Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Copyright

Map

Chapter One - Fallow Fields

Chapter Two - Canyon Kingdom

Chapter Three - Riverboat Gamblers

Chapter Four - The Streets of Oldfort

Chapter Five - Night Raid

Chapter Six - An Unexpected Rescuer

Chapter Seven - In the Heart of the Enemy

Chapter Eight - The Demesne of Pitas the Younger

Chapter Nine - Story Time

Chapter Ten - Promises Kept

Chapter Eleven - Schemes and Goals

Chapter Twelve - An Army Assembled

Chapter Thirteen - Unexpected Answers

Chapter Fourteen - News from the Sican Front

Chapter Fifteen - Preparing for Departure

Chapter Sixteen - No Turning Back

Chapter Seventeen - Dream Dive

Chapter Eighteen - Sky Pirates

Chapter Nineteen - An Inescapable Dream

Chapter Twenty - Secret Roads

Chapter Twenty-One - A Preposterous War

Chapter Twenty-Two - Fort Maelstrom

Chapter Twenty-Three - Deadly Weapons

Chapter Twenty-Four - Hurry Up and Wait

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter Twenty-Six - Final Approach

Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Off Balance

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Take the Plunge

Chapter Thirty - Find that Paper Mage!

Chapter Thirty-One - Messages Amidst Chaos

Chapter Thirty-Two - Brawling Titans

Chapter Thirty-Three - Clan Castis Chaos

Chapter Thirty-Four - Troop Movements

Chapter Thirty-Five - Hard to Digest

Chapter Thirty-Six - Long Awaited

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Unexpected Conclusions

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Streets Ablaze

Chapter Thirty-Nine - Shattered Swords

Chapter Forty - City Breaker

Chapter Forty-One - The Kindness of the Extinct

Chapter Forty-Two - The King's Vengeance

Chapter Forty-Three - Just a Weapon

Chapter Forty-Four - To the Victors...

Chapter Forty-Five - Emergent Effects

Chapter Forty-Six - Teleporter Fight!

Chapter Forty-Seven - Mind Blind

Chapter Forty-Eight - Honorable Traitor

Chapter Forty-Nine - Never Volunteer

Chapter Fifty - With the Enemy

Chapter Fifty-One - Endless Hunt

Chapter Fifty-Two - The Final Lesson

Chapter Fifty-Three - Burning Palace

Chapter Fifty-Four - Split the Party

Chapter Fifty-Five - The World's Mightiest Flea

Chapter Fifty-Six - Palace in the Sky

Chapter Fifty-Seven - Heirs of Helicote

Chapter Fifty-Eight - Ever Burning

Chapter Fifty-Nine - Unwilling Allies

Chapter Sixty - The Scrapheap of History

Chapter Sixty-One - By Greed Entrapped

Chapter Sixty-Two - Sudden Onset

Chapter Sixty-Three - Hasty Negotiations

Chapter Sixty-Four - Bottomless Heights

Chapter Sixty-Five - Strange Sights

Chapter Sixty-Six - Forlorn Hope

Chapter Sixty-Seven - For Artur!

Chapter Sixty-Eight - Seize the Means of Destruction

Chapter Sixty-Nine - Preparation and Knowledge

Chapter Seventy - Still Standing

Chapter Seventy-One - A Great Power Worthy of the Name

Chapter Seventy-Two - New Echoes

Chapter Seventy-Three - Fire Mage

Chapter Seventy-Four - Wallbreaker's Legacy

Chapter Seventy-Five - Blueprints for the Future

Chapter Seventy-Six - An Unfolding Multiverse

Chapter Seventy-Seven - All is Revealed

Chapter Seventy-Eight - Peace and Quiet

Afterword

Aetheriad

Further Reading

Guide

Contents

Start of Content

The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells

Mage Errant Book 7

John Bierce

This one’s for Mom, who should probably check and make sure she hasn’t locked the keys in the truck again.

Copyright © 2023 John Bierce

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Fallow Fields

ALUSTIN HABER, THE Last Loyal Son of Helicote, stood in a ruined village and hid his doubts.

The Havathi town, not far east of the Skyreach Range, hadn’t been destroyed in battle— it had been torn apart by storms, walls battered down by wind, lightning, and flood.

And before the villagers could finish rebuilding, it had been ravaged by drought.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of villages like this in Havath now, ruined by the climate-warping assault from the Coven. Alustin had been well aware of the consequences for months now, aware of the massive refugee crisis as villagers flooded into provincial capitals. Even with the massive granaries and medical corps of Havath, they were struggling to fend off famine and disease outbreaks.

He hadn’t experienced it so closely before, and even with his hatred for Havath, it was hard to look at.

And it would only get worse from here. Or, at least, it would if Alustin hadn’t been planning to destroy it all.

He let himself, for a moment, try to delude himself into thinking his plan was a mercy, but even he wasn’t foolish enough to buy that idea.

“You’re sure?” Casser Spellstorm asked, shaking him out of his reverie. The Tsarnassan Champion was Alustin’s second most powerful ally, second only to the gorgon queen Karna Scythe. He wielded no less than seven affinities in battle, and was one of the most versatile mages Alustin had ever encountered.

Alustin nodded. “I’ve scryed myself to confirm. The Dominion has begun the process of evacuating civilians from Havath City.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Mattin Kos demanded. The teleporting spatial mage was one of the great powers of the Ruhn Syndicate, an organized crime family who had once ruled the nation of Ruhn before it fell to Havath decades before.

Alustin shrugged. “Nothing. It’s worsening the strain on their resources and diverting troops away from hunting us.”

“What’s the point of destroying Havath City if it’s just buildings?” Kos demanded.

“It’s far more than just buildings. It’s the storehouse for the bulk of the Dominion’s wealth, knowledge, and power,” Zersin Grey said. The smoke mage was tiny for a gorgon— no more than six and a half feet in height. The minor great power’s grey scales blended into the smoke cloud that hovered around her constantly, belched out by the otherworldly serpents on her head. The smoke was a better clue to her mood than her body language, because it shifted in response to her thoughts. “The majority of Havath’s roads and canals all converge on the city, and its defenses are quite literally irreplaceable. Destroying it is an economic and logistical blow the Dominion is incapable of recovering from.”

Sagravaax Scalestorm snorted, sending the gorgon’s smoke fluttering. The scale-mage dragon and the gorgon argued constantly, though it usually remained polite enough— at least, so long as Alustin was around to keep the peace.

“That is hardly the most important damage,” Sagravaax rumbled. “Havath City is the heart and soul of the Dominion in every way, and its destruction will be an irreparable symbolic blow.”

“The Dominion’s prepared for its loss, though,” Mattin argued. “They don’t want to follow the path of Ithos— their provincial capitals are far better equipped than Ithos’ were to shoulder more of the administrative burden of rule. They’re obsessed with history, and they’ve spent decades laying in plans in case of their capital’s destruction. This won’t be enough. And besides, Ithos was already on the edge of collapse when its capital was destroyed, Havath is far from that point.”

“Perhaps so, but I suspect you mostly just want to inflict as much suffering as possible,” Casser said. The two great powers had taken an immediate dislike to one another when they met— though Mattin, sensibly, did his best to avoid antagonizing the mightier great power when possible.

“We don’t really have a choice,” Alustin said. “Our entire strategy is built around a surgical strike, not a rampage across farmlands. Diverting our forces to harass refugees risks our plan itself.”

When Mattin Kos looked like he was ready to argue more, Alustin raised his hand to forestall him. “I understand your arguments, but I suspect the Dominion is far less stable than you make it out to be. Besides, it faces far worse external threats than Imperial Ithos ever did.”

That was half a lie— Alustin agreed with the spatial mage on several levels. The Dominion had plenty of problems, but it was far more stable than the Ithonian Empire had ever been.

Alustin was going to do far more damage to Havath than his allies realized, however.

At that thought, the Tongue Eater stirred in his storage tattoo, and Alustin viciously quashed its attempts to reach into his mind again. He was growing better at resisting it, but it was also steadily increasing the number and severity of its assaults.

“Havath’s refugee crisis is far from the only good news I have today, though,” Alustin said. “Sica is marching to war.”

That got the attention of the others immediately.

“You’re sure?” Casser demanded. “It’s not just raiding?”

Alustin nodded. “I scryed their armies myself. It’s a full mobilization, and at least one Elder is moving with them.”

The great powers accompanying him immediately set to demanding more details and arguing about the implications, and Alustin found himself with time for his doubts once more as the conversation slowly drew away from him.

THEIR ENCAMPMENT IN the ruined village was different than any of Alustin’s past ones for good reason—

This one wasn’t real.

Under normal circumstances, they could have launched their invasion weeks ago, could have already arrived at Havath City.

And if they had, they would have failed. They would have broken against the defenses of the Havathi capital— maybe broken against its immense air shield, or its city-scale wards, or against the thousands of siege weapons and battle enchantments. Would have dashed themselves to bits against the massive Havathi military, or against one of the surviving Havathi great powers.

And if not those, they would have been crushed by the Intertwined, like those rare few armies and great powers who had breached deep into Havathi territory over the past half-century.

The Intertwined. Seven of the most powerful liches on the continent, each impossibly occupying the same space. It was immensely painful and ultimately fatal for other liches to overlap, and yet the Havathi had figured out a way to pull it off. The entire city was their demesne, and any attackers would find the very streets they walked on betraying them at every turn.

Alustin had a way to break through those defenses, though. A way to shatter each and every one of them, and even a way to disable the Intertwined.

The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells.

Few actually believed his claims that it was the legendary final spell cast by Helicote’s long-dead echo lich, instead believing one of the countless rumors flooding the continent instead. They were right not to believe his claims, of course, but the rumors were no better— he’d sown many of them himself, mostly around the Last Echo supposedly being another weapon looted from Skyhold’s Vault.

It wasn’t, of course. The only things he’d stolen from Skyhold’s Vault were the Tongue Eater and the chitin wand. No need to plague the continent with yet more magical superweapons— there’d be enough chaos already once Alustin wiped out Havath.

Not to mention the further chaos from the deaths of his allies. They’d failed Helicote before, and Alustin wouldn’t let that go unpunished.

It would be weeks yet until the Last Echo was ready to fire, unfortunately. Weeks with the Havathi hunting them, trying to weaken or destroy their forces, and attempting to seize the magical superweapons. Weeks when everything could go wrong.

Alustin and his allies intended to use their time to create chaos in the Havathi ranks, to wreck their defenses, and to weaken them before the final blow.

Hence the fake encampment in the village. They’d surrounded it with elaborate concealing wards, but left vulnerabilities in them— not obvious ones, but enough to let Havathi seers find them.

It had taken a couple days longer than expected, but Havathi forces were on their way now. Thousands of mages, dozens of dragons, even some sort of massive levitating siege engine.

When the Havathi arrived, however, they weren’t going to find the ragtag army they’d been dealing with up until now.

No. They were going to find four great powers, dozens of archmages, two hundred sharpshooter mages, almost a hundred siege mages, and thousands of battle mages.

All of which were ready and waiting for them.

Gone were the days of Alustin and his allies being a tiny, desperate force. Tsarnassus had more than doubled Alustin’s army when they’d agreed to aid him, and their alliance not only meant several other city-states agreed to join them, but also significantly bolstered contributions from their pre-existing allies.

Everyone loved a winning hand, and the better Alustin’s odds looked, the more others were willing to bet on him.

Of course, Alustin’s newly expanded army wasn’t all that faced the oncoming Havathi force.

The barren, drought-killed fields stretching around for leagues around the abandoned village?

Each and every one of them was filled with buried alchemical explosives, carefully hidden by allied dirt mages. And the whole battlefield was surrounded by a deeply buried and powerful ward, one that would trap the Havathi forces inside the killing grounds around the village once they’d entered.

The Havathi were about to have a remarkably bad day.

Alustin should be looking forward to the battle, should be relishing the one-sided slaughter that was about to happen, but instead he found himself fighting to hide his doubts from his allies. Doubts about whether he was doing the right thing, doubts about whether his plans would succeed, and doubts about what would happen even if he did succeed.

Most of all, Alustin worried whether his revenge had been worth all his betrayals— those already past, and those yet to come.

He didn’t show any of it on his face, however, as his allies argued around him.

Alustin had chosen his path, and stepping off it would only end badly.

Not that there were any happy endings on his personal path either. No, his path would end along with the Dominion.

Havath would die, its multiversal backers would have their plans for the world of Anastis crushed, and Helicote would be avenged. That was all that mattered now.

CHAPTER TWO

Canyon Kingdom

HUGH STORMWARD AND his friends descended into Highvale easily, even in complete darkness. Hugh expanded the Stormward’s Crown around all of them, then altered it to block their light cantrips from shining down into the canyon and revealing their presence.

Not that Hugh or Sabae needed the light cantrips— Hugh’s sphinx eyes and Sabae’s enchanted goggles let them see just fine.

According to Talia, seers normally should have detected their entry and dispatched a patrol to make sure they weren’t there to cause trouble— it was standard procedure whenever anyone entered the Stoneknife Canyon from the mountains, rather than the normal passes and paths. It caused endless difficulty for raiders from the Clans, though Hugh didn’t have much sympathy for them.

With Mackerel blocking all scrying, their group descended into the canyon kingdom completely unobserved.

“So the whole kingdom’s this narrow?” Hugh asked. “Just one long canyon?”

Talia shook her head. “There are plenty of villages up in the mountains and tributary canyons, but the overwhelming majority of Highvale’s population lives on the terraces along the main canyon walls.”

“Not somewhere yeh want ta live if yeh’re afraid a’ heights,” Godrick said, peering off the path to the steep terraces below them.

“I like it,” Sabae said, leaning over the edge.

“Isn’t Ras Andis basically designed the same?” Talia asked.

Sabae shook her head. “Ras Andis is one giant road switchbacking down a cliff face. Similar, but not the same.”

Hugh interrupted before Godrick could start an argument about whether it really was different— as much as he enjoyed their pointless debates, now was hardly the time. “How are we going to find your grandmother’s conclave?”

Sabae frowned. “It shouldn’t be too hard— it was an open invitation to states and great powers who oppose both Alustin and Havath. I’m more worried about drawing attention to us by making inquiries.”

“Clan Castis has quite a few informants and contacts in Highvale, especially in Oldfort,” Talia said. “If we can track one of those down, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

As Hugh’s friends began piecing together their plan, he gazed down into Highvale.

His sphinx eyes gave him a clear view of the farm fields, villages, and cities covering the terraces below them, even through the current light-distorting effects of the Stormward’s Crown. He could see almost as clearly at night as he could in the day, and his eyes were far sharper than those of normal humans. He could even clearly make out riverboats plying up and down the mighty Stoneknife River far below.

Despite the stunning scenery, he couldn’t help but feel troubled.

He’d never particularly wanted to visit Highvale. Thanks to his former bully Rhodes, a member of the Highvale royal family, he didn’t have particularly positive associations with the country. It was slightly irrational of him to judge one of the most powerful nations on the Ithonian continent by the behavior of one of its citizens, he supposed, but he’d never made any claims towards being the most rational person around.

Now that he was visiting, however, he did his best to go in with an open mind. After all, he’d just visited literal alien worlds, Highvale surely wouldn’t be a problem for him.

By the time they descended to the upper terraces in the canyon, the others had already finished planning out their next move, then started and completed one of their long, pointless arguments. No one won— no one ever did, that wasn’t the point— but they were all so tired that they lacked the energy to continue. Just this morning, they’d woken up in an alien world, fled a poisonous hurricane, spent hours wandering through a mind-warping mistform labyrinth, and then suffered through a nasty bout of aether sickness on returning home. At least their new Limnan magic had helped alleviate the aether sickness a little.

Despite their fatigue, they waited for the road below them to empty of travelers before dropping down onto it. As they did so, Hugh retracted the crystal nodes of the Stormward’s Crown back into his storage tattoo, dissolving the wards around them.

It was a short walk to the nearest city. The fallow rice paddies alongside the road gave way to tenements and storefronts with startling abruptness, as though the city planner had carved between town and country with a huge but razor-sharp knife.

They were so tired they walked into literally the first inn they found, a place called, for some odd reason or other, The Blind Pig. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was clean and well-kept.

Weirdly enough, there was a closed door mounted high up on the wall behind the bar, with a spellform-covered doorknob, but Hugh was too exhausted to pay it much attention.

After months off-world, it felt surreal hearing people speaking Ithonian again, and being able to rent a room or buy food without elaborate pantomime.

The instant they finished eating, the group retreated up to their rooms. Hugh barely even had the energy to put up defensive wards around them before he passed out.

THE NEXT MORNING, Hugh woke up from disorienting dreams thinking there was a battle outside the inn. He was already rolling out of bed and pulling Crown nodes out of his storage tattoo before he’d even woken up.

“It’s just a festival,” Talia muttered from under the covers. “Highvale has a thousand of them.”

Hugh blinked in confusion, then edged over to the window.

Sure enough, the noise outside was shouting, singing, dancing, and illusionists plying their trade. It wasn’t as hectic as the sandstorm festivals in Theras Tel, but it wasn’t that far short.

Mackerel sleepily flapped over to the window, but his sleepiness vanished the instant he saw the festival, and the spellbook gave Hugh an excited look.

Hugh rolled his eyes, but nodded. It wasn’t like he was going to get back to sleep anytime soon.

TO MACKEREL’S IRRITATION, it took almost an hour for Hugh to get the others awake and moving, but the festival was still in full swing by the time they left the Blind Pig.

If anything, it had only picked up its pace.

Enchanted cloth fish swam over the heads of the crowd, darting in great schools between clouds of levitating paper lanterns. Illusionists turned stretches of road into palace hallways or forest floors, musicians played on every corner, and food vendors did a thriving trade in various fried and fermented foods.

“What’s this festival for, anyhow?” Sabae asked, stepping around a pair of old men, well into their cups despite noon being hours away yet.

Talia shrugged. “Highvale has something like two or three festivals a week. Most of which are local festivals that are only celebrated in parts of the kingdom, but there are still several a month in any given town.”

“How does their economy even function, with that many festivals?” Hugh asked.

“That I can answer,” Sabae said. “This is the single best pass across the Highreach Range, they receive almost as much trade as Theras Tel. They can afford to throw as many festivals as they want.”

“Ah’m more interested in how they’re doin’ this much magic with so little mana in the aether,” Godrick said.

Hugh frowned. Now that Godrick mentioned it, it was pretty weird.

“The festival is part of the reason it’s so low in the first place,” Talia said. “Highvale wants their aether density low, remember? Makes it hard for great powers to sustain their activity if they try to invade.”

Hugh had, in fact, known that, and he felt a little silly for forgetting. “Still, it feels weird to be using their mana for festivals. They could be using it to build weapons or something?”

Sabae shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Keeps the populace happy, and prevents a nasty mix of mercantile and military interests. Nations that spend too much gold and mana on enchanted or alchemical weapon production often end up in dangerous spirals of weapons spending. The business interests involved usually end up hijacking their politics, forming a deeply corrupt alliance between industry and their military. Plus, enchanted and alchemical weaponry is a lot less useful than a decent mage battalion, and Highvale has more than their fair share of those.”

Hugh nodded, though he still felt a little doubtful about partying as a military defense.

ONE OF HUGH’S worries entering Highvale had been in regard to Talia— he’d been fretting about angry mobs or something of the sort.

To his surprise, outside of a few mildly suspicious looks from guards, Talia barely seemed to warrant a second glance from passersby. More, there were huge numbers of clansmen wandering the city unmolested by guards. None from Clan Castis, so far as he could see, but plenty from other clans.

When he asked her about the seeming lack of animosity, she seemed utterly baffled.

“Why would there be a problem?”

Hugh gave her a puzzled look. “Because of all the raiding?”

“We’re not here on a raid though,” Talia said, looking even more confused.

Sabae butted in before the conversation could get even more muddled. “The Clans might raid frequently, but the value of their trade with Highvale dwarfs the costs of the raids, and the Clans are usually careful about avoiding civilian casualties. It’s been deadlier and more acrimonious in the past, but in recent decades both sides treat it as just a bloodier-than-usual training exercise.”

Talia scowled, but didn’t disagree.

Clan Castis didn’t have any informants near their present location, unfortunately, so they’d have to make their way to Oldfort, Highvale’s capital. It wasn’t too far— either a few days by walking, or a day downstream by boat.

Their exit from the city was so abrupt Hugh felt disoriented as he stepped out of the city. To their left was a woodblock art printer, to their right was a blacksmith's shop filled with iron and charcoal mages, and ahead of them, the city simply ended and more farm fields began. Just a few hundred feet away, a rustic farming village interrupted the fields, looking absolutely bizarre in contrast with the city behind them.

“Highvale is seriously weird,” Hugh said.

Even Talia nodded at that.

THE HIKE DOWN to the nearest rivership port was fairly direct, but brutal on their legs. The various paths that led down between the terraced levels of Highvale were ridiculously steep, to the point that Hugh suspected that Highvale had the most muscular average legs of any kingdom on the continent.

There were apparently dragons that ferried passengers, as well as a few mechanical lifts, but they were expensive and crowded. They still had more than enough gold to afford it, of course, but they were trying to avoid attention— and much of their money was still in the bizarre coinage of Hebrast.

Not to mention that their group wasn’t exactly nondescript.

So instead of an easy trip down, they were trudging down perilously steep and narrow switchback roads and staircases that felt more like ladders.

There was one part of the descent that Hugh rather enjoyed, however— a long, wide staircase cut deep into the wall of one terrace, so far back that it emerged halfway into the upper terrace. It was a more gradual slope than most of their trip so far, but its gentler grade wasn’t why Hugh enjoyed descending it.

No, he enjoyed it so much because there was an entire town carved into the walls of the staircase.

Shops and restaurants were carved into the cliff walls at the level of the staircase to either side, while homes were farther up the cliff face. Ladders and stairs led farther up, and there were even a few stairwell alleys leading up and down away from the main stair.

As they got lower on the stairwell, many of the stairwell alleys were replaced by well-lit tunnels filled with shops. Every part of the stairwell town was packed with shoppers, salesmen, and travelers, and Hugh didn’t mind their slow progress in the least.

There was one store that Hugh forced the others to stop at, of course.

He hadn’t eaten a proper pastry in months, there wasn’t the slightest chance he’d pass one up now.

Hugh didn’t have any way of knowing that there would be a Havathi spy shopping in that particular bakery that would report their presence— nor would he ever know. It wasn’t, after all, as though the spy were stupid enough to try and intercept them herself.

Nor would it have particularly mattered if they hadn’t entered the bakery— they’d already been spotted by no less than four informants and spies from various groups. Even by one freelance information broker, who was happy to sell the information to anyone with coin.

Mackerel might make them invisible to seers, but didn’t do the slightest good against old-fashioned feet on the ground.

By the time Hugh and his friends boarded the riverboat heading to Oldfort a few hours later, the intelligence networks of half a dozen nations, city-states, and great powers were already aware of their presence.

And that number was only going to grow.

CHAPTER THREE

Riverboat Gamblers

THEIR RIVERBOAT CAME under attack just a few hours into the voyage.

Well, less a riverboat than a floating gambling den.

Talia had always wanted to ride one of Highvale’s great riverboats when she was young, but sadly, it had never worked out— so when they were choosing their vessel, she’d pushed hard for them to ride on the Sunset Queen, rather than any of the other options.

There’d been a Radhan riverboat that could have gotten them to Oldfort a few hours faster, but since that would have meant disembarking in the wee hours of the morning, it was easy enough to persuade the others to ride on the riverboat instead— especially given all its luxurious comforts.

Still wasn’t as nice as the Kemetrian ship-chain they’d ridden, but definitely nicer than any other ship they’d taken.

The motion of the riverboat was almost nonexistent compared to many of the ships Talia had ridden before, and she wasn’t experiencing even a hint of nausea.

The Stoneknife River was massive, one of the biggest on the continent, and even though there were dozens of other ships in sight, the river felt mostly empty.

At one point, they passed a pod of river dolphins, dancing through a maze of waterspouts, floating bubbles, and illusions of their own making.

Talia was glad the dolphins weren’t feeling mischievous— dolphin mages would sometimes trap ships for hours for their own entertainment. They never meant any harm, but Talia and her friends didn’t have the time to spare right now.

Ocean dolphins, from what Sabae had told her, apparently trapped ships far less often, but when they did, their festivities and pranks could last for days.

Past the dolphins and the ships, past the wide placid waters of the Stoneknife, the stairstep terraces of Highvale rose up towards the sky.

She was enjoying the view from the railing when the bandits erupted from underwater and shot up to the deck. As she turned away from the immense staircase cliffs and towards the bandits, Talia activated her scrimshaw ward, felt the usual odd tingling in her bones as the spellforms tattooed onto them ignited with red light.

“You know, even I’m actually getting a little tired of getting attacked on literally every ship we ride,” Talia complained.

Godrick looked up at her from his massage table as his masseuse fled. “We didn’t get attacked on our way to Dragonclaw Yardang. There weren’t any pirates on the Rising Cormorant or the… what was the name of the ugly little ship that took us through the Ylosa Delta again?”

“Fine, sure, not on the way to Dragonclaw, but are you forgetting the sea serpents and man-eating tiger?” Talia asked, as bandits charged their way.

“Fair point,” Godrick offered, as his stone armor began pouring out of his tattoo enveloping him.

Talia sighed heavily and started hurling dreamfire.

TALIA DUCKED UNDER a tentacle made of water, then blasted another with a dreamfire bolt. The water collapsed into a huge cloud of flower petals— cherry blossoms, looked like.

Talia charged straight through the falling petals and stabbed at the bandit water mage with one of her wrist-blades.

The bandit flailed wildly and threw herself back, then somehow managed to hit her head on the railing.

Talia gave the woman a baffled look.

That had just been… buffoonish.

She shook her head, then looked around at the rest of the attackers, and found herself equally unimpressed. Godrick had already thrown several of them off the boat, and was mostly ignoring a lead mage who was trying and failing to batter apart his armor with lead weights. Hugh had imprisoned a fire mage with the Stormward’s Crown, and the man had managed to knock himself unconscious by exhausting the good air inside the confined space with fire spells. Sabae, meanwhile, was blasting mages off the side of the ship one after the other.

Talia scowled, and stalked over to Hugh and Godrick.

“What is this nonsense?” Talia demanded. “This is pathetic.”

Godrick nodded. “Ah don’t think most a’ these mages have ever been in a fight before.”

“Have you noticed they’re all coming after us? And shouldn’t there be guards helping us?” Hugh asked, launching another bandit over the railing with a Crown node to the gut.

Sabae slammed down onto the deck next to them, followed by Mackerel. Both of them were carrying struggling bandits of their own.

“The guards are just here to settle fights among the guests,” Talia said, nodding at Sabae and Mackerel in greeting. “There haven’t been river pirates or bandits for… I don’t even know how long. Decades? Centuries?”

“Are you all talking about how weird this is?” Sabae asked. “Because I’m pretty sure this lot aren’t even real bandits.”

“Seriously, those cultists that attacked us in Theras Tel were scarier than this lot, and they were pushovers,” Talia said.

“Are you even a real bandit?” Sabae demanded of the man she was suspending in the air with one arm. Talia idly wondered whether Sabae was performing some sort of contact levitation spell, or whether she was boosting her strength with her wind armor. She wasn’t really sure how that would work, but…

Sabae shook the bandit, and he finally answered. “We’re not bandits! We’re bounty hunters!”

“There’s a bounty on us?” Talia asked excitedly. “How much?”

“Hundred crowns a head!” the man babbled.

Talia slumped in disappointment. “My brothers are going to make so much fun of me for a bounty that small. Is it even an official bounty?”

The man gave her an awkward look, and Talia’s mood sank even further. “It isn’t, is it?”

Sabae sighed. “More importantly, what’s the bounty for?”

The bandit just gave her a blank look. “What do you mean, what’s it for?”

Sabae sighed audibly, then launched the man into the Stoneknife river with a windstrike.

He actually skipped across the surface of the river three times before sinking.

Hugh shook his head, then launched most of the remaining attackers overboard with the ward segments of the Crown. “This doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Godrick shook his head. “It makes perfect sense. Someone, probably Havath, at least, has been watching fer us and spreadin’ the word— ah’m betting not just here, either— and some greedy idiot spotted us and sent a bunch a’ random idiots fer the bounty.”

Talia brightened up at that. “So there’s probably a much larger bounty on our heads, and these suckers were supposed to make a lot more money for whoever hired them?”

Her friends all gave her weird looks, and Talia rolled her eyes. “Right, that’s not something I should be excited about.”

Sabae shook her head. “Let’s hurry up and get these idiots off the boat. And be careful not to use too much mana, it will take hours to refill.”

Hugh made an exasperated noise just then. “No, Mackerel, you absolutely may not keep your prisoner as a pet.”

IT ONLY TOOK a few minutes to clear the rest of the ship and toss the rest of the aspiring bounty hunters in the river, and at no point did Talia ever feel remotely threatened— even avoiding showing off her new affinities. The group had decided to conceal their pact until they reached Havath City and avoid any overt uses of their new affinities— they didn’t have a chance against Alustin without the element of surprise.

There had been an annoyingly large percentage of water mages among the attackers— clearly how they’d reached the ship— and a few of the less intelligent ones tried to reboard after being thrown overboard.

None of those got a third chance to board the ship.

The most difficult part of the process was Hugh trying to convince Mackerel to finally drop his captive in the river.

Then, of course, it took most of an hour to calm down the crew, guards, and passengers.

They did not, of course, mention that the attackers had been after their group, rather than the ship. No need to go from the heroes of the hour to figures of concern, after all.

When their group finally got a chance to sit down, and Hugh warded their table with the Crown, Talia immediately turned to Sabae. “Alright, how did you hold that guy up with one arm like that? Was it your armor, a contact levitation cantrip, what?”

Sabae shook her head at that. “That was just me.”

Talia gave her a skeptical look. “You lifted a grown man up into the air with one hand.”

Sabae raised her hands. “I’m serious. It was just me. And besides, he wasn’t that big— probably no heavier than I am.”

Talia raised her eyebrows even higher. “Even if that’s true, lifting your own weight up into the air and holding it with one hand is still pretty absurd.”

Sabae shook her head. “Have you actually tested the limits of your strength since Limnus, Talia?”

Talia frowned. “Limnan magic was only supposed to make us a little stronger, well within the bounds of normal.”

She looked at Hugh, who shrugged. “Galvachren’s Guide did say it wouldn’t push us past normal human limits, but he wasn’t exactly precise about it otherwise. What Sabae did was pretty nuts, but not entirely out of the realm of believability?”

Talia gave him a considering look, then fixed her gaze on Godrick.

“Talia, why are yeh lookin’ a’ me like that?” Godrick asked.

Talia got out of her seat and stepped around the table towards Godrick. “Stand up.”

Godrick gave her an uncertain look, then did so.

Talia took a deep breath, wrapped her arms as far around Godrick’s waist as she could, and lifted.

She’d tried to pick Godrick up a hundred times before— to universal failure. Her friend weighed several times what she did, and her attempts usually ended in him picking her up easily and teasing her.

For a moment, Godrick didn’t budge, and Talia was sure that he wasn’t going to.

And then, ever so slowly, she pulled Godrick up off the ground.

Not far, just a couple of inches, and she had to set him back down immediately, but she hadn’t been imagining it. There hadn’t been any levitation spell involved, just her.

Talia was smiling widely when she sat back down. Her new strength was hardly a game changer, but…

More power was more power.

“That was a real eye-opener, wasn’t it?”

“We already knew we were stronger,” Godrick said, looking a little nonplussed.

Talia shook her head. “No, not me picking you up, the fight earlier.”

Everyone gave her confused looks at the abrupt change of topic.

Talia shrugged. “I’m so used to battling monsters, archmages, and elite battlemages that it was kind of a shock fighting, you know, normal people again.”

Everyone’s whiplash at the change in topic vanished, and they all nodded at that— even Mackerel.

“We can’t assume that future ambushers will be so inept,” Sabae said. “We can definitely assume there will be more, though. I can’t believe I didn’t think to disguise our return, after all our caution traveling via labyrinth.”

Talia raised an eyebrow at that. She could already tell Sabae was beating herself up over this whole situation, which wouldn’t do at all. Even aside from them needing Sabae focused on the mission at hand, Talia had zero intent of allowing any of her friends to blame themselves for enemy action. “Disguise us how? Between Godrick’s size, your scars, my tattoos, and Mackerel’s… Mackerelness, we’re not precisely inconspicuous. Well, outside of Hugh. Sorry, Hugh.”

Hugh grinned at that. “I’m absolutely fine being inconspicuous. Also, don’t forget our eyes— they’re hardly normal.”

Talia smiled back at him, then turned back to Sabae. “Maybe Hugh could have rigged us attention wards or something, but none of us thought of disguising ourselves either. We got sloppy depending on Mackerel.”

“Ah should also point out that we were all exhausted after the labyrinth,” Godrick said.

Talia nodded, then continued. “What matters now is how we use this to our advantage.”

“I’m struggling to think how our enemies knowing where we are can be an advantage,” Sabae said.

Talia smiled again at that. “That’s where the single most important lesson of Clan Castis comes in.”

“Set everything on fire?” Sabae asked.

Talia shook her head. “When all eyes are on you, your enemies aren’t watching their backs.”

“Except we haven’t contacted any allies who can back-stab our hunters yet,” Sabae said.

Talia sighed at that. “You’re being too literal. Let me rephrase: Bright light can be just as blinding as darkness.”

Sabae’s frown deepened, but it wasn’t the angry, self-blaming look of before— it was a look of thought.

“You’re saying we shouldn’t hide at all,” Sabae said.

Talia shrugged. “I’m just offering suggestions, oh fearless leader.”

Sabae rolled her eyes, but a smile slowly spread across her face. “You know what? You’re right. We’re not going to hide at all.”

She leaned forward, and the others did the same.

“We’re going to make sure that all of Highvale knows we’re here. We’re going to lure out anyone after us, then make them regret it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Streets of Oldfort

HUGH AND THE others didn’t try to disguise or conceal themselves when they arrived at Oldfort— much the opposite.

Rather than wait for the gangplank to be lowered, Hugh built a ward bridge to the pier with the Crown, and the four of them crossed above the crowds, Mackerel flying about their heads.

Hugh felt utterly ridiculous, but he kept his shoulders straight and his gaze forwards.

When they landed back on the ground, he didn’t return the Crown nodes to his tattoo— instead he set them orbiting in a halo behind his head. The mana drain was minimal enough that he could sustain their orbits indefinitely, even in the painfully thin mana of Highvale.

It wasn’t the utter aetheric aridity of Emblin, but Hugh would be happy to leave here, get back to somewhere with more normal aether. Even the alien aethers of Apoptis, Kemetrias, and Limnus hadn’t been so uncomfortable, outside of the whole aether sickness thing.

When they set out into the crowd, Godrick took the lead, not bothering with his usual politeness. People usually got out of Godrick’s way anyhow, but this time Godrick moved at a pace where they practically had to jump out of his path.

Even with their warlock pact clouded to prevent emotional leakage between the four of them, Hugh knew Godrick felt terrible about being so rude, but it was all part of Sabae’s plan— as was Godrick carrying his gravity hammer slung openly over his shoulder.

Sabae, likewise, was openly carrying her spear and buckler— the buckler magically adhering to her back, and the spear adhering to the buckler. She was also swirling breezes around her, at the highest sustainable level she could maintain without draining her reservoirs. Which wasn’t much, but it was enough to toss her hair around and send dust flying out into the crowd every so often.

Talia was being considerably less dramatic than Hugh had anticipated— he’d been expecting her to be flashing knives, tossing around dreamfire, maybe threatening random passerby, but instead, she just walked confidently down the street.

She was, however, flaring her tattoos bright enough to cast a blue glow even in daylight. There was apparently a low-mana function built into Clan Castis tattoos specifically for lighting them up for intimidation purposes.

Part of Hugh suspected that he’d never actually learn all the different functions of Talia’s tattoos— not even just the functions that worked, that hadn’t been ruined by her lack of a flame affinity.

Mackerel, unsurprisingly, drew more attention than anyone, just by being himself.

Hugh had, at least, told Mackerel not to hurt anyone, and to avoid any serious property damage.

And all that attention-grabbing activity?

It worked.

Hugh felt every eye on them, ranging from irritated passersby to hopeful merchants. They were hardly the only attention-grabbing mages wandering about, but the Sican tree-mage with living wood armor and the Tsarnassan aerial messenger didn’t snag nearly as much attention as they did.

The only ones not focusing on Hugh and his friends, so far as he could tell, were the pickpockets, who were using the distraction to go after other members of the crowd, using both their fingers and thief cantrips.

Hugh understood Sabae’s reasoning on a logical level— the more attention they drew to themselves, the higher they made the risks for anyone attempting to move on them. With all eyes looking their way, surreptitious attacks were just about impossible.

Of course, if someone was bold enough to attack them publicly, the extra attention wasn’t much of a defense. Staying hidden would still have been a smarter move, but they’d blown that already.

Despite understanding the plan on a logical level, Hugh still hated it.

All this public attention was an absolute nightmare for him.

OLDFORT ITSELF WAS one of the most crowded, hectic cities Hugh had ever encountered, and it was far less orderly than the other Highvale cities they’d passed. The architecture seemed to climb and grow over itself, until Hugh could hardly even make out the great terraces it was built on. Stairs were more common than streets, and few walls were left empty— the residents of Oldfort seemed intent upon covering even vertical surfaces with market stalls, statuary, and the like.

Houses jutted from the sides of inns, bridges to nowhere crossed above markets with residential districts atop them, and restaurants jutted far over cliff edges to taunt gravity. Great towers rose up from lower tiers, but rather than being topped by crenelations and siege equipment, were topped by public parks accessible only by bridge from the tier above it. Twisting mazes of aqueducts descended from the upper tiers of the city, carrying not just water but freight barges as well, moving at terrifying speeds down the steep water channels.

Oldfort was smaller, both in population and size, than Lothal or Zophor, but it felt far more alive, as though Highvale had tried to shove a half-dozen cities into a single location.

Above all the chaos and bustle loomed the Highfort itself, the greatest of Highvale’s oddly-named wall forts. They were, by and large, roughly cubical, which hardly made them walls, but the name apparently came from some old folk story. There was little grace or beauty to the fortress— it was a hulking, flat-topped behemoth of dark stone, bristling with siege engines, dragons, and soldiers. Its top loomed far above the snow-line, though mages kept it free of snow and ice at all times.

There were no seams or joints, nor even any flaws in Highfort’s stone— it was the product of thousands of stone mages over hundreds of years. It could withstand assault from the mightiest of great powers for days or weeks— and indeed, it had. Even an earthquake mage like the gorgon queen would struggle to breach it. The whole city’s population could shelter inside if need be, though certainly not in comfort.

Talia led their group through the maze of streets, alleys, stairwells, and hallways, only pausing a few times to ask street urchins for directions.

To Hugh’s surprise, his girlfriend led them not to some seedy tavern or mercenary recruitment office, but to a wealthy, heavily manicured neighborhood. They got quite a few puzzled or even offended looks from the well-dressed passersby, and Hugh found himself feeling even more self-conscious, but Talia didn’t even seem to notice the looks.

She led them straight to, of all places, an art gallery. Even Mackerel started behaving himself the instant they entered the gallery— for the best, because even with their ridiculous funds, Hugh doubted he could afford to pay for anything inside if Mackerel damaged it. Immense landscape paintings lined the walls, and sculptures stood in tidy rows, all gorgeous and obviously expensive, but they were the least of the gallery’s contents.

A great glass tube contained thousands of levitating gemstones, all flying about like a flock of birds or school of fish. An enchanted clockwork apparatus built entirely of dragonbone produced eerie, ever-shifting tones— not quite musical, but not like anything else Hugh had ever heard. A quartz crystal twice the size of Godrick held a perpetual illusion of a ballroom dance, each of the tiny moving dancers inside visible in perfect detail.

Hugh found his attention especially drawn to a frame of rods and wires in the shape of a bowl, inscribed with dozens of intricate wards, all suspending various pigments in the air above the bowl, moving around in an endless whirl of color.

“Welcome, Miss Talia!” a voice called, and a tall, thin gentleman strode over to greet them.

“Sterran!” Talia cried, and wrapped her arms around him.

Hugh had never seen anyone quite like Sterran. The man’s robes and hair were fussy and precise, nothing untidy or out of place about him. If it weren’t for his color choices, Sterran would have fit perfectly into the most staid and boring of wealthy establishments.

Sterran’s color choices, however, were what set him apart.

His robes were eye-gougingly yellow, with brilliant scarlet spellforms embroidered throughout.

Even as Hugh watched, the yellow shifted to a pale green, and the scarlet to a rich purple.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Sterran asked Talia, after they stepped back from their embrace. “Are you interested in browsing our new works? It’s been, what, almost three years now?”

Talia gave Sterran an exaggerated grimace. “Sadly, I’m here on more boring business.”

Sterran sighed theatrically, then spun and gestured at them to follow.

Hugh and the others all fixed Talia with stares.

“What?” she asked. “Just because Clan Castis lives way up in the mountains doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate art.”

STERRAN LED THE group to the back of the art gallery, then up a spiraling staircase to a rooftop balcony. The view of the Stoneknife River far below was gorgeous, but Hugh couldn’t help but notice the sheer amount of privacy and defensive wards around the balcony.

Even for a high-end art gallery, this degree of magical defense was a bit unusual.

There were even temperature wards— none of the chill of winter’s end in the mountains penetrated onto the balcony, and Hugh could have easily been persuaded it was a balmy spring day.

Sterran didn’t dive right to business, instead pouring them all tea as his robes shifted through the color spectrum. Once their tea had cooled enough to drink, however, Sterran turned immediately back to business.

“So, what do you need today? Weapons, discreet mercenaries, poisons…?”

Hugh’s eyebrows raised at that, and he exchanged surprised looks with Godrick. Sabae, however, seemed totally unfazed.

Talia shook her head. “Nothing so difficult, just information.”

Sterran smiled wickedly. “Oh, child, there’s nothing I sell more difficult or valuable than information. Especially if you need it gathered in a hurry.”

Talia slowly sipped her tea, then smiled back. “Oh, I suspect you already have this information, and likely have already profited off it.”

Sterran rested his chin in one hand and leaned forward. “You’ve piqued my interest.”

“We need the location, attendees, and all other information you have about the upcoming meeting of the Coven and their allies here in Highvale,” Talia said.

Sterran tried to keep a straight face at that, but even Hugh picked up on his moment of surprise.

“One would think you already had possession of that information, given your family’s involvement,” Sterran said.

“We’ve… been away,” Talia responded. “Rather far away, in fact.”

“Do tell,” Sterran said.

“Are you offering us an information trade?” Sabae interjected. “Because I have to warn you, the information you’re asking for is far more valuable than the information you’re offering.”

Sterran gave the scarred girl an appraising look. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“Sabae Kaen Das,” she said.

Sterran didn’t look even remotely surprised at that, and Hugh was certain he’d already known her identity— all of their identities, in fact. He just stared silently at her while drumming his fingers on his teacup.

“As curious as I am, I have some rather expensive habits that need paying for,” Sterran finally said.

He turned to Talia. “You have room— just barely— on your family’s line of credit for this information.”

“Barely?” Talia asked.

Sterran smiled. “Several of your brothers passed through here not even a week ago, and made quite a few purchases.”

“Art, or your other offerings?” Talia asked.

“Art,” Sterran said. “Mostly.”

Talia sighed, then nodded.

“Very well,” Sterran said. “The Coven and its allies are meeting in the demesne of Pitas the Younger.”

Hugh called Mackerel over to him, and began to jot down information in his pages as Sterran spoke.

As he did so, Hugh hoped that Sterran’s relationship with Clan Castis would be enough to keep him from selling information about them.

CHAPTER FIVE

Night Raid

SABAE WAS ON watch when the first serious attack on their group struck.

After their meeting with Sterran, they’d rented a room for the night in a singularly peculiar inn, one built along the sides of a rock spire rising up from a water reservoir on one of Oldfort’s tiers. Each room jutted far out from the spire’s cliff, suspended by cunning arrangements of beams and cables.

When a siege spell blasted their room off the side of the spire, Sabae found herself glad that they hadn’t actually stayed in it.

The others were already waking from the commotion before the broken remnants of the inn room finished collapsing into the reservoir below it— one of the main reasons they’d chosen that room. Most other places in the city, an attack would be far too likely to injure or kill civilians as collateral damage.

Hugh seemed especially disoriented from waking, but Sabae was guessing he’d just taken longer falling asleep than the others for some reason— his anxieties had probably kept him awake longer.

“Did you see what sort of magic they used?” Talia asked, as she stored her bedroll in her storage tattoo.

Sabae shook her head. “Wasn’t fire or anything visible. Didn’t seem to be an impact shockwave like you’d get from a force mage— if I had to guess, it was a swarm of small objects. Nails, marbles, something like that? Tore our room to shreds.”

“More importantly, did yeh manage ta spot where it came from?” Godrick asked.

Sabae nodded, and then pointed down, where the team of mages that had destroyed their inn room was fleeing the attack site.

Sabae and her friends had camped for the night within the supports of one of Highvale’s aqueducts, tucked beneath one of its many arches and surrounded by attention wards. From where they overlooked the reservoir, they could clearly overlook all the approaches to their inn.

It took the group less than a minute to get moving, but that was still nearly too slow to pursue their attackers. If they’d been moving on foot, they would have been too late.

They weren’t on foot, thankfully. On Sabae’s command, Hugh formed the Stormward’s Crown into a slide, and the five of them slid down it silently, as Hugh collapsed it behind them and reformed it ahead of the group.

They’d discussed trying one of the other Crown formations they’d been experimenting with, but the group hadn’t trained nearly enough with wind magic to make the wardwing glider work. No matter what type of magic flight you were talking about, it took years to master the art.

Hugh gradually leveled out the slide as they approached the fleeing attackers from above, until they were jogging above their attackers in a ward tunnel that Hugh kept disassembling behind them and reassembling ahead of them.

Despite the wards being set to hide their presence, Sabae led the others as quietly as possible in pursuit. Attention wards weren’t miracles, after all— the less attention-grabbing behavior they performed, the easier it would be for the wards to conceal them.

There were three attackers, all dressed in nondescript laborer garments. Despite that, they largely kept to emptier side-streets and stairwells, avoiding late-night food stalls and other night life.

They followed the attackers for almost ten minutes as the three worked their way down towards the lower tiers of the city, eventually entering a neighborhood filled with dilapidated warehouses and half-abandoned tenements. Even in a state as densely packed and short of land as Highvale, every major city still had at least a few neighborhoods like this.

Every city but Havath City, at least. It was out of sheer absurd pride that the Havathi kept those neighborhoods away, however— Sabae didn’t even want to think of the absurd costs that had to be involved in maintaining the city’s spotless facade.

She didn’t spend long musing on the topic, though— largely because she was interrupted by the attackers spotting them.

Sabae noticed something was wrong even before Hugh collapsed the Crown and dumped them out of the sky. Mere instants after he did so, several siege spells passed through where they’d been.

Siege spells that definitely hadn’t come from the targets they’d been following.

Sabae wasn’t sure whether Hugh or Godrick caught them with a levitation spell before they hit the ground, but she’d already spun up her wind armor around her before she touched down. Likewise, Talia had activated her scrimshaw ward, Hugh had reconfigured the Stormward’s Crown, and Godrick’s armor elemental had almost finished enveloping him.

Mackerel didn’t have armor, but the spellbook hardly needed it.

Sabae gestured, and the five of them sprinted down a narrow slot between two warehouses— something between an alley and a stairwell.

They barely made it in before the entrance to the slot got absolutely shredded by some unseen spell— not from the original attacker at the inn, though. This time, Sabae could feel steel marbles and nails moving at high speed through where they’d been standing a moment earlier.

“How’d they spot us, and where are the new attackers?” Sabae asked as they ran.

“We passed over a ward of some sort right before they hit us,” Hugh replied, as the group sprinted up the stairs. “It felt like it was deliberately built to be delicate— the Crown and Talia’s wards interfered with its mana flow as soon as we passed over it. I barely had any time to react to the wards interfering with each other— couldn’t even get all of the Crown nodes out of the way before the spells hit. Lost two of them, a third was damaged. I’m guessing we’re in their home territory.”

“Seems we finally found a weakness in Mackerel’s anti-scrying abilities, too,” Talia said.

Sabae nodded as she pulled her inertial spear and adhesive shield out of her storage tattoo, then gestured at the warehouse wall next to her. “Quiet breach.”

Hugh and Godrick nodded, and the stone wall unmade itself almost silently under their control. The five of them darted through the opening, and the wall reassembled itself just as softly.

If this really was the territory of their attackers, they’d almost certainly have someone waiting for them at the top of the alley stair. Sabae had no intention of playing into their hands.

They heard shouting from the alley before long, confirming Sabae’s suspicions. By then, however, they’d already worked their way up to the second floor, and were heading towards a window to scout out the situation.

Before they’d reached the window, however, Hugh froze, and then the Stormward’s Crown exploded outwards. Several of the floating crystal nodes formed wards that physically pushed the group backwards, while yet more formed a ward around them.

A moment later, the corner of the warehouse in front of them simply exploded as a massive lightning bolt sliced through it like a sword. Debris clattered off the Crown wards, but didn’t hit any of them.

“How many siege mages do they have?” Sabae demanded. Then she shook her head and turned to Hugh. “More importantly, I’m guessing that was another ward?”

Hugh nodded vaguely, his head turning back and forth as he looked all around them. Then he gave Sabae an alarmed look.

“Not just one ward. I’m feeling more and more of them activating in every direction.”

“Trap?” Talia asked.

“Trap,” Godrick agreed.

It was only a few seconds until Sabae came up with a plan, but a few seconds could be an eternity in combat. Their position was already being hammered with battle-spells by the time the idea had crystallized in her head. Most of the attacks didn’t come close to hitting them, but their armor spells were slowly taking hits.

Her plan was, amusingly enough, inspired by the same ostentatious strategy they’d used entering the city of Oldfort.

“Hugh, the detector wards will respond to any ward, right?” she asked.

Hugh nodded. “They’re not even really detector wards— they’re alarm wards sensitive to the slightest disturbance.”

Sabae smiled at that, then gestured to the Stormward’s Crown. “So let’s trigger all of them.”

Hugh smiled, and a dozen Crown nodes launched away from him in every direction.

THE FIVE OF them erupted out of another side of the warehouse— not bothering to part the stone wall silently, this time. The masonry exploded out into the street, scattering and confusing the attackers below.

Sabae and her friends were right behind the blast.

Godrick dropped right down to the street and began swinging his hammer immediately. Talia stayed up above, blasting the enemy forces with dreamwasps. Hugh opened with a starfire bolt, annihilating several foes and blinding many of the rest before he followed them down. Sabae launched herself over the fray, slammed into the building across the street, then launched herself at high speed into the enemy’s rear.

Mackerel just started zooming at high speed inches above the ground, tripping and knocking over enemy mages one after another.

Hugh’s distraction had kept the enemy from knowing their exact position, and their surprise assault had done immense damage, but these weren’t the incompetents that had attacked the riverboat. These were professionals, and they began coordinating their response in seconds.

Sabae had only taken down three mages before two of her foes moved in to intercept her. One was a wood mage, wearing polished wooden armor and surrounded by floating clubs and spears. The other seemed to be a copper mage, or perhaps a copper wire mage. Countless loops of copper wire twisted and turned around her body, forming a bizarre whirlwind. Dozens of sharp copper tendrils all stabbed out towards Sabae from the floating mass.

Sabae raised her shield as if to block them, then simply windjumped at high speed to one side, evading the two armor mages entirely and shield-bashing an unsuspecting fire mage.

None of them spotted the shard of bone that Sabae stomped down into the cobbled street using stone and bone magic— nor had they noticed any of the prior shards she and the others had hidden in the street.

The next minute was a whirlwind dance for Sabae as she blurred through the enemy forces, trying to break up any clusters focusing on her friends. None of the enemy mages could keep up with her, save for the copper mage, who dragged herself across the battlefield by latching her wires on nearby buildings. Even so, Sabae managed to stay just ahead of her.

And the whole time, Sabae kept bone shards circulating through her wind armor, embedding them into the street every time she landed.

It was a tricky balance— do too much damage, and there was a risk of the bounty hunters retreating and regrouping, but do too little, and they risked being overwhelmed. Their foes this time around were more competent than on the riverboat, but most were still simple battlemages, and even their most effective members were hardly on par with Sabae or her friends. Their coordination and tactical cohesion were the true threats.

The longer the battle dragged on, the more reinforcements kept arriving, which was exactly what Sabae had been hoping for.

When Sabae planted the last of her bone shards in the street, she started pulling water out of her storage tattoo and the air around her, then switched her armor from wind armor to storm armor. Not in the controlled way she’d developed, but in the original means she’d found by accident during the battle at Dragonclaw Yardang.

She snapped the armor forcibly into shape, and a thunderclap rolled over the battle.

It felt like she’d slapped herself across her entire body, and Sabae knew she’d be developing more than her fair share of bruises, but it caught everyone’s attention.

The instant her friends heard the thunderclap, they started converging on one another while Sabae and Mackerel did their best to keep pressure off the others. Once they’d gotten back to back, Sabae and Mackerel launched themselves over, and Hugh wrapped them all in the Stormward’s Crown.

The bounty hunters didn’t have more than a few heartbeats to focus their spells on the group. Even in that short amount of time, Hugh was visibly staggered by the sheer volume of wood splinters, high-speed cobblestones, fire blasts, and lightning bolts that struck his wards.

The attacks cut off all at once, however, when Talia detonated each and every bone shard the group had implanted into the street. The fist-sized cobblestones launched themselves into the sky and the buildings in an immense wave, pulverizing everything in their path. The fire and bone shards in their wake were entirely unnecessary— just insults added to injury.

Sabae barely got to see any of the damage, however, because the blast launched the ward bubble straight up into the air.

It wasn’t the fastest Sabae had ever been launched upward, but they should have found themselves propelled far into the sky above the city, should have had ample opportunity to redirect their fall into a safe spot— the Stoneknife River, perhaps.

Unfortunately, Sabae hadn’t been the only one with a plan.

The Crown’s ward bubble slammed into something at the level of the roofs above them. It didn’t stop them immediately, but the slowdown was fast enough that all five of them were slammed against the roof of their ward bubble.

They immediately started to fall, then jerked to a halt. Sabae only needed a single look to realize what had happened.

The copper wire mage had woven a net above the street, and the ward bubble had tangled itself in it immediately after launch.

She had no idea what the copper mage’s original plan for the net had been, nor whether the copper mage had even survived the exploding street, but she didn’t get time to think about it before a siege spell hammered into the ward bubble and sent them all flying.

THE STORMWARD’S CROWN survived the siege spell— a wagon-sized boulder— but it started collapsing as the group hurtled at high speed over the roofs of the city. It collapsed entirely when they slammed into a street several blocks over from where they’d launched from, and the next few heartbeats were a blur as Sabae tumbled through broken rocks, copper wire, and her friends, each impact draining Sabae’s mana reservoirs further.

Sabae rolled to her feet the instant her head stopped spinning, just in time to block an enchanted flying dagger with her shield. It bounced off and came flying back towards her, and she barely pulled the shield up in time. This time, however, she activated the shield’s adhesive enchantment, and the dagger stuck where it hit. It struggled wildly to escape, dragging at Sabae, but the flight enchantment wouldn’t have been enough to move her even before she’d visited Limnus. Now, she barely even noticed it.

The group had come to rest even deeper into the ward-filled territory they’d been lured into, and bounty hunters had already followed them— including the ones on the roof around them.

Sabae barely paid them any attention, however— that was all reserved for her friends.

Talia and Godrick were already climbing to their feet, but Hugh was sprawled out on the ground near the broken boulder that had struck them, the Stormward’s Crown flickering ominously. Mackerel hovered protectively over him, and for a heartbeat, Sabae was reminded of that horrible moment in the ruins of Imperial Ithos.

Then, to her relief, Hugh began to stir.

She launched herself over and put herself in a guard position over him, the others following closely behind her. “Hugh, are you fit to fight still?”

Hugh just gave a confused grumble in response, but Sabae didn’t have time to check him for injuries or concussion before a pumpkin-sized boulder came flying at them. Sabae blocked it with her spear, using its inertial enchantments to bat the boulder away, but a second one and a swarm of fist-sized firebolts were following straight behind it.

Sabae leaned into her new stone magic to help bat the second boulder away, and she let the firebolts dissolve harmlessly against her stone armor, but her friends were just as beleaguered as she was.

“Hugh, get up!” Talia shouted.

Sabae couldn’t risk looking back to check on Hugh as she worked to block more battle spells, but a moment after Talia shouted, Crown nodes that had been scattered across the street by the siege spell began to light up and roll back towards them.

The next few seconds were a nightmarish blur as the group found themselves pinned down under ever-increasing volleys of enemy spells. Sabae felt her mana reservoirs empty faster and faster, even the artificial ones in her aether crystal ring.

And, in the barren aether of Highvale, it would take hours or days to replenish them once they’d fully drained. If they ran out of mana, they would be helpless against their attackers.

Sabae was just about ready to bodily pick up Hugh and make a full retreat when something entirely unexpected happened.

Battle spells began raining down on enemy positions from every direction.

Icicles began to rain down from the sky, impaling a full dozen enemy mages in seconds. Dozens of longer, thinner icicles went racing down the street in both directions, dodging and weaving like schools of fish, carefully avoiding Sabae and her friends, while stabbing straight through their foes. Frost rose up around the bounty hunters, freezing them to the street and rooftops. Gusts of wind swirled about the battlefield like snakes, woven expertly as they hurled foes about.

The entire enemy force was thrown into disarray in moments, and Sabae cast about wildly looking for their rescuers.

Not necessarily to thank them, of course— she’d give better than even odds that the attack came from other enemies, determined to seize Sabae and the others before anyone else.

Sabae didn’t see any sign of a rescue force, however. No battle lines or teams of flying mages, just astonishing quantities of spells hammering into the bounty hunters.

Then, to her shock, a single cloaked figure descended from the sky at high speed, coming to a stop a foot off the ground. There was a hint of armor underneath the cloak, though Sabae couldn’t make it out. The figure was surrounded by a rapidly orbiting cloud of ice crystals, and Sabae could feel the bitter cold radiating out even through her armor. The cloud was filled with active spellforms— glyphs, Sabae suspected.

The figure raised a wall of ice in front of a group of enemy mages that had managed to fend off the surprise assault, then whirled in mid-air to face Sabae. The armor beneath their cloak was revealed to be made of ice over what looked like wood, but that didn’t catch Sabae’s attention as much as their face, which was covered in a faceted mask of ice, nearly opaque with spellforms.

As the enemy mages tried to break through the ice wall, the floating figure contemplated the five of them for a long moment, then reached up and slowly removed the ice mask, leaving Sabae facing the absolute last rescuer she would have expected.

Rhodes Charax.

Rhodes Charax, the nephew of the king of Highvale. Rhodes Charax, the disgraced apprentice of Aedan Dragonslayer.

Rhodes Charax, who had bullied Hugh until Sabae and the others had forced him to stop.

The young nobleman raised an eyebrow at them. “Are you going to stare at me all day, or are we going to try and find a better party than this? I’ve got to admit, this one doesn’t seem like much fun.”

CHAPTER SIX

An Unexpected Rescuer

THE MOMENTS AFTER Talia destroyed the street were a complete blur for Hugh, filled with flickers of light and sound. The purple-green of Talia’s dreamfire was interspersed with the multicolor brilliance of Godrick’s enchanted opal, along with bursts of fire and lightning from their foes.

Even though he had no idea what was going on, Hugh reached out and started pulling his Crown nodes back to him. Partway through the process, the noises of battle grew especially loud, then cut off, and were replaced by a short incomprehensible argument. Hugh just kept on reaching out with his affinity senses and magic, though. He’d only just finished gathering the nodes when Sabae appeared in front of him and grabbed his face.

“No concussion,” Sabae said after a moment of staring at him. “I’m guessing it’s just some sort of magical backlash from having the Crown hit by that boulder.”

He started to say something, but Sabae shook her head. “Hugh, have you gathered up all of the Crown?”

Hugh nodded slowly, his head still feeling fuzzy.

Sabae patted him on the shoulder. “Alright, hold onto them, we’re about to go for a flight.”

Hugh gave her a confused look— Mackerel was the only member of the group who could fly, and he wasn’t capable of lifting all of them— when winds swirled around them, and Hugh found himself rising in the air.

The lights of Oldfort shrank beneath them, but Hugh didn’t bother trying to focus on them as his vision swam. Instead, he just focused on packing all the drifting Crown nodes back in his storage tattoo.

When he’d put the last one back, he let all the spellforms in his mind’s eye dissolve, and let himself just hang limply in the air. Letting go of his magic helped immediately, and he felt his disorientation start to fade.

When their short flight ended, Talia immediately rushed up to him to look him over.

“I had weird dreams again tonight,” Hugh said vaguely, thinking back to the night before for some reason.

“Sabae, are you sure he’s not concussed?” Talia demanded.

Hugh shook his head to clear it. “I’m fine, just a little woozy still. Where are we? How’d we get out of the ambush?”

Talia gave Hugh an awkward look, then stepped out of his line of vision.

They were in a half-completed cliff home, surrounded by construction tools and materials, as well as various spellform diagrams laid out in chalk. It was obvious that no work had been done on the site for some time— everything was dusty, and the construction spellforms had been half washed away. Below them, the lower levels of Oldfort stretched down towards the river.

Hugh had no idea why the construction site had been abandoned, nor did he spend any time worrying about it.

Instead, he found himself staring at someone he’d been dreading running into since he’d arrived in Highvale.

Rhodes.

His former bully gave him an uncomfortable wave. “Well, this is a bit awkward, isn’t it?”

Hugh turned to Sabae. “Maybe you should double-check me for concussions.”

HUGH SPENT A few minutes helping set up wards around the construction site after Sabae confirmed that he was, in fact, concussion free, which gave him the time to collect himself. When everyone gathered together again, however, he wasn’t the one to speak first.

Talia was.

“Why did you help us?” she demanded of Rhodes. “For that matter, how did you even know where we were?”

Rhodes raised his wood-armored hands placatingly, a weirdly angular mask of ice held in one of them. “I had no idea it was you when I interfered with the fight. I just heard rumors about a bunch of mercenaries being hired for some big job, so I was patrolling to prevent trouble tonight. I would have helped regardless of who it was being ambushed.”

“Why would yeh do that, and not just tell the guards?” Godrick asked, looking a bit less hostile than Talia or Sabae.

“Because I’m the Frost Ghost,” Rhodes said proudly.

Everyone just stared at him blankly.

“The Frost Ghost?” Rhodes offered. “Secretive vigilante archmage, defender of the weak?”

The group exchanged confused looks, then shrugged one by one.

Rhodes shoulders dropped. “I’ve been doing this whole vigilante thing for a few months, protecting the poor and weak of Highvale’s cities. You really haven’t heard of the Frost Ghost?”

“We’ve been away,” Sabae said.

“I’ve got bounties on my head from multiple nations and great powers, after I’ve cracked down on their agents and smuggling rings. You’d have to be pretty far away not to have heard of me,” Rhodes said.

“We were offworld,” Talia said.

Sabae and Godrick gave Talia dirty looks, but Rhodes just stared at her, then sighed heavily. “The four of you are literally always going to find some way to upstage me, aren’t you?”

Mackerel clattered his pages irritably, and Rhodes sighed again. “The five of you.”

Hugh had no idea what he should be feeling as he stared at Rhodes. His initial thoughts on seeing his former bully had been filled with panic and anger, but the time spent working on the wards had let him settle his mind a bit, and the memories of Rhodes’ bullying had been leavened by the memories of how miserable Rhodes had been the last few times Hugh had seen the noble. His master Aedan Dragonslayer had treated Rhodes as badly as Rhodes had treated Hugh.

Of course, Rhodes had also been manipulated by the demon Bakori as well, which muddled things even more.

Hugh shook his head, then finally spoke up. “How, exactly, did you turn into a masked vigilante? That, uh… doesn’t seem quite like you.”

Rhodes shrugged at that. “You’re not wrong, though it’s a bit of a long story. Anyone want some tea?”

RHODES, IT TURNED out, had extraspatial storage of his own— a thumb-sized wooden box that could unfold into an immense traveling chest. It was exceptionally well-made, to the point where Hugh hadn’t detected it with his affinity senses until Rhodes began to unfold it.

Rhodes didn’t start telling his story until he’d poured them all tea, out of an enchanted self-heating tea kettle.

He even poured Mackerel a cup, which pleased the spellbook immensely.

“Did you at least all hear about my fight with Aedan on the docks?” Rhodes asked.

Hugh and the others nodded at that.

“The bastard wasn’t expecting me to pick a fight with him,” Rhodes said bitterly. “He’d spent over a year lying to me, messing with my head, treating me as though he was doing me some great favor by doing so. After you told me about the demon that had been manipulating me, it took me a while to work up the nerve to confront him, but you know what he did when I confronted him?”

Hugh took a sip of his tea and said nothing.

It was, he noted, excellent tea.

“The bastard laughed at me. Told me that letting myself be manipulated made me even more pathetic. Which was when I blasted him off the side of Skyhold.”

Rhodes smiled grimly to himself before continuing. “He kept holding back in the early stages of our fight— I think he’d convinced himself that I really was as pathetic as he’d been saying. By the time he started taking me seriously, Headmaster Tarik and Kanderon Crux showed up, and I fled.”

Rhodes took a slow sip of his tea, then stared at his cup for a while before continuing. “Flew up here, but Aedan had been turning my family against me for a while, and his message reached them before me. His version of our fight was… well, not very flattering to me. My family wasn’t exactly welcoming. Only spent a few days with them before returning down to the city.”

His pause was even longer this time, to the point where Godrick coughed to get his attention.

“Sorry,” Rhodes said, still sounding distracted. “Anyhow, the whole vigilante thing was kind of an accident. I was broke, decided to rob an underground betting arena, turned out to be the base for a group of kidnappers who’d been ransoming children. The mask thing was just a disguise for the robbery. Things just kind of… snowballed from there.”

“Was that… was that a deliberate ice pun?” Talia demanded. “Are you going around making ice puns while fighting crime?”

Rhodes raised an eyebrow and smirked at that.

“Deliberately ignoring that entire line of conversation,” Sabae said, “I can’t for the life of me figure out what Aedan’s motives were. Did he just enjoy being a jerk like you do?”

Rhodes winced at that. “Ouch. I mean, I probably deserved that, but ouch.”

“Yeh definitely deserved that,” Godrick said.

Rhodes shrugged and nodded. “Aedan definitely enjoyed being cruel, but that’s only part of the story. Pretty much everything he did was focused on one goal— being named one of Tsarnassus’ Champions. He was certainly powerful enough for it, there were just all sorts of weird political complications and family feuds standing in his way. Far as I could tell, he was intending to somehow get my family on his side by convincing them that I’m worthless and then reforming me, or something.”

“Right, because pressure from foreign royalty won’t irritate Tsarnassus’ powerful families and make them dig their heels in even more,” Sabae said sarcastically.

Rhodes shrugged. “I never claimed my former master was actually good at politics. He was more than powerful enough to be appointed a champion, but he kept ruining his own chances with his schemes and stunts.”

Rhodes’ gaze dropped down to his teacup. “I… still don’t know how to feel about him being dead. That Heliothrax just swatted him like a fly, before I could get any sort of closure with him. Most of me barely believes it. I should be happy about it, the man was vile, but…”

There was another long, awkward pause. Hugh felt like he should say something, but he was still sorting through his own feelings about seeing Rhodes again. He felt like he should be over his resentment towards Rhodes, after having faced who knew how many life-threatening situations, after who knew how many people and monsters had tried to kill him.

His gut still roiled with a half-dozen conflicting emotions, though, fear and anger on top.

As the others interrogated Rhodes about his vigilante campaign, Hugh did his best to set aside those emotions for the moment, and consider what he actually wanted from the situation.

Part of him debated revenge for all the injuries and slights Rhodes had done him, but Hugh promptly shut that line of thought down. He’d told his friends on several occasions that he didn’t want revenge, and he intended to stick to that.

It was a genuine struggle to do so, though. The part of him that wanted revenge was angry, resentful, and had its roots buried deep. But…

Vengeance was a waste. He’d seen it again and again— people wreaking havoc on their own lives and long-term happiness just to bring misery of one sort or another on those who’d wronged them. It never seemed to actively benefit their other goals, and usually set those farther back. And even when they did succeed, the satisfaction seemed entirely unworthy of the effort and the sacrifices. Alustin and Kanderon were perfect examples of that.

So Hugh set his anger aside, and began to consider his goals in regard to Rhodes.

The noble was unquestionably powerful— beyond any single member of their group, at least until their new affinities developed more. Not by that much, though— despite Rhodes rescuing them, he’d sprung his own ambush on their ambushers, with fresh mana reservoirs.

Still well into archmage territory, though, and on his way towards becoming at least a lesser great power someday.

Rhodes also seemed to be at something of an impasse in regards to his loyalties and where he belonged at the moment. Hugh hated the idea of taking advantage of that, but…

Hugh sighed, then interrupted the others, who were interrogating his old bully about how he’d avoided being identified as the Frost Ghost— something that mostly had to do with him only using his wind and ice affinities in obvious ways, while using his other three affinities in secret or not at all. “Rhodes.”

