The actual border of Mournvalley wasn’t something that could be accurately drawn on a map, it was more like a patch of no man’s land that no one wanted to enter in the fear of running into necromancers or their thralls – which was not at all unreasonable as the denizens of Mournvalley were always looking for new material. Checkpoints near the so-called border were also both pointless and a terrible idea, as the necromancers had no interest in respecting the borders of others and no one sane was going to smuggle anything over the border anyway.

Periwinkle stopped the undead mounts a bit before they arrived to what was unquestionably Mournvalley’s territory. Anastacia’s whining about how uncomfortable riding the moose was had started to get unbearable, so Periwinkle was forced to slow down the pace and allow her to stretch her feet for a bit every now and then.

“Is the concept of discipline foreign to you or do you just not care that you’re extremely annoying?” The inquisitor asked in a slightly irritated tone. Not being used to Anastacia meant that his resistance to her nonsense wasn’t quite developed enough for him to be able to deal with her for an entire day.

“Well ex-fucking-cuse me! Unlike you, I haven’t gotten my ass kicked in a while, so I’m not used to the pain!” Anastacia screamed while doing squats with tears in her eyes, hoping to increase the blood circulation in her legs. “I’ve had enough discipline for the rest of my life and then some, so now I do whatever I want and couldn’t give less of a shit what you think!”

King caught up to them and on his way to Anastacia, pushed Periwinkle’s moose and almost made him fall. The simulacrum had obviously developed some kind of grudge against the inquisitor, which Anastacia found extremely funny.

“Doesn’t look like anything has happened since I left, Coquelicot and her followers are still camped near the castle and Amaranth is keeping an eye on them. Keep an eye on the sky, no way she hasn’t noticed us approaching too, especially you…” Periwinkle said to change the subject.

“What do you mean?” Anastacia asked while going through her backpack. She had already eaten almost everything Rosie and Yulia had given to her and was now just gathering bits of dry-cured ham from the folds of the food parcel.

“Well, I’m sure you know what the presence of another necromancer feels like and you’ve been around Coquelicot and the other inquisitors, so you know what a proper necromancer feels like, right? You’re nothing like that.” The masked necromancer explained. “Ever since your little episode when I chained you to a tree, you’ve changed. What used to be an enormous but still contained inferno, has turned into a wildfire. It’s not even that your strength is beyond what I have ever seen, it’s that being close makes me feel like I’m somehow a lesser being.”

Anastacia licked her fingers, crumbled up the paper her food had been wrapped in and tossed it at Periwinkle. “Huh… Is that good or bad?”

“Could be either, could be both. It might go back to normal once you’re less agitated or it might not. All I can say is that you never know how people will react to that, so keep your guard up around other necromancers that consider themselves to be powerful.” Periwinkle advised and swatted away the paper ball with his uninjured arm.

“You’re telling me to watch myself when I’m with a bunch of lunatics that probably all hate me? Thanks, I never would’ve realized!” Anastacia sarcastically scoffed.

“Can you stop being so damn difficult for a second? I’m only trying to help.” Periwinkle sighed and took a sip from the canteen on his belt.

“Can you stop being crazy and give some value to the lives of others?” Anastacia answered and started walking onwards. Along the way she stared at the barren hellscape around them. The land in Mournvalley was wholly unsuited for almost any farming, and anything that was willing to take root in it on its own was likely stunted in growth, poisonous and ugly. Surprisingly, this wasn’t caused by necromancers, they simply ended up in Mournvalley because no one else wanted to be there and they would be left alone. So they made do with what little they managed to scrounge together and perfected their craft in peace.

The one good thing she could come up with about her homeland that slavery was and had never been a thing, at least in its classic form. Almost all great kingdoms had at some point been built by slaves, they might have abolished it since, but they couldn’t change the past. This was not the case in Mournvalley, after all, there was no reason to have slaves that still needed food, water and sleep when you could just have a couple of necromancers operate an army of undead for the same purposes. This was very apparent in the landscape and architecture of Mournvalley: with infinite manpower they were able to gather massive amounts of stone and clay, move earth like no other civilization and build whatever they chose with them. Because of the severe lack of wood in the area, it was almost never used in building, making even the smallest houses look like tiny stone castles.

