Wasn’t that a good thing? I almost asked when the Captain told me I would now have the full attention of the Sahal Empire. Only her tone suggesting otherwise made me keep my mouth shut and give it more thought. After all, Rayden had more experience with the Sahal Empire than I did.

Which brought up another question, why was she so distrustful of someone she had served so faithfully for years? Why was she reluctant to let me associate with the Empire? What should I be worried about? It wasn’t hard to come up with a few reasons, though.

Just because of the mutations, the Imperial Chief Healer was coming here to examine me, find out what made me tick. Now I’ve shown them I’m capable of much more than just looking like a freak.

“They might want to use her for communication with the beast,” Blaine pitched in to everyone, suggesting I could work as a translator of Esu’s growls and roars. To me, that didn’t sound so bad. I’ve already done it, and fear aside, I kind of enjoyed it.

Although, it was a bit of a step away from my thoughts of revenge. On the other hand, I could work my way up the ranks, gain access to more resources, and perhaps even return to my family sooner than if I tried to do it on my own.

“At best,” the swordmaster added, destroying my hopes for a somewhat ordinary life as an imperial translator.

“For what else?” I dared to ask.

Blaine shrugged, looking at me like I was an idiot when the answer was so obvious. “Use you to kill the King.”

I stiffened at the thought. The idea of being used to trick and betray Esu was sickening, and I couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of his might his wrath would bring down on my head. Not to mention he wasn’t alone in those woods. I understood that the Empire didn’t like their presence in their lands, but attacking them was, in my humble opinion, insane.

“If you can talk to beasts,” Janina took over the answer to my question, ending my train of thought. “...and now I don’t mean with just the King of the Woods, that ability alone could be valuable to Sahals. Sure, there are Classes and Skills that make it possible, but as I understand it, you do it naturally.”

I didn’t have to exercise my old grey matter too hard to see I didn’t have to make any effort to understand Esu or the mare, let alone having to use a skill for that. It was like she said it was ‘natural’ for me, but then how could it not. I was a half-beast. “I...” I paused and chickened out from telling them, afraid of their reactions. “Yeah, I guess it is.” 

“Training such people is difficult. So why waste time, resources, and limited skill slots? When they can have you.” She motioned to me with both hands.

“Or more like you, lass,” Marcus added, making me raise my eyebrows and cock my ears, which put a smile on his face. “Okay, it would be fun if there were more like you running around. Terrans are pretty touchy about their ears and...tails, no fun. You’re ‘refreshing’, not so uptight.”

“Eh...thanks,” I said awkwardly after trying to come up with a non-embarrassing answer, which I didn’t manage to do, obviously.

Janina nudged the Chief Healer. “What’s this idiot trying to say, Korra, is that there’s a good chance they’ll want to replicate your mutations.”

And there it was. “I don’t like the sound of that,” I actually growled, horrified that even the Empire was becoming someone I should fear. Yeah, I was dreading the Imperial Chief Healer’s arrival tomorrow and the follow-up checkup before, but now I was in danger of ending up on the table at the hands of some butcher.

Only sheer force of will kept me from lifting Sage up and clutching him to my chest.

“All true. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sah wanted to take you straight to Wagonbrei after the meeting,” the Captain voiced her concerns, only to shake her head. “I take it back. He’ll wait for Lord Wigram. They need him to examine you, and more importantly, he can’t afford to tell him he came here for nothing.”

Yeah, like I said, not something I was looking forward to. I’d avoid it if I could, but looking around the room full of people, city guards, essentially soldiers of the Empire, I started to worry even more. My eyes fall on the entrance and my thoughts on the enchantments hidden in the walls. I wondered what their purpose actually was and whether I would be able to open the door itself if I tried to escape. Perhaps a window was a more viable option. I was sure I’d survive the jump from the second floor. The question was, what then?

When a hand landed on my shoulder, I yelped in utter shock like a frightened little girl. It didn’t matter that my domain was still active when I was lost in thought, not focusing.

Much to my relief, it was just Deckard. “Don’t worry, girl. What San is trying to say is that we have to find a way to get you out of this mess.” 

“Right?” He winked at Rayden, and so I looked at her, my expression saying it all. Was he telling the truth? “More or less. But before we go any further... I’ll be honest with you. I knew they’d try to take you. My City Guards and I were ready to step in should it come to that...and we did. Before you entered the Labyrinth, we busted two groups trying to get to you.”

She paused, gauging my reaction. But I was too tense, eager to know why no one had helped me then, to react in any way. Seriously, my ears didn’t even twitch. “The Agent showed up that night. Earlier than he should have, but it’s not strange. These bastards tend to do that a lot. He briefed himself on the situation and decided it would be best to let them grab you. He wanted to catch bigger fish than just local crooks.”