Everyone turned to look at Hugh. Rhodes almost looked nervous to Hugh, though he wasn’t quite certain of that.

“You haven’t asked us any questions yet, not even about being offworld,” Hugh said. “Why is that?”

Rhodes, oddly, looked much more confident at that question. “Oh, easy. I do have plenty of questions, like what’s going with your eyes, but I figure I have more reason to trust you lot— or at least trust what your feelings are towards me, than you do for me. Letting you take charge and ask questions makes you more comfortable, more willing to reciprocate when I eventually ask questions. Pretty standard diplomatic training for my family.”

Hugh considered his idea carefully before continuing. “What do you know about the Coven’s upcoming diplomatic summit?”

Rhodes gave him an odd look. “As much as rumor on the street has to say about it.”

Hugh nodded as he sipped his tea.

Then he fixed his gaze directly on Rhodes. “I’d like to formally extend you an invitation to it.”

The others immediately broke out in protests at this.

Well, the others except Mackerel, who hadn’t been paying attention. The spellbook promptly got in the spirit of things, however, and began clattering his covers together loudly.

Hugh set down his teacup and then raised his hands for quiet, fixing his friends with looks one by one until they gave him a chance to speak again.

“I, uh, appreciate the thought,” Rhodes said, “but considering the tension with my family right now, and the risks of causing a political incident, I think it’s best I stay away.”

Hugh picked up his tea again, then shook his head. “I should be more specific. I’m not inviting Rhodes Charax to the summit. I’m inviting the Frost Ghost.”

Everyone else in the room except for Sabae gave Hugh startled looks.

Sabae just started to smile.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the Heart of the Enemy

VALIA WARWELL, LEADER of the broken remnants of the Sacred Swordsmen of Havath, got more than her fair share of hostile looks as she walked into the council chamber of the Havathi Conclave.

In fairness, she always got hostile looks from many Conclave members. More than a few of the powerful archmages, wealthy nobles, and career politicians among them hated her simply for being Helicotan. The scars from Helicote’s war of assassination and terrorism against Havath still ran deep— everyone in this room had likely known at least one victim, if not more. A few of them even bore scars from unsuccessful Helicotan assassins.

The number of hostile looks had grown well beyond what she was used to, though. Now, the looks were of anger and suspicion— not only at her repeated failures to stop Alustin, but also at the news she bore and the arguments she’d been making when the Conclave last met.

There were only a handful of people in the room whose faces Valia couldn’t read at all. Eight, to be specific. The first of those was Duarch Icola, which didn’t worry Valia for two reasons. First, because no one could read Icola’s face unless she wanted them to. And second, because Icola had privately let her know that she supported her plan.

The other seven faces weren’t flesh and blood at all, but were instead marble and untarnished bronze.

The Intertwined. Seven liches whose demesnes made up immense portions of the city. Even a single small lich demesne made a city incredibly dangerous to assault, and each of the Intertwined on their own ranked among the largest of liches.

More, the Intertwined disobeyed one of the most fundamental laws of lich construction— lich demesnes could not overlap. It caused crippling pain for both liches, and eventually led to madness or even death for the colossal beings. Valia had no idea how Havath had successfully overlapped the seven liches of Havath City. Like many people, she suspected it had something to do with the fact that all seven had identical affinities— marble and bronze— but couldn’t even hazard a guess otherwise.

Their demesnes did, curiously, give her an odd feeling from her atthuema affinity sense, one she couldn’t quite parse. It certainly wasn’t anything to do with atthuema magic, but… there was some sort of echo or resonance between the seven demesnes.

Valia had absolutely no idea how the Intertwined would vote today.

“The Duarchs recognize Valia Warwell!” the Conclave herald called, at Icola’s gesture.

Valia nodded, and strode up to the central podium, then bowed to the chairs of the Duarch, one after another. Icola’s first, followed by the empty chair, which made Valia’s mouth twist.

The nobles knew the other factions of the Conclave wouldn’t let them appoint the new Duarch, after Locke’s repeated and utter failures, culminating in his preventable death at Skyhold, and yet they still were preventing any other candidates from moving to a vote. Leaving a Duarch’s seat empty in a time of crisis like this was criminally negligent and short-sighted.

“Speak your proposal,” Icola said.

Valia didn’t hesitate. “In light of the threat posed by Alustin Haber and his allies to Havath City, I propose two responses— first, doubling the resources used for the evacuation, and second, to begin pulling troops away from our outer territories, save those in the south fighting off Sica’s troops, to protect the capital.”

The Conclave immediately erupted into chaos, and it was several minutes before the heralds calmed the crowd. All this, despite the fact she’d been arguing in favor of evacuation for weeks, and despite the fact that her proposal today had hardly been a secret.

“Continue,” Icola said, once the crowd had quieted.

Valia laid out her case, concisely and directly. There wasn’t any new information, she’d covered it all before many times, as had others. It was purely a formality, which rankled her, but she’d learned to deal with political theater and ritual over the years.

She ended with a summation of what little intelligence and speculation Havath had regarding the superweapons Alustin had stolen from Skyhold’s Vault.

It wasn’t a heartbeat before the first heckler called out. “None of which he’d have if you’d killed him years ago!”

Valia gave the older noble a flat look and nodded. “That’s correct.”

The noble spluttered angrily, but couldn’t muster any clever reply to direct agreement.

Valia spent the next hour fielding questions and accusations. The former she answered fully and in detail, the latter she simply accepted or acknowledged, so long as they weren’t outright lies.

There were a few objections about focusing so much on Alustin and his allies over the Sicans, but those were quashed rapidly by Icola— military strategy was ultimately under the control of the duarchs, and they tended to be incredibly jealous of those prerogatives. Icola was no exception, and, if anything, had grown even more territorial after the Conclave had forced through Project Vengeful Sword over her objections.

A more common objection was to the prospect of leaving the outer territories poorly defended— they’d almost certainly suffer increased depredations by roving great powers and brigands, maybe even lose some territories.

An even more frequent objection was to the costs of the process, to which Valia repeatedly asked what the cost of a Havathi life was, and what their budget for preserving them was.

The most common objection of all, of course, was to Valia herself.

Finally, Icola drummed her sceptre against her dais, and the room fell silent.

“Enough,” the Duarch said. “We’re repeating conversations we’ve had a dozen times at this point. I call for a vote.”

Hands went up as various members of the conclave seconded the call for a vote, rapidly reaching the one-fifth needed to start the process, and then some.

Valia kept her face as impassive as possible during the voting. Duarch Icola cast her vote early, and with that in hand, the reinforcement supporters took an early lead that held right up until the end.

As always, the Intertwined were the last to vote. A few members of the Conclave had tried to outlast them before, but flesh and blood was less patient than stone and metal.

Her lead was only by three votes, so the seven liches could easily turn the vote any way they pleased.

Time seemed to stretch on as the Intertwined stared down at her silently. Valia was confident they were discussing the matter among themselves through other means— avatar bodies in another location, perhaps— but not a hint of that showed on their faces.

Then, as one voice, the seven Intertwined spoke. “We vote in favor. We shall begin preparations immediately.”

Valia couldn’t help but sag in relief.

THERE WERE, OF course, several hours of discussion after that, as the conclave members worked out the precise shape of the evacuation plans. Resettling nearly two million citizens, even temporarily, was a monstrous undertaking, and it would have strained the resources of the Dominion even in the best of times.

And the best of times these weren’t. Between war erupting on multiple fronts and the Coven’s climatological assault on the Dominion’s agricultural lands, their capabilities were strained further than they’d been in decades.

To Valia’s mild surprise— and extensive relief— the representatives of several provinces and cities immediately offered to take in large quantities of refugees.

Of course, several of those cities were lich demesnes, and she rather suspected that the liches would be doing their best to encourage the refugees to stay there— lich cities were almost always looking to expand their populations. When you were trapped in one place for centuries, you needed to bring the world to you, and larger cities always had disproportionately more art, music, and other entertainment for liches to enjoy.

Finally, the Conclave adjourned for the day, and Valia quickly exited the chamber. Not to rest, of course— she had far more work to do before she could sleep.

She was only mildly surprised to find one of the Intertwined in her office. She couldn’t tell which one— while they all had distinct identities and personalities, they sometimes used more anonymous avatars to conceal which one was speaking. So this one could be here either for intrigue or as a representative of the other six.

It was a little surprising to find them here at all— they were notorious for leaving Conclave meetings even more quickly than Valia. They were, apart from their avatars, largely powerless in the halls of the Conclave. Like so much about the Intertwined, Valia had no idea how that was accomplished, especially since there was so much marble and bronze in the huge palace, but they definitely lacked their usual might here.

The lich had, Valia noticed, left her Helicotan sabre alone, where it hung off the back of her chair.

“Can I help you?” Valia asked the bronze and marble statue. “Is there something you’d like to discuss about our plans?”

The statue cocked their head at her. “About the evacuation and garrison reinforcements? No.”

Valia raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t press right away. Instead, she moved to her desk and pulled out a bottle of brandy and two glasses. She poured, then handed a glass to the lich as they moved to sit down.

The Intertwined couldn’t get drunk or digest the alcohol, but like all higher-quality liches, they could still taste just fine.

“So if you’re not here about the reinforcement plan, what are you here for?” Valia asked.

“You have repeatedly objected to Vengeful Sword, have you not?” the lich asked, before sipping its brandy.

Valia scowled. Project Vengeful Sword was a monstrous response to Alustin’s mad crusade. She’d argued against it, as had Icola, but ultimately the Conclave had voted overwhelmingly in favor of it.

Vengeful Sword had consisted of planting a dozen powerful magical weapons in the cities of Alustin’s allies, and in cities that were merely suspected of considering joining him. They were only to be used in the case of Havath’s destruction, and the Conclave had hoped the threat of mutual destruction would deter the cities from supporting Alustin.

It had, predictably, backfired horribly. No less than seven of the weapons had already been discovered, and Valia doubted the other five would take long. All twelve cities were even more firmly among Havath’s long list of enemies now.

Possibly worse, Havath’s supply of city-killers had been entirely used up by the project, and there was no way to easily replace them. Magical weapons of that caliber were far harder to replace than great powers. There was no consistent means to construct them, save by some of the mightier great powers, and said great powers tended to be rabidly opposed to said weapons as a threat to themselves and their power. It was why the Mad Sphinx had hoarded and hidden away so many weapons, no matter her claims otherwise.

Valia may have opposed Vengeful Sword, but there were good reasons to keep city-killers for other reasons. Vengeful Sword had been a waste.

She would never say it out loud, but the only good part of Vengeful Sword was how many of the threatened cities had destroyed the deployed weapons, rather than keeping them for themselves. Ctesia had been the first to discover the weapon planted in their city, an imprisoned city-killing fire elemental imprisoned in a human-sized lamp, and they’d taken it far out to sea and released the colossal fire elemental from its tiny cage.

Specifically, they’d released it in the depths of the ocean, and held it chained to the bottom with hundreds of fire and water mages until the wrathful being drowned.

Sydapsyn had found and destroyed theirs next, which would have been a surprise normally— given their alliance with Alustin, Valia would expect them to gladly seize and repurpose any such magical superweapons. Of course, the gorgon city would hardly have much use for an acoustic enchantment tuned specifically to shatter and pulverize snake bones for leagues in every direction, hence their immediate destruction of the weapon.

Most of the remaining cities had quickly followed in their footsteps, though Valia suspected one or two had faked the destruction of the weapons.

The Intertwined made a curious noise, and Valia realized she’d let herself grow distracted.

“My opposition to Project Vengeful Sword was quite public, yes.”

The lich avatar smiled inscrutably. “We’ve heard mutterings from the Conclave. Some suspect you of leaking the locations of the weapons.”

Valia felt her temper rise. “My loyalty to Havath has been, and remains, absolutely unquestionable. Those fools merely look for a convenient scapegoat for their own bumbling incompetence.”

“Oh, we know for certain the leak didn’t come from you,” the Intertwined said. “But we’re also absolutely certain that there was a leak.”

Valia narrowed her eyes. “And how could you possibly know that?”

She briefly considered the possibility that the Intertwined had themselves been responsible for the intelligence leak, but quickly set that thought aside. The Intertwined had more to lose from the destruction of Havath City than anyone— they, unlike the rest of the population, couldn’t be evacuated. They were Havath City, in a very real sense.

Valia didn’t have time to consider the possibilities further before the lich answered.

“Because it was Duarch Icola who leaked the locations of the weapons.”

Before Valia could formulate any sort of response to that, the lich’s stone-and-metal torso unfolded, and they withdrew a thin folder. They gently set it on her desk as its chest folded back up again.

Valia couldn’t help but be reminded of Alustin’s armor doing the same in the glassy ruins of Helicote, and she did her best not to think of his mad claims of otherworldly manipulators. She quickly suppressed that thought, however.

She forced her attention back to the lich, not touching the folder yet. “Bold of you to put so much trust in the Conclave’s wards. Who knows how many seers could be listening to us now?”

The lich raised a polished brow at her. “The anti-scrying defenses of the Conclave remain intact. We would know if they’d failed. More, we have tested your own wards extensively. No one listens to us.”

Valia raised an eyebrow back at the lich, but took them at their word. “And if your evidence regarding Icola turns out to be convincing?”

The lich reclined in its seat and crossed one leg over another with a soft clang of metal on metal. “The repeated disasters of the past couple of years— the past couple of decades— have been overwhelmingly the failures of the duarchs. The Dominion instituted the duarch system to avoid the failures of single-ruler systems, but the fundamental shortsightedness of the duarchs is leading us down those exact same paths of failure. We need… more farsighted leaders.”

Valia sipped at her brandy, and took her time responding. “I believe I have quite the reputation for loyalty to Duarch Icola, so I find myself puzzled why you’d approach me about this.”

The lich sighed theatrically. “Isn’t it obvious? If we were to move solely with enemies of Icola at our back, it would cast doubt on the legitimacy of our actions, make us seem as though lust for power were our only motive. If we have an Icola loyalist like you on our side, it changes everything.”

Valia gestured with her glass. “That merely tells me what advantage you get from this situation. It doesn’t tell me why you would expect me to have any compelling reason to support you.”

The Intertwined smiled and leaned forward. “Because your loyalty to Havath far outweighs your loyalty to Icola or anyone else. And your loyalty to Havath is not merely loyalty to its survival or power, but loyalty to its principles and its laws. While you opposed Vengeful Sword, Icola’s betrayal of the project is a betrayal of Havath itself. She has circumvented the Dominion’s legal structures, its checks and balances against corruption and unjust seizure of power.”

“Even assuming I’m convinced by those arguments, why would I support a change in the governmental structure of the Dominion, instead of merely seeking the appointment of a second duarch, and possibly Icola’s replacement as well?” Valia asked.

The Intertwined leaned forward. “Because the power of the duarchs is far too much to be concentrated in the hands of a mere two people. Or one, as it would be now. It was the right idea, it just didn’t go far enough, and it left that power in the hands of those with insufficient reason to concern themselves with the future.”

“And let me guess, you want to replace two rulers with seven?” Valia replied.

The lich smiled faintly. “I’ll give you some time to review the evidence of Icola’s betrayal. It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

The Intertwined set their empty glass down on Valia’s desk, and she idly wondered what they would do with the brandy they had drunk. Her musings were interrupted by the lich, who abruptly reached out and grabbed her wrist in a cold vise, then leaned in close to her. “There are games here in Havath City you haven’t even the slightest clue of, Valia Warwell. There are powers that even Icola is indebted to, that think they own Havath. Be careful, lest they trample you.”

Then the lich released her and vanished out her office door.

Valia stared thoughtfully after the lich for several minutes, then closed her door with a gust of wind. The lich’s last words, to her irritation, reminded her yet again of Alustin’s mad claims about multiversal meddlers.

Then she reached back and grasped the hilt of her sword. “What do you think, little one?”

The sword, still barely sentient from their warlock pact, just sent her a feeling of confused puzzlement.

“You can say that again,” Valia said, then finished her drink.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Demesne of Pitas the Younger

IT TOOK MOST of a day for their mana reservoirs to recover enough for them to leave, and Godrick found himself acting as an intermediary between Rhodes and the others much of the time.

It’s not that he was a fan of Rhodes— he definitely wasn’t— but he’d had far fewer negative experiences with Rhodes than the others, apart from the whole being abandoned in the labyrinth thing. And that hadn’t really been Rhodes’ fault, given that he’d been manipulated by Bakori.

Rhodes was still an obnoxious jerk, to be sure, but he was proving considerably more tolerable when he tried to turn on the charm.

The abandoned work site they hid away in had been intended as a vacation home for a wealthy merchant a few years ago, but the woman had died hiking in the mountains, apparently, and her heirs had gotten wrapped up in an inheritance dispute that had put work on the site completely on hold. Rhodes used it as a hideaway every now and then, though it wasn’t his main lair— that was a bubble-like cavern made entirely of ice, half-buried in the murky bottom of the Stoneknife River.

No matter how many times Rhodes insisted, Godrick refused to refer to that lair as the Icy Tomb, or to engage with any of the vigilante noble’s ice puns or names.

He wouldn’t have minded seeing the lair, but the instant their mana reservoirs were full enough to risk leaving, the six of them set off for the site of Ilinia’s council.

Rhodes was, to their mild irritation, much better at covert operations than they were. He somehow managed to get his hands on matching sets of chainmail armor and helms from a mercenary company of metal mages that contracted for Highvale at times, even one that fit Godrick. With the armor on, and Mackerel safely concealed in Hugh’s storage tattoo with several dented teakettles and a stuffed ferret to keep him occupied, the group simply walked through the streets without any trouble.

When Godrick caught Sabae muttering about the annoyance of being upstaged by Rhodes, he did his best to console her by pointing out that they hadn’t actually been trained in subterfuge, outside of some cryptography classes.

It worked somewhat, but Godrick had to admit, to himself at least, that he was nearly as irritated by the whole situation.

From the Oldfort docks, it was only a half-day’s sail to the mountain pass leading towards their destination.

Though calling it a pass was a bit generous.

“Ah need ta’ offer mah professional opinion as a stone mage about this pass,” Godrick told Rhodes.

“Which is?”

“It’s not a pass, it’s a staircase.”

“Only for the first part,” Rhodes said.

“The first part’s a vertical cliff a league tall,” Talia said. “With a switchbacking staircase going up it next to a waterfall, which I’m sure is constantly drenching the staircase.”

Rhodes rolled his eyes. “It’s not even a mile tall.”

“Yeh don’t say,” Godrick muttered. “That’s so much better.”

“It’s literally three times better!” Rhodes said. “A league is three miles!”

“View would be nicer if it were a league tall,” Hugh said.

Rhodes spluttered at them, then scowled. “You’re all messing with me, aren’t you?”

Godrick slapped Rhodes on the back hard enough to stagger him. “Us? Why would we ever mess with yeh like that?”

Rhodes rolled his eyes, then started up the staircase. Godrick chuckled, then led the others up after him.

His smile faded quickly.

For all that Rhodes was turning up the charm, and for all that Godrick had fewer bad experiences with the nobleman than the others, his trust for him didn’t go far.

Hereditary great powers like Sabae’s family were ruthless enough. Hereditary nobles who pretended that their right to their position came from anything other than simple power, though?

They would stoop to any depth to maintain their status, and the Charax dynasty of Highvale was absolutely representative of the breed. Their history made some of the more ruthless crime syndicates look innocent and pure.

Their first year, Rhodes had tried to recruit Godrick for his own team, and he’d been equally friendly and charming then. That had entirely vanished when he’d joined with Hugh, Sabae, and Talia instead.

Rhodes was only helping them now because it was in his own interests, no matter what he tried to pretend, and Godrick wasn’t going to forget it.

THEY REACHED THE demesne of Pitas the Younger early the next day, after a relatively uneventful trip. The only difficult part had been the long hike up the waterfall staircase, and that had been worth it for the view alone. From there on out, it was a fairly level, even pleasant hike through the mountains on a well-maintained trail.

The lich demesne was nestled in the curve between two especially tall peaks, and it drew the eye like no city Godrick had ever seen before.

Not for its size— Pitas was a small to mid-sized lich, with just eight thousand or so inhabitants. Nothing on the scale of Theras Tel or Hebrast. Nor was it impressive for its construction— it was nowhere near as immense as Skyhold or Sydapsyn.

No, what drew the eye?

The whole city, the whole lich demesne, was made entirely of bismuth.

It was a maddening sprawl of bizarrely stacked metal right angles, shining with rainbow iridescence. The angles built up, layer by layer, forming twisted pyramidal shapes all throughout the city, forming the bulk of the buildings and homes. Despite the metal and right angles, the city’s silhouette was strangely flowing and organic.

Bismuth and bismuth mages were hardly rare— it was, after all, the most common byproduct of lead mining, albeit one less prized than silver. It was commonly used by enchanters and alchemists as a non-toxic replacement for lead, and had quite a few uses for healers, surprisingly, but so far as Godrick knew, Pitas the Younger was the only mage to have ever built a demesne from the metal.

He was, Godrick suspected, one of the many liches that Kanderon had sponsored over the centuries.

Bismuth didn’t take on its famous iridescent rainbow hues until processed, more usually resembling the lead it was found with. Some of the more spectacular samples Godrick had seen before, composed of the same twisty, right-angled hopper crystals as Pitas’ demesne, were used as jewelry, but they all paled in beauty before the bismuth of the demesne.

It made quite a bit of sense that the Coven’s meeting would be held here, even ignoring the lich’s probable connection to Kanderon— Pitas the Younger had a long history of hosting diplomatic meetings between various nations and powers. And, despite his relative lack of power compared to many liches, it was fairly safe from attack— Highvale had too much use for a nearby neutral meeting ground to allow anyone else to conquer Pitas.

It also helped that Pitas had been in a simmering trade war with Havath for decades— they were his biggest competitor for bismuth purchases on the continent, since they used it to alloy with much of their bronze to make it more corrosion resistant. The lich was far from a friend to the Dominion.

Godrick was utterly unashamed about gawking like a tourist as he approached the glittering rainbow city.

There was no question about whether they’d gotten reliable intel about the location of the meeting— the fact that Indris Stormbreaker and dozens of her children perched atop the bismuth city was a dead giveaway.

GODRICK AND HIS friends had placed bets on who would notice their approach first. Sabae and Hugh had bet on Ilinia, while Talia had bet on one of her family members, which seemed a bit like cheating to Godrick.

He’d wagered on Ranna of Clan Derem, his scent magic teacher, and he was pleased to see that he’d been correct.

Well, partially correct. They found a whole crowd waiting for them at the edge of Pitas’ demesne, which included both Ilinia and quite a few members of Clan Castis. Ranna was up front, though, and it turned out that she’d smelled them coming before anyone else noticed them.

Godrick was careful to remember that as another weakness of Mackerel’s anti-scrying abilities.

“You,” Ilinia said irritably, “lied to me.”

“No we didn’t,” Sabae said. “We just… lived by the letter of our promise, not the spirit.”

Ilinia glowered at her. “What the storms did you do to your eyes?”

Godrick was distracted from that conversation by Ranna, who grabbed his chin and forced his gaze down to meet hers. “For that matter, what did you do to yours?”

“Ah think that’s best left a secret fer now,” Godrick said.

Ranna snorted. “Have you been keeping up with the lessons I sent you?”

Godrick nodded at that.

As Ranna began to quiz him, Godrick felt a pang of loss, that he only had one of his teachers to greet him, and not his father.

He did his best not to let it show on his face or to get distracted, but he was sure Ranna would be able to tell anyhow.

Hugh and Talia, meanwhile, were getting swarmed by blue-tattooed redheads. Not just her brothers, either— quite a few more members of Clan Castis had joined the council, and the two of them were being swarmed by cousins, aunts, and uncles.

“And you’re sure Talia’s not coercing you?” Godrick overheard, from one of Talia’s many family members. “She hasn’t planted alchemical explosives in your flesh, has she?”

Godrick actually smiled a bit at that.

“And who’s this supposed to be?” Ilinia demanded, gesturing at Rhodes, who was in full costume, mask and all.

“That’s the self-proclaimed Frost Ghost,” Sabae said. “Vigilante archmage from Highvale, pulled us out of a nasty ambush.”

Ilinia leveled a flat look at the masked Rhodes, then shook her head. “We all need to talk in private.”

She glanced over at Godrick, narrowing her eyes at his own bright orange eyes. “We really need to talk in private.”

CHAPTER NINE

Story Time

TO HUGH’S MILD disappointment, Ilinia didn’t fly them to a meeting point somewhere inside of Pitas’ demesne, but rather over to a nearby mountaintop that had been flattened and covered in anti-scrying wards. Hugh was genuinely impressed at their quality— they were done in an elegant, incredibly mana efficient style. Whoever had designed them was well-used to creating wards in areas of low aether density like this. It was a little better than Highvale, but the mana was still uncomfortably sparse.

Hugh still had Mackerel cover the whole meeting space with his anti-scrying field, though. Better safe than sorry.

Most of the crowd had been left below, including Rhodes— in the end, it was just the five of them, Ilinia, Indris, and Talia’s eldest brother Luthe. Despite their small numbers, the space felt cramped— and not merely due to Indris’ barn-sized bulk.

Hugh was, he admitted, relieved to get away from the crowd. Meeting new members of Talia’s family tended to be a bit overwhelming, especially in numbers like this.

“Why aren’t our parents here?” Talia asked her brother.

Luthe groaned, and ran a finger through his hair. “Father officially passed the title of warleader on to me, and they stayed at Hold Castis to defend it so they wouldn’t undermine my new authority. I guess he’d been working to convince the elders to vote on it since we left to help with the siege, and the news of our victory just sealed the deal. Now our parents are refusing to participate in any decision-making processes, and just being ridiculously supportive of everything I do.”

“We’ve all heard you complain about it more than enough,” Ilinia said. “I have some rather more pressing questions for my granddaughter and her friends, ranging from why, exactly, they brought some vigilante with them to a highly sensitive meeting; to where they’ve storming been for months; to what in the abyss have they done to their eyes?”

“So, easy answers first— the vigilante is really Rhodes Charax,” Sabae said. “We ran into him basically by accident, he really did pull us out of an ambush in Oldfort. No specific plan for him, but he’s an impressively powerful archmage, and I imagine you could think of some sort of useful scheme for a rogue member of the Charax dynasty.”

Ilinia scowled, then slowly nodded. “It’s a risk if his family finds out, but if you think we can trust him, not the worst move.”

“Ah think we can trust him up ta’ a point,” Godrick said. “So long as his interest lies in the same direction as ours, or at least doesn’t oppose his. Not a step beyond that. He’s lost and looking for a path in life, but we can’t count on him being an especially loyal ally.”

“Most allies are like that, in my experience,” Ilinia said. “Bit annoying to be allying with a vigilante, though.”

“Vigilante mages are irk me,” Indris finally spoke up. “They’re so profoundly… boring. Imagine having the power to reshape the very world around you, and wasting it on simple crime fighting.”

“You can say that again,” Ilinia said.

Talia looked like she wanted to object, but managed to keep it to herself.

Hugh suspected that much of Indris and Ilinia’s attitude came from the fact that they held positions of power— they had no incentive to think well of vigilantes.

He did, however, still somewhat agree about vigilantes being boring. There were so much more imaginative uses for magic. He’d rather spend his time designing wards than fighting crime, any day of the year.

“Now I’d like to hear where, exactly, you’ve been the last few months,” Ilinia demanded. “And how you escaped Skyhold undetected.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Talia said. “We escaped through the labyrinth, and have been offworld until a few days ago.”

Talia’s storage tattoo flared to life around her mouth, and she removed one of the weird fruits they’d brought back from Limnus, the world of giant trees and poisonous clouds.

Biting into the fruit didn’t do anything to hide her grin at the startled expressions on the faces of Ilinia, Indris, and Luthe.

Ilinia scowled. “You want to repeat that?”

It took almost an hour to share the story of their travels, even leaving out some parts— notably, their pact, the mysterious woman in the labyrinth, and the member of the multiversal organization they met on the ship-chain.

There were plenty of interruptions and requests for clarification— not least Indris wanting to know where they’d gotten the gold to pay for everything.

Between the wealth of Clan Castis and the Kaen Das family, that should have been obvious, Hugh thought. And that wasn’t even counting the ridiculous amounts of spending money Alustin and Kanderon had provided them over the years— the Librarians Errant had an impressive, and possibly unnecessary, budget.

That, and Kanderon probably had several tons of gold hidden here and there in her lair, and Hugh was certain she wouldn’t mind him taking some.

Godrick hadn’t even claimed his father’s bank accounts yet, it simply hadn’t been necessary— or advisable, when they were working in secret.

When they finally worked through the interruptions and finished the story, Ilinia scowled even deeper. “You little idiots. Did you take literally any precautions against spreading diseases between worlds?”

Hugh blinked in suprise.

“Do any of you know how many plagues arise from labyrinth monsters escaping?” Ilinia demanded. “How many multiversal travelers die of illnesses that local populations are immune to, or spread plagues that devastate otherworld civilizations? The damage you might have done?”

Hugh could feel gusts of wind start to shift angrily around them with his new wind affinity sense, and he took a nervous step backward, but it was, to his surprise, Indris who interjected.

“Calm yourself, Ilinia. There is enough travel between our world and Kemetrias that they already share most common contagions, rendering new plagues unlikely, and while I am not familiar with either of the other two worlds, neither of them seems to have had a dense enough population to be a significant risk. More, they spent months on this… Limnus, without developing new illnesses.”

“How do you know so much about other worlds?” Ilinia demanded. “You’ve not been offworld any more than I have.”

The dragon queen hesitated a moment, then ruffled her wings. “This is not strictly true. Let us just say that I had something of a… rambunctious youth. Traveled someplace I should not have, made certain mistakes that could have been quite disastrous for me and a great many others. I had the luck of being rescued and returned to our world by a rather… unusual traveler.”

Hugh spoke up then. “By any chance, did your mysterious traveler have unreadable words moving across their skin?”

Indris gave him a curious look, then shook her head. “No, he did not. I shall not share any of his secrets, however, out of the debt I owe him. By your question, however, I judge that you have more of the story you aren’t telling us. Not least, why you went off-world in the first place. Surely not merely to acquire the magic of this Limnus world you describe.”

“You already know our purpose,” Hugh said. “We were trying to save Kanderon.”

Ilinia rolled her eyes. “What a waste of time. You should have just come with us in the first place. We could have pacted you to an actual partner, and gotten you training in your new magic. It would have been far more effective than…”

Hugh didn’t say anything as Ilinia ranted, just held out his hand and summoned a breeze into it.

Ilinia stopped talking immediately, and both she and Indris stared at Hugh’s hand.

“What in the abyss did you do, boy? Who did you go and pact with?” Ilinia asked.

“What are we staring at?” Luthe asked, looking slightly baffled. Which made sense, considering the fact that he was the only non-wind mage up here.

“I know you didn’t pact with Indris or I, so what second-rate wind mage did you…” Ilinia started, only to be interrupted again.

This time, by a chunk of stone tearing itself out of the mountaintop by Sabae’s feet, then orbiting up around her until it spun above her own hand.

A moment later, Talia drew one of her daggers from its sheath without touching it, and levitated it in front of her with her steel affinity. Hugh could feel the steel starting to heat using his steel affinity, but it would take a couple minutes to get red hot without Talia pushing it.

Godrick finished off the demonstration a moment later by summoning water out of his storage tattoo, and suspending it in a sphere above his own hand.

“What the abyss did you do?” Ilinia repeated.

“We saved Kanderon,” Hugh said.

It seemed that Talia was rubbing off on Hugh quite a bit, because he had seldom felt as much satisfaction before as he did gazing at the stunned and confused expressions on the faces of Indris, Ilinia, and Luthe.

HUGH WAS GLAD they had told most of the story already, because this time, the interruptions and questions came almost nonstop.

He felt more than sufficiently equipped to answer all the questions about how their pact worked, but he was deeply grateful to have his friends there to cover the various questions like “Are you all insane?” and “Did you shipwreck your brain?”

He was also, for once, grateful for Mackerel’s antics, as the spellbook kept trying to steal Ilinia’s scarf and distracting her.

Luthe and Indris were a bit less… scalding in their objections than Ilinia, but they made clear their displeasure at the foolishness.

Ilinia was especially aghast at the thought they’d risked passing each other their various magic issues through their pact— it had taken quite some time for Hugh to convince her he’d known what he was doing there. It was genuinely frustrating for Hugh. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy discussing aetherbody functions or warlock pact principles and spellform designs— he’d happily talk about them for hours. No, it was the fact that Ilinia’s whole line of questioning seemed to cast doubt on Hugh’s competence.

For all that Sabae’s grandmother was a reliable ally, Hugh did his best to keep the irritation off his face— snapping at a great power wasn’t the smartest move.

Finally, even Ilinia seemed to exhaust her disbelief and aggravation, and let Hugh finish his story.

“So you really think fixing this… metastable valley thing helped Kanderon?” Luthe asked.

Hugh nodded. “I know it. I can actively feel her dreaming over our pact.”

“She hasn’t eaten or drank anything in months, how could she still be alive?” Ilinia demanded, albeit with less force than before.

Hugh hesitated before offering his suspicions. It might have been better to keep his mouth shut, make up something about a pocket dimension or a healing artifact, but…

“You know how Kanderon’s much bigger than normal for a sphinx?”

“Less small, you mean?” Indris interjected, an amused tone in her voice.

Literally everyone rolled their eyes at the dragon queen.

“I think we’ve all noticed that, yes,” Ilinia said.

“When…” Hugh started, then stopped and took a deep breath.

Talia shot him a sympathetic look, and Hugh made himself continue.

“When Sabae and I saw Kanderon wounded up there atop Skyhold, some… some of her injuries went deep. Really deep. Some of her bones were exposed,” Hugh said, struggling to get the words out. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but it needed to be said.

“Take your time, Hugh,” Talia said, a look of concern on her face.

Hugh smiled wanly at her, then continued. “Her bones were all made of aether crystal.”

Ilinia shrugged. “And? Extensive body modification is the only reasonable explanation for her size and extreme longevity. It’s exceedingly rare that you find a great power without some degree of body modification.”

Hugh shook his head. “It’s… more than that. I think Kanderon has turned herself into some sort of partial lich over the years. I think… I think the only way for her to survive is to fully transition into lichdom.”

He’d never let himself say it before, and even his friends gave him startled looks.

“She’s not nearly large enough to contain a demesne,” Indris objected. “I’m not nearly large enough to contain a lich demesne.”

“Her wings,” Luthe said. “She stores most of their mass in extra-planar spaces, right? Do any of us really have any idea how large her aether crystal really is?”

Everyone’s faces grew thoughtful.

“I think you might have something there,” Ilinia said. “If anyone could do it, it’s her— there’s not a being on the continent that knows more about creating liches than her. That doesn’t do us any good, though.”

“Why not?” Talia demanded. “She’ll be harder to kill than ever if she becomes a lich.”

Ilinia fended off Mackerel again as he lunged at her scarf. “She’s going to lose, at the very least, her stellar affinity. It’s possible she might keep her planar affinity, but odds are that she’ll just end up a crystal lich.”

“And that’s if she’s even solved the problem of becoming a mobile lich,” Indris said. “If she keeps her extra-planar spaces, that solves part of the problem, but being actually capable of moving the bulk of a demesne is only one of many technical issues with a lich mobility.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “It’s pretty much a guarantee that she’s going to show up at the last second to save the day, then, somehow with all her affinities intact and fully mobile.”

Hugh shook his head at Talia’s story logic. He usually enjoyed it, but… “As much as I want to believe that, I’ve read into how liches work a decent bit since we first met Zophor. It takes months or even years to fully transition your consciousness into your demesne. We have weeks.”

“We need to keep this hidden, then,” Luthe said. “Right now, no one with serious power is particularly interested in the orb she left atop Skyhold. If we let this leak, that will change in a hurry.”

Ilinia and Indris exchanged significant glances, and for a moment, Hugh thought he’d made a critical mistake by admitting his theory, that the two storm queens were going to take advantage of Kanderon’s current vulnerability.

“Is there any way to accelerate that process?” Ilinia asked. “Anything we can do to help?”

Hugh felt himself relax a little, which Ilinia immediately noticed, and narrowed her eyes.

“You thought I was going to try and back-stab her when I found out, didn’t you?” Ilinia demanded.

She reached out and grabbed him by the ear, and dragged him closer painfully. “I won’t claim that our alliance will last forever, but for now, our interests overlap. There’s strong odds that this business with Alustin isn’t going to be the end of this war, and we’ll need all the power we can get to keep it from spreading west across the Skyreach Range. There are a great many things you can accuse me of, some of them even monstrous, but never accuse me of short-sightedness. All of my family’s success is built around planning for the future. All of it.”

She let him go, and Hugh stumbled back, rubbing at his aching ear.

“Sorry,” he said. “But no, there’s nothing we can do to accelerate the process— at this point, it’s entirely up to her. And that’s if she even is transitioning to lichdom— there are other ways she could have stayed alive, though I think they’re less likely.”

“Do you think Alustin knows or suspects she’s becoming a lich?” Luthe asked.

Hugh shrugged. “I doubt he cares. I doubt he has any expectation of outliving Havath City.”

“Speaking of Alustin, there’s something else we need to discuss,” Ilinia said.

Her gaze narrowed and shifted over to Sabae. “You lied to me, dearie. There are no plagues, and there never were. I’m going to need a very good explanation, and I’m going to need it now.”

Hugh was remarkably glad he wasn’t the focus of Ilinia’s attention anymore.

“Yes, I did lie to you,” Sabae said. “I apologize, but I would do it again if I had to.”

“Explain.”

“Kanderon simply ordered us not to tell you what was truly stolen. I offered you the first effective lie that came to mind,” Sabae said.

“You preyed on my fears, used my old scars against me,” Ilinia said.

“Yes,” Sabae said.

Ilinia nodded. “And what, precisely, could Kanderon have said that would outweigh the potential consequences of crossing me?”

Sabae shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh, just the destruction of the entire continent.”

Whatever answer Ilinia had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. “Why would you possibly keep that from me? That’s an even bigger incentive for me than stopping plagues.”

Sabae shook her head. “Because Kanderon also let us know that if word of what had been stolen got out, monsters far more dangerous than she was would rip apart this continent to get their hands on it.”

There was an ominous silence after that, one which Hugh finally decided to break. “The weapon Alustin stole isn’t from this world, and it terrified her worse than the Exile Splinter.”

Ilinia’s only response to that was pulling out her flask, uncorking it, and taking a long drink.

CHAPTER TEN

Promises Kept

TO HUGH’S CHAGRIN, it turned out that he and his friends weren’t the only ones with major surprises that day. After their meeting, Indris flew them back down to the glittering bismuth city, where Hugh’s friends all split off in different directions. Sabae had stayed atop the meeting spot with her grandmother to talk more, while Talia and Godrick went to find Clan Castis. Indris, however, requested Hugh’s presence, and he shortly found himself face to face with a group he hadn’t been expecting.

Namely, the young warlocks he’d been tutoring.

He’d fixed a flat gaze on Indris at that. “You promised you’d find them pacts and keep them safe.”

“And I’ve kept that promise, Hugh Stormward,” the dragon queen said. “I’m hardly going to bring them to battle with us, I’m sending them away after this meeting.”

“No matter how much we try to persuade her otherwise,” Thaddeus muttered. Then he brightened back up. “Do you want to hear who we’ve pacted to?”

Hugh couldn’t help but smile at Thaddeus’ enthusiasm.

“Three guesses for me,” Kanna said, rolling her eyes.

Since she was wearing the black aether crystal armor of Amalda Veil, and her irises had turned a glittering black, it was fairly obvious that Indris had gone through with Hugh’s plan to pact the girl to the armor.

“We’re already seeking other magical items for Kanna to pact,” Indris said. “We have plenty of time before her mana reservoirs grow large enough for that, but I intend to make sure that she has a truly unique combination of affinities. We’re considering fiber, fool’s silver, salt, and a half dozen others.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow, then nodded slowly. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a mage with two structural affinities before, having both crystal and fiber affinities sounds kind of terrifying. I’d suggest glass as well, just to see what a mage with three structural affinities could do, but…”

“I’d rather keep my lungs intact, thank you,” Kanna offered.

He could have talked over the options for hours, probably, but the other young warlocks looked like they could barely contain themselves, wanting to share their own partners.

“Indris is in talks with several arthropod members of the Tomb Guard about pacting with me,” Peltia said, looking absolutely gleeful. “Hopefully one of the chitin mages will agree to it. We’ve also worked out a specially designed pact just for me, want to look?”

Hugh accepted the offered sheet of paper, and found his eyebrows raising higher and higher as he looked it over.

It was a brilliantly designed warlock pact, oriented around an unusual primary goal— transmitting as many physical traits as possible from the pact partner to Peltia. Physical trait transmission was common enough for warlock pacts— Hugh’s eyesight had been massively improved by his pact with Kanderon, for instance.

This was something else entirely. Since the majority of the minor great powers guarding the Sleeper under the Sands were giant arthropods, the effects this would have were somewhat… alarming.

“One step closer to my dreams!” Peltia said cheerfully.

“Your dreams of becoming a terrifying insect person?” Hugh asked.

“A building-sized terrifying arthropod monster!” Peltia said.

Hugh stared at her, utterly baffled at what course in life would lead someone to have a goal like that, then shook his head bemusedly. “Well, this should help you down that path, then. Especially if you pact with a chitin mage or something of the like.”

He turned to Venta next. The black and white-striped gorgon had been looking around awkwardly, as if searching for someone.

“Sabae’s speaking with her grandmother still,” Hugh said.

“No, they’re on their way to join us now,” Indris said.

Sure enough, two figures descended from the sky a few moments later.

Sabae and Venta stared awkwardly at each other for a moment, but they weren’t given a chance to continue that awkwardness before Ilinia interjected.

“Sabae, you’ve met my new warlock before,” Ilinia said.

Sabae and Hugh’s gazes both shot to Ilinia, then over to Venta, then back to Ilinia.

Then Hugh fixed his gaze on Indris. He hadn’t spent that much time around dragons, but you didn’t need to be an expert on draconic body language to tell how smug the dragon queen was.

“You wanted me to find good partners for your young friends,” Indris said. “Did you really think I was going to find them anything less than the best?”

Hugh cracked a grin.

“As for Thaddeus, well… you told me that I should find him a partner who was amazing,” Indris continued. “So I got him the most amazing pact I could find.”

“And who would that be?” Hugh asked.

Thaddeus looked like he wanted to jump up and down out of excitement, but he didn’t say anything, while Indris just continued looking smug.

Hugh looked back and forth between them in confusion for a second, until Ilinia sighed in exasperation, and Hugh realized what Indris meant.

“You pacted Thaddeus yourself?” Hugh asked.

Indris just nodded.

“I’m going to learn to fly!” Thaddeus shouted excitedly.

“You’re going to learn a lot more than that,” Indris said.

Hugh smiled, and then bowed formally to Indris. “You’ve gone above and beyond what I expected. Thank you.”

Ilinia scoffed, but everyone ignored her.

THE NEXT COUPLE days were a blur of preparation as they readied for the council. Archmages and ambassadors from various city-states arrived hourly, and there were no less than seven sabotage and assassination attempts from Havath and other unknown parties.

Said sabotage and assassination attempts all failed miserably. Pitas the Younger might not be an especially powerful lich, but even the weakest of liches counted among the great powers. More, Pitas had decades of experience hosting high-stakes negotiations and diplomatic conferences, which served in good stead to keep the council secure.

Hugh actually witnessed one of the assassination attempts, by two Havathi assassins against Zophor’s ambassador. The first assassin only had time to hurl a single spray of acid towards the ambassador before then they were impaled on hundreds of zig-zagging ribbons of rainbow bismuth. The bismuth had recrystallized into its new shape so fast Hugh hadn’t even been able to follow it with his eyes, and had struggled even with his crystal affinity sense. The spray of acid didn’t even get halfway to its target before a hollow bismuth pyramid rose up in its path. It melted a little bit of the bismuth, giving off a sharp brimstone scent, but nothing more.

The second assassin only had time to hurl a single lightning bolt before the ground split open beneath her and dumped her into molten bismuth, then sealed back above her. Given bismuth’s relatively low melting temperature, her underground screams lasted a distressing length of time.

Her lightning bolt didn’t come close to Zophor’s ambassador. Hugh didn’t understand why, exactly, it twisted out of its path, even following it with his lightning affinity sense. When he asked Talia’s brother Rafe about it later, Rafe could only tell him that bismuth had some unusual magnetic properties, and that the enchantments of Pitas’ demesne had warped those properties in strange directions.

Assassination was hardly the only enemy action attempted. Rumors of bounty hunters, intimidation, and bribery reached them, and it seemed as though many of the actions were working. Several of the minor great powers that were supposed to have attended either canceled or failed to arrive, and Indris and Ilinia grew visibly more worried each time.

One more great power did arrive at the last minute, though.

Andas Thune.

Hugh had, in his first year, actually considered the lightning dragon as a potential partner for his own warlock pact. He was fairly young for a dragon— barely three quarters of a century old— and was already a massively accomplished illusionist. He’d make a valuable ally.

Hugh wasn’t entirely clear on what Thune’s affinities were. His lightning capabilities had nothing to do with his magic— lightning dragons were a draconic subspecies that had massive metallic spikes running up and down either side of their spine, with thicker spikes jutting from either side of their jaw, allowing them to generate and fire bolts of lightning organically. They were rare and powerful, but it was the least of Thune’s capabilities.

It was widely agreed that Thune had multiple illusion affinities, but the only one everyone agreed on was dream. There was extensive debate about whether he possessed light, mirage, or lesser shadow affinities, and in what combination. Mirage seemed the most likely, but Thune layered his illusions so complexly that no one was entirely sure.

Thune was also a reasonably accomplished wardcrafter, using some wards to anchor his illusions and attention wards to supplement them. He even crafted wards out of illusions, which was far more challenging than it sounded. He wasn’t on the level that Loarna had been, or even on Hugh’s level, but he was more than competent enough in his own highly specific subfield.

Of course, for all Thune’s power, he’d already cost them more than he could likely ever offer them.

It was his fault, after all, that Heliothrax had joined with the Havath Dominion. Andas Thune had carved out a colossal territory for himself in the Skyreach Range— and, as part of his expansion, he’d actually had the audacity to intrude into Heliothrax’s territory. Worse, he’d concealed Heliothrax’s lair in so many persistent illusions, as well as scattering others throughout her territory, that the Sunwyrm had been completely unable to find her way home again.

Andas Thune had driven the most powerful dragon on the continent from her territory without once engaging her in battle, and that had led her to allying with the Dominion.

For all that, he was no counter to Heliothrax. He’d seized her territory with trickery and patience, not force— and they didn’t have the time to let him repeat the feat.

Hugh didn’t know how they were going to deal with Heliothrax again. During the final battle of the siege, it had taken four great powers to drive off the Sunwyrm. And of those four, only two remained. Artur had given his life, and there was little chance of Kanderon awakening before Alustin’s deadline.

He did his best not to worry too much about the problem, and spent as much time as he could catching up with the people he knew there.

Clan Castis took up a disproportionate amount of his time, though Hugh didn’t mind at all. They were universally welcoming and friendly, if a bit overwhelming.

There were a few surprises among the attendees as well.

Ramyl the Chained, the alien great power that had possessed the hydra Havath used to attack Skyhold, was the most notable missing figure. That wasn’t a bad thing, however— he’d been sent ahead to the base they were using for their assault. Ramyl might move faster than the original hydra, but he was still too slow to make it all the way from Pitas’ demesne to Havath in time for Alustin’s deadline.

The actual location of the forward base was a closely-guarded secret— only Ilinia, Indris, and a handful of their most-trusted servants knew for sure.

There were also some surprise attendees— most notably Grennan the healer. So far as Hugh knew, Grennan was the only living Librarian Errant of Skyhold who wasn’t working with Alustin. He’d been kept in a cell in Skyhold for months out of suspicion, but Ilinia had freed him and brought him with her to the council.

Grennan was famously loyal to Kanderon, even with their frequent disagreements. There was less than no chance he would side with Alustin, after the way he betrayed Kanderon.

Hugh was worried that the healer would be angry with him for not seeking to free him, but Grennan had, instead, just been happy to see that Hugh had survived his disappearance, and, during their brief conversation, had mostly wanted to commiserate over Kanderon’s loss.

Grennan’s grief had been sharp enough that it had been a profound struggle not to inform him that Kanderon yet lived. Hugh felt awful about keeping that secret, but the risks of sharing were simply too high.

To Hugh’s aggravation, it wasn’t just people he knew seeking him out. For one reason or another, half the guests of the council wanted to speak to him. It seemed to already be common knowledge that Hugh had declared himself Kanderon’s heir, and even though Hugh had tried to prepare himself for the consequences, it was still astonishing how seriously people took it.

To his mild— and pleasant— surprise, a number of mages seeking his time were doing so to consult on matters of wardcrafting. His reputation was already growing outside Skyhold, it seemed.

At times, it seemed like the only person that wasn’t seeking Hugh out was the lich whose demesne they were meeting in. Hugh wouldn’t trade places with the lich for the world, though— the rainbow metal avatar of the lich seemed constantly frazzled and overwhelmed by the demands of hosting and protecting this many important people, as well as heading off destructive arguments between various egotistical archmages.

For all that Hugh disliked the crowds and hectic pace of the preparation— only made worse by how poorly he’d been sleeping— there was one other thing that pleased him about the whole situation.

He’d barely had any contact with Rhodes since they arrived.

It might have been his idea to invite Rhodes, but he still didn’t like the noble, and could never relax in his presence.

Rhodes would be a valuable addition to their forces. Hugh intended to leave it fully at that.

Rhodes hadn’t bullied Hugh for years, and he’d long-since apologized for abandoning them in the labyrinth, but he’d never tried to atone for the bullying.

Offering forgiveness to someone who hadn’t sought it out was just asking to be hurt yet again.

Hugh might not want to seek revenge, but that didn’t mean he had the slightest intent of allowing those who had wronged him before to repeat their actions.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Schemes and Goals

TALIA WAS PROFOUNDLY disappointed to discover that, no matter how world-shaking the consequences were, large meetings seemed incapable of starting out without boring, self-important speeches. Not even the gorgeous amphitheater they were meeting in— an inverted bismuth pyramid that spiraled hundreds of feet down into the ground— seemed to dissuade various ambassadors and archmages from droning on.

Many of the speakers themselves seemed bored by their own speeches, yet were unable to stop boring everyone else.

Talia, who was sitting with her family, was struggling not to start heckling, and finally stopped paying attention entirely during Eddin Slane’s speech. She was surprised at how strong he looked— his body had been severely shredded by Alustin, and only the tiny ceramic plates he’d armored many of his organs with had kept him alive. The few times she’d seen him after Midwinter, he’d looked like an invalid. Even magic could only do so much for that kind of damage, so seeing him hale, healthy, and giving boring speeches was a bit of a surprise.

She entertained herself for some time by watching the various guests— most notably, the dragon illusionist Andas Thune. The lightning dragon wasn’t especially large nor fierce-looking, but rather elegant and sleek, and sat poised and watchful. The most attention-grabbing thing about him, however, was the way his scales constantly shifted hue, great ripples of color rolling over his body. Definitely an illusion, though probably not a dream illusion, so far as Talia could tell.

Even Andas Thune’s scales could only entertain her in the face of the interminable speeches for so long, however. Finally, though, the meeting moved away from the boring speeches.

And straight into unproductive arguments.

“It’s foolish for us to wait for Alustin’s deadline,” an archmage yelled. Talia couldn’t remember her name, but she was a zinc and friction mage. “We need to strike now, and stop him before he unleashes the plagues!”

“Great idea, I can’t believe I never thought of that,” Ilinia drawled. “By any chance, do you happen to know where Alustin and his forces are currently hiding?”

The archmage spluttered, but Ilinia didn’t give her a chance to argue. Sabae’s grandmother flew into the center of the inverted pyramid, and slowly revolved as she spoke. “As insane as Alustin’s plans are, he’s still brilliant. He’s managed to completely hide himself and his allies from scrying, and his forces have set up countless decoys and distractions across the eastern half of Havath. If the Dominion can’t track them down, how are we supposed to do it?”

Ilinia shook her head for emphasis. “No. Our one reliable opportunity to stop him is when he strikes. Trying to hunt him down is a waste of our magepower.”

Another archmage leaned forward to speak. Talia did remember this one’s name— Shimmering Cardovan. They were covered in sparkling gems, with even more orbiting around them, catching the light unnaturally. Cardovan had light, sound, and beryl affinities, and was one of the most flamboyant, over-the-top personalities at the council— rivaling Talia’s own family.

Despite Cardovan’s theatrics, they were absolutely lethal in combat. The clouds of emeralds, aquamarines, heliodor, and other beryl gemstones orbiting them made for devastating projectile swarms, could be used in combination with their light affinity to create beams of light hot enough to start fires, and could be assembled into an absurdly expensive but effective suit of armor for Cardovan. They used their sound affinity more for diversions and illusions than direct combat, but were more than capable of using more offensive applications.

Though, admittedly, Cardovan wasn’t quite what Talia had pictured. She’d expected Cardovan to be whip-thin and androgynous. Instead, they were bald, nearly as tall and muscular as Godrick, and growing a massive red beard.

Regardless of Talia’s expectations of them, Shimmering Cardovan was one of the most powerful archmages attending, and though they just missed out on great power status, many of the other archmages there would follow Cardovan’s lead on whether to join in the mission or not.

So when Cardovan spoke, everyone listened— even the great powers.

“Can we drop the pretense already?” Cardovan asked, their voice accompanied by spell-generated musical notes. “At this point, it should be obvious to everyone that you lied about the plagues. I want to know why, and I want to know what’s really going on.”

Ilinia glared, but it was Indris that answered. “Yes. We did lie about the plagues, and we have no regret for doing so.”

“I might need just a little more detail than that,” Cardovan said, their voice and its accompanying music dripping with sarcasm.

Indris and Ilinia exchanged glances, as if weighing their options, and Talia had to struggle not to sigh with boredom.

This whole interaction had been planned out ahead of time, with Cardovan’s participation.

“The weapon Alustin stole from Skyhold’s Vault is significantly more dangerous and powerful than any plague,” Ilinia finally said. “Like a plague, however, it won’t stop at the borders of Havath.”

This part was, at least, a little less boring than the rest of the meeting so far. Talia had even helped invent some of the characteristics of the fake weapon being discussed. Not, of course, that Cardovan knew they were helping solve doubts over a fake weapon— so far as Cardovan knew, it was entirely real. The Coven were layering deception atop deception on this one.

They’d gone through a lot of possibilities for the fake weapon. Suggestions had ranged from various forms of explosives to alchemical weapons, but eventually they’d settled on a few principles for what the fake weapon would have to be.

It would, first and foremost, have to have effects that stretched far beyond Havath City, beyond even the Dominion’s borders. A simple explosive wouldn’t be enough to cause alarm— few nations or great powers would be particularly worried.

Second, there would have to be a very solid reason why they’d kept it secret. It couldn’t be a weapon that preparation would work against, because that would completely undermine the reason for hiding its existence.

Third, it couldn’t be a weapon that inspired too much greed. Having their allies betray them to try and seize a weapon that was too appealing would be disastrous.

They’d spent hours bouncing around options, meeting with the same group as before atop the mountain.

Sabae had suggested algae that turned freshwater lethally toxic, but that failed the second test— there absolutely would have been preparations that could be made against that.

Godrick suggested an Issen-Derin egg, but that failed both the second and third tests. Not to mention, the fact that Ataerg’s cultists had already faked an attack by a swarm of the alien insects would cast doubt on any similar claim.

Hugh had suggested a weapon that triggered resonance cascades in enchanted objects at massive distances, that would destroy every enchantment across the continent in a massive chain reaction. That one passed all three tests, but Ilinia shut it down on the grounds that it was complete drakeshit that disobeyed a half-dozen laws of magic.

Talia and Luthe were the ones who had proposed the solution they’d gone with— a rabies-like magical disease that only affected elementals. It was a natural enough weapon for them to propose, given how often Clan Castis worked with elementals, and it was more than a little terrifying.

It was a rare city that didn’t have at least a few bound elementals attending to various tasks— usually just small fire elementals bound to forges, or water elementals to purify wells. Those elementals going mad would cause widespread destruction, though not of the apocalyptic sort.

What made the fictitious magical disease considerably more alarming was the prospect of it driving greater elementals mad. Beings like the ash elemental Jaskolskus, capable of leveling cities, or the trio of immense wind elementals that roved the skies beyond Ithos’ northern coast, doing no harm so long as they were left alone.

The proposed weapon had needed quite a bit of work— they changed it, on Godrick’s suggestion, from being just a disease to instead being a vault of rabid elementals, meant to ravage Havath City. And, on Ilinia’s suggestion to make the disease more plausible, they made it an elemental itself— a parasite that took on the affinity of its host elemental, and reproduced inside it.

As for why they’d kept it a secret— that was Hugh’s contribution, and Talia was proud of him for coming up with the excuse. It was delightfully dramatic and ridiculous.

They’d kept the fictitious elemental plague vault secret because there was a countermeasure Alustin hadn’t known about. More, the reason that Talia and her friends had vanished from Skyhold was supposedly to recover said countermeasure.

They hadn’t come up with literally any details about the countermeasure— not what it did, nor where they’d gone to retrieve it. They were claiming that they intended to keep it a secret to keep Alustin from developing a countermeasure to the countermeasure. The best part of that approach? The audience’s imaginations would do a far more convincing job at dreaming up a solution than they ever could, and any doubts would be focused on solving that problem, rather than the rest of the story.

Layers on layers of subterfuge and drama, to the point that it humbled most of the terrible novels and plays that Talia loved, and yet it still somehow resulted in a profoundly boring meeting.

As the play-acting and the resultant debate dragged on, Talia sank lower and lower in her seat, and wondered whether anyone would notice if she started reading a book.

EVENTUALLY, THE BOREDOM got the better of her, and she moved from where she’d been sitting with her family to go join Hugh, who was sitting with Godrick and the young warlocks. Sabae was sitting with her grandmother, and, from what Talia could tell at this distance, actually seemed engrossed in the debate.

The instant Talia stepped next to Hugh and the others, she found herself inside the Stormward’s Crown— she was guessing Hugh had concealed it using attention ward functions. The noise of the crowd and the debate immediately died down to a quiet murmur, and Hugh and the others greeted her cheerfully.

“Tell Peltia her idea is terrible!” Thaddeus said.

“I have no idea what idea you’re talking about,” Talia replied. “Move over, you’re in my seat.”

Thaddeus moved so she could sit next to Hugh, but just kept talking. “She wants to turn herself into a horrible giant insect monster!”

Talia blinked, then glanced over at Peltia, who grinned and gave her two thumbs up.

“I mean, that actually sounds amazing,” Talia said, “but that degree of body modification is extremely dangerous.”

“I’m doing it via warlock pact, which should remove a lot of the risk,” Peltia said.

Talia glanced at Hugh, who nodded in confirmation.

“Have you read up on many other mages who’ve done body modification? Liches, bone mages, and the like?” Talia asked. “The risks aren’t just physical.”

Peltia nodded. “Queen Indris already has me meeting with a trustworthy dream mage to head off any issues of my mind rejecting my new body or anything like that. He’s worked with mages planning to transition to lichdom before, he’s really nice.”

Talia was briefly surprised at Peltia using Indris’ title, but then reconsidered. It was probably for the best for Peltia to cultivate a healthy respect for great powers. Talia wouldn’t, by and large, recommend following her and her friends’ path there.

Talia dismissed that line of thought and nodded. “Just remember you can’t expect dream mages to magic any potential issues away on their own, it’ll take a lot of work on your part as well. So long as you do that, though, odds are you’ll turn out alright.”

“Except for being a giant arthropod monster,” Thaddeus muttered.

“Be nice,” Kanna told Thaddeus.

“Sorry, Peltia,” Thaddeus said.

Peltia shrugged. “Eh, I get it, it’s a huge change, I get why you’d have concerns. I just… don’t really feel any connection to my body as it is, though? I don’t like being all soft and squishy. I know it’s weird, but…”

Godrick glanced up from scratching Mackerel. “Ah don’t think it’s that weird. Turnin’ yerself inta’ a giant monster is a long, time-honored tradition. Look at Rhyse Greenheart, fer instance.”

“I’d hardly call Rhyse Greenheart a positive role model,” Venta said dryly.

“What, just because he’s a menace to civilization?” Talia teased. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Venta rolled her eyes. “Menace to civilization is underselling it a bit.”

Talia stuck out her tongue at the gorgon, then turned back to Peltia. “You should also try and strike up correspondences with some liches, they’ve already dealt with many of the challenges you’ve faced. Sabae and I could probably write you a letter of introduction to Zophor, and you might try to speak to Pitas while you’re here in his demesne. I’m sure Indris can introduce you to other liches, as well as other beings who’ve gone through these sorts of issues as well. Though, uh… yeah, probably don’t reach out to Greenheart.”

“Is Greenheart a lich?” Thaddeus asked.

Talia just shrugged. No one really knew what Rhyse Greenheart had done to himself.

Then a thought occurred to her, and she turned to Hugh. “Have you told them any details about our trip yet?”

Hugh gave her a puzzled look and shook his head.

“Specifically, about our last stop?” Talia asked. “I think it might be useful to Peltia in her goal.”

Hugh’s baffled look turned to a thoughtful one, then he slowly nodded.

As the relentlessly dull council wore on outside the Stormward’s Crown, Talia, Hugh, and Godrick began to tell the young warlocks about the world of Limnus and its body-altering magic.

Now that they’d settled on their cover story, it didn’t matter too much if it leaked that they’d been offworld— it would, in fact, only make the story about them seeking a countermeasure to the fictitious elemental plague even more intriguing.

Talia hadn’t paid too much attention to Peltia before this, but now…

She was very much looking forward to following the future giant insect monster’s career.

It was only midway through the discussion of Limnus that Talia realized that something had been subtly activating her dream affinity sense.

It took her a few minutes to figure out which direction it was coming from, and she frowned.

It seemed to be coming from the empty area in between Indris and Andas Thune, but she couldn’t tell what was there.

Her frown grew— it was unlikely there was an assassin there, but…

“Hugh, would it be possible for you reverse your attention ward?” she interrupted.

Hugh gave her a confused look. “What, like to draw more attention towards us, instead of diverting it away?”

Talia shook her head. “No, to make it harder for us to focus on everything outside the Crown.”

Hugh’s confused look turned thoughtful, then he shrugged and nodded.

A moment later, the world around them slowly turned dull and grey, and Talia found her interest pulled away from the meeting, and towards her friends. She fought the feeling, and did her best to focus on the spot where she’d felt something odd with her dream affinity sense.

The spot looked indescribably different than the rest of the bismuth amphitheater. There was definitely an illusion there, and she could almost see through it, but…

Talia, on a sudden whim, summoned several balls of dreamfire, orbiting around her eyes like glasses. The world began to twist and warp in the light they cast, taking on unnatural shades of color seen only in dreams.

And that twisting, disorienting lens let her see straight through the illusion she’d detected.

A moment later, Andas Thune turned his scaled, thorned head in her direction, and the illusion started resisting her gaze once more. The dragon stared at her a moment longer, then turned back towards the speaker.

Talia slumped back into her chair and dismissed the orbiting dreamfire.

“Well then,” Talia said.

The others gave her puzzled looks.

“Drakeshit,” Talia said. “Bloody, flaming drakeshit.”

“Talia?” Hugh asked.

“So much makes sense now,” Talia said.

“What makes sense?” Godrick said.

“I think I just figured out half the reason this war is going on,” Talia said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

An Army Assembled

ALUSTIN WAS FINISHING up a few modifications to the second generation of his relay golem when Karna Scythe and her forces arrived, carrying the chitin wand with them.

He could feel his labyrinth stone shudder at the presence of the chitin wand. His labyrinth stone wasn’t even close to alive in the way that Hugh’s own labyrinth stone had become before it grew into his spellbook, but the mere presence of the wand threatened to destabilize it.

Not enough to interfere with its anti-scrying field, thankfully.

The Tongue Eater, interestingly, took interest in the chitin wand as well. It hadn’t seemed to notice it before, or maybe Alustin just hadn’t been attuned to the book well enough then, but as soon as Karna Scythe returned the chitin wand to him, the Tongue Eater began whispering words in a dozen languages in a repeating, sing-song chant.

Most of the voices it used were children’s voices, and Alustin somehow knew that every one of the words referred to the chitin wand in one way or another— or to its creators, the legendary Labyrinth Builders, extinct for countless eons.

The wand itself looked uncomfortably like the leg of some giant insect, and Alustin quickly tucked it into his storage tattoo, being careful to keep up the pantomime of tucking it in his bag. Though, at this point, he doubted many among his forces were fooled by the charade.

Karna’s arrival went more smoothly than Alustin had hoped— Mattin Kos behaved himself well enough, and Casser Spellstorm extended an official Tsarnassan welcome to the gorgon queen.

And an official Tsarnassan welcome was rather spectacular, indeed. Alustin couldn’t say he’d ever encountered such a lavish banquet in a war camp before.

The moment the Tsarnassan Champion Casser Spellstorm had arrived at Alustin’s side with three thousand mages had been the moment when the entire feel of the war changed. Karna Scythe’s arrival was about to change it even more.

The seven-affinity Tsarnassan great power was deadly enough on his own, more powerful than any great power aiding Alustin save for Karna Scythe herself— his mere presence was enough to dissuade most Havathi assaults, far moreso than the minor great powers already accompanying Alustin.

The small Tsarnassan legion didn’t just consist of thousands of ordinary battle mages, however. There were two hundred sharpshooter mages, a hundred siege mages, and even several dozen archmages of various sorts.

His other forces had different balances of mage types, but they were all, nonetheless, mages.

There wasn’t a single non-mage soldier in Alustin’s whole force.

This was a new kind of warfare. Alustin and his army didn’t seek to hold territory or to free it— his army existed for the sole purpose of assassinating a city and decapitating an empire.

They still, unfortunately, faced many of the same restrictions as usual armies. Acquiring, storing, and transporting supplies was going to be especially nightmarish— they couldn’t afford supply lines, and living off the land was a terrible idea when most farming villages had the ability and inclination to magically poison their crops before turning them over to invaders.

If Alustin could recruit a few more plant and fermentation mages, it would make a huge difference. Mattin Kos, the Ruhn Syndicate teleporting great power, could help with much of their food supply problem, but nowhere near enough to solve it entirely.

That didn’t even cover things such as alchemical supplies and weapons.

And now, with the addition of over a thousand gorgon mages trailing behind their queen, their supplies were about to be stretched even further.

Alustin had more than a few ideas of how to tackle the problem— not least, raiding a few supply depots that Havath thought secret and hidden behind cunning wards. He wasn’t too worried, however— the invasion date was so close now he could taste it.

Keeping the army hidden was also relentlessly stressful— Alustin’s labyrinth stone was nowhere near powerful enough to hide the whole army alone.

It didn’t need to, though. Alustin and his forces had spent months laying decoy encampments, anti-scrying wards, and other countermeasures across the Skyreach Range and the plains of Havath. That, combined with the limited coverage the labyrinth stone was able to provide when its abilities were stretched across the whole army, was proving enough to keep them hidden, at least for now. It was still a constant cat-and-mouse game, however.

Despite all those logistical issues, the preparations for the invasion were actually ahead of schedule.

More concerning was the problem of keeping his forces united and focused. Despite all of them having good reason to want to bring down Havath, many of their other interests were in opposition to one another. The Ruhn Syndicate was reviled by most of the Tsarnassans, and the feeling seemed largely mutual. Sydapsyn and Starholt weren’t enemies, precisely, but they were far from friends— not least because the gorgon city was endlessly paranoid about dragons attempting to conquer and rule their species once more, and that mistrust extended to Starholt, despite the presence of gorgons among their number. Or perhaps because of them.

Those were just the most prominent issues, but there were a thousand more personality conflicts and similar issues cropping up each day.

Alustin focused on pushing the conflict breaking points back, rather than solving them. He didn’t care in the slightest about fixing the tensions between Helicote’s old allies. He didn’t care about his forces at all.

He almost believed it.

“YOU STILL HAVEN’T given us the slightest clue,” Casser said, “to your plan to approach Havath City. You’ve talked amply about how you intend to destroy it, but you haven’t shared a hint as to how you’re planning to reach it with any of us.”

Sagravaax Scalestorm snorted in agreement. “We’re facing armies that outnumber us, what, ten to one? Twenty?”

“A bit over twenty to one,” Alustin said. “A bit less than that in terms of dragons, though— they lost most of their dragons in the attack on Skyhold, and most of the remainder are focused on Sica’s forces.”

The dragon nodded and continued. “We’re also facing countless defensive wards, enchanted and alchemical defenses, and even having lost so many at Skyhold, the largest collection of siege mages on the continent, if not the world. Unless you have something spectacular under your belt, I have no idea how we’re supposed to be getting our forces to Havath City.”

Zersin Grey nodded in agreement, then looked awkward for having agreed with the draconic great power on anything.

Alustin nodded. “I fully understand your concerns, and, you’re right, our highest risk of failure comes during our approach to the city. Once we get into the city, it’s doomed, but its defenses are no joke. I can assure you, however, that we have a plan.”

“Any chance you’ll tell us this plan?” Casser asked, raising an eyebrow.

Alustin shook his head. “Not until we’ve actually put it into play. Right now, the only ones who know it are myself and the Queen.”

