Chapter 6: Home Known and UnknownBD reached out, her armored hand, surprisingly gentle, taking Amber's trembling paw. Their fingers intertwined for a brief, intense moment, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. Amber felt a warmth spread through her, a lingering echo of BD's touch, a strange comfort that defied the cold command of the Dame, before BD had to pull away, her grip firm as she stepped through the shimmering portal, the light swallowing her. The portal pulsed once more, then closed, leaving Amber alone in the courtyard, the silence of the Ani'cora pressing in.

  The transition was jarring. One moment, the impossible colors and humming magic of the Ani'cora. The next, the dull, familiar grey of Valienta at midnight. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of damp stone and the distant tang of woodsmoke, a stark contrast to the clean, sweet air of Compass Keep. Amber stood on a patch of slightly overgrown grass, fnked by cracked cobblestones. Her apartment building, a squat, unremarkable structure, loomed just ahead. Home. The word was a whisper in her mind, a fragile hope, yet it tasted bitter. The Dame’s commentary rang in her mind. Her savior, her captor, had simply deposited her back into the very suffering she had, for a brief, bewildering time, escaped. A flicker of resentment, cold and sharp, coiled in her gut. She was back. Back to the endless grind, the constant fear, the suffocating struggle.

  She hurried towards the building, her sundress feeling strangely out of pce in the cool night air. The door to her apartment was unlocked, just as she'd left it, but the moment she stepped inside, a chill seeped into her bones that had nothing to do with the weather. The air was stale, still, carrying the faint, unsettling scent of dust and disuse. Nothing was overtly disturbed, but the familiar clutter of her meager belongings felt wrong, subtly shifted, as if someone had been through them. It was cold, empty, a hollow shell that offered no comfort. She sank onto her small, lumpy mattress, the silence of the room amplifying her unease.

  The apartment offered no soce, no sense of return. Not enough to actually allow the Lynanth woman to truly rest. Amber closed Her eyes, but her mind wandered, hand drifting to her throat, her fingers finding the intricate copper chain of her mended neckce. The cool metal against her fur brought with it a sudden, sharp memory of BD's gentle touch, of the knight's quiet watch over her for three days. Just an hour ago, she'd called BD her captor, her jailor, yet now, a strange ache of longing settled in her chest. She missed the silent, constant presence, the way BD's fur had brushed against hers, the unexpected care. A faint, unfamiliar flutter stirred in Amber's chest, a warmth that had nothing to do with her healing, a quiet yearning for the alluring bck Lynanth. Was this strange attraction because BD had been her captor, or was her heart truly skipping a beat for the enigmatic knight? It was a pleasant, innocent thought, a fragile bloom of something new that helped her drift off.

  As she woke up the next day, Amber felt like she was waking up from a long hazy dream. Her still body felt unwilling to move but she knew she needed support. Her only anchor in this city was Vay. Amber knew her friend’s work schedule, knew she'd be finishing her all-night shift at the bakery across town around this time.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, Amber slipped out of her apartment and headed towards the bakery, moving through the quiet, mostly deserted streets as dawn just began to rise.

  She found Vay just as the st customers were leaving the bakery, the orange Lynanth emerging, flour dusting her wild, coppery fur, looking utterly exhausted. Vay’s eyes, usually so warm and knowing, widened in shock, then narrowed with a terrible, unmistakable fear.

  "Amber! By the Lady's Grace! You're alive! After three days!" Vay gasped, her voice a startled shout, her gaze darting nervously around the empty street. She took a step back, her small hands clenching into fists at her sides, not in anger, but in sheer, palpable terror. "What... what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here!"

  Amber's heart sank, a cold dread spreading through her. Vay's fear, the way her friend recoiled, was a deeper cut than any physical wound. "I'm sorry, Vay, I'm sorry I lied to you about who I am. I never wanted to hurt anyone. It's all gone to hell and I'm terrified," Amber choked out, the words catching in her throat, her carefully constructed composure crumbling. Her voice broke, a raw, desperate sob. "I... I don't understand. I just... I just wanted to come home. I thought... I thought you'd be here."

