Here." Ashe handed him the card, feeling a tightness creep into her chest. This was it - the moment that was to decide whether she would get in free of shackles or have to fight her way out. Nothing she was looking forward to as she felt the enchantment of the gateway brush across her body. They were powerful, and no doubt designed to hinder someone like her. Worse still, it compelled her to speak only the truth. She hadn’t felt that in years, not since the wars.

'Did they know we were coming? Nah... how could they?'

The gate guard looked at the card, then back at her. This was where things usually ended. In the smaller towns, they didn't want to piss anyone off with her sigil count right out of the gate. But here, an identification tablet appeared in the man's hands.

Her daggers were already stirring in the back of her mind, only a breath away from appearing, as she watched him read through the details, comparing them to what the Lattice was showing him. All of it was true, no question. But there was always a chance they would connect her real identity with the many she used in her work.

"Ashe Akene. Daggerstress. Two hundred and forty-five sigils. Everything seems to add up, ma’am."

"Why shouldn’t it?" she growled, feigning impatience.

The man brushed her remark aside. "You tell me. Your last stay is reported to be in Munca City. What’s your purpose in Castiana?"

"Isn’t it clear?" Ashe asked, motioning to herself, her sigils marking the answer. "I’m here for the Fallen’s Cry."

"Alone?" She laughed, the sound light yet sharp. "You flatter me. Only a fool would go down there solo. No, I plan to find others who’ll brave it with me."

"With your looks? Can’t see you having trouble."

'With yours? Dream on.' She didn’t say it, though. Didn’t lie, either. "You flatter me again. Can I go now, or...?"

"Tomorrow, report your place of stay to the barracks."

'Seriously? Was this just about some seeker company? Or did they not get the memo that the Wars were over?'

"Look, I don’t like it any more than you do," the man grunted, seeing her face twist with annoyance - no pretending this time. "But we can’t risk another Shadowbreakers."

"The what?" Now, that piqued her interest. 'So, those rumors had some weight, after all. Good, very good.'

"Ask around. You’ll find out soon enough. Here’s your card."

"So, I’m free to go?"

"Once we check your mind," he said, pointing to his colleague, a healer woman, as ready to approach her as she was to slice their throats.

"My mind? I don't understand."

"Whether someone has messed with it or not," the gate guard said, tapping his head to make his point.

'Fuck my arse! These whack jobs still live in the Mind Wars!' Ashe kept her composure, though, steadying her breath. "If it’s necessary," she replied, pushing her hair back, every nerve on alert for a wrong move. She was bound by geases, a dozen or more, each one weighing on her thoughts like chains.

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