Zersin glanced at her queen questioningly, and at Scythe’s nod, immediately settled back down in her seat. Sagravaax and Casser spent a few minutes arguing with him, but Alustin simply wasn’t willing to risk a security leak. He’d only been willing to discuss it with Scythe deep underground, surrounded by numerous wards and spatial defenses.

Well, further underground. On Karna’s arrival, they’d moved from their newest canyon base down to a massive artificial cavern that Karna had excavated in a matter of hours, deep beneath the Havathi plain.

They hadn’t even needed to figure out what to do with the debris and removed rock— the gorgon queen had somehow compressed the rock into a bizarre, ultra-dense substance that took up maybe a fifth as much space as normal stone.

Alustin suspected that Karna’s quake affinity was involved somehow— he’d consulted with one of the Librarians Errant with stone magic, and they’d claimed that even the most powerful stone mages couldn’t compress stone as far or as quickly as Scythe.

Hugh might know more, with his crystal magic, but Alustin wouldn’t ever see his students again, so, for one of the first times in his life, Alustin simply abandoned a mystery he didn’t understand.

He forced himself not to dwell on the matter, and turned back to the great powers trying to persuade him to share their strategy.

The approach to Havath City really was the most fragile part of the plan, and it would be easily disrupted if the Dominion got wind of it.

By the time Sagravaax and Casser accepted that he wasn’t going to tell them the plan, Alustin was irritated enough that he was seriously considering making fun of them both for having storm in their names. Scalestorm and Spellstorm, really? Names for great powers with storm in them were obnoxiously generic and common. Stormbreaker, Froststorm, Stormbringer, Stormwing, Stormrider, Firestorm… Alustin could think of dozens of great powers throughout history featuring storm in their name.

But, then, power was depressingly seldom correlated with good taste. There were few people willing to risk angering the powerful over their aesthetic choices, and so often the mighty were left without any meaningful criticism.

Alustin knew of at least one human great power who used a golden chamberpot, which made him roll his eyes so hard they hurt.

This time, at least, he managed to restrain his sarcasm. Best not to antagonize his allies, especially when they had the ability to level large sections of a city single-handedly.

And he tried not to dwell on one storm name in particular.

Stormward.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Unexpected Answers

SABAE WAS DYING of curiosity to hear about Talia’s mysterious discovery. It wasn’t until after the meeting ended that she’d heard of Talia’s claim, since she’d been sitting with her grandmother at the council. Talia, however, refused to tell them any details until they were off of Pitas’ demesne, surrounded by the Stormward’s Crown operating as an attention and sound ward to keep them hidden, and with Mackerel blocking scrying.

The young warlocks had protested not being included, but Hugh had managed to assuage them by promising to work with them a bit more before they were sent back to Theras Tel.

“So let’s hear it,” Sabae told Talia. “What did you see at the meeting through the illusion you found?”

“Andas Thune and Indris were twining their tails together,” Talia said.

They were all silent for a moment, then Godrick snorted. “So Indris is a bit of a cradle robber, then? Ah don’t see what that has ta’ do with the war, though.”

Sabae made a strangled noise in the back of her throat as she worked out the implications.

Mackerel gave them all a shocked look, until Talia poked him in the cover. “You’ve got no idea what we’re talking about, book, stop pretending.”

Mackerel shrugged, and went back to trying to dig a moat around Hugh’s feet. Sabae had no idea how Mackerel shrugged without shoulders, but she’d long since given up on trying to figure that sort of thing out.

Hugh moved a puzzled look back and forth between Talia and Sabae, until a look of dawning realization popped onto his face. “You don’t think this is a rebound affair for Indris, do you?”

Talia shook her head, and Sabae followed suit.

Godrick’s amusement faded at that, and a contemplative look spread across his face.

“Ah don’t think we ever figured out why Ataerg turned on Indris,” Godrick said thoughtfully. “And… dragon clutches are usually larger than one egg, unless they’re between different breeds a’ dragons, right?”

Hugh shook his head. “I mean, Indris having an affair with Andas Thune being the cause of Ataerg’s attack makes sense, but what does that have to do with the current war?”

“Why did Andas Thune move on Heliothrax’s territory?” Talia asked.

Sabae slowly nodded. “Even for a young, ambitious dragon like Thune, that’s an insane level of audacity. One of the few reasons I could imagine him taking that level of risk…”

“Would be to court a particularly impressive mate,” Talia finished.

Hugh’s baffled look shifted to realization, and then to irritation. Godrick’s faced mirrored his, though it seemed more to be heading towards fury than irritation.

“So you’re saying that Heliothrax only joined Havath’s assault because Andas Thune was trying to impress Indris when he stole Heliothrax’s lair?” Hugh asked. “That everything following the siege is the result of simple relationship drama?”

“That me dah might still be alive, if Indris hadn’t cheated on Ataerg? That Heliothrax never would have joined with Havath if Indris had stayed faithful to Ataerg?” Godrick demanded. “Or, rather, if Andas Thune hadn’t done somethin’ supremely stupid like piss off Heliothrax ta’ impress Indris?”

Sabae gave Godrick a sympathetic look. “It seems like it.”

Godrick looked like he was about to snap for a moment, then slowly exhaled. “Ah don’t… that just seems so pointless, that all that death and violence would be shaped by somethin’ so… mundane.”

Sabae wrapped Godrick in a hug before speaking. “It’s probably no comfort, but so much of history is like that. A battle decided by a messenger accidentally dropping battle plans on the ground, an assassination foiled because a conspirator ate spoiled fish, a magical discovery made by accident due to a hungover researcher. I doubt either Indris or Thune ever expected anything like this to happen. It’s just… bad luck, coincidence.”

“Maybe ah’m just weird, but… that does help, ah think,” Godrick said, then embraced her back.

When they separated, Talia coughed. “So… we’re not going to do anything with this information?”

Sabae shook her head. “Tides, no. All we could do with it is embarrass and irritate Indris and Andas Thune, and I’d rather not have two great powers angry with us.”

“Fair enough,” Talia said. “Anyways, how’d the meeting go? Everyone joining us?”

Sabae just stared at her. “You… you were literally there at the meeting, Talia.”

Talia ran her fingers through her short hair. “I mean… I really tried to pay attention, but it was just so boring.”

Sabae kept staring at her, then turned her gaze to Hugh, Godrick, and Mackerel.

All three gave her perfectly innocent looks.

Sabae sighed heavily, then rubbed her brow with the heel of her hand. “Yes, most of the invitees will be joining us. Even Highvale agreed to send a significant force, though there was some weird tension with the Frost Ghost. They clearly don’t know it’s Rhodes, but half of them want him arrested as a vigilante, and the other half seem to hero-worship him.”

“So how big of an army are we looking at?” Hugh asked.

Sabae shrugged. “We’re still figuring that out, but… probably a hundred to two hundred dragons, something like ten thousand mages of various sorts. Mostly from Skyhold, Ras Andis, Theras Tel, and Highvale. A decent number of obviously Alikean mages pretending to be mercenaries, but only charging us nominal fees. They want plausible deniability, for whatever reason.”

Hugh whistled at that, and Sabae forced herself not to scowl. She’d still never managed to whistle, not without using magic.

“Do we have a battle plan, yet?” Talia asked.

Sabae shrugged. “I think so, but our great powers aren’t sharing it just yet, for security reasons.”

“Is there anything else we need ta’ do ta’ prepare?” Godrick asked. “More trainin’ or anythin’?”

Sabae nodded. “We should try and get in as much covert practice with our new affinities as we can— every little bit helps. We don’t have enough time to try and master new skills, unfortunately.”

“Well, if it’s training we need, ah say we should get to it, then,” Godrick said, then summoned a sphere of water out of his storage tattoo.

Hugh raised his hand. “Actually, I had a thought— we should try and improve our ability at tracking one another through our warlock bond. Tactically far more important than a little bit more skill with our new affinities.”

Sabae nodded at that. “Good plan, Hugh.”

She noticed, to her amusement, that Godrick looked almost disappointed as he put away the sphere of water.

THE NEXT COUPLE of days were a blur of activity, as the various forces departed for the rendezvous site. Despite the nominal agreement from the council meeting, arguments still tore through the glimmering rainbow city about their plans.

The main argument was over whether they should be heading to Havath at all— most of their allies believed they should try and hunt down Alustin before he got anywhere near Havath’s defenses. Trying to fight both Alustin’s forces and Havath’s at the same time was, frankly, mad, and there was no chance Havath would believe they were there to help— nor would most of their allies accept an alliance with the Dominion.

Ilinia and Indris only ever had one response to those arguments.

“Tell us where Alustin and his forces are hiding, and we’ll do it.”

It was an extremely effective response— and, Sabae had to admit, an entertaining one, when one of the two storm mages just kept repeating it again and again in response to someone’s arguments.

Sabae and her friends, meanwhile, spent most of their time training— as much as they could with the thin aether here. It wasn’t as bad as inside Highvale proper, but they had to focus on practicing magic with low mana demands in order to get any serious training in.

Their warlock pact training, at least, didn’t require mana, so they could do it while their mana reservoirs were refilling.

There was one particularly noteworthy training discovery they made while speaking with Grennan the healer, who they’d chosen to trust with the secret of their pact— namely, that the Limnan magic they’d acquired had changed their bodies in ways beyond what they’d anticipated.

It seemed that, though they wouldn’t slowly shapeshift over time like someone who’d acquired the full Limnan magic system, their bodies still were changing. The weakest version of Limnan magic that they’d acquired wasn’t merely a static improvement of bodily capability— it was still the same adaptive magic, just on a much less dramatic scale.

Their immune systems weren’t actually more powerful, but rather adapted more quickly to new illnesses. Their muscles were both healing from exercise more quickly, and each muscle fiber also grew stronger when they exercised.

The change that was most relevant to their current circumstances, however? Was how their bones responded to bone magic.

Bone magic had one of the best understood, easily followed paths towards modifying one’s own body. There was a fairly straightforward spell course that bone mages could cast on themselves or others once per week, each time permanently enhancing the strength of their bones. Hugh, Godrick, and Sabae had already started following that course of spells while training on Limnus.

Ironically, Talia was the only one of the four unable to cast it on herself, due to the magic-warping properties of her tattoos.

The difference at this point should have been negligible— it took about five years to complete the bone enhancements for a bone mage, or around eight years for a bone mage working on someone else. At the end of the process, their skeletons would be around three times more durable than an unenhanced skeleton.

There were, of course, many more modifications bone mages could perform on themselves and others, making their bones durable to insane degrees, but those all required an intensive knowledge of the skeleton, healing, and the workings of bone magic.

Grennan, well familiar with the bone enhancement spells, swore that if he didn’t know better, he’d think they’d been doing it for at least six months. Their Limnan magic seemed to be incredibly beneficial to the bone magic.

Even though it had only been five days since the last round of spells, Grennan made the three of them cast it again, with him watching.

Afterwards, he happily declared that they should be able to perform the spell course every third day, rather than every week, and that they’d likely finish the spell course in just a year or two— though it was unlikely to be a straightforward acceleration of the process, so they’d still need monitoring during it. Going too far with the bone enhancement process could lead to horrific bone cancer, which was obviously less than appealing.

Sabae and the others weren’t especially excited about being able to up the pace of the spell course. Even though it gave them yet another marginal advantage they could acquire in the relatively short time before the invasion, there was one major downside.

The spells to enhance their bones? They were incredibly, profoundly painful. Each casting left them with a sharp, beating ache deep in their bodies for hours after each treatment.

Talia was a little smug about not having to go through with the process— at least, until Grennan told her that it should be safe for the others to cast the spells for her.

She’d immediately objected to that— Alustin had always kept her far away from other bone mages, for fear of them triggering unpleasant and explosive feedback with Talia’s magic.

Grennan just gave her a baffled look. “Utter and complete drakeshit. That defies several laws of magic. One mage being able to trigger another mage’s magic like that? Can’t happen.”

“Couldn’t it interfere with my scrimshaw ward?” Talia asked.

Grennan just shook his head. “I helped on that project, remember? Your scrimshaw ward has self-repair functions, like any good magical tattoo, and it was specifically designed to handle the bone enhancement process, in case you ever decided to go through with it. I’m a little shocked Alustin never found a bone mage to do it for you— all Librarians Errant have the process performed on them once they’re selected. Too expensive for most organizations, but it’s part of what gives us our edge. Given how much Alustin has pushed you already, putting you through painful body enhancement shouldn’t have been a step too far for him at all.”

Talia just frowned.

An apologetic look crossed Grennan’s face after that. “I do have to warn you— the process will be far more painful for you than for your friends.”

“I’m not worried about the pain,” Talia said.

Grennan gave Talia a skeptical look, but Sabae didn’t doubt her in the least.

She was puzzled by the look on Talia’s face after the conversation, though. It wasn’t apprehensive at all. No, if Sabae had to describe it, she’d say it looked… thoughtful.

Sabae had learned one very important lesson over her years of being friends with Talia.

You should absolutely be worried when Talia was deep in thought.

Even with the painful bone enhancement spells on top of all their other magical training, as well as their warlock pact training, they were left with plenty of free time while their mana reservoirs filled.

Most of which was spent with the young warlocks, which was deeply awkward for Sabae. Neither her nor Venta quite knew how to act around one another— they hadn’t expected to see each other again for years, if ever. They definitely hadn’t expected Venta to be pacted to Sabae’s grandmother next time they saw one another.

It wasn’t until the night before they were due to leave that Sabae actually got a chance to speak to her grandmother in private.

WHEN HER GRANDMOTHER flew Sabae far above the mountains, miles into the sky, and wrapped the two of them in a viciously fast and deadly wind shield, as well as intricately layered cloud wards, Sabae knew the conversation was going to be serious.

She was not, however, even remotely expecting her grandmother’s first question.

“Did you steal a weapon from Kanderon’s vault?” Ilinia demanded.

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to know if you stole any weapons from Kanderon’s vault,” Ilinia repeated. “Your behavior since Midwinter has made remarkably little sense.”

“Is this because I lied to you about the plagues?” Sabae asked.

Ilinia snorted. “Oh, I’m angry about you lying to me, dearie. Also a little proud, but neither are my concern right now. No, my worries have to do with your motives. I’m leading a mage army to war purely on your word, and your behavior is looking stranger and stranger from where I’m standing. So I want to know whether you stole a weapon from Kanderon’s vault.”

“Why would I do that?” Sabae demanded. “What possible motive would I have for doing something that stupid?”

Ilinia snorted. “You told me yourself why. You want to destroy the system of great powers.”

“Empires, too,” Sabae said.

Her grandmother rolled her eyes. “Fine, empires too. Laudable goals. The more I consider your behavior, though, the higher the odds seem that you decided to take a shortcut towards those goals, that you’re thinking plain and simple destruction might be enough to break a system built on that very same destruction. It’s the kind of simplistic sword stroke of an idea that young idealists like yourself tend to adore.”

Sabae started to respond, but her grandmother cut her off. “More, I can’t help but notice that you still haven’t answered my storming question!”

The whole bubble of winds they floated in resonated and shook with Ilinia’s yelling, and made Sabae’s aching bones hurt all over again.

“I had neither the time nor the knowledge to retrieve any weapon from Kanderon’s vault,” Sabae said. “Nor am I that stupid, as I said before. I didn’t touch anything in there.”

“Swear to me,” Ilinia demanded.

“I swear on the Kaen Das line, and on my dead father,” Sabae said.

Ilinia stared her in the eyes for a long, angry moment. Sabae found herself seriously worried that her grandmother didn’t believe her, that she was about to be dashed against the ground miles below them, but then Ilinia exhaled slowly, her anger visibly draining away.

“Good,” Ilinia said, in a quiet, tired voice. “That’s… good.”

Afterward, Sabae wouldn’t be able to exactly explain her next words. She acted purely on impulse, violating every plan and precaution she’d taken so far.

“You asked the wrong question, grandmother,” Sabae said, pulling a book out of her storage tattoo. “Because I did take something from Kanderon, just not from Skyhold’s Vault.”

Ilinia didn’t say anything, just slowly took the copy of Davragam’s Census from Sabae’s hands.

“I haven’t seen a copy of this in years,” Ilinia said quietly. “If you didn’t get it from Kanderon’s vault, where…?”

“She gave it to me,” Sabae lied. “Weeks before Midwinter.”

She was taking a huge risk showing this to her grandmother, but telling her Hugh could still access Kanderon’s lair would be utter foolishness.

“Now why would the mangy old cat do something like that?” Ilinia asked.

“I’m not entirely sure why she even showed it to me in the first place,” Sabae said. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, though. She’s spent literal centuries working to disrupt both the system of great powers and imperialistic systems, but by creating things, rather than destroying. All the liches she’s sponsored over the years are the most obvious example, but she’s also been behind endless alliances, trade deals, and the like.”

Ilinia nodded. “She’s also anonymously funded dozens of universities and libraries, across the continent.”

Sabae hadn’t known that, but it fit right in with what she knew of Kanderon.

“So why would she give me a weapon that could potentially destabilize all of that?” Sabae asked.

“I don’t know,” Ilinia said. “I genuinely don’t know. Perhaps she foresaw the risk of falling in battle, and wanted a failsafe, just in case?”

“Maybe,” Sabae said doubtfully.

Ilinia said nothing for a long time, then sighed. “Even after literal centuries of sparring with Kanderon, so much about her remains a mystery to our family. Most of the time her actions are reasonable enough, but every now and then she does something utterly mad like this.”

She shook her head. “Regardless, you did the right thing by giving this to me.”

Then Ilinia cast Davragam’s Census into the wind-sphere surrounding them, where it was instantly torn into shreds. Not even a heartbeat later, each and every one of those scraps of paper were burnt to ash by a fine web of lightning filling the sphere.

Sabae kept her face studiously blank.

“Now, tell me the truth, dearie— is the weapon Alustin truly stole really so dangerous to even know about?” Ilinia asked.

Sabae nodded. “Kanderon left absolutely no doubt about that, told us not to tell anyone. Made it clear that the consequences of doing so might be even worse than the consequences of Alustin succeeding at using it, and she claimed that it might destroy the whole continent.”

Ilinia scowled. “There shouldn’t be anything that destructive in Skyhold’s Vault. I’m not sure it’s possible to build a magical weapon that powerful.”

“Not on our world, no,” Sabae said.

Ilinia pulled her flask off her belt, then took a long, slow drink.

“I don’t like giving up control, not knowing things, Sabae,” she finally said. “But… you trusted me enough to tell me the truth about the Census, so I’ll trust you here. Just tell me this— can you dispose of the weapon, if I can retrieve it for you?”

Sabae hesitated, then nodded. “I believe so, yes. We only need to do so until Kanderon awakens once more. I think I’ve figured out a way to hide and contain it until then.”

She wasn’t going to tell Ilinia what that way was, of course.

“Contain it? Not destroy it?” Ilinia asked.

Sabae shuddered. “Absolutely not. Destroying it would have even worse consequences than activating it.”

That got Ilinia’s interest, but eventually she just nodded. “Very well, then. Once we arrive at Havath City, I’ll go straight for Alustin. You just be ready to contain… whatever it is. Now, was there something you wanted to ask me about?”

Sabae hesitated— both at the abrupt change of topic, and out of nervousness at her question.

“I don’t have all night, dearie. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow,” Ilinia said.

“Why did you pact with Venta?” Sabae blurted out.

Ilinia gave her a knowing look, then chuckled. “Entirely to make things awkward for you.”

Sabae gave her grandmother a baffled look, and Ilinia’s chuckle turned into a full on laugh.

Sabae just crossed her arms and waited for her grandmother to calm down.

“Alright, alright,” Ilinia finally said. “That was just a side benefit. No, I agreed to pact with Venta because of our last conversation in the sky.”

“When you told me that you wouldn’t be able to pass on Stormseat?” Sabae asked.

Ilinia nodded. “It was all your ranting about the evils of the great powers, the fundamental failures of personal power as a means of governance, all that idealistic silliness that gave me the inspiration. In retrospect, it’s fairly obvious, but I was so entrenched in the game of the great powers it took a great deal of idealistic silliness to break myself loose.”

Ilinia took another sip from her flask, then offered it to Sabae.

“You’re going to let me start drinking, then tell me something shocking so I spit it out or choke,” Sabae said, not taking the flask.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” her grandmother said. “Anyhow, the solution was obvious once I shifted my perspective a bit. If Stormseat has grown too powerful to pass on, well… I just need to make Stormseat less powerful.”

Sabae was glad she’d refused a drink, because she absolutely would have spat it out at that. Shrinking the power of Stormseat went against everything the Kaen Das line had stood for over generations. It was, quite literally, the last thing she ever would have expected to hear from her grandmother.

She worked her jaw a few times silently as her grandmother beamed at her before she finally found her words again. “And what does Venta have to do with that?”

Ilinia smiled. “Simple. Through a properly designed warlock pact, it should be possible to split off part of Stormseat’s artificial mana reservoirs, and permanently transplant them into Venta, and maybe a few other warlocks as well. Without her knowledge, of course. It will take a decade, at minimum, to shrink Stormseat enough, and it will turn Venta into a minor great power, but it will let me pass on my power when it’s time.”

Sabae stared at her grandmother for a moment, then took the flask from her hand and drank.

She didn’t even cough at the rotgut’s horrendous taste, nor pay attention to the winds she could hear echoing inside the flask.

“Those who would consolidate power and those who would distribute it,” Sabae muttered.

“Someone’s been reading Lucann,” Ilinia said, catching her mutter. “Smart fellow, for a mad arsonist.”

“He wasn’t an arsonist,” Sabae said automatically in defense of the long-dead philosopher.

Ilinia waved her hand in dismissal. “Eh, doesn’t matter. I’d hardly say this is distributing power in any significant way, I’m only doing it to maintain our family’s power.”

“But you’re still distributing it,” Sabae said.

Ilinia shrugged at that and took back her flask.

“Why Venta, though?” Sabae asked.

“Partially because of her love of the ocean, partially because I’m confident I can pass the power to her without her realizing what’s going on, and partially because I really am amused by how awkward it’s going to be for you. Now, any other questions? I really am short on both time and sleep.”

Sabae gave her an aggravated look, but her grandmother gave her an unrepentant grin in response.

In an act of petty vengeance, Sabae waited for her grandmother to take another drink before asking her next question.

“What do you know about the multiversal organization behind Kanderon, Havath, and Keayda?” Sabae said.

Ilinia somehow managed to both spit out her drink and choke on it a bit at the same time.

“Riptides, girl, how’d you even hear about that?” Ilinia demanded, once she’d stopped coughing.

“Kanderon let slip enough for me to puzzle it out,” Sabae lied, not wanting to implicate Mackerel. “Then we met a member of that organization on Kemetrias, who initially mistook us for members as well.”

Ilinia gave her an assessing look. “Not bad, dearie. Not bad. Makes me regret more and more that you can’t inherit Stormseat.”

Sabae actually blushed a bit at the praise, but stayed focused on her question. “I appreciate it, but you didn’t answer the question.”

Ilinia sighed, then put away her flask. “Honestly, I don’t know much. I don’t know the organization’s name, their purpose, nor their capabilities. I do know a few things, though, starting off with the fact that they have more members on Ithos than just the ones you mentioned, and that there are multiple competing factions of that organization.”

“I’d basically figured out about the factions,” Sabae said. “Kanderon and Havath belong to opposing ones, right?”

Ilinia shrugged. “Partially true. Havath is actively being sponsored by one faction, if they’re not ruled by it entirely. Kanderon, however, seems to be just a provisional member of another. She was only partially accepted in those circles. I’m not sure whether that’s because Havath’s faction is blocking her joining, or whether her faction merely lacks trust in her, though. And this is all very speculative, by the way. Kanderon has never admitted anything of this directly.”

“Who else on the continent are members?” Sabae asked.

Ilinia shrugged. “A handful of liches, mostly minor ones sponsored by Keayda. Who, by the way, seems to be neutral towards both factions. Galvachren isn’t a member, but the organization seemed to treat him as if he was one. Ampioc, maybe. Always hard to get a read on that one. A few Alikean parliamentarians, at least one of the Tsarnassan Champions. Not sure which, but I suspect either Dyrenian Lichbreaker or the Cloudcastle.”

Sabae frowned. “Anything else? Anything that would be useful in the short term?”

Ilinia furrowed her brow before responding. “Maybe. I will say this— I don’t think they’re likely to interfere with our mission. Their factions seem resistant towards interfering with Anastan events overtly. Even Havath’s faction, which seems to meddle much more freely, seems to abhor acting in the open. On the very rare occasions they do interfere, they almost always use Anastan mages, not magic from other worlds. And, on top of that, they seem legitimately cautious about crossing the great powers. If I had to guess… I think their behavior has to do with their weird-seeming internal politics, and I also think that they’re powerful enough to swat down individual great powers, but aren’t confident enough to risk riling up all of us.”

Sabae nodded. “That… is actually helpful, yes. It simplifies our plans immensely if we don’t need to worry about them directly opposing us.”

Ilinia frowned. “Don’t ignore them entirely. The fact that they’re able to conceal facts so basic as their name from me speaks to immense power— alien magics to which we have no proper responses.”

“Worrying about that doesn’t do us much good right now, though, does it?” Sabae said.

Ilinia nodded. “You’re unfortunately not wrong. That said, if there’s nothing else, we should head back down. Time is short.”

Sabae just nodded, and a moment later the windsphere dissolved, and the two of them began their descent.

A few scraps of ash left over from the destruction of Davragam’s Census drifted with them, and Sabae had to force herself not to smile.

It had been a risk to show her grandmother the book— there had always been the chance Ilinia would have slain her just for knowing the contents.

There had never been a risk of losing the book itself, though.

Sabae had already made copies, one of which she’d fed to Mackerel.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

News from the Sican Front

THERE WAS ONLY one good thing about getting news from the Sican front, so far as Valia was concerned.

No one ever tried to blame her for any of it.

Everything else about the Sican front, however, was an absolute nightmare.

The Sicans had always been a horrifying foe— they followed a military doctrine unlike any other on the continent. In the decades since the last serious war between Sica and Havath City, however, Sica’s strategies and tactics had advanced in stranger directions than anyone had anticipated.

The baobab tree city’s plant and tree mages had always been the best on the continent, but now? Each of their Verdant Divisions, their dedicated plant mage units, fought on a scale comparable to minor great powers. Entire forests of bloodthirsty brambles grew amidst Havathi armies in minutes, while immense living bulwarks sheltered the Sican troops. Roads and bridges wove themselves from trees and grasses to let the Sican armies pass freely over rough terrain, and the Sicans hardly even needed supply lines, thanks to how much food their plant mages could grow in their various forward bases— they could bring a crop to ripeness in a week or less.

Of course, growing food that quickly wrecked the soil for decades if not longer, without extensive interventions from soil or rot mages, but since it was Havathi territory, the Sicans didn’t care.

That didn’t even touch on the often nightmarish body modification the Sicans frequently performed on themselves with tree magic. Limbs replaced with living boughs had been common in Sica for generations, but reports were coming back from the front of Sicans who had augmented their entire skeletons with living wood, altering themselves into hulking monstrosities.

And the plant mages were only the beginning. Most of the Sican armies marched with huge numbers of poison gas mages, even more than siege or sharpshooter mages, covering Havathi positions with gases that ranged from painful and irritating to agonizing and lethal. The gas mages could be countered by wind mages, but doing so was an inordinate stretch on Havath’s weather mage corps, who were already spread thin by the ongoing climatic assault by the Coven, and by the need to keep enough of them in Havath City to maintain the defensive wind shield in an emergency.

Most horrifying to Valia was Sica’s use of alchemical enhancements. They pumped mind-blind volunteers full of various alchemical compounds, making them terrifyingly strong, fast, aggressive, and hard to kill. It was more than enough to make them a threat to any normal battlemage.

Said volunteers would die in agony in just a few months, but with the payments Sica offered to their families, there were more than enough desperate people in Sica’s various client states willing to volunteer for their suicide troops.

It wasn’t surprising that so many of the mind-blind would accept the offer— they were treated far worse there than just about anywhere in the continent, even Tsarnassus or Alikea.

Valia couldn’t condemn Sica for that as much as she would like, however. While she could point to plenty of mind-blind in positions of power and authority in Havath, she knew they only received said fair treatment if they were from already wealthy, powerful families. Mind-blind born to the poor in Havath faced more than their share of discrimination.

Sica had plenty of other threats as well— the earthripper corps, units of earth and stone mages who shredded the ground under the feet of their enemies, pollen battle mages by the thousands, and, of course, the colossal Sican Elders.

There was, thankfully, only one Sican Elder marching against them. Sica only ever had six of the great powers at a time, each wooden colossus towering hundreds of feet into the air. They were far larger than any dragon, and only a handful of powers, most of whom were hydras or sea beasts, rivaled their size.

They weren’t unstoppable, but they were well within the upper tiers of the great powers.

If Sica had brought all six of the Elders against them, Valia didn’t think Havath would be able to stop them. Sica rarely used all the Elders at once, however— no more than four had ever been seen in use simultaneously for years, and at least two always stayed near the great tree city. Sica’s struggles with a particularly aggressive kraken kelp mage were keeping at least one other Elder busy.

Even one Sican Elder might prove to be too much for them right now, though.

The warning signs that Sica was changing had been there for decades, but Havath had largely ignored them. Valia herself had paid attention more than most, but even she had thought they had years before Sica’s plans came to fruition.

The true reason for the differences in Sica’s army, above all else?

Artificial affinity training.

In most nations and cities, developing artificial affinities was rare and time-consuming work. It was generally treated as the province of archmages and the heirs to family businesses requiring highly specific affinities.

Sica had, twenty-odd years back, begun developing artificial affinity education programs. For the first few years, the program showed absolutely no success— it took half a decade for most folks to develop artificial affinities, if not longer. Not to mention the high failure rates.

The program’s successes stayed modest for years even past that mark, but after a decade, hundreds of mages were developing artificial affinities per year, and the failure rate was dropping steadily with each graduating class.

Now? As best as Havath could tell, tens of thousands of Sican mages were graduating from the artificial affinity programs each year.

The vast majority of those were tree and plant mages of various sorts— Sica was the largest tree city on the continent, and probably the second largest city of any sort after Havath City. Sica’s infrastructure, economy, and military was built around tree and plant magic, and up until now, suffered from constant tree mage shortages due to the sheer demand.

No longer.

Sica didn’t have more mages than Havath, by any means, but the fact that they could recruit huge numbers of mages of any specific sort they needed, now? It made possible coherent battle magic of a sort that had been rare in past wars. Sican generals no longer had to strategize with what mages they had, but could count on acquiring the mages they actually wanted.

What made this whole situation worse is that Sica wasn’t attempting to conquer and hold Havathi territory. Instead, they were exploiting it— strip-mining, magically force-growing crops at a rate that depleted the soil in weeks, and even draining Havathi aquifers of water to refresh their own aquifers below the always-thirsty tree city.

It would be much easier to simply cast the Sicans as villains if they weren’t also making sure to let Havathi civilians flee safely, often even providing food and healing if needed.

It wasn’t entirely merciful, of course— the more mouths Havath had to feed, the more strained their resources would be.

Most of the members of the Conclave seemed determined to figure out someone to blame— Duarch Icola was, of course, the favorite figure.

The Intertwined were notably silent, which made Valia suspicious. Not that the liches were ever the most talkative members of the Conclave, but considering her recent meeting with them…

It was, to Valia’s surprise, Archmage Thasten who interrupted the recriminations. Thasten had long-since retired from combat, after decades of serving in Havath’s various wars, and had turned his mind to politics instead. He was absolutely no friend to Duarch Icola— nor to Valia, for that matter.

Thasten could absolutely have let the Conclave lay into Icola for hours more before offering his proposal, and the fact that he chose not to spoke volumes about his loyalty to the Dominion. It certainly raised Valia’s opinion of him quite a bit.

“The simple fact of the matter,” Thasten said, “is that we need more great powers, and we’ve exhausted all our more palatable options for acquiring them. We cannot train or construct any more great powers in the short weeks remaining before the mad Helicotan’s deadline. Of the five communal great powers we’re constructing, only one will be ready in time. We’ve already hired every available mercenary great power who doesn’t pose a risk to us as well. This leaves us with only unpalatable options, but unpalatable options are better than annihilation.”

Duarch Icola turned to Thasten curiously. “What sort of unpalatable options do you propose?”

Thasten hesitated before continuing. “I’m sure that some might rank our options in terms of palatability differently than I do, so I offer my apologies to them in advance. But, starting with the least unpalatable… we should ask Niana Everflame to consider returning to service.”

There was quite a bit of uncomfortable murmuring at this, from Valia included, but no one protested.

Niana Everflame was an especially deadly Havathi power, who, in her time, had killed more than a half-dozen other great powers.

Unfortunately, every time Everflame used her white phosphorous affinity, it slowly poisoned her. Havath’s healers had essentially forced her to retire after only a couple of years of combat. As it was, she needed an entire team of healers to keep her alive and healthy, and any further major uses of her affinity would probably kill her.

If anyone had done enough to earn their retirement, it was Niana Everflame. No one in the room, however, doubted that she would return immediately if asked, even if it guaranteed her an early, painful death.

Archmage Thasten raised his hands to quiet the crowd before the uneasy murmuring could lead to actual discussion. “I’d like to finish listing my options before we discuss them, if I may.”

He waited until the crowd was focused before he continued. “This next one is going to be significantly more contentious. I think we need to release the Rust Queen from her prison.”

There was no uncomfortable muttering, this time. No, at this suggestion, the chamber erupted into shouting and vitriol.

Like Everflame, the Rust Queen had been an especially deadly great power in Havath’s service. She had actually been one of the Havathi great powers who eventually triumphed against the Lord of Bells. She should have been a hero, should have been celebrated far and wide.

The Rust Queen was, however, a menace. She tended to do as much damage to her allies as to her enemies, and had incinerated countless Havathi citizens. Her temper was legendary, and the final straw had been when she incinerated a provincial governor and a city of ten thousand souls out of impulsive anger.

The Rust Queen was the personification of a curious magical principle relating alchemical reactions to magical affinities. Namely, that the more affinities you had governing the various parts of an alchemical reaction, the more powerfully you could control said reaction.

The Rust Queen had four affinities— air, iron, water, and rust, and between the four of them, could control every physical part of the rust process.

Being able to rust all the iron and steel around her for leagues was terrifying enough in theory, but it was even worse in practice, due to one uncommonly known fact.

Iron rusting produced heat. A lot of heat. You didn’t usually notice it, since rusting was usually such a slow process, but when the Rust Queen dissolved a sword into rust in heartbeats? It would completely roast its wielder before they could throw it away from them.

The Rust Queen only grew deadlier the longer a battle progressed, surrounding herself with a lethal miniature hurricane of rust particles, flying fast enough to shred trees and buildings. The winds inside it reached temperatures hot enough to incinerate forests.

The upper limits of the Rust Queen’s power were more limited by the amount of iron she had available than anything else. Given enough iron and sufficient aether density, she could be a threat to any other great power on the continent.

Which made the fact she was such a volatile menace especially dangerous.

It was commonly said that you couldn’t safely imprison an archmage, let alone a great power, but not in the Havathi Dominion. They had the only prison capable of holding great powers on the continent. In the Rust Queen’s case, however, they’d been able to imprison her via less drastic means— namely, her loyalty to her family. So long as the Rust Queen stayed in her prison, her family was treated well, kept in style among high society, and were protected from any and all threats. The Rust Queen’s true identity was even kept from the public, to keep her family’s reputation from being impacted.

If the Rust Queen ever tried to break out of her prison, there were standing orders to eliminate every one of her living family members.

Her prison was luxurious, and she’d been kept in it rather than being executed for precisely a situation like this— to be called upon in an hour of Havath’s desperation.

Even knowing how dire Havath’s situation was, most of the Conclave still refused to fully admit their current risk of annihilation, and releasing the Rust Queen was a blow to their pride. And, on top of that, there were still a great many who hated the woman and thought she should have been executed for her crimes.

To make things even more complex, the Rust Queen had grown even more powerful while imprisoned— she had figured out how to store and release lightning during the rusting and derusting cycle, somehow, eliminating one of her few early weaknesses and adding lightning to her absurd rust storms.

Even beyond that reflexive anger and fear, there were countless tactical concerns— mostly to do with the fact that there was no way to safely use the Rust Queen to defend Havath City. Even using her against Sica posed risks to Havath’s armies.

It was a particularly curious ally who came forward in support of this idea— Heliothrax’s representative.

No one knew anything about the man. Not his origin, not his goals and thoughts, not even his name. The Sunwyrm had merely dropped him off in the city, announced him as her representative and spokesperson, and then flew off. He rarely spoke, but when he did, his mere association with Heliothrax made sure everyone listened.

Even moreso the past few months, given the unsettling rumors about Heliothrax’s actions and preparations since her defeat at Skyhold.

“If this Rust Queen poses a threat to your armies, just send her on her own to fight,” he said. “Have her go on the offensive on her own. Enough wasting time with this, I want to hear the other options.”

Thasten had a few more options he discussed, ranging from alchemical weaponry to breaking dams to hit Sica’s armies with floods, but it was the penultimate option that drew by far the most attention.

And, even compared to the Rust Queen, this one drew vitriol.

Thasten wanted Havath to attempt hiring Dorsas Ine, the Gold Phoenix, to fight for them.

Valia was honestly surprised that the Conclave didn’t erupt into a full riot at that suggestion.

And, somehow, the final suggestion was even worse.

Thasten proposed using yellowstone.

That immediately got shut down by Icola, without even any debate. The monstrous substance was among the most poisonous substances on Anastis— just being in a room with the metal yellowstone could be smelted into could be lethal. Its poison had been known to somehow work its way through solid, airproof glass boxes ten inches thick to strike down alchemists researching it, and yet no healer had ever isolated the poisonous compound in question. It was a hideous, slow death, too.

Even if there’d been a way for Havath to use yellowstone metal in battle, they had neither a supply of it nor anyone to use it— yellowstone mages were universally murdered when their affinity was discovered. Too many cities had been poisoned by yellowstone dust in pre-Ithonian times, and the ground they’d stood on often remained poisonous to this day. Not to mention the fact that no yellowstone mage lived longer than a few months before dying slowly and painfully.

Even a hint that they might be using yellowstone would turn every great power on the continent against them.

IN THE END, the Conclave adopted most of the measures Thasten proposed. Only the calls to use yellowstone and to hire Dorsas Ine was rejected— the former was unthinkable, and Heliothrax’s representative had made it clear that the Sunwyrm was entirely unwilling to fight alongside her rival.

On top of that, Havath’s nobles didn’t particularly want all the gold stripped from their manors and palaces by Dorsas Ine’s magic.

His suggestion of using yellowstone wasn’t even discussed after Icola had shut it down.

Still, the fact that Thasten had even proposed recruiting either of those two terrifying measures had, it seemed, finally driven home the threat they faced to many of the previously oblivious members of the Conclave, who’d been more concerned with their own petty political agendas and personal advancement.

Valia managed to extricate herself from the meeting fairly quickly after the vote— meaning she had no more than half an hour of various archmages and delegates demanding her attention. Rather than head to her office, however, she chose to head towards the Sacred Swordsman training facility.

She would never admit it to anyone, but the name of her order had always bothered her. Valia was justifiably proud about the work her warlocks did, and their importance to Havath, but there was nothing sacred about them. Proper religions existed for the purpose of transmuting the physical and magical might of great powers into political power and control. A world without great powers surely wouldn’t even have religions. The Sacred Swordsmen? They were just another means for the Dominion to apply power.

As was her custom, she interrupted her flight to the training facility in order to grab lunch— albeit at a randomly chosen restaurant or food stand every day, so as to reduce the risk of assassination.

As she walked away from today’s food cart, carrying some sort of wrap filled with fried vegetables and cheese, she almost dropped the wrap and flew off in alarm. Instead, she sighed heavily, bit into her wrap, and turned down an alley nearby.

The alarm, of course, had come from the fact that Havath City didn’t have alleys— and the fact that no one but her seemed to have noticed its appearance.

The sigh came from the immediate realization of where the alley had come from, and from who must have summoned it.

Valia took another bite of her wrap as she stepped over the alley’s attention ward, then just chewed calmly as the buildings to either side of her folded together to turn the alley into an enclosed room. Valia’s sword expressed a tiny note of concern in the back of her mind, and she did her best to soothe it.

It was almost a full minute before the avatars of three of the Intertwined entered the new room. An unusually long wait time, but that just told Valia that the routes she took to throw off potential assassins were working.

“Have you considered our proposal?” one of the Intertwined asked immediately.

Valia hesitated before responding— something seemed off about the way the lich was speaking. For that matter, something seemed off about the way all three of the lich avatars were moving, as well.

“I’ve considered your proposal, yes,” Valia finally said. “I admit to quite a few concerns.”

“Like what?” one of the other lich avatars asked.

Valia struggled not to narrow her eyes at the lich. There were definite signs of stress in its voice— something she’d never encountered before.

“Well, to put it politely, I’m unconvinced by plans to solve problems that go about it by attempting to solve completely different problems. I’ve always found it more effective to just focus on the core problem,” Valia said.

“And how would you put it less politely?” one of the Intertwined asked.

Valia snorted with amusement she didn’t actually feel. “It looks like a naked power grab during a crisis, and I want no part of it. Nor will I oppose it, of course— doing either is a waste of the time I could be spending to protect this city.”

The three lich avatars exchanged glances, the stress growing more visible on their faces.

Then Valia blinked, and realized something.

Those weren’t expressions of stress.

They were expressions of pain.

Valia’s mind quickly plotted out her location on her mental map of Havath City, and compared that to what she knew of the layout of Havath’s liches. It wasn’t as simple as slices of a pie, but… if she was correct, this was near a junction between three different members of the Intertwined.

Suddenly, dozens of clues from over the years began to slot themselves into place in her mind.

“You’re feeling pain from lich overlap right now,” Valia blurted out. “But you’re supposed to be immune to that.”

The Intertwined exchanged glances again, then one of them nodded. “Usually, yes. Not at the moment, however.”

The suspicion that had started growing in the back of Valia’s mind started firming into a certainty.

“The mechanism that lets you all overlap… that’s how the Duarchs control you, isn’t it?” Valia demanded. “Icola is punishing you right now for something.”

Another of the Intertwined spoke up at this. “It is how they control us, but Icola is not punishing us now. We have chosen to feel this pain. The overlap suppressor enchantments also make it easier for the Duarch’s mages to monitor our activity. At least, outside the Conclave. The Conclave’s own anti-scrying protections allow us more freedom there.”

The third Intertwined spoke. “We are treated in public as peers to anyone in the Dominion, but we are little more than slaves of the Duarchs. We were promised immortality and power, but once our demesnes were complete, the Duarchs revealed our chains.”

Valia wanted to protest, to argue that Duarch Icola would never countenance something so monstrous, but…

The demesnes of the Intertwined had been completed decades before Icola had taken office. And even if Valia believed Icola would never agree to enslaving sentient beings like that… Valia could imagine her accepting it once it was already done. Telling herself, perhaps, that freeing the Intertwined was too much of a risk to Havath City, that what was done couldn’t be undone.

It would hardly be the greatest sacrifice Icola had made for the greater good.

Valia scowled, then took another bite of her wrap. The liches waited patiently for her, even though their pain was growing visibly worse by the moment.

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this in specific,” Valia finally said. “What little political power I have derives largely from Icola, and I can’t imagine many in the Conclave would trust my intentions if I tried to aid you or oppose Icola.”

“We have recruited many others,” one of the liches said. The bronze of its jaw shuddered and popped as it spoke, as if it were warping under great pressure. “Your political backing will be more useful than you claim, we suspect, but we also have a different purpose in mind for you.”

“And what might that be?” Valia asked.

“If our plans fail, if we don’t achieve our freedom… we want you to kill us.”

Valia stared at them in shock. “If I do that, the defenses of Havath City will be left in ruins against Alustin and his forces.”

“It can wait until after the battle, of course. We give you our word that we’ll defend the city to the best of our abilities, no matter what happens.”

Valia shook her head. “Even so, I’m nowhere near powerful enough to kill you. I…”

“Our time is limited, and we do not have enough of it to spare for your false humility. Your echo magic is as well-suited to overloading the overlap suppressor enchantments as sound magic is to wards. We can provide you the instructions easily enough.”

Valia gulped, overwhelmed at the turn the conversation had taken. “That… that sounds like a profoundly painful way for you to die.”

“And slow. Better a painful death than continued servitude, though.” one of the Intertwined said. Even as it did so, it staggered, leaning against the wall.

“We can offer you more time to decide, but we ask that we finish this meeting soon,” another lich said. “The pain grows worse.”

Valia’s mind raced, but her mouth raced even faster, offering a counterproposal before she’d even realized what she said. “I’ll give you an answer in exchange for answers of your own. What do you know about Havath’s multiversal backers?”

The Intertwined seemed to forget their pain for a moment, all focusing on her like birds of prey.

“A dangerous question,” one of them finally said.

“But we ask a dangerous task of you,” the second lich continued.

“So we can only judge it a fair request,” the third lich finished.

As the liches spoke and confirmed Alustin’s accusations, Valia found three emotions rising in her chest. Rage at the existence of the multiversal manipulators. Doubt about herself.

And, most of all, horror, at the thought that Alustin’s mad goals might not be so mad after all, even if his methods were.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Preparing for Departure

IT HAD ONLY taken a few minutes to pack everything in his green storage tattoo, so while the rest of the allied force was still preparing to depart Pitas’ demesne, Godrick finally tracked down Tristan.

It wasn’t particularly hard to find Talia’s brother, even in the bustling crowds. Between his scent magic and the sheer number of members of Clan Castis wandering around, Godrick tracked Tristan to a teashop balcony.

The redhead didn’t say anything when Godrick sat next to him, just smiled, then turned back to his tea.

Godrick quietly ordered his own cup of tea, and the two of them sat quietly and watched the early morning sun roll over the glimmering rainbow bismuth of the city.

It was bright enough in places that Godrick cast an anti-glare cantrip over his eyes, but dimming the glare didn’t reduce the lich-city’s angular beauty at all. He wouldn’t want to live here, but he’d remember this sight for the rest of his life.

It was only when Godrick had ordered his second cup of tea that he finally worked up the nerve to speak.

“Lovely here,” he said, then immediately had to stifle a groan at himself.

“That it is,” Tristan replied, a hint of a smile on his face.

Godrick sighed. “Ah’ve been unfair ta yeh. Ah should’ve just talked ta yeh before fleein’ through the labyrinth, rather than leavin’ yeh in uncertainty about… everythin’. About us.”

Tristan gave him a baffled look. “No you shouldn’t have. That would have been an unnecessary tactical risk, the kind of behavior that might have raised suspicions about your plans.”

Godrick gave Tristan a flat look, but the redhead seemed entirely serious.

“Clan Castis,” Godrick eventually muttered.

Tristan smiled at that, seemingly delighted at the way Godrick was using Clan Castis as a curse word.

Godrick shook his head, then continued. “Be as that may, ah’m still sorry. It was unkind.”

Tristan patted him on the arm. “I appreciate the thought, even if it’s unnecessary. It really was a tactical risk, and I’m sure you just needed time to think.”

Godrick smiled weakly at him, then forced himself to continue. “Ah just… don’t think ah can be who yeh want me ta be. Between the war and… and me da, ah don’t think ah’ll be in the right space to date anyone anytime soon.”

Tristan smiled sadly. “It’s no fun to hear, but I’d figured as much. Any chance you still have room for another friend, though?”

Godrick smiled back. “Always.”

The two of them both leaned back in their chairs, and watched the sun crawl across the bismuth streets below them.

“YOU JUST… TALKED to him.” Sabae said, disbelievingly.

“Yep,” Godrick said.

“Just… tracked him down and talked to him like reasonable adults,” Sabae said.

“Yep,” Godrick repeated.

“I don’t understand,” Sabae said.

“It wasn’t easy, it just… needed ta’ be done,” Godrick said, and patted Sabae on the shoulder. “Yeh still have time ta’ talk ta’ Venta, yeh know.”

Sabae just stared at him, then shook her head. “Nope. I, uh… need to go talk to, uh… Eudaxus? About, uh, the utility of cults in city-state stability?”

Godrick crossed his arms and stared at Sabae. “Eudaxus is comin’ with us ta Havath City. Venta isn’t. Go talk ta her. If yeh’re brave enough ta’ plot the overthrow of the continent’s entire political system, then yeh’re brave enough ta talk ta’ yer ex.”

“We didn’t date for that long,” Sabae muttered.

Godrick kept his arms crossed and raised one eyebrow at Sabae.

His friend stared at him sadly for a few moments, but Godrick just matched her stare, and Sabae eventually deflated and wandered off.

“Yeh’re goin’ ta’ talk ta’ her, right?” Godrick asked.

Sabae looked back and made a face at him, and muttered something incomprehensible.

“No way she’s going to talk to Venta,” a voice at Godrick’s side said.

He jumped in surprise and turned to see Talia’s brother Rafe.

“Yeh’re goin’ ta scare me out a’ my skin, sneakin’ up like that,” Godrick said.

“Yeah, Rafe’s annoying like that,” another voice said.

Godrick whirled to see Leon, another of Talia’s brothers, leaning against a bismuth wall nearby.

“You don’t get to call anyone else annoying, you’re the worst,” a third voice said.

Godrick didn’t jump this time, just sighed heavily to face Gram.

Gram’s wife Haela gave her husband a significant look and elbowed him gently, and he sighed. “Alright, fine, Leon’s not the worst, he’s just significantly more annoying than the rest of us.”

“Thank you,” Leon said, looking deeply pleased at that.

“You’re all annoying,” Roland said from behind Godrick.

“That’s my line,” Talia said.

“No, that’s my line,” Ranna said.

Godrick rolled his eyes and turned to eye the three of them. “Seriously, how did yeh all sneak up on me like that?”

“You’re just too tall,” Roland said cheerfully. “You should look down more.”

“Are you all here to talk to me about Tristan?” Godrick asked.

“Why would we do that?” Rafe asked.

“Because ah told him ah wasn’t interested in him romantically this mornin’?” Godrick asked.

“Oooh, did you break his heart?” Gram asked.

“Crush his spirit?” Leon added.

“Leave him in a black pit of despair?” Talia said.

Godrick gave them puzzled looks. “No, ah let him down gently, and we’re stayin’ friends.”

The siblings all sighed dramatically in unison.

“So boring.”

“Tristan absolutely deserved crushing.”

“I’m deeply disappointed in you, Godrick.”

Haela flicked Gram’s ear at that last comment, then turned to Godrick. “I think you did the right thing, but we’re not here about Tristan.”

Talia interjected with an excited look. “That’s right! We’re here about our newest sibling!”

“Yer… newest sibling?” Godrick asked. “Yer parents are havin’ another kid?”

Roland shook his head. “No, your armor elemental. You made it using Clan Castis methods with Clan Castis aid, that basically makes it Clan Castis. It’s more than time we named it.”

Ranna sighed at that. “You’re here because you all wanted to check the elemental’s growth, this name thing is ridiculous. I’m here because I need to talk to Godrick about his training, and you’re wasting my time as well.”

Leon started to say something, and all the other siblings interrupted him in unison. “We’re not naming it Rocky, Leon.”

Leon gave them all a baffled look. “Why would I call it Rocky? Pun names are the worst.”

“Don’t lie, Leon, we know you wanted to make a pun,” Gram accused.

Ranna sighed loudly and irritably, and then a moment later, Gram and the redheaded siblings all turned pale and grabbed at their noses.

“Right, sorry Ranna,” Roland said. “Godrick, could you bring out your elemental?”

Godrick smirked, but pulled his armor elemental out of his storage tattoo and handed it over.

The next few minutes were a blur of magical instruments being poked at the little stone sphere, while it just looked around itself in confusion.

“It’s growing faster than anticipated,” Rafe said.

“By at least thirty percent,” Roland added.

“We should pick a name starting with G,” Gram said.

“You just want that because you want to be its favorite sibling,” Talia accused.

“Well, it liking me most is inevitable, but no, it’s because you all share a first letter with one of the others. Rafe and Roland, Leon and Luthe, Tristan and Talia. I don’t have another g-name sibling,” Gram insisted.

“That’s… actually a good point,” Leon said.

“Leon, you traitor,” Rafe called.

Ranna coughed, and the siblings focused on their work again.

For at least a minute, and then they were brainstorming potential names again.

All of which ended up being rock pun names starting with g, of course. Granite, gneiss, gravel, so on and so forth. None of which were proposed by Leon.

“We should name it Godrick!” Roland proposed. “In honor of Godrick.”

“Absolutely not,” Godrick said.

“Godrick of Clan Castis it is!” Leon said.

“Yeh’re not namin’ mah armor after me,” Godrick said.

“Sorry, Godrick, nothing you can do,” Talia said.

“Your armor’s name is Godrick too now,” Gram said.

Godrick gave all the siblings a long, irritated stare. “Yeh all realize that ah’m a scent mage too, now?”

They all stared back at him.

“Back to the drawing board!” Rafe called.

“Suggestion cheerfully withdrawn,” Roland said.

Godrick rolled his eyes as the fire mage siblings went back to work, calling out new name suggestions as they did so.

By the time they finished their measurements, they’d all decided, of course, to name the armor elemental Gravel of Clan Castis.

Godrick just shook his head and sighed heavily.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

No Turning Back

THEIR DEPARTURE FROM the demesne of Pitas the Younger wasn’t particularly grand. There was no marshaling of forces, no synchronized take-off of hundreds of dragons. Hugh and his friends hadn’t even had any significant interactions with the bismuth lich.

Logically, Hugh had known it would be that way. The plan had always been to split up and regroup at the rendezvous points, and from there head to further rendezvous points. The final mustering point was a secret known only to the great powers among their forces and a handful of their aides.

Still, he’d been dreading a big event, so it was a pleasant feeling to be wrong.

After saying rushed goodbyes to Grennan and the young warlocks, who were all heading back to Theras Tel, Hugh rejoined his friends at their departure point. They would be traveling with Ilinia, so Hugh was expecting a long flight ahead of them.

Even expecting a long flight, he was shocked when he saw their actual means of transit.

There, tucked away in a valley half a mile from Pitas’ demesne, was a fleet of ships.

Flying ships.

“FLYING SHIPS AREN’T possible,” Godrick complained.

“And yet, we’re getting ready to take to the air in them,” Sabae said.

“These aren’t flying ships,” Godrick said. “These are just ships bein’ carried through the air by yer grandmother.”

“What’s the difference, exactly?” Hugh asked.

“People have tried makin’ enchanted flyin’ ships countless times,” Godrick said. “They always fail. Rip themselves ta pieces whenever they cross inta a zone a’ different aether density, fer whatever reason.”

“Birds and dragons don’t use enchantments to keep themselves in the air, does that mean that they’re not really flying?” Talia teased.

Godrick sighed. “They still fly under their own power. These ships aren’t. These are more akin ta Sydapsyn’s sky barges.”

Hugh shook his head and left his friends to their argument, and worked his way to the prow of the ship. Or sky barge. Whichever it was.

He found Mackerel sitting quietly on the railing by the prow and leaned next to him.

“Not up to any mayhem today?”

The spellbook swiveled on the railing to face him for a moment, his cover held at a worried angle.

“What’s wrong? Worried about the battle?”

Mackerel clacked his cover in denial, then sent him an image of a paper-armored warrior.

“Oh,” Hugh said. “You’re worried about fighting Alustin.”

Mackerel wobbled on the railing in affirmation, then went back to staring out into the valley.

“Yeah, me too, Mackerel,” Hugh said.

The two of them rested there quietly for a few minutes as passengers and cargo were loaded onto the flying ships.

As the last of the passengers boarded, Hugh sighed. “Is it wrong of me to hope we don’t have to fight him? That someone else gets to him first, and we just have to, well… you know.”

Mackerel fluttered his pages, half in agreement and half in question.

“It’s not that I’m afraid,” Hugh said. “I mean, I am afraid, I’d be crazy not to. Alustin knows our capabilities better than any foe we’ve faced in the past, and we only know a fraction of what he’s capable of. He’s taken down far more dangerous foes than us. But… even after everything he’s done, even after he hurt Kanderon, I can’t forget everything he’s done for us. He’s a madman on a suicidal mission for revenge, but he was also the first person to ever see potential in me, to make the effort to really help me. I can’t just forget that because he wronged me and someone I loved. It doesn’t want to just… balance out and go away.”

Mackerel eyed him thoughtfully, then flew up to him, wrapped his strap over Hugh’s shoulder, and came to rest against his side.

Hugh and his spellbook stood in the prow of the ship, quietly watching as Ilinia flew out above the landbound fleet, then wrapped the ships in an immense wind shield.

When they took off, Hugh barely paid attention to the majestic view unfolding beneath him.

HUGH DID HIS best to keep his mind off his worries, but in the cramped confines of the flying ship, with so many reminders of what was fast approaching, that was hard to do.

Ironically, the best distraction on the ship had proved to be Rhodes, who was assigned to their ship. Ilinia had decided that, since they’d recruited the vigilante noble, they might as well be responsible for him.

The attempts at conversation between Hugh and Rhodes were so awkward it was painful, but it was still almost better than thinking about Alustin. Almost.

Once they tried sticking to discussions of magical theory, things got a little easier, at least. There was quite a bit of overlap between Rhodes’ ice magic and Hugh’s crystal magic, and Rhodes, like his former master Aedan, made extensive use of will imbuing in his magic. There were quite a few differences in the way warlocks and non-warlocks used will-imbuing, but Hugh definitely got a few ideas from the discussion he intended to test out after the threat of the Tongue Eater was dealt with.

If there was an after.

Eventually, the stress and worry, combined with his poor sleep since he’d returned to Anastis, got to him, and he worked his way down to the tiny, cramped cabin he was sharing with his friends. He was asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow.

WHEN HUGH CAME to consciousness, to his shock, it wasn’t accompanied by him waking up.

Instead, he found himself floating in his own dream, perfectly aware. Below and around him, immense shapes drifted and twisted slowly through a dark fog, but his attention wasn’t on them.

No, all of Hugh’s attention was fixed on Talia, hovering above the fog with him.

Hugh wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was absolutely confident that it was actually Talia in his dreams, not just a dream version of her.

“I knew it!” Talia said. “I knew there was something weird about your dreams lately!”

“What are you doing here?” Hugh asked, perplexed.

Talia smiled at him. “Well, testing my hypothesis, first and foremost. I came down to our cabin to look for you, and saw you tossing and turning in your sleep again. With how bad you’ve been sleeping since we got back, I figured there was one of two things going on. First, just simple nightmares. If that had been the case, I could just dive into your dreams and use dreamfire to clear those up, odds are you wouldn’t have even noticed. But I didn’t think it was anything so simple, and this proves me right!”

“What was the other option?” Hugh asked, still trying to come to grips with the oddness of finding his girlfriend wandering through his dreams. Talia so seldom seemed to focus on the actual dream side of dream magic, as opposed to dreamfire, that Hugh had forgotten that she could.

“This isn’t your dream,” Talia said, smiling.

Hugh looked at the murky shapes drifting around them, then gave Talia a skeptical look. “It sure feels like a dream.”

Talia shook her head. “No, I don’t mean that this isn’t a dream— I mean that this is someone else’s dream.”

“Whose dream?” Hugh asked, trying to keep up.

Talia summoned dreamfire between her hands, then carefully shaped it into a spellform.

“Cast this using your dream magic,” she said. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise, it’s just not a spell I can cast, thanks to my tattoos.”

“What does it do?” Hugh asked.

“Just trust me,” Talia said.

He gave her a mildly exasperated look, but started copying the spellform in his mind’s eye, which felt bizarre while he was sleeping. The spellform seemed to exist both inside and outside of him at the same moment.

The instant he funneled dream mana into it, though, the dream around him began to change. The murky shapes surrounding him began to sharpen, and the drifting fog began to lighten.

“Dream mages have the ability to share dreams between people,” Talia said. “It’s fairly easy, but dreams tend to be incomprehensible when they aren’t yours. You can think of this spell as a corrective lens for that— glasses for the dreams of others. Not perfect ones, but it will help.”

Around them, the fog and the shapes drifting through it began to take on color, and Hugh’s eyes widened in realization, even as Talia continued.

“As for whose dream it is,” Talia said, running her hand through some of the drifting blue fog, “well, that should be obvious. It’s Kanderon’s dream.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dream Dive

HUGH’S FIRST REACTION to Talia’s statement was to think he was dreaming.

Which, since he actually was dreaming, led to several seconds of him mentally qualifying what sort of dream he meant to himself, in a truly useless mental circle.

“What?” he finally managed to say.

Talia rolled her eyes. “It’s Kanderon’s dream, not yours. The stress of trying to interpret someone else’s dreams is what has been ruining your sleep since we returned to our world.”

“That… shouldn’t be possible,” Hugh said. “Warlock pacts are supposed to prevent that sort of thing from happening.”

“Normally, yes, and it’s not a problem with our pact,” Talia said. “Our pact wasn’t used as an avenue of attack by Alustin, however, nor did you give it a massive magical shock to shake it out of its megastatic canyon or whatever.”

“Metastable valley,” Hugh corrected automatically, but the majority of his focus lay on her words. “But… you might be right. Can you tell if there’s any leakage from Mackerel’s dreams into mine?”

“Definitely not,” Talia said. “Mackerel’s dreams are incredibly alien. Literally all of his senses are completely different than ours, and far as I can tell he primarily interprets the world around him topologically. His dreams are accordingly difficult to parse. A simple dream spell like the one I just gave you wouldn’t be enough to make his dreams make sense to you.”

“So how do we stop Kanderon’s dreams from bleeding into mine?” Hugh asked. “I don’t think we can fix our pact without her present and conscious.”

“Any dream mage other than me could handle it easily, but just talking to you in your dream like this is straining my capabilities,” Talia said. “I should be able to teach you how to block off her dreams, but…”

“But?” Hugh asked, a little worried at her tone.

“I’m not sure we should.”

Hugh glanced around at the immense crystalline gears, orbs, and levers shifting in and out of the blue fog around them, then gave Talia a skeptical look. “Why not?”

Talia hesitated before speaking. “I think you might be able to communicate with Kanderon. It’s not without risk, though.”

Hugh froze at that, overwhelmed at the thought of getting to speak to his… getting to speak to Kanderon again.

It wasn’t for several seconds that Talia’s warning about risk made its way through his mind.

“Risk?” Hugh asked cautiously. “What’s dangerous enough for you to be alarmed about?”

“The mind is… I was going to say it has an immune system like the body, but that’s not really correct, because the mind is part of the body. That’s one major reason why transitioning into lichdom is so difficult, it’s the equivalent of transplanting multiple organs at the same time, and there’s a risk of the mind rejecting parts of itself. But… the mind does have something like an immune system. It’s much less predictable than the non-mental immune system, however. You can get past it with patience, enough magical power, or if the other party trusts you enough. It’s incredibly difficult, though, which is why dream mages don’t rule the world. Kanderon is almost certain to have magical defenses against mental intrusion on top of that.”

“What happens if her mental immune system gets activated?” Hugh asked.

Talia shrugged. “It will probably just kick you out and give you a severe migraine. I’ve heard of worse consequences, but those are usually only for dream mages diving into the deepest layers of the subconscious. I’m more worried about Kanderon’s potential magical defenses, any weird interactions with her demesne, if you’re right about that, and…”

“And what?” Hugh asked after a moment.

“And about giving you false hope. We might not be able to communicate with Kanderon at all, regardless of whether we run afoul of Kanderon’s defenses or not.”

Hugh took a deep breath, then inanely wondered whether his body had taken one at the same time as his dream-self. “I understand, but… I’ve got to try. How soon can we make the attempt?”

Talia shrugged. “Right now. A few hours or days of dream magic lessons won’t make much of a difference, that would take months we don’t have.”

“SO THE MOST difficult part of speaking with someone else in their dreams is actually connecting to their dreams. It normally takes months of training to even be able to try,” Talia said. “This isn’t going to be a problem for you, because, well… you’re already in hers.”

Talia gestured around them, and Hugh shrugged in agreement.

“Since you’re already connected to her dreams, that also gets you past some of Kanderon’s mind’s natural defenses. Not all of them, though, so you need to be careful. Above all else, remember this— if Kanderon’s defenses target you, don’t fight back. The overwhelming majority of mental defenses, natural or magical, revolve around forcing intruders out. Truly dangerous mental threats are really hard to pull off save at deeper levels of the subconscious, you’ll only be brushing the surface.”

Talia spent the next few minutes teaching Hugh the spellform he’d need to make contact, and instructing him on what to do once he had.

At least, he thought it took minutes— it was really difficult to keep track of time inside of dreams.

The actual spellform for contacting Kanderon was surprisingly simple, but according to Talia, most of the work involved wasn’t spellcasting— it was staying focused and not getting lost in the dream.

When he remarked that it seemed a bit similar to navigating a mistform labyrinth, Talia nodded.

“Sort of. The effect is less focused than in a mistform labyrinth, but more powerful. It’s going to jerk you in a lot of different directions, and you’re not going to have many points of reference to stay focused once I leave the dream, so be ready for that. It’s also less dangerous, thankfully— if you get sucked back into the dream, your dreaming will just switch from lucid dreaming to normal dreaming again. I highly recommend not trying to figure out the logic behind what you’re going to see deeper in Kanderon’s dream— that’s a great way to get stuck until you wake up.”

“Once you leave?” asked Hugh. “Aren’t you contacting Kanderon with me?”

Talia shook her head. “We’re in… something like that mechastagnant sinkhole your pact with Kanderon was trapped in. We’re past Kanderon’s outer defenses, but connecting with her will alert her inner defenses.”

“Metastable valley, not…” Hugh paused, then gave Talia a dirty look. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

Talia grinned back at him, then grew serious once more. “I highly doubt Kanderon trusts me enough for her subconscious to allow me any deeper into her mind. You’re going to have to be on your own for this one.”

He started to protest, but Talia shook her head. “You can do this, Hugh. You’ve navigated your share of weird magical visions and such before— this won’t be nearly as bad as whatever that was when we all pacted together.”

“What if it hurts Kanderon, though? What if she’s in the middle of transferring her consciousness into a demesne, and…”

Talia shook her head. “I can’t promise you’ll be able to contact her, but I can promise you won’t hurt her. Dream combat is far beyond your capabilities as a dream mage, and the mind is far more resilient than you might expect.”

Hugh took a deep, shaky breath. “Alright.”

Talia smiled at him. “You’ve got this, Hugh. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you since we met, it’s that once you get out of your own way, you won’t let anything else stop you. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Hugh started to respond, but Talia leaned in and kissed him before he could. It didn’t feel anything like a kiss in real life— rather, it was a mad jumble of sensations stirred together synaesthetically.

The colorful sounds, floral-scented lights, and rasping tastes took his breath away as much as any waking kiss, though.

“You can do this, Hugh,” Talia said. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”

With that, Talia dissolved into drifting colors.

Hugh stared after her until the last of the colors dispersed, then turned to face the region of blue dream-fog most filled with drifting crystalline shapes.

“I hope you’re right, Talia,” Hugh said.

Then he cast the dream communication spellform she’d taught him.

THE INSTANT THE spell activated, Kanderon’s defenses took notice of Hugh.

Sensory organs coalesced out of the mist, jumbled together and shifting wildly in composition and form. A sphinx tongue, both large as a dragon and small as a mouse at the same time, began to sprout eyes like tumors, each of which turned to blue crystal as they grew. Cat ears erupted out of the blue mist, growing out of one another in ever-expanding fractal spirals. Webs of crystalline strands stretched across the hazy edges of the dream, and somehow Hugh knew that they were stretched out nerves.

Each and every one of the hallucinatory shapes was focused on Hugh as he kept channeling mana through his spell, and he could feel them poised on the edge of turning into gnashing teeth and claws.

None of them took that leap, thankfully, and Hugh did his best not to stare at them. Instead, he kept his focus straight ahead, where vast crystalline shapes were slowly merging together in the mist, forming a vast tunnel of rotating crystal.

Hugh found himself trying to trace the angles of the tunnel, and growing more and more stressed as he couldn’t make sense of how the crystalline pieces fit together. With an effort of will, he forced his attention away from the walls, and began gliding through the tunnel.

He wasn’t sure how long he was in the tunnel— his mind was convinced it had been hours or days, but he didn’t have any memories of that time, so Hugh was fairly sure he’d only dreamed that time had passed. Regardless of how long it took, leaving the tunnel was incredibly abrupt— he never actually saw the exit coming or passed through it, simply found himself elsewhere, no trace of the tunnel in sight.

That elsewhere was immediately recognizable.

He was in Skyhold’s Grand Library.

It was still huge in the dream, but smaller than it should be. When Hugh walked over to one of the shelves, he found that the books were minuscule in size, and it was a struggle to pick them up between his fingertips.

This was obviously Kanderon’s perception of the Library, and Hugh found himself much more impressed with Kanderon’s ability to read books that were so small compared to her.

He could read the individual letters inside the books just fine, but the words were all just dream gibberish.

Hugh gently set the book back on the shelf, only to have it dissolve into the other books at a weird angle. His attempts to separate them only turned the books on that shelf into a weird, twisted mass, vaguely reminiscent of a coral reef made entirely of paper and ink.

He carefully stepped away from the mess, feeling vaguely guilty despite this library not even being real, and headed for the great abyss in the center of the library.

There was a floating platform waiting for him where one hadn’t been before, and Hugh stepped out onto it confidently.