The landscape wasn’t spared from the hard-working necromancers either: originally there had only been a single large river running through the land, but with time the necromancers had dug artificial lakes and canals to distribute the water wherever it was possible.

“There’s one more thing that you should know, it’s actually an order from boss herself: if anyone refers to you as The Anchor, correct them. People joined our side for many different reasons and not all of them have completely forgotten about you. She doesn’t want you competing with her authority, so if anyone recognizes you, tell them there’s no anchor.” Periwinkle said and lowered himself down from the elk’s back. “We might as well walk for a bit.”

“Deal, I might punch someone if they call me that though.” Anastacia shrugged and peered at some houses in the distance. “What’s that place?”

“That would be the town of Astur. The local lord supported Coquelicot’s cause from the beginning, so it was spared from the war. Have you never been there?” Periwinkle asked.

“No… I just visited the bigger cities and towns and even then, I was locked in a carriage the entire time I wasn’t on a stage.” Anastacia said and tried to remember even one of the places she had visited while still being kept as a prisoner, but at the time she didn’t care enough to memorize them.

“Well you are highborn so even if you weren’t in this situation, you probably wouldn’t be visiting places like this. We’ll be walking through it, so you’ll finally get the chance to see what rural life in Mournvalley is like!” Periwinkle laughed and regained his usual cheerfulness.

Even before they got anywhere near the town, the road changed from dirt to a neatly paved granite tiling and a meter-high stone wall started on both sides of the road. Anastacia found it very surprising, as she had always thought that the commoners had lived in relative poverty and paved roads weren’t exactly high on the list of important things for a poor town.

“So what kind of murdering does this particular trash fire specialize in?” She asked sarcastically.

“They make pottery, mostly.” Periwinkle laughed.

Anastacia was confused for a second. “Like evil skull vases and stuff? Do they use blood instead of water?”

“No, just regular pots, plates and cups, everyone needs those after all. It’s close to a clay pit and the border so they have better access to firewood for firing clay than most towns. In fact, wood import is one of the things we’ve been working on and they’ve just started to get some sent to them.” The inquisitor explained, clearly enjoying the utter confusion on Anastacia’s face.

“But… But they’re necromancers, right? So they kill people, right?” Anastacia stuttered and stopped walking.

Periwinkle laughed. “There used to be a couple of guards here that were in charge of catching any trespassers and the like, but they were drafted by us. Now there’s just a bunch of people here that are technically necromancers but aren’t strong enough for it to matter in combat. Lets just go in and you’ll see.

As soon as they were within eyeshot of the town, people started appearing from the stone houses along the road. They were clearly curious about the sudden appearance of an immensely powerful necromancer in their small town. All of them were wearing the usual set of black or dark grey robes that the lower ranking royals in the castle had worn, but theirs were of lower quality and worn out.

Anastacia had to double check, but all of the citizens in the town, including the children, were indeed necromancers; they just seemed somehow too normal.

“Excuse me, mister inquisitor!” A young boy of maybe eight years of age suddenly yelled and raced to them with two of his friends. “Can we touch that? Please.” He asked and pointed at King.

“Hm? Oh! You people probably haven’t seen one before. That right there is a simulacrum! Usually they’re really dangerous, but this one is friendly… at least somewhat.” Periwinkle explained to the small necromancers while rubbing his broken arm. “He belongs to miss Anastacia here, so you’d have to ask her though.”

When the children turned to Anastacia, she was still overwhelmed by how casually they approached an inquisitor of all people, it was something that would have been unthinkable in her childhood, and randomly punishable by death if you caught them on a bad day.

“Miss, your color is weird.” The boy said and touched Anastacia’s violet cloak.

Anastacia immediately slapped his hand off, took a step back and stared at the children in confusion.

