The Call of Crows

Chapter 35: The Center of the World

Taya had woken up early on the day they would make it to Koinelia just to view their arrival. But she was also anxious. She never got anxious whenever she asked someone to join her, but she felt Ricco may choose to turn her offer away.

So far, she'd done very well in recruiting people. But there was always that possibility that she messed up.

True weakness is allowing fear to enslave you. She repeated the Searing Breath's first mantra in her head. As much as she liked to portray it to her followers, she was not impervious to human flaws.

It was pretty easy to forget about her worries as the early morning fog cleared from the ocean and revealed Koinelia.

Many called it the center of the world. And most of those people didn't even live there.

From the sea, a wall of docked ships from all over the world surrounded the city. And the buildings seemed to layer up on each other into a mountain of stonework and architecture. Every man-made structure was made of pristinely white stone and roofed with burnt orange tiles.

A thousand years of grandeur seemed to shine brighter here on the ground than the sun itself.

"It's really something, isn't it?" Ricco stepped up next to her.

"Something? It's the biggest city in the world." Taya said, "I'd argue it's worthy of a bit more than 'something'." She hesitated before asking, "So what do you think of my offer?"

Ricco sighed, "I'm still...it's just, I've lived as a mercenary my entire life. I've only ever rubbed shoulders with the dankest and darkest humanity has to offer. I know you probably don't care about my past, but...I don't think there's a reality in which I would help save the world."

"There will only be that reality if you make that reality, Ricco. You have an incredible power. Turning down this opportunity means letting go of a huge chance to change a life you really don't seem happy with and letting that power flounder, untrained and unreliable." Taya said, "Either you keep slave trading for the rest of your life or you can make the choice to want more from life."

Ricco bit his lip in contemplation before sighing again, "Alright. Alright, fine. You convinced me. I'll join your guild."

Taya smiled and shook his hand. "Welcome aboard. Though we can't make you an actual member until we expand our guild. Which is the whole point of us coming here in the first place."

"You've come all this way to fill out a form?" the mercenary asked.

"They wouldn't let us do it in Sklava, so we marched our way here." Taya said, "Good decision in the long run, considering we picked up three more members."

The others of her party started coming up on deck as the slave traders docked their galley. They marveled at the city as well, save for Gustave and Ruhak, who were presumably familiar with Koini metropolises.

"Are we in The Great Hall?" Bjorn muttered.

Taya chuckled and put her arm around his shoulder, "No, but we'll certainly eat like we are!"

Ricco said his goodbyes to his crew, who seemed happy for him, luckily. Taya then thanked the captain for his help before they disembarked the galley and stepped onto land for the first time in a while.

"So...do any of you actually know where everything is in the city?" Taya asked.

Ruhak shrugged, "I've never stayed in the city's poorer areas."

Gustave beckoned them to him. "Come with me. I used to do charity work down here."

Taya didn't know what the Koini standard of poverty was, but it baffled her that such cleanliness and the existence of infrastructure at all could be considered poor.