Like in the tunnel, Hugh wasn’t sure how long he spent descending. He was convinced he’d traveled hundreds of leagues downward, but like in the tunnel, had no actual memory of doing so.

One moment he was descending, and the next moment, he was floating above the Index.

The hovering blue cloud of crystal dust and crystal machinery was sharper and clearer than any other part of the Library, and Hugh knew immediately that this wasn’t Kanderon’s dream of the Index— this was the Index itself, somehow in her dream.

He could feel it notice him, and then a wave of gratitude and happiness rolled over him. Hugh couldn’t help but sag in relief a bit, as the guilt he’d felt over being unable to help the Index while he was still at Skyhold evaporated. It had been in immense pain trying to operate without its link to Kanderon, but it seemed Hugh’s effort to repair his pact with Kanderon had helped the magical construct as well.

Hugh didn’t know how the Index was in Kanderon’s dream, but its presence didn’t really surprise him.

The Index didn’t keep him— after the moment of gratitude, a hole opened up in the cloud, and his platform descended once more.

Unlike traversing the tunnel or the Library’s abyss, Hugh remembered every moment of this short descent, and each second of it was filled with anxiety over seeing Kanderon again. What if she’d lost her memory? What if she couldn’t awaken enough to perceive Hugh in the dream? What if…?

All of his fears were washed away when he descended out of the Index and saw Kanderon.

KANDERON WASN’T AS Hugh remembered her.

There were, of course, the obvious dream differences— no one other than dream mages could project their exact appearance into a dream, according to Talia. Some parts of Kanderon’s body were much larger, based on how much sensation she felt in each of them. Kanderon’s paws and face were disproportionately large in proportion to the rest of her body, for instance.

Even as Hugh noticed those differences, the dream seemed to paper over them, making Kanderon look normal again, but Hugh had hardly paid attention to them.

No, he’d been paying attention to Kanderon’s wings, and not her crystal wings.

Kanderon’s original wings.

The only way to describe them was glorious. They were such a rich golden color that Hugh almost expected the feathers to glimmer like metal, save for along the edges of her wings, which faded from gold to pure white, almost like the wings were outlined.

Hugh almost didn’t notice when his descending platform came to a halt atop Kanderon’s dais, he was staring so intently at her wings.

When he finally stepped onto the floating crystal dais, Kanderon didn’t seem to notice him. She was staring intently at some bizarre crystal apparatus that seemed to shift in and out of the dream in ways painful to look at.

Hugh didn’t even realize he’d spoken until the words were out of his mouth. “Kanderon, it’s me. It’s Hugh.”

For a long moment, the sphinx didn’t react, and Hugh found himself terrified that Kanderon hadn’t heard him, that she couldn’t hear him, that all this was in vain.

Then, almost without seeing her move, Hugh found himself trapped between Kanderon’s paw and chest, his whole body being shaken by the sphinx’s purring.

“Little one.”

Then the sphinx’s purring halted abruptly, and she drew back.

“Wait. You are not simply part of my dream, are you? You’re actually here?”

“Yes, it’s really me,” Hugh said. “I’m really here.”

“How is this possible?” Kanderon demanded. “What have you done?”

“I performed a four-way warlock pact with my friends, so I’m a dream mage now. That’s also how we freed you— we used it to provide an energy surge to free our bond from the metastable valley configuration it had become trapped in. I…”

Kanderon shook her head. “As curious as I am, there is no time, little one. It is immensely dangerous for you to be here. The cognitive interior of an under-construction lich demesne is potentially fatal for anyone but the lich. I love you, little one, but you need to leave, immediately.”

Hugh shook his head. “I just found you again, I don’t…”

“Hugh, I don’t want you to leave, but what you are doing is deeply dangerous. You are no trained dream mage.”

He sighed. “Fine, but I just need to know how long you’ll be trapped here. We’re less than a week away from Alustin’s strike against Havath City, and…”

The air around him shuddered, a sound like a drum made of razors pulsing through his bones. The dream machineries floating in the distance redoubled their movements, in a urgent frenzy.

“Another year, at least. There is no time, Hugh. Flee here. Stop Alustin, hide away the Tongue Eater until I awaken. The continent cannot afford the Tongue Eater’s use, nor likely survive it.”

Hugh felt Kanderon pushing him away, and fought her. He wouldn’t leave her again, he…

Then he saw some sort of monstrous shockwave, a ripple in the dream itself rolling in towards them, and Hugh knew that if it hit him, not all of him would leave the dream.

“I love you too,” he said.

Hugh fled, and woke with tears drying on his cheeks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sky Pirates

IT WAS EVENING by the time Hugh woke from Kanderon’s dream, far longer than it felt like he’d been asleep, and he immediately found a place by the ship’s railing to think. He knew he was moping, but he honestly felt like he deserved to mope a bit. He’d get back to training and preparing for the upcoming battle soon enough, but for now… he deserved a little time to miss Kanderon.

Talia joined Hugh at the railing after a half-hour or so, and promptly started apologizing once he’d explained what had happened, which Hugh rejected entirely. There’d been absolutely no way Talia could have known about the specifics of the risks, and she had warned him. After that, Talia didn’t try to drag him into conversation, just snuggled up against Hugh and joined him in watching the mountains pass below and beside them.

They were most of a league in height, putting them above all but the tallest mountains. In other, more rugged parts of the Skyreach Range, some mountains came close to two leagues in height, which was far beyond the capability of even Ilinia and Indris to reach, at least not while carrying others— the air was simply too cold and thin even for a great power to handle.

They could see for countless leagues in every direction. The wind shields protecting and carrying the barges were almost invisible to the naked eye— there was remarkably little dust and debris up this high, and the sky was unusually cloud-free for spring in the mountains. What clouds there were hovered either far above them or among the mountain peaks below.

Hugh could sense the winds wrapping around the ships in great spheres with his affinity sense well enough, though.

They were even higher in the sky than when they’d flown atop Kanderon’s back, after Imperial Ithos— Ilinia and her various battle mages were far more powerful than the Librarian Errant air mages, and were accordingly more capable of maintaining breathable air at high altitudes.

Hugh didn’t know how long the two of them stood there watching the Skyreach range roll beneath them before he decided he’d moped enough. Mackerel joined the two of them a while before he made that decision, but remained quiet and well behaved.

“Still no pirate attacks yet,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as sky pirates, though.”

“Just you wait,” Talia said. “I bet we’ll get attacked by a territorial flight of dragons or something like that.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow at her. “A flight of dragons would be mad to attack us.”

Talia sighed mournfully. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. And even if they were mad, I doubt Ilinia would leave enough of them for us to get a piece of the action.”

Hugh chuckled at that, then silently asked Mackerel to block off scrying before turning to Talia again.

Hugh smiled at her. “Thank you for helping me get in touch with Kanderon through her dream, earlier.”

Talia smiled back, though it looked a bit pensive. “I’m guessing it’s not all good news?”

“It’s not bad news, but… it’s not great news,” Hugh said. “Our plan definitely worked, and Kanderon is transitioning to lichdom just like I thought, but… it’s going to be a year before she’s done.”

Talia exhaled heavily. “That’s good, but… I’m not going to lie, I was really hoping she’d be there to counter Heliothrax.”

“Me too,” Hugh said. “Indris and Ilinia seem confident enough that their preparations against Heliothrax will be enough, but…”

“Both of the storm queens are counted among the highest tier of great powers for a reason,” Talia said. “I’d wager we’ll see some brand new tricks from the two of them.”

“What’s to stop Heliothrax from doing likewise?” Hugh asked.

Neither Talia nor Mackerel offered an answer to that.

The awkward silence didn’t last for long, however, before Sabae came running up to them.

“Ilinia wants to see us now,” she said. “She’s calling a battle council.”

“Is it sky pirates?” Talia asked. “Are we going to get attacked?”

Sabae gave her a look that was half baffled, half exasperated. “No, she found a Havathi fortress in a valley ahead. It seems like they were preparing an ambush for anyone leaving the council at Pitas’ demesne and heading for Havath, but didn’t expect us this soon. They still haven’t detected us yet, and Ilinia wants us to strike first.”

Talia’s face lit up in excitement, and she grabbed Hugh by the arms. “Do you know what this means, Hugh? It means that this time we’re the pirates. We’re sky pirates now!”

Hugh and Sabae sighed heavily in unison, and Mackerel did his best to match them by rubbing his pages together.

“THE BIGGEST QUESTION,” Ilinia said, “is how many mages Mackerel can conceal from their seers? If they catch us coming, they’ll be able to raise their defenses, or even disperse their forces, and we do not have time to hunt down roving Havathis.”

“How do they even have troops to spare, at this point?” Eddin Slane demanded. “Shouldn’t they have already been pulled back to Havath City by now?”

Shimmering Cardovan’s voice rang out, backed by music, from where they were looking over the cloud map of the region Ilinia had crafted. “They’ve likely been there for months— this is probably one of the relay stations they used to supply their assault on Skyhold. Rather than close them down when the invasion failed, they started reinforcing them— both to prepare for future attempts at conquering territory in the Skyhold Range, and to help hunt down Alustin. The Dominion does not give up territory if they can help it. Their current consolidation of forces is nigh-unprecedented. Also, Ilinia, could you focus the map in more tightly on the fortress?”

Cardovan hadn’t looked up from the map once during their explanation.

“It doesn’t matter why they’re present, just that they are,” Ilinia snapped. “Hugh, how many people can your spellbook conceal from scrying?”

Hugh scowled at that. While it wasn’t particularly unusual for mages to have anti-scrying capabilities or enchanted items, he preferred to keep Mackerel’s capabilities as well-concealed as possible. Ilinia was risking exposing Mackerel’s capabilities to gain short-term tactical gain, which Hugh definitely didn’t appreciate.

Though, considering the fact that enemies were already starting to develop tactics designed to specifically counter Mackerel’s anti-scrying abilities, like those used in the Highvale ambush, Hugh supposed it wasn’t that much of a secret anymore. The full extent of Mackerel’s abilities weren’t common knowledge, at least— he doubted anyone but Alustin, Kanderon, Ilinia, and his friends knew or suspected those.

Plus, short term tactical advantage was all that mattered now. If they failed to stop Alustin, long term concerns didn’t matter at all.

Hugh wiped away his scowl, and consulted with Mackerel by writing in his pages. He did not, at least, want the gathered archmages to know how well Mackerel could understand the Ithonian language.

After a couple minutes of consulting with his spellbook through writing and mental images, Hugh looked back up at the arguing mages. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five individuals?”

It was actually at least twice that, they suspected, if Mackerel truly stretched himself, but that was the limit of what Hugh was willing to risk revealing. If they couldn’t destroy an unsuspecting fortress with twenty archmages, they didn’t have a chance of stopping Alustin.

Hugh really wished he understood how Alustin was extending the anti-scrying abilities of his own labyrinth stone, but he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to even begin replicating that feat. It would solve so many of their problems to be able to hide an entire army like Alustin did.

Even given Hugh’s artificially low estimate, the gathered archmages looked impressed. Shimmering Cardovan even looked up from the cloud map and whistled, both normally and with their sound magic.

“You ever think about selling that book, let me know,” one archmage said. Hugh couldn’t remember the man’s name, but did recall that he wielded vine and illusion magic to convert locations into nigh-impenetrable mazes.

“Not likely,” Sabae said, rolling her eyes.

For a moment, Hugh tensed at the risk of provoking an archmage, but the man only sighed heavily and shrugged. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

Several other archmages in the room chuckled at that, and Hugh realized that his response wasn’t that of an archmage to an apprentice.

No, Hugh and his friends were being treated as though they were the peers of everyone in this room, save perhaps Ilinia.

It was a heady feeling, but Hugh didn’t get long to enjoy it.

Eddin Slane had relaxed significantly at hearing that, but not entirely. “That helps, but I wish we still had a different set of archmages for this mission. Clan Castis would be perfect for this strike.”

Talia made a rude noise at that.

“Clan Castis fire mages, that is,” Eddin Slane corrected himself.

“I don’t know why Ilinia doesn’t just smash the fortress herself,” the maze archmage complained.

“Carrying this fleet is the limit of what I can do without surpassing the amount of mana my reservoirs can absorb from our surroundings,” Ilinia said. “I want to stay fully prepared for serious engagements if need be. You’re all archmages, you’re more than capable of handling this.”

Ilinia’s claim about her mana regeneration levels got even more impressed looks than Mackerel’s capabilities. Carrying an entire fleet of sailing ships through the sky was massively impressive, but Hugh had assumed that Ilinia would need quite a bit of time to recover her mana once they arrived at the rendezvous point.

This time, Hugh joined the others in whistling.

Beside him, he heard someone trying and failing to whistle, and he shot Sabae an amused look.

She just scowled and stuck her tongue out at him.

There were cantrips that would whistle for Sabae, or she could use her wind magic to pull it off, but she was ridiculously determined to figure it out on her own.

Hugh spotted the Frost Ghost staring at Sabae, and somehow he knew Rhodes was smirking behind the largely opaque mask of ice.

“Terrifying revelations aside,” Cardovan said, “we don’t need Clan Castis. Look at the upper slope of the mountain the fortress is nestled into the side of.”

Hugh focused in on the three-dimensional cloud map, sharpening his vision far past human normal. The amount of detail Ilinia had included on the map was seriously impressive.

Despite his sphinx eyes, Godrick came to the same conclusion as Hugh, and spoke before he could. “Yeh’ve got old landslide scars uphill a’ them!”

“Very old, very faint, but they’re right there,” Cardovan agreed. “Havathi military construction mages are excellent, they would have consolidated the slope to prevent future landslides, but if some of you can weaken the slope for me, I can use my sound magic to trigger a particularly nasty rockslide. We won’t even have to engage in direct combat.”

Hugh and Godrick exchanged glances and nodded. “Godrick and I can handle the bulk of that,” Hugh said.

Shimmering Cardovan and the others just nodded, taking Hugh entirely seriously, which sent a happy feeling down his spine. He could definitely get used to being taken so seriously.

“I’m happy to help too,” another archmage said. Tewa Brand, Hugh believed her name was? She was a water and heat mage, and Hugh nodded immediately. He could think of quite a few ways for an archmage with those abilities to help trigger a landslide— the expansion and contraction of water in rocks was a big part of how rockfalls occurred naturally.

“Likewise,” the Frost Ghost offered.

“Now it’s just a matter of details,” Ilinia said. “I’m going to alert Indris and the other groups to watch out for more fortresses like this, and in the meantime, I want the assault team ready to go in twenty minutes or less.”

IN THE END, Mackerel only needed to conceal a dozen mages.

Hugh, Godrick, Rhodes, and Tena Brand— not Tewa like Hugh had thought— would be in charge of weakening the mountain slope. Hugh and Godrick would be using their rock and crystal magic to slowly destabilize the rock slope— though the others thought that each of them would only be using one of the two, rather than both of them using both. Tena and Rhodes, meanwhile, would be repeatedly yanking the heat out of the water contained within the pores of the rocks to freeze it, then pumping the heat back in to melt it. The repeated expansion of the water as it froze and refroze would spread fractures throughout the entire mountain face.

Once they gave the signal, Shimmering Cardovan would shatter the whole rock face with their sound magic, and the Havathi fortress would be gone in seconds.

The rest of the force, meanwhile, served other roles. Talia, Sabae, and two other archmages were there to fight in case they were discovered, while Eddin Slane was there to shield them all from both notice and from enemy spells. The remaining mages were all fliers to transport them to the target and back to the fleet. Of course, there was some overlap— all of the mages were skilled combatants, Hugh was nearly as capable of shielding the group as Slane, and the Frost Ghost was as useful as a flier as he was a combatant or for destabilizing the mountainside.

In the end, the plan went perfectly. Hugh kept the whole force concealed with the Stormward’s Crown and Mackerel while they landed. Eddin Slane took over for the Stormward’s Crown within seconds, assembling a grid of floating modular wards using his swarms of hexagonal ceramic tiles engraved with pre-inscribed ward segments.

Hugh had to struggle not to obsess over Slane’s wards— he needed to focus on destabilizing the slope.

Hugh could feel where the slope had been magically reinforced— it felt like they’d had stone mages seal off a lot of the major cracks and crevices, as well as some alchemical treatments to reinforce the partially metamorphosed limestone of the mountain.

None of it was enough to stop them, nor even to slow them down.

It only took about twenty minutes of work for Hugh and Godrick to unlink the crystal patterns of the rocks below on the smallest scale they could manage, while using stone magic to weaken and fracture the slope on a larger scale of measurement. There was, thankfully, no way for the others to tell that both of them were using both rock and crystal magic. Rhodes’ and Tena Brand’s magics further destabilized the slope, and by the time the twenty minutes were up, it was on the verge of collapse even without Cardovan’s aid.

When they gave the signal, the fliers relocated the entire team to a shoulder of the mountain, close enough for Shimmering Cardovan to work, but far enough away for there to be no risk of being affected by the landslide.

Shimmering Cardovan took up a dramatic opera singer’s pose, one foot propped on a small boulder, opened their mouth, and began to sing.

Hugh couldn’t hear the slightest noise come out of the muscular archmage’s mouth, but he could feel it. His very bones seemed to rumble in protest at the note coming from Cardovan’s mouth, too low for human ears.

Cardovan spread their arms, and the sensations grew even more intense, almost to the point of pain.

Then, unceremoniously, the entire mountain face they’d worked on simply collapsed. The scale was far greater than Hugh had expected— the section they’d destabilized went first, but that collapse triggered a series of faults and weaknesses in the rock, and the landslide just kept going and going, pouring countless thousands of tons of stone and debris on the fortress below.

Not that it mattered— the Dominion base was annihilated completely in the first few heartbeats. There wasn’t even any alarm or warning from it, let alone any survivors.

Hugh couldn’t help but whistle. Sabae didn’t even try to whistle herself, just looked especially thoughtful as she stared at the immense pile of rubble and the dust clouds drifting up from it.

“That was magic worthy of any great power,” Eddin Slane said approvingly. “You should all be proud.”

“Oh, I am,” Shimmering Cardovan said. “I just wish it hadn’t been a stealth mission. I prefer a bit more flair and drama when I work. I hate being this subdued.”

Everyone else there just stared at the archmage, who was clad in multicolored gemstone armor, had a white silk cape flapping in the breeze behind them, a gemstone-beaded red beard that went halfway down their chest, wielded a heavily enchanted magical trident that appeared to be crafted entirely of some kind of platinum alloy, and was posing in front of the largest landslide any of them had ever seen.

Hugh had no idea who started laughing first, but it was several minutes before they stopped. Even Cardovan joined in, after a few seconds of looking insulted.

The laughter was partially genuine at Cardovan’s absurdity, but there was an element of relief to it, along with a dash of amazement at what they’d pulled off so easily.

Hugh couldn’t help but notice, however, that once the laughter ended, Sabae looked oddly contemplative, rather than triumphant.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

An Inescapable Dream

KANDERON WOKE FROM a dream into a dream.

The first had been a deep dream, a normal dream, a sleep dream filled with uneasy imagery and near nightmares. The second was a fully lucid dream, a stable enchanted substrate for her to work on her demesne, for her to complete her transition into lichdom.

And yet, as she set about her work for the day, she found her mind more in the first dream, the sleep dream. Found herself dwelling on the almost nightmares, lingering on flashes of her… of Hugh dying in battle, of falling to the Dominion or even Alustin.

She knew she shouldn’t dwell like this, knew there was nothing she could truly do. Hugh and his friends weren’t alone, weren’t fighting some impossible battle by themselves, but were flying into battle alongside Indris and Ilinia, and whatever other allies they’d surely mustered.

She had to trust them, because she didn’t have a choice. Had to trust them, because there was simply no way for her to help.

If she were lucky, if she drove herself as hard as she could, she would complete her takeover of her demesne in a year. If.

It was her own fault, really. The construction of a demesne was usually the longest part of a process, but Kanderon had built a sufficient demesne decades ago, tucked away in her extra-planar spaces. It would, on its own, have been one of the most impressive demesnes ever built. Certainly not as large as Jycenna Deephome’s, or as beautiful or containing as many affinities as the Lord of Bells, but a brilliant construction, regardless. More lifelike, robust, and mobile than any demesne before it. And then, rather than being content with that achievement, rather than transition into lichdom, she had chosen to just keep adding to her demesne.

Building in new weapons and defenses. Building in new sensory apparatuses that would let her rival Iris Mooneye’s blindlight senses. Building in calculating engines and internal enchanting facilities. Building in resonance cascade dampers and wardbreakers.

And even stranger, more esoteric tools, tools of no use on Anastis alone.

Including her most powerful design of all.

A worldgate ripper.

Oh, there were countless magics across the multiverse that could tear a worldgate, rip open a mana well to construct a direct portal between universes without the need for labyrinths, and even more combinations of magic that could do so even if their component magics couldn’t. Kanderon herself could do it without the worldgate ripper, but it, and all those other methods took time and immense resources. Years, if not decades, and enough material to beggar a kingdom.

Even the dozens of Hordes roaming the Known Multiverse were bound by that limitation, and they used worldgates more frequently and extensively than any other multiversal faction.

The ripper could have opened a worldgate in minutes, even seconds, depending on the depth and permeability of a mana well.

With it, Kanderon would become one of only a handful of entities in the Known Multiverse with the capability to open a worldgate on a whim. She would have joined the likes of the Secondborn, the Kyrene Pathfinders, and the most ancient and powerful Singers.

And, almost surely, Galvachren as well, but that sentimental old creature enjoyed wandering the labyrinths too much to rely on worldgates.

There were a few stranger ways to travel between universes, including creating pocket universes, as the Exile Splinter had done, but almost none were reliable or safe, all were still dependent on mana wells, and only fools counted on most of them.

For all its power, the worldgate ripper did nothing for her today. Someday, it would allow her freedom across the multiverse, but now, it kept her from Hugh, kept her from her allies and battle, kept her from stopping the breaking of the Tongue Eater.

Kanderon snarled, and stepped away from her work for the moment, to stalk across her lucid dream-realm.

It wasn’t as satisfying as it would have been in real life. Even the most lucid of dream-realms enchanted for lich transitions lacked the tangibility of the real world.

It was, of course, possible to transition without a dream realm, while fully awake, but it was far more difficult— and with the sheer ambition of Kanderon’s demesne, she needed every advantage she could get.

Still, prowling about among the machineries of her demesne as though hunting for prey took her mind off the problem enough to get back to work.

But not entirely, though. Her worries still lingered in the back of her mind. There was nothing she could do, though.

She had to trust Hugh. Had to trust her allies to protect him, had to trust her allies to keep him safe.

Had to trust that, if Alustin had the chance to strike down his former students, he would find himself hesitating— and that Hugh wouldn’t.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Secret Roads

THEY WERE DEEP in the heart of the Havathi grasslands when Alustin called a halt to his army’s advance, marking out a landing zone for their dragons and fliers to land.

From where Alustin stood atop a gentle rise, all he could see in every direction was thigh-high prairie grasses, a few birds, scattered, shrubby trees, and a nervous herd of aurochs in the distance.

As his army landed around him, Alustin waited with a faint smile for his irritated great power allies to join him.

“This is our path to sneak into the heart of Havathi territory,” Alustin said. “It’s also where we’ll be meeting the last additions to our little army.”

“What sort of nonsense is this?” Casser Spellstorm demanded. “There’s nothing for dozens of leagues from here. How is this supposed to help us reach Havath City?”

“I’ll explain when the others arrive,” Alustin said. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

One by one, the other great powers joined them on the little hill, all irritated and confused, save for Karna Scythe.

Alustin spared a moment to glance over at the other Librarians Errant, and had to suppress a smile. They all bore looks of dawning realization and amazement, unlike the rest of the gathered army.

“… the middle of absolute nowhere!” Sagravaax Scalestorm said, continuing his own rant.

“You’re all correct,” Alustin said. “This is the middle of nowhere. Forty leagues north of the nearest Havathi city, sixty leagues from the nearest mountains, even more to the rainforests of the south. The closest thing to us is the demesne of Minandas Wind-Blown, a grass lich who surrendered to Havath decades ago, twenty-eight leagues northwest.”

“So why did you bring us here?” Mattin Kos demanded. He scowled up at the sun, then teleported a parasol into his hand from somewhere.

“Have any of you ever seen a map of Minandas Wind-Blown’s demesne?” Alustin asked.

The gathered great powers shook their heads or exchanged puzzled looks. Alustin smiled, then withdrew a huge map of the area from his storage tattoo, by way of his satchel, then levitated and unfurled it between the great powers.

“Why don’t you take a quick look?” Alustin suggested.

While the still-irritable great powers clustered together around the map, Karna Scythe giving the others an amused look, Alustin sent an origami messenger golem in the shape of a crane over to the Librarians Errant clustering nearby.

“Could you start clearing the entrance, please?” Alustin asked them, through the voice relay glyph on the paper golem.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Emmenson Drees asked. “We’ve only transported individuals and small teams through here before.”

“We only transported individuals and small teams through here because we didn’t want to risk alerting Havath to her existence,” Alustin said. “If she doesn’t want to let us through, she won’t let us in, but I’m fairly confident she won’t care.”

Emmenson nodded thoughtfully, then gestured at the other Librarians Errant. The group marched over to a nearby hollow, then began ushering mages and dragons out of it.

Alustin turned back to the great powers just in time for Casser Spellstorm to look up from the map. “Why does Minandas Wind-Blown’s demesne cut off so abruptly at its southern border? Is there an issue with the groundwater there that would prevent their grasslands from extending farther south?”

Alustin shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with the groundwater. No, Minandas’ demesne ends there because another lich’s demesne starts just past it. We are, in fact, standing in their demesne right now.”

The great powers all looked a little nervous at that— even for a great power, entering a lich’s demesne was a huge risk without ample knowledge and preparation.

“Not to worry, she’s friendly,” Alustin said. “Or, at least, she’s nonviolent so long as you don’t start anything. I highly recommend not starting a fight with her, by the way— she could smash any of you like a bug."

Ignoring the rush of questions that statement provoked, Alustin strode over to the side of the hill overlooking the now-empty hollow in the ground, and spread his arms dramatically.

“Jycenna Deephome, we humbly request passage!”

For a few long seconds, nothing happened, and Alustin worried that Jycenna really would refuse them passage, his convictions otherwise aside.

Then, without any other warnings or signs, the ground in the hollow began to split apart, the soil peeling away in great strips. Below it was revealed not stone or more dirt, but a thick, opaque web of white filaments.

Then that too began to unweave itself, revealing a tunnel big enough for any dragon into the depths of Anastis. Its walls were completely covered in the white fibrous substance, and it descended at a shallow angle far past what Alustin could see.

Standing waiting for him in the mouth of the tunnel were two of his Librarians Errant who had been sent ahead, flanking the last of his great powers, Threadqueen Iblint.

He didn’t speak or turn back to his other great powers, just set off walking into the tunnel towards Iblint. Karna Scythe followed him without hesitation, and the others clustered behind hesitantly.

“What is this place?” Zersin Grey asked, as they all entered the tunnel.

Alustin turned back, smiled, and gestured down the long white tunnel, lit by odd clusters of glowing yellow spheres.

“Welcome to the demesne of the fungus lich Jycenna Deephome, the oldest and largest lich on the continent of Ithos. Possibly even on the whole planet. She extends from here, down far to the rainforests to the south, and east to within a few leagues of Havath City itself. Her mycelial networks extend leagues deep into the ground, and she’s enveloped at least a dozen labyrinths over the centuries. The Librarians Errant have never confirmed it, but we believe that her demesne extends all the way through some of those labyrinths to other worlds entirely.”

“This is impossible,” Mattin Kos said. “We’re in the lands of Ruhn, my family’s rightful kingdom. If something like this had existed beneath our feet, we would have known about it.”

Alustin shrugged. “So far as I know, Kanderon Crux was the first to discover Jycenna in millennia, during the war against the Ithonian Empire. Even she has no idea how long Jycenna’s been down here, who Jycenna was, or even what species Jycenna was in life. Even Jycenna’s current name was given to her by Kanderon. She used Jycenna’s tunnels to travel about in secret during her war against Ithos, regularly launching strikes seemingly from nowhere and then vanishing again. Once Ithos fell to the Exile Splinter, Kanderon left Jycenna to sleep in peace, until the struggle against the Havath Dominion began. Small numbers of Librarians Errant have been using her tunnels for espionage and sabotage missions for a few decades now.”

“It took considerable effort for Alustin to convince me this place really existed when he told me,” Karna Scythe said.

Sagravaax Scalestorm looked around awkwardly. “Jycenna Deephome, I thank you for allowing us passage. I will treat your tunnels with as much respect as my own lair.”

Alustin raised an eyebrow, but waited a while before speaking. “Very polite of you, but we’re not sure Jycenna even understands Ithonian, beyond a few phrases. I’ve never heard her speak in any language, and she barely responds to our presence. We don’t think she predates human presence on Anastis, but she absolutely predates the Ithonian language and civilization, probably by millennia. She has lived long enough that she’s drifted almost entirely away from whoever or whatever she used to be— I doubt even many beings from other worlds are more alien than she is. I’m still unsure how Kanderon negotiated passage, or how she knows as much as she does about Jycenna.”

He hesitated, then corrected himself. “As much as she knew.”

“I have to reiterate the impossibility of a lich so huge staying concealed for so long,” Mattin Kos said.

Alustin gestured around them. “Seers all have fundamental limitations— most of all, they need to have a specific destination in mind to scry, and there’s no reason one would look for an underground lich here. More, the vast majority of Jycenna’s mass lies leagues under the ground— she only approaches the surface in a rare few spots. Even past that, however, Jycenna has uniquely powerful defenses against discovery. If a fungal mage were to walk over our heads right now, he would detect nothing. A soil mage wouldn’t perceive any gap here, and would just feel unbroken dirt. No seer can detect Jycenna, liches and prospective liches don’t feel pain when approaching her demesne, but simply find some pressing reason not to extend their demesne towards her or build a new one atop it. Even one of the mind-blind with a shovel would find some reason not to dig anywhere Jycenna approaches the surface. I haven’t the slightest clue how any of it is accomplished. The fact that Kanderon still discovered Jycenna, and found some way to communicate with her, is almost unbelievable. If someone else could replicate her feat, it would make them immensely powerful and wealthy. Sadly, she never shared those secrets with us— only a few locations and methods for entering Jycenna’s demesne.”

Alustin paused, then turned back to the assembled powers. “And don’t go trying to torture that information out of the Librarians Errant, because Kanderon has to be the one to introduce you to Jycenna in order for her to open her tunnels at your request. Which is obviously an impossibility now.”

The great powers all nodded, but Alustin would be surprised if at least one of them didn’t try to do just that anyways— probably Casser or Mattin. Casser for the usual reasons of geopolitical advantage for Tsarnassus, Mattin because he was a greedy bastard.

Alustin carefully kept the disgust at the thought off his face, and turned away from them.

“Let’s get marching,” Alustin called.

He descended down the tunnel, each footstep sinking deep into the soft mycelial surface, and his army descended behind him.

“Threadqueen Iblint, it’s a pleasure,” Alustin called out, in one of his rare moments of honesty these days.

The tall, statuesque Themeseran woman in perfectly tailored clothes nodded gravely at him, and joined him at the head of the army with his other great powers.

Introductions were swift— only Mattin Kos and Casser Spellstorm were familiar with the Threadqueen, due to the low profile she kept, but the other great powers were far more interested in the lich Jycenna than in another minor great power.

It was their mistake. Iblint was more powerful than any of them save Casser Spellstorm and Karna Scythe. Like Zophor, Iblint had known from childhood that she’d been born in the wrong body, but rather than seeking lichdom like the mangrove mage, she had delved deep into magical body modification using her fiber, bone, and healing affinities to give herself her rightful body. It had been a single-minded obsession by a truly brilliant mage, and she had succeeded in less than a decade. And, in doing so, had developed terrifying mastery over all three affinities, which had only grown over the years.

Iblint was only a few years older than Alustin, but he’d bet on her against far older and better known great powers.

Regular fiber mages were terrifying enough— Iblint took that to a whole new level. Some of the things she used fiber magic for in combination with healing magic were frankly gruesome, and she was one of the hardest-to-kill humans Alustin had ever encountered.

Her bone magic was probably the least impressive of her magics, but only by comparison— anything short of a direct hit by a siege spell would struggle to even fracture her bones, let alone break them.

Above all else, however, Iblint despised Havath. She had lost both her elder brothers, three aunts and uncles, and her father during Havath’s last war of expansion. She wasn’t much fonder of her own city of Themesere— they had abandoned many of their own troops to die, including some of her family members, during the worst parts of the war.

If Alustin had his way, she never would have joined his army. There had never been any significant connection between Themesere and Helicote, and Iblint had never been known for any significant abuses of her own power. He had absolutely no reason to want her dead.

It had, instead, been Emmenson Drees’ idea to recruit the Threadqueen, and Alustin hadn’t been able to think of any convincing argument against recruiting her.

At the very least, Alustin hoped she would enjoy seeing Havath die before she fell to the Tongue Eater.

Conversation quickly died out after the introductions, and the bioluminescent yellow pods lit expressions of wonder on the faces of his army as they descended, but Alustin was so caught up in his thoughts of the near future that he hardly paid attention to the fungal dreamscape around him.

Even beautiful wonders of the world could only distract one so far from certain death.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Preposterous War

EVEN WITH HER decades of political experience and maneuvering, in both Helicote and Havath, Valia struggled to keep a straight face in her audience with Icola. She wanted, so badly, to leap from her seat and shake Icola by the shoulders, to condemn her for betraying every principle of history the Dominion was founded on.

To allow political manipulation by off-worlders… it fundamentally corrupted not just the Dominion, but history itself. The shape of history should belong to the residents of a world, not to outsiders.

It wasn’t to say that she wasn’t upset by the enslavement of the Intertwined, of course, but those sorts of mistakes were expected in the process of restoring order. It was important to work to correct them, but you couldn’t expect them not to happen.

It was the multiversal manipulators that were the truly atrocious part.

Valia managed to keep her face composed, despite all that, and just focused on the conversation at hand.

“This is the most preposterous war I’ve ever heard of,” Icola snapped. “We have three entire armies invading our territory, and we have absolutely no idea where two of them are. Their strategies violate every historical pattern of war.”

Valia shrugged. “It’s just a consequence of their goals. Not a lot of examples in history of armies marching purely for destruction, rather than conquest. And I’ve never even heard of an army marching to oppose the specific methods another invading army is using, while still being fine with the invasion itself. I somewhat suspect it to be an inevitable consequence of advancing magical development. And if we don’t have that as an explanation, then, what? We have to believe in some bizarre ahistorical force from outside our world? The idea is absurd.”

Icola didn’t seem to react to that last comment, but Valia hadn’t truly expected her to— the warlock might be good at hiding her thoughts, but the Duarch was even better.

“I care less about explaining their strategies than I do about countering them, and about finding those poxxed armies,” Icola snapped.

“We’re not entirely ignorant,” Valia said. “We know their destinations and we know when they’re due to arrive. And, while Alustin’s army seems to have disappeared entirely, we’ve managed to keep tabs on at least a few groups of Ilinia and Indris’ army. With any luck, we can track down their mysterious rendezvous point before they finish assembling.”

“It’s not enough,” Icola snapped. “Sica is a threat we can handle. They’re more dangerous than we expected, with new tactics and capabilities, but we can handle them. Even with our recent losses, we outnumber, outmagic, and can simply outspend them. The other two armies…”

“Have you had any luck persuading Heliothrax to go out hunting?” Valia asked.

Icola snorted. “Not in the slightest. She’s still holed up in the palace we built her, obsessively modifying herself to shore up her supposed weaknesses. She survived getting punched with a mountain, I’m not sure what else she wants.”

“Will she be ready by Alustin’s deadline?” Valia asked. She was tempted to press for the truth about Heliothrax, about the disturbing rumors racing around her, but couldn’t manage to get the questions out.

Icola nodded. “She will. I still don’t understand why you insist Alustin will keep to the deadline, though.”

“Mind games,” Valia said. “He laid down a gauntlet to the mightiest nation of Ithos— if he shows up on time, and our forces see that he’s not bluffing, there’s no way to avoid a blow to morale. There are ways to mitigate it, but there’s no way for that kind of confidence not to be intimidating. Besides, we’re less than a week away from his deadline— there’s not much time left for him to launch an early strike now.”

It took another half-hour for Valia to finish reassuring the Duarch— in fact, she suspected that reassurance was the main reason she’d been summoned to speak with the Duarch, over any specific tactical or strategic concerns.

The only new piece of information Valia learned was that Elathay Apex had joined Havath’s war effort. Valia knew little about the reclusive great power, but he supposedly had used his human affinity to follow in the footsteps of Heliothrax.

Any help was welcome at this point, so Valia wouldn’t complain.

VALIA RETURNED TO the Sacred Swordsman headquarters without having made a decision, without having decided what to do about the Intertwined, about the multiversal schemers, about any of the issues plaguing her.

She set that all aside when she set foot in her headquarters, however, and focused on training.

Not her own training— rather, the training of the Sacred Swordsmen.

So many mages responded to threats and challenges by seeking to expand their personal power, but that was a foolish waste of time. Oh, developing your magical might was important to any mage in the long run, but outside the realm of the great powers, institutional power mattered infinitely more than personal power.

It didn’t matter how hard Valia trained, she’d never add more to Havath’s collective might before Alustin’s deadline by personal training than she would by training her swordsmen. It was simple mathematics— dozens of mages training could put more time into it than a single mage, no matter how dedicated.

More than that, however, was the fact that her remaining warlocks were overwhelmingly fresh recruits.

She had, over the last year, lost huge numbers of Swordsmen in battle. Many of them had fallen during the battle over Imperial Ithos, including some of her most effective and dangerous veterans. Well over half of all the remaining combat-ready Swordsmen had died in the assault on Skyhold, most of those to Alustin’s trap in the Library. Her recent assault against Alustin’s forces at Allanoi had shredded her remaining troops down to dangerously thin margins.

That didn’t even include the Swordsmen lost in the course of more standard duties.

There were only fifteen combat-ready veterans in the Sacred Swordsmen, now. Another forty recruits who had only been pacted to their weapons for a few weeks or months, and a dozen fresh recruits who hadn’t even been pacted yet. Those last had just been graduated in a hurry yesterday by one of Havath’s state-sponsored combat schools.

None of her recruits were children— she wasn’t Kanderon, to turn children into soldiers. Many of them had been scouted and trained since a young age, but none were sent to battle until they were at least twenty.

Still uncomfortably young, to be sure, but the world wasn’t kind enough to wait any longer.

The recruit mortality rate was sure to be atrocious in the upcoming battle, and it made her heart ache. If Valia had a choice, she would have sent all those recruits away from Havath City, but neither her superiors nor her conscience would allow that. Their deaths would serve a far greater cause.

None of the Sacred Swordsmen had been drafted. Each and every one had signed up by their own choice, and the threat to Havath demanded she use every resource she could, even at dreadful cost.

Their choice, she had to admit, wasn’t always a good one— the signing bonus a warlock received was large enough to change the lives of entire poor families. More, decades of propaganda had made the Sacred Swordsmen into folk heroes for much of the populace, to the point that warlocks who refused to join often became social outcasts.

But it was still their choice, ultimately.

Valia shook her head and set aside her moral quandaries, at least for a few hours.

Havath’s survival was what mattered now, above all else. Alustin may have been right about the multiversal interlopers, but his answer to their meddling was still monstrous.

THERE WAS ONE action Valia could take, above all others, while preparing her warlocks for battle— pacting the dozen unpacted warlocks with enchanted weapons.

She sent one of the numerous bureaucrats serving the Swordsmen on a mission to gather all twelve warlocks in question an hour from now, and descended into the weapon vault.

For all the shortage of Sacred Swordsmen, their armory had no such shortage. There were almost a thousand enchanted items stored in the vast underground warehouse.

The warehouse was submerged in one of the major arteries of one Intertwined’s demesne, where no thief could reasonably reach it. On the other side of the thick metal warehouse walls flowed countless gallons of horrifically toxic alchemical reagents, charged with lethal amounts of mana. That, in turn, flowed through a marble and bronze pipe the size of a palace, with walls dozens of feet thick, reinforced by their own enchantments.

If someone did want to break in, they’d need to do so via the entrance, and there were a rather extreme number of wards, defensive enchantments, mechanical traps, and a plain old giant metal door. It took almost ten minutes for Valia and her aides to pass through the entrance.

Despite the absolutely absurd number of enchantments stored in the warehouse, it felt mostly empty— the enchanted items needed to be kept a reasonable distance apart to eliminate the risk of a resonance cascade.

Valia looked around, then immediately crossed most of the enchanted items off the list. Nearly eight hundred of them weren’t primary weapons for Swordsmen, but were support items, like the belt of flying that she’d pacted to gain a wind affinity.

When Valia entered the areas holding the actual weapons, she passed by those too, walking a straight line towards the most highly restricted section of the warehouse, one with a defensive ward of its own around it.

They kept the most powerful enchanted weapons there, many of which were already fully sentient. Normally, these would only rarely be given out to the most promising elite recruits, but right now? Valia would be happy to give weapons capable of leveling buildings to complete incompetents if she thought there was even a chance it would help save Havath.

And none of her recruits were incompetents.

It didn’t take her long to select out the weapons she considered most useful. Unlike for Swordsmen in normal times, she didn’t choose based off of what affinities the items would grant, but rather by the strength of the enchantments themselves. She also ignored any enchantments that required ample skill to use, instead prioritizing enchantments that would help keep her warlocks alive.

Valia picked out a morningstar that used precisely applied force vectors to mimic armor around its wielder, and sent out massive shockwaves of force with every swing. She picked out a crossbow that could level an entire house with each shot, using gravity, pressure, and sound enchantments.

She handed her aides a sentient, silver-hilted, bone-bladed scimitar that made its wielder’s bones nigh-indestructible, turn them invisible, and could instantly shatter the skeletons of any non-mages within a hundred feet. For whatever reason, the aetherbodies of mages prevented that effect from working easily on them. The scimitar also had a particularly bloodthirsty sense of humor, and had a habit of exploding live birds at unexpected moments.

She agonized over one particular scepter for quite some time. The marble and bronze scepter had been created and enchanted quite specifically for the purposes of defending Havath City— it let its wielder disassemble and rebuild the bronze and marble of the city with astonishing speed, to construct fortifications or traps on the fly. At least, in the neighborhoods not directly part of Intertwined demesnes. Unfortunately, once it had developed a personality, the weapon had proved unable to stop rearranging the city around it, and hadn’t been wielded for a decade, accordingly. Finally, she sighed, and handed it to her aides as well.

Valia chose a crown that controlled thirteen flying swords, a pair of gauntlets that manifested giant hovering fists with force and greater shadow mana, and a gold and topaz diadem that could project finger-thin beams of sunfire to slice through foes.

She ended up choosing almost thirty enchantments, to give her recruits some options. A couple of them even had mana reservoirs large enough to pact multiple items, and for those Valia chose specific sets of items that would make them worthy threats on the battlefield, even if that cost them their choices.

She was just preparing to leave when a thought occurred to her. She tried to pretend she hadn’t had the thought, tried to pretend she hadn’t even considered the matter, even tried her best not to look behind her.

She failed at all three goals, and turned to face the Vault of Last Resort.

The Vault of Last Resort was a twenty-foot tall steel sphere, the outermost of a series of a dozen concentric spheres, each with only a single opening, none of which were lined up. To access the contents, all of the spheres had to be rotated so that the openings aligned perfectly, but that was easier said than done— each layer had more complex defensive enchantments, wards, and mechanical locks than the next. Likewise, each was made of a significantly more obscure material, to make it less likely that a mage with that affinity could break into it.

The innermost sphere of metal was some unknown, unnaturally bright red metal of astonishing density and weight— far heavier even than the lethal proscribed metal that was possible to make out of yellowstone ore. It was only eight feet in diameter, but probably weighed more than the rest of the warehouse combined. Valia had no idea what it was, how it had been shaped into a sphere, or even where the Dominion had gotten it from.

Though, now that she knew about the multiversal meddlers, she had a new theory about that.

In all of Havath, only the Duarchs, the Intertwined, and Valia herself knew how to unlock it— and few besides even knew the Vault existed.

It took longer to do so than even entering the warehouse had taken. Once all the holes were aligned, however, they revealed a small, mostly empty chamber, containing just three weapons.

A sword, a dagger, and a single tattered silk glove. The sword and glove were each covered in an obscene quantity of spellforms, while the dagger appeared to be made entirely of spellforms, albeit oddly rectangular ones that resembled nothing she’d ever seen before.

Though, given its bizarre properties and construction, she now suspected that the dagger was just as alien to her world as the red sphere containing it.

Each of the three weapons, could, on its own, turn a pacted warlock into a great power.

And each of them had catastrophic costs for their use. None of their wielders would survive long, and there were high odds that they would do immense damage to Havath City itself merely by being used. Nor would the items survive their own use— if they were that stable, they wouldn’t be locked away in a little vault like this.

They weren’t, at least, as awful as yellowstone, but that was small comfort.

Valia almost shut the Vault of Last Resort then and there, almost turned and walked away, but to her horror, instead found herself carefully extracting the three weapons.

VALIA WANTED TO weep at how excited the recruits were to be pacted to the weapons when she presented them. She wanted to weep at how ready they were to throw themselves into war. She even wanted to weep at how young and idealistic they were.

Most of all, she wanted to weep at the fact that they came close to blows over who would get to pact the three weapons of Last Resort, even knowing they wouldn’t survive their use.

And yet not a tear touched her eye.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Fort Maelstrom

THE REST OF the voyage on the sky ships, to Talia’s disappointment, was entirely peaceful. There were no attacks by territorial dragon flights or Havathi fliers, nor did they get to act as sky pirates again.

The scenery was lovely, though. Even aside from the mountains, they passed over countless waterfalls, alpine lakes, hidden valleys, and immense glaciers. That didn’t even take into account the half-dozen or so lich demesnes they passed, nor the literally innumerable losthomes scattered throughout the mountains.

Most of the liches had stone demesnes, since those were by far the most common type of lich, but one of the liches was an ice lich that had transformed an entire glacier into its demesne. Talia imagined it took far more upkeep to maintain than a more traditional stone demesne, since glaciers flowed downhill at a crawl over the years, but it was a truly gorgeous sight to see, even from a distance.

The transition between the mountains and the plains of Havath was far more gradual than that between the Endless Erg and the Skyreach Range in the west— the mountains gradually got shorter and shorter, until the snow vanished off their peaks. More and more villages started appearing nestled among the valleys.

Their entry into Havath’s claimed territory was a nerve-wracking one, but they slipped through unobserved, so far as they could tell. Even Havath could only afford so many border fortresses and guard points, and they weren’t anywhere near any of those— Havath’s border with the Skyreach Range was probably its least densely populated region, moreso after the Coven had wrecked its climate.

If they were trying to infiltrate Havath’s territory along its east coast, it would be another story entirely— that was by far its most heavily populated region, and its defenses were constructed to fend off pirates, kraken, and roving great powers.

The lack of border forts and other defenses didn’t mean the territory was completely empty, though— they passed by quite a few Havathi villages that had stayed occupied, despite the drought. None of the villagers spotted them, thankfully— Ilinia had wrapped them in a cloudbank as they entered Havathi territory, and she was matching their speed closely to the prevailing winds.

Talia wasn’t sure how, exactly, Ilinia had made the cloud transparent from the inside, but she wasn’t complaining.

She was taking a break from training her wind affinity— mostly her affinity sense, given how great of an opportunity it was to observe Ilinia’s magic— when Godrick and Eddin Slane joined her.

Talia had never spent much time with the ceramic mage, but he seemed earnestly obsessed with advancing magical techniques, and was ecstatic that Godrick had begun adapting Slane’s forms for his own magic.

Both of them were surrounded by swarms of little objects at the moment— pebbles and nails for Godrick, clay chips for Slane.

“I don’t suppose either of you have any more clues about our rendezvous point,” Talia asked.

“Ah haven’t the slightest,” Godrick said.

Eddin Slane frowned. “At our current speed, and given that we’re supposed to reach our destination tomorrow evening… that leaves our rendezvous dead center in the middle of Havathi territory, by any reasonable route that gets us close enough to Havath City. And there is, so far as I know, literally no place for us to assemble an army. That leaves us with two probable options, so far as I can guess. First, that Ilinia and Indris have hidden away some chunk of the Havathi plains, using wards crafted of wind currents or the like. Or, second, that they’ve found one of the forgotten corners of the world, and are prepared to expose it.”

“Forgotten corners?” Talia asked.

Eddin nodded. “They’re scattered across all of Anastis. Secret places that someone once concealed by some magical means, but then lost. The creator may have died before returning, or the means of access failed, or it was simply forgotten in some bureaucratic mix-up. You yourselves were involved in the rediscovery of one of the most spectacular forgotten corners when Imperial Ithos returned to our world.”

“Ah can see that in the mountains or the jungle, but in the middle a’ an empty grassland?” Godrick asked. “Ah’ve never even heard a rumor a’ somethin’ like that. Yeh think there’d be some sort a’ myth or legend or somethin’.”

Eddin Slane shrugged. “Maybe there was, once, and whatever secret place is simply that old. If I had to place a wager, however, I’d have to bet on the storm queens hiding a patch of the plains themselves.”

Talia and Godrick both nodded at that, but it wasn’t until the next day that they were to find out that both of Eddin Slane’s guesses were completely off the mark.

The storm queens weren’t trying to hide the rendezvous point at all.

THE FIRST SIGN of their rendezvous was a smudge of dark storm clouds on the horizon.

In retrospect, Talia should have immediately paid notice to any odd cloud formations, but she simply assumed it was one of the Coven’s storms they’d been assaulting the Dominion with for months.

She started really paying attention when she realized they were heading straight for the cloud formation, and when she realized how dark and lightning-filled those clouds were.

Her attention became solely fixated on the clouds when their base crossed the horizon, and Talia realized they weren’t merely storm clouds floating above the land.

No, there was a direct bridge between the clouds and the plains below. A bridge that took the form of a monstrous tornado, whirling in place.

“I, uh… think someone might notice that,” Talia told Hugh.

“Someone already has,” he replied, his pupils narrowed into cat-like slits, farther than they ever had before, which gave Talia a bit of a start. It seemed his eyes hadn’t stopped their progression towards becoming more sphinx-like.

As they drew closer, Talia saw what Hugh meant— the grasslands around the immense tornado were torn and scarred by battle, and the broken bodies of Havathi mages, soldiers, and dragons were scattered for leagues.

Talia didn’t think it had been a full army, probably just a regional militia coming to investigate the mysterious stationary storm.

She didn’t dwell long on the Havathi dead, though. Mostly thanks to the fact that they were heading straight for the tornado.

As they drew closer, the howling of the whirlwind broke through the wind shields surrounding the flying fleet, and the deck of their ship began to vibrate and shake.

Talia glanced over at Ilinia, who was sneaking an expectant look from the prow back towards them, clearly waiting for nervous looks and protests.

Talia gave the old woman a cheerful smile and wave, and got a disappointed scowl in return.

They couldn’t even hear each other speak as they drew closer and closer to the tornado, and the sound shuddered through the ship’s railings into Talia’s bones.

Just when it seemed like their wind shield bubble would touch the tornado itself, a single pinprick hole no larger than a person opened up in the side of the tornado, only visible due to its unnaturally smooth edges.

The spiraling winds of the tornado split as they hit the hole, and the opaque, dust-filled winds of the tornado peeled apart downwind of the pinprick, rapidly forming an eye-shaped doorway into the tornado, one that Ilinia’s fleet could pass through without even needing to change formation.

Even Talia couldn’t help but feel a bit of nervousness as they passed through the thundering walls of the tornado, but their passage through was, aside from the deafening roar, surprisingly peaceful.

The inside of the tornado was far less so.

Oh, the air inside was clear of debris, but the instant the fleet passed into the center of the tornado, their protective air bubble was hammered by a monstrous downdraft. It was also lit by an ominous red glare from below.

It spoke entire books of praise of Ilinia’s skill and power that the ships only shuddered a tiny amount, but Talia’s wind affinity sense was going mad trying to make sense of the sheer force of the downdraft battering away at them. She could feel Ilinia struggling to maintain the wind shield, even with all her power.

It made sense— when it came to the greatest workings of storm mages, they didn’t actively control hurricanes, tornadoes, and other violent weather— instead, they applied their power towards guiding them in the paths they wanted. A single hurricane carried more power than the combined mages of the continent could likely match in direct application, after all.

So, despite the fact that Ilinia almost certainly was helping maintain the tornado, resisting the cold downdraft in its heart was easier said than done.

And then they passed into the very center of the tornado, and the downdraft vanished, along with the roaring and shaking.

“Did we just pass through a ward?” Talia half-shouted to Hugh, still partially deafened by their passage.

He nodded. “One similarly designed to the one I used to protect Theras Tel— it’s at least partially powered by the tornado, too!”

Talia smiled at him, then peered over the railing towards the ground far below.

She couldn’t see any trace of the ward, so it might be underground, but three things caught her attention instead.

First off was the ring of fire running along the inner edge of the tornado’s wall, fueling the spiraling updraft. Talia immediately recognized some of the massive spellforms burning within the flame as Clan Castis designs, and felt a surge of pride. It was obvious now why Clan Castis had traveled ahead with Indris.

The second thing that caught her attention was the heavily fortified tower, surrounded by a vast dry moat, that rose up in the center of the calm space around them. There were dozens of massive landing platforms atop it, and the tower was far from complete— even as Ilinia’s fleet descended towards it, Talia could see mages levitating huge blocks of sod and soil towards the top of the tower, while other teams of mages lithified the blocks into stone.

The third thing was almost boring by comparison. Curled around part of the tower’s base lay a colossal, snake-like hydra, wreathed in chains.

“Welcome to Fort Maelstrom!” Ilinia called out, her voice echoing over the whole fleet. “It’s only six hours old!”

Talia just gulped at that.

TALIA DIDN’T THINK she could have contained Hugh’s enthusiasm if she tried— the instant the ships approached their landing spot, Hugh literally launched himself over the railings with his force boots, levitated himself down safely, then took off at a jog to go find Fort Maelstrom’s wards.

Talia rolled her eyes at his departing back, though she suspected he was in great part trying to forget his aborted conversation with Kanderon, then followed Godrick and Eddin Slane over towards Ilinia.

Sabae was already arguing with her grandmother when they arrived.

“…and whatever happened to secrecy?” Sabae demanded. “The world’s biggest tornado sitting in the middle of an empty field isn’t exactly subtle!”

“It’s hardly the biggest tornado ever,” Ilinia replied. “It’s no more than two-thirds of a league across; they get bigger than that in nature. One of our ancestors once came across one that approached a full league in width. And I’d hardly call the open prairie a field.”

Sabae folded her arms across her chest. “You’re being pedantic, grandmother.”

“Grandparents are allowed to be pedantic. It’s one of the perks of the job.”

Eddin cleared his throat as they approached the two Kaen Das mages. “I have to admit to sharing your granddaughter’s concerns, Ilinia. Our strategy was built around assembling at a hidden stronghold before advancing on Havath City. This ruins all of that.”

Ilinia chuckled at that. “You’re right, that was our plan— and I guarantee Havath knew it before most of our troops. Our ranks are absolutely riddled with spies, informers, and gaps in our defenses against scrying. We never had a chance at replicating the stealth Alustin and his forces rely on, even if we understood how he was doing it. We let Havath think that’s what we were attempting, though, and they’ve spent the past few days desperately hunting for our concealed base. Now, even if they wanted to assemble a force big enough to take on Fort Maelstrom, they simply don’t have enough time to do so before Alustin’s deadline, nor are they going to risk letting their great powers go after us and leave Havath City vulnerable to Alustin.”

“That hardly makes their local response forces harmless,” Eddin rebutted.

Ilinia waved dismissively. “Of course not, they’re still a threat to our remaining forces that haven’t arrived yet, and we need to stay vigilant in case they get tricky, but their forces simply aren’t designed to handle besieging a non-standard fortress like this. They’re highly mobile ambush troops, not siege units.”

“How long can you maintain Fort Maelstrom?” Talia interjected. She wasn’t particularly interested in debating decisions that had already been made.

“Even with Indris, Clan Castis, and more than a hundred lesser wind mages helping, no more than a month, but we won’t need it for even a week,” Ilinia said.

“Hold on, we have a hundred wind mages?” Talia asked.

Ilinia chuckled. “At least three hundred, in fact. We just don’t need them all for maintaining the tornado. Wind is one of the most common affinities, and considering how many of Indris’ children are moving with our force, I’m shocked we don’t have even more.”

“Any idea what our troop count is going to be?” Sabae said.

Ilinia shook her head. “We’ve got around six thousand assorted mages and dragons already, and we’re expecting at least a few thousand more. It’s looking like we’re going to be the smallest of the three armies, unfortunately. Not by much, in the case of Alustin’s forces, but there’s still probably going to be a difference.”

Godrick scowled. “Ah’ve got no idea how Alustin could have recruited more mages than us, it’s absurd.”

Eddin Slane, Ilinia, and Talia shook their heads simultaneously at that.

“The bulk of Alustin’s forces are traveling shorter distances than ours,” Eddin said. “If our battleground was west of the Skyreach Range, we’d have the biggest army by far, but we simply can’t supply or transport enough troops this far.”

“There’s also the fact that Alustin has Tsarnassus on his side,” Talia said. “Havath might have eclipsed them for the past few decades, and Sica is rising as a rival as well, but there’s good reason they were the dominant nation on the continent for centuries after Ithos fell. They have a massive population, absurd wealth, and a disproportionate number of great powers. They can spare more mages than any of our own allies.”

“Most importantly,” Ilinia said, “there’s the fact that most nations and powers neither entirely trust us, nor believe in our mission. The plain fact that we’re the third side in a war is bizarre enough, but we’ve already publicly admitted to lying about our motives once already.”

Ilinia leveled an inscrutable look at Sabae when she said that, and the younger Kaen Das grimaced.

Indris chose that moment to swing her massive head near the group and join the conversation. “The wider world has finally clued in on the existence of Fort Maelstrom, it seems. I just received word that scrying attempts against our defenses have increased dozens of times over in the past couple minutes. Hold off on any sensitive discussions until tonight’s council meeting.”

The dragon queen cocked her head to stare right down at Talia. “Oh, and Talia? Luthe just relayed a message to me. Your parents are here, and you need to go rescue Hugh from them.”

Talia was in a dead sprint before Indris even finished speaking. By the time she hit the stairs, she’d activated her force boots to accelerate her even more, and her scrimshaw ward to protect her from high-speed collisions.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Deadly Weapons

HUGH HAD THOUGHT he was getting used to Clan Castis ambushes at this point, but Talia’s parents proved him utterly wrong.

Hugh was half-jogging through the corridors of Fort Maelstrom when the light crystals flickered out for a moment. When they came back on again a heartbeat later, he found himself facing Talia’s parents.

It was immediately obvious who he was facing— short, middle-aged, covered in blue spellform tattoos. The fact that her father had half a dozen hatchets strapped to himself, and that her mother had a strange-looking unsheathed greatsword covered in odd little holes on her back didn’t hurt either. He inanely noted to himself that he could easily see a number of differences between their tattoos and the more advanced ones of their children, but that thought was fleeting.

“So you’re Hugh of Emblin?” a glowering Corus of Clan Castis asked, his arms folded over his chest.

“I, uh… yes?” Hugh said.

Rose of Clan Castis sniffed. “Was that an answer or a question?”

She didn’t pause for him to respond, though, just kept talking as she began to circle him. “Look at you. Entirely too skinny. I don’t see how our Talia hasn’t broken you in two yet.”

Mackerel burrowed in harder against Hugh’s side, as if trying to evade the attention of Talia’s parents.

Corus glowered even harder, as if personally offended by Hugh’s weight. “You’d best believe we’re going to fatten you up, boyo. Talia needs to be taking much better care of you than she has been.”

“I’m not…” Hugh started.

“And can you believe Talia’s letting the poor boy walk around unarmed? Practically indecent,” Rose said. “We need to strap a few knives to this boy.”

“Or maybe hatchets?” Corus suggested.

“Oh, you want to strap hatchets to everyone.”

“I like hatchets. They’re darn useful.”

“They are, but you use them even when they’re wildly inappropriate.”

“You’re still on about the time I tried to eat a roast with hatchets? That was ages ago, and I learned my lesson.”

“That was last week, dear.”

Hugh contemplated escaping while the two of them argued, but as if they could read his mind, both fixed their gazes back on him.

“Oh dear, what must Hugh think of us, ignoring him while he’s right there?”

“Let’s go get started on fattening him up, shall we?”

Before Hugh entirely understood what was happening, he found his elbows in the grip of Talia’s parents, and was being half-dragged towards the nearest mess hall while they chattered away at him.

They made it about halfway when Talia came out of nowhere in a blur, slamming directly into the wall so hard she indented her scrimshaw ward into the lithified dirt.

“Young lady, what have we told you about running indoors?” Corus demanded.

“You haven’t started telling Hugh embarrassing childhood stories yet, have you?” Talia demanded, as she pried herself out of the wall. “Or giving him unwanted and unneeded bedroom advice?”

“Oh, I can promise it’s not unneeded,” Rose said. “Every young man needs that sort of advice, and you’ll thank us later.”

Hugh and Talia both blushed at that.

“But no, we’re going to get some food into Hugh first. You’ve let this boy get too skinny,” Corus said, then pinched Hugh’s side.

“Much too skinny,” Rose said, pinching Hugh’s cheek.

“It’s not healthy.”

“Poor boy’s going to catch his death of cold.”

“Shrivel up and blow away in the wind.”

“You don’t want that, do you?”

Talia just stared at her parents. “Hugh, I’ll provide a distraction, you start running and don’t stop.”

Her parents just laughed, and a moment later, they were dragging Talia along with them as well.

AFTER A DEEPLY awkward and overwhelming lunch, Hugh and Talia found themselves dragged by Talia’s parents to a meeting of archmages. There were around thirty or forty archmages there already, including Hugh’s friends— a significant chunk of the total in their army.

Or, at least, acknowledged archmages. There were no doubt quite a few battlemages that could rival many of the archmages there in power, if not originality of magic. For all their recent increases in power, Hugh and his friends were far from the most powerful archmages there, save perhaps as a group. A few, like Shimmering Cardovan, lingered right on the edge of being minor great powers.

It said something that quite a few of the archmages greeted Talia’s parents as peers.

This wasn’t, however, a planning session or anything of the sort— no, it was more of a swap meet.

The tables in the center of the room were filled with enchanted items, available for anyone to take. The leaders of the army had decided that, as valuable as archmages were, they couldn’t afford to let any of them go into battle under-equipped.

Given how many archmages would be picking over the enchantments, there was a complex selection process involving sign-up sheets and item preferences, which Hugh didn’t even try to puzzle out.

A few of the enchanted items had been provided by other archmages— captured Havathi weapons, mostly. The bulk of the collection, however, had been provided by the army’s great powers.

Ilinia and Indris had, obviously, provided huge numbers of weapons. Hugh found out from Sabae that her grandmother had been deeply irritated by how many more enchanted items Indris had provided than she had— nearly half again the number. It wasn’t really surprising to Hugh, at least, given how wealthy Indris was, and how many enchanters she had working for her.

Clan Castis, as a communal great power, had provided quite a few weapons as well. These were an incredibly eclectic bunch— they mostly consisted of enchantments stolen in raids and battle over decades that Clan Castis members couldn’t find a use for.

Ramyl the Chained, as a relatively new great power on Anastis, provided no enchantments of his own, though he did offer quite a few of his own bones and scales, which attracted quite a bit of interest. Not least from Talia, whose eyes lit up when she saw the hydra bone pile. Ramyl did, however, with the agreement of Eddin Slane, provide quite a few enchantments from Skyhold’s own supply.

Andas Thune had only offered a select few enchantments, perhaps a dozen in all, but those attracted by far the most interest. They were enchantments looted one and all from Heliothrax’s lair, and were deeply nasty objects. Among her other storied activities, Heliothrax had spent centuries destroying or locking away weapons she judged too cruel or evil for use, and those the lightning dragon illusionist had delivered absolutely lived up to their reputation. They weren’t even the worst enchantments in Heliothrax’s lair— just those whose defenses Thune had been able to breach. Far worse waited in the depths of the Sunwyrm’s hidden lair.

Hugh and his friends already had an impressive set of gear, but they still had room to upgrade. Godrick and Sabae already had three enchantments each, but Talia only had two— her linked bracers, with the dragonbone blades and kinetic anchors, and her force boots. Hugh, meanwhile, nominally had four enchantments already— his own force boots, Mackerel’s force and frost-blasting belt, his stink-absorbing marble, and Mackerel himself. On consultation with some of the attendants and archmages present, however, Hugh was going to be able to take a new enchantment, so long as it wasn’t too ridiculous. Mackerel and his belt were usually far enough away from him in battle to not pose a serious risk of enchantment interference or resonance cascade, and his scent marble was too weak to really matter.

It was unquestionably a risk, but a risk worth taking.

All of that, of course, ignored the Stormward’s Crown, Talia’s scrimshaw ward, Godrick’s elemental Gravel of Clan Castis, their storage tattoos, Godrick’s Kemetrian weaponry, Hugh’s wardstones, and a half-dozen other tools and tricks which relied on wards or other techniques that weren’t quite so volatile as enchantments.

Hugh was delighted to get a chance to browse for more items.

With most of the other archmages clustering around the weapons stolen from Heliothrax, Hugh went for the Clan Castis options first.

They were absolutely as eclectic as they’d looked on first glance. Surprising numbers of them were enchantments for fliers, meant to either enhance their own flight or inhibit the flight of others. None of those had any use for Hugh, but plenty of the others were fascinating.

There was a shield that, for whatever reason, was built out of some strange wood that could absorb a truly absurd amount of water, and bore enchantments for extreme durability. Hugh could think of quite a few uses for it— using his water magic to fly it around the battlefield while it was soaked, for instance— but it didn’t accomplish anything the Stormward’s Crown didn’t already do better.

There was a sword with a weak gravitational pull towards its foes that made it strike harder, chainmail that randomly warped the ground’s friction in a fifty foot radius around it, and a scarf that could alternately filter poisons from the air for its wearer or fly about blocking arrows— though, for some bizarre reason, only arrows, not spells or even crossbow bolts. There were a linked set of a dozen sewing needles that could be controlled in a process similar to will-imbuing, which Hugh was immediately tempted by for their ward-crafting possibilities. Then there were plenty of just plain oddities, from earrings that would make bees consider the wearer a member of their hive to an amulet that could be used to suppress up to three specific tones or musical notes at any given time in a hundred foot radius.

The most powerful Clan Castis item, bizarrely, was a knitted cap that vastly extended the wearer’s comfortable temperature range, to the point that they could safely nap in a blizzard or sit directly adjacent to a campfire, and even give significant resistance to fire and ice magic. Aside from how truly ugly and ridiculous the cap was, though, it was almost certainly too powerful for Hugh to risk using.

The enchantments from Ilinia, Indris, and Skyhold were significantly less strange, for the most part. Lots of flying swords and daggers, bows enchanted for range, staves and spears that fired offensive spells. There were also the usual assortment of magical lenses, almost all of which Hugh’s eyes rendered superfluous. There were still a decent number of more interesting tools as well, though. A living vine grappling hook, a compass that always pointed towards Theras Tel, a single-use galvanic implosion weapon that would violently attract every bit of iron for hundreds of feet around thirty seconds after it was activated.

The whole time Hugh was browsing, Talia’s parents kept popping their heads in on him, encouraging him to pick one weapon or another— the bigger and more ridiculous, the better.

By the time Hugh finished browsing all the other sections, the crowd around Heliothrax’s weapons was still too dense for Hugh to be comfortable wading in, and he stood awkwardly for a while, until he noticed Rhodes browsing Clan Castis’ section.

Acting entirely on a whim, Hugh darted over to Sabae, had a quick rushed conversation with her, then they quickly transferred a single object from Sabae’s storage tattoo to Hugh’s.

Then he took a deep breath and approached his former bully again.

“Frost Ghost,” he said, coming to a halt next to Rhodes.

“How may I assist you, Stormward?”

“Actually, I’ve come to help you,” Hugh said, then pulled the object out of his storage tattoo.

Behind Rhodes’ mask, his eyes widened, which didn’t surprise Hugh.

“What is this?” Rhodes whispered.

“Skyspear wood, from the world of Limnus,” Hugh said. “Strongest known wood in the multiverse. Metal can hardly scratch it, and yet it’s still surprisingly flexible.”

He handed the skyspear staff over to Rhodes, who caressed it as though it were the most fragile, delicate thing he’d ever held.

It would have been ridiculous to spend weeks in a world filled with near-indestructible wood and not try to acquire samples. Their magic probably could have achieved it eventually, but that had turned out to be unnecessary— some of the more extremely adapted Limnans had the ability to cut or chew through skyspear wood, or even secrete chemicals that could eat into it, so long as it wasn’t the even more indestructible heartwood, and they’d gladly provided a whole bundle of staves for the group.

“I can’t possibly accept this,” Rhodes said, not taking his eyes off the staff. “This is the kind of material weapons of legend are built from.”

Hugh shrugged. “We have more, and our own plans for it. We’re just doing our part to make sure all our archmages are well-equipped for Havath City.”

“Any chance I could purchase some of that?” Rhodes asked.

Hugh snorted and shook his head. “Not likely. You want more, go to Limnus.”