  Vay's fear warred with her underlying affection. Seeing Amber's raw, desperate tears, her shoulders slumped. She gnced around one st time, then, with a sigh of resignation, pulled Amber into a shadowed alcove between two buildings, away from prying eyes. "Oh, Amber," she whispered, her voice softening, though her eyes still darted nervously. "I saw... I saw what happened. It was chaos…how long have you been like this…an Azhari? I thought they, you, were a myth to keep us from roaming during the full moon.” Vay couldn't help but probe.

  “We are…terribly, painfully real…I’ve known it my whole life…Vay…knew it in my blood ever since I was first becoming a woman…” Amber said, looking down and away in shame. She followed the coppery woman into an alleyway where they settled on some crates around the back of the bakery. “When Song Ranch was raided, I saw my mother transform into the Lunar Shadow… I saw what I was going to become…and it terrified me.” She tried to meet her friend’s eyes, but they were full of rare terror. Amber wanted to talk about all of her pain, but once again all it did was drive people away.

  Vay broke the awkward silence, her voice low and grim. "Bernard... Bernard went to the Church. He told them everything, spilled all the beans about you for a payout, Amber! A big one. The Kimoran Inquisitors, they're everywhere now, searching for you. He said you were a fiend, a demon... he made it sound like you were the one who attacked everyone even what those bandits did!" Vay's voice hitched, a raw edge of anger entering it before she tries to calm herself down.

  Amber's heart sank, a cold dread spreading through her. Bernard. Of course. For a payout. The betrayal stung, but Vay's fear, the way her friend recoiled, made worse by that hollow scripture, was a deeper cut than any physical wound. The shame she'd carried, the fear of exposure, was now a horrifying reality, compounded by the knowledge that she had, however unintentionally, destroyed Vay's life too. Faith? Amber thought bitterly. Faith hasn't saved me from anything…not Monsters like me…"I... I didn't know," Amber whispered, her voice barely audible. "I just... I just…I’m sorry. "

  Vay pulled away, her face pale. "You knew how dangerous you were…but you still acted like you weren’t putting us into danger too….Sorry won't fix anything, it's all broken! The Bucks full of zealots now, the city is turning against anything it doesn't recognize…You can't stay here, Amber. or they'll find you eventually…no matter how dark you make your fur; they will find you." She took a step back, her gaze darting nervously. "I... I have to go. Someone might see me with you." The bond, so fragile, so fleeting, snapped. Vay, her face a mask of regret and fear, turned and disappeared down a narrow alleyway, leaving Amber utterly alone, at her lowest point. Abandoned by one of the st connections she had left.

  Blinded by grief, by the raw sting of Vay's betrayal and the crushing weight of her ruined life, Amber walked. Her feet moved mechanically, drawing her back towards the residential ward, towards the apartment that was supposed to be her sanctuary. She thought of her meager belongings, the worn bnket, the chipped mug, the few trinkets that constituted her worldly possessions. And then, a cold, stark realization settled over her. There was nothing there. Nothing she truly wanted to save. No warmth, no comfort, no real sense of belonging. The "home" she yearned for was an empty space, a hollow echo of a promise never fulfilled. For the first time she truly felt the hole inside, and it was growing.

  As she rounded the corner into her residential ward, the sight that greeted her sent a fresh wave of ice through Amber's veins. Kimoran Inquisitors. Two of them, cloaked in their stark white and silver, were systematically knocking on doors, their grim faces set, their questions undoubtedly about her. One of them held a crude, charcoal sketch of a Lynanth, unmistakably Amber. They were getting closer to her apartment, to the empty shell she had once called home.

