A Chilling Welcome

The biting chill of early winter whipped through the official road, stirring up dust and savagely slapping the carriage. The wheels jolted over the uneven surface, each bump jarring Rachel to her core.

Rachel tightened her worn wool cloak, burying her face in the raised collar. Vera sat across from her, wrapped in a blanket, her small face pale from the cold, her worried gaze occasionally darting to Rachel’s furrowed brow. Ruby, on the other hand, sat stiffly beside the driver, her spine rigid, her deep gray eyes scanning the sparse, bare trees lining the road, as if an assassin might emerge at any moment.

“Ruby,” Rachel’s voice mumbled from beneath her cloak, heavy with fatigue.

“Relax. Even the Cult wouldn’t bother with a place like this.”

Ruby’s shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t turn around, only gave a cold “hmm” from her nose.

Vera quickly spoke up, trying to smooth things over. “Ruby’s just worried about your safety, but…” Vera’s expression turned somber, “Rachel, are we sure about this?”

Vera didn’t continue, but Rachel understood her meaning. She sighed, her tone laced with resignation.

“I know it’s not ideal, but we don’t have any other options. We can only hope the Raven Guild will assist us.”

What Rachel meant by “assist” was borrowing money, or rather, taking out a loan. The Lockwood family was currently facing severe financial difficulties, and with the impending Grand Tour, resolving the issue in a short span of time seemed like a pipe dream. The only solution Rachel could think of was to borrow money.

However…

Rachel’s face clouded with concern. The Raven Guild was no ordinary organization; it controlled the economy of the entire empire. Rumor had it that the guild was backed by the royal family and several powerful nobles. As a result, the guild’s upper echelons were not afraid of the nobility. In fact, they held managerial power over several large towns, treating them as their own territories. Iron Anvil—where Rachel was headed—was one of them.

Although the Raven Guild had always offered loans to both large and small nobles, considering Rachel’s poor reputation and declining estate, the likelihood of her loan request being rejected seemed high…

“If worse comes to worst, we can use Ariya’s name to intimidate them. After all, Ruby is also one of Ariya’s people.”

Rachel thought to herself. While this meant entangling herself further with the princess, it seemed there was no other way.

“We’ve reached Iron Anvil, my lady.”

The driver’s voice carried a hint of tension from the front.

Rachel lifted a corner of the carriage curtain and looked out. Iron Anvil was a town renowned for its high-quality iron ore, filled with miners and blacksmiths, a bustling and prosperous place. That was why the Raven Guild had chosen it as the site for one of their branch offices.

However, the scene before Rachel was far from the orderly town she had envisioned, with its clanging hammers, roaring furnaces, and disciplined streets. Instead, she saw a chaotic landscape shrouded in a grayish-yellow haze.

The air was thick with the smell of coal dust, rust, and an indescribable mix of sweat and despair. The road was lined with makeshift shacks made of rags, wooden boards, and even abandoned mine carts, stretching endlessly towards distant, low-lying buildings surrounded by slag heaps.

Ragged people huddled in the entrances of the shacks, their eyes hollow and lifeless, like empty shells. More people moved slowly through the muddy streets, carrying their meager belongings, their faces etched with the weariness of a long journey and the uncertainty of the future. The cries of children, the muffled sobs of women, and the harsh arguments of men mixed with the howling wind.

“How… can there be so many people?” Vera gasped, her eyes wide with shock and pity.

“Where did they all come from?”

“From the north.” The driver answered Vera’s question.

“This year, the harvest in the north was reportedly poor, and the snow came early. Plus, Ariya’s cleansing of the Cult in the north…

These people are refugees.”

Ruby’s form trembled slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she remained silent.

The carriage inched through the crowd, moving at a snail’s pace, with dirty water occasionally splashing onto the wheels.

Vera watched a young mother cradling a baby, shivering in the cold, wet mud. Her eyes welled up, and she instinctively reached for her apron pocket, where she found only a few pitiful copper coins.

Ruby’s brow furrowed even more, her right hand unconsciously reaching for her waist, where her usual weapon should have been. Instead, she touched only the soft fabric of her maid’s dress, and her expression darkened further.

Suddenly, a slick, toady voice cut through the surrounding chaos.

“Hey there, ladies! Over here! Top-quality goods, fresh from the north!”

A burly man in a greasy leather apron, his face a mass of meat, blocked their path a few steps ahead. He grinned, revealing a mouth full of yellow teeth.

Behind him, a group of seven or eight people, men, women, and children, were tethered with coarse ropes. They were filthy and disheveled, their eyes filled with terror or numbness. They were herded to the side of the road, exposed to Rachel’s view like livestock for sale.

s*ave traders!

Vera averted her gaze in disgust. Ruby’s eyes sharpened like blades, fixed on the burly man, her anger palpable. Her fingers gripped her waist, knuckles turning white.

“Look at this build! Born to be a miner!”

The s*ave trader, oblivious to Ruby’s murderous glare, drooled as he pitched his wares.

“And this one! Thin as a rail, but quick with the hands! Take her home and put her to work washing and cooking…”

His gaze swept over Rachel and the others, lingering for a moment on Ruby’s maid’s dress and icy demeanor, as if something seemed amiss. But greed quickly overrode his doubts, and he redoubled his efforts.