“I just might,” Rhodes said, staring at the stave in his hands. “I just might.”

Hugh just shook his head, then wandered over to the weapons looted from Heliothrax, where the crowd was starting to break up.

THE NASTINESS OF Heliothrax’s weapons hadn’t been exaggerated in the least.

The first one Hugh saw was a morningstar enchanted by a healer to leave wounds that healed incredibly slowly, and that resisted magical healing. Not any use to Hugh— he’d never had any real training with melee weapons, nor did he have any interest in making his foes suffer. It did set the tone for what followed, though.

A spear inlaid with jade spellforms could, apparently, produce noises so deep that they were inaudible to humans, but could still instill feelings of discomfort and fear into them, somehow.

A pair of cutlasses fashioned out of bone just bore fairly standard sharpness, durability, and flying enchantments to allow them to intercept projectiles, which left Hugh momentarily confused as to why they were in the collection, until he read the notes and learned that they were made of human bone, and about the particularly gruesome history of their construction.

Hugh skipped over quite a number of other enchantments in the actual form of melee weapons, most of which had similarly gruesome effects or backstories. A disproportionate number of them had been created by healers— which said something about the harm they could cause when they chose, as well as about Heliothrax’s priorities.

The utility items among the collection were significantly more interesting to Hugh, but not in a particularly good way.

The bright orange mask that made nearby flames spread more swiftly was the tool of someone who obviously cared not in the least for innocent bystanders. The broach meant for interfering with other flying mages did so in a deeply nasty way— instead of messing with their magic, it provoked a weaker version of what happened to a water mage’s blood when they ascended out of the depths too quickly.

Worst of all were the boots, in Hugh’s opinion. They used stone magic to carve trap wards into the ground beneath the wearer’s feet— trap wards that would ignite violently when anyone stepped on them, and had no built-in deactivation methods. They’d likely sit for weeks or even years until some innocent wandered over it. Most likely a child, they were the most liable to be wandering in weird places where old wards lingered. No one had any idea how many people each year were killed or crippled by old wards, but it was entirely too much— and any ethical wardcrafter should know better than to neglect deactivation methods in their wards. A simple timer, at the very least.

In the end, Hugh rejected every one of the enchantments looted from Heliothrax’s lair. He even questioned whether they should be using any of them at all.

Heliothrax might have abandoned her neutrality in the wars of the continent the instant it seriously inconvenienced her, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t done worthwhile, important work before, that her self-assigned mission hadn’t been worthwhile.

Then again, though, could they really afford to give up any advantages?

Finally, he shook off his indecision and went to Sabae about it.

“Did you actually look at the sign-up sheets?” Sabae asked.

Hugh shook his head, then followed Sabae over.

The vast majority of Heliothrax’s weapons had Clan Castis members dominating their sign-up sheets— especially the orange mask and the ward boots.

“Clan Castis, it seems, intends to snag most of these,” Sabae said.

“To use?” Hugh asked, hesitantly.

Sabae shook her head. “What do all of these have in common?”

It only took Hugh a moment to figure out. “They’re all enchantments with artificial reservoirs!”

“And what does Clan Castis do with enchantments with artificial reservoirs?” Sabae asked.

Hugh smiled. “They destructively turn them into elementals.”

Sabae smiled back. “You should check with Talia to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that’s what’s happening. In terms of the larger issue, though… I agree that we probably shouldn’t be using most of these weapons at all.”

“Even if it could make the difference in battle?” Hugh asked.

Sabae snorted. “Set aside the disturbing nature of the stolen enchantments Andas Thune brought, and they’re honestly not really that impressive. Terrifying and disturbing, certainly, but not that powerful. Take the morningstar— it doesn’t actually help you defeat your foes that much, just punishes them a little more if they’re defeated. If they’re already more powerful than you, you’re probably not even going to hit them. There are always going to be people arguing that greater cruelty is essential for strength or victory, but it almost never actually works out that way. In the end, no matter what they claim, the cruelty ends up being for its own sake. It never actually brings victory more swiftly, and just leaves more lingering resentment in its wake. Same general principle with torture— people claim that it’s essential, but it doesn’t even work most of the time. People just make stuff up that they think the torturer wants to hear, just to get it to stop. The point is the cruelty.”

Hugh just nodded thoughtfully at that, then went to go find Talia.

TALIA IMMEDIATELY CONFIRMED Sabae’s suspicions. “We don’t have enough archmages to claim them all, but we intend on destroying as many as we can to make elementals, certainly. I don’t know why Heliothrax even kept them, other than to stoke her own ego.”

“Why, though?” Hugh asked. “I mean, no offense, but Clan Castis isn’t exactly renowned for acting for the good of the continent.”

Talia chuckled at that. “None taken. No, we’re doing it for two reasons. First, because the elementals we can manufacture with them will be far more dangerous than the actual weapons themselves. Second, because using the weapons simply looks bad. It tarnishes our image as a faction in a way we can’t afford right now. And if there’s something Clan Castis understands, it’s maintaining our image.”

“Though, if you’d like to use one of Heliothrax’s weapons, we’d be happy to share it with you,” Talia’s mother said from behind Hugh.

“The Terror-Spear, maybe?” Talia’s father said. “It’s much less awful than most of the others, and we’d absolutely adore you inspiring fear in those you meet.”

Hugh sighed. “There’s no way to stop that one from affecting my friends and allies too, so no, but thank you for the offer.”

After escaping Talia’s parents, Hugh browsed for a few more minutes, then made his selections.

In the end, he had decided that his top priorities weren’t enhancing his already existing powers. He didn’t need more mobility, defense, or offense, and his utility capabilities were also well past most lesser combat archmages. No, he was seeking an unexpected tactic to use against Alustin. Something powerful and surprising his old teacher wouldn’t expect.

He didn’t end up getting his first choice— a single use enchanted incendiary— but he did get his second preference.

This, likewise, was a single-use enchantment, but one that seemed perfectly targeted against Alustin.

It was a friction amplifier. When activated, it would drastically increase the force of friction for a specific material for a few instants.

It was designed for aerial combat, and it was, by default, set to air— at high enough speeds, it would probably set a flier painfully on fire. It was a bit odd that a one-use enchantment had been designed with adjustable settings, but Hugh had seen stranger designs.

It required an enchanter to adjust the target, but they had several there on-hand that could handle the adjustment. There was only one option that Hugh was even considering, so it wasn’t a hard choice.

Paper.

Talia’s choice followed a similar principle to Hugh’s— trying to add new capabilities, rather than trying to enhance her strengths or shore up weaknesses. Not that she had many of those, Hugh was still deeply proud of the job he and Loarna had done with his girlfriend’s scrimshaw ward.

Talia had the most powerful offensive capabilities among their group, defenses that activated faster than anyone else’s, and fairly good mobility between her force boots and her new affinities. So instead, she’d explored other areas. Ways to enhance her senses, ways to survive more extreme conditions, stealth enchantments, so on and so forth.

Talia had been clearly most interested in stealth, but stealth enchantments tended to be fiercely sought after by mages— many affinities were remarkably poorly suited towards secrecy— and today was no exception. There had been illusion artifacts, sound-dampening effects, active decoys, even an invisibility cloak. All of them were fiercely sought after, and Talia had, to Hugh’s surprise, decided against entering that competition.

Instead, she’d picked out a new magic belt with reasonably powerful anti-heat enchantments from Skyhold’s enchanters. She already had heat resistance built into her enchanted bracers, as well as some in her tattoos, but given how rapidly her powers were growing, along with her new affinities, it was better to be safe than sorry.

A bit more of a boring choice than Hugh would have expected, but probably a smart one.

Since she was the only one who wanted this one by the end, they didn’t have to worry about the complex allotment system.

Which really only disappointed Godrick— he was the only one with enough math skills to work out the system.

Hugh didn’t have too much sympathy for Godrick’s disappointment there, he had to be honest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hurry Up and Wait

THE COUPLE OF days of waiting in Fort Maelstrom were somehow both deeply nerve-wracking and profoundly boring for Sabae.

The nerve-wracking was expected— between the frequent failed attacks on the tornado fort by Havath and the dread of the upcoming battle, it would have been bizarre if she weren’t a bundle of nerves.

The boredom, on the other hand, came from the fact that there was really nothing to do but plan and train, and it was a struggle to keep her mind on either.

Oh, she still managed to organize group training— mostly continuing their work with the warlock bond between her and her friends. At this point, they could all consistently tell the exact direction each of the others was in, and were all working at judging distance. Sabae couldn’t always tell exact distance, but she could always tell who was relatively closer or farther away.

Still, it wasn’t enough to keep her mind off her anxiety.

THE LAST OF their forces trickled in two days before the assault on Havath City. Their final total was just over nine thousand— they’d suffered considerably fewer casualties than they’d expected. The Dominion had, it seemed, drained more of their patrols than the Coven had realized to reinforce Havath City and the Sican front.

They were still going to be the smallest army on the field, but not by an appreciable amount— if their estimates were correct, they were only a few hundred mages behind Alustin’s forces, and their great powers well-outmatched his.

The Dominion, of course, outnumbered both of them combined, and even ignoring what other great powers they might muster, had Heliothrax and the Intertwined leading Havath City’s defense.

That last was probably most responsible for the tense mood at the planning meeting that night.

“NO MATTER WHICH way you look at it, we’re going to take massive casualties during the approach,” Luthe said. “We can come up with all the fancy strategies we want, but there’s no escaping the sheer number of siege weapons and mages Havath has trained at the sky, not to mention their massive weather mage corps.”

“It doesn’t make those strategies pointless, though. We can still minimize our losses— my illusions will help significantly with that,” Andas Thune offered.

“They will,” Luthe admitted. “But even you can’t hide our entire army, and even if their mass artillery spell barrages aren’t precisely aimed, they’re going to do a lot of damage, even with a full wind shield raised by Ilinia and Indris.”

Sabae scowled from where she sat beside her grandmother, who bore a near-identical expression on her face. Neither had a counter-argument, though.

Fort Maelstrom’s meeting room was set on a colossal platform near its top, big enough for Indris and Andas both. Even they seemed small in this setting— not just because of the tornado surrounding the fort, though.

No, the tornado was huge, but ultimately an impersonal force. What really made them feel small?

The immense hydra bulk of Ramyl the Chained.

The six-hundred foot snakelike body had changed profoundly since the battle of Skyhold. Hydras were capable of unnatural levels of bodily adaptation to start with, but the sentient enchanted chains had warped the hydra even farther.

Chains emerged from the hydra at frequent intervals, looping around and around the body. More chains dangled from the back of each hydra head, and bulged visibly below its scales. It was a disturbing sight as the great power loomed over all of them, to say the least.

Sabae was still shocked that they’d come up with a way to fly Ramyl with them to Havath City. Even with the immense might of the two storm queens, it defied logic that anything so huge could ever take to the sky.

She had, however, vastly underestimated the body-warping capabilities of a hydra being guided by a sentient mind. She could, even as the meeting went on, slowly see Ramyl’s immense body flattening out. It should be ready well in time for the battle the day after next.

“I suspect,” rumbled the hydra in question, “that Alustin’s plans will have the most significant impact on our casualties. If this Last Echo of his does as much damage as his propaganda claims, it could open significant breaks in Havath City’s aerial defenses.”

Indris exhaled heavily. “It likely could, but we just don’t know enough to say. We don’t know what it is, how badly it will damage Havath’s defenses, where it will hit them, or anything useful at all.”

“We know when it will hit,” Ilinia said. “I’m guessing that in its immediate wake will be the best time to strike. If we wait too long after that, it will give Havath time to reorganize. Plus, if our intelligence from Sydapsyn is correct, if we wait too long, it will give him a chance to set off his second weapon, this… chitin wand.”

Sabae was not pleased finding out Alustin had stolen yet another magical superweapon from Skyhold’s Vault. It made her question how many other weapons he might have seized, and made their propaganda about the elemental plague that much trickier to keep believable.

“If we can really trust Alustin’s claims about timing,” Luthe said.

The various great powers and archmages all turned their gazes to Sabae and her friends, sitting in different spots throughout the meeting.

“I’m confident we can trust that much,” Sabae said. “If for no other reason than Alustin’s dramatic timing. Still, I’d like it if there were some way to control our timing a bit better, to make the final approach once we were sure the defenses were well-scattered.”

“We’d all like that,” Shimmering Cardovan said. “I’d personally also like all our foes to just get bored and decide to take up farming, but it doesn’t seem likely.”

Luthe nodded. “There’s just no shelter from Havath’s artillery magic and siege weapons. They have the capability to fill the air with spells, from ground level to the highest altitudes mages can fly, even great powers. We can’t even burrow to avoid it— their underground defenses are far too formidable. We can talk in circles all we want, but we’re not going to find any path that doesn’t lead us straight through that. If we try to wait for the perfect moment inside their range, we’re going to be demolished, and if we wait outside, we’ll be too far away to take advantage of the right moment.”

Indris looked ready to speak, but to Sabae’s surprise, Talia called out to interrupt her. “Most mages!”

“Sorry, most mages what?” Luthe asked.

“You said that Havath’s aerial defenses stretched as far as mages could fly, but they don’t. Only most mages.”

Ilinia rolled her eyes beside Sabae. “Lass, not even Indris and I can go much higher than the one league boundary. The air gets too thin, and our flight wind-workings start to collapse. This isn’t a matter of raw power, it’s a hard limit.”

“Not for the Kettle!” Talia said.

Sabae frowned at that name. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place from where.

She could tell most of the mages around her were equally confused, but Ilinia and Indris both had looks of recognition on their faces.

Talia’s storage tattoo flared around her mouth, and she pulled out a book, one that Sabae immediately recognized.

Artur had given it to Talia as a birthday present while they were in Zophor last summer.

“The Kettle, somehow, managed to create a bubble of breathable air that allowed her to fly nearly two leagues into the air,” Talia said, waving the book.

Ilinia sighed loudly at that. “Lass, the Kettle was unique. We’re not even sure what affinities she had, but pressure was almost certainly one of them, and I’m not even sure we have any pressure mages. The only other mages I know that have reached those heights were the most powerful gravity mages and Thunderbringers, and they weren’t actually flying— they just launched themselves up fast enough that their momentum carried them further. Neither works for Indris or I, and it definitely doesn’t work for an entire army. Extreme low pressure is the greatest enemy of wind mages. Now, does anyone have any further suggestions that aren’t…”

Talia burst out laughing, and Sabae winced. Her grandmother was fond of Sabae’s friends, but she was still prickly even for a great power.

“If you really are the greatest storm mages alive, surely you could replicate the magic of a mage who died almost a century ago,” Talia called.

“Enough of this foolishness,” Ilinia snapped. “I won’t be goaded by such basic prods at my pride.”

Indris sniffed loudly, as if to agree.

Sabae started to relax, as her grandmother seemed uninterested in making any larger of an issue out of Talia’s rudeness, then stopped.

Then, slightly aghast at what she was doing, Sabae spoke up as well. “Actually, Talia has a point. The study of magic has advanced immensely in the past century, as has the study of weather and flight. Plus, I don’t believe the two of you have ever collaborated on experimental magic before.”

Indris sniffed again, even louder. “Of course we haven’t. We might be allies now, but sharing experimental magic is a foolish risk when we don’t know what the future will bring. Today’s ally is tomorrow’s rival, as likely as not.”

“Does it pose a risk to the entire continent, like us failing does?” Sabae asked.

The storm queens both glowered at Sabae.

And, to her shock, they looked away first. They traded glances, and Sabae swore she saw just a hint of uncertainty cross their faces.

Ilinia spoke first. “Even if we could figure out a way to replicate the Kettle’s high-altitude bubble, what you’re talking about is insanity. If we ascend too quickly, we face the same health risks to our army that water mages do ascending from the sea depths. If our hypothetical bubble gets breached, most of our army will suffocate and freeze. We’ll have to maintain the bubble much of the way down, as well. And without some clue as to how the Kettle did it, I doubt we can even make a serious attempt.”

“Keayda is the only one that knows, and he isn’t sharing that knowledge,” Indris said.

“How does Keayda know?” Luthe asked.

“The Kettle was one of his Librarians Errant,” Indris said.

“So let’s bargain fer that knowledge, then,” Godrick said, speaking up for the first time. “Keayda always trades knowledge, right?”

Sabae felt a brief surge of hope at that. The naga stone lich, one of the oldest on the continent, was notorious for valuing knowledge above all else, and it was all up for sale— usually for other knowledge.

Indris shook her head. “The price he’s put on that knowledge is absurd— at minimum, a secret capable of turning someone into a great power. And I doubt any of the assembled have a secret like that they’d like to share.”

Sabae shifted uncomfortably at that, thinking of her own pact with her friends and their dozen affinities.

Eddin Slane glowered from his seat. “Keayda’s knowledge hoarding is disgusting. He’s holding back so much knowledge that could advance civilization, and he uses it solely for his own profit.”

The Frost Ghost spoke up for the first time at that meeting. “And much of that knowledge is likely incredibly destructive, and is better left unshared.”

The two glared at one another, but then a truly unexpected voice spoke up, cutting off their argument before it could start. “What if I ask?”

Everyone in the chamber turned to face Hugh, who shifted uncomfortably.

“Why would Keayda care about some minor archmage?” a random archmage called. The Mazesmith, Sabae believed. “Just because you were Kanderon’s pet?”

Hugh flushed, but actually met the archmage’s condescending look eye-to-eye.

“Because I’m her heir. Because I hold her debts, both owed by and to her. Because even without her here with us, Kanderon’s legacy weighs heavier on the world than any of us ever will.”

Sabae felt pride at Hugh standing up for himself as murmuring started up in the audience.

“But was Kanderon’s ledger filled with debts owed by Keayda, or to him?” Shimmering Cardovan asked.

At that, the storm queens exchanged glances once more.

“Now that’s an easy bet,” Indris said.

“Only one way to find out,” Ilinia replied. “I can try and establish a wind-talking channel with Keayda to negotiate with him.”

Hugh shook his head. “No need.”

He whistled loudly. Nothing happened for a few moments, and then Mackerel crashed into the fort’s lithified dirt directly in front of Hugh.

“Where did that thing come from?” Ramyl muttered.

Hugh looked up awkwardly. “I’m, uh, pretty sure he was hiding on one of your heads, sir. Sorry.”

Mackerel shook himself, then flew over to Hugh, who in turn gestured to Sabae.

She quickly strode across the meeting room to join him, and spent a few minutes helping him draft a succinct and direct message to Keayda.

While they worked, the assembled archmages had started a technical discussion of how, precisely, a high-altitude flight and drop like this could work.

As the heir of Kanderon Crux, I, Hugh Stormward, call upon debts owed. I require a full accounting of how the mage known as the Kettle, who formerly worked for you, achieved her extreme high altitude flight.

“You’re sure you can get this message to him, Mackerel?” Sabae asked.

The spellbook had intercepted multiple messages to and from Keayda in the past, indicating that he was somehow tied into the communication diary network Skyhold’s Librarians Errant used. Sabae privately suspected that, like the idea for the Librarians Errant themselves, Kanderon had stolen— or more likely traded for— the communication diaries from Keayda.

Mackerel gave her a hesitant look, then bobbed up and down in assent.

The letters on his green crystal pages seemed to waver for a moment, and then, with startling immediacy, a reply arrived.

A bold request. Bold, and fascinating, especially at this precise time. A moment, while I verify your identity.

Sabae exchanged concerned, puzzled glances with Hugh, but it was only a few seconds before Keayda replied once more.

You’ve assembled inside a tornado fortress? How delightfully gaudy. And what have you done to that hydra looming over you?

“How did he know where we are?” Hugh asked. “I thought he was just a stone lich?”

“Don’t ask him, he’ll just demand we pay for the answer. As old as he is, who knows how many powerful servants, weird enchantments, and other tricks he’s assembled over the years. Actually…”

Sabae smirked as she began to compose their next message.

How much would you be willing to pay for that answer?

She swore she could almost see Keayda rolling his eyes in his handwriting when he responded.

Normally, a moderate amount, but I would prefer to clear my debts rather than add to them. I can provide this information to you, but it will clear one-seventh of the debt I owe to Kanderon.

Sabae raised her eyebrows at that— if Keayda valued the knowledge of the Kettle at a level high enough to trade for the secret of creating a great power, what could Kanderon have possibly done or traded him to be owed that much?

Hugh wrote his response in Mackerel before Sabae could even discuss it with him, but her answer would have been the exact same.

Agreed.

Very well. I shall begin transmitting the information.

And, with that, Mackerel’s pages began to fill up with notes. A list of the Kettle’s affinities— wind, pressure, and friction. A list of her many mana techniques, and of the enchantments she carried.

And the Kettle’s own writings, detailing her process of designing and testing the bubble of breathable air she was named for.

Hugh read for a second, and then stared at the floor of the meeting area. Sabae couldn’t feel his crystal magic directly with her own crystal affinity sense, but felt its results as he recrystallized it, and started copying the pages filling up in Mackerel directly onto the floor— two copies of each, in fact, facing different ways so everyone in the room could read them.

“We’ve got it!” Sabae called, gesturing at the floor.

Conversation immediately ceased as everyone craned to read.

Talia and Godrick, however, chose to work their way over to Hugh and Sabae.

“Do yeh think this is really goin’ ta’ work?” Godrick asked.

Sabae eyed her grandmother, who was crouching on the floor, eying the carved pages intently, muttering to herself.

“You know, it just might,” she said. “It just might.”

“And none of it would have happened without me tweaking their pride,” Talia bragged.

Sabae just rolled her eyes at that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Calm Before the Storm

VALIA HAD WONDERED about the truth of the rumors regarding Heliothrax for months, wondered what she had been really up to in the depths of the palace she had been given on the outskirts of Havath City.

Given the nature of those rumors, though, it wasn’t with excitement that she approached the Sunwyrm’s palace after her summons, but with trepidation.

There were precious few servants, other than Heliothrax’s mysterious representative, and none spoke to her or approached her save him. The palace’s windows had all vanished, the white marble walls having been magically stretched over the glass by some stone mage.

“Commander Warwell, if you’d follow me?” he asked, bowing.

Valia nodded, and followed him deep into the depths of the Sunwyrm’s palace.

It was dim and murky inside, with no light save for a glow crystal the representative pulled from his pocket.

They passed over ward after ward as they traveled deeper, and soon it was clear they’d entered past where any servants were allowed. Dust piled up in the corners and across the floor, with only a thin trail worn in it by footsteps.

Finally, they arrived at a massive bronze gate in the heart of the palace. To Valia’s consternation, the bronze had already started to corrode green. It had been perfectly polished when Heliothrax moved in after the debacle at Skyhold, and there was no way it should have corroded this quickly, especially not with all the wards and enchantments against bronze corrosion in the city.

The representative didn’t seem to notice her attention, and instead pulled open a small wicket gate in the larger bronze door, just big enough for a person, and waved her through.

He didn’t follow her through, and instead closed the wicket gate behind her after handing her the glow crystal.

There was no other light in the cavernous room Valia found herself in. The crystal seemed to have dimmed, and Valia struggled to even see her own feet. For a moment, she could have imagined the room empty.

Empty save for the overwhelming, disturbing smell.

Then part of the dark shifted, a few mother-of-pearl scales flickering in the light for just a moment, and she realized she stood directly before Heliothrax.

Valia’s sword sent her a note of fear, which she didn’t blame it for in the slightest.

“Sunwyrm,” Valia said, bowing deeply, while trying to ignore the smell. “I have answered your summons. How may I assist you?”

For a moment, her voice echoed throughout the cavernous room, then faded away. The silence stretched uncomfortably for long seconds before Heliothrax responded.

“I have new orders for you and your warlocks,” Heliothrax said. “You will be hunting Alustin during the battle, be the spearhead of the forces aimed at him.”

Valia stiffened. “The Conclave officially ordered me away from Alustin, said that our failures against him and my history with him renders us unfit for the duty. We have been assigned as a roving defense force to shore up weak points in the battle. I cannot in good conscience disobey them.”

Of course, even if the Conclave were amenable to this, reworking her plans with this short of notice would be a nightmare

Heliothrax was silent for another long pause, shifting her bulk again in the dark.

“I have no patience for petty human politics,” the Sunwyrm said. “You and your warlocks are the best rapid strike force Havath possesses, even with your recent losses. It is foolishness to waste you on lesser duties. If the Conclave attempts to countermand me, I shall simply… fly away. The Dominion needs me more than I need the Dominion. It will be more difficult to reclaim my lair and to get revenge against the Conclave for my humiliation, certainly, but it is nothing I cannot eventually handle on my own. Do not think your petty little empire indispensable.”

Valia gulped, holding back any arguments in defense of the Dominion.

“As you command, Sunwyrm. Will there be anything else?”

There was another long pause as Heliothrax shifted her bulk again, giving Valia a brief glimpse of mother-of-pearl scales once more.

“Merely a reminder that you should not allow sentimentality to outweigh the survival of your city. You may leave me now.”

Valia bowed, then turned to go.

Heliothrax’s representative promptly opened the wicket gate, as though he had simply been waiting there in the dark for her.

The glow crystal brightened once more as she stepped out of the dark room and handed it to the representative, and as she did so, Valia turned back to look through the wicket gate once more.

Before the representative closed it behind her, she caught a glimpse of the room past it.

She saw, for just a moment, the shape of Heliothrax’s silhouette. Saw that what had once been lean and graceful, for all the Sunwyrm’s colossal dimension, had instead become bloated and warped. Saw that the Sunwyrm loomed half again her previous size, larger than any other dragon Valia had ever known.

Saw the fluids staining the marble floor. Saw the great heaps of organic debris piled up against the walls, that were surely responsible for the smell of rotting meat pervading Heliothrax’s chambers.

And she saw that the rumors she’d heard about the Sunwyrm were false.

The truth was nightmarishly worse.

Then the wicket gate slammed shut, and Valia was left to follow Heliothrax’s representative through the dusty halls, accompanied only by her disgust.

VALIA, IN A rare moment of indecision, found herself unable to pick a path.

Over and over in her mind, she struggled over whether she had made the right decision with the weapons of Last Resort. She struggled with whether to support or report the Intertwined’s combination coup and bid for freedom. Struggled with what to do with the knowledge that Alustin’s accusations were true, that mysterious powers from other worlds were meddling with history itself, twisting the fate of the Dominion.

Most of all, she struggled with her fear that Alustin might be in the right for once. That, even if his methods were inexcusable, maybe he was right to be bringing down Havath.

His methods might be inexcusable, but… Valia couldn’t pretend she could excuse Havath’s any longer. Between Project Vengeful Sword’s threats to civilian populations, the revelation of the Intertwined’s enslavement, and Heliothrax’s monstrous self-empowerment, Valia’s faith in the Dominion had become riddled with cracks.

The Dominion had always flirted with the edge of what was acceptable when it came to their methods, had often flirted with the edge of what was morally acceptable in war, but ultimately, the ends had justified the means. The citizens of Havath did lead better lives than those without the Dominion’s protection. They lived longer, suffered less plague and famine, and most importantly of all, were shielded from the awful threat of rampaging great powers taking their lives and land on a whim.

Though maybe Havath had always been willing to violate those methods, and they’d just gotten worse at hiding it.

Now, though? Now Alustin was the one giving civilians the chance to evacuate, not the Dominion. Valia had needed to fight and claw to get the resources necessary to get the capital’s civilians clear. The Conclave hadn’t even seemed to care about the threats to their lives.

More, whatever his reasons, it had been Alustin who had brought down the genocidal crystal sphinx, the greatest monster on the continent of Ithos. Even if he had done so for selfish reasons, he had still finished what the Ithonian Empire, the Havathi Dominion, Heliothrax herself, and hundreds of nations, cities, and great powers had failed to do, and the world was better for it.

As for the claims that Alustin was planning to release plagues, or some bizarre elemental disease… no. Valia didn’t believe that for a moment.

Alustin’s plans would destroy Havath City if they worked, and quite possibly bring down the dominion, but if it did so, it would result in a massive land-grab by the nations and great powers surrounding the Dominion. Which was exactly what the Coven didn’t want.

Because, in the end, there was only one reasonable explanation for the Coven’s strategy.

They wanted to conquer the Dominion for themselves. There was nothing high-minded or philosophical about it. This wasn’t a competition over ideas, no struggle for the shape of the future— Kanderon and the two storm queens merely wanted power, as they always had.

Valia’s thoughts circled and circled, and she couldn’t escape their current.

Havath no longer drew a line in the sand, had ventured into methods beyond the pale. Had, at least in the case of the Intertwined, it seemed, been doing so for decades.

Alustin, despite being a vicious madman and the broken ruin of her friend, was the one acting with honor, avoiding needless civilian casualties.

The Dominion had defied the natural course of history, had fallen under the sway of powers outside history who would distort its course. Valia struggled to find any way to see Havath as still holding the righteous mantle of history. Struggled and failed.

Alustin was right about Havath. Maybe he’d been right all along. Not about the rightness of Havath’s goals, or the need for a strong centralized empire to restrain the abuses of great powers, nor did his arguments justify Helicote’s monstrous war of assassination. Havath had been right to strike back against them, even if they should have given the civilian population more of a chance to evacuate before melting the Lord of Bells’ demesne. But Alustin had been, Valia was starting to believe, right to condemn the Dominion in practice, if not in principle.

Because, no matter how she looked at it, the Dominion had failed to live up to those principles. It had fallen off its righteous pedestal.

Which left Valia lost at sea. Left her without any course of action, without any idea of the right thing to do.

Whether to support the Intertwined or seek to halt their coup.

Whether to turn and aid Alustin or not.

Whether she should just flee entirely, and bid good riddance to the monsters on both sides.

And, trapped in those mental currents, she did none of those things, as the hours ticked over, and they approached the eve of Alustin’s deadline.

Just prepared for battle, and followed her orders.

Just like a good soldier should.

BY THE END of their first day of travel underground, they had descended so deep that not even Alustin or Karna Scythe could detect the surface anymore. By the last full day underground, they’d descended deeper than any mage in their army had ever gone before.

The air inside Jycenna Deephome’s fungal demesne was cool and clean, with only the faintest traces of mushroom scent. The stone and fire mages among their army were universally anxious— they had, it seemed, gone deep enough that the rock around the tunnels was dangerously hot. Not fully magma, but absolutely hot enough to burn the skin on contact.

The light from Jycenna’s curious spore spheres was gentle and dim. More than enough to see by, in Alustin’s opinion, but a large number of mages in the army behind him had maintained their own light cantrips and the like, just in case.

“How close, exactly, will this take us to Havath City?” Threadqueen Iblint asked.

Alustin shrugged. “We have four exits that would make sense to use, all between five and two leagues away from the western edge of Havath City. The closest one to the city, just under a couple of leagues, is south of the Greywise, so it doesn’t make much sense to emerge there. We’ll probably take the second closest, which is just over a couple of leagues away.”

Iblint scowled vaguely. “I would have preferred if we had enough fliers to attempt a full aerial assault.”

Alustin shook his head. “Even with the number of siege mages they lost in their attack on Skyhold, Havath’s anti-air defenses are nearly impregnable. No, our plan is far safer.”

Iblint sighed. “I know, I know. I just don’t like being so entirely dependent on other mages like this.”

Alustin smiled at her. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

Casser Spellstorm cleared his throat from behind them. “Flirting aside, now seems like it would be a good time to finally share the details of the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells. It seems improbable that, even if we missed any spies and infiltrators, there would be any way for them to get the intelligence to Havath.”

Alustin genuinely considered sharing for a moment before finally rejecting the idea. “No, I’d prefer to avoid even that tiny risk, and there are no tactical advantages to sharing. There’s little you can do to affect the Last Echo either way. Besides, there’s a much more compelling reason not to share the details.”

“And that is?” Casser asked, one eyebrow raised.

“It would ruin my dramatic presentation,” Alustin said.

Casser rolled his eyes at that, falling back to converse with Karna Scythe. Iblint, however, actually giggled at Alustin’s statement, and he turned back to her with a smile.

Alustin only had a day left to live, might as well enjoy himself while he could.

ALUSTIN’S FORCES CAMPED for the night in a massive lake cavern deep within Jycenna’s demesne, where gentle fungal light rippled up from the deep, placid water. Strange, eerie fish swam through the glowing fungal reefs and mushroom forests beneath the water— not the blind, pale creatures of normal caves, but glowing, luridly colorful creatures that had symbiotic relationships with the fungus, many of them even with mushrooms and hyphae growing from their flesh.

Alustin had spent years wondering about Jycenna Deephome. Whether she had been human before, and if so, how much of that humanity she still shared. How much she even remembered. Why she never spoke to them, how Kanderon had found and communicated with her. How large she really was, what her purposes were, whether she really extended through labyrinths into other worlds.

He couldn’t even count how many hours he’d argued those questions with other Librarians Errant over drinks. They’d never come to any conclusion, nor would they in the future.

The Librarians Errant didn’t have a future. Tomorrow would, one way or another, break their order for good.

Despite being so deep beneath the surface, Alustin and his army were easily able to keep track of when night actually arrived— there had to have been dozens of accurate time-pieces among the army, from mechanical marvels to elaborate enchantments.

Alustin had one of his own made of entirely of paper. His own invention, obviously.

He sat on the soft, spongy, fungal lakeshore in front of his tent, Threadqueen Iblint sleeping inside it, idly toying with his instrument book— a book of tools made almost entirely of paper, including his paper clock.

He had constructed each and every paper device inside the book himself, several others besides the paper clock of his own invention. There were cipher wheels for constructing and breaking codes, spinning paper dial calculators for arithmetic, paper surveyor’s equipment, measuring tools, even simple star charts. None of them used anything but paper and ink in their construction. His instrument book was a profoundly useful tool, and it was among his proudest achievements as a paper mage.

And, unlike so many of his other achievements, it was no weapon, no arrow in his quiver against Havath.

Alustin had so many ideas like it, so many ways to use paper and ink magic to change civilization for the better, from minor improvements to complete game-changers.

He had a whole list of his greatest goals. The relay golem had been on that list, but the rest, whether selfish or selfless inventions, would never get made now. His greatest plan, especially, could have changed the world— a massively expanded network of communications diaries that would allow instant communication across the continent.

The biggest challenge to that was price— each one of the Librarian Errant communication diaries was absurdly expensive, far beyond a simple magical sword or bow.

There were plenty of other problems as well. Constructing them required highly volatile alchemical reagents and absurd artificial mana reservoirs, making them terrifying explosives when damaged.

In order to lower the price and solve its related issues, Alustin would need to figure out a way to lower the mana costs of the enchantment significantly, to say the least.

And he’d had plans, avenues of research there. Huge relay stations, perhaps, similar to the way Skyhold’s index nodes relied on the Index itself. Or maybe he could use the books themselves as relays, so messages only needed to be passed a few leagues at a time to the nearest book, then the next nearest.

It would have taken years, if not decades, to solve the issue, but Alustin didn’t doubt he could have done it. Not because he was some unparalleled genius or anything, no. He was brilliant, certainly, but most of the magical techniques he would need were already out there. Magic had taken innumerable strides in sophistication in recent decades, and so many new applications were just waiting to be picked up off the table. Like Hugh’s Crown— no matter how intelligent he and Loarna were, they never could have built the Stormward’s Crown without the advances in their field in recent decades.

Admittedly, many of those advances had come from Loarna. And Hugh actually disagreeing with Kanderon about his planar magic learning schedule and finding an entirely new way to apply his lessons had been essential as well.

Regardless, invention was more a product of being in the right time than it was any product of intelligence. Brilliant people rose up in every time and place, but they only achieved brilliant things if they were given the tools to do anything.

There were always successful people who wanted to believe that they were special, not just lucky. That their hard work somehow mattered more than their circumstances or the vagaries of life and the great powers.

They were fools.

Alustin wondered how many people far more brilliant than him were out there that had been condemned to a life of menial labor for being born mind-blind. How many had died in childhood injuries that were easily curable by magic, if the political will to provide healing for the poor were there. Or that were simply slaughtered in battles between great powers.

The Tongue Eater tried to interrupt his thoughts with alien whispers, but it seemed half-hearted, as though it knew the languages held within would be set free soon, and Alustin quashed it easily.

He wondered how many future geniuses he would slaughter when he killed the Dominion, and the released languages of the Tongue Eater rolled across most of the lands of the Dominion, driving the bulk of their population irrevocably mad. He wondered how much he would cost the future, and knew that his vengeance would leave Ithos and Anastis worse than it had been. Vengeance might be owed, but he couldn’t pretend it was just or even worth the bargain.

It was too late to have these thoughts, too late to turn back, but Alustin had them anyways, as he stared out over the impossible glowing lake in an impossible sentient fungal landscape.

THE NIGHT BEFORE Alustin’s deadline, Hugh and his friends gathered atop one of Fort Maelstrom’s rooftops.

The view was both impressive and monotonous. Impressive because of the sheer scale and power of the tornado, monotonous because there was nothing else to see. Even the stars above were obscured by the tornado’s cloud-top.

Hugh took a small sip of watered-down wine from their wineskin— it would be foolish to drink straight wine the night before a battle— then passed it to Talia, who was cuddled up to him. Not to Mackerel, despite his spellbook’s pleading look.

“It’s hard ta’ believe this is it,” Godrick said. “That one way or another, this ends tomorrow.”

Hugh sighed, then checked to make sure Mackerel still blocked scrying, and that the Stormward’s Crown still protected them from mundane eavesdroppers. “No, it doesn’t. Even if we successfully seize the Tongue Eater from Alustin, we have to keep it safe until she wakes. Which is a year of running and hiding, of keeping the deadliest weapon on the planet safe. It’s going to be a nightmare.”

“Ilinia and Indris will keep us safe, right?” Talia asked, though she didn’t sound very convinced.

Sabae snorted. “Are you kidding me? They’re probably going to be the ones we’ll have to guard against the most. They might not know what Alustin’s secret weapon is, but they know it terrifies Kanderon. No way they’re going to risk letting us hold onto it, and I absolutely don’t trust either of them not to play with it if they get their hands on it.”

“Ah guess we’re running again, then?” Godrick said, accepting the wineskin from Talia. “Sneak out through Havath City’s labyrinth after the battle?”

Hugh shook his head. “Can’t. Havath locked up their labyrinth entrance, used it as a prison for monsters and great powers they couldn’t kill. There’s even a chimera in there. That’s why we couldn’t risk trying to sneak our army in through the labyrinths— even if that were possible, which it definitely isn’t. Galvachren warns specifically against that— says the labyrinths often react with extreme aggression when armies try.”

“Aren’t chimeras notoriously unstable and easy to kill?” Talia asked.

“Usually, yeah,” Hugh said. “Not this one, though. Kraggoth Claw-Mane is ancient, apparently, far too old to just be your standard deranged hybrid of a few animals smushed together by unethical animal mages and healers. Most of the reports on it I’ve seen consider it the next best thing to unkillable.”

“So how are we going to escape, then?” Sabae asked.

“According to Galvachren’s Guide to Worlds, there are almost no labyrinths in the immediate region outside of Havath City,” Hugh said. “Our best bet is to probably make a break south, try to sneak through the Sican battle lines, find a labyrinth in the southern jungles. There’s tons of them down there.”

“Yeh don’t know of any ta’ the north or east?” Godrick asked.

“Oh, there’s plenty, but that’s the oldest, most settled part of the continent,” Hugh replied. “Literally all of them are well-guarded and have cities built around them. There’s no more reliable source of aether density than a labyrinth, and high aether density is one of the biggest factors in the wealth of cities.”

“Some of the philosophers I’ve been reading talk a bit about that,” Sabae said. “Discuss cities as engines that process energy into life and culture, and that it doesn’t matter too much what forms the energy takes— whether it’s food, trade, or mana. They can find a way to convert any of it, eventually.”

Hugh shrugged. “Don’t know about that, but yeah, there’s good reason many of the world’s largest cities are built around labyrinths.”

“We could try to break into one of them?” Talia asked. “I’m sure we could do it, between the five of us.”

Mackerel flapped his covers in agreement.

“I’m sure we could, but their security isn’t the real issue,” Sabae said. “The real issue is that it would make a ton of noise, and make it easier for Ilinia and Indris to track us. Sneak through the Sican battlefront, and the chaos will help hide us from them.”

“Ah’d love it if we ever had a non-insane option,” Godrick said. “Just some point where the right course a’ action was ta’ hide in a lovely little mountain cottage with a fireplace and lots a’ books.”

“Cheers to that,” Hugh said, to general agreement.

They just sat and silently watched the tornado whirl around them after that.

All of them, despite their efforts otherwise, struggled to think of anything but what would happen if they failed, if Kanderon was right about the Tongue Eater’s risks.

And all of them tried to believe that they stood a chance against Alustin, and none of them truly achieved it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Final Approach

THE COVEN’S ARMY departed Fort Maelstrom just before dawn, in order to arrive at Havath City in time for Alustin’s deadline.

Nineteen days after the spring equinox, just after noon.

If they were just worrying about distance as the drake flies, they could have left hours later— at the top sustainable speed, the Coven and their small army of flight mages of various sorts could have gotten them to Havath City in just a few hours.

The issue, however, was their ascent.

Indris and Ilinia had, with the help of the assembled archmages and the Kettle’s notes, figured out a way to equal the Kettle’s high-altitude flight. Not to replicate it— they didn’t have enough friction mages, and far from enough pressure mages— but to create a parallel technique, one heavily involving fire and water affinities, of all things. The result was a series of bubbles of wind filled with absurd amounts of water vapor that oddly distorted the view, with temperature regulation by Clan Castis fire mages in each bubble.

Flying that high was still a profound challenge, though— they’d figured out how to fly at that altitude, but not how to get to that altitude. Low pressure was still the greatest enemy of wind mages.

The solution had stumped everyone, until the heat and water archmage Tena Brand had pointed out that the answer was staring them literally right in the face.

Fort Maelstrom’s tornado was a giant spiraling column of wind ascending even higher than they needed to go.

Of course, ascending a tornado safely was much easier said than done. More, they had to very carefully limit the speed of their ascent, or they risked giving their army the same, often lethal, blood injury water mages endured while ascending too fast without the right spells active.

Those were just magical engineering problems, though, and their assembled mages had come up with solutions to all of them with just a few hours of work.

Hugh didn’t understand the precise nature of those solutions— he was still a neophyte in wind magic, after all— but it had something to do with magically balancing the forces of the spinning outer wall and the inner updraft.

One thing he did understand, however, is that the ascension process was miserable and terrifying. They all had to deal with the tornado’s ceaseless roaring, their ascent air bubbles constantly vibrating and shaking, and frequent stomach-churning drops as they wobbled upwards along the inside wall of the tornado for the long, interminable ascent.

It could have been worse— they, at least, got to float in Ilinia’s bubble, which was significantly more stable than some of the others. The bulk of their forces rode on the backs of Indris’s nearly two hundred children, or on the back of Ramyl the Chained, where the wind forces were truly ridiculous— the sheer size of his bubble meant that it was more unstable and uncomfortable than the others.

It still amazed Hugh that it was even remotely possible to get something as colossal as Ramyl the Chained’s hydra body off the ground. It was only partially due to the sheer power of the storm queens and their small army of fliers, though. In great part, Ramyl’s flight was possible because he had flattened out his body to a truly absurd degree, into a thin flat ribbon wider than Indris’ massive wingspan. Ramyl’s chains had largely all retreated beneath his scales, and had gone rigid as needed, forming structural braces for the massive great power’s flight.

It was a bizarre and majestic sight, though Hugh did find it a little funny that Ramyl was flying backwards, his heads acting as flight rudders.

They were nowhere near the top of the tornado when they reached their target altitude— almost precisely two leagues above the ground.

As their assorted bubbles breached the tornado high over the plains of Havath, Hugh found himself forgetting about the battle to come for a moment, and just enjoying the view.

It was remarkable how small and flat everything looked from this altitude. Hugh had flown before, but never at this height.

And, sure, it might not be as impressive as the view from Limnus’ skyspear trees, but you were really missing the point if you solely appreciated the most impressive things you encountered.

There was one thing he could see now, however, that Limnus couldn’t match.

They were so high up that Hugh could see the curvature of Anastis itself. Just barely, but it was clearly and obviously there.

Far below them, there was another army of fliers— a truly masterful illusion, a perfect copy of their own army projected downwards and slightly to one side by Andas Thune.

Their own high altitude bubbles had weak attention wards drawn out of clouds, just inside the bubble wall. Not that they expected any enemy seers to be looking for them at this altitude. No army had ever flown this high before.

Some of the high-altitude bubbles immediately separated from the rest of the army, heading back towards the Skyreach Range. These were the bubbles containing Fort Maelstrom’s support staff— there was no way to maintain a fort for thousands of mages with only battle mages, after all.

The high altitude bubbles actually made it far easier to evacuate the support staff safely— before, they would have required a significant investment of battle mages to protect them, but at this altitude, they were essentially untouchable, meaning the army only needed to part with enough mages to maintain the small number of flight bubbles. They wouldn’t have Andas Thune’s illusions flying below them, but there was a decent chance that their ridiculous altitude and attention wards would keep them from being noticed.

A small number of bubbles, while staying with the main army, were devoid of people— just the ships Ilinia had flown her troops there on, save for the sole one she was using now.

As the last of the army exited the whirlwind, Indris and Ilinia’s bubbles halted, and both storm mages stopped to face the tornado.

And then, slowly at first, but steadily picking up speed, the tornado began to move away from them.

There were explosions and flickers of light at its base as the winds shredded Fort Maelstrom, but the tornado didn’t slow at all. Hugh was deeply happy the Coven hadn’t lost control of the tornado while they were all inside it.

“Where are you sending it?” he asked Ilinia, from where she stood on deck near him.

She smiled at him. “Straight at the nearest Havathi military outpost. It would be a shame to let our little friend here go to waste.”

And, with that, they turned away, and began their flight towards Havath City.

Towards Alustin.

VALIA WAS PROUD of patient she was when need be, but this wait stretched even her nerves.

Siege mages darted about, repositioning themselves around the Sacred Swordsmen. Heliothrax’s new orders hadn’t required them to move— they’d already been positioned back away from the defenses on the outside of the city. Among the siege mages was as good a spot as any. At least it got her away from the deafening roar of Havath’s colossal domed wind shield, or the unpleasant crackle Havath’s main defensive ward made where the wind shield blew against it.

The colossal active defenses of Havath City were some of the most powerful, expensive magics on the planet. Running them even for an hour cost as much as running a large town for a year, but no one wanted to risk having the defenses down in case Alustin struck before his deadline.

On top of that, the seven massive marble and bronze warbodies of the Intertwined, the great statues surrounding Havath City, each nearly as big as a Sican Elder, had begun to twitch and shift as their enchantments activated in sequence.

“We’ve found the Coven’s army,” the messenger told her. “They’re flying straight from their tornado fort here. The seers suspect that the army we can see is just an illusion, though, and are looking for them in a search radius spiraling outwards.”

“They’re either repositioning themselves to hit a different spot in our defenses than anticipated, or at a different time than we’re expecting,” Valia said.

The messenger nodded. “They’re currently on-track to hit us precisely on the Last Loyal Son of Helicote’s deadline, so the seers suspect they’re delaying their strike, and extending their search spiral farther behind the visible army than in front.”

Valia tried to conceal her wince at the use of Alustin’s title. Despite how hated Alustin was by Havath, they still used his title— not out of honor, but because they hated Helicote even more, and association with it was absolutely an insult to them.

Something she’d dealt with for years.

“And Alustin’s army?” she asked.

“Still no sign, ma’am.” The messenger hesitated before continuing. “Do… do you think he’s really on his way?”

Valia nodded. “I know he is.”

What she didn’t say was that she no longer knew quite how she felt about that fact.

ALUSTIN, TO HIS great surprise, found himself smiling and whistling as their assembled forces waited by the exit from Jycenna Deephome’s demesne.

“Oh, now the dark and brooding Alustin goes away, and we get the cheerful and ridiculous Alustin back?” Emmenson Drees asked grumpily.

“Brooding is for when I have nothing to do, no immediate emergency to focus on,” Alustin said. “Right now we have just a bare handful of minutes until it’s time to go, and I get to scry the fields above us and be smug about the terrible state of Havathi agriculture.”

“Storms, he’s on about farming again,” Celia the Anchor said. “I just really hope this Last Echo of his isn’t farming related, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

The other Librarians Errant all chuckled at that, but Alustin ignored them with, if he said so himself, great dignity.

“They’re more concerned with making their fields easily taxable, mappable, and replicable than with adapting their agriculture to the specific soil and water conditions of each plot,” Alustin said. “It’s resulted in truly massive yields, but it’s also degrading their soil faster each year— their soil mages are already overworked and spread too thin, pun most certainly intended. Even if we weren’t about to destroy them, they’re heading for topsoil collapse within a few decades at most.”

“You’re spreading my patience too thin,” Emmenson muttered.

“Just as bad, they’ve relaxed their land ownership regulations near the city, and all the small family farms have been largely bought out by nobles consolidating massive estates, which is a surefire way to ruin the fertility of land. Small farmers understand and care for their lands, noble landowners couldn’t even begin to develop the understanding of their lands that small landowners do, even if they wanted to, which they never do. And without that understanding…”

“With or without that understanding, whether they’re large or small landowners, they’re about to get burnt out of house and home,” Mattin Kos said, appearing out of nowhere. Not via magic, just plain old sneakiness.

Most of the Librarians Errant scowled at the man— the Ruhn Syndicate was deeply unpopular among them, for good reason. Alustin merely sighed dramatically.

“It’s time, Alustin. Get to the front,” the gangster spatial mage snapped.

Alustin sighed even more dramatically, then followed him to the top of the tunnel.

There waited the collected great powers of his forces.

Zersin Grey, the smoke mage, stood nervously to one side with her flame scepter and trio of powerful fire mage minions.

Threadqueen Iblint looked away from her conversation with Sagravaax Scalestorm and winked at Alustin, who returned it cheerfully, only a small twinge of guilt in his heart at her unintended inclusion in his army.

Karna Scythe and Casser Spellstorm stood at the front, already preparing the powerful magics that would carry them the two leagues towards the city. Karna Scythe’s earthquake affinity was the most important in their plan, of course, but both of their stone affinities and Casser’s friction and wind affinities would be almost as useful.

“You’re ready?” Alustin asked them.

“Whenever you are,” Casser said, audible strain in his voice.

“Excellent,” Alustin said, rubbing his hands together happily.

“This Last Echo of yours had better work,” Karna Scythe growled down at Alustin. “If it doesn’t, we’re all dead.”

Alustin flicked his farsight into Havath City, and smiled as he watched the tendrils of the Last Echo tighten around its defenses.

“Oh, it’s going to work,” he said.

He checked the paper clock in his instrument book, then smiled.

He had just a little more time.

Alustin drew and activated a spellform in his mind’s eye, and across the army, up and down the massive underground tunnel, paper glyph sheets activated. They were intended to carry his orders as needed during battle, but they’d work just fine to carry a speech.

“My friends!” Alustin said, his voice echoing up and down the tunnel. “Our time approaches!”

Other conversation cut off, and everyone that wasn’t blocked by the curve of the fungal tunnel strained to see.

“We have fought and bled, many of us for years, even decades, to see this day!” Alustin shouted. “We all owe a debt to Havath— a debt of grudges, a debt of vengeance, a debt of violence!”

He lowered his voice, to just below conversational levels.

“And the Dominion has earned every ounce of that debt. They have conquered and destroyed our homelands. They have killed our loved ones, and forced us from our homes.”

He let his voice begin climbing again.

“Above all, they have had the sheer, unforgivable gall to claim that it is for the benefit of the world, that their ends justify every one of their bloody means! They claim they do history’s bidding, and that the sacrifices they have forced us to make are theirs to demand! We owe them a debt for their sheer audacity, if for nothing else!”

By the end, he was practically bellowing. The fungal tunnel seemed to rattle with his voice echoing from thousands of paper glyphs.

He paused, and let the silence linger before he spoke, barely above a whisper.

“Today, we’re going to pay back our debts to Havath. We’re going to pay them back in blood and fire, in chaos and ruin!”

He smiled. “And today, let no one call us cheapskates! We pay that debt back with interest!”

The tunnel echoed once more, this time with the shouts and cheers of his army.

Everyone except Karna and Casser, who struggled to hold their spells ready.

Alustin checked his paper clock once more.

Perfect timing.

“Jycenna, an exit, if you would?”

The fungal tunnel wall folded open to the outside world, and the instant it began, a gargantuan shockwave of dirt created by Karna and Casser blasted out away from the entrance, concealing their exact exit point in a colossal debris cloud.

The explosion didn’t just stop around the exit, though. Dirt began erupting into the air in a gargantuan cloud, hundreds of feet wide and high, driven by Karna and Casser’s magic, as the explosion raced straight towards the wards and wind shield of Havath City.

Alustin’s forces couldn’t see out any more than Havath’s could see in, which was for the best— even Alustin found himself intimidated scrying the defenses of Havath City. It was known as the best-defended city on the continent for good reason.

The dirt explosion wasn’t merely cover for their advance, however. In the trail of the explosion was left a massive trench, over a hundred feet deep and three hundred feet wide.

The stone that should have blasted away with the dirt, however, smashed together at high speed, forming a massive stone platform at the entrance, which all the great powers save Karna, and the troops immediately behind them were already charging out onto.

The instant the platform was full, before the dirt explosion had even reached the edge of Havath City, the platform launched itself down the trench, as fast as any of them had ever flown through the air.

The stone platform wasn’t flying— instead, it was sliding on the surface of the trench, propelled by Karna and Casser’s stone magic and Casser’s wind magic. The sliding itself was made possible partially by Casser’s friction magic, but mostly by Karna’s earthquake magic— she was vibrating the surface of the trench so fast that it took on some bizarre, fluidic properties.

Alustin laughed with delight as the platform rampaged down the trench, the dirt cloud barely being held back from his eyes by their wind mages. Stones streamed backward along the trench from the dirt explosion on either side of them, growing the next platform.

It had been less than a quarter of a minute, and Havathi siege spells and siege weaponry were already starting to crash into the cloud of dirt. They were scattered and unfocused, but the rate was already starting to pick up.

To his surprise, the Havathi assault was also being aimed in a completely different direction— he’d wager quite a bit that they were targeting the Coven’s forces.

Alustin had to admit, he hadn’t expected them to arrive until the battle was well underway. The storm queens were bold, but not foolhardy, and it would have made far more sense for them to wait until Alustin had softened up the city.

The trench was getting hit less than any other part of the cloud, though, thanks to one simple fact— much of the Havathi siege response wasn’t capable of aiming below ground level.

After all, there wasn’t any need for it. Most armies or rogue great powers would attack from the air or on the ground. There was a chance that some might try tunneling, but there was always a massive defender’s advantage when it came to war tunnels. A small group of stone or dirt battlemages could often overwhelm and crush even a great power carving a tunnel. A trench like this one, though? Digging a ditch straight at a city? There was no tunnel roof to collapse.

It should have been a terrible idea, should have been ridiculously unworkable.

It was a plan so ridiculous and foolish the Havathi had never even considered it possible, and hadn’t ever seriously prepared for it.

As the second platform launched down the trench on the six mile run towards Havath City, Alustin pulled his instrument book out of his storage tattoo, then flipped the pages to the paper clock. Then he reached out across Havath’s wards and exerted his paper and ink magics.

Throughout the massive city, life-size paper cutouts of himself, their fronts bearing his likeness in ink, began to unroll and unfold themselves from their hiding places, and rise up into the air of Havath City.

It was time to ring the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells

ALUSTIN’S VOICE ECHOED out from the hovering paper cutouts of himself scattered throughout the city. Dozens of them were cut out of the air immediately, but more kept launching themselves from bookstores and libraries, warehouse back offices and government offices. Each cutout was powered by mana stored there by Alustin weeks ago, not that they required more than a tiny bit. All the crude origami golems did, after all, was hover and project his voice.

“Havath City,” Alustin called out, his voice amplified above the siege magic and colossal wind shield. “It’s lovely to see you today, I’m glad you decided to show up for my party. I’ve never hosted an event commemorating the destruction of Helicote before, so I was worried no one would attend!”

There had to have been lots of shouting and jeering from the Havathi, Alustin was sure, but his scrying didn’t carry sound. If he wanted to know what someone was saying, he needed to read their lips, which was hardly practical with a whole city.

The renewed bombardment against his life-size cutouts spoke loudly enough about the Dominion’s feelings, though.

Next to Alustin, on the stone platform careening down the trench, the great powers fighting alongside him collectively rolled their eyes, as did the Librarians Errant.

“How long do you think he’s been rehearsing this speech?” Zersin Grey asked the others.

“Now, I’m sure you’re all eager to finally bear witness to the opening performance,” Alustin said to an entire city of enraged defenders. “But it would be an utter shame to just activate the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells without telling you anything about it.”

Alustin’s compatriots looked even more exasperated at that, which was fair enough. They’d been trying to get him to tell them what the Last Echo was for months now.

For a moment, his attention was diverted to the bank of the Greywise River, where several cut-outs had begun to wilt in… steam? Was the riverbank… boiling?

Alustin shook his head at the minor mystery, checked the time on his paper clock, then focused once more.

“As many of you might have guessed, the Last Echo isn’t truly an atthuema spell cast by the Lord of Bells. That would, obviously, defy a dozen laws of magic. No, the Last Echo is something of my own creation— but it is inspired by the strategies the Lord of Bells devised for Helicote’s war against Havath.”

Casser Spellstorm growled at him on the platform. “We just crossed the halfway mark, Alustin. Hurry up, already.”

Alustin smiled. “The Last Echo taps into the single most powerful force in our world, one that no mage has ever nor will ever possess an affinity for. It was something that The Lord of Bells had learned to respect and fear over his centuries of life. Something that can move mountains, redirect rivers, and change the course of history. It can even, just to pick a totally random example, utterly shatter the defenses of an entire city.”

Alustin raised one hand in the air, his thumb pressed to his middle finger. Each and every paper cutout hovering over Havath City copied his pose.

“And that force?” he asked, as he carefully watched the paper clock tick down the seconds to the exact anniversary of Helicote’s fall. He didn’t need to be so precise, he had built more than a little flexibility into the Last Echo, but he had no reason not to indulge his sense of drama.

“That force is bureaucracy.”

Alustin and all his paper copies snapped their fingers, simultaneously sending a magical signal to paper and ink glyphs hidden throughout the city, and Havath’s defenses began ripping themselves apart.

EVERY WORD ALUSTIN had said was true. He had used bureaucracy to take down Havath City’s defenses, and it was inspired by the Lord of Bells.

When Alustin was young, he had spent ages fantasizing about destroying Havath single-handed. He’d dived into origami golem creation, planning to create enough of them to annihilate Havath, or at least Havath City.

He’d quickly realized that, even if he spent his entire lifetime doing nothing but manufacturing origami golems, he’d never have enough.

He’d gone through plan after plan, until he finally, in desperation, turned to the history of his city’s ruler, the Lord of Bells.

The lich had, in his youth, been one of the most lethal sword mages the Cloudspine Continent had ever seen. Brash, fearless, and quick to take offense, he’d eventually killed the wrong opponent in a duel, and been forced to flee the continent entirely, hired assassins on his tail.

He’d spent years wandering the world, until settling down in eastern Ithos, discarding his name, and beginning construction of his demesne— at the time, an absolutely peerless construction.

There were lessons Alustin could draw from that masterwork of enchantment, but it was the next phase of the Lord of Bells’ history that was more illuminating— turning the demesne into a proper city.

For a warrior-artist like the Lord of Bells, little was more objectionable than bureaucracy. The drudgery of forms and regulations was anathema to every virtue he held on a pedestal, to his very sense of beauty.

And his every attempt to found a functioning city without a bureaucracy was a miserable, ridiculous failure. It simply couldn’t be done, not without leaving the city an inefficient mess that no one wanted to live in. Managing resources and personnel wasn’t the sort of problem that simply became larger as the number of resources and personnel grew— no, it became an entirely new problem at different scales. With some problems, sufficient quantitative change literally became qualitative change.

Bureaucracy could handle those problems in a way that individuals never could. Not always efficiently, and seldom in the most pleasing way, but it did handle them.

The Lord of Bells had never learned to love or even like bureaucracy, but he’d absolutely learned to respect it.

And, when the Lords Citizen had decided to go to war against Havath, to strike a preemptive blow against the Dominion, it had been the Lord of Bells to propose targeting Havath’s bureaucracy, to shred their capability to manage their own empire, to stave off their inevitable next war of conquest.

And it had worked. Helicote had been destroyed, but Havath’s war-making capabilities were shredded for most of twenty years.

Alustin had seen the power of bureaucracy, even if just in its failure, and he had, in a mad moment of inspiration, decided to subvert that power. He spent years learning the ins and outs of Havathi bureaucracy, from their regulations to their organizational structures.

Most of all, he memorized their emergency and defense procedures, and their infrastructure maps and maintenance procedures.

He’d devised a dozen different tools to help subvert Havathi bureaucracy, and once he’d developed his ink affinity, began setting about doing so in earnest. He used his ink, paper, and farsight affinities to begin altering work orders and bureaucratic memos from hundreds of leagues away.

One of his greatest advantages was the impersonal nature of bureaucratic communications— often, orders could pass through dozens of people and multiple committees before getting enacted. It was trivially easy to slip small changes in, distorting the written plans at one point or another in a process.

Of course, bureaucratic oversight likely would have caught many, if not most of them, under normal circumstances. That’s why the evacuation had been necessary— to overwhelm the usual oversight procedures, to keep the Dominion bureaucracy merely treading water while it prepared for Alustin’s deadline. To keep it from noticing Alustin’s little changes.

And almost all of the changes were small ones. Volatile alchemical reagents meant to be stored in one warehouse were stored in the neighboring warehouse. A new set of fire wards being planned in an outlying neighborhood were moved a single street farther out. A mass grain requisition order had its date delayed a few weeks.

Except the second warehouse had been behind on maintenance for years, and its containment tanks had significant corrosion in need of repair by metal mages. The new location for the fire wards brought them into interference range with both the main city ward and the granary’s fire wards. And the granary due to be emptied was situated right between the fire ward and the reagent warehouse, and grain dust was delightfully flammable and explosive.

It only took a spark in the reagent warehouse, provided by a single sheet of paper with one of Alustin’s glyphs plastered to a particularly weak tank, to turn the building into a toxic fireball. In a bit of irony, Alustin had disguised the fire glyph as a safety warning about keeping fire away from the tanks. The neighboring alchemical warehouses didn’t go up in flame, though— their fire defenses were still in good condition.

The full granary, however? Its ward, struggling to function with the new fire ward so close by, failed to compensate, and the granary exploded, sending a burning, shrapnel-filled shockwave across its section of the city. Which in turn was enough to overwhelm the fire defenses on the other alchemical warehouses, igniting them as well.

The new neighborhood fire ward, unable to handle the multiple massive fires trying to cross it, overloaded swiftly. This would be bad enough normally, as it let the fire out, but with the interference from the main city ward in its new location, the ward overloaded explosively, instead of just shutting down. Which, in turn, put significant strain on the main city ward.

Hundreds of Havathi soldiers, battlemages, and siege mages died in the blast, and even more were injured or scattered.

And even better, all three targets sat right above one of the underground enchantments allowing the Intertwined to coexist safely with one another. The rapid series of explosions tore it to shreds, launching toxic enchantment shrapnel far into the air.

It wasn’t enough to destroy any of Havath’s defenses, unfortunately. There were dozens of redundant enchantments allowing the Intertwined to safely coexist. The main city wards were under strain, but they were built to resist assault by multiple enemy great powers at once— they could handle far more strain than this. And the blasts hadn’t even touched any of the wind mages maintaining Havath’s wind shield.

Alustin didn’t just have three targets for his bureaucratic manipulations, though.

He had thousands.

Every day, the Havathi bureaucracy handled countless work orders, more than most cities would deal with in a year. The Dominion’s obsession with an orderly, clean city increased that even more, and he’d had endless opportunities to make changes to those work orders.

That had been the single biggest reason Alustin had given a deadline to the Havathi, the single biggest reason he’d given them a chance to evacuate their population— it increased the number of work orders fivefold, and decreased oversight drastically, making it even easier for him to slip in further changes.

And even when his changes were detected— and quite a few were— they were assumed to be simple errors on the part of various clerks or the like. It wasn’t as if errors weren’t common enough in a massive bureaucracy.

In a less-efficient, well-run system, his methods might not have worked so well. He would have had to spend hours tracking down the correct documents, figuring out how to navigate procedures and organizational charts. Havath’s bureaucracy, however, was standardized beyond any other state on the continent, and likely the entire world of Anastis. Once you knew the procedures and organization for one department, you could, with a little persistence and effort, figure out the procedures and organization of any other government department in the Dominion. It helped prevent too many corrupt or inept bureaucrats from establishing their own fiefdoms by making themselves irreplaceable, it helped allow for easy hiring and transfers, and it helped Alustin rig the system for its own destruction.

More than once, Alustin had idly wondered whether the Dominion’s multiversal backers had been responsible for its bureaucracy. The idea that Anastans could manufacture a system so orderly was a bit hard to believe. Perhaps on a world without great powers, all bureaucracies were orderly like Havath’s?

Regardless, Alustin had taken full advantage of the system’s navigability and orderliness to unleash a host of changes. On top of that, he had decades of Librarian Errant intelligence reports to lean on— many of the vulnerabilities he’d targeted had been pointed out years ago by other Librarian Errants. They’d intended more conventional sabotage for those vulnerabilities, of course, but it had been trivial for Alustin to adapt their plans.

Part of Havath City’s sewer system in an older neighborhood needed upgrades, so Alustin happily made a few alterations. Changed the pipe wall specifications to be just a bit thinner, increased the strength of the enchanted pumps just a bit above normal. And, just like the reagent factory, he hid spellform glyphs on the labels on the enchanted machinery— in fact, he’d simply magically altered the ink on the back of pre-existing instruction sheets.

And when Alustin’s magical signal spread out across Havath City, all of those new pumps turned on at maximum power, flushing water through the too-thin pipes at pressures higher than they could stand.

The resulting ruptures broke through the cobblestones of several streets, caused a merchant’s house with a shoddy foundation to collapse, forced a group of wind mages helping with the wind shield to drop their work and move, and, most importantly, damaged one of the lich overlap enchantments of the Intertwined. Not enough to stop it working, but enough to reduce its efficiency.

And, while the evacuation had lowered the level of sewage within the city’s sewers as a whole, that older neighborhood contained one of Havath’s military garrisons, so there was still plenty of sewage flooding the streets.

As the Last Echo rang, literal thousands of Alustin’s paper glyphs activated. None were powerful on their own, but all of them triggered and catalyzed far greater processes.

Storing battle enchantments was always tricky for a city like Havath, which was already filled to the brim with pre-existing enchantments— many of which, along with the demesnes of the Intertwined, the coexistence enchantments, and the city sewers, were simply wasteful anti-corrosion enchantments for the city’s bronze. In order to prevent resonance cascades, the Havathi bureaucracy had to carefully map out the city’s enchantments, then station enchanted siege engines and store enchanted siege artillery supplies in carefully chosen spots that balanced enchantment safety and tactical convenience.

The haste and lack of oversight of the operation had allowed him to easily make hundreds of subtle changes to their plans. He changed weapon positioning locations on maps so enchanted trebuchets would be placed in the center of intersections filled with underground enchantments, instead of a block or two away. He pushed ammunition drop points closer together— some close enough to risk resonance cascades, others merely close enough that loading crews would get in each others’ way during the battle. He altered the figures on their pre-existing surveys, to chaotically introduce errors into Havath’s planning that even he couldn’t predict.

And oh, did it work. Even before Alustin’s signal propagated through the city, dozens of locations were already pushing towards the edge of resonance cascade. When the shock of the Last Echo’s innumerable damages hit the city, all of those locations, and threefold more, went into resonance cascade at once. Most of the explosions didn’t significantly damage the city defenses, but they all threw Havath’s forces into instant chaos. Those cascades Alustin had specifically planned, however, did significantly more damage to the Havathi defenses, wiping out three of the largest subsections of the coexistence enchantment, a major mana conduit leading to the city wards, and a secondary command post for the wind mages maintaining the city’s wind shield.

Alustin hadn’t just interfered with infrastructure, but with personnel assignments, as well. Many of the changes were minor— causing personnel shortages by simple changes in personnel requests for one location, and overcrowding other stations. Those sorts of personnel issues were common enough in any army, no one would think them suspicious, only irritating. Other changes were just petty and amusing— lots of stationing officers together with well-known grudges against one another, putting ambitious young officers in pointless, unglamorous stations where they’d think they were being punished somehow. Best of all, he’d been able to use Havath’s own extensive personnel files to plan out all the changes.

He’d been most heavy-handed with the wind shield corps, moving dozens of their assigned posts. He couldn’t risk moving those assigned to official stations, but those assigned to rooftops, hidden basements, and palaces throughout the city? Those he gladly moved a few blocks, or even just a building or two over, to make sure more of them would be caught in his innumerable acts of sabotage, and when the Last Echo rang out, more than a third of the wind shield corps died in seconds, and most of the rest were injured and scattered.

Five seconds after he snapped his fingers, the wind shield collapsed entirely.

Alustin’s single riskiest, but most devastating change? He’d meddled with the designs of the city ward itself. The Dominion wardcrafters had used his deadline to inspect, fine-tune, and modify the main ward, which they had been wanting to do for years, lacking only the funds and authorization. His invasion had given them the perfect chance, and he’d taken advantage of their eagerness.