  They know. They're here. I'm wanted. Going home was a mistake. A terrible, foolish mistake. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow. "There! The fiend!" A shout ripped through the night air, immediately followed by another, louder, more zealous voice. "By Kimora's Holy Light! A creature of corruption! Flee, citizens! Flee from this abomination!"

  Amber bolted. Pure, animalistic terror fueled her legs, sending her scrambling down the street, away from the pursuing shouts and the metallic glint of silver. The city, once a familiar maze, now felt like a hostile trap. She wove through the deserted main streets, then plunged into the narrow, refuse-strewn alleyways, a blur of white sundress against the drab, shadowed buildings. She dodged sleeping drunks huddled in doorways, sending them sprawling with startled grunts, and narrowly avoided a pile of overflowing refuse that threatened to trip her. People startled awake in their beds, peering from grimy windows, their faces contorting in fear as she darted past, their wary gnces following her, not just the Inquisitors. A vendor's cart, left unattended, overturned with a crash, sending apples and oranges rolling across the cobblestones, but Amber didn't stop. She heard the shouts behind her, "Witch! Demon! Get her! It defiles all it touches!"

  She plunged deeper into the byrinthine alleys, the air thick with the stench of stale garbage and damp stone. Her paws found purchase on slick, moss-covered bricks as she scrambled over overflowing bins, her lithe body twisting and contorting to squeeze through gaps too small for a human. She heard the heavy boots of the Inquisitors pounding behind her, their curses echoing off the grimy walls. "It flees from the Light! It hides in the shadows, as all corrupt things do!" They were fast, relentless, but not as agile as she.

  The clean, sharp air of the market district was instantly repced by the oppressive, humid miasma of the docks. Amber could feel the weight of every eye on the street—a cold, tangible presence pressing down on her shoulders like a phantom shroud. The people saw not a person, but a fugitive, a fiend—a desperate criminal scattering their peace. Each time her golden eyes fshed up and met theirs, she didn’t just see judgement; she drank in the sickening cocktail of shame and primal fear reflected in their wide faces, a poison that only fueled her self-loathing. They're right. I am a monster on borrowed time.

  Rounding the corner, she smmed away from the newer construction and into the ancient, winding chaos of the old city. Here, the cobblestones were slick with seawater and refuse, the stench of stale fish and untreated sewage a familiar, almost comforting bnket compared to the sterile fear of the Kimoran quarters. It was a familiar maze, enough to slip away. But silver fshed in her peripheral vision and her head snapped left as she ran, eyes wide on the mouth of a narrow, shadowed alleyway. A fsh of polished silver, the angur shadow of a Kimoran zealot, and the cold, mechanical rasp of a command: “Get backup—the fiend is heading dockside!”

  Before the words fully registered, a jarring, body-shaking impact sent a sharp jolt of pain up her spine. The zealot’s pursuit was abruptly cut short as Amber crashed headlong into something soft and loud. Three people colliding in a mixture of earth, metal and tangled flesh.

  “Watch where you’re going, you blind oaf!” The curse was sharp and distinctly human. Amber found herself scrambling back to her feet, her own breath ragged. The Kimoran was tangled on the ground, seemingly knocked out by the impact, but next to it, a woman was pulling herself out of a muddy puddle, her bottom half now coated in dark sludge. She took a frustrated moment to swipe the messy brown hair out of her dark eyes. And then, those eyes fixed on Amber. They were surprisingly clear, a sharp, dark gaze cutting through the grime. The realization hit the woman. “Amber, you’re alive?” Barbara’s voice was a low, stunned whisper, devoid of the slurring thickness Amber usually associated with the human. Beneath the mud and without the usual yer of booze, Barbara looked shockingly present.

  “I… I am… I… I just…” Amber stammered, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The adrenaline was now paralyzing ice in her veins. She couldn't form a coherent word. All she could hear was the metallic echo of the Kimoran’s boots coming, and the distant calls for more zealots. “They…they’re…” They’re coming back, I’m going to change into a monster, please run Barbara before I hurt you too. She stood frozen, unable to truly express herself. Her gaze flickered wildly between Barbara and the invisible, approaching danger. She took an involuntary step back from Babs, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest, clutching her jacket as if to physically suppress the votile power coiled within.