“Buyer?” I raised an eyebrow, saddened by the fact that I wasn’t wrong. I was a bait.

Rayden tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Exactly, and when he brought it up to Lord Egerton, Baron was delighted.”

“Of course he was,” snorted Deckard. “Catching a mind mage or someone affiliated with one would greatly improve his reputation. That’s all the fucker cares about.”

“Then why didn’t he allow the City Guards to leave Castiana?” That was something I just found hard to understand.

“He never did. It’s not just you, Grey. That’s why I’m trying to solve everything inside the city walls.” The Captain leaned back in her armchair. “Plus, the Agent convinced him he would be enough and all the credit would go to the City Lord. Why he thought he could pull it off on his own is beyond me.”

“Arrogance!” The guardian at the back slammed his fist into the wall. Thus giving me the opportunity to see enchantment in action for the first time when the yellow-ish runes flared up around his fist.

“I know Rhys. It’s like the Empire has forgotten what mind mages are capable of, what their defeat has cost us,” she said with sorrow in her voice.

“Like the one in the woods? She was able to control three mossbears and confuse others,” I pitched in and at the same time remembered Morton, who could influence hundreds of people to attack mindlessly.

She gestured in clear agreement. “See, you get it. How did he plan to deal with that? He must have been livid when they took you to the very Esulmor woods he had not dared to enter.”

“Quite a fuck-up,” remarked Marcus.

“That it is, and he’s aware that he’s the one who pushed through the plan to let the slavers and the Shadobrakers pass through the city with hardly a hitch. Of course, we couldn’t just let them go, making our intent too obvious. Most of the Shadobraker Company is either behind bars or dead, but we don’t have the buyer, the mind mage, and on top of that, his decision jeopardized the agreement with Esu.”

My ears twitched as a thoughtful murmur came from Janina. “So now he’s going to try to put the blame on others...”

“...or find a way or ‘someone’ to make up for his blunder,” Blaine added, thinking the same as the healer.

“My thoughts exactly,” the Captain said and braced her elbows on the table, leaning towards me. “I couldn’t help you before, and it pisses me off. I’m supposed to protect this city, its citizens, people like you, not put them in danger. And the situation in the Esulmor woods put them all in danger. But...” She raised a warning finger and looked me straight in the eyes. I have to admit, it was pretty hard not to look away. “...before I go against the interests of the Empire, as Sah will no doubt put it, I have to be sure. Korra Grey, do you want to stay in Castiana, not under the direct control of the Empire, or do you have no problem working with Sahals?”

If working for the Sahal Empire involved experiments on me, and after what I heard, I was pretty sure it did, I saw no reason to volunteer to help them. And even if it wasn’t the case, I’d be pretty much tying my hands, forced to obey their every order. It didn’t strike me as anything other than slavery, just with more glitter. So I returned her hard look and, as honestly as I could yet with a slightly trembling voice that I couldn’t help, gave her my answer. “I don’t want to be a pawn of the Empire.”

A broad smile appeared on Rayden’s face. “Good, very good.” 

“Anyone have a problem with this?” She looked at her lieutenants.

“It’s going to be troublesome,” the swordmaster noted.

“None, Captain,” Rhys, the guardian, grumbled, and Janina filled in. “As always, we’ll follow your lead, San.”

For a second there, I thought I would see tears in Rayden’s eyes. But she kept her emotions in check. “Thanks, guys.” 

“Okay, but how do we do that...if we go against the Empire’s orders, they can pin treason on us.” Marcus said, immediately considering the consequences of such actions.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it, and Grey here gave me a good reason how to avoid that herself.” She gestured to me.

I paused, wondering what reason I could give her, recalling back on everything I told her earlier. My will not to give in to the beast at full change? Or was it the ability to boost my presence? As I saw it, animal talking was out of the question. What was it then? 

“Me? What reason?”

The corners of her mouth raised slightly, and she looked at her lieutenants.

“If I understood correctly since Esu considers her his cub, he decided to train her,” she explained to the others while I realized that this hellish training may have done me more good than I thought it would. And since Deckard seemed to see no reason to say more than I was prepared to reveal, for which I was incredibly grateful, the Captain didn’t know one little detail. 

“Every month, at full blue moon.”

“Ha, that’s how it’s done, lass. Can I come with you next time?” Marcus asked enthusiastically, earning a nudge from Janina. “Do you want to get yourself killed?”

“Come on, you wouldn’t like to see the legendary King of the Woods?” the Chief Healer marveled.

Janina looked at him in disbelief. “No, I don’t want to die.”

My urge to refute her words and fears, to tell her that Esu wouldn’t kill her, I had to suppress. I wasn’t sure of that myself.