He’d made plenty of minor changes into the great underground spellforms to muddle efficiency, increase ward interference, and the like, but his most audacious change had been to completely reroute one of the biggest spellform lines in the whole ward, a primary backup for the main mana lines. It had been a supremely delicate act of sabotage, requiring him to change over a dozen different work orders and maps in under a minute, including altering the ink on one sheet that was still being carried by the wardcrafter that penned it only heartbeats before.

The further changes Valia had pushed for in the ward, to make it more resistant to massive explosions, after his false hint in the ruins of Helicote, only helped make his sabotage more effective.

And, when the countless acts of sabotage throughout the city triggered on Alustin’s signal, when the main mana lines began to strain, mana was instantly shunted into the primary backup spellform.

Which, instead of stabilizing the mana flow, sent mana head-on into another major mana current. The resulting mana turbulence propagated throughout the entire main city ward in just a single second, and not even nine seconds after Alustin snapped his finger, the main city ward went down. In some places the glowing blue dome simply evaporated, in others the spellform exploded up from the ground with more force than anywhere else in the city.

And that, in turn, activated Alustin’s next level of sabotage.

Alustin had shifted the map of temporary street wards slightly but critically during their planning phase, making more changes than to any other system. These wards, built in just a few short weeks, were intended to only activate if the main city ward fell. They were meant to slow street-to-street fighting, to bottleneck foes in chokepoints, block off major boulevards to enemy foot-soldiers, and completely partition the city’s sky into impassible chambers to anyone but Havathi fliers.

Alustin had, with his carefully chosen alterations, turned the entire temporary ward system into a giant version of Hugh’s wardstones, the explosive little marbles he liked to throw around in battle.

The temporary ward system cut dozens of streets and buildings in the city to shreds, and the damage was concentrated overwhelmingly on the lich coexistence enchantments.

Not even fifteen seconds after Alustin rang the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells, the coexistence enchantments failed completely, the lich overlap effect snapped into full force, and six bronze and marble lich avatars around the edges of the city, taller than any palace save the Conclave itself, began to scream in pain with voices like thunder.

The seventh lich avatar simply toppled, crushing a minor palace beneath it, as the lich died instantly.

The seventh lich avatar, by no coincidence, had been the one whose demesne encompassed Alustin’s landing site at the city’s edge.

And all of the devastation had Havath’s own bureaucracy to blame. Little errors and changes made by a lone book mage, familiar with every in and out of the Dominion’s labyrinthine civic management, had tricked the bureaucracy into turning against its own city. It was reminiscent of nothing so much as the way certain particularly nasty plagues subverted the body’s own defenses. For every change that took Alustin a few seconds or minutes to make, the Havathi bureaucrats had put in dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours of work preparing his sabotage.

Despite all the chaos, the vast majority of the city still stood. Perhaps one in two or three hundred buildings had fallen, and four-fifths of the city’s streets had no damage at all. Most of that destruction, however, had been focused right on the city’s defenses, simply because most of the bureaucracy’s attention and labor was already focused on those defenses, working perfectly towards Alustin’s own purposes.

On the precise anniversary of his death, the Lord of Bells’ respect, dislike, and fear of bureaucracy was justified in every particular.

The stone platform carrying Alustin and most of his great powers sailed right through Havath’s defenses essentially unopposed, and came to a halt in the entrance to one of the city’s great boulevards. The few soldiers and battlemages there to witness them were cut down in heartbeats.

Alustin rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck as he stepped off the platform. “Well then, let’s get to work, shall we?”

Everyone on the stone platform just stared at him.

“Wait,” Mattin Kos said, “wait a second. How did you just bring down Havath’s city with bureaucracy?”

Alustin gave him a wide smile. “I’ll explain when you’re older. Now, I believe we have a city to destroy?”

Threadqueen Iblint laughed as she stepped off the stone platform, and the others burst into motion behind her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Off Balance

THE FIRST OF Alustin’s troops to depart their landing site were the Librarians Errant, who immediately flew off in small squads to begin placing the resonators at strategic points around the city.

Of course, they thought the resonators were needed for the chitin wand. They didn’t need to know they were for the Tongue Eater— or about the Tongue Eater at all, for that matter.

At that thought, the Tongue Eater rumbled words from a dozen languages into his mind, to Alustin’s great unease.

Each and every one of the words expressed satisfaction.

He had thought, at first, that the Tongue Eater’s assaults on his mind were simple leakage. That there was no thought or guidance behind it.

Even when it had launched a full assault against his mind during the battle in Allanoi, he had assumed that it was simply a reaction to the relay golem, that one or more of its magical properties had interacted with the Tongue Eater somehow.

Alustin was starting to doubt that the Tongue Eater was simply a repository for stolen languages.

He shook his head, then activated the newest model of the relay golem, fracturing his mind into six pieces. Unlike the last version, this new relay golem could function inside his storage tattoo, so he’d be able to move and fight while using it.

He felt the Tongue Eater immediately begin to pry at the edges of his mind once more, but, just as in all his previous tests with the new version, it only took a small effort of will to hold it off. Whatever weakness the relay golem provoked was only present in larger numbers of mind shards— Alustin could easily maintain splitting his focus six ways. He probably could have gone even farther— to eight or nine shards— but he didn’t want to risk stress or injury weakening his grip.

He couldn’t stop the occasional grammar leak into his mind, but it was a minor distraction at worst.

Alustin immediately started scrying with four of his mind-shards, guiding the Librarian Errant strike teams towards their targets. The resonators were highly redundant and flexible— less than half of them would be enough to do the job, and they didn’t even need to be placed as precisely as they were intended to.

But the more that were planted in their exact target locations, the faster they would build a large enough resonance cascade to shatter the Tongue Eater.

Alien enchantments, like the chitin wand and the Tongue Eater, tended to lack some of the weaknesses of Anastan enchantments. Though Alustin knew little of enchanting on other worlds, and even less of the origins of the two alien weapons intended to destroy Havath City, he did know that they were, in some respects, far tougher than Anastan enchantments.

In those few writings on the topic he had ever found, it was unanimously agreed that few other worlds required so many toxic alchemicals as Anastan enchanting did, and that even fewer had weaknesses comparable to the risk of resonance cascade. There were legends of worlds where mages could wear dozens of enchantments safely.

Alustin suspected those were just legends, of course— surely so many enchantments active at once would drain the surrounding aether swiftly. If he’d ever managed to get his hands on a copy of Galvachren’s legendary Guide to Worlds, perhaps he could have learned more. Who knew, maybe there was even other paper magic Alustin could have learned out there?

One other thing the limited writings he had found agreed upon, however?

It was absolutely possible for a resonance cascade among Anastan enchantments to damage alien enchantments.

And he’d already possessed the perfect tool for weaponizing that knowledge. He had spent years studying resonance cascade weaponry, in hope of building a resonance cascade device large enough to level Havath City. And, unlike most who pursued that study, he had the advantage of studying under and working for the only enchanter in history to ever be able to reliably and consistently construct resonance cascade weapons without killing themselves.

Kanderon Crux.

She had long since abandoned their construction, left them behind with her days of being the mad sphinx, but several remained in Skyhold’s Vault, and clues still abounded as to her methods if you knew where to look in Skyhold’s library.

Ultimately, he’d abandoned resonance cascade weapons as a useful tool more than eight years ago— even Kanderon had never found a way to transport them safely across long distances, and building one in Havath City itself would have been next to impossible.

When he had stolen the Tongue Eater, however, that old knowledge reared its head, and he’d been able to swiftly pen a design for the resonators, which Sydapsyn enchanters could easily put together.

Triggering the resonance cascade was the easy part, it took no special knowledge. The issue was preventing the resonance cascade from occurring the instant enough enchantments were brought together.

The specific arrangement of the resonators inside Havath City was Alustin’s most important contribution by far.

“How long to move all our forces through the trench?” Alustin asked.

“Ten minutes, maybe,” Casser said, already guiding the second stone platform to a landing. Behind it, the first of the Tsarnassan gryphons raced through the dirt cloud towards their incursion zone.

Around the borders of their incursion zone, fire mages were igniting blazes left and right, and Zersin Grey was already harnessing their smoke into a vast obscuring field. Smoke from the Last Echo’s fires was already streaming in their direction, growing the smoke field even farther, while more streamers of smoke rushed back out, asphyxiating hundreds of Havathi soldiers and mages who lacked wind magic to defend themselves.

Zersin Grey wasn’t the most useful in direct combat against other great powers, but she was perfect for controlling battlefields like this.

She wasn’t going to be enough, because barely over a minute after their landing, most of Havath’s great powers had recovered from the chaos of the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells.

From a palace on the far side of the city, a great burning form, larger than Kanderon, rose into the sky.

Sarchus Vye, the phoenix mercenary. Phoenixes, though rare, were more naturally dangerous than either sphinxes or dragons, and Sarchus Vye’s magic easily took him well into the ranks of great powers. Alustin could hardly even imagine how much Havath had paid the mercenary.

On the banks of the Greywise River, boiling mud exploded hundreds of feet into the air, and Alustin abruptly realized, to his alarm, why the banks of the river had been steaming.

Havath had secretly hired the Mud King.

Anders Staven, a Tsarnassan exile and mercenary great power. Alustin had thought the man hated Havath nearly as much as he did Tsarnassus— he usually only hired out to Ctesia, Alikea, and other regional rivals to both powerful nations. The mud and heat mage wasn’t the mightiest of great powers, but he was incredibly hard to kill, even among armor mages, and Alustin wasn’t sure any of his own great powers would be effective against the man, save perhaps Casser.

Alustin only focused his scrying on the two mercenary great powers for a moment before the next great power reared their head.

A horrible flame rose into the sky, so painfully bright it could be seen even through Zersin’s smoke cloud.

Niana Everflame, Havath’s white phosphorous mage.

Most phosphorous mages died early and painfully, poisoned by the material of their own affinity, unless they worked with it under strictly controlled conditions in alchemy or enchanting labs. Niana Everflame had, by all reports, done her best with her gravity affinity to keep herself from any contact with the phosphorous she used in battle, but she had been pulled from active duty years before, only kept alive by daily healing.

Her white phosphorous was a truly horrific incendiary, worse in many ways than even dragonflame.

Three of the remaining Intertwined had seemingly mastered their pain, and their colossal avatars were already striding towards Alustin’s forces.

Then, on the far side of the city, something truly bizarre rose up above the city— some sort of immense, constantly shifting framework of bamboo poles, arranged both as a structure and as spellforms within the structure. Then the whole thing began to move swiftly over the city, in some bizarre combination of rolling, walking, and even moving about internally like a school of fish.

Another one of Havath’s communal great powers, like the glass sphere from the battle for Skyhold.

Alustin would be shocked if there weren’t other great powers heading their way as well— at the least, if his intelligence reports were true, Elathay Apex, whose magic was nowhere near so showy as the others.

As if that weren’t enough, dozens of dragons were already rising into the sky and heading their way.

As a minimum of seven great powers headed directly for Alustin’s forces, and Alustin’s great powers moved to meet them, two things dominated his attention.

The first was an absence.

The Sunwyrm was nowhere to be seen. There had, at least, been some argument to be made for Heliothrax’s late appearance at the battle for Skyhold— waiting for all of Skyhold’s powers to be baited out, seeking the perfect moment for her to strike— but that was when Havath was on the offensive. Now, when Havath was on the defensive? There was no logical reason for her to stay back, and it worried Alustin.

The second thing that caught Alustin’s attention was the abrupt leveling of half of the Conclave’s immense palace in the center of the city in a series of completely unanticipated explosions.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Take the Plunge

GODRICK REALIZED, AS Havath City drew into sight leagues below them, that their plan was completely insane. Not that he hadn’t already known that on some level, of course, but now, for the first time, peering down at Havath City from high above, he truly grasped the insanity on a gut level.

Andas Thune’s illusionary fleet had come under fire from Havathi siege magic and weapons several minutes before they even arrived at the edge of the city— more than enough to dispel the illusion. After that, the Havathi fire began scattering about, targeting possible locations for an illusion-cloaked aerial army.

None of the spells and projectiles even came close to being aimed towards their true altitude. The combination of Andas Thune’s mirage and their extreme flying altitude had kept them well hidden.

Most of Godrick’s attention was focused on Havath City’s defenses. He knew they would be impressive, but Havath’s wind shield had to be at least twice the size of Theras Tel’s, and the giant blue ward dome inside it made Skyhold’s look like a toy.

And he could easily make out the giant lich avatars moving about inside both other defenses.

“Ah’m not sure whether we should be hopin’ fer Alustin ta’ succeed or fail at bringin’ down Havath’s defenses,” Godrick said, to no one in particular. “He fails, we just get ta’ fly away.”

Sabae and Talia both gave him wry looks, and he knew that it wouldn’t be nearly so simple, that they’d have to resume their hunt for Alustin without the advantage of knowing where he would be at a specific date and time.

Plus, they were only partially sure their plan for retrieving the Tongue Eater from Alustin would work. Kanderon had put a lot of work into securing the storage tattoos she gave the Librarians Errant, and normally it wouldn’t be at all possible to break into one in the time they had. It was only Alustin’s own tricks that were giving them a chance, and that chance was a slim one.

And that was all assuming they could defeat Alustin, which was a pretty huge assumption.

Ilinia came bustling up to them. “Right, we’ll be over Havath City in a few moments. If Alustin’s deadline is real and the Last Echo works, we’ll be dropping in just a couple minutes, so get your armor up and ready. Are you all sure you don’t need fliers to carry you down?”

Godrick shook his head, and began to pull his armor elemental out of his storage tattoo. Gravel of Clan Castis came out eagerly, keenly observing the world around him.

“Now, remember, you’re going to have around three minutes of falling time, unless you slow yourself down or speed yourself up,” Ilinia said. “Try not to speed yourself up.”

Godrick snorted at that.

“If your armor drops while you’re up this high, you’re going to lose consciousness. If you’re lucky, you’ll regain it before you hit the ground.”

Godrick wished, not for the first time, that they weren’t flying in the vanguard. Later waves— especially the last one, riding on Ramyl’s back— would get to descend in the high-altitude bubbles. Ramyl would take between ten and fifteen minutes to hit the ground, circumstances depending. The vanguard, on the other hand, consisted of those who could control their fall and maintain their air supply as they descended. Which, unfortunately, included Godrick and his friends.

“The Havathi will immediately notice us when we pass the normal flight ceiling for mages and open fire, so for the last half of the drop, our descent is going to be rough. This is only going to work because of how many siege mages they lost at Skyhold, and how many are focused on our illusions. Once you…”

Ilinia stopped abruptly and turned to look over the railing down at the city directly below them.

Just outside the city, a huge explosion of dust and debris ripped up at the ground and raced towards Havath’s defenses.

“Is that the Echo?” Talia asked.

Godrick shrugged.

The debris cloud slammed into the edge of the wind shield, and nothing happened.

“I guess it didn’t work?” Hugh said.

Mackerel flapped inquisitively by their side.

“Quiet, Alustin’s talking,” Ilinia snapped.

Everyone gave her puzzled looks, but stayed quiet.

“Bureaucracy?” Ilinia muttered. “What does he mean, bureauc…”

Ilinia cut off as explosions began blooming all through Havath City in some inscrutable sequence, until the wind shield and the city ward simply collapsed.

“Dropping the ships now,” Ilinia called to the entire aerial army, magically amplifying her voice. “Vanguard, prepare to drop on a count of ten, at my command.”

The flying ships she’d used to carry her troops to Fort Maelstrom fell away.

The ships had been tailing the rest of the aerial army this whole time— but not in high altitude bubbles. There was a simple, straightforward reason for the lack.

There wasn’t a single person on board any of the ships. Not one. No supplies, no equipment, nothing.

Nothing except several tons of explosive alchemical compounds, flammable oils, and metal shrapnel on each ship.

“Ten,” Ilinia called.

Hugh, Talia, Sabae, and Mackerel lined up on either side of Godrick. Hugh wrapped in the Stormward’s Crown. Talia wrapped in her crackling scrimshaw ward, her bones glowing red through her skin. Sabae wrapped in wildly spinning water armor, since her wind armor would be useless at this altitude.

Mackerel just flapped excitedly, not needing to breathe.

“Nine.”

The ships plummeted straight down towards the palace below.

“Eight.”

Godrick checked to make sure his warded quartz faceplate and flare opal were secure in his helmet, and that the temporary plugs in the airholes still held.

“Seven.”

Godrick forced himself to inhale.

“Six.”

Exhale.

“Five.”

Inhale.

“Four.”

A horrible, unearthly wail rose from the city below them.

“Three.”

Godrick realized that it was the screaming of the Intertwined.

“Two.”

Godrick and his friends stepped up to the rail.

“One.”

Godrick forced himself to exhale the breath he’d been holding.

“Vanguard, drop!” Ilinia shouted, already going over the edge herself, and with that, Godrick was head first over the rail, two leagues above the ground.

Godrick punched through the high-altitude bubble almost before he’d realized he was falling. There was no feeling of resistance— if anything, much the opposite, as he passed from a zone of higher air pressure to lower air pressure.

Godrick immediately rotated to watch the barely-visible bubble pop and vanish. Not because of him and the other members of the vanguard falling through it, but because it was no longer needed— only members of the vanguard were being carried on board Ilinia’s ship.

More members of the vanguard were launching themselves by the dozens from the dragonback, and fifteen of Indris’ brood followed them down. Indris herself would be descending just ahead of Ramyl.

Godrick rotated himself to face down once more as he plummeted towards the surface of the world.

GODRICK HAD EXPECTED the first part of their drop to be quiet, thanks to the low air pressure, but the wind roared past his faceplate as he accelerated downward.

Somehow, his heartbeat was even louder in his ears. He felt short of breath, even though he knew he had plenty of air left in his storage tattoo, and was using his wind magic to cycle it into his armor.

Far below him, the falling ships seemed to slow. Godrick knew that they weren’t slowing, that they’d simply hit terminal velocity while Godrick was still accelerating, but the entire concept of terminal velocity was deeply counterintuitive to him. He understood the standard explanations fliers gave, about gravity and air pressure counterbalancing one another, and the math was easy enough to follow, but it made no sense to his gut.

Godrick was a stone mage at heart. He belonged on the ground, not in the sky.

It wasn’t much of a comfort that he’d get down soon enough.

Below him, explosions continued cropping up randomly throughout Havath City, but the roar of the wind blocked out even the screaming of the Intertwined.

He focused on slowing his breathing, on keeping himself spread flat against the wind.

One by one, his friends clustered in formation on him. As the most visible member of their group, they’d chosen him as their aerial rally point.

Well, three of them formed up on him. Mackerel seemed to be having the time of his life, zooming around them all in loops and spirals.

When Godrick felt his slow breaths working, heard the pounding of his heart in his ears recede, he reached out with his wind affinity sense, to watch for the air pressure ceiling, the point when they’d likely have to start dodging Havathi spells.

He was only halfway sure he’d recognize it— he’d only passed it once, and that just this morning. That, on top of him still being far from confident with his wind magic.

Godrick took a moment to look around him as they fell. At Sabae, who wore a look of razor-focused determination visible through her goggles and water armor, spinning too fast for ice to form. At Talia, her scrimshaw ward aglow, seeming torn between joy and terror. And at Hugh, who for once just seemed calm as the Stormward’s Crown spun around him.

It made sense, though. A levitation cantrip had been one of Hugh’s first spells, after all. He’d saved the lot of them from falling countless times before. There was no height he feared.

He shifted his gaze farther away.

To Ilinia, outpacing all of them as she fell.

To Shimmering Cardovan, whose ridiculous cape fluttered in the wind behind them, but whose light magic had dimmed the usual luminescence of their beryl armor.

To Rhodes Charax, in full disguise as the Frost Ghost, his ice armor larger than ever as he plummeted surrounded by a dozen spears, an enchanted spearhead already fitted onto his new skyspear staff. To the dozens of assorted armor mages, fiber mages, and the like who could survive the drop on their own. To the dragon mages following them with similar capabilities.

Below, the falling ships began to pick up speed once more as they passed the air pressure ceiling, and Godrick knew Ilinia was throwing her wind magic behind them, accelerating the ships far beyond terminal velocity.

Godrick glanced at his friends one more time, then, almost as one, they all tilted forwards. Went from a flat, spread out posture to a head-down dive, to minimize their surface area.

They passed into the final league above the ground, and seconds later Ilinia’s magic slammed each and every one of the explosive-laden ships into the Conclave Palace.

The vanguard split up into groups, then, spiraling outward away from the collapsing, burning palace. Godrick and his friends joined with the same group as Shimmering Cardovan, five fiber mages in airtight wing suits, a water mage particularly dexterous with her control, a gravity mage in enchanted full plate, and a handful of other battlemages. As the vanguard split, its mages began to launch dozens of spellform-covered copper spheres in every direction.

Godrick had hoped that the shock of the Conclave’s destruction would delay the Havathi aerial defenses, but Ilinia and Indris had been confident the Havathi defenders were well-trained enough that it wouldn’t.

They’d been right. Just a few seconds after their group split off, a colossal lightning bolt screamed past their group, incinerating one of the fiber mages. At least a dozen other, equally huge lightning bolts raced upward.

The lightning spires were the bigger, more horrifying cousins of the Needle of Leagues, the lightning harpoon they’d faced in battle in Lothal. Each was an enchantment the size of a building, capable of firing lightning bolts on a scale larger than any siege mage, only surpassed by nature and storm mage great powers.

There were dozens of them, and they were only the first aerial line of defense. They were built atop palaces and triumphal arches and disguised as monuments, and had cut down countless attacking mages, even a couple minor great powers over the years.

The biggest concentration of them had been on the roof of the Conclave. That, over any strategic value, had been the reason for bombing the heart of the Dominion first.

The spellform-covered copper spheres— galvanic beacons, one and all— attracted many of the lightning bolts away from the vanguard, but the bolts were both too many and too powerful for the little enchantments to stop all of them.

If they hadn’t launched the galvanic anchors, though, odds are the vanguard would have been annihilated.

The lightning spires fired twice more before they hit the next layer of defenses, once coming so close Godrick could feel his hair stand on end, but their group didn’t suffer any more losses. Several of the mage dragons towards the back of the vanguard were roasted or even ripped apart by the bolts, and Godrick caught glimpses of desperate efforts to rescue any surviving passenger mages by other fliers.

Likewise, he caught glimpses of massive Havathi great powers rising up throughout the city, though he struggled to tell who each was, aside from the Intertwined avatars and the Mud King, one of his father’s old rivals.

He could only spare those glimpses, though, because the next wave of siege spells were rising to meet them.

During aerial warfare, any siege magic or weapons meant to fire straight up were always chosen carefully— you didn’t want anything crashing back down onto your city, after all. This was no less true in Havath City.

Clouds of toxic vapors rose straight towards them, though they’d be unlikely to have much effect on the vanguard— the magics that gave them the ability to perform the high altitude drop without passing out from lack of air would generally double as defenses against gas attacks.

Mage-cast lightning rose as well, but proved equally ineffective as the gas, thanks to the numerous galvanic beacons still falling alongside the vanguard. All but the most powerful siege lightning failed to overwhelm the pull of the single-use enchantments.

The ice bombs were another story entirely. The massive, human-sized icicles were the product not solely of ice mages, but ice and heat mages working together. They fired high enough and fast enough to impale overflying dragons, then the heat mage raised their temperature fast enough they sublimated from ice straight into steam so hot it would instantly kill any human fliers caught in it.

Godrick almost got to find out whether his armor could have survived superheated steam, when one of the ice bombs headed straight for their group.

Shimmering Cardovan, however, stepped in to save the day, blasting the ice bomb into dust and scattering it across the sky with a powerful burst of sound magic.

Magic-guided ballista bolts tracked targets unerringly unless destroyed. Which, thankfully, wasn’t hard to do— they were fast and deadly, but brittle. Still, quite a few members of the vanguard fell to them, and at least two more dragons.

There were a handful of oddities among the spells rising to meet them, including what seemed to be at least one starbolt, though it was too far away for Godrick to be sure. But one type of spell outnumbered every other spell type combined. One type of spell rose in numbers so thick they obscured great swaths of the city below them.

Fire bolts.

There really was little more effective anti-air magic than fire, when all was said and done. It wasn’t effective against dragons or phoenixes, but against anything else in the sky, it worked fine. Better, in some ways, than against other targets on the ground— fire did like to climb, after all.

Godrick and the others hurled themselves side to side, desperately weaving between the largest fire spells. Their armor could likely survive quite a few hits, especially Godrick’s, but it was still better to avoid them whenever possible, especially the fireballs the size of wagons or larger, if they wanted to reach the ground with their mana reservoirs undrained.

All the different spells might have been less daunting if they had come in waves, giving the vanguard a chance to adapt their strategies, but they had no such luck— the firebolts were mixed in with the ice bombs, the lightning bolts passing freely through the fire.

The last part of the drop was, quite probably, the most chaotic single minute of Godrick’s life.

Godrick used his stone and crystal magic to divert one last ice bomb away from the group while curving his drop path around a house-sized fireball, and then he found himself largely in the clear, far enough down that he’d passed out of the sight lanes for most of the defenders.

That far down, unfortunately, was too far down. Godrick should have begun slowing his fall at least twice as high up as he was now.

Godrick immediately cast wind spells to increase his air resistance and levitation cantrips to slow his fall. He directed Gravel to reshape his armor so that it would be less aerodynamic, sticking out unsightly protrusions to slow him down. He flipped his head back up and his feet down, then channeled as much mana as he possibly could through his force boots. He cast stone and crystal spells to weaken the flagstones in the plaza he was falling straight towards, so the ground would have some give when he struck.

It was, just barely, enough. He still hit the ground hard enough to send a shockwave of fragmented stone and dust in every direction, his armored legs sinking up to his waist into the weakened ground. If he hadn’t been armored, if his body hadn’t been reinforced by Limnan magic and the early stages of bone magic skeletal reinforcement, Godrick had no doubt he would have broken something.

Broken a lot of somethings, almost certainly.

The wave of shrapnel his impact sent scything out did cut down a half dozen Havathi soldiers, though.

Godrick didn’t even try to pull his legs out of the ground, instead yanking his gravity hammer out of his storage tattoo, and using it to haul a confused Havathi siege mage straight towards him. Godrick doubted the woman even knew what was happening before she simply broke against his stone armored fist.

At the same time, Godrick called stalactites out from the plaza flagstones, impaling at least a dozen other Havathi mages and soldiers who had been using it as a defense point.

Just as he was targeting another Havathi mage with his gravity hammer, the rest of his vanguard group began to land.

Shimmering Cardovan didn’t have any flight magic, but they didn’t need it. As they descended into the plaza, their gemstone armor glowing brilliantly in a dozen shades of beryl, they slowed easily. Partially with levitation cantrips, but mostly with sound magic. A powerful sonic cone projected downward from them, so powerful Godrick swore he could see the air ripple. It was so well contained Godrick could only hear faint echoes of the noise— a precise B note. Everything within that cone— Havathi soldiers, a supply tent, one of the ballistae launching tracking bolts— simply dissolved into dust and pulp.

Sabae came down like lightning, her inertial spear impaling the Havathi defense post commander from above. Then she’d waterjumped away, spinning up storm armor even as she moved, turning into a blur as she began ricocheting about the plaza at high speed, laying enemies low in a blur of violence. Lightning trailed in her wake, jumping from one anchor point to another in a growing galvanic snake across the plaza. It was like a chunk of the sky had personally descended to inflict its wrath upon the ground.

Talia descended slowly and gracefully using her bracer kinetic anchors, bombarding the Havathi with dreamfire and bonefire, turning a huge portion of the plaza into a nightmare of flame, bone, and psychedelic dream imagery, where their foes were as likely to have their own flesh turn into spiders and devour them as they were to simply burn to death. Her bones glowed burning red through her flesh, and her tattoos a blue almost as bright as starfire, leaving her looking more like a murderous elemental or spirit than anything human.

Hugh came slower than the others, the nodes of the Stormward’s Crown glowing brightly enough to hurt. The other members of their descent group were safely contained within, and the scattered resistance from the plaza failed to breach or even harm any of the ward segments. The battlemages Hugh carried launched their own battlespells, but Hugh’s wardstone projectiles stole the show as he magically launched them down with crystal magic, precisely showering explosions among the few surviving groups. His green crystal eyes seemed to glow from the inside, and the usually nervous, forgettable-looking mage looked like some dispassionate, powerful archmage who had decided that annihilation was simply the most convenient way to deal with a minor problem.

Even Mackerel had decided to make an entrance— rather than coming in from above, he’d apparently descended in one of the side streets. He raced into the plaza as fast as Godrick had ever seen him move, sending enemy mages and equipment flying broken into the air as he rammed through them. A couple times as he passed, he bombarded Havathi mages with the force and frost blasts from his enchanted strap. A swarm of green crystal pages followed behind him, slicing like swords through anything the spellbook didn’t batter aside.

Godrick hadn’t had any idea that was even something Mackerel was capable of.

“Show-offs,” Godrick muttered, as Hugh landed.

Then he yanked one of the few remaining Havathi soldiers in the plaza straight towards him.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Find that Paper Mage!

THE PLAZA WAS completely clear of Havathi presence by the time Hugh landed and retracted the Stormward’s Crown, releasing the battlemages he’d been shielding on the way down. As he touched down, he checked on his supply of wardstones.

He’d used up most of his charged wardstones bombarding the Havathi troops, and it would take too much mana to charge them up himself, but Hugh had a solution for that.

Every single uncharged wardstone in his storage tattoo only needed a single easy alteration to their spellforms to start charging passively from the aether. It wouldn’t be fast, but unless this battle was going to be over abnormally quick, it would be soon enough to matter.

Sadly, he could only have so many wardstones charged at once— with all the other wards in their gear, especially his Crown and Talia’s scrimshaw armor.

He quickly made the spellform alterations, made sure that all his friends had landed safely, then looked over the ruin they’d made of the plaza.

Then he bent over and promptly vomited.

“Oh, we’re going to have to cure you of that,” a familiar voice said, raised just a little to be heard over the distant screaming of the Intertwined.

“Oh, definitely, dear, we can’t have our Talia’s boy vomiting every time he kills someone,” another familiar voice said.

“Stomach acid’s no good for his throat and mouth, it’ll cause all sorts of health problems if he vomits enough.”

“All sorts of problems, love.”

Hugh wiped his mouth and looked up in exasperation and confusion. “How are you here? You can’t even fly!”

Talia’s mother Rose smiled broadly at him, as she took off her fiber mage disguise. “Oh, we couldn’t stay away. We missed Talia’s first few large-scale battles.”

“We felt terrible about it,” her father Corus confided, almost falling over as he hopped around trying to remove the fiber mage pants.

“Just terrible.”

“Absentee parents.”

“You can only imagine what the neighboring clans must think.”

“In part because we’d burn them alive if they insulted our family.”

“But still, you don’t like to think of others finding your parenting lacking.”

“You really don’t.”

Hugh noticed that Corus was wearing heavily enchanted leather armor under the fiber mage disguise, with a truly ridiculous number of hatchets strapped to it, while Rose’s leather armor had thick metal plates with dozens of odd little nozzles poking out, for no discernible reason, with that same immense unsheathed greatsword as before strapped to her back.

Sabae gave Hugh an apologetic shrug from where she stood behind Talia’s parents.

“Sorry, Hugh. They made me help them sneak along, I didn’t have a choice.”

From her poorly concealed smile, Hugh was fairly sure she wasn’t sorry in the slightest.

Rose waved gratefully at the two surviving real fiber mages. “These lovely folks helped us disguise ourselves and make it down!”

The fiber mages waved cheerfully, their features still entirely concealed behind their thick cloth armor.

The other battlemages bore looks ranging from baffled to amused, but all kept their thoughts to themselves.

Talia launched herself over to them with her force boots. “What are my parents doing here? Why are you here? You were supposed to be with the rest of Clan Castis on top of Ramyl!”

“Oh, we couldn’t have possibly stayed behind,” Corus said.

“We missed your first few battles, after all, we felt terrible,” Rose said.

“Just terrible.”

“Absentee parents.”

Hugh did his best to tune out Talia’s parents and Sabae’s poorly repressed giggling, and went to go help Godrick out of the crater he had buried himself in.

Hugh looked around at the broken bodies and torn up ground surrounding Godrick and whistled. “That was insane, Godrick. You barely bothered to slow down, you were like a human meteor. Also, your armor has definitely gotten bigger since you got your armor elemental. You know you’re kind of terrifying, right?”

“Yeh’re one ta’ talk,” Godrick said, the temporary crystal plugs in his faceplate popping out and clattering to the ground as he clambered out of the hole, partially levitated by Hugh.

Mackerel came flying up before Hugh could answer, his bloody flying pages reinserting themselves into his binding.

“Since when could you spit out pages like that?” Hugh asked.

Mackerel gave him an offended look.

“What do you mean I didn’t ask?”

Mackerel’s umbrage grew even deeper.

“What? No, that’s ridiculous, humans can’t shoot our teeth out of our mouths.”

Mackerel’s look grew suddenly apologetic at that.

“Don’t you dare feel pity for humans for not being able to shoot our teeth out of our mouth as weapons. Don’t you dare!” Hugh said, then stalked off back towards the others, Godrick laughing as he followed behind him.

Despite their moment of temporary peace in the plaza, the battle was still raging in full around them. Spells raced upward as more Coven army elements descended, and Hugh struggled to imagine what a bombardment would look like when Havath’s siege capabilities weren’t heavily damaged.

Shimmering Cardovan reached the group at the same time Hugh, Godrick, and Mackerel did, and was already giving orders. “Magnificent! I wish I’d had half your sense of the dramatic when I was your age. I don’t need to tell Clan Castis this, of course, but presentation is half of being powerful.”

“Oooh, I like them,” Rose said.

“They remind me a bit of me when I was younger,” Corus said. “If maybe a bit less dramatic.”

“Do you remember your skull armor?”

“Oh I loved the skull armor so much.”

Talia groaned. “Please can you talk about your old armor made of enchanted human skulls when we’re not in the middle of battle?”

“Sorry dear, we don’t mean to embarrass you.”

“We know you want to look good in front of your friends.”

Sabae coughed. “As much fun as this is, we should probably get moving. Rose, Corus, are you fine joining Cardovan’s force to help take out more siege mage positions? We’ve got our own mission.”

“Of course, dear!” Rose said.

“It would be our genuine pleasure,” Corus said.

“Anything for a friend of our Talia.”

“Have fun hunting your old teacher!”

“Hugh, would you like a hatchet? I have a spare!”

Talia just groaned louder.

THE TWO GROUPS had only just split up, neither having left the plaza yet, when Ilinia made her presence known.

A gargantuan web of lightning tore across the sky, connecting the remaining lightning spires one by one, then converging in the air above the half-demolished Conclave palace.

And though they couldn’t see her tiny form, the whole city could hear Ilinia Kaen Das’ distinctive cackling laughter.

“Is she trying ta’ melt lightnin’ weapons with more lightning? Yeh know, the thing they’re specifically built ta’ resist?” Godrick demanded, as the five of them started jogging again.

Well, less of a jog, more of a dead sprint, but with their Limnan adaptations, they could sprint farther than they ever could have jogged before.

“Yeah, she loves doing that sort of thing,” Sabae said with exasperation. “Electrocuting lightning mages, suffocating wind mages, drowning water mages. It’s a ridiculous habit.”

“Delightfully intimidating, though,” Talia said.

Hugh didn’t bother joining in the banter, instead splitting his attention between watching their surroundings and monitoring the condition of his lungs. Their Limnan adaptive magic had done wonders for his lungs, but even it could only do so much for pre-existing harm. He doubted he’d be able to drop the air-filtering functions of his Crown at all during this battle.

A few blocks away, one of the lightning spires exploded, spraying shrapnel all the way to them, though their armor easily protected them.

“How are you all doing on mana with your original reservoirs?” Sabae asked. “My originals are around two-thirds full, my aether crystal ring is still full.”

“Nearly full,” Godrick said. “Haven’t touched the ring.”

“Down to about half,” Talia said. “Used up all the bone and dream mana in my ring.”

“Mostly full on everything,” Hugh said.

He’d actually used a lot, but since he could use any of his mana types for the Crown, he’d carefully split it up between all dozen of his mana reservoirs and the ring’s dozen smaller ones. In aggregate, it was a lot, but he’d hardly taken much from any reservoir, and the wardstones had stored their own mana, only needing crystal mana to launch.

Sabae frowned in thought. “Hugh, are Mackerel’s scrying defenses holding up?”

Mackerel bobbed in affirmation before Hugh could answer.

Sabae slowed to a stop, the others matching her.

As they did so, a lightning spire in the distance simply started to melt, while another was forcibly thrown off a palace rooftop.

“Mackerel, Godrick, it’s time. Get tracking.”

Godrick closed his eyes as he began trying to sniff out Alustin. Mackerel, meanwhile, began to spin in place, faster and faster.

Several seconds later, Godrick opened his eyes and shook his head. “No scent of him yet. It hasn’t been long enough to spread through the city.”

All their gazes turned towards Mackerel, who was spinning so fast a whining sound had started up.

Godrick’s scent tracking had always been their main plan for finding Alustin in the chaos of battle, but they’d had a backup plan, one based purely in conjecture.

Mackerel didn’t solely possess the ability to block scrying, but could also scry, so long as he was scrying the interior of a labyrinth.

They obviously weren’t in a labyrinth now, but they’d developed a hypothesis about how Alustin’s own scrying defense worked. He had used a labyrinth stone, like the one in Mackerel’s cover, to mimic the spellbook’s own anti-scrying capabilities.

And they were fairly sure that Mackerel was capable of blocking scrying because he was a labyrinth, or at least a close relative.

Alustin had somehow managed to mimic a labyrinth’s anti-scrying properties, so they were making a bet— that his very defense should allow Mackerel to scry him.

They’d tried before, with no success, but they’d never been this close to Alustin when they’d tried. Maybe it still wouldn’t work, maybe Mackerel could only scry a labyrinth from inside that labyrinth, but there was at least a chance that…

Mackerel stopped spinning. Not gradually, but instantaneously, with a sharp crack of noise easily audible even over the noise of battle, Ilinia’s lightning web, and the screaming of the Intertwined.

“Did you find him?” Hugh asked.

Mackerel nodded firmly, then gestured with one cover towards the edge of the city where Alustin’s forces had landed. Not a particular surprise, but Hugh still sagged with relief.

Several more lightning spires exploded or melted, one after another, and Ilinia’s cackling started up once more.

Sabae cracked her neck. “This is it, then.”

“Does that mean we don’t need to hide our full capabilities anymore?” Talia asked.

Sabae hesitated before answering.

“We still need to lay low until we find Alustin. Nothing matters more than that. Unless it’s a matter of life and death, we keep our abilities hidden for now, only use our magic secretively. But when I give the signal, from then on out, all affinities, weapons, and siege magics are on the table. ”

Talia broke out into a delighted laugh at that, and even Hugh found himself smiling in anticipation.

Their new magics might not be as powerful or developed as their old ones, for the most part, but they’d come up with a plethora of tricks and ways to combine them with their old magics.

Alustin had no idea what he was in for.

They had only started moving again when an unearthly roar tore across the city, followed by the noise of a massive explosion.

“Kaen Das!” the voice bellowed, and they all froze.

They knew that voice.

Hugh looked over to Godrick, whose jaw had clenched and face had paled at the sound.

Heliothrax had arrived.

A moment later, something massive flew overhead, swifter than any dragon should be able to fly, straight at Ilinia. The storm mage barely dodged out of Heliothrax’s path, and a moment later, the Sunwyrm was pursuing the Guardian of Ras Andis across the sky, the two of them leaving a trail of devastation in their wake as they traded lightning and sunfire.

“There was something wrong with her,” Talia said.

“She changed herself, somehow,” Sabae agreed.

Both turned to look at Hugh, whose sphinx eyes saw far better than theirs.

“She turned herself into a monster,” Hugh said quietly, still trying to understand what he’d seen.

“She was already a monster,” Godrick said, his voice utterly flat. “Now her looks just match what was already there.”

With that, Godrick turned and resumed their path towards Alustin.

Hugh and the others exchanged worried glances, then took off in their friend’s wake.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Messages Amidst Chaos

VALIA WAS WOEFULLY unprepared for the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells.

She was still echoing Alustin’s baffling declaration of ‘bureaucracy’ when the explosions started going off inside the city, and she instantly knew she’d been played for a fool.

The Last Echo was no mere explosive from Skyhold’s Vault, as Alustin had claimed. It was something else entirely. She didn’t understand what, though the claim bureaucracy was responsible struck some sort of chord deep inside the Helicotan part of herself.

She had let herself assume that Alustin was being simple and straightforward for once, and because he’d proven trustworthy about Havath’s secret masters, she had failed to interrogate his other claims deeply.

The Last Echo’s explosions didn’t strike the Sacred Swordsman staging point, so for the next few minutes, as the city’s defenses collapsed and great powers started to emerge, Valia had somehow managed to corral her nervous, angry recruits, stopping them from charging straight at Alustin’s forces. The three new warlock great powers were especially eager to go after their target, given that each of them was living on borrowed time. Persuading them to hold was a close thing, and Valia might not have succeeded if not for the arrival of the Coven.

At first, she had no idea what had caused the explosions that had brought down two-thirds of the Conclave. It was simply impossible that they could have evaded Havath’s seers and defenses until they were right on top of the Conclave. Her warlocks were equally shocked and bewildered, and their urge to charge directly into battle was lost in the confusion.

And then, as Havath’s magical artillery fired straight up, and the illusion cloaking the descending army began to fray, Valia realized that the Coven had destroyed the Conclave, and were descending straight towards the city from above the flight limit.

It shouldn’t have been possible. It defied everything Valia knew of magical flight— which was a lot.

She was coming to realize, however, that she might need to abandon what she assumed about possibility— both in the realm of magical advancement, and in the all-encompassing grasp of history.

Valia turned to one of her aides, speaking loudly enough that all of her warlocks could hear her. “What are our spotters telling us?”

The assembled Sacred Swordsmen quieted, waiting for an answer.

“We’re getting in reports now,” the aide said, looking up from her conversation with a clerk. “One moment.”

In the end, for all the resources and magic of the Dominion, they’d never come up with any clever way for seers to pierce Alustin’s mysterious scrying defense. They’d developed the ward detection method for his students, but Alustin didn’t rely on wards to any comparable degree as the Stormward, the Flea, Hammerbreaker, and the Nightmare.

So they’d fallen back to a much simpler solution, a simple brute force answer to finding the man coming to destroy Havath.

Simple brute force.

There were literally hundreds of hidden observation posts scattered throughout the city at key points and overlooks, each of them with multiple watchers and magical communication methods. Whatever Alustin’s methods were, after all, they didn’t obscure simple, ordinary eyesight.

“We’re getting reports of Librarians Errant moving about the city at high speed,” one of the clerks called. “They’re avoiding engagement with our forces whenever possible. No reports of Alustin with them, though.”

“Strike teams,” Valia said. “They’ve got specific targets in mind, then.”

Several of her warlocks shifted eagerly, and she shot them a glare. “They’re not our responsibility. If we stop them from hitting their targets, but fail to capture Alustin, their targets get destroyed anyhow.”

“And if they’re helping him somehow?” one Swordsman asked.

Valia shook her head. “I know Alustin. There’s not a chance he’ll hand his mysterious magical superweapon to someone else. He needs to be the one to activate it. Someone else destroying Havath City misses the entire point of what he wants. This is utterly and completely personal to him.”

“What about the reports that he left the weapon with Karna Scythe for a time?” another Swordsman asked.

Most Havathi wouldn’t know about that, but Valia liked to keep her warlocks better informed than most troops.

She shook her head. “Maybe he did, but I guarantee he didn’t share the activation method. No, whatever his ultimate plan is, he’ll need to be the one to activate it himself. That’s how his mind works. No matter how dangerous or monstrous he is, he’s fundamentally a child lashing out in pain.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Heliothrax joining the battle, and more than a few looks of disgust and fear crossed the faces of the Sacred Swordsmen.

“We’re not giving Alustin any more chances to surrender or turn away,” Valia said. “The instant you spot him, go for the kill, even if it means collateral damage on our side.”

Valia wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to carry out her own orders, whether she even wanted to anymore, but she let none of that show on her face or in her voice.

One of the clerks interrupted her. “Sir! I think we have a sighting!”

Valia drew her saber and looked at the man, who blanched.

“Where?”

KANDERON WAS HARD at work inside her demesne, finishing the final bits of work on the lich overlap suppressor in her demesne, when a message arrived for her.

To say she was alarmed was an understatement. Nothing should be able to break into her under construction demesne right now. Hugh doing so had been a shock, but it had made sense— Kanderon’s defenses had never been intended to keep out a warlock pacted to her, because before Hugh, she’d never even considered pacting a warlock.

This message, however, didn’t even have that weakness to explain it.

This message came straight through the communications diary already integrated into her demesne, though it shouldn’t be connected to the diary network while she was in the lich dream.

Hello, old friend.

The sphinx recognized the handwriting instantly.

How did you contact me, Keayda?

Please. You’re hardly the only expert on lich construction out there. I’ve been a lich longer than you’ve been alive. There are always ways.

How long have you known I’m alive?

Always, of course. But you’re asking the wrong questions.

…What do you want to tell me?

Better. I’ve contacted you for one simple reason— to let you know that the battle for Havath City has begun, and that your prodigal student and his own students are right in the middle of it. The chitin wand is in play, and the future of Havath and the Expansionists is at stake.

Kanderon paused in surprise. The chitin wand?

Alustin must have stolen more from the vault than she had realized.

Why the chitin wand, though? It was powerful and ancient beyond measure, but as a weapon? Compared to the far younger Tongue Eater, it was practically a toy. The Labyrinth Builders had never intended the chitin wands as weapons, if Kanderon’s assumptions were correct.

Which, of course, she had no evidence for. The labyrinth builders had gone extinct eons ago, long before any extant sentient race in the Known Multiverse had even been born. Long before the Kyrene had ever migrated into these regions of reality.

Still, most who had the rare opportunity to study the chitin wands believed that they were meant to interact with the labyrinths in some way, even control them. None had ever succeeded in using them that way, though.

Frankly, the chitin wand made a mediocre city destroyer at best. It made little sense why Alustin would grab it as well as the Tongue Eater. It…

Ah. He intended the chitin wand not as a weapon, but as fuel. The means to provide sufficient mana to shatter the Tongue Eater.

She had wondered how he had intended to destroy it. Never doubted, but wondered.

Why tell me now, Keayda? There is nothing I can do.

Precisely. You must have, what, a full year of work left on your demesne, from what I can feel? And even if you did a year’s work in a day, you can’t reach Havath City in less than a day’s flight, even with the shortcuts you have scattered about the continent. But your inability to act is a GOOD thing. You and the Expansionists have both violated your treaty, to one degree or another. But, despite your provisional membership in the Anastan Branch Council, you have come out looking better than they. If Havath City falls, without you in the picture, it will irreparably crush the Expansionists’ already-crumbling programme in the eyes of the Council— and not merely our planetary branch council.

You have always remained neutral before, Keayda. Always been the observant mediator, never a participant.

No one gets to remain an observer forever. The Known Multiverse is changing, Kanderon. More of the Hordes draw closer to our world every decade, and you know what drives them in their migration. And the Listener’s simple presence makes our world more attractive to them as a refuge.

So why not join the Expansionists, then? They claim a multiversal empire is the best means of resistance, the only way to stand strong in a changing multiverse. You have never shared my opposition to imperial ambitions, Keayda.

No. I haven’t. I don’t care in the slightest how ephemerals are governed, only that they are.

And such disdain for the short-lived would seem to make you an ideal recruit for the Expansionists. So why oppose them, and why now?

It is simple. They are WEAK. They falter. Their conquests fail again and again to relentless opposition by the ephemerals of a dozen worlds. Even those empires they do establish are toppled again and again, whether by outside catastrophe, rebellions like your own, or simple corruption.

Simple pragmatism, then.

You understand me well, as always. I cannot flee the future, so if I must fight it, I will do so.

Kanderon frowned in the depths of her own mind, staring at Keayda’s messages.

You never really answered my question, Keayda. Why contact me now?

Kindness, Kanderon. Odds are you will lose someone today. Your prodigal student, your warlock, likely both. Even though he betrayed you, I know you well enough to know that Alustin’s death would wound your heart. I would not do the cruelty of leaving you in ignorance.

Some would call it cruelty to offer knowledge when there is nothing that can be done.

The ephemeral, perhaps, might say that. For those of us who will live millennia, for those of us who live long enough for our lives to have value, there are few curses greater than ignorance and uncertainty. You will find new ephemerals to coddle before long, Kanderon. Pets come and go. We remain.

Kanderon wanted to reply in anger, to challenge Keayda’s arrogance, but she knew he was already gone, no longer in her lich dream.

Knew that he was right about her powerlessness.

Knew that there was nothing she could do to protect Hugh.

Kanderon abandoned any pretense of work, and curled up around her worries over her warlock.

And, despite herself, despite his betrayal, found herself worrying over Alustin as well. Found herself remembering the broken, abused little paper mage she’d taken in, did her best to heal and train after he lost everything he’d ever known. Found herself wishing, despite knowing better, that there was some way to preserve Alustin from the consequences of what he’d ignited.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Brawling Titans

ILINIA RACED THROUGH the skies of Havath City with Heliothrax hot on her heels, fighting off other great powers at every turn.

This whole situation was insane. None of the great powers brawling in the gigantic bronze and marble city had ever participated in a three-sided war before. Smaller conflicts, certainly— Ilinia once had to break up a fight between two kraken threatening Ras Andis ships. But a full-scale battle with nearly two-score great powers and three armies?

Madness.

The scale of this battle made even the battle at Skyhold pale in comparison, and any smaller city would have been entirely rubble already.

It took a lot of violence to destroy a city made for most of two million people, though.

Ilinia swatted some of Niana Everflame’s lethal burning phosphorous out of her path with wind, then smashed Sarchus Vye out of the sky with a great blob of water from the Greywise River, smashing a marble palace beneath him. It only dampened his flames, didn’t extinguish them, and he’d be back up in the fight before long.

Phoenixes were naturally almost as hard to kill as hydras, and Vye was worse than most— along with the normal phoenix durability and accelerated healing, he possessed his own healing magic, making him absurdly hard to kill. Not to mention, he had a fire affinity on top of his natural fire magic, making him nearly impossible to extinguish, usually the easiest way to kill a phoenix.

Heliothrax launched another sunfire bolt, big enough to melt a sphinx, at Ilinia, who easily ripped apart its magnetic shielding with her lightning magic, dispersing the sunfire across the sky in a blinding burst of light.

The Sunwyrm, thankfully, couldn’t use the Eye of Heliothrax, her landscape-melting sunlight enhancement spell, without melting Havath City.

Even as Ilinia ripped apart the sunfire bolt, hundreds of dragonscales screamed through the air at both Ilinia and Heliothrax from Sagravaax Scalestorm, the dragonscale affinity great power working for Alustin.

Not even Ilinia and Heliothrax could ignore his assault— the razor-sharp scales were flying fast enough to burrow through stone or metal.

Heliothrax slowed in her flight, presumably pushing her dragon affinity against Sagravaax’s dragonscale affinity. The smaller dragon should have the edge, his more specific affinity overcoming the Sunwyrm’s more general affinity, but she had raw power to spare, and through the wind, Ilinia felt the scales fall away, then pull back towards Sagravaax.

It didn’t keep much of her attention, though, because Ilinia had her own bombardment of scales to deal with.

She didn’t try to block them as Heliothrax had done. Instead, Ilinia used her wind magic to shift the flight paths of the scales, ever so slightly, so that their trajectories took them past Ilinia, instead of through her. A handful of the scales came within arm’s length of the Guardian of Ras Andis, but no closer.

She was fairly certain her personal wind-shield would have stopped them even if they’d hit, but she preferred not to test that.

Sagravaax hadn’t even fully registered that his attack had missed before Ilinia was flying straight at him. Iris Mooneye’s student flinched, expecting to be swatted out of the sky like Sarchus, only to have Ilinia zip right between his horns, down his back, and then swerve around his tail.

A heartbeat later, Heliothrax, who had instinctively swerved to track Ilinia, slammed into Sagravaax, and both dragons plummeted out of the sky as they tangled together.

Ilinia projected her laughter to the wind as they crashed into one of Havath City’s boulevards, just to keep Heliothrax angry and focused on her.

They’d both survive the impact, of course, but Sagravaax’s surviving a close-range tussle with Heliothrax was entirely dependent on how determined the elder wyrm was to resume her pursuit of Ilinia. Especially with what the Sunwyrm had done to herself since last time she had faced her.

Ilinia didn’t get a breather, unfortunately, because she found herself right in the middle of a battle between one of the Intertwined and some fiber mage great power Alustin had wrangled up from who-knew-where.

The fiber mage must have absorbed all the fabric and plant fibers from a big chunk of the city, because they’d surrounded themselves with a gargantuan tangle, resembling nothing more than a building-sized sea anemone. The fiber anemone was the size of a child in comparison to the lich avatar, but the lich was struggling to disentangle itself from the fiber mage’s grasp.

Still, both were able to spare Ilinia a little attention.

She barely dodged a swipe from an enchanted bronze blade longer than a dragon, deflected several grasping woven cables thicker than her torso, then shot through the middle of the battle.

As she fled between them, the lich launched a swarm of bronze tiles from the roof of a nearby house at her at high speeds. Rather than altering their trajectory with her wind magic, Ilinia snatched them up with a web of lightning, then slung them down into a nearby group of Havathi siege mages that were firing up towards her descending army.

The lich tried to fight it, but Ilinia was guessing that this part of the city wasn’t part of his demesne, but one of the other Intertwined, and he was unable to protect the siege mages.

And then, finally, one of her own great power allies descended into the fight.

A hundred perfect copies of Andas Thune rippled into existence, lunging at one foe or another. Nearly all of them dodged instinctively, throwing their foes into disarray for just a moment.

Ilinia used that moment well. Not to launch an assault against her enemies, but to build herself a stormbody, to finally stop having to dodge wildly around the battlefield like her granddaughter.

When Heliothrax disentangled herself from a still-living Sagravaax and launched herself back into the sky, she found herself facing not a tiny flying old woman, but a living storm in Ilinia’s own image, towering over even the lich avatars.

Not as big as some of the stormbodies Ilinia had raised in the past, including the mountain-sized one she’d used to kill Bakori, but more than enough to give the Sunwyrm pause.

Heliothrax’s attention was briefly caught by Andas Thune as she rose, but the Sunwyrm wasn’t so far in the grasp of her rage that she would be fool enough to hunt an illusionist while faced with a more direct foe.

Ilinia took that brief pause to finally get a good, clear look at what Heliothrax had done to herself, at how she’d twisted her own form.

There had once been reasonable confusion about who the largest dragon on the continent was, with Indris Stormbreaker, Iris Mooneye, and Heliothrax herself all competing for the title. Indris had probably been the largest, but none of the three tolerated the presence of the others, so direct measurements had always been impossible.

There was no debate any longer. Heliothrax had grown ridiculously larger since the last time Ilinia had seen her, just a few months ago.

Heliothrax measured at least two hundred and fifty feet from nose to tail now, longer than any other dragon she’d ever even heard of. Her wings stretched farther, her horns jutted higher, her talons longer and more scythe-like than ever.

Those were the minor changes.

Where once Heliothrax had been a slender, graceful creature, now she was a bloated, vile, ungainly thing. She must have at least doubled her own mass. Ilinia was absolutely convinced that it was no longer possible for the dragon to support herself in the air merely with her own wings. She’d wager quite a lot that Heliothrax was supporting the bulk of her weight with magic.

Which was probably why Ilinia had been able to keep ahead of her in the air so easily. The modifications Heliothrax had made to her own body seemed to have slowed her flight significantly. No longer was Heliothrax likely the fastest flier short of a Thunderbringer.

If Heliothrax had simply bulked her own body up with her dragon affinity, that would be one thing, but the reality was far worse.

Heliothrax had used the bodies of other dragons to increase her mass. Red, green, and blue scales interlocked with her own mother-of-pearl scales. The spines of lesser dragons ran across her flanks like inflamed scars. A half dozen other dragon tails twined and wrapped around the Sunwyrm’s own. Multiple sets of lesser wings projected out behind her four massive wings. Several limbs clawed and grasped at the air, projecting at freakish angles from Heliothrax’s torso.

Just with these few moments of observation, Ilinia could count the parts of at least a dozen lesser dragons magically vivisected to her own body.

The worst part, though? Was that the dragons Heliothrax had harvested were still alive and aware. Their heads were bound along the sides of Heliothrax’s own spine in a staggered pattern from her head down her neck and back. Though half-submerged in mother-of-pearl flesh, Ilinia could see their eyes rolling in pain and terror, trapped in a nightmarish existence no creature deserved.

“You’ve really let yourself go, Sunwyrm,” Ilinia called in a voice like thunder, doing her best to sound mocking, and to keep her disgust and alarm hidden. “Pity, you used to be so graceful.”

“Power does what power must, Kaen Das,” Heliothrax said. “If I must descend to the levels of my enemies to defeat them, so be it.”

Ilinia actually laughed at that. “My level? Please. I might be many unflattering things, but would you like to know one thing I’m not?”

“And what is that?” Heliothrax asked.

“Anywhere near as ugly as you,” Ilinia replied, then laughed again.

It was delightful how effective childish taunts could be even against beings capable of leveling entire cities. Ilinia shifted her stormbody into a wider stance, preparing herself for Heliothrax as the dragon bellowed and lunged through the air towards her.

But then, midflight, the heads bound along Heliothrax’s spine began to twitch and convulse, their jaws flexing as they tried to scream through throats no longer connected to lungs. Ilinia sensed massive amounts of mana being drained from the aether.

And then magic began to erupt from Heliothrax. Not just solar or dragon affinities.

Magic from more affinities than Ilinia could count.

Heliothrax hadn’t just bound the flesh of the still-living dragons she’d harvested to herself. No, she’d bound their magic to her as well, found some way to control what should be impossible to control.

Firebolts worthy of Clan Castis raced alongside Heliothrax’s solar bolts, which were in turn wrapped in webs of lightning protecting their magnetic containment from Ilinia’s own lightning. Dozens of marble boulders tore themselves from the homes below them, in a barrage that would have done the now-deceased Headmaster Tarik proud. Twenty-foot long icicles began to launch themselves from the Greywise River, while light magic began tearing at Andas Thune’s illusions. Wind magic began forcing Ilinia’s control of the air currents away from the Sunwyrm’s body. Bronze roofs began to tear themselves free, flying up to begin orbiting Heliothrax in a great ring that spun so swiftly the individual shards vanished in a glittering metallic blur. Wooden furnishings and window frames dissolved into clouds of fast-moving splinters aimed at Sagravaax. A colossal burst of raw force sent an entire house flying towards the fiber mage. Water magic began to struggle against Ilinia’s control of the clouds in her stormbody.

All the magics Ilinia could detect were crude, direct applications, nothing more sophisticated than a fresh battlemage could use, save perhaps the clever uses of bronze and lightning. Many of them were disrupted rapidly— Heliothrax’s wind and water magic were no match for Ilinia’s own, and the fiber mage easily dodged the thrown house and sucked up the wood splinters aimed at their ally into their steadily growing fiber anemone. Heliothrax’s new light magic tore apart many of Andas Thune’s illusions, but the young dragon formed more in heartbeats.

But that still left dozens, if not hundreds, of individual spells racing towards Ilinia’s storm body. Worse, in their wake, Heliothrax launched the immense spinning ring of bronze straight for Ilinia, then lit it up with a huge web of lightning, radiating out from a central point to the bronze like the spokes of the world’s most demented wheel.

Ilinia braced her stormbody for impact.

“Oh, bugger,” Ilinia said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Clan Castis Chaos

LUTHE STUCK HIS left arm out of the high-altitude bubble, wincing at the cold air rushing past, but held his hand out long enough for the tattooed spellforms just below his elbow to work.

He pulled it back just in time to avoid losing his arm to a massive bolt from one of Havath’s lightning spires. Even though his arm passed easily through the bubble, the massive lightning bolt, like all the other siege magic rising up to hit them, deflected harmlessly off the side.

“We’ve dropped low enough now,” Luthe called to the other members of Clan Castis, who quickly hurried to get into formation.

Clan Castis was a small clan, but they’d still managed to bring a much larger force of fire mages to Havath City than they’d supplied to Skyhold during their battle, with most of two hundred fire mages, almost all of which were riding down towards battle on the back of Ramyl the Chained.

Luthe really wished he knew where his parents were. He’d known from a young age that it was best to keep an eye on them.

The two of them together were more trouble than all of their children combined.

Most of the fire mages sorted themselves into three groups— two groups of thirty-two mages, and one group of sixty-four.

As Luthe took the lead of the sixty-four mage group, Ranna of Clan Derem caught his eye from one side, and he nodded ever so slightly to her.

There was a running joke among Clan Castis that there were only two other clans they feared— Clan Derem and the Hidden Clan. In truth, Clan Castis could likely wipe out the scent mages of Clan Derem easily, albeit not without suffering horrible stenches for months after. Luthe couldn’t imagine that ever happening, though, because Clan Derem had been their neighbor and closest ally for generations now.

The Hidden Clan was another matter entirely. There had been rumors of them for centuries, and there were reputable accounts of great powers being assassinated by them every decade or two, when they tried to move against the mountain clans. They were absolutely real, and they’d even been the primary reason the Ithonian Empire had never fully subjugated them, even after their original language was stolen by the Tongue Eater.

The Hidden Clan wasn’t a true clan, though. No one was born to it and it held no lands. It was an elite force of mages recruited from across the mountain clans, dedicated to keeping them all free and unruled by great powers or nations.

Ranna wasn’t just a member of Clan Derem. She was a member of the Hidden Clan, too, and had assassinated at least two archmages in her youth who threatened the clans. And she had been the one to recruit Luthe into the Hidden Clan.

For many years, there had been no Clan Castis members of the Hidden Clan. They were— not without some merit— judged too rash and out of control to be trusted to act with the necessary delicacy.

Ranna, though, had seen something different in Luthe. Seen that, for all he enjoyed engaging in the ridiculous games of his siblings, and enjoyed battle as much as any member of Clan Castis, that there was a watchful, serious streak deep within him. She had recruited him to the clan, making him the first member of Clan Castis in generations to step foot in the Hidden Hold, to train alongside the deadliest mage-assassins of the clans.

It was hard balancing the interests of Clan Castis and the Hidden Clan at times, but this wasn’t one of those times. No, now the interests of the two overlapped perfectly, even if the rest of Clan Castis didn’t know it.

As Luthe began leading the sixty-four fire mages in summoning a colossal living spell of fire, a false phoenix even bigger than Sarchus Vye, he carefully implanted a series of targets for destruction within the elemental’s mind.

Weapon research facilities, buried in the bedrock of Havath City. The palace of a noble family who bore a genocidal grudge against a minor clan in the Skyreach foothills. The headquarters of a mining firm who had begun pushing into clan territory in search of silver. Half a dozen more targets.

As they worked, and as Ramyl spiraled lower, the volume of siege magic rising to meet them grew until it was a struggle to see outside the bubble that surrounded them. The bubble shook and wavered, but held.

The two smaller groups had each summoned two enormous fire elementals by the time the group of sixty-four finished the phoenix, and were nearly halfway done with their next sets, by the time the phoenix was completed. It dove straight down, overtaking and passing the four smaller elementals, as well as the bulk of the dragons descending below them, and began raining blasts of fire from its wings onto the city below.

Sadly, they wouldn’t have time for a group of a full hundred and twenty-eight fire mages— it would take more than three times as long to summon the resulting elemental colossus as it had taken for the phoenix, and they were already fast approaching the ground.

One of these years, they’d figure out how to make the circle of two hundred and fifty-six work. And when that happened, well…

Well, it was enough to say that they wouldn’t have needed any allies to stop Alustin, then. Nor to destroy Havath City as well.

Or even a second spell.

As the immense flattened hydra corkscrewed his way down to the ground, the army on his back readying themselves for battle, Luthe’s pyromaniacal laughter made Ranna, not for the first time, second-guess her decision to induct him into the Hidden Clan.

LIEUTENANT ANDERS BALTIS gaped in utter befuddlement at the hand-holding middle-aged couple, no taller than Anders’ chest, who had just wandered right into the intersection where his siege mages and soldiers were stationed.

“What a cute little cafe, dear,” the woman said.

“It’s delightful. I wish it were open,” the man agreed, puffing on a short-stemmed wooden pipe tucked in the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe if we’re lucky, it will survive the battle, and we can come back and visit in the future?”

“Oh, I’d like that. Why don’t we have any cute cafes back home?”

“It would rather ruin our reputation if our hold had an adorable little cafe, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s Luthe’s problem now, not ours, isn’t it? And you know we could convince the clan elders we need a cafe, they’d love it.”

“Probably take all the good tables gossiping all day.”

“Oh, I can just see it now.”

Anders finally shook off his bewilderment. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Well, we were visiting with some friends, but they had an appointment a few blocks that way, so we thought we’d explore a bit while they took care of their business.”

At that very moment, lurid explosions of sound and color erupted in the direction they had indicated, which, he realized, was the nearest other siege magic station.

Lieutenant Anders’ brain finally caught up with the significance of the couple’s spellform tattoos, armor, and weapons, and fumbled his sword out of his sheath.

“Surrender now or be destroyed,” Anders called in his strongest voice.

Which, unfortunately, wasn’t that strong, and actually cracked a bit at the end.

The soldiers and battlemages under his command still pointed their own weapons and readied their spells, at least.

The couple just exchanged fond looks. “Try not to damage the cafe?”

“I’ll do my best, dear.”

And then, in a blur of motion, the tiny middle-aged woman drew the ridiculous greatsword from her back and was shooting across the intersection into Anders’ troops.

That wasn’t a figure of speech. The woman was literally shooting across the battlefield. The bizarre metal nozzles on her armor erupted with jets of flame so powerful they launched her forward faster than a force mage could leap. Her greatsword, powered by more jets of flame, sliced entirely through three soldiers without even slowing.

And then the woman pivoted on a coin, dodging a boulder and several crossbow bolts, and vanished among Anders’ troops, though the explosions and severed limbs coming from her direction gave Anders a rough idea of where she was.

Then, remembering the man, Anders whirled back, expecting another bloody swath of destruction.

Instead, he was greeted by the sight of the man just standing there peacefully, puffing on his pipe. Several of Anders’ soldiers had their crossbows and swords pointed at him, and an ice mage levitated a dozen icicles, ready to impale the man if he made a single wrong move.

“We have him, sir!” the ice mage called, her voice almost as nervous as Anders’.

“Do you now, lass?” the man asked, then took an especially deep inhale on his pipe.

Anders had only a heartbeat to notice that the ember in the pipe was getting much brighter than it should, and then it launched itself out of the pipe’s bowl even faster than the woman had moved.

Anders didn’t know it, but the man had waited precisely for the ice mage to blink to launch the ember.

And before the blink had even finished, the ember had gone right through the center of the ice mage’s forehead and out the back of her skull.

It didn’t stop, or even slow down. In a single, disorienting breath, carving a painful streak of light across the lieutenant’s vision, the ember traveled through his soldiers one after another as though they weren’t even there, even melting holes in enchanted steel breastplate like it was cutting through butter.

Before the first falling weapon, spell, or body hit the ground, the ember was already racing through Anders’ troops, punching through siege mages and ballistae with just as much ease.

In a few heartbeats, it was over. The woman cut down the last siege mage, and the man’s flying ember puffed away into smoke as it finished destroying the last ballista.

The woman leaped back over to her husband in one last burst of speed, and then the jets of fire faded away.

“Thirty-two,” the man said happily.

“Hah! I killed thirty-five,” the woman said. “Beat you!”

Then she paused. “Hold on a minute, you didn’t give me a head start again, did you?”

The man shifted uncomfortably.

She turned to Anders. “Did my Corus give me a head start?”

Anders gaped at her, and his sword fell out of his limp grasp and hit the ground.

“Well, did he?” the woman asked impatiently.

Anders closed his mouth and nodded frantically, hoping he wasn’t about to die.

“Corus, I told you not to give me head starts anymore!” the woman said indignantly.

Corus gave Anders a betrayed look. “Rose…”

“Don’t you Rose me!”

The man sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. You’re right dear, I know it’s a bad idea, and it will give someone a chance to get the drop on me one of these days.”

Rose scowled at him. “What? Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to win fair and square. You giving me a head start lets you think that maybe you really could have won the competition if you’d tried. I want to crush you utterly.”

The man raised his eyebrows in mild shock, and then burst into laughter. “That’s the woman I married, alright.”

And then, while Anders stared on in confusion and terror, the couple embraced and started kissing like desperate teenagers.

Then, as if nothing had happened, and Rose wasn’t splattered in blood, they wandered off, hand-in-hand.

“Shall we go see if Cardovan has finished up destroying their siege station yet?”

“Oh, let’s!”

“They’re really so delightful, we must invite them to visit Hold Castis sometime.”

“Oooh, maybe we can get our new cafe done before their visit!”

Their conversation was lost under the din of distant battle as they wandered away, leaving Lieutenant Anders surrounded by only the corpses of his troops and the burning wreckage of siege engines.