An older man rushed over and moved the children further away before addressing Periwinkle. “I’m terribly sorry for the brats! I hope they didn’t do anything stupid.” He apologized but didn’t seem to be panicking as much as the situation should have warranted.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. My friend here is just a bit weird.” The inquisitor laughed and shook the man’s hand. “She grew up with the royals and this is the first time she’s with us commoners.”

“Ooh, she does have the looks down. Are you taking her to the front? She feels like she’d be useful there.” The man continued in what still seemed like an overly friendly manner to Anastacia.

“Yup, the siege is starting to get boring, so The High Necromancer Coquelicot figured we should let her loose in the castle and see what happens.” Periwinkle joked and moved on to some other matters going on with the town and Mournvalley in general, leaving Anastacia and King alone.

Anastacia quickly put up her hood and tried to hide from all the curious stares. She had to keep making sure everyone there was actually a necromancer and it wasn’t just some weird trick by Periwinkle. Aside from the slightly cultish appearance, they seemed normal. No one had blood on their clothes, you could guess what a few of them did for work based on additions and modifications on their robes. There were no bodies stashed anywhere either and the only bones around where small pieces that probably worked as tools. None of it made sense in the slightest, she had never met a necromancer that didn’t kill people just because they felt like it. As far as she knew, everyone in Mournvalley had gone through the same training as her, or at least the theory portion of it as materials weren’t that plentiful, but the people there made her question that belief.

She backed up against King, pulled her hood lower down to hide her face and silently waited until Periwinkle was ready to move on and they could leave the artisan town of Astur behind.

“So how did you like seeing some of what used to be your citizens? You seemed pretty surprised.” Periwinkle asked once they were a little way away before suddenly stopping. “What are you-“ He uttered before completely freezing.

Anastacia pulled her new knife on him. “What the fuck was that?! You think just because you cleaned out a little village and put some of the few necromancers that can at least act normal in it that it’s enough to fool me?! That I’ll go all ‘oh, I guess Mournvalley isn’t all bad.’ Well fuck you, I know what this piece of trash country is really like!” She screamed and pressed the knife on Periwinkle’s throat before allowing him to speak.

The inquisitor coughed. “You know what the royalty of this country is like, nothing of it’s people. You know what’s wrong with it, and that’s all you know. You’ve only seen the people who kept you captive for your entire life, the people zealous enough to blindly believe their lies and us brainwashed lunatics, and then somehow you’ve decided that that’s all we are when we're barely half as bad... And guess what, those people are now dead. As much as I’d want to say it was because Coquelicot handled things brilliantly, that’s not the full truth. The cult was bound to break down sooner or later and if Coquelicot hadn’t acted, the royals would have turned the red inquisition on their people.” He calmly explained despite the very upset girl holding an incredibly sharp knife on his throat.

Anastacia lowered her knife to think. “Why would I believe you? I’ve heard nothing about this and pretty much the entire world agrees with me. You just want me to believe that you’re somehow the good guys here, so I’d join you and do the other cult shit you’re into!” She guessed and lifted the knife again.

“How would the rest of the world know anything? You can’t spy on necromancers just like that, so we’re just left alone and all they know is the carnage left behind by the red inquisition when they were sent to kill escapees.” Periwinkle rebutted. “And no, no one wants you here. You’re the single person in the world that can deny all Coquelicot’s efforts and the only reason she forced you to come was because it is going to save many lives on our side if you manage to kill Amaranth instead of having to fight an all-out battle with her. And personally, I think you should be traveling the world to learn more about it while perfecting your craft, there’s no benefit for me in keeping you here, but I do agree with my boss. So everyone wins if you leave as soon as possible.”

Anastacia lowered her knife once more and paced around the inquisitor while trying to figure out whether what he said made sense or not. Admittedly, thinking was not her forte and she wasn’t able to find a flaw in his claims. She released Periwinkle, but not before kicking him in the shins for the trouble.

“Fine then! Let’s go so we’ll get this over and done with.” She mumbled and stormed off.