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SLW Chapter 38 : Asshai
🕑 Added 2025-03-04 22:10:23 +0000 UTCAeron had seen many things since his arrival in this world, battlefields, corpses, castles, wraiths tearing through men as if they were mere parchment...but nothing compared to this.
He stood at the edge of Asshai, the great and terrible city that defied all logic. It was massive, far larger than Kingslanding, Oldtown, and Volantis combined, yet it felt hollow. Empty, yet not abandoned. Silent, yet not lifeless.
The air was thick, heavy, as if some unseen force pressed down on his shoulders. There was no sun, only an endless sky of shifting grays and blacks, casting everything in an unnatural twilight. Shadows stretched where they shouldn’t, clinging to the black stone like living things. The building twisting, and constructed of the same dark, oily stone...looked more like the remnants of a dead civilization rather than a living city.
But it was not abandoned.
Figures moved through the streets, wrapped in black robes, their faces hidden behind grotesque, expressionless masks. Some masks bore elongated faces, others hollow eyes and twisted grins. None of them spoke. None of them acknowledged his presence.
Aeron’s fingers twitched toward his sword.
"Fang has been here for some time." He muttered, his voice swallowed by the oppressive silence. "Although the Shadow Lands aren’t far, Garm should be faster. I can’t even sense him anymore..."
That unsettled him more than anything. Garm, his most trusted beast, his fastest shadow...gone, out of reach.
Aeron exhaled sharply, his breath misting unnaturally in the stale air. "I’ll go there myself."
He stepped forward.
Each footfall echoed in the emptiness. The city felt wrong. It was not dead, but it wasn’t truly alive either. every step he took he felt being watched.
For the first time in a long while, Aeron felt dread creep up his spine.
There was no sun. No birds. No wind.
And yet, there were whispers.
Faint, distant. Not words, but something laughter? Sobbing? Chanting? It was impossible to tell. It came from nowhere and everywhere, slithering through the alleys like unseen phantoms.
Aeron’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword.
A figure loomed ahead.
He stopped.
One of the masked ones stood in his path, wrapped in robes that seemed to shimmer, shifting between black and deep red. Its mask was elongated, its eye holes deep and hollow. It did not move. Did not breathe.
Aeron narrowed his eyes. "Move."
The figure tilted its head slightly, as if observing him. Then, more appeared.
From the alleys. From the archways. From the rooftops.
Dozens of them.
They did not approach. They only stood there, watching.
Aeron’s fingers tightened around his sword hilt, his stance shifting, ready for anything. He had fought against a castle. He had butchered knights and lords alike. He had walked with wraiths.
And yet, here in Asshai, surrounded by these silent, faceless things... he felt something new.
A sliver of doubt.
His instincts screamed at him.
This place is not meant for normal people.
But Aeron Grim was no ordinary man. If this city sought to consume him, it would choke on his shadow.
He took another step forward.
The masked ones did not move.
The silence was absolute. Even the river Ash that cut through the city like a dark vein moved too slowly, its surface thick and oily, reflecting no light.
The Figures wrapped in flowing robes, faces hidden beneath expressionless masks, their eerie presence blending seamlessly with the oppressive atmosphere of the city. They moved as one, emerging from the alleys, standing in silent formation like sentinels of the unknown.
One stepped forward. Its mask was different older, cracked, like it had been worn for centuries. A voice, layered and distorted, slipped through the slits, carrying a weight that didn’t feel entirely human.
"A price."
Aeron’s eyes narrowed. "A price?"
"All who tread deeper must offer payment. You seek knowledge. You seek sorcery. Are you not here to learn?"
There was something unsettling about the way it spoke not a question, but a statement. Like it already knew why he was here.
Aeron’s lips curled in mild irritation. "No. Just stay out of my way."
The air shifted.
As one, the masked figures raised their hands in eerie synchronization. Aeron didn't wait.
A sudden pulse of energy erupted from him, the shadows at his feet unraveling like living tendrils, snapping toward them with violent intent. His purple eyes burned black, a storm of power surging in their depths.
The shadows screamed.
The masked ones froze...their movements stilled, their hands hovering mid-air as if gripped by some unseen force. Then, something changed. Recognition. Their bodies stiffened, and, one by one, they slowly lowered their hands.
Then, in unison, they bowed.
Their voices overlapped, layered and distorted, as they spoke:
"Forgive us, great one. We did not recognize your presence. We were expecting one of your power."
Aeron’s stance relaxed slightly, but his expression darkened. ‘What can they possibly know about my power’
He let the shadows withdraw, retracting them into the folds of his cloak. His eyes narrowed, scanning them for deception.
"I’m not sure we’ve met," he said coldly. "But do try to stay away from me."
The masked ones remained bowed, unmoving, watching as he strode past and disappeared into the darkness of Asshai. Their presence lingered...watchful, waiting.
****
Aeron strode deeper into Asshai, each step feeling heavier, like the very ground was dragging at him, trying to slow him down, to make him stay. The city was like a corpse that still refused to rot.
And then, he saw it.
An immense black temple, carved from the same unnatural stone as the rest of Asshai. Unlike the empty streets behind him, this place was alive...or at least, as alive as Asshai could be.
Figures moved through the massive, open gates, men and women draped in robes of deep black and crimson, their movements deliberate, their eyes filled with something between reverence and quiet madness. Some walked with purpose, others whispered to one another, while a few stood completely still, as if listening to something only they could hear.
The temple loomed above them, its surface absorbing all light, like a hole in the world itself. No banners, no markings...just a vast, silent monolith, its edges blending into the permanent twilight of the city.
Aeron narrowed his eyes. The Red Priests.
His mind flicked back to what he knew.
"I know they learn their craft here in Asshai, but worshippers of the Lord of Light... here? In a place like this?" He exhaled sharply, his gaze drifting across the shadowbinders mingling freely among them.
"It never made sense to me. R’hllor is fire, light, the great flame that consumes the dark. And yet, here they are...learning from those who wield the very shadows they claim to oppose."
He watched as a red-robed priest, a woman with hair as dark as midnight, spoke to a masked figure draped in deep onyx, their voices hushed. Another pair a man clad in flame-stitched silk and a veiled woman whose arms were painted in black sigils, vanished through an arched doorway, the temple swallowing them whole.
Aeron flexed his fingers.
"I’ll enter. I’ll see what’s so special about this place."
he adjusted his cloak and stepped forward, his boots striking against the black stone as he walked toward the gaping maw of the temple.
The moment Aeron stepped inside the black maw of the temple, his system flared to life.
[SYSTEM : One of the Eight Apostles is nearby.]
The words burned into his vision like a brand, but he didn’t even blink.
"I expected as much," he muttered under his breath, barely sparing it a thought.
The temple swallowed him whole, the dim twilight of Asshai vanishing behind him. Inside, the air was thick with heat and whispers, the flickering light of unseen flames casting dancing shadows across the walls.
But outside, in the depths of the city’s ever-present gloom, a man watched.
He stood at the temple’s edge, wrapped in a deep crimson robe, the hood pulled low over his face. His hands, clasped before him, were blackened to the fingertips, as if touched by something far worse than fire.
His head tilted ever so slightly as he observed Aeron enter the temple
A slow exhale.
From beneath his hood, his lips curved into a knowing smile.
"So… this is the Shadow Monarch has come at last..."
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