It wasn’t until much later that he realized that the couple had, somehow without him realizing at all, burnt every hair off the top of his head, leaving him completely bald.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Troop Movements

ALUSTIN BREATHED A sigh of relief when the last stone platform finished its trench run, Karna Scythe personally leading their last few troops off it onto their staging ground.

They’d lost several of the stone platforms to the Havathi siege bombardment, so Alustin was deeply grateful Karna had made it safely through. He might intend to sacrifice her eventually, but he still needed her for now.

Her arrival wasn’t a moment too soon— their staging ground was under assault by three Havathi great powers. Specifically, two of the Intertwined avatars and the Mud King, who had rolled his immense boiling mud armor through Havath’s boulevards without leaving even a hint of a stain. Now, Anders Staven’s armor, along with the two gargantuan statues, battered away at their landing shield. The temporary defensive field— half ward, half enchantment— had been constructed to his specifications by Sydapsyn’s enchanters, but it was rapidly being overwhelmed by the three great powers, not to mention the constant siege bombardment.

They never would have even made it this long without the three great powers who had stayed at the landing. Threadqueen Iblint and Sagravaax Scalestorm had rushed straight into battle with the Havathi and Coven powers, unfortunately.

He’d expected it from Iblint— she hadn’t had time to integrate into their command structure, and she’d made it clear from their first contact that she fought alongside them, but not actually with him. She had her own specific goals in Havath.

That was fine by him, of course. Having her there causing mayhem would pull much-needed attention off his forces while he achieved his plan.

Having Sagravaax run off so abruptly, however, was a deeply unpleasant surprise. If any of his great powers were intending to run off, he would have expected it to be Mattin Kos, but the teleporting gangster had stuck right by the landing zone, warping out every few seconds to cut away at one of the Intertwined with that nasty sword of his, or teleport away a couple tons of boiling mud.

Zersin Grey, meanwhile, kept their landing zone shrouded in a wall of smoke stretching over several neighborhoods, leaving most of the siege mages targeting them blind.

Casser was, of course, the most important part of their defense. Despite three of his affinities and most of his attention being on the stone platforms running the trench, he’d been casting a ceaseless rain of spells against the attacking powers, living entirely up to his name.

His frostbursts were almost invisible, save for the rippling visual distortion they produced as they pumped heat out of the area they enveloped, and had proven quite effective against the Mud King.

His signature ball lightning, meanwhile, had proven a tolerable deterrent against the colossal lich avatars. They didn’t seem to do any damage, but when they struck bronze spellforms, they slowed the movements of the giants, sometimes even causing convulsions. It seemed that their lightning defenses were poorly suited to ball lightning.

The arrival of Karna Scythe would allow Casser to focus all his own energy on the enemy powers. Not to mention Karna herself, unquestionably the most powerful of Alustin’s allies.

A moment after Alustin’s sigh of relief at the gorgon queen’s arrival, a sharpshooter mage’s arrow from the top of a palace half a mile away flew through through a hole in the landing shield, then punched into one side of his paper helmet and out the other. He had no idea how the sharpshooter mage had even seen him through Zersin’s immense wall of smoke.

Or, rather, how the archer had spotted his paper armor doppelganger.

There wasn’t just one Alustin running around Havath City— there were four. The only reason there weren’t six was because he was using his two remaining mind shards from the relay golem to monitor the Librarians Errant and guide them in placing resonators.

This doppelganger wasn’t the first doppelganger to be hit, either— one of his other paper doppelgangers had been shot by Havathi sharpshooter mages three times so far.

Neither of them had taken any serious harm, though, unlike the paper doppelganger the Sacred Swordsmen had caught. He’d barely even had a chance to glimpse the Havathi warlocks before his armor dissolved under a rain of offensive spells. He hadn’t even glimpsed Valia until he scryed the location where his armor had been cut down.

Her face had been utterly and completely emotionless.

He hadn’t let himself dwell on her, instead yanking his attention away and constructing a new paper armor doppelganger from one of his hidden supply caches deeper in the city. Along with the Last Echo, Alustin had spent weeks using his far-ranging magic to construct and hide thousands of spellform-covered sheets throughout Havath City.

Alustin thought about leaving the arrow poking through his doppelganger’s head, for comedic effect, but unfortunately, that would probably give away the fact that it was a decoy to any other opportunistic assassins. He yanked the arrow out, made sure it wasn’t enchanted, then tossed it aside.

Casser and Karna didn’t even consult with Alustin before launching themselves straight into battle against the Havathi Powers. Casser began ripping apart the Mud King’s armor with all seven affinities, forcing the armor mage into immediate retreat.

Karna, meanwhile, used a combination of earthquake magic and her own monstrous physique to propel herself straight at a lich avatar like a ballista bolt. Alustin used one of his mind-shards to watch her slam into the giant statue’s chest, then, with a massive burst of earthquake and stone magic, pushed off against it and launched herself at the second statue, sending both tumbling to the ground, the first with a series of huge cracks across its chest, the second with its right arm badly damaged at the elbow.

With the pressure taken off their landing zone for a moment, Mattin Kos began teleporting small groups of mages across the city, one after another. Strike teams, saboteurs, and scouts, mostly.

None of whom were truly needed— at this point, the army’s entire purpose was keeping attention off the Librarians Errant and the resonators they were planting. The army’s dragons, gryphons, and other fliers had already been doing a good job of that, harrying the Havathi while the landing zone was pinned down.

Alustin checked over the landing force and the decaying landing shield one last time, then nodded to Zersin Grey, who would be taking command. She was the great power who worked best alongside an army— while the others engaged the Dominion and Coven great powers directly, she would be acting to support their army against the far larger Havathi force, and even the Coven, if it came to that.

Then he withdrew his mind shard from the suit of armor, letting it simply collapse into a pile of strangely-folded paper, and transferred the mind shard to the half-assembled doppelganger a third of the way across the city.

He had work to do.

THE INSTANT RAMYL the Chained landed, Roland was sprinting off the hydra’s back, a force of Coven mages behind him.

He exchanged one last meaningful glance with Ranna of Clan Derem as he did so.

Roland had his official missions straight from his older brother Luthe— he was going to kill one of the Intertwined, along with his standing order to kill Alustin Haber on sight— but he had another mission as well. This one came from Ranna, who wasn’t merely a member of Clan Derem.

She was a member of the Hidden Clan, the spies and assassins who acted for the benefit of all the clans, and she had recruited Roland to it as well.

He was the first member of Clan Castis to join the Hidden Clan in generations. Castis was powerful, unquestionably, but they were also ostentatiously showy.

Roland, however, was different. He was, to those who didn’t know him, a terrifying figure, covered in scars and carrying nearly as many weapons as his father, if in greater variety than just hatchets. To those who did know him, he was generally thought of as the lazy brother, who just wanted to drink tea, play with his four children, and go fishing.

That quiet, lazy image so many had of him was exactly what the Hidden Clan wanted. He was the last member of Clan Castis anyone would suspect to be a spy or assassin.

The mission to kill the lich was relatively straightforward— destroy the right parts of the demesne, bring the whole thing down. It was easier said than done, of course— the Intertwined were massive, their components spread across the leagues of the city, and they’d be under constant attack by the fabric of the city, the roads and streets themselves turning against them as soon as they started targeting the lich. It could be done, though— Luthe himself had killed a draconic fiber lich a couple years back.

Of course, the draconic fiber lich had wanted to die, after a failed attempt to become a mobile lich had left them in never-ending pain.

Roland’s force of mages was specifically built to resist the hostile attentions of the lich, though. Illusionists to help hide them from the lich. Stone and bronze mages to help counter the lich’s power. Enchanters to help them track down the target components as quickly as possible. Acid mages to rip apart the acid-soluble marble of the city, verdigris mages to turn the bronze green. Not that the verdigris was particularly harmful, or an effective weapon against the lich, but there were so many anti-verdigris enchantments in Havath City and as part of the Intertwined’s demesnes that spreading it would force their enchantments to work harder than ever, stressing the rest of the Intertwined’s enchantments and marginally reducing its ability to fight back.

Most of all, a rather unusual mage that would be perfect for destroying the bronze components of the Intertwined. She had an affinity for bronze disease— a destructive corrosive process that turned bronze and other copper alloys green, and could spread from metal to metal, and whose only known cure, for more severe cases, required extensive bronze magic. It was far worse than the normal verdigris process that turned bronze a duller, more uniform green. The Dominion had entire industries dedicated to preventing verdigris and bronze disease— countless workshops of alchemists developing preventative alchemical baths, enchanters planting anti-corrosion enchantments throughout the capital, bronze mages working long shifts to maintain their metal domes, ornaments, and roofs.

Even with all that, fighting bronze disease was a nightmare for the Dominion.

Their single bronze disease mage was almost certainly going to be able to destroy great chunks of the city single-handedly.

And, while they were tearing apart the Intertwined, Roland should have plenty of opportunity to carry out his mission from the Hidden Clan.

They had provided him with an extraspatial storage container for one solitary purpose— they didn’t want him destroying all the target components. No, they wanted him to sever and retrieve samples of several component types, both from the lich and the lich overlap suppressors.

They’d had plenty of time to study Kanderon’s liches over the years, and Havath’s liches were nearly as advanced, but had followed a wholly different line of magical development. There was much they could learn from their construction— and, compared to the rest of the continent, the Clans were deeply lacking in liches. They were of obvious interest— not only as territorial defenders and border guards, but also as cultural repositories, protectors of the clan traditions.

Well, maybe not for Clan Castis, fire liches probably weren’t possible, but for the other clans, at least.

Removing the components would be as harmful to the lich as destroying them, so Roland felt not the least bit of compunction about his secret mission.

As he stormed down one of Havath City’s wide boulevards, looking at the palaces and well-built tenements, Roland decided to give himself one more mission as well.

There was plenty of room in the extraspatial storage. He was going to grab a few of the countless life-size bronze statues of soldiers and mages scattered around Havath.

He’d feel like a terrible father, visiting a whole new city without bringing back presents for his children.

VALIA LOST THE first of her Sacred Swordsmen that day not to enemy action, not to the descending Coven mages or to Alustin’s allies, but to friendly fire.

The Mud King, rolling towards the river in a rapid retreat from Casser Spellstorm, simply rolled over three warlocks, who died painfully and swiftly in his boiling mud.

The fact that they were flying several stories above the ground just illustrated the massive size of the Mud King’s armor.

Valia didn’t slow down, didn’t take the time to mourn their deaths, just shouted at her warlocks to go faster, to head towards the most recent Alustin sighting.

It was a small miracle they’d even got the report. The Conclave had planned for so many different outcomes for today, created countless contingency plans on top of backup plans. Given numerous contingent orders, envelopes to be opened in the case of dozens of different developments to commanders across the city.

They had planned for a decapitation strike against the Conclave, but it had been a low probability outcome. The most heavily defended building at the heart of the most heavily defended city on the continent, if not the world? Not a single member of the Conclave remaining in the city had willingly chosen to hunker down elsewhere, save if their duties demanded their presence outside the city.

Perhaps some of them still survived— a third of the Conclave’s palace still stood, though much of that was burning.

Nonetheless, the Conclave’s destruction at the Coven’s hands almost crippled the Dominion’s response. The bulk of their commanders, their seers and communications mages, had been stationed deep within the Conclave.

The fact that communications hadn’t collapsed entirely, the fact that the Dominion’s army was already recovering and coordinating once more, was an ode to the effectiveness and redundancy of their chain of command.

Officers across the city were rapidly re-establishing communications with one another, whether by magical communications, jury-rigging solutions using seers scrying chalkboards, or even runners and fliers carrying messages through the battle-torn streets of the city.

Despite all her internal conflict, despite her cracking loyalties, Valia felt nothing but pride for the Dominion army for that.

As she dove farther down towards the street, slipping under an aerial battle between Havathi dragons and Indris’ spawn, the three Weapons of Last Resort accelerated to the front of their formation to speak to her.

“Are you sure this is the best way to use us in battle?” the wielder of Mollin’s Glove asked, trailing fog and wisps of light behind him from the glove’s steady degradation. He was the only one of the three whose Weapon of Last Resort provided flight natively, which was for the best— it was also by far the most mana hungry of the three, and pacting other items alongside the Glove was unfeasible.

“Our great powers are barely holding on,” the wielder of the Phase Dagger said, her voice echoing as if from across a cavernous building. Valia knew her voice would only grow more distant as she used the Phase Dagger.

“We could be helping them,” the wielder of the Ninemetal Blade said. From her tone of voice, Valia suspected that when she said we, she wasn’t referring to the other two temporary Swordsman powers.

Valia shook her head. “Our mission is clear. If we don’t hunt down Alustin, nothing else matters.”

The three all gave her uncomfortable looks, obviously realizing she was correct, but…

It was hard abandoning compatriots in need, hard letting your allies die to give you time to work. No matter how logical their course of action was, humans could never be comfortable with that decision.

“Besides,” Valia said, “the amount of effort it would require for the three of you to go toe to toe with any great power but a minor one would unacceptably hasten your demise, regardless of whether you won or lost. And few of the powers battling today can be described as minor. We have to be precise in how we use you, or your sacrifices will be in vain.”

The three of them looked like they wanted to argue further, especially the wielder of the Ninemetal Blade, but withdrew back to their places in the formation instead.

Up ahead, several city blocks simply exploded as the roving battle between Heliothrax and Ilinia Kaen Das was joined by Indris Stormbreaker, who had unfortunately finished escorting the Coven’s army down to the ground.

Valia cursed, swerving the wrong way down an intersection to avoid the devastation, her warlocks barely making the turn behind her.

Then, a moment later, she was forced to swerve again, as Alustin’s scale mage, Sagravaax, was pursued by Sarchus Vye right into their path, the razor-edge scales and phoenix flame drawing a path of destruction straight through the city.

When a gargantuan fire elemental in the shape of another phoenix flew in their path once more, incinerating building after building, Valia refused to swerve, flying straight for a gap in the inferno.

She needed to track down Alustin, whatever it took.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Hard to Digest

THE FIRST SIGN that a great power was approaching them was when Hugh’s Crown nodes began to vibrate, as though they were entering a massive density of wards.

Only, the vibration wasn’t in the direction they were moving, but from one side.

Hugh barely had time to envelop his friends with the Crown before dozens of bamboo spears struck.

Their own armors would have sufficed for those few strikes, Hugh was sure, but since his mana reservoirs were the largest, it made more sense for him to take the blows.

Within seconds of the initial strike, they found themselves in the midst of a vast bamboo framework, one that stretched for multiple blocks in either direction, towering over the tenements of the neighborhood they were in. Soon after that, the bamboo framework fully rolled over them, and they lost all sight of the outside world past the intersecting thickets of lashed bamboo poles.

The bamboo strikes kept coming, but Hugh’s attention was fixed on the wards, of which there were hundreds, built into the very structure of the massive bamboo frame. The whole constantly shifting structure almost resembled a labyrinth of defenses.

Mackerel seemed even more fascinated by the framework than Hugh was.

Hugh’s friends were already launching spell after spell, shattering a few bamboo poles here and there, but most of their attacks were blocked by the shifting wards.

Farther within the frame, Hugh saw figures moving about— sprinting across bamboo poles, twirling acrobatically through gaps, and balancing atop bamboo tips.

The Coven’s intelligence had warned that Havath was close to completing at least one other communal great power, but Hugh hadn’t expected it to be a weaponized acrobatics troupe.

“Havath really weaponized a mage circus?” Sabae asked incredulously, echoing Hugh’s own thoughts.

“Perhaps they circused a weapon!” a voice called from the heights above them.

“Or perhaps a circus weaponized Havath!” another voice called.

“Or a weapon Havathed a circus!” yet another voice called.

“Clowns,” Talia muttered.

“We were told of you!” one of the voices called down.

“Warned of your strategies.”

“Told not to negotiate or seek your surrender.”

“But it’s no fun to go for the kill directly.”

“So we’ll give you a chance.”

“Escape our little maze, and we’ll let you live for now.”

Sabae shook her head. “Count me a little skeptical on that part.”

“It’s not as if you have a choice.”

“Ask your two digging friends.”

Hugh, who alongside Godrick had already started exploring the ground underneath their feet with his magic, looked up to Sabae and shook his head. “We’re right on top of a massive enchanted pipe, and it’s not filled with water. Pretty sure it’s one of the lines carrying alchemical reagents for the Intertwined’s demesnes.”

Sabae scowled.

“Alright, can you find your way through their wards, Hugh?”

Hugh started to respond, but Talia interrupted him.

“Mackerel can do it.”

Everyone glanced at Mackerel, then at her.

“We’re growing bored,” a voice from above called.

“Hugh, close the Stormward’s Crown to eavesdropping,” Talia said, then continued when he nodded.

“I’ve seen Mackerel’s dreams,” Talia said. “He doesn’t see the world the way we do— I think he perceives it as pure topology. All that matters to him is the arrangement of objects in the world and their relations to one another— size and shape don’t truly seem to matter to him. This might be a confusing, overwhelming mess to us, but to him, it’s a perfectly logical arrangement.”

Hugh nodded slowly. “That makes sense, based off what I’ve been able to glean from him. Mackerel, if you can guide us through, I can carry us up and out.”

Mackerel nodded firmly.

“Ah’ve got one other suggestion,” Godrick said.

They all smiled at his plan, even Sabae, who would be especially useful, then immediately put it into action and gave Mackerel the order to start.

He immediately flew up and to one side, while remaining within the Crown.

Hugh carried them after. Not by levitation, but by climbing— protruding crown nodes to make crude, pyramidal limbs all around their enclosure, pushing them through gaps in the bamboo frame.

“The little weapons are really trying to escape,” one of the acrobat mages called, as he balanced on one leg atop a narrow bamboo pole.

“They really think highly of themselves, don’t they?” another called, as she did a flip around another pole.

“They think they’re so special,” a third called.

“Think their success and power is their own doing.”

“Think that they would have succeeded no matter what hand life dealt them.”

“They’re fools.”

“They’re the pet projects of archmages and great powers.”

“You could have built a castle for the cost of their training alone.”

“That much personal time from archmages and great powers? Several castles.”

“And that doesn’t even address the priceless secrets, aether crystals, and enchanted weapons, does it?”

“With that much investment, anyone could have succeeded.”

To Hugh’s surprise, it was Sabae who finally broke their silence and answered the taunts.

“You’re right,” she called. “We have benefited from more resources and attention than other young mages. We have succeeded thanks to our connections.”

There was a long pause before one of the acrobat mages spoke, and Mackerel used the moment of silence to lead them farther along. “Well?”

“Well what?” Sabae asked.

“Usually that sort of response is followed by some claim that you’ve done more with your advantages than others could have,” another acrobat called.

“Or that you’ve pushed above and past the advantages you were given.”

“Or that you were given those resources because you were better suited to using them than others.”

Sabae laughed and made a rude gesture. “My ego isn’t so fragile that I need to lie to myself about how we gained power. Thinking that you’re special, that you’re unique? It’s just a shortcut to overconfidence, and overconfidence is a shortcut to defeat. No, there are countless others who could have achieved what we could have if they’d been given access to the resources. I won’t lie, I’m proud of what we’ve done with those resources, but… look at Hugh.”

Hugh glanced up at her, surprised, though he kept most of his attention on the Crown.

“Hugh came from nowhere, from nothing, and he’s kept pace with us every step of the way. He’s become a brilliant wardcrafter and deadly battle mage. How many more like him have been driven from their homes as refugees by the battles of great powers? How many brilliant mages have starved as children because their parents were mind-blind and rejected by society? Hugh’s not the exception, he’s the rule. Claims that the powerful are powerful because they’re special, because they deserve it? They’re just desperate attempts to justify power and position.”

There was a long silence as they navigated the maze, and then one of the acrobats hung upside down and sighed.

“You make insulting you boring, Flea.”

“You’re ugly.”

“And stupid.”

“And smell like cheese.”

Hugh rolled his eyes, and tuned out the taunts again.

The next few minutes were a blur as the Crown’s ward bubble darted through the shifting bamboo maze, Mackerel leading them unerringly up and out. Bamboo spear strikes and taunts from the acrobatics troupe continually struck against the Crown, but Hugh and his friends never responded.

They were nearly up and out of the massive framework when the trap sprung. They could see the communal bamboo great power engaging in a three-way battle with Andas Thune and some unknown fiber mage great power. They could see other great powers in the distance, tearing up the city. See Clan Castis elementals burning great swathes of the city, siege mages exchanging fire with overflying dragons, and the burning ruin of the Conclave.

And then a perfectly interlocking cage of wards sprung into place around them, so densely woven that the Crown wards began to visibly fuzz and fray.

“We don’t appreciate you cheating,” one of the acrobat bamboo mages called.

“Using your little book to navigate.”

“Disappointing and unexpected from mages such as you, so respected at such a young age.”

Hugh and the others exchanged looks, and began to laugh.

“That’s funny, because we absolutely expected cheating from you,” Sabae said. “So we came prepared.”

Sabae cast a truly massive lightning bolt, draining much of her lightning mana reservoir. And all of that lightning immediately began chaining through the galvanic anchors Sabae had placed all throughout the bamboo maze.

Given how much the insides of the frame moved about, most of the anchors had shifted all over the great power.

A few of the lightning bolts arcing about seemingly at random throughout the bamboo maze slammed into wards, but the vast majority of the communal great power’s defenses were focused around the outside of the frame or around Hugh and his friends. The lightning bolts raced between bamboo poles, igniting them or even exploding them. At least one acrobat mage was struck and lost his grip, bouncing off every intervening bamboo pole on his way down.

Only a fraction of the bamboo maze was affected, but it threw the rest of the maze into immediate chaos. Lightning bolts spat by Andas Thune and cable lashes from the fiber mage began to breach the outer defenses of the maze.

Hugh and his friends weren’t even close to done, though.

Far below them, the exact spot in the street where they’d been standing exploded. The lightning struck it almost at the precise moment that Talia exploded the bones embedded in the stones of the street weakened by Hugh, Sabae, and Godrick’s stone magic and crystal magic. The pipe full of alchemicals was some unknown alloy their steel magic couldn’t target, but it was in no way built to resist simultaneous lightning and bonefire explosions.

The stone shrapnel shattering through the bamboo was followed immediately by metal shards and burning alchemicals emitting toxic smoke.

Hugh would really think, at this point, that their foes would account for their love of destroying terrain explosively.

The entire bamboo framework reacted violently, yanking itself away at high speed.

He would really have liked to spend more time studying the communal great power— it was an absolutely fascinating application of wardcrafting. For that matter, it was fascinating on just about every level. As a great power, its strengths lay in its dispersed nature, lack of vital weak points, and astonishing mobility. Its offensive powers were a little on the low side for a great power, and somewhat harder to focus on a small area, but it was still well within the middle ranges of great powers.

He didn’t get any time to study it, though, because his ward bubble was already collapsing.

Hugh would have simply anchored the Crown in place, but unfortunately for them, one of the fiber mage’s massive cables was swinging directly their way as they pursued the bamboo communal power.

Instead, Hugh let them plummet towards the street, which was rapidly flooding with burning alchemical reagents and toxic green smoke.

“Hold on!” Hugh yelled, as he anchored a single Crown node, making the whole ward bubble violently jerk to one side with the anchored node as a pivot. The bubble was sent tumbling through the air, landing safely in a side street, where the toxins and flame hadn’t yet reached.

As they all staggered to their feet, Hugh pulled back the Crown to cover just himself— all of that had drained more mana than he would prefer— and the five of them took off at a sprint away from the destruction, accelerated by their force boots and by the winds they’d summoned at their backs.

“Mackerel, back to tracking!” Hugh called, and a moment later, the spellbook veered down another side street.

“You know,” Sabae said. “I was starting to worry for a minute there that they’d closed the Havathi Institute for Monologuing and Giving Your Enemies Needless Opportunities to Escape. Good to see there are still some graduates running around. That and the idiots who keep refusing to strike first because we’re young.”

Hugh and the others chuckled, then Godrick made a thoughtful noise. “Does it ever bother yeh all that one a’ our greatest combat advantages is the fact that most a’ our enemies hesitate ta’ attack teenagers? That their morals and ethics are literally their weakness against us?”

There was an uncomfortable silence at that.

“I think maybe I’d prefer to think about that after this battle,” Hugh said, finally.

Just then, Mackerel accelerated, and they sped after him, saving them all from a deeply awkward conversation.

Five minutes of sprinting later, Mackerel veered to one side and rammed through the window of a warehouse Hugh hadn’t even noticed.

Attention ward.

Even as Hugh burst through the window, the Stormward’s Crown rigged in a forward shield formation strong enough to take a direct hit from siege magic, he took note of the huge amount of floating paper drifting about the mostly-empty warehouse.

Most of his attention was focused, however, on the lone armored figure standing in the center of the room.

Alustin.

Hugh released his first starfire bolt before their former teacher had even finished turning their way.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Long Awaited

HUGH’S STARBOLT DISPERSED harmlessly against one of the dozens of modular paper wards Alustin nestled inside, filling the room with a brilliant flare of light.

As did Sabae’s inertial spear, Godrick’s nail swarm, Talia’s dreamfire, and Mackerel’s frost and force strike.

Alustin reacted faster than Hugh would have thought possible, glyph papers, slicing sheets, and origami golems racing towards them.

The first bounced off their armor harmlessly, and then all the paper in the room froze in place when Alustin saw them.

“No,” Alustin said, his paper armor folding away from his face.

Hugh launched several wardstones at him— not all the way filled with mana, but close enough. His friends, likewise, launched their own varied set of attacks— a pull from Godrick’s gravity hammer, a wind-strike from Sabae, a bonefire needle from Talia, and a straightforward charge from Mackerel.

Alustin’s defenses reacted automatically, blocking or redirecting every one of their attacks. More paper exploded out of his tattoo, reinforcing and altering his defenses.

“No!” Alustin shouted. “You’re not supposed to be here, you’re supposed to be hundreds of leagues away!”

Hugh began forcing part of the Crown closer to Alustin’s defenses, hoping to cause ward interference and let their attacks through.

Dozens of sheets of paper shot straight towards Hugh, each one wrapping around a Crown node, and his ward bubble simply collapsed.

Other sheets raced towards the others.

Godrick’s armor seemed to simply lock up as sheets plastered themselves to the elemental. Sabae’s armor collapsed as tiny glyph fragments dispersed themselves throughout. Talia’s scrimshaw ward and even a few of her spellform tattoos went abruptly dark as more sheets plastered themselves onto her.

No sheets touched Mackerel at all, instead forming a series of bizarre folded shapes hovering around him. Hugh sensed overwhelming confusion from the spellbook at the shapes, and he suspected that Alustin had found a vulnerability in Mackerel’s perception of the world.

Even through his shock, Hugh couldn’t help but notice some of the shapes looked bizarrely like pinecones with more holes.

“Enough!” Alustin said. “I trained all of you, I know the design of your various magics inside and out. You might be dangerous to anyone else short of a great power, but there’s nothing you can do that I’m not familiar with, that I can’t counter. I have highly specific wards for all of your spells, glyphs to deactivate all your enchantments and items. Quit fighting me, and leave. Get out of Havath City while you still can, and don’t stop running until you’re a hundred leagues away.”

Hugh just glared at Alustin as he tried to reactivate the Stormward’s Crown.

He didn’t launch any further attacks with his new affinities, though. Alustin didn’t seem to want to hurt them.

He did, however, cast his flare protection cantrip on his eyes, with the Crown no longer there to protect them from blinding light. Talia and Sabae had their goggles, and Godrick had his faceplate still, so they’d all be fine.

They’d discussed the possibility of Alustin having a guilty conscience, but none of them had seriously expected him to avoid hurting them.

Or for him to be able to overcome them this quickly.

“Why are you even here?” Alustin demanded. “Do you want vengeance for Kanderon that badly?”

Hugh laughed. “We’re not as stupid and immature as you are, sir. We’re not out for vengeance. And you know perfectly well we can’t move fast enough to get a hundred leagues away in time.”

“Don’t call me sir!” Alustin snapped, actually seeming angry.

Godrick spoke next, able to speak behind his quartz faceplate even if he couldn’t move his body. “Why do yeh hate being called sir? Ah’ve always wondered.”

Alustin scowled, but didn’t take the bait. “If you’re not here for vengeance, why are you here? Obviously not to help me.”

“We might have, if you’d come to us, rather than betraying Kanderon and hurting Hugh,” Talia snapped. “You turned us into weapons, and then you just threw us away.”

That one seemed to sink deep into Alustin.

“You’re not weapons,” Alustin snapped. “You’re children.”

“Children you taught to kill,” Sabae said.

Alustin took a deep breath, then paused.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“We’re here to stop you from potentially destroying the continent with the Tongue Eater,” Hugh snapped.

Alustin stepped back at that, a look of shock crossing his face. “How do you know about that?”

“Because we spoke to Kanderon,” Sabae said. “She told us what you were planning, told us that shattering the Tongue Eater posed a risk of destroying the continent.”

Alustin groaned. “You’ve thrown your lives away for nothing. The Tongue Eater won’t destroy the continent. The escaped languages won’t even travel far past the borders of the Dominion.”

“Kanderon seemed very certain there was a risk,” Hugh said.

Alustin laughed. “You’re going to take the word of a dying sphinx over mine? I doubt Kanderon could even think straight at that point. I promise you, there is no risk. There is an upper limit to the propagation radius of any spell, no matter how powerful. You might think I’m a madman, but never accuse me of not doing the math.”

“Yeh’re talkin’ about alien magic,” Godrick demanded. “How do yeh know different rules don’t apply?”

Alustin sighed heavily. “It’s not a property of the magic, it’s a property of Anastis’ aether itself. The Tongue Eater is hardly the only destructive alien weapon to appear on Anastis.”

“What about the Exile Splinter? That affected the entire world when it erased the memory of Imperial Ithos!” Talia said.

“And the Tongue Eater itself did the same when it ate languages!” Sabae added.

“Neither of those were destructive releases,” Alustin snapped. “They didn’t send out the kind of shockwaves through the aether that destroying the Tongue Eater will, so they didn’t receive the same resistance. Now, though I usually encourage questions, I have no time for yours. You’ll just have to trust that I know more than you— after all, I’ve literally been a mage since before any of you were born.”

Alustin started to walk away, towards the exit, and Hugh tensed, ready to move the instant Sabae gave the signal.

Then Alustin paused, and turned to look directly towards Talia. “You’re not a weapon, Talia. You’re deadly, but you’re a person, and you get to define yourself outside of your capacity for violence.”

“You don’t,” Talia snapped. “You have thrown away literally every part of yourself except vengeance. So how am I supposed to believe you?”

Alustin sighed, seeming to struggle with himself over something.

Hugh shot Sabae a glance, waiting for her to call. She shook her head, ever so faintly, and silently mouthed “wait.”

“You know how you can trust me, Talia?” Alustin finally said. “How you can know I don’t view you as weapons?”

“How’s that?” Talia demanded, her voice filled with derision.

“Because I threw you away, when you were all I needed to reach my goals,” Alustin said. “Because you, Talia of Clan Castis, were the only tool I needed to destroy Havath City.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“What are you talking about?” Talia demanded.

“Have you ever wondered why I kept you so far away from other bone mages?” Alustin asked.

“You… said they wouldn’t be able to help me,” Talia said uncertainly. “That all their magic was focused on self-modification, that trying that would kill me.”

“What’s the first rule of bone magic?” Alustin snapped.

“It’s most effective on your own bones,” Talia said. “But…”

“I never told you how big the explosion would be if you used your magic on your own bones, did I, Talia?” Alustin demanded. “I let you assume it would be its normal size for that much bone, didn’t I? It won’t be.”

“It… can’t be that much of a difference,” Talia said. “The effect isn’t that significant, is it?”

Alustin laughed. “Do you remember what happened when you destroyed the Herdsman’s Palace in Dragonclaw Yardang, Talia?”

Hugh found himself answering that one. “The explosion just kept going, the fragments kept growing and detonating again and again, way past normal.”

“Observant as always, Hugh,” Alustin said, dryly. “Full marks.”

“But…” Talia said again.

“If you were to ignite your own skeleton, Talia, the explosion on its own would be comparable by itself to the explosion that took out the Herdsman’s palace. But the chain reaction that would follow? It wouldn’t stop as fast as the one at Dragonclaw Yardang. It would keep going for hours. Talia, you would be enough, on your own, to level Havath City. You would be enough to level a city ten times its size.”

No one spoke, everyone still processing what Alustin had to say.

“Talia, you have more destructive power than half the items in Skyhold’s Vault. You have been a great power since the very instant you first discovered your bonefire in the depths of the labyrinth.”

Alustin’s shoulders sagged, and his voice came out quietly after that. “That, Talia, is how you can know I’m telling you the truth. That is how you know I don’t see you as a weapon. Because if I had, it would have been trivially easy to manipulate you into hating Havath as much as I do. I could have let your friends die in battle against the Dominion. I could have manipulated your clan and Havath into conflict. It wouldn’t have been hard, and you would have fallen so easily into the same role I have. Stories have so much power over you, and you know how easily the role of vengeful madwoman would have fit you.”

Talia just gaped at him as he turned away.

“Godrick, I’m sorry for your father,” Alustin said. “He was a good man. Sabae, I’m sorry for letting you down, even after you gave me another chance. Hugh, I’m… I’m sorry for hurting you. For betraying your trust. For taking another loved one from you.”

Hugh didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to react. Of everything Alustin could have said, his revelation about Talia hadn’t been on the list.

And an apology from Alustin hadn’t even seemed possible.

Alustin turned to go. “Please, try and get as far away as you can. I know the odds are bad, but you’ve all surprised me before. If you can get outside the Tongue Eater’s blast radius, you’ll be fine. Ilinia might be able to take you far enough.”

“Hey, Alustin?” Sabae said.

He paused, looking back at her over his shoulder.

“Now,” Sabae said, and the four of them exploded into action.

SABAE HAD SPENT a lot of time worrying about how Alustin would react to their appearance, and whether her friends would be able to force themselves to attack their former teacher. Whether she would be able to force herself to attack their former teacher.

Their long list of contingencies hadn’t included the possibility of Alustin being able to shut down their armor entirely, but it had included the possibility of Alustin finding vulnerabilities in one or more of their armors, and their list of tricks they’d trained over the last few months included direct answers to that.

And, despite their surprise at the ease with which Alustin had disabled them, despite their shock at the revelations about Talia, they put those plans into action the very moment Sabae gave them the signal.

Hugh and Talia both spun up wind shields around themselves immediately. Not, unfortunately, Sabae’s more sophisticated formless wind shield— rather, the far more basic version any windmage could use.

Hugh, at the same time, yanked a steel spike out of his storage tattoo and fired it at Alustin. Turning his steel affinity into his siege magic hadn’t been the most exciting choice he’d made, but Sabae had come to agree with it. Often, boring but reliable spells were the better choice than exciting but unpredictable.

Godrick, meanwhile, with his elemental frozen but still protecting him, didn’t bother summoning any new armor. Instead, he went straight to his own siege magic— his stellar affinity. He launched a starbolt that was already bigger than Hugh’s, even with only a few months of practice, that almost overwhelmed Hugh’s flare protection cantrip.

Alustin survived both siege spells. He simply dodged out of Hugh’s line of fire— siege spells were trickier to aim than regular spells, even simpler ones like Hugh’s steel projectile and it was almost as though Alustin had expected the attack.

No. No, he hadn’t expected it— he’d just been watching them behind his back with his farseeing.

Even as Hugh’s steel spike punched a massive hole in the warehouse wall, then in the wall of the next warehouse, and kept going, Alustin blocked Godrick’s siege starbolt. Not with a ward or some other trick, but with his sword, appearing in his hand faster than the blink of an eye, and leaving a solid wall of sword echoes in its wake.

The siege starbolt destroyed the wall of echoes, and some of it punched through, but Alustin’s magically reinforced paper armor protected him from most of it. Here and there, holes had been burnt through the paper, but it didn’t look like Alustin had suffered anything worse than minor burns.

Which they’d assumed would be the case— they’d already seen Alustin block siege-level magic during the battle of Imperial Ithos.

Those were just their openers, though. Alustin didn’t get time to process their attacks, because Talia and Sabae were already making their moves.

Talia had only cast a single spell since Sabae had given the signal— her wind shield. But she had kept casting it, kept increasing the amount of mana running through the spellform— and the wind shield kept growing larger and larger, in a great dome that was rapidly filling the warehouse.

And, as it did so, the winds within it heated up faster and faster. By the time Alustin blocked Godrick’s starbolt, Talia’s wind shield was already hot enough that it was burning away half of Alustin’s paper in the warehouse, including the sheets suppressing their various armor and powers.

Alustin’s armor itself resisted the burning winds— fire mages were an obvious threat— but within heartbeats, Alustin’s complete control over the inside of the warehouse was gone.

It was Sabae, though, whose new ability Alustin was least ready to deal with. Sabae, who had refused to develop siege magic, and come up with a terrifying alternative.

Starstrike armor.

Sabae had, initially, tried for starfire armor, but it had proven far too challenging and mana hungry to be workable.

Which was when they’d tested a hypothesis they’d developed about lightning and starfire. It had long been obvious that they were closely related affinities, and they’d suspected that they could generate the containment part of starfire spells using lightning mana.

It worked better than they’d ever expected. The lightning mana, in fact, worked even better in some ways. Notably, the resulting containment fields were far less resistant to being spun around Sabae’s body at high speeds than stellar mana. In addition, the lightning mana behaved similarly to the lightning armor of the Sacred Swordsman they’d battled at the Lothal docks, erupting into small bolts that deflected or destroyed projectiles.

There had been two major downsides— for all that it was massively destructive, it offered far less mobility than most of Sabae’s other armors, and its defense was only particularly good against projectiles.

Then their testing had led to yet another accidental discovery.

Those lightning mana-generated containment fields for starfire? When rotated at high speeds around Sabae’s body, they generated galvanic fields. Powerful ones.

If they’d been iterating this new magic on a less metal-poor world than Limnus, Sabae would likely have killed herself, impaling herself with countless nails and iron scraps. As it was, the single one of Godrick’s steel nails that had struck her shoulder stretched her healing affinity to its limits.

So they’d begun adding steel mana to the mix. They never found a way to repress the galvanic field entirely, but they found the next best thing— a way to make sure that the iron and steel chunks attracted by the galvanic fields fell into orbit around her, rather than striking her.

Which served as both additional defense and offense, especially as the extreme heat of the starfire melted the metal. It also added a bit of mobility— Sabae could push off the little bits of metal, slamming them against walls or floors with arcs of lightning, pushing herself weakly in the opposite direction. It still wasn’t nearly enough on its own, but it helped.

She couldn’t wield her shield and spear while using the starstrike armor, in part because of the galvanic fields, but also due to the risk of simply melting them with her starfire.

There were still a host of problems with the armor after that, even on top of the insufficient mobility. Most were simple magical problems to be worked out, but the key one was overheating— even with far more lightning mana shielding her body than stellar mana generating starfire, Sabae rapidly began to overheat.

Which, after much trial and error, led to an important discovery— unlike her water armor, there was nothing that caused interference between wind and starfire, and there was plenty of room for a weak layer of wind armor beneath the starfire, which brought her defenses up to an acceptable level, gave her a decent level of mobility, and even increased her offense— wind passing through the starfire was heated even faster than Talia’s wind magic.

Starstrike armor was, quite likely, the single strangest use of their pooled affinities they’d discovered so far. They were fairly sure that the bizarre emergent reactions they’d discovered in the creation process were just the tip of the iceberg. It took no less than four different affinities to function, and drained three of them incredibly swiftly— only Sabae’s wind affinity could stand up to the mana use for longer than a few seconds.

A few seconds was all Sabae needed, though.

None of Alustin’s floating defenses that had survived Talia’s burning wind even slowed Sabae down— she simply disintegrated them as she passed. Papers inked with fire-resistance glyphs were useless against starfire, and wards against starfire couldn’t efficiently tear apart containment fields made of lightning magic. Other magic defenses found themselves failing as all the scrap iron and steel in the warehouse shot directly towards Sabae, punching through sheets of paper on the way.

Even the sword echoes Alustin left floating in front of him couldn’t do more than slow her down. For a few seconds, as Godrick and Hugh began sealing off the warehouse exits with stone and crystal magic, and Talia kept raising the temperature in the warehouse with her wind magic to the point that the abandoned wooden crates were bursting into flame, Sabae was winning. Alustin desperately dodged and fled from Sabae, entirely unable to go toe to toe with her starstrike armor. Mackerel, freed from his geometric prison, helped corral Alustin, cutting off his avenues of escape one by one.

Then the entirely unexpected happened.

Sabae found herself launching straight at Alustin, his Helicotan sabre yanked harshly to one side, completely unable to stop her.

Found her starfire, lightning, and molten metal-coated fist descending straight towards Alustin’s chest.

Found that Alustin wore a look of complete confusion and shock on his face.

And then found herself being thrown back by an explosion from above, as the roof tore itself open. Found her starstrike armor collapsing as her stellar mana ran out, and found herself only protected by her wind armor and the molten metal carried by her iron and steel affinities.

And found herself staring up through the hole in the roof at Valia Warwell and the assembled might of the Sacred Swordsmen.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Unexpected Conclusions

ALUSTIN HAD ABSOLUTELY zero idea how his students were doing the things they were doing, or even what they were doing. Even ignoring everything else, it was mind-boggling that Hugh had even kept his affinities with Kanderon’s death— they hadn’t been pacted nearly long enough for that. Maybe Alustin’s attack on Hugh’s bond with Kanderon had somehow congealed it fully, or…?

He didn’t get time to contemplate that, and found himself diverting more and more of his mind shards into the old warehouse, struggling to keep himself ahead of Sabae’s impossible assault. His glare protection glyphs on his paper armor struggled to protect his eyes, and he found himself relying mostly on the scrying he was doing through his mind shards to stay ahead of her. Much easier to control the light levels coming through farsight spells.

Even focusing all of his mind shards on his students wasn’t enough, though.

Alustin found himself forced into a corner by Sabae and Mackerel, the other three readying attacks behind them in case he slipped out.

Found his student’s impossible burning fist heading straight for his chest.

Found that he didn’t feel fear, or anger, or desperation.

Just…

Acceptance.

The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells had rung.

The chitin wand would be activated soon, once the Librarians Errant finished planting the resonators.

And once the resonators activated, it wouldn’t be long until they shattered the Tongue Eater. An hour or two, maybe? And once they did activate, there was next to no way to stop them. Unless each and every one of them was destroyed in the first few minutes of activation, their destruction would only accelerate the process. Only distance could sever their link to the Tongue Eater then, and there was no one fast enough in the city to travel far enough, and fast enough, save one or two teleporters, and Alustin had specifically built in safeguards against teleporters.

Alustin was, at this point, superfluous. The Dominion was doomed almost no matter what happened, now.

Oh, he had plenty of regrets. Over his betrayals and his failures, over those innocents who would be caught up in this, even simply not getting to see Havath’s death.

There was a part of him that was oddly proud that it would be one of his own students to slay him.

And then the ceiling ripped itself asunder, and Alustin found himself crossing swords with Valia instead of Sabae, found sabre meeting sabre as the warehouse tore apart as the Sacred Swordsmen and his students exchanged spells.

This time, there was no banter between Valia and Alustin, no old insults or barbs, no attempts to persuade the other to their side. No questions as to how she’d found him— he’d wager his own sword that she’d spotted and followed his students to him.

This time, the last two Helicotans were absolutely serious in their duel.

They’d chosen their sides. He’d told Valia the truth about Havath’s hidden masters, and she had chosen not to believe him.

There was nothing else to be said, and both of them went for the throat. Valia even attempted to seize control of his sabre using her affinity for the specific alloy of the Lord of Bells’ swords, though the enchantments in their sabres were more than up to the task of stopping her, as always.

Alustin danced past several sword echoes from both him and Valia, while in the background, Godrick summoned almost a couple dozen enchanted weapons from his storage tattoo.

He fixed one of his mind shards on the weapons in wonderment. The pattern they flew in was recognizably one of Eddin Slane’s mathematical swarm spellforms, which were perfect for Godrick’s larger than normal mind’s eye. More, some of them had strange effects that he’d never seen before— especially the axe that glowed green and seemed to dissolve everything in its path. And, though he was proud of Godrick for their clever use and impressed by their strange effects, as the weapons began to launch themselves at the Swordsmen, it was their sheer number that fascinated him.

That many enchantments should have unquestionably gone unstable in the close proximity of Godrick’s storage tattoo, should have damaged one another or even triggered a resonance cascade. They all appeared to be in perfect condition, however.

It had to be something to do with the enchanted weapons’ curious spellforms. They were discrete individual spellforms, rather than the interlocking spellforms that entirely filled normal enchantments. And, rather than each having their own individual design, they seemed to repeat in specific patterns.

Alustin would know if something as revolutionary as resonance cascade suppression had been developed on Ithos, so they must be brand-new developments from another continent. How Godrick had gotten them, he had no idea.

Another of his mind shards brushed over Sabae, who had drawn her weapons and converted her armor into storm armor, but storm armor… filled with rocks?

No, not rocks. Crystals.

Even as he watched, Sabae threw her inertial spear, impaling a Havathi warlock carrying a very familiar crossbow— one that could have leveled this very warehouse. That throw, however, left her open, and another Swordsman lunged at her with a plain-looking longsword, one with no visible spellforms, nothing at all strange about it save for its pommel-stone, a dull grey river rock.

The Nameless Sword.

The Nameless Sword’s enchantments were notable for two reasons. First, due to how cunningly they were concealed inside the metal, with not a hint visible on the blade’s outside. The second was for the actual purpose of the enchantments. They didn’t summon fire, didn’t boil blood, and didn’t liquefy stone. They, in fact, did only one thing.

They cut.

They cut almost anything.

The Nameless Sword chopped apart dragonbone, wards, and lesser enchanted weapons with ease. Only the deadliest enchanted weapons, like Alustin’s Helicotan sabre, could match it.

No one knew how, or even what affinities were used in its construction. Or even where the Dominion had gotten the weapon from.

All anyone knew was that it was very, very sharp.

The Nameless Sword had killed no less than seven Librarians Errant over the years, and Alustin expected Sabae to join their number. Expected her to try and block with her adhesive shield, not knowing how dangerous the blade was.

Instead, however, Sabae yanked something else out of her storage tattoo— a simple wooden staff.

The Nameless Blade struck the staff with the full force of its wielder behind it, and then just… bounced off. Sabae’s arm barely even twitched, and the staff wasn’t damaged at all.

No. That wasn’t right. Alustin focused his scrying, and saw that there was damage, after all.

A single, tiny nick, like someone had indented their fingernail into the wood.

Then Sabae was striking the warlock with the other end of the staff, and he went flying, as though struck by a man the size of Artur or Godrick.

As the staff hit, its end lit with carved spellforms, and lightning raced out of the staff’s end to strike him.

No, not just to strike him— to anchor him, to yank him back to Sabae, who struck him with the staff once more, sending him flying again.

Alustin’s mind shard immediately recognized the spellforms as planar affinity designs, but…

Hugh. Hugh must have somehow figured out a way to use planar spellforms to let Sabae use her magic farther away from her body. Alustin suspected that Sabae’s staff required physical contact to work, but even a few extra feet of reach entirely altered Sabae’s capabilities.

If only he had the slightest clue what sort of wood the staff was made from.

A third mind shard went to Talia, who was still generating that inexplicable burning wind, and had begun filling it with dreamwasps, in an outward spiral of destruction. Even as he watched, Talia launched a razor-sharp bonefire sawblade at a hapless Sacred Swordsman with the War Star, a terribly named morningstar which added bursts of force to its wielder’s blows and mimicked armor with carefully applied force vectors.

The carefully applied force vectors were entirely insufficient at stopping the bonefire sawblade, and to Alustin’s amusement, quite a few bonefire shards flew back into and got caught up in Talia’s burning windstorm, making it even deadlier.

And then Talia started ripping chunks out of the stone floor and hurling them at the Swordsmen.

A fourth mind shard went to Hugh, who, at least, was largely using familiar magic, relying on the Stormward’s Crown and his wardstones to fight.

Until, that was, he blasted what looked like an entire barrel’s worth of water out of his storage tattoo and used it to begin drowning a Swordsman.

In his surprise, Alustin barely even paid attention to Mackerel, who was savaging a Sacred Swordsman wielding a hammer made of stone.

At that, all four of the mind shards watching his students merged together with the one controlling his body, sharing what they’d seen.

Less than a minute after the Sacred Swordsmen attacked, Alustin came to a pair of rapid conclusions, and burst out laughing in Valia’s face.

The first conclusion was that Kanderon Crux must still be alive— there was no other way Hugh could realistically still have her affinities. She must still be incapacitated somehow, or she’d unquestionably be here, but she was absolutely still alive.

The second conclusion was the one that made him laugh.

“What’s so bloody funny?” Valia snapped, as she seized a dozen sword echoes with her atthuema magic and sent them flying his way.

“My students!” Alustin said. “I’m pretty sure they’ve warlock pacted to one another!”

He dodged around her and then shouted to his nearest student. “Hugh, did you warlock pact your friends?”

Hugh cast a lightning bolt at Alustin, who easily blocked it using one of his few remaining modular wards in the warehouse.

Alustin’s laughter cut off a few heartbeats later at what one of his mind shards had just scryed— another group of Sacred Swordsmen, made up of slower fliers than the first group.

He recognized quite a few of them, but it was three in specific that caught his attention, and he felt an immediate rush of disappointment towards Valia.

“You used the Weapons of Last Resort?” Alustin demanded, launching a dozen sheets of paper with cutting glyphs at her face.

She didn’t even flinch, just swatted them away with a burst of wind. “How do you even know about those?” she demanded.

Alustin shook his head. “You really do see your warlocks as disposable.”

It seemed there were still things to be said between them.

Before Valia could respond, Alustin shot straight up, spreading his paper wings as far as they could go, summoning more paper from his storage tattoo even as it burnt up in Talia’s wind.

Even as it destroyed his wings, the burning wind provided a truly massive updraft.

One of the new Sacred Swordsmen lunged at him as he rose out of the warehouse, this one wearing the Soldier’s Crown, which could control thirteen enchanted flying swords.

Alustin flew straight at him, slapping aside swords with his sabre, or wrapping their hilts with paper and yanking them off course.

A moment later, Alustin had risen to face the oncoming Swordsmen, a corpse wearing a crown falling behind him.

Even as Valia and a number of her Swordsmen rose beneath him, a colossal storm of paper erupted out of Alustin’s storage tattoo.

By the time Valia reached him, he wasn’t alone.

There were four perfect copies of Alustin’s armor flying in the air beside him. All five were identical, each controlled by a single mind shard, save in one respect.

Four of them carried the weapons of fallen Sacred Swordsmen, and one of them carried a Helicotan sabre, and there was no sign of which armor held the real Alustin.

Alustin smiled behind his paper helmet.

It was time to kill not one, not two, but three great powers. Pathetic excuses for great powers, admittedly, but great powers nonetheless.

Three great powers and his oldest friend.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Streets Ablaze

THREADQUEEN IBLINT FELT nothing but dour, cold satisfaction as she killed one of the Intertwined. It had intervened as she had been hunting the fleeing bamboo great power, forcing her to withdraw from the chase. Andas Thune’s illusions hadn’t helped any, but the dragon had vanished into invisibility as the lich arrived.

So she’d made the lich her new prey.

Her fibrous armor, her war snarl, was child-sized in comparison to the gargantuan lich avatars. She hadn’t been using the war snarl to kill the lich, though, only as a distraction. It was easy enough to keep ahead of the avatar’s massive sword-strokes while she threaded cables and fibers throughout its demesne. Not in an attack at first, just spreading them out wherever she could.

There was plenty of fiber for her to work with— during the evacuation, most of the inhabitants of Havath City couldn’t pack much, leaving most of their clothing, bedding, curtains, and other fabrics at home. Iblint didn’t even need to strip wood or plants apart for fibers, as she sometimes had to do when fighting in forests.

Slowly but surely, Threadqueen Iblint wove her web across entire neighborhoods.

Fibers crept like roots through the soil of the city, and began drilling into the weak points of the alchemical pipelines of the lich demesne. Ropes and threads began creeping about the neighborhoods, slipping out of windows, through drainpipes, then into the next building. The wires of the demesne began to fray, though Iblint had little power over metal compared to most fiber mages, as though in exchange for her greater control over living fibers.

All the while, Iblint launched attack after attack on the Intertwined avatar— all of which were feints.

When she finally launched her true assault, the lich barely had time to react before it died.

Threads so thin as to be invisible to the naked eye, held together by little more than magic, sliced through the bronze spellforms carrying mana through the demesne. Ropes sturdier than those on any ship tore demesne enchantments apart, using other parts of the demesne as their pulleys. Great wads of fiber plugged up the pipes carrying toxic alchemical reagents through the demesne, backing up the currents and depriving enchantments of their reagent supply.

And, most of all, threads with magically reinforced ends numbering in the millions pierced the demesne substrate, punching countless tiny holes in the vast swathes of material holding the bulk of the lich’s mind.

There were relatively few explosions on the city’s surface when Iblint killed the lich— the biggest visible sign of its death was the fall of the giant lich avatar. It was a strange, gradual collapse, that reminded Iblint of nothing so much as the face of someone suffering a stroke.

“It seems you’ve been untwined,” Iblint said to the dead lich.

She took only a moment to enjoy her victory— for all that she enjoyed killing Havathi, the Intertwined weren’t the ones that had killed her family members, nor the cowardly Themeseran politicians who had abandoned them.

Iblint had hunted down all of them decades ago.

She was abruptly shaken out of her reverie by a draconic scream of pain, and looked up to see her ally, Sagravaax Scalestorm, had been forced to the ground and completely surrounded by the bamboo great power.

Iblint had made it clear she was just there to kill Dominion servants, and that she would not be serving in Alustin’s forces, but let it not be said that she would abandon an ally in need.

Her war snarl only made it halfway there before it began to burn.

She immediately cast fiber spells that would make her armor essentially fire-proof, resistant even to dragonflame, only to find, to her shock, that the fire kept raging regardless.

She immediately knew why, and knew who had set her ablaze.

Niana Everflame.

The gravity and white phosphorous mage was one of the most offensively lethal great powers alive. Her mana reservoirs weren’t significantly larger than an average archmage’s, but they didn’t need to be— there were few more lethal substances on the planet than white phosphorous. Once the burning substance stuck to you, you were guaranteed horrific injuries or death. It was next to impossible to put out phosphorous flames— even when suffocated or submerged, they erupted right back into flames the instant they had access to air. Even when you survived the burns, you were usually left poisoned by the phosphorous itself, leading to a slow, agonizing death.

If that wasn’t enough, burning white phosphorous created huge amounts of smoke, which was somehow far more disorienting and confusing to navigate than normal smoke. A former lover of Iblint’s, an illusionist who used smoke and light magic, had tried to explain it to her once— something about the specific size of the phosphorous particles— but all Iblint knew was that the smoke seemed to scramble everything it obscured, and Everflame could manipulate it easily with her magic.

Many mages considered air magic to be one of the deadliest combinations with fire magic, but in Iblint’s opinion, gravity magic could be even deadlier. Fire rose, after all, and a gravity mage could change the direction it rose in.

And Niana Everflame was extremely skilled with her gravity magic.

Within moments of the phosphorous flames striking her war snarl, flames raced unnaturally fast towards the center of her fiber armor.

Iblint didn’t hesitate, didn’t attempt to fight the flames, just launched herself out of her armor as fast as her fibers could fling her, abandoning all of her collected fiber in the process.

She turned her burning armor against Everflame in a futile assault as she did so, but along with Everflame’s growing smoke cloud, it served to hide her escape.

Iblint didn’t bother to catch herself before she hit the ground. Years ago, she would have needed to weave a web to break her fall, but after decades of modifying her body, the only thing she needed to survive a fall of two hundred feet was to bend her knees a little as she hit the street.

Before she could begin to gather more fiber for a new war snarl, something slammed into her back hard enough to send her flying through the wall of a nearby government office.

A two-foot thick stone wall.

Even before she’d stopped rolling and being battered by debris, Iblint heard an unmistakable noise— a draconic scream of pain abruptly cut off.

It was too late for Sagravaax Scalestorm.

As Iblint shook off her failure and picked herself out of the rubble, she found herself facing an unarmed, unnaturally good-looking man of indeterminate age wearing, of all things, formal evening-wear. Enchanted, of course, but still hardly battle-appropriate garb.

“Threadqueen Iblint,” the man called. “I’ve long wanted to face you in battle, to prove which of us is superior.”

“And you are?” Iblint demanded, easily kicking aside a masonry block that must have weighed a quarter ton.

“My name is Elathay Apex,” the man said, “and I’ve spent even longer than you modifying my own body. I was born with a human affinity, and I walk the path of Heliothrax.”

As the good-looking idiot continued monologuing, Iblint reached out with her thread-magic to seize control of the man’s suit.

Only to find her magic blocked, somehow.

“None of that, now,” Apex said condescendingly. “I had this suit woven out of my own hair, your fiber magic is useless against it. I…”

“Oh, shut it,” Iblint snapped. “Unless you’re trying to bore me to death, either move out of my way or let’s get this over with.”

“As you wish,” Apex said, and then they lunged for each other, pushing off the ground so hard each of them left webs of cracks across the ground.

Threadqueen Iblint’s bones had been magically altered far beyond those of other bone mages, far beyond the strength of steel. She had worked strengthening enchantments into them with her own magic, taking them even farther. Her tendons, skin, and countless other body parts had been altered to the limits of what healing-based body modification could do.

All of that, however, was just to allow her body to withstand the strength of her own muscles.

Oh, she’d done the usual healing-based modifications to them, only suffering a few minor tumors from the process, but it was her fiber affinity that made the biggest difference.

With her magic, Iblint could pull on her muscle fibers more powerfully than any other modified human she’d ever met, more than almost any she’d ever heard of. Her strength literally surpassed what the human body should be mechanically capable of. Iblint had punched out dragons and gorgons before, and every punch she threw threatened to tear her own body apart.

She might not be so strong as Karna Scythe, but she was utterly confident in her ability to physically overpower every other humanoid she met.

So when Apex not only matched her blow for blow, but overpowered her, sending her straight through another stone wall, she was more than a little shocked.

“So much for the mighty Threadqueen,” Apex said, sounding almost disappointed. “I had so wished for a proper brawl. Alas, I…”

“I thought I said to shut it,” Iblint ordered in an unnaturally harsh voice, vibrating her vocal cords harder than natural using her fiber magic, as she climbed out of the rubble.

Smooth muscles like the vocal cords were harder to affect than the more obviously fibrous ones attached to bones, but there were still enough fibers in them for her to affect.

She was bleeding in several places, but her wounds rapidly began to close under the influence of her healing and fiber magics. Normal fiber mages couldn’t significantly affect the healing process, but in combination with her healing affinity, Iblint was able to manipulate and accelerate the fibrous matter human blood used in the clotting process.

“No need to shout,” Apex said disdainfully, warping his own voice similarly. “I can control my vocal cords too.”

Iblint smiled grimly. “Can you do this, though?”

Her limbs began to warp and twist, ripples like waves rushing about underneath her skin. Even as Apex’s eyes widened in shock, her very muscle fibers began ripping through her arms, legs, back, and other muscular areas. Before he’d even processed what she’d done, Iblint had raised herself ten feet into the air on two dozen tentacles of exposed muscle, in greater volume than should fit into a human body— at least, any human body without a surgically implanted spatial storage space.

“No, you can’t?” Iblint asked him. “Well, no worries. I can help you with that.”

As she lurched towards the human-affinity great power, she felt a much warmer sort of satisfaction than she had killing one of the Intertwined.

Summoning more fabric from the surrounding neighborhood to bind and slice Elathay Apex would have been far more effective, but…

There was a certain joy to beating the crap out of an asshole the old fashioned way, with your bare hands.

Or with your bare extruded muscle tissue. Close enough.

GRAM OF CLAN Castis might be fighting for his life, might be in the middle of a cataclysmic battle for the fate of an empire, and might be carrying out a secret mission for the Hidden Clan, but none of that was enough to stop him from arguing with his wife.

“We’re not sliding, we’re skating,” he said. “It’s an important distinction.”

“You’re right, it is an important distinction,” Haela said, “but we’re most certainly not skating, we’re sliding.”

“Sliding has a connotation of us being uncontrolled, though,” Gram said. “And our movement most certainly isn’t uncontrolled.”

The two of them had been sent out by Luthe to scout out targets on foot, thanks to the sheer speed they could move together.

Gram’s fire affinity was a rare form known as a combustion affinity, which rather than being a form of heat affinity, was an affinity for the very alchemical reaction of flame.

And said alchemical reaction was also, bizarrely, identical to the alchemical reaction the body performed inside itself with the air it breathed.

The human body was, in a very real sense, powered by fire, and Gram’s combustion affinity, in combination with his tattoos, allowed him to fuel that reaction with his own magic, letting him run faster and longer than any unmodified human.

Haela, meanwhile, was a highly effective oil mage, and she’d long ago mastered creating a layer of oil beneath her feet to skate about at high speeds.

Between the two of them, they could move almost as fast as some fliers— and that was before they’d gotten their marriage tattoo, allowing them to use their magic on one another far more easily.

Now it was only the fastest fliers that could outrace them.

That ability, along with the fact that they were already going out on a scouting mission, was why they’d been assigned this mission by the Hidden Clan. Most of the Dominion’s important alchemical research facilities were either buried too deep or hidden far from the city to raid during battle, but the Hidden Clan had found some tantalizing intelligence about one of the more important ones in Havath City. Its director, a member of the Conclave, abused his political privileges to bring home alchemical samples to experiment with in his personal lab in his manor house.

His much less secure lab.

They had no idea what they would find, but it was certain to be of value to the Hidden Clan in specific, and the mountain clans in general.

Their speed, of course, was only one of the reasons Ranna of Clan Derem had approached the two of them to join the Hidden Clan. Their adventure during the whole escapade in Hold Yehal, it seemed, had impressed the Hidden Clan considerably. While combat capable members of Clan Castis were more than common, few possessed the political acumen or subtlety needed to navigate the complex situations the Hidden Clan often faced. Gram and Haela were most certainly an exception to the bluntness of most of Clan Castis.

Ranna’s praise had been unusually glowing for her. She’d even gone so far as to say that their political machinations were “technically, if just barely, passable” and that their subtlety was “like a half-brick in a sock, instead of just the usual Clan Castis brick held directly in hand.”

His memory of the praise still made him smile when he recalled it.

“You know what skating requires that we lack?” Haela demanded.

“What’s that?”

“Skates.”

Gram was saved from the need to respond by a building up ahead exploding as it was struck by some unseen spell, either from a great power or unusually powerful siege mage. The two of them dodged, twirled, and raced through the bouncing boulders, shattered statues, and raining bronze roof tiles, barely making it through intact.

“Blast,” Gram muttered, yanking a splinter of a chair out of his shoulder.

“How bad is it?” Haela asked, sliding up beside him with a worried look on her face.

“Oh, it’s fine, I just realized something terrible.”

“What is it?”

“You’re right. We are sliding, not skating. I was wrong.”

Haela gave him a sympathetic look that he suspected was mostly mockery. “If it will bandage your terribly wounded pride, we could call it gliding, instead of sliding. Gliding sounds better anyway.”

“I’d like that quite a bit.”

The two of them smiled at each other, then swerved down a side-street as the Intertwined whose demesne they were skating through became aware of their presence. As chunks of the street reached for them in the forms of horse-sized grasping hands, Gram couldn’t help but reflect that he had absolutely, unquestionably married the right woman.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Shattered Swords

VALIA SNARLED AS she ascended towards the five suits of armor. Not at Alustin, but at herself.

She was distracted, conflicted. Her head was out of the game, and though she still fought well enough, she couldn’t find the words to exchange with Alustin, couldn’t express her confusion.

And it was letting him run circles around her again. Giving his vicious little students the opportunity to slaughter her swordsmen.

His barb about her seeing her warlocks as disposable struck home, because today, it was true. Today, it didn’t matter how many of her warlocks died.

Only that she stopped Alustin.

“Just give us the weapon, and we’ll let you leave in peace!” Valia called up to him.

“The chitin wand? I don’t have it!” Alustin said, his voice echoing from all five suits of armor.

To Valia’s mild exasperation, her sabre let loose a feeling of happy recognition on seeing Alustin and his own weapon. She had met him in battle often enough, it wasn’t surprising her weapon recognized him, but it was a little aggravating that it had apparently decided he was a friend.

Valia closed with the suit carrying the War Star first.

She doubted he was in this suit— in fact, she somewhat doubted he was in any of the suits. Valia had no idea how he could have slipped away under so many eyes, but whenever he pulled out decoy suits of armor, he was playing a shell game. It wouldn’t take her long to shred the extra suits, at least— Alustin could only control them with limited dexterity.

A moment later, she was blinking with surprise when the paper armor she was targeting effortlessly dodged her lunge and launched a near-perfect counterattack, one she only barely deflected with a sword echo left behind as she pulled back.

Around her, each of the other suits of armor were reacting with equal skill as the Sacred Swordsmen closed for battle. In just the time of that exchange, two of them had already fallen— one to Alustin’s sabre, one to the Nameless Sword.

For a moment, she suspected that he had perhaps filled his suits with other Librarians Errant, or perhaps his students, but the latter were still in the ruins of the warehouse, struggling with the wielder of the Dominion Scepter, reworking the fabric of the city around them; while none of the former had been spotted anywhere nearby.

Now that she thought about it, the small number of decoys Alustin had used in the battle at Allanoi had behaved strangely, as well.

She didn’t get time to contemplate the oddity, though, as she closed in on the suit of armor once more.

For all Alustin’s skill, the morningstar-wielding decoy didn’t last long against her— the War Star was a far inferior weapon to the Helicotan sabres. Its mediocre force vector armor barely even slowed her sabre down.

The vast majority of enchanted weapons were far inferior to Helicotan sabres.

Even as the War Star fell, more sheets of paper erupted from the other four armors and caches in the buildings around them, rebuilding the fallen suit. This time, floating paper brought the Soldier’s Crown to the suit of armor.

Below, Valia could see more paper catch the falling War Star, and it joined all the other Sacred Swordsman weapons flying about carried by paper.

How was Alustin doing that? He shouldn’t be able to wield magical weapons using his decoys.

Even though she knew this one was a decoy, she closed with it immediately, because the second, slower-flying group of Swordsmen had arrived.

The three wielders of Last Resort immediately closed with three of Alustin’s decoys.

“You’re outmatched!” Valia called, as she fended off the thirteen flying swords of the Soldier’s Crown. “There’s no point in you even fighting against three great powers!”

Alustin laughed. “The weapons of Last Resort hardly make for proper great powers.”

The wielder of the Phase Dagger closed first.

The Phase Dagger was the strangest of the three weapons— it was a bizarre, alien enchantment that let it slip through solid matter, and even most spells, completely unharmed. A normal wielder could only pass the blade itself through solid objects, but warlocks gained the ability to slip themselves as well.

Now that Valia thought about it, she supposed it was likely that the Phase Dagger was alien in a more literal sense, some toy provided to the Dominion by its multiversal manipulators.

The wielder of the dagger couldn’t level cities, but they could easily fly through an enemy’s chest, phasing in the dagger’s blade to slice up their insides as they passed. The wielder of the Phase Dagger could kill the Sunwyrm herself— though they suspected the Eye of Heliothrax would still work against the Phase Dagger.

And flying through Alustin’s chest was exactly what the Phase Dagger did, only to curse as she passed through the other side. “This one’s a decoy!” she shouted.

“The Phase Dagger’s weakness was the easiest to figure out,” Alustin said. “Same thing that makes it a Weapon of Last Resort. The more often it gets used, the harder it becomes to deactivate the effect or make it more selective. Sooner or later, the phasing effect will become permanent. Let’s make it permanent.”

The armor the Phase Dagger had cut exploded into thousands of sheet and scraps of paper, which then began flying through the Phase Dagger’s wielder at high speeds, one at a time.

“The reports I stole were very clear— it’s not the amount of matter phased through in total that matter, but the individual activations by matter that matter, if you’ll forgive the puns,” Alustin said. “And the wielder doesn’t control the activations, potential impacts do. If she turns it off, I slice her to bits, if she leaves it on…”

The wielder paled at that and tried to dodge, but the gravity-affinity flying belt they’d pacted her to wasn’t fast enough to evade Alustin’s pages, nor was she nearly experienced enough as a flier. They’d gone for ease of learning over power when choosing her flight item.

The second wielder of Last Resort closed as the Phase Dagger wielder tried desperately to evade the paper swarm.

Mollin’s Glove, the most powerful of the three.

Even as the wielder of the delicate silk glove closed on Alustin’s decoys, a vast fog bank began rising behind it, warped and twisted by the mirage magic moving within it. Anyone who entered the fog bank would be trapped within the shifting maze, disoriented as the glove’s wind magic suffocated its prisoners one by one. The glove was powerful enough to encompass multiple city blocks at a time, if need be.

For all its power, it came with a fairly straightforward limitation— the glove had been so badly damaged in past battles that it only had a few hours of use left before it exploded.

The wielder of Mollin’s Glove didn’t even reach Alustin. Dozens of sheets of paper shot through a seemingly empty space in the air, and a heartbeat later, the torn-up corpse of its wielder fell from the air, while the illusory copy dissolved.

“Trying to use defensive illusions against a seer of my skill is a lost cause. He should have gone with a simple wind shield, and waited until I was enveloped in his fog bank,” Alustin said. “Raw power does not a great power make. It takes skill, experience, and creativity that your raw recruits simply lack.”

