Page 34 of Ashen Wings

“Great work. Breath control is your most important skill. Again,” he says.

After what feels like eternity, we’ve moved on from breath work to stretches and body weight movements that have me feeling like a fool. Isra’s confident remarks and quick corrections keep me grounded in the training, though, and it’s enough to keep the humiliation at bay.

By mid-morning, muscles I didn’t know even existed are sore and I’m glazed in sweat like a godsdamned pastry.

“Want a tour of the grounds?” he asks as I stagger out of a lunge.

“What? You mean you're done torturing me with these ridiculous exercises?” I ask, wiping my flushed cheeks.

“Not quite.” He grins and tosses a water pouch toward me. I uncork the lid and drain it. Gods, I’m already exhausted and we haven’t even drawn our weapons yet.

“Astora, spare me…” I sigh and fall into line beside Isra.

Two days of ruthless training wreaks havoc on my muscles as Roe and I climb the pristine, bleached steps toward Shadow’s central districts. The city, I’ve come to learn, is carved into the slopes of the continent’s second largest peak, Shadevale.

Unlike its sister volcano, Terrafyre, Shadevale is shaped from granite and diorite. Dormant and dreamless, its peak disappears above the clouds.

Scattered rock and smoothed-over boulders strewn around the pass are remnants of an ancient eruption—one that perhaps shaped the continent as we know it to be.

Fuck these steps, how many have we climbed? I lost count about fifty ago. The lunges Isra had us doing left my thighs screaming, and now, my muscles cramp with a fury unlike any I’ve experienced before.

“Tell me again why we couldn’t just pick any of the many shops we passed down by Abe’s place?” I ask, my words breathy and gruff between pants.

“Because courier, none of those shops were Jace’s tailor. There are still those in the city in agreement with Magnius Ashar’s war. You can’t simply waltz in with that silver hair of yours.” Her brow raises as she scans my sweat-glazed cheeks. “For such a skilled fighter, your endurance is shit.”

“I’m exhausted from Isra’s ridiculous training exercises,” I reply, cheeks blazing. “The man’s trying to kill me, I swear.”

“Trust me, if Isra wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.” She throws a bored glance over her shoulder and takes two steps at a time. Bitch…

By the last step, I’m drenched in my own sweat and my lungs are near combustion. I squeeze my lips shut if only to keep Roe from noticing the pathetic little gasps. Another thing to add to my docket of skills in need of improvement—endurance.

Even with the faint outline of thunderheads looming on the horizon, the city’s air is still and somber. It’s creepy as all ten hells, but I focus my eyes on the path. Just as in the lower districts, rows of uniform streets section off the city in rigid squares and blocks.

With the sun high in the sky, I expected the bustle of merchants and vendors, but all is quiet down each street. The silence of a slumbering faction holds my chest tight. This place is still so foreign, so strange, and the unknown is a constant reminder of just how much I don’t belong. Not that I want to, anyway. Once we’ve found the rider, I’ll be riding off into the sunset with my payout. Eyes on the end goal, Nova.

“The crossing sanction should be approved within the day. In the meantime, you need some clothes of your own so you can stop stinking up mine.” Roe crosses her arms as she speaks, not a black strand out of place on her merciless little head.

“Fine. Your trousers are a little short at the ankles, anyway,” I retort, tilting my neck down with heavy exaggeration.

“Good one.” Roe scoffs and follows the curve of the road toward the central district.

“Where is everyone? I can’t imagine those things…the lurkers…stray this far into the faction with Jace’s ward intact.” We pass a vacant storefront, its pristine glass windows revealing a lonely cobbler’s shop.

“A month or so ago, the ward fractured and a group of them slipped through. After that, Jace implemented a holdfast order for the city. Our people haven’t been the same since. With the lurkers edging closer and the ward failing more frequently…well, things have changed,” she replies.

“The ward…fractured? That can’t be possible, it's powered by Morvayne’s blessing directly, right? How can a god’s own magic fail?” My mind whirls. The gods’ gifts, granted through dragonstones, never falter. Even the oldest of favors, like the ward around Ashar’s palace, remain intact. So why has this one?

“We don’t know. Maybe the gods are royally pissed at us for fucking up the cosmic cycle, or maybe the lurkers aren’t as susceptible to their power as we are. Either are likely possibilities, unfortunately,” she says. Her words are clipped in their typical callous manner, but her sapphire eyes luster with a haunted concern as we turn the corner down a secondary alley.

In every tome my father left me, Shadow is described as a land of blight and rot, but there’s not a trace of decay…here. Even the puddles of rainwater glisten cleanly in this place.

The city isn’t just clean though, it’s void of color, vibrancy, any sort of individuality or expression that comes with humanity. Ten hells, Shadow is as sterile as a medic’s office.

“We’re here,” Roe states, knocking on a narrow door.

I inspect the back-alley entrance with tilted brows—faded brick and splintered doorways line the dim street. I'm not sure what I imagined of the noble tailor, but this is no better than a criminal’s shanty or smuggler’s den.

“This is Jace’s tailor?” I jeer. “I expected the House of Ashborne to employ someone far more regal than this.”