It was a short walk back to the Hunter’s Guild, but every step ached.

Azalea grimaced as she dragged herself down the beaten path, her limbs creaking and her skull pounding. Her manawell was dry as a desert, perfectly matching the parched tongue that stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She hadn’t felt this exhausted since her first day at the Academy, and this mission was supposed to be easy. Those wolves had only been Class One: corrupted beasts that had survived a single Storm. They were hardly the strongest that the wild had to offer. Back at the Guild, Azalea had been regaled with stories of Class Five beasts. Such creatures, her seniors claimed, loomed over the very heavens. Impervious plates covered every inch of pelt and hide. Mana submitted to their will, forming deadly abominations or shaping the ground. Even a single glance into their eyes would turn your body to stone.

Azalea wasn’t sure how much color had been added onto the facts, but she wasn’t keen on finding out. There was a reason why only the top Hunters were assigned to such monstrosities. They were the only ones who could come back alive.

Within the hour, Airlea’s capital rose from the horizon, bold and bright beneath the sparkling sun. Azalea heard the lowing toll of the midday bell, hailing fishing ships from the sea into the bustling port, ushering merchants beneath the wings of the market, and rotating the city watch patrolling the ramparts. Despite the dangers looming at its doorstep, it was a civilization that refused to extinguish, forever blazing with the light of a thousand mana lamps. It was Mythaven, her pride, her duty, and her home.

Azalea passed wide swaths of fields, which were seeded with crops and attended by workers toiling beneath wide-brimmed hats. Such estates were owned and operated by Airlean nobility, responsible for most of the city’s food. While they lacked the safety of the Mythaven wall, set out in the open beneath the ravenous gazes of corrupted creatures, they were far from defenseless. The fields were offered protection by the Royal Hunters—in exchange for the king’s tax, of course. Whether by brigand or beast, ruin would not befall the precious food that grew beneath the soil.

Azalea drew closer to Mythaven’s frontal gatehouse, which commanded both elegance and power in its towering stature, beautiful latticed portcullis, and crowning decorative arches. Two guards stood at attention just outside, paying careful heed to the thin trail of merchants and artisans bustling in and out. One of them snapped his feet together with a rattle of metal and saluted her smartly.

“Lady Hunter Fairwen, ma’am!” the guard said sharply. She flinched a little at his volume, which was much louder than necessary. “Welcome back, ma’am! Good to see you’re not dead, ma’am!”

“Thank you,” she said. She paused, unsure. “It’s good to not be dead.”

“I can imagine that, ma’am,” said the guard solemnly. “Lying in a grave doesn’t sound particularly interesting. Ma’am.”

On that cheery note, he promptly stepped aside, and Azalea passed through.

The little throng of people at the gatehouse parted for her like a creek over stones, murmuring quietly among themselves. A Hunter. In the flesh. A Royal Hunter. Their whispers were reverent, almost fearfully so, and they strained to catch a glimpse of the shield-emblem on her armor.

Azalea tried to pay it little mind. Just weeks ago, she’d been another fumbling student at the Knight’s Academy. Other Hunters deserved such adoration and praise, but not her. She was barely functioning after a basic commission.

Azalea pulled her hood up, lowered her face, and pressed quickly through the gatehouse. The weight of all the eyes on her was suffocating, and if she headed to the Guild from here, it would only get worse; she’d have to trek through Mythaven’s main streets, which were constantly abuzz with crowds of merchants, citizens, and soldiers.

Maybe she could take a little detour. Just this once.

The southeast corner of Mythaven was quieter, quainter—an older part of town where merchants still set up their wagon-stalls in the fountain square, where lines of drying laundry were still strung across rooftops, and where the old gallows had been repurposed into a community stage for public theater. This part of the citadel still bustled with life, but it was a different kind of liveliness than uptown: the warm greetings of families who had known each other for generations, the loud bargaining calls from housewives who knew how to push the worth of vegetables, and the festive plucking of a lutist perched on a nearby barrel, hat laid out for loose change.

Azalea breathed in the briny odor of fresh fish as she passed the wagon-stalls blooming with produce and animal goods. She paused in front of an arrangement of breads and pastries, her eyes drifting past knots of spiced dough to the milk buns nestled in their greased wrappers.

An elderly woman hunched behind the display smiled toothily at her. “Well, if it isn’t Rachel,” she croaked warmly. “Will you be having your milk bun?”

Azalea was, in fact, not Rachel, but she didn’t have the heart to correct Granny Mabel. She’d tried already, about twenty times, but Granny Mabel’s hearing was not particularly accommodating. Eventually, Azalea had given up. There was no harm if her name was a little off anyway.

“Yes, please,” she said, fetching a few coins from the small purse stowed on her belt. She slid them across the counter.

Granny Mabel stashed the coins and pushed not one, but two squashy wrappers at Azalea. “One for your friend,” she said sweetly.

Azalea flushed a little as she accepted the buns. She refused to take anything for free, so she retrieved more coins for Granny Mabel.

A glint entered Granny Mabel’s eye. “One for your mother, too,” she said cheerily, plucking two more milk buns. “And your father.”

Azalea sighed as she pulled out more coins, plopped them on the counter, and ran from Granny Mabel before she could be buried beneath a mountain of milk buns and debt. Granny Mabel was always something of a swindler, a devious mind beneath that sweet, harmless facade. But in a way, Azalea preferred her life like this. In Gallows Square, she was just Azalea, or Aza, or Rachel—a shy girl who could be talked to, swindled, or pulled onto the stage as a last-minute pageant substitute. She knew everyone in this square by name, and they knew hers. It was far preferable to being worshipped with a title she was unfit to carry.

Azalea nibbled on a milk bun as she passed Gallows Square, turning into a cramped row of squat homes with soot-speckled shingled roofs. Sweet vanilla cream bloomed in her mouth, and she hummed a note of appreciation. Questionable business practices aside, Granny Mabel sure knew how to bake.

She stopped in front of a curious house equipped with steam pipes and a smoke-bellowing chimney, pale slats of drywall peeking out from beneath beams of cherry wood. A wooden sign had been staked by the front door, tidy letters etched over its surface and painted white to stand out:

At the corner of the sign, a doodle of a plushy-faced cat had been scrawled in charcoal pencil—Azalea’s own handiwork. She stepped past the sign and pushed into the workshop with nary a care.