  “I don't know who they are—I don’t care,” Barbara said, rising fully now, wiping a stray smear of mud from her cheek. Her voice was suddenly hard, carrying a force and certainty that Amber had never heard from the destitute woman. “But I can get you out. I know these back alleys blindfolded. Trust this old thief, I’ve never been caught.”

  No. Not again. She shook her head, taking another sharp, painful step away. The memory of every life she had touched and broken felt like a physical chain dragging her down. “I can’t do this to anyone else… not again… not anymore…” Her voice was raw, thick with suffocating guilt. “I don’t want you to get hurt too… I’m sorry Babs…”

  Before the human could argue, Amber broke the brief, agonizing moment of connection. She pivoted and was on the run again, darting blindly into the nearest shadowed pathway, propelled by self-sacrificial terror.

  “I’ve got eyes on her!” a Kimoran voice shouted from the main street. “And get that sympathizing woman she was with!”

  No! No no, please get away Barbara! The shout was a fresh spike of self-hatred, a concrete certainty that she had just ruined another person's life. With fresh tears in her eyes Amber turns and began to run. Trying to catch a gnce back to see her friend one more time but she was already gone. Clever as she always cimed.

  Ahead, the alley dead-ended into a sheer, insurmountable brick wall. The top was lined with glinting, jagged spikes of broken gss, a final, cruel crown. Trapped. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, desperate drumbeat of despair and finality. The shouts were right behind her now, the metallic tang of silver and sanctimonious certainty heavy in the air.

  “Nowhere to run, fiend! Kimora’s judgment awaits you!”

  Amber pressed her hand against the rough, cold brick, tasting the metallic fear on her tongue. The walls seemed to tilt inward, the world closing in. But then, her wide, desperate eyes darted upwards, searching for anything but surrender. A narrow, crumbling ledge, barely wider than her paw, snaked along the wall, leading to a precarious, rusting fire escape dder just out of human reach. It was a terrible, desperate path, but it was up.

  With a desperate leap, a feat of agility born of pure terror, Amber sprang. Her cws found purchase on the rough brick, scrambling, scrabbling, her muscles screaming as she pulled herself onto the ledge. She scaled it with a frantic, desperate speed, her body a blur of motion, until she reached the rusty fire escape above. She didn't look down as she cmbered onto the rickety metal, but she heard the frustrated shouts of the Inquisitors below. "She's gone up! Find another way to the roof! Circle the block! Do not let the abomination escape Kimora's cleansing fire! Our world shall be purged of this filth!"

  The momentary reprieve was all she needed. Below, the Inquisitors were already fanning out, their heavy boots pounding on the cobblestones, searching for a way to fnk her. She was still trapped, but she had bought herself precious time. Her eyes, wide and desperate, darted around, searching for any escape. And then she saw it. Tucked away in a forgotten, overgrown corner of this rooftop garden, was a small, vibrant ring of mushrooms. A fairy circle.

  “Fuck it!” Remembering BD's words, her precise touch, Amber lunged for her salvation. Her paws, trembling with anxiety, fumbled over the glowing caps, trying to replicate the pattern, the rhythm. “Damnit all, what was it, what was it, why didn’t I pay more attention…!?” I think it’s tap... then press... squeeze?... This was her only option, a desperate gamble. Suddenly a flickering ring appeared in the middle of the mushrooms, barely big enough for her. Amber could hear them approaching, she had seconds to spare. As the door to the roof flies open Amber threw herself into the unstable portal, feeling the air within the circle shimmer violently, then tear open, a jagged, swirling vortex of emerald and silver light, spitting sparks. She didn't know if it would lead to Compass Keep, but she had no other choice.

  The lost barmaid slipped into the unknown of the Ani'cora.