“That might be a decent reason to keep her in the city,” Blaine assessed despite the arguing pair of healers. “Travelling from Wagonbrai every month would be illogical and risky given the attempts to kidnap her.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop the Empire from stationing their people here.” Marcus caught me off guard with his insight when I thought his attention was on Janina right now.

“They can do that for other reasons,” Rayden interjected, now frowning at me. “Grey, you’re full of surprises. Is there anything else? I wouldn’t want to be caught off guard by some shit you forgot to tell me?”

This time I actually hugged Sage, regardless of the attention from the people around me, and thought hard. What else have I withheld?

“I have a year to prove myself. Beat the young mossbear, or else Esu will give up on me.”

Captain Rayden didn’t even blink. “Okay, quite a goal, but doable. And...?”

“Just tell her, girl,” Deckard encouraged, seeing me hesitate again. However, I couldn’t help but waver when he himself told me it was the stuff of legends. So squeezing Sage tighter, I took a deep breath and braced myself for the worst. “My race has changed. Now I’m Human/Beast.”

The silence that fell was nerve-wracking, and something I was afraid would happen. However, it was inevitable. All Captain or Agent Sah had to do was ask me to use the Identification Station, and they’d have found out anyway. 

“Hybrid,” she said after a few unbearably suffocating breaths I suffered through, never taking her eyes off me. “Anything else?”

Taken aback by her reaction and the lack of any from the others, I stammered. “T...that’s all I can think of right now.”

“You’re not surprised?” I dared to ask right away. I needed to know.

With a glance, she let the pair of healers speak.

“Well, I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve seen Dungreen’s victims before.” Janina took over the explanation. In fact, I was aware of that. I heard from Rayden I wasn’t the only one who got into Sahal. She mentioned it the first day I met her. “Only most of them were deceased and it’s hard to get more system information from a dead body. You see, it’s impossible to use Identify Station, and [Identify] and similar skills will only show that it’s a ‘Human Corpse’, no name, no Class or Skills. In many cases of these victims, what the skill showed was a ‘Human/Beast Corpse’.”

“Oh...” I breathed in understanding. They already knew, and I wasn’t as unique as I thought.

“We actually wondered why you were still Human and not the hybrid,” Marcus gave me a questioning look. 

They found that strange? I almost felt insulted but told them what happened. “I didn’t want to admit what I had become. I denied it with all my heart, and hated it.”

"Will is a powerful thing," Blaine stated.

I could only nod at that. “Yeah, and mine’s at a decent level too.”

“I didn’t mean the skill,” he immediately objected, but I waved him off. “I know.”

With that, I realized one thing. I didn’t see these people as enemies, someone to be wary of anymore. Because I only allowed myself to make such remarks to those in whose presence I did not feel uncomfortable, and they didn’t have to be exactly my friends.

“If you already knew, why do you call them...us hybrids then?” It was something I found odd. The system made it clear what I am.

“It’s a common term for those who don’t have a distinct race like you,” Rayden informed me in an unperturbed tone. “Can you think of anything else we could use?”

I tried, thinking hard. “Only Ward, perhaps.”

“He used Return Crystal, as well as mind mage,” Deckard added quickly. “The Agent has their shells.”

“I figured as much,” Rayden said, which gave me pause. How could she have known? “What I mean by that is, when he showed up quite messed up in Labyrinth Square, it wasn’t hard to guess what happened. Don’t worry. We have him in custody just...unconscious, let’s say he resisted.”

Honestly, I was a bit relieved that at least one of the main perpetrators did not escape. Thinking about those two, I realized another detail. “I saw the mind mage’s face. At least part of it.”

“That’s interesting.” The swordmaster spoke, intrigued but was interrupted by Rayden. “But not helpful. Mind mages are full of tricks, plus it’s something we can discuss later.”

“Of course, Captain,” was Blaine’s response.

“Grey, listen, there’s not a lot of options. Esu wanting to train you every month is a good start, but it won’t stop the Empire from getting its hands on you. Yet something you said stood out to me. Did Esu really tell Deckard to train you? Think about it, but above all, tell me the truth.” The Captain urged me. 

At her insistence, I tried to recall what Esu had told me. “‘Gift Bearer teach’ were his words if I were to translate them. Gift bearer, that’s what he called Deckard,” I said by way of explanation for the others.

“Gift Bearer, really Deck?” Marcus laughed, but Deckard shrugged it off.

“That’s good. In fact, that’s excellent.” Her enthusiasm, however, was not shared by her lieutenants, not even Janina, who already heard more. Why? My guess, because of Deckard’s long-standing search for the student, they were pretty skeptical that much had changed. So Rayden’s blatant plan to make me his student was, in their minds, simply impossible. 

It was the first time I’ve ever seen her grin like that. “Deckard himself asked Grey if she wanted to be his apprentice,” she said with a certain degree of delight, silencing the healer completely. In fact, the entire room fell silent.