“Ladies, if you need someone to run errands, check out this one! Young and easy to train!”

He yanked brutally on the rope, dragging a small, delicate figure from the edge of the group. The child stumbled and fell in the muddy street.

It was a painfully thin girl, no more than ten years old. She wore a tattered, colorless coarse cloth dress, her exposed skin an unhealthy pallor, almost translucent in the dim light. Her shoulder-length hair was a deep black, but the tips were strangely tinged with a dark red, like dried blood.

Most striking was the thick, faded bandage that covered her left eye, obscuring most of her face, leaving only her sharp chin and one good right eye exposed. That right eye was large, its iris a deep color, now filled with shock and pain, staring blankly and helplessly at Rachel in the carriage.

The girl struggled to stand, her thin limbs as fragile as a doll’s joints, scraping futilely in the cold mud. The s*ave trader clicked his tongue impatiently, raising his short whip—

“Enough!”

Ruby’s voice was like a drawn blade, sharp with barely contained fury, instantly drowning out the s*ave trader’s cries. She stood up abruptly, causing the carriage to rock.

Her maid’s dress flared with the force of her movement, and with her face set in a frosty mask and her amber eyes burning with anger, she had an eerie, commanding presence.

The s*ave trader was momentarily stunned by her intensity, his raised whip frozen in mid-air.

Rachel’s gaze fell on the fallen girl. In the instant Ruby spoke, the girl’s good right eye lost its vacant stare and locked onto Rachel—Rachel Lockwood—with an intensity that was almost unsettling. There was no plea for help, no fear of the whip, only a pure, almost dependent focus. It was like a drowning person grasping a lifeline, or a lost young animal finding its way home.

This gaze made Rachel’s heart skip a beat, a strange, inexplicable sensation stirring within her.

“Move on,” Rachel said, her voice cool and unyielding, as she shifted her gaze from the girl. “We have no interest in your business.”

Though intrigued by the peculiar girl and disgusted by the s*ave trader, Rachel had more pressing matters to attend to. She had neither the time nor the energy to deal with these distractions.

Rachel leaned back against the carriage wall, hiding her expression beneath her cloak’s hood, and whispered to the driver, “Don’t stop. Go straight to the guild.”

Vera opened her mouth, looking from the muddy figure to the cold Rachel, but ultimately swallowed her plea, sighing softly, her eyes filled with pity.

The s*ave trader watched the departing carriage, spitting on the ground in frustration. “Bad luck! Waste of my breath! Get back there!”

He roughly pulled the girl to her feet and pushed her back into the line of slaves.

The carriage finally left the chaotic refugee camp and the oppressive s*ave market, but the scene inside Iron Anvil was little better.

The streets were narrow and crowded, with sewage flowing freely. Most of the blacksmith shops were closed, their doors thick with dust. The few open shops were nearly empty, their owners listless and bored.

Refugees filled every corner of the street, their eyes dull and watchful. The air was thick with despair and unease, a far cry from the lively, if rough, town of Iron Anvil known for its mining and blacksmithing.

“Something’s not right…”

Ruby muttered, her professional instincts picking up on the anomaly. “It’s too quiet. Where are the guild’s people? The patrol guards?”

Normally, a town controlled by the Raven Guild, even if overwhelmed by refugees, should maintain some order. At the very least, there should be guards patrolling, and commercial traffic should be steady. But now, apart from the refugees and the listless locals, there was almost no sign of the guild’s presence.

The carriage turned down a few more dilapidated streets and finally stopped in front of a relatively tall, three-story building made of sturdy stone. The building had a rough, heavy style, with the famous Raven Guild emblem—an eagle clutching a gold coin—carved deeply into the stone walls, silently declaring its former absolute authority in the region.

But now, this symbol of power stood silent and lifeless. The heavy oak door was nailed shut with crude, thick wooden planks! Several large iron nails still glinted coldly, obviously recently driven in. Above the door, the once-gleaming gold-plated sign reading “Raven Guild, Iron Anvil Branch” hung lopsidedly, covered in dust, losing its former luster and looking dull and lifeless.

A gust of cold wind swept through the empty street, swirling dust and dry leaves, making a mournful sound, adding to the desolation and decay.

“They’ve locked the doors?”

Vera’s voice trembled with disbelief. She jumped out of the carriage and ran to the tightly closed door, pushing it with all her might. The heavy planks didn’t budge, only sending down a shower of dust. She then stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer through the crack above the door, but all she saw was darkness.

Ruby also got out of the carriage. She quickly checked the side and back doors, then hurried back.

“The side and back doors are also sealed. No guards, no signs or notices.”

She walked to the front door, running her fingers over the fresh nail marks. Her fingertips came away with a few wood chips.

“It hasn’t been long.”

Rachel was the last to step out of the carriage. The cold air made her tighten her cloak. She looked up at the building, now a silent, coffin-like structure, with the fading sunset casting a dull gold hue on it, failing to dispel the heavy sense of dread. Dust floated in the dim light, like cheap jewelry flakes, from the cracked door.

“Just what I needed… More bad news…”

The wind whistled through the empty streets, echoing Rachel’s sigh.