Arcane: Sovereign Of The Broken City

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Chapter 13: The One Missing Piece

POV: Ashryn

The Cauldron was restless.

Not the usual kind of noisy—Zaun always hummed with pipes and chaos. No, this was different. A subtle shift in footsteps, in whispers that didn't want to be heard. Ashryn sat crouched atop a rusted air duct, hood down, ears open.

Something was off.

The kind of off that said someone was screwing around on her turf.

And she has a solid guess why that is.

"Could've just come to me, y'know," she muttered to no one, flicking a pebble off the pipe.

They weren't officially her people yet—but still. She was watching them. They are smart enough to know she was scouting them. They could have come to me at start.

But People were stubborn.

Especially Zaunites.

Ashryn muttered under her breath, "You two better not be getting yourselves killed before I even ask."

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She moved fast, her coat trailing behind her like a cracked banner. Boots tapped quick and sharp across the metal grates as she leapt between scaffolds, dropped into forgotten corridors, and followed the trail of chaos her would-be crew had left.

Scorched paint, scuffed vents, a broken jaw here and there.

Amateurs—but her kind of amateurs.

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She found them just outside her turf. Right outside it, in fact.

And surrounded.

Six shooters, maybe more, bristling with scrap guns and edge-tech rifles. They had boxed Cael and Lynne into a collapsed loading bay—nowhere to run, nowhere to climb. The metal echoes of shouting were bouncing between steel walls like the whole block was arguing.

Ashryn grinned.

She could've gone for subtle.

Could've picked them off one by one from the shadows.

She chose loud instead.

"You two look like actual alley rats."

Cael grinned.

Lynne rolled her eyes but smiled too.

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Her boots crashed down on the nearest rooftop like thunder. Two heads turned. That was all the window she needed.

Crack! A wrist snap and her first shot took out a rifle. The guy's scream was swallowed by the chaos.

Then she vaulted over the railing and hit the ground running.

"Hope you saved me some fun!" she yelled, sliding into cover beside Cael, grinning through the grime.

"Took your time!" he shouted back, wiping blood from his lip.

"I was watching the fireworks. What's the occasion?"

Lynne ducked as bullets whizzed overhead. "Some psycho buyer thought I scammed him on a formula. I didn't. Probably."

"Probably?" Cael asked, deadpan.

Ashryn chuckled. "I missed this. Let's clean up."

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The alley lit up again—firearms roaring, slugs zipping past and pinging off metal. Ashryn moved like water, her pistol barking with precision. Cael provided covering fire, crouching low with his smaller sidearm. Lynne lobbed an overcharged chem-flare she'd cobbled together from god-knows-what and blew out their opponents' footing.

But ammo ran out.

It always did.

Ashryn's last shot blew a hole in someone's shoulder and then clicked dry.

The silence after was a dangerous kind of pause.

Then came the shouting. The knives.

And fists.

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It was brutal.

Ashryn went first—her elbow smashing into a man's jaw, ducking a blade, kneeing another in the gut hard enough to send him retching.

Cael swung a broken pipe like he'd been born with it, quick and mean.

Lynne wasn't strong, but she was fast. She danced around them, slashing with a shard of glass she'd wrapped in wire. Clean cuts. Focused hits.

They bled. They got hit. But they won.

When the last thug crumpled, groaning, Ashryn spat out blood, popped her neck, and turned to them with a look like she'd just finished breakfast.

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Back in the tower, after quick dressing of cuts and bruises and a meal that tasted too good to be legal, they finally asked it.

"So what now?" Lynne asked, cradling her warm mug.

"Yeah," Cael added, flexing his bandaged hand. "We in or not?"

Ashryn leaned back against the gear-cracked wall of her throne room—a half-assembled central hall made of scavenged pillars and repurposed steel. The broken clock above them ticked only once in a while. She liked it that way.

She gave them a long look, serious now.

"There's still one of us missing."

Cael blinked. "Wait—there's a fourth?"

Ashryn just nodded, not giving away names. "We're not full strength yet. When he decides to join,I'll fill you in on the plan to turn Zaun upside down."

Lynne smirked. "You sure we're ready for that?"

Ashryn grinned. "Nope. That's what makes it fun."

She kicked her boots up onto the table and yawned and stretched, bones cracking, and gave them both a grin.

"Till then—enjoy your pre-vacation. You won't get it often in the future."

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A month passed.

Ashryn spent it tightening her turf. Her name spread faster now, attached to every bruised knuckle and reclaimed alley in the Cauldron. Word was that someone had unified three splinter crews and tossed their bosses off a catwalk.

Not wrong.

She didn't expand too fast. Let things settle.

But every now and then, she'd check on her three candidates. Viktor was the quiet one. Still hadn't committed. Still cautious. But Ashryn had faith.

Not in hope.

In blueprints.

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Two days into the second month, the device under her worktable gave a faint mechanical chirp.

She blinked.

Then grinned.

It was crude—a radio-based prototype, stitched together from scavenged copper coils and frequency stones. Nothing fancy. Just a signal ping from a paired device she had slipped into Viktor's stack of schematics weeks ago.

The whole point had been simple: If he could build it, he'd prove he understood how to integrate tech from Earth and Zaun. Her test. Her challenge.

The chirp meant only one thing.

He'd built it.

Ashryn leaned back, eyes glowing faint in the lamplight.

"Well, well," she whispered. "Looks like our missing piece just clicked into place."

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