As if to punctuate his point, the wielder of the Phase Dagger screamed, but the sound was so removed and distant that Valia could barely hear it. A moment later, they phased out of their own clothing— including their flight belt.

Their scream faded away into silence as they fell through the ground itself.

“Your tricks won’t work so easily on us, Helicotan,” the third Wielder of Last Resort called.

The Ninemetal Blade. It lacked the raw power of Mollin’s Glove, but not by much, and gave its wielder control over, as the name implied, nine different metals— iron, lead, copper, tin, zinc, gold, silver, nickel, and quicksilver. It was impressively powerful and versatile, and natively possessed the ability to enshroud its wielder in multi-layered armor that drew from the strengths of several different metals, and its full sentience allowed it to control vast quantities of metals independently of its wielder.

It wasn’t operating on a timer until its destruction like the glove, nor increasing in power like the dagger until its destruction. No, its problem was more subtle— there was something wrong with its intelligence. Some quirk of its construction had prevented the natural barriers between minds from forming, and as its warlock wielded it, their minds would begin merging, in a process that would inevitably kill both, replacing them with a single being.

A single insane being.

“Do you really think you even have a chance?” the Ninemetal Blade’s wielder asked.

“Who’s asking?” Alustin said with a smile.

The wielder began to answer Alustin’s question, and then just froze, hovering in mid-air.

Valia wanted to yell at the wielder to move, to shake off her self doubt— she should have weeks before the process went too far, after all— only for the wielder of the Ninemetal Blade to turn and fly off at high speed while Valia was occupied with the flying swords of the Soldier’s Crown.

“You just sacrificed those warlocks for nothing, Valia!” Alustin called. “It was hubris of you to think you could get any use out of tools as broken as those. Their weaknesses weren’t eventually fatal, they were immediately fatal to anyone who knew them.”

Valia snarled as she finally cut down the decoy wielding the Soldier’s Crown. “Maybe you’re right, but they weren’t my only trick.”

“And what would that be?” Alustin called, assembling a new paper armor decoy.

Valia just gestured at the small army of warlocks closing in on Alustin.

“Ah. Right. Fair point.”

Valia dove at the next decoy, sabre-first.

VALIA’S RAGE QUICKLY turned into satisfaction as Alustin was thrown onto his back foot.

Despite his five decoys all acting with Alustin’s own skill, despite turning the enchanted weapons of the Swordsmen against them, despite the origami golem swarms he kept trying to craft and throw against them, Alustin was being pressured harder and harder with each passing minute.

The arriving warlocks were of mixed utility against Alustin and his decoys. The Sunfire Diadem, one of the most lethal enchantments of the bunch, capable of firing sustained, dagger-thin beams of sunfire, was almost useless against him, thanks to his various sun and starfire defenses.

The Hammerfist Gauntlets, on the other hand, were proving unexpectedly effective. The gauntlets were a truly absurd piece of enchantment— solid proof of the old adage that being good at enchanting didn’t necessarily give you a good grasp on deciding what to enchant. The Hammerfist Gauntlets used force and greater shadow mana to summon giant hovering fists with which to pummel foes. They were, to say the least, deeply silly, wasteful, and unnecessary tools, and Valia had only chosen them for one of her new warlocks because they were so easy to use.

Alustin, it seemed, hadn’t prepared tools specifically to handle idiot ideas like that, and the gauntlets were tying up one of the decoys single-handedly.

The biggest unpredictable factor was proving to be Alustin’s students, who were freely attacking both Alustin and her Sacred Swordsmen. They were the only ones in this skirmish without full flight capabilities, but the Stormward kept summoning platforms for the Flea to jump on, the Hammerbreaker kept yanking warlocks out of the sky and into his ridiculous weapon swarm with that gravity hammer of his, and the Nightmare was, well, a nightmare if you remained in her line of fire for long.

Worse, their attacks were incredibly unpredictable. The Flea’s windstrikes were often filled with stone shards or loose nails. The Nightmare kept sweeping the sky with that burning wind of hers, interspersing it with lightning bolts and starfire. The Stormward was launching magical attacks in nearly every one of his friends’ known affinities, and Hammerbreaker kept cloaking himself and his swarm of weapons in basic dream illusions, ones that disoriented instead of concealed.

That cursed spellbook darted around the edge of the battlefield, going from breaking limbs to stealing hats and back again.

If Alustin was correct about his students pacting together, taking down the Stormward would cripple the capabilities of the others, but all of them were annoyingly hard to take down, even for armor mages. They didn’t matter, though— only Alustin did.

And sheer force of numbers was slowly but surely wearing Alustin down.

Valia was being sparing in her own attacks, not engaging any of the decoys fully until she figured out which contained the real Alustin. At this point, it was down to either the paper armor carrying the Nameless Blade or the armor with Alustin’s own Helicotan sabre.

Mostly, she was leaning on her atthuema affinity to manipulate the battle.

Her usual strategy of using it to destroy similar pages with each cut wasn’t working any longer— Alustin’s paper and ink affinities allowed him to manufacture wildly different spell pages at faster speeds than ever, so it was rare that she ever destroyed more than a half-dozen sheets of paper at once, where before it wasn’t uncommon for her to destroy dozens or even hundreds at once.

She could, however, use it to amplify and replicate the attacks from many of her warlocks, as well as to interfere with the attacks from Alustin and her students.

The moment a swarm of steel nails shredded the dragonfly wings of the decoy wielding the Nameless Sword, Valia dove straight at the armor carrying Alustin’s sabre.

She’d give it even odds it was empty too, but she had to try.

“Give up the weapon, Alustin!” she shouted, as he blocked her lunge with his own sabre. As they rolled through the air, trailing sword echoes behind them, Valia looked for any possible sign this was the real Alustin.

He managed to separate from her and flew back a couple of dozen feet, then started circling her. Behind him, in the distance, the storm queens and Heliothrax tore apart a massive plaza and its surrounding palaces, while immense fire elementals and lesser powers grappled with each other around them. Near the edge of the city, the Coven’s stolen hydra had wrapped itself around one of the Intertwined avatars, which battered and tore at it. The struggles of the two giants shook the very streets around them. Dragons and gryphons battled with one another in the sky, while soldiers and mages brawled in the streets below.

At this rate, Alustin wouldn’t need to use the weapon to destroy Havath City.

“The chitin wand?” Alustin asked. “I don’t have it.”

Valia rolled her eyes, then seized a dozen sword echoes with an atthuema spell and hurled them at Alustin.

He dodged out of the way of most of them, but one sliced through the outer layers of his armor and exposed, just for a moment, Alustin’s arm.

This was him.

Valia redoubled her assault, physical, magical, and verbal. “You really expect me to believe that? You have a constant, compelling need to have the final word, to always be the one who delivers the bad news. There is absolutely no way you’d let someone else carry your ultimate weapon into battle, let alone use it.”

As she spoke, she pressed Alustin steadily down towards the street and the warehouse ruins, blocking his every avenue of ascent. Her sword strikes and atthuema spells began shredding more and more of his armor, her wind magic began overpowering his wings.

Slowly but surely, Alustin was sinking, coming under fire by his own students.

They cast spells at Valia too, of course, but her magic was more than capable of dealing with it. She left echoes of her sword and body to block lightning bolts and dreamfire. When the Hammerbreaker seized her with her gravity magic, she spawned a new echo, one that carried the gravitational link instead of her. When the Nightmare tried to roast her with burning wind, Valia simply swept it out of the way with her own wind magic— the Clan Castis girl was clearly new at dueling other wind mages. And when the Flea leapt at her, moving so fast she blurred, Valia darted out of the way even faster.

Alustin got it even worse than she did. After restoring part of his armor that had been badly damaged by one of the Stormward’s wardstones, her oldest friend laughed.

“Except the chitin wand isn’t my ultimate weapon. Haven’t you been listening to the Coven’s propaganda? I’m carrying a disease to infect elementals. And how many elementals are chained inside Havath City’s borders?”

Valia sneered as she used atthuema to amplify a wind burst, throwing Alustin street-wards. “Don’t give me that nonsense. The Coven only want to preserve Havath City so they can conquer it.”

Alustin’s wings stalled his plummet. “Haven’t you wondered why I’m alone, why I’m not surrounded by allies? It’s because this time, I’m the decoy. I gave the wand to Emmenson Drees.”

“Maybe I’ll look him up after I take you down, then,” Valia said.

The Stormward rose up into the sky to interrupt them, taking enormous, twenty-foot jumps off ward platforms using some combinations of magics. “Alustin, I’ve got something for you!”

Valia recognized the single-use enchantment in the boy’s hands just before he used it, but unfortunately not fast enough to warn him away from using it.

A friction amplifier.

The boy triggered it, and Alustin’s paper ignited in mid-air as its friction increased drastically, igniting just via contact with the wind.

Valia sighed and retreated a few dozen feet. “Good job, kid, you just temporarily turned him into a fire mage.”

She had time to see the Stormward’s creepy green cat eyes widen in surprise, and then the air filled with fire and Alustin’s laughter as he flooded the sky around him with pages from his planar storage space.

The Stormward was far from the first to try friction magic against Alustin— it was a common enough tactic that Alustin’s paper armor bore spellforms against it, and he’d learned to turn it against his foes. Valia knew of at least three friction mages he’d burned to death, one of whom had been a Sacred Swordsman.

“Want to know something fun?” Alustin called, as he forced both Valia and the Stormward back with his cloud of burning paper. “I could have been using five decoys instead of four the whole time. I’ve been keeping track of Emmenson and the chitin wand instead. And guess what?”

Valia tensed at the triumphant note in his voice. He had to be bluffing. Giving up his ultimate weapon went against everything she knew about him.

“All the preparations are done now, and Emmenson is just outside the Palace of the Conclave. He just has to activate the chitin wand, and Havath City is done for.”

Alustin’s fire storm was starting to die, but Valia didn’t lunge back in immediately. Instead, she found her gaze drawn inexorably to the palace’s burning ruin, not knowing what to expect.

Then Alustin sighed heavily. “And he’s giving a speech. One moment.”

His voice shifted, as though addressing someone else entirely.

“Emmenson, just activate the bloody wand already.”

A few seconds later— just long enough for a sarcastic comeback— Havath City began ripping itself apart, piece by piece. Explosions tore through the streets of Havath and the demesnes of the Intertwined, accomplishing in heartbeats what the combined might of the battling armies, great powers, and the Last Echo had failed to do.

Kill Havath City.

“Told you so,” Alustin said.

Valia realized that it was all over, that Alustin had won. That Havath City was dead, and the deaths of the warlocks she had sacrificed had been for nothing.

She was so busy watching the destruction that she entirely missed seeing Alustin pull an amulet from under his armor, missed watching the orange-red stone embedded inside it crumble to dust. Missed seeing Alustin’s eyes widen in alarm as the chitin wand destroyed not only Havath’s labyrinth, but his labyrinth stone as well.

And then, even through her horror at Havath City’s destruction, she realized that she recognized the shapes rising up from the ground and tearing through the city.

It was Havath City’s labyrinth.

Alustin’s weapon had forced it from its extra-dimensional home into the real world.

Valia only had time to whimper before a maze of tunnels exploded through the ground beneath them, rising like the branches of some twisted, monstrous tree. As she lost track of everyone around her— of Alustin, of his students, of her own Sacred Swordsmen— Valia couldn’t spare any time to consider their fates.

She was too busy flying through the rising towers, desperately trying to survive.

CHAPTER FORTY

City Breaker

EMMENSON DREES HADN’T expected to survive the activation of the chitin wand. It needed to be right on top of a labyrinth entrance when it activated, at the exact epicenter of the destruction that would result when the labyrinth impinged its immense bulk onto the world.

Alustin had assigned the fastest fliers of the Librarians Errant to his command, in an effort to make sure they could get to the target and then get out again when the labyrinth emerged into their world.

Getting to the target turned out far easier than they’d expected, because the entrance to the labyrinth was on the north side of the great ring-shaped plaza around the Dominion Conclave. It should have been filled with Havathi security, but the Coven’s strike against the Conclave had resulted in most of those forces, save those on rescue duty, redeploying across the city.

Easier wasn’t easy, of course— they still had to navigate through the roving battles between great powers, and dodge the assaults of the Intertwined, many of whom seemed to be recovering from the initial shock of the Last Echo. Without the full attention of the liches on Emmenson’s unit, though, he was able to use his sound magic to annihilate most of the roof tiles and flagstones launched at them.

The labyrinth entrance itself was a huge, spellform-covered bronze seal in the plaza. Beneath it was an immense empty cylinder, with another massive enchanted seal at the bottom, and only below that could the labyrinth entrances be accessed. Only one seal could be opened at a time, and they seldom were, for the Dominion used their labyrinth as a prison. Rogue great powers, recalcitrant archmages, feral hydras, even demons escaped from other labyrinths were forced into the extraplanar prison.

The Dominion absolutely could have simply executed many of those prisoners, but their labyrinth prison was far more terrifying as a symbol. Most new great powers thought themselves invincible, and bore little fear of death. No one ever escaped the Dominion’s labyrinth prison, though, and it gave caution to even the most foolhardy.

Havath City’s labyrinth was a particularly large one, comparable in scale to even Skyhold’s own, but it had one uniquely distinguishing feature— every world it connected to, save Anastis, was more hellish than the last.

A world of liquid magma, with only a few short-lived drifting stonebergs to stand upon. A dead, frozen universe that had been devoured by the Cold Minds. Several actual hells, aether-critical universes filled with deadly, hallucinatory life adapted to survive extreme mana conditions. Unless new labyrinth branches to different worlds had grown in the last fifty years since the labyrinth was sealed.

Entirely possible, of course.

Emmenson didn’t waste his time worrying about the contents of Havath City’s labyrinth, though.

When they finally reached the seal locking away the labyrinth, Emmenson checked with Alustin to see whether the resonators had all been planted and activated. While the activation method for the chitin wand was simple enough, it would only actually work under the correct conditions, according to Alustin.

And while Emmenson doubted many things about Alustin— mostly his good character, a lesson the sound mage had learned the hard way in the past— he didn’t doubt the younger man’s understanding of strange and esoteric magics.

They’d arrived too soon, unfortunately, and retreated to a nearby palace overlooking the seal.

The long minutes of waiting seemed to drag for an eternity, and Emmenson, in an effort to take his unit’s minds off the wait, started giving his own speech.

It certainly wasn’t just to prove he could write a better speech than Alustin.

Just as he was getting going, however, Alustin’s voice rang out from the spellform glyph on Emmenson’s paper wristband.

“Emmenson, just activate the bloody wand already.”

He glowered at the paper wristband, but gestured for his fliers to move.

The instant he did so, the fliers were out the windows of the palace, carrying him to a point directly over the seal.

Emmenson rolled his neck and ran mana through his metallic spellform tattoos that gave him vastly increased control of his magic, just in case. Then he pulled the chitin wand out of his storage tattoo.

The past few months, it seemed like each and every one of their allies had tried to pry the secret of the wand’s activation out of Emmenson. He knew for a fact that Sydapsyn’s enchanters had tried quite literally hundreds of different means to interface with the wand’s alien magics, all to no avail.

He gave a rare smile to himself at how obvious of a secret they’d missed.

Emmenson didn’t use some esoteric spellform or rare alchemical reagent to activate the wand. He didn’t chant words from the extinct language of the Labyrinth Builders, nor enter a deep meditative state.

Perhaps some of those might have been needed to activate the wand’s more subtle functions, those that were believed to allow the wand’s wielder to manipulate and control the labyrinths themselves.

He didn’t need any of those functions, though.

Emmenson firmly gripped the uncomfortably limb-like chitin wand in both hands.

And then he simply snapped it in two.

And, just like that, Havath’s labyrinth died, and the mana well it sat in began to force it out into the world.

“Fly!” Emmenson shouted, and his unit shot straight up, carrying him in tow.

As fast as they ascended, it was still slower than some of the corridors and passageways ripping up through the fabric of the city. A few of them only tore up out of the ground at the pace of a running man, but most ascended far more rapidly. The only thing that saved Emmenson and his unit was the fact that the emergence happened much differently than they’d expected— rather than from the seal inward, the outermost edges of the labyrinth emerged first, then the effect rippled in towards the city center.

Emmenson had never heard anything so loud in his life, not even during the battle for Skyhold. As the sound roared over him, so did waves of mana through the aether. The labyrinth’s destruction, in its first few seconds, had entirely restored the mana drained from it so far during the battle, and Emmenson knew the mana density was only going to keep growing.

Even with the emergence starting far away from them, they barely made it to a high enough altitude to survive. By the time the labyrinth finished emerging into Anastis, it towered higher than Skyhold, than any but the highest peaks of the Skyreach Range. Its highest corridors were still below the flight ceiling, but not by much. A few parts of the magical maze reached high enough to tower over even Emmenson’s unit.

Below them, the capital of the Dominion had practically been wiped away.

The emerged labyrinth had simply obliterated two-thirds of the city. It had shredded great swathes of the city, while other parts had been lifted in fragments hundreds or even thousands of feet into the air. Even as Emmenson watched, an entire palace slipped off its precarious perch and tumbled end over end, crumbling into pieces before it even struck the maze of labyrinth corridors below it.

While their predictions about the emergence pattern had been wrong, one prediction had remained correct, thankfully. Their landing point in the city had survived intact, along with the bulk of their forces still there.

A smile spread slowly across Emmenson’s face. “We did it.”

“We did it,” another Librarian Errant echoed softly. “We won.”

“We won!” a third Librarian shouted.

Emmenson’s smile threatened to split his face, and he poured mana into a sonic spellform. Nothing fancy, not even anything of his own design— just a good old-fashioned voice amplification spell.

“The day is ours!” Emmenson shouted, his voice rolling over half the city. “Havath City is destroyed, and the Dominion is soon to follow!”

His call seemed to awaken the city, and a truly startling number of battle-spells began erupting in the depths of the magical maze. Emmenson spotted several of the massive great powers in the city start moving again, including the ridiculous hydra the Coven had brought with them. Further down, with his magically enhanced hearing, he could detect several more.

Unfortunately, quite a few of the battle-spells emerging from the maze and the ruined city were heading straight for him— including several siege fireballs.

“Maybe shouting to the entire city wasn’t the smartest idea?” one of the Librarians offered.

“You might be right,” Emmenson acknowledged dryly. “We should perhaps start moving.”

As Emmenson and his fliers shot off towards their forces at the edge of the city, he found himself happily considering their next move, plotting where to strike at the crippled Dominion next.

Emmenson couldn’t have wiped the smile off his face if he’d tried.

They had won.

NEAR THE CENTER of the city, in the heart of the emerging labyrinth’s devastation, a single building lay untouched.

It was a beautiful structure, its marble well-maintained, its bronze shined to a polish, its windows filled with gorgeous stained glass. Finely crafted statues perched on its walls and roof, so cunningly cast from bronze it seemed they might spring to life in front of your very eyes.

Every building this deep in Havath City was gorgeous, though. Or, at least had been gorgeous, before they’d been destroyed. This building was nice enough, certainly, but the neighboring palaces had loomed over it, had borne far more elaborate and imposing decorations, enough that the building had almost looked dingy in their company.

Those buildings had all been destroyed, however, and only this one remained.

There was no immediately visible reason why this one had survived when its neighbors hadn’t. No obvious defensive spellforms, no great enchantments or wards protecting it.

But it remained, nonetheless, completely and utterly untouched. Not a scratch, not even any dust or debris from the wreckage around it.

And, sitting on its front steps, three curious beings sat and watched the devastation around them.

Two seemingly middle-aged women and a spider no larger than a thumbnail.

“Well, this is a bit of a mess,” the Liar said, puffing on her pipe. The unreadable words rolling across her skin jittered erratically, as though alarmed by the death and emergence of Havath City’s labyrinth.

The Wanderer snorted at that, then adjusted her eyepatch, her crystal eye feeling vaguely itchy in the flow of mana rushing from the ruptured mana well. “Your gift for understatement is unparalleled. Have you been watching events to the south as well?”

The Liar scowled. “Those Sicans seem like a nasty bunch. I don’t like ‘em.”

“Of course you wouldn’t like them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The Wanderer was about to start teasing the Liar when a third voice interrupted them— that of the spider, Tetragnath. It came not from the tiny spider, but from the vibrations of the thin webs scattered about the steps.

“As much as I enjoy sitting about and gossiping, our unwanted but expected guests have arrived.”

The Liar sighed heavily, while the Wanderer chuckled. Then they stood and entered the doors of the undamaged building, leaving Tetragnath’s body sitting on the steps, watching the labyrinth rise into the sky around them.

It wasn’t rude of them, he had plenty of other bodies inside.

Not even a minute after the two of them stepped inside, four figures approached where they waited in the entrance foyer.

Two Council Enforcers, an Ishvean Living God, and a young man on the cusp of becoming Named, like the two of them.

No, not an Ishvean Living God. An Ishvean Ascendant.

“Fancy seeing you all here,” the Liar said.

Both of the Council Enforcers glared at her.

“This is none of your business, Liar. This is not your world,” one said.

“No, but it is my world,” the Wanderer said. “Grew up here and everything. And I’d look poorly upon you telling me I can’t invite friends over.”

“Pedantry,” the other Council Enforcer said. “These events are none of your business, and we command you to stand aside.”

The Ishvean Ascendant snickered at that. The near-Named, to his credit, looked deeply nervous.

“Since when does the Council recruit Ascendants?” the Liar asked, pointing her pipestem at the Ishvean. “And since when are any Ascendants stupid enough to come to Anastis? It’s even more hostile to Ascendants than low-mana worlds. Are you trying to rupture your aetherbody?”

The second Council Enforcer rolled her eyes. “He’ll be fine so long as he stays within Havath City. The substrate porosity variances are minimal for leagues in every direction.”

“There is no more Havath City,” Tetragnath’s voice echoed from every direction at once.

The near-Named twitched nervously at that. The Wanderer eyed him thoughtfully— he’d done well so far, picking the various worlds’ magics he’d learned more carefully than most. The most common reason for failing to become Named was just picking a mess of the most powerful magics you could. People always assumed being Named was about raw power, which was immensely off base. Even here on Anastis, rumors of the Named had spawned the silly category of named powers, which were powers above and beyond the great powers. Absurd.

The Wanderer smiled, then pointed at him. “You. Withdraw from this battle, and we’ll help you finish your Naming within a year or two. You don’t even have to stand against your friends here.”

The nervous young man gave his companions a single glance, then stepped aside. He knew the value of what was being offered.

The Ishvean Ascendant laughed, and the Wanderer heard the hundreds of lesser gods residing within him laugh as well. “We don’t need him. I don’t need any help at all to handle you.”

The dozen Ishvean small gods inside her stirred irritably at that. They didn’t like Ascendants much, and rightfully so. Ascendancy was a perversion of Ishvean magic, even moreso than it was a perversion of the magics of other worlds with gaseous aether.

Even the Council Enforcers shot nervous looks at the Wanderer and the Liar after the Ascendant’s bravado.

Unexpected intelligence, there. The Council Enforcers were weapons, their aetherbodies formed purely of combat magic from a dozen worlds or more. They’d traded any chance of becoming Named in exchange for raw power, more deliberately than the fools who thought it would make them Named.

A deal only an idiot would take, in the Wanderer’s opinion. But then, there was never a shortage of idiots dreaming about power for power’s sake, petty souls that fantasized over elaborate scenarios that would let them solve life’s more complex problems with violence. Contorted personal mummeries where they would be praised for killing those they disliked.

There was always a use for such as those, even by the most well-intentioned and benevolent of organizations and governments, and that use was as cannon fodder.

“You made a deal with Kanderon, more than four centuries ago now,” the Wanderer said. “This is a flagrant violation of it. And why? Just pettiness because you’re losing a centuries-old bet?”

“The Crystal Sphinx is dead, and her out-of-control servants threaten not just our pride, but the fate of the Known Multiverse itself,” one Enforcer said. “We must stand ready, and our plans are the only possible way to resist…”

“If your Imperial blueprints are so effective, why are they failing against the simple resistance of locals, with access only to the magic of one world?” the Wanderer asked. “How can anyone trust the Expansionists to achieve their goals if they fail in yet another test, the latest of dozens?”

The second Enforcer opened her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the Liar.

“I’ve no patience for your quibbling,” the word-skinned woman said. “If you want to interfere, you’ll need to go through the three of us.”

There was a long, pregnant pause, and then the entrance foyer exploded into violence. The two Council Enforcers and the Ishvean Ascendant, any one of them powerful enough to challenge Heliothrax or Kanderon Crux, launched dozens of magical assaults in a heartbeat.

The Wanderer responded to each and every one of them with ease.

In her youth, it had been said of the Wanderer that her magical bag held ten thousand tricks. It hadn’t quite been true then— she’d fallen a couple thousand short. Now, though, almost five centuries later, it was false in another way entirely— ten thousand tricks would be a gross understatement.

Offensive tracking spells that could hunt down prey dozens of leagues away found their targets changed, and began slamming into one another in rapid sequence. An arrow that could level a castle found itself spinning wildly in circles as it was trapped in a knot of twisted gravity and altered space. A warping of the very properties of space around one Council Enforcer was torn apart by an impossible musical note the Wanderer whistled. And the descending fist of the Ascendant, a blow that could have cracked a castle wall with the hundreds of boons and blessings empowering it, with the wasteful abuse of mana involved in Ascendancy, slipped through a fist sized portal that opened directly ahead of it.

And slipped out another portal that opened directly in front of the Ascendant’s own face.

The aspiring Named, at least, was smart enough to withdraw from the fight.

The Liar made only a single move during the whole fight. As dozens of spells and stranger magical attacks from other worlds hurtled towards her, she shifted her pipe to the other side of her mouth.

Then she spoke an anti-word, phonemes of negative meaning, a word that wasn’t, pronounced using the magics of a dozen linguistic magics of other worlds. In its wake, the attacks simply vanished, dissolved in a ripple of mana called forth by the anti-word.

“It seems they want to do things the hard way,” the Wanderer said.

As Tetragnath’s ward webs began to activate along the walls of the entrance foyer, the Liar and the Wanderer closed in on the three hapless fools who had decided to stand against them.

AS THE CHITIN wand shattered, as Havath City’s labyrinth rose into the sky, a vast ripple spread through the aether of Anastis. It was a faint thing, hard to detect, save by the most powerful mages. Archmages might feel a strange twinge of unease as it passed them, but it was the mightiest who felt it most keenly.

The ripple spread swiftly, but unevenly, as it washed over the aquifer-like substrate of Anastis’ aether. If scholars had known to watch for and time the ripple, they may have achieved the first ever accurate map of that substrate, for it was entirely undetectable to any magic of the Known Multiverse. Oh, they’d tried to map it using the planet’s variable aether density, but those maps were poor, crude things at best.

The Rust Queen and one of the Sican Elders paused for a heartbeat as they struggled in the inferno that had once been a mid-sized Havathi trade town, but neither had time to contemplate the ripple.

Farther south, the great sky jellyfish Ephyrus, the Fallen Moon, twitched inside the storm cloud it nested in. It was still healing from its battle with the Coven over the winds of eastern Ithos, and what it thought of the ripple, no one could know.

As the ripple passed over the ruins of Helicote, the lingering atthuema echoes warped and twisted, but no one was there to see them.

Farther north, it turned the heads of every great power of Tsarnassus and Alikea, and both of the rival nations wondered if they should have involved themselves more deeply in the war. Outside Alikea’s lands, Keayda stared southward with deep satisfaction.

Forty leagues from Keayda’s demesne, one of Solintus’ massive antennae rotated to face the same direction as the lich. His vast body— larger than any animal on the continent save the Sleeper in the Sands— paused in its slow march across the northern plains, and he began formulating orders for the city of murderous cultists atop his back.

To the east, a vast molten shape soared above the land, close enough to the ground that the grasslands ignited below it as it passed. It felt a deep sense of satisfaction as the ripple washed over it. With the continent’s mightiest focused on Havath City, none powerful enough to threaten the massive flier were paying him any attention. Dorsas Ine, the Gold Phoenix, was on the move, and before the day was out, he intended to strip no less than three Havathi provincial capitals of their gold. In a more literal sense than for anyone else, gold was power to him, and Dorsas Ine would do whatever it took to protect himself from vulnerability, no matter what the cost to others.

To the west, the ripple passed over the scholar’s city of Starholt, and Iris Moon-Eye, barely paying attention to her colossal blind-light telescope, turned her sightless gaze eastward, worrying for her followers who had joined the Helicotan in battle. It had been their choice, however, and she was not one to infringe upon the will of her followers.

To the north of Starholt, the malformed Intet Slew stirred in her lair that had once been a city, and began contemplating venturing forth once more, for food and entertainment— not that there was a difference to her.

Across the continent, dozens of great powers stirred in unease and disquiet, but one did so above all others. Far to the southwest, atop the highest peak of Skyhold, the ripple rolled over a great crystal sphere, mere minutes after the labyrinth began to emerge.

And in that sphere, in the lich dream that held Kanderon Crux, the Crystal Sphinx felt the destruction of the chitin wand and the rise of the labyrinth more keenly than any of her rivals.

All she could do was pace the dream in impotent frustration, unable to go to the aid of her warlock.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The Kindness of the Extinct

ONE MINUTE, HUGH was fighting off the attacking Sacred Swordsmen with his friends, desperately trying to keep them from taking Alustin and the Tongue Eater, even unknowingly. The next minute, Hugh found himself rising into the sky, carried by the corpse of Havath City’s labyrinth.

The mass destruction around him was only an afterthought to Hugh, though. The fact that he found himself separated from most of his friends, atop a labyrinth corridor jutting out into cathedral-like empty space loomed over by thousands of vertical shafts, was just another afterthought. The Havathi buildings falling from the sky like rain only warranted enough attention to make sure they weren’t falling towards him.

The only thing Hugh cared about right now was Mackerel.

His spellbook— his friend— was dying.

Whatever had killed the labyrinth had proven their theories about Mackerel— he was an infant labyrinth as well.

Mackerel twitched and writhed in Hugh’s lap, his cover warping and creaking, pulses of pain rushing out every few heartbeats.

As Hugh’s spellbook struggled for his life in his arms, as tiny cracks spread across Mackerel’s labyrinth stone and out across his cover, Hugh did something incredibly dangerous and foolish.

He forced aside the barriers of their warlock bond, opened up their pact entirely, and dived into Mackerel’s mind.

HUGH HAD EXPECTED chaos inside of Mackerel, had expected frenetic energy. Maybe some rage and terror at Mackerel’s plight. At the very least, he expected Mackerel’s internal world to be nigh-incomprehensible.

He got something else entirely.

Oh, there was some frenetic energy, and certainly a bit of rage and terror. And the glimpses of Mackerel’s internal organization and perceptions were as alien as he’d expected.

But two entities loomed over all of that, overwhelming everything Hugh had expected. Loomed over Hugh, making him feel like a grain of dust inside Mackerel’s mind.

He knew, absolutely and surely, that for all his connection to Mackerel, he did not truly belong in his spellbook’s mind. Both of these entities, however, absolutely did belong here, and that gave them each a power over the mental landscape that Hugh could never match.

The first entity was the alien thing commanding Mackerel’s death. Hugh wasn’t sure whether it was a word, an emotion, or an idea, but it was absolutely and assuredly alive in a way none of those things should be. Its command was tinged not with rage or indignation at its order being resisted, but with remorse and regret, with a plea for forgiveness. It was as though Mackerel were the branch of a tree that needed to be pruned, and the pruner only did so with the greatest reluctance.

But there was no give to the alien phenomena, no possibility of mercy for Mackerel.

The other thing that loomed over Hugh was Mackerel’s sense of self. There was nothing alien about it, nothing incomprehensible.

It was just his friend. Just Mackerel, in his purest, most undiluted form, fighting back against something implacable and incomprehensible. Refusing to back down, even if his struggle was hopeless.

And Hugh, without even hesitating, stepped in between those two titanic forces.

Even as he was battered by the emotional gales between the two, Hugh shouted his defiance towards the alien thing. Even as he struggled to protect his mind from the alien sensory feedback slashing between the two like blades, Hugh offered up to Mackerel his friendship, his support, and his love.

It shouldn’t have made a difference. His thoughts should have blown apart before they even reached either of the two.

Yet somehow, they heard him. Somehow, Mackerel and the alien presence both saw him.

And they both stopped, just for a moment. Just for a few seconds, both looked at the tiny little human mind fighting where it shouldn’t even exist.

Mackerel stared down at him, the shifting chaos of his self-image briefly cohering into the spellbook’s glittering green cover, and Hugh could feel Mackerel’s own love and loyalty. Could feel his despair and fear fade at Hugh’s presence, his strength returning.

The alien entity stared down at Hugh as well, giving him the impression of too many eyes and limbs. And while its remorse and contrition remained, it was supplemented with something else. Surprise, of course, but not just surprise.

With kindness.

And then the alien entity unleashed its greatest blow yet, a spear of alien memories, sensations, and raw empathetic projection whose very presence threatened the borders of Hugh’s mind just by passing him by. An attack that should have broken Mackerel into ten thousand pieces, should have annihilated the spellbook’s mind entirely.

And it missed. Went soaring off to nowhere and simply dissolved.

Mackerel lunged back towards his foe, who raised its defenses once more— but each time, each blow it blocked, it moved just a little too slow, as the knowledge stored within Mackerel’s pages slowly hacked it apart in a death of ten thousand cuts. It launched more of its impossibly powerful blows, but each with obvious warning, each a wide miss.

As the alien entity was slowly cut apart by Mackerel, as it rapidly drained its own energy with its immense power, an abrupt certainty came over Hugh.

He was looking at a fragment of the eons-extinct Labyrinth Builders. Just a tiny particle of those unknown beings, the most infinitesimal bit of debris.

And that tiny grain of alien self, though it couldn’t disobey its own purpose, had chosen to subvert it. To sabotage itself, in a single majestic act of malicious compliance against its own governing laws.

Out of simple kindness.

Kindness that, Hugh suspected, was hardly unique among the Labyrinth Builders.

In a final burst of power, that final trace of the Labyrinth Builders was gone, and Hugh found himself outside of Mackerel’s mind, clutching his spellbook, with only seconds having passed in the world outside. Even as he watched, the cracks in Mackerel’s cover and labyrinth stone healed themselves, as if they never were.

The spellbook shook himself, then rose up out of Hugh’s lap.

Hugh smiled at his spellbook, then turned to face the gargantuan maze that had speared through the city around them. Turned to face the immense, tunnel-filled gloom that had already started to light up with battle-spells and burning rubble.

Hugh loosened the restraints on three of his other pact bonds, just enough to try and feel out the locations of his friends, hoping their training with their pact had been sufficient.

“Let’s go find our friends, Mackerel,” Hugh said, then burst into a sprint.

A moment later, a boy and his spellbook hurled themselves off the roof of the suspended corridor and plummeted towards the distant ground.

Both of them were smiling.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The King's Vengeance

AFTER BEING SEPARATED from the others, Godrick decided to go after Talia first. It was, he thought, the logical choice.

Sabae was the most mobile of them all, and she should be able to use their bond to track them down. Hugh, using his Crown, was the best suited towards stealth.

Talia was, of all of them, most likely to end up in the middle of a fight against a great power, or something nonsensical like that.

He still didn’t know what to think about Alustin’s claims, that Talia’s skeleton was a city-killing weapon to rival any great power. Didn’t know whether it was true, or just a way for Alustin to mess with them.

One thing he did know, however? Talia was going to be confused, angry, and hurting, and that right now was the worst possible time for her to be alone. He suspected the others would be going after her first as well, for similar reasons, so finding her would be the best way to reunite with the others.

Of course, that was easier said than done, because Godrick was being hunted by the Mud King.

The building-sized glob of boiling mud Anders Staven used for armor had, it seemed, been carried high into the sky by the emerging labyrinth— and, much to Godrick’s misfortune, the powerful armor mage had spotted Godrick as the mud-glob oozed down the outside of a particularly huge vertical labyrinth conduit.

They both, it seemed, had used the same palace as a landmark to navigate the emergent labyrinth. In fairness, you didn’t usually expect a palace to be suspended hundreds of feet off the ground.

Whatever else Staven had intended vanished the moment he’d spotted Godrick, replaced with an unfortunately focused purpose.

“You don’t need to run,” rose the voice of the Mud King out of dozens of rising bubbles in his armor. “I don’t intend to kill you, Hammerbreaker.”

Godrick ignored the man, just sprinted as fast as he could along the top of a labyrinth corridor.

“I’m just going to reclaim the debt I owe your father. Namely, the leg he stole from me.”

Between Godrick’s stone, crystal, water, and wind affinity senses, he easily felt the instant the Mud King hurled a wagon-sized glob of molten mud at him, and launched himself to the side with all the power his force boots could muster.

The Mud King followed him over the edge a moment later, certain he had Godrick— after all, so far as he knew, Godrick’s capabilities didn’t include flight.

Godrick wondered what the Mud King’s face looked like when he realized he’d been duped. Not that he could fly, but even before pacting with his friends, he would have been able to carry out this trick.

Even as the Mud King was trying to slow his own fall by latching onto the labyrinth passages below, Godrick was sprinting back the way he’d came. Only this time, he was sprinting along the underside of the corridor, held to it by stone, crystal, and wind magic, along with a levitation cantrip and his gravity hammer.

By the time Godrick reached a fork in the labyrinth, the Mud King had already ascended back up to the level he was on, and was rapidly building momentum.

The branch of the fork Godrick chose was, unfortunately, in the wrong direction to reach Talia, but he couldn’t afford to search for her until he escaped the Mud King.

There was something else recommending this path, however, and Godrick reached up above him with his stone and crystal magic as he ran.

When he reached the point where the labyrinth corridor he ran atop dead-ended, he didn’t panic; he just stepped onto the end, then walked straight up the vertical wall until he could step atop the labyrinth corridor. And the whole time, he kept using his stone and crystal magic. He didn’t even have to ration it— the insanely dense aether was filling his mana reservoirs almost as quickly as he could empty them.

“Now, really,” the Mud King said, his armor oozing out towards Godrick along the corridor, slowly wrapping around it until the top, bottom, and sides were completely coated in a rolling wall of boiling mud. “If you keep running like this, I’ll need to start charging you interest on your father’s debt.”

Godrick rolled his neck, then planted both hands firmly on his gravity hammer.

It really wasn’t that surprising that one of his father’s old enemies would be here in Havath City. Artur Wallbreaker had made more enemies in his life than most great powers ever aspired to.

“I’ve got your payment right here,” Godrick called, hefting his gravity hammer. “Come and get it!”

“Bravado, I love it.”

The Mud King’s armor sped up, and Godrick activated the enchanted flare opal set into his helmet, sending out a chaotic, flashing wall of color straight at the great power. He didn’t actually know how the Mud King perceived the world outside of his armor, but if it was through sight at all, the flare opal would be throwing Staven’s eyes for a loop.

He wasn’t counting on that, though.

Instead, he carefully timed the Mud King’s approach, and the instant the great power crossed the halfway mark along the dead-end corridor, Godrick pushed the last necessary drops of mana into the stone and crystal spellforms he’d been maintaining, then yanked downward using his gravity hammer.

Specifically, he yanked on the Havathi palace suspended above, the one that both he and Anders Staven had used as a landmark. The very same precariously balanced palace whose masonry he had weakened to the point of collapse.

His hammer’s pull was like a kitten trying to drag a full-grown aurochs, but his crystal and stone spellforms, along with Anastis’ own gravity, did the vast majority of the work.

He didn’t stop to watch the collapse, just whirled and force-jumped off the side of the suspended corridor.

The rubble of the collapsing palace struck the Mud King with a cacophonous roar, sending shockwaves of mud splashing hundreds of feet into the air.

Godrick had only hoped to slow the mercenary great power down, give him a chance to escape— he was hardly the first one to hit the Mud King with a palace’s worth of rock, after all.

All those other times, though, the Mud King had been on open ground, or near water. Had been able to reinforce his bulk with water and dirt, and hadn’t stretched out his armor to wrap entirely around a massive labyrinth corridor.

Even as Godrick crashed into the nearest column and magically anchored himself there, Anders Staven’s armor of boiling mud went entirely slack, and began dripping off the sides of the labyrinth corridor, along with rubble from the falling palace.

The corridor itself was unharmed. Oh, the stone cladding its outside was cracked and chipped, but this labyrinth was no more stone than other labyrinths were mist, wood, or any other known material. Those were all simply facades over something esoteric and non-material. Even forced out into the real world like this, the walls of a labyrinth were absolutely indestructible.

Once Godrick was sure the Mud King wasn’t faking his death, he took a long, shaky breath.

He had no intention of taking credit for killing the Mud King. Godrick wasn’t really the one to kill him, after all— no, it had been Staven’s need for vengeance for his lost leg that had done him in. It had left him with tunnel-vision, let Godrick use the insane environment around them to his advantage.

And all Godrick could think was that Hugh was right.

Vengeance was for fools. The pursuit of vengeance had killed the Mud King, just as it had killed Indris’ former mate Ataerg, just as it had killed Bakori, and just as it would almost certainly kill Alustin.

Just like it would kill him, if Godrick pursued vengeance against Heliothrax for his father’s death.

He’d never truly thought he had a chance to bring the Sunwyrm to justice, never seriously thought he had a chance to get vengeance— and deep down, he’d hated himself for that. He’d despised the fact that he wasn’t even going to try and avenge his father.

The Mud King had, in a deeply visceral way, reminded Godrick of the foolishness of vendettas.

As the mud dripped down into the ruins of Havath City, hundreds of feet below, it carried Godrick’s self-loathing with it.

Godrick turned away from the dripping mud and began to climb down towards the next protruding corridor that would take him towards Talia. Though at this rate, Hugh and Sabae would probably reach her first.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Just a Weapon

WHEN HUGH FOUND Talia, she wasn’t fighting or causing mayhem. She was just sitting on the edge of one of the corridors, dangling her feet a hundred feet above the partially collapsed glass roof of one of Havath City’s famous indoor markets.

He glided down from his higher corridor to her lower one, using a levitation cantrip and letting Mackerel carry him down. He let go of Mackerel, mentally telling his spellbook to patrol nearby and keep an eye out.

Then he walked over to his girlfriend, sat down, and wrapped his arm around her.

Hugh stared down at the ruined market while he waited for her to speak. There were still goods at many of the market stalls, often lying completely undamaged, while the next stall over might have been destroyed by falling rubble or stray battle magic. His sphinx eyes could even make out some of the price signs from up here, and he found himself frowning at the costs— at least twice what he would have paid elsewhere. It must be absurdly expensive to live in Havath City.

Well, not anymore, he supposed.

“We should go find the others,” Talia finally said.

Hugh shook his head. “I can feel them on their way to us, we can wait.”

Talia sighed heavily. “I’m pretty sure Alustin was telling the truth.”

“So am I.”

“I’ve been right this whole time, then. I just didn’t know how big a weapon I really was. More fool Alustin for throwing me away.”

Hugh picked up a pebble sitting atop the corridor next to him, then idly dropped it onto the ruined market below.

“You never seem happy when you call yourself a weapon, you know that? I’m pretty sure you hate the idea, but can’t shake free of it.”

Talia gave him a confused look, but he kept talking.

“I think there’s probably a bunch of reasons the idea’s stuck in your head like it is. I think a lot of it comes from your failure to be a fire mage— your family and clan spent your entire childhood filling your head with expectations about how powerful of a fire mage you would be, and when your affinities manifested… they shattered your entire self-image.”

“I never would have guessed,” Talia muttered sarcastically.

“And I think the way Alustin used us over the years didn’t help things,” Hugh continued. “Because, whatever he claims about not seeing us as weapons, he absolutely used us as weapons. He set himself a line in the sand that he wouldn’t cross, but one at some arbitrary point that was well past any reasonable person’s line.”

“Of course it was past any reasonable person’s line. I don’t think calling Alustin reasonable is exactly reasonable, is it?”

Hugh snorted in acknowledgment at that, then rubbed at the back of his head with his free hand. “I think you’ve got to ask yourself what a weapon really is, though.”

“Weapons are made to destroy, I’m made to destroy,” Talia said flatly. “I’m a weapon, this isn’t difficult.”

Hugh shook his head. “No. It’s less that they destroy, and more that they’re wielded. They don’t make the choice to destroy on their own— the warriors that wield them choose. And you get that choice. People get to choose. People have to choose. I choose to follow Sabae, but not because I have to— because I trust her. Alustin abandoned us, yes— but not in the sense that he threw weapons away. He walked away from us as people. You need to stop letting your self-worth be determined by your use as a weapon, by your utility to others, and you need to choose what you want to do. You have a responsibility to choose, even. It’s easier not to take that responsibility, but we can’t afford the easier path. You’re not a weapon, Talia.”

Talia was silent for a minute, staring down at the ruined market.

She responded just as Hugh felt Sabae and Godrick both approaching.

“I’m not a weapon, I’m a warrior? I like that. Well then, I suppose I choose to destroy— for myself, not for someone else.”

That… hadn’t exactly been the point Hugh was trying to make, but it had Talia smiling again, so he decided not to press his luck.

AS SABAE HUNTED down her friends, she found her attention being torn between multiple considerations.

She had plenty of time to think— she’d ended up almost at the very top of the risen labyrinth, most of the way back up to the flight ceiling they’d crossed in their drop attack earlier that day. Based on what she could feel through their warlock pact, she was the farthest away from the rest of the group.

The first and easiest consideration was in regards to Alustin’s claims about Talia. They seemed plausible enough, and she couldn’t come up with any reasonable motives for Alustin to lie, though it was certainly possible.

Best to just shelve that question until she spoke to Talia.

The second set of considerations was her usual after-battle considerations, attempting to figure out what they could have done differently, trying to stop Alustin and reclaim the Tongue Eater.

The only thing she could think of was cutting short their conversation, but they’d needed to try— stopping the Tongue Eater would be infinitely easier with Alustin on board.

Especially since they didn’t know how to activate it.

Which brought her to the third major consideration— Alustin’s claims about the blast radius of the Tongue Eater when it was detonated.

He was right— she didn’t know enough to argue with him, didn’t know enough about the magic principles involved to dispute his claims. He seemed convinced that he understood the risks involved in his plan, and that a continent-destroying blast wasn’t possible, and she couldn’t argue with him.

Except… when she and Hugh had spoken to Kanderon atop Skyhold, she had likewise seemed convinced there was a real threat to the Ithonian continent, and Sabae absolutely believed that Kanderon knew enough about the relevant magic to argue with Alustin.

She couldn’t figure out why, though. It couldn’t be a simple mistake in Alustin’s math or understanding of the principles involved— Alustin Haber might be a traitor and a vengeful madman, but he was also one of the most brilliant mages alive, and he’d had who knew how long to check and recheck his own calculations.

No, there had to be some other reason Kanderon had been convinced of the threat.

Even Sabae’s puzzlement about the Tongue Eater’s threat paled before the fourth and largest consideration, though— which was to say, the emergent labyrinth.

She wasn’t focused on the destruction it had caused, nor was she worrying over the fact that Alustin had turned Havath City into a permanent high aether-density region, just as Bakori had intended for Skyhold.

No, she was almost entirely focused on the fact that the new labyrinth landscape was quite literally made for her. She could wind-jump and blast her way through the three-dimensional maze more easily than literally any other environment she’d ever been in.

It might be utterly inappropriate timing, but Sabae was having some of the most fun of her life, blasting between columns and corridors.

A few times, Havathi mages or Alustin’s scattered forces launched spells at her, but she easily dodged or deflected their magic, and never stayed to fight. Many, if not most of them, were slowly navigating the corridors and columns to get down, while a few groups even seemed trapped entirely.

She did once have to hide from Havath’s phoenix great power, using her adhesive shield to stick herself to the side of a column as the phoenix flew through one of the larger empty spaces in the labyrinth, but it thankfully didn’t notice her.

Finally, she reached the others, just moments after Godrick.

“Is everyone alright?” Sabae asked, as she landed next to the group. The others all nodded.

“Talia?” Sabae asked, looking carefully over the other girl.

“I’ll be fine,” Talia said, then smiled slightly. “I’ll try not to explode and level any cities today.”

“Not much a’ a city left fer yeh ta’ level,” Godrick said.

Sabae snorted at that, then focused.

“Hugh, can Mackerel still track Alustin?” she asked.

“Just a moment, I’ll call him back,” Hugh said.

As he did that, Sabae turned back to the other two. “Do either of you have any idea why Kanderon and Alustin disagree about the threat the Tongue Eater poses? There’s something weird going on here. Godrick, I’m looking at you, here.”

Godrick frowned. “Ah’ve been wonderin’ that mahself. Ah wouldn’t know where ta’ start unless ah actually got some math in front a’ me, though.”

Sabae turned to Talia, then Hugh, both of whom just shook their heads.

Mackerel took that moment to arrive, and they waited patiently for Hugh to confer with the spellbook.

Finally, he looked up. “The answer is yes, kind of.”

“Kind of?” Sabae asked.

“Mackerel can’t track Alustin’s labyrinth stone anymore— it must have been destroyed by the chitin wand, like the chitin wand did to Havath City’s labyrinth and like it tried to do to Mackerel,” Hugh said.

Sabae shot a concerned look at Mackerel. “The chitin wand tried to destroy Mackerel? Is he alright?”

The spellbook gave Sabae a reassuring look, and Hugh nodded. “There was a fragment of a Labyrinth Builder, or maybe intelligent Labyrinth Builder magic in there, and it took pity on him.”

Everyone just stared at Hugh and Mackerel.

“Alright, anyone else have any world-shaking revelations from the twenty minutes we were separated?” Sabae asked.

Godrick hesitantly raised his armored hand.

Sabae sighed. “What, did you meet some long-extinct magical species that could alter the fate of universes as well?”

Godrick shook his head. “No, I just, uh, kinda dropped a palace on the Mud King and killed him? It’s mostly his fault for not paying attention, though.”

Talia immediately raised her hand to high-five Godrick, and Sabae just sighed and turned back to Hugh. “His labyrinth stone is destroyed, but Mackerel can still track him somehow?”

Hugh nodded. “Intermittently. The big labyrinth seems to be leaking its influence, somehow, and whenever Alustin passes through one of those zones of influence, Mackerel can track him.”

Sabae nodded. That would make it difficult, but not impossible to keep track of their teacher. They…

She froze. “Oh no. No, no, no.”

“Sabae?” Talia asked.

“If his labyrinth stone is gone, and we can only track him inside the leaking labyrinth influence, that means…”

“Others can track him outside those zones,” Godrick finished.

“We can’t delay any longer, we need to go after him now,” Sabae said. “Before someone else tracks him down or some other new problem rears its head.”

Hugh gave her a sheepish look.

Sabae groaned. “There’s a new problem, isn’t there?”

Hugh nodded. “The labyrinth eruption broke the Dominion’s seals and opened the labyrinth entrances. There are a ton of monsters and prisoners pouring out of the labyrinth into the city right now. They’re mostly in the city center, but they’re spreading out quickly, and at least a few look like great powers.”

Sabae rubbed at her temples. “Alright. Track down Alustin, reclaim the Tongue Eater, and figure out a way to stop its destruction. All while avoiding Alustin’s forces, the Dominion, our own great power allies, and a legion of escaped monsters. Unless there are any other complications we need to know about?”

Hugh awkwardly started to rub at the back of his head, and Sabae closed her eyes and made a noise like a teakettle. “What now?”

“Mackerel just spotted a Sican Elder carrying a small army into the edges of the risen labyrinth,” Hugh said.

Sabae started to complain, only to have Talia cover her mouth with both hands and glare into her eyes.

“Stop. Tempting. Fate,” Talia said. “You keep it up, someone else is going to invade, or set off a magical superweapon, or something like that.”

Sabae removed Talia’s hands, then sighed. “Fine. Let’s just hunt down our teacher already.”

AS HELIOTHRAX PERCHED on one of the labyrinth tunnels that had torn apart Havath City, she did her best to ignore the pain and terror of the brains of lesser dragons bound to her spine.

If she'd had more time, she could have muted their mental voices further, closed off their access to her, but she needed them alive and still sapient to use and control their magics.

Though she knew they wouldn’t understand, their sacrifice was a noble one. Heliothrax was the protector of Ithos, the symbol of stability for the whole continent. She could not be seen to be defeated, lest the rabble of great powers grow restive, and begin to push at the bounds of conduct she alone guaranteed. The Coven had to fall, followed by that greedy little wyrmling Andas Thune.

Not for Heliothrax’s own sake, and certainly not for her pride.

For the sake of all the lesser peoples of Ithos. The Sunwrym needed to stand strong, no matter what. She needed to be an unbroken, untarnished symbol for the continent.

Her stolen wind affinity alerted her to great wind magics being cast, and she turned her head towards the deeper gloom of the risen labyrinth, towards the two desert storm queens.

Heliothrax launched herself from her perch, flying through the immense maze with unnatural agility for a creature so large.

As she hunted Indris and Ilinia, she reached up to the sky with her sun magic. With Havath City effectively leveled, after all, there was no reason to hold back any longer.

The continent needed to be reminded of her power. Reminded that the Sunwyrm had no need of magical superweapons, reminded that she could melt entire cities with but a single spell.

The light from above began to grow, as the Eye of Heliothrax glared down on the ruins of Havath City.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

To the Victors...

LEON OF CLAN Castis always completed his missions.

When he’d been young, Luthe and Roland had been locked in a head-to-head race to prove who the most dangerous brother was. Every now and then, Gram did something impressive to take the lead, but it was a rare day when either Luthe or Roland didn’t hold the distinction.

The only reward for taking the lead, of course, was the rest of the brothers treating them as complete pests and pretending not to respect them, but slavish adulation was for lowlanders and those mountain clans who had gotten too caught up in their own mythology.

Leon had decided early on that he intended to seize the title of annoying one for himself and hold it.

And he had.

There wasn’t a simple metric for who took the title— it was a mix of the number, danger, and weirdness of the adventures and missions they took; the stories they told; even the trinkets and trophies they brought home.

Leon hadn’t tried to be clever, hadn’t tried to pick the perfect missions to upstage his brothers.

No, the instant he’d been judged old enough and dangerous by the clan elders, he simply took every single mission he could. He went on every raid he was allowed, hired himself out as a mercenary to all the nearby clans, even hired on as a guard for mages searching the mountains for rare alpine herbs and other alchemical reagents. It was rare he stayed more than a night or two at Hold Castis in a row.

He still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d ended up getting married, as seldom as he’d been home those years. It had just kind of happened.

But then, while many people just saw Helga as a kind, sweet woman, Leon knew she had a ruthless streak wider than she was tall, and when she decided she’d wanted Leon, he suspected he hadn’t had much choice in the matter.

Not that he was complaining, of course.

His brothers had mocked him for trying too hard at seizing the title at first, but as his adventures piled on one another, that mockery dried up.

And then, when he came home after hunting down an entire group of bandits led by a gorgon knot, he was promptly acclaimed as the most annoying member of the family.

Leon was honestly still a little amazed he’d survived that one. Gorgon knots were nasty.

Leon had never once given back the title of most annoying to one of his brothers.

Which was exactly what had led Ranna of Clan Derem to recruit him into the Hidden Clan.

According to her, members of Clan Castis were constitutionally unsuited for membership in a covert organization. They were entirely too flamboyant, ridiculous, and attention-seeking.

Leon was absolutely no exception, according to Ranna, but he was simply too dangerous for them to pass up on recruiting, making him the first recruited member of Clan Castis in the Hidden Clan in generations.

He’d accomplished dozens of missions for the Hidden Clan, often while also serving Clan Castis. He’d carried out assassinations, hostage rescues, even scouting missions for the Hidden Clan. When he’d robbed Skyhold’s library for his family, he hadn’t just seized books of fire magic for them, but picked up a long list of titles for the Hidden Clan as well.

If the Hidden Clan had a more effective agent, Leon would eat one of his brother Gram’s hats.

When Ramyl the Chained landed and the Coven’s army marched off his back, Leon didn’t march with one of his brothers— no, he had other missions.

So far as anyone else knew, he was hunting Havathi archmages. Which he was, in fact, doing, and took down two of them. Impaled a lightning and silver archmage through the head with a sliver of ice out of ambush, then destabilized an acid archmage’s spinning caustic shield with a series of very precisely timed explosions.

Sadly, the acid mage seemed to have spent a lot more time making his acid deadlier than he’d spent making himself more resistant to it.

His mission from Ranna was to hunt another archmage— the only difference was that it was one of their archmages.

The Mazemaker.

Real name unknown, age unknown, birthplace likely somewhere in southwestern Ithos. Wielded vine and illusion magic to create deadly mazes to entrap his foes.

A powerful ally or enemy, and one they could ill-afford to sacrifice— but one they could even less afford to let live.

He had, after all, stolen from the Hidden Clan.

It was unlikely the Mazemaker knew what he’d done, or even of the existence of the Hidden Clan, but on the way to the Coven’s meeting at the demesne of Pitas the Younger, the Mazemaker had robbed a mid-sized local vault. He’d done it in broad daylight, too— used illusions to conceal himself and his vines, crawled along the vines into the vault when it was opened for a deposit without ever touching the enchanted walls, floor, and ceiling.

Odds were that he hadn’t had a chance to sort through everything he’d stolen and hid away in his extraspatial garden, but the Hidden Clan simply couldn’t take the chance, because the vault had contained a number of sensitive documents they’d hidden there.

Leon didn’t know what was in the documents the Mazemaker had stolen, or how the Hidden Clan knew he was the culprit. He didn’t have to know, though— he had a mission, and he trusted Ranna.

The Mazemaker’s illusions were incredibly skillful, but useless against Leon. Between his ice and fire affinity senses, he could navigate the world around him entirely by reading the heat gradients around him. He simply closed his eyes and punched straight through the illusions.

The vines were a bit more of a threat, but not by much. The Mazemaker relied on his illusions to conceal the true locations of his vines, rather than focusing on making them as swift as possible, like some mages.

Leon slid along the ground, the soles of his boots coated in ice, propelling himself with smaller versions of his mother’s jets, easily dodging the vine swipes.

Then he brushed past the Mazemaker, and the Mazemaker died. It wasn’t a flashy, showy death— he simply collapsed to the ground, dead, as Leon drained the heat from his blood and dumped it into his brain.

Not enough to freeze his blood, nor enough to cook his brain, but enough to instantly throw his body into hypothermia, his brain into hyperthermia. Death by nigh-instantaneous seizure and shock.

He quickly retrieved the Mazemaker’s magical storage— a greater shadow pouch like his own, only accessible in darkness— then kicked the archmage off the side of the corridor, to plummet into the depths below.

It offended Leon’s sense of dramatic timing that his warning tattoos didn’t go off immediately after that, that he wasn’t thrown straight into battle.

It was several minutes later when the tattooed spellforms on the back of his left elbow began to pulse with bizarre sensations, like nails of music being driven into his skin. It was his strangefire tattoo, which warned him of the presence of unknown, unusual, or bizarre forms of flame, at far greater distances than his affinity sense, and the pulses were coming faster and faster.

He hated that tattoo, honestly.

Leon looked around himself for a good hiding spot, but he was right out in the open atop an exposed corridor. A hundred feet to one side was a massive labyrinth room or cavern with an irregular roof. Atop it rested most of a city block, which was crumbling apart and pouring off the side of the cavern, like the world’s driest waterfall.

Leon considered a few different tactics, including filling the air nearby with heat mirages to confuse foes, but instead settled on the obvious one. He backed up as far as he could, then launched himself over to the crumbling city block with his fire jets, using the narrow metal funnels hidden in the soles of his boots to contain the focused flames.

He barely made the leap, even with levitation cantrips— he hadn’t reached his mother’s level of skill with the jets, and likely wouldn’t for years. The leap took him barely outside the slide zone, where the streets and buildings were crumbling into debris and dust flowing down into the distant ruins below.

There was only a minute or two for Leon to kill the Havathi troops hiding inside the ruins before Niana Everflame flew past.

Or, at least, before a cloud of concealing smoke with a core of hellish burning phosphorous flew past, all bound together by gravity. Niana was somewhere in there, but even he couldn’t read the heat patterns to find out where.

Though…

How much would it annoy his family if he killed a great power on his own?

Before Leon even gave himself a chance to think over the plan, a half dozen dagger-thin flame lances tore through the cloud of phosphorous smoke.

As the cloud and its burning nucleus turned back towards the crumbling buildings and the falling debris, Leon smiled and began to whistle.

Off-key, of course.

Far above him, the sky began to glow.

LET IT NEVER be said Karna Scythe was ungracious in victory, that she left her foes with nothing but ruin and dust.

As her allies regrouped at their landing site, she found herself with a moment of peace. No enemy great powers were attacking at the moment, and the Dominion siege mages seemed to have been crushed or scattered by the destruction of Havath City.

There was war being waged deep within the giant maze, of course, but there was no need to risk herself or her allies further today. Casser and Iblint had been informed of their withdrawal, and both were more than capable of rejoining them in time.

A pity about Sagravaax’s fall, she supposed, but some losses were to be expected. And she would not complain about Iris Mooneye’s forces being weakened.

With no other pressing tasks, the gorgon queen used her moment of peace to leave the broken Dominion a gift.

She used her stone and quake magics to carve a massive statue of herself, standing amidst the ruin of one of the Intertwined Avatar bodies. She had no need to conserve her mana, for once, so she was quite extravagant about it.

A gracious little gift for the defeated.

She was nearly done with the bulk of the statue when she sensed something wrong, when the hydras growing out of her scalp began hissing and growling.

Karna had, over the years, learned to pay very close attention to the moods of her hydras. It had saved her life more than a few times.

Her gaze shot over to the ruins and the towering labyrinth, but saw nothing amiss. So…

Karna looked out among her allies, looked for something that might explain her sudden agitation.

They all seemed jubilant, more focused on their victory than anything.

All save the Librarians Errant, one of whom was speaking urgently to Alustin’s second-in-command, the metal-tattooed sound mage.

He turned, met her gaze, and his voice slipped into her ears. “It’s the Eye of Heliothrax. We have maybe a minute or two before it hits full strength.”

The gorgon queen didn’t hesitate even a second before bellowing orders, her voice amplified by the sound mage. “Zersin, give us cloud cover, now! Everyone, we’re marching into the cover of the labyrinth in a hurry, unless you want to get melted by the Sunwyrm!”

Her great power lieutenant, Zersin Grey, barely got a smokescreen over the army in time to protect them from being incinerated. Karna used her own magic to lift great clouds of stone dust into the air above their path back to the labyrinth, so they wouldn’t be marching over burning-hot stone.

Around them, the broken ruins of Havath City began to glow in the heat of the sun, waves of heat rippling off the marble and bronze.

As her army desperately retreated back into the city they’d just destroyed, Karna Scythe spared only a single glance at the statue she’d begun carving in her own image.

She swore, then and there, that she was going to end Heliothrax today, then come back and finish her statue.

INDRIS STORMBREAKER SLIPPED off her perch atop a risen labyrinth corridor seconds before Heliothrax used her stone and bronze magics to sweep it clean with a palace’s worth of debris. The dragon queen lacked a clear avenue of escape, unfortunately, and had to carefully weave between the descending rays of sunlight, glowing hot enough to injure even an elder wyrm like her.

Indris growled, then used the wind to whisper to Ilinia. “We stood a chance against the old Sunwyrm, but this monster is something else entirely.”

“So, what, we should run away?” Ilinia whispered back.

“I have a trick that might help, but I need you to buy me time. At least a couple minutes.”

“How in the bloody tides am I supposed to do that?” Ilinia demanded. “We’re barely keeping her attention with both of us.”

Indris snorted as she reached out to the debris littered about with her sand affinity.

Much of the rubble had been crushed too far, into dust, or had been crushed too little, into gravel or pebbles, but there was still plenty of freshly-ground sand around, and Indris raised it into a great sand-cloud between her and Heliothrax. It wouldn’t be more than an annoyance to the Sunwyrm, but it might buy her a few seconds.

Even as she raised it, the scattered rays of the Eye of Heliothrax began to melt parts of the sand-cloud into glass.

“You have your own tricks, Ilinia. Time to trade some of them in. Your little project with Clan Castis, at the very least.”

“How did you know about that?” Ilinia demanded irritably. “Fine. You’ll get your couple of minutes.”

At that, Ilinia stopped hiding and announced her location, with a web of lightning thicker than any Indris had ever seen. The web smashed Heliothrax out of the air and into a tangle of labyrinth corridors, pinning her there.

Getting to be a great power was a brutal uphill struggle. Staying a great power was even worse. If you didn’t keep improving, didn’t keep growing in strength and finding new tricks, someone was going to find a way to unseat you. And few great powers were better at finding new tricks than the Kaen Das family. They were the longest-lived dynasty of great powers on the continent, a continuous chain running from mother to daughter to granddaughter and on. And over those centuries they’d acquired innumerable enchanted trinkets, exotic spell designs, and other esoterica. The only reason you couldn’t call them hoarders was their willingness to use and use up their tricks when they needed to.

And this new one was something else.

Clan Castis was going to be attracting a dangerous amount of attention in the years to come— since the battle at Skyhold, they’d thrown themselves onto the world stage, announced themselves as a power to be watched. Through the winds, Indris could feel a half-dozen of their fire elementals hunting their foes throughout the ruins of Havath City, flying freely through the rays of sun that could melt flesh, stone, or metal.

Those that focused primarily on that raw combat power were missing Castis’ real danger, though.

Their tattoos.

Magic tattoos were common to the point of mundanity among mages, but most were just a simple spellform, a cantrip or glyph inked into flesh that mages could cast without needing their mind’s eye. Utility tattoos, affinity sense-enhancing tattoos were less common. True power-enhancing tattoos were far rarer.

Clan Castis’ tattoos did all of that and more. Pushed the very limits of a stodgy, old-fashioned art.

And Ilinia had struck a bargain with them. One that Indris, even with all her spies close to her rival and ally, had barely managed to discover.

Though what had truly given it away to Indris had been the smell. Dragons didn’t have the keenest senses of smell, but their noses were still far more sensitive than humans' or phoenixes’. She’d smelled the ink on Ilinia, and noted her shifting uncomfortably as the tattoos had healed.

She wasn’t sure precisely what the spellforms Clan Castis had tattooed on Ilinia did, besides enhancing her lightning magic, but it was working.

“I can’t keep this up for long,” Ilinia sent through the wind. “Hurry up.”

Indris didn’t bother to respond, busy with her own trick, and with avoiding the rays of sunlight that seared through the maze above them.

Through the winds, she kept a small part of her attention on Ilinia, watching as Heliothrax struggled free of the labyrinth junction. Watched as the abomination that had once been the Sunwyrm struggled back to her feet, deflecting lightning with lightning, metal, and sun magic of her own. Watched as one of the dragon heads on her back tore its mouth open, sealed by its own overgrown flesh, and screamed silently without lungs.

A moment later, its flesh healed back to itself, binding the dragon head back in place along Heliothrax’s spine.

And then Indris was done preparing her trick, and turned her attention fully to the abomination. She seized the drifting clouds of sand with her magic once more, drew up more sand from the ruins below, and propelled it straight towards the monster they fought, in a sandstorm battering ram twice the width of Heliothrax’s new bulk.

As that cutting wind flew, it carried sand through several beams of sunlight, and numerous grains on its edges began to glow and melt. And as that cutting wind approached Heliothrax, it intersected Ilinia’s massive web of lightning.

And when lightning hits sand, there’s one consistent result:

Fulgurites. Branching spikes of glass melted into the sand. In this case, sand moving at extreme speeds, already heated by the Eye of Heliothrax.

They didn’t have time to cool and solidify. There was no shattering of glass against Heliothrax’s near-indestructible scales.

Instead, ribbons of wind-blown fulgurite glass struck Heliothrax at speed. Much of it merely bounced off the abomination as she was thrown back into the air by the sandstorm strike, molten droplets raining down into the city below. Some stuck to Heliothrax, but within heartbeats, the monster had used her own wind magic to throw herself free of the sandstorm and catch herself in mid-air.

“Did you really think petty little tricks like that would work against me?” Heliothrax demanded. “That through the power of teamwork, you’d be able to stop me, or some such nonsense? I look forward to grafting you to my spine, Indris. Not that it will be a particularly significant addition to my power.”

“That was your trick that took so long?” Ilinia whispered snidely to Indris. “Not sure it was worth the wait.”

Indris surprised them both by laughing, her voice echoing through the impossible maze reaching skyward around them. “Look at you both, so caught up in the constant hunt for more magic that you forget that it’s not the only form of power. That it’s not even the greatest form of power.”

“And what would that be?” Heliothrax snarled, sending a series of rapid-moving sunbolts weaving through the labyrinth columns towards Indris, who barely managed to block them with whirling discs of sand.

“Money,” Indris said, with a laugh. “And I’m the richest dragon on the continent.”

Before Heliothrax could respond, a streak of flames, feathers, and talons rammed into the draconic abomination, sending her crashing into another corridor, though she regained her balance a moment later.

Ilinia laughed in delight as the mercenary phoenix great power Sarchus Vye recovered from his dive, and joined the two storm queens in circling Heliothrax. “That’s the problem with mercenaries, isn’t it? Their loyalty is to the highest bidder.”

“And Indris just offered me far more than Havath was willing to pay,” Sarchus Vye said, in a voice like a roaring forest fire.

Heliothrax screamed in rage, and around them, the rays of sunlight grew brighter.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Emergent Effects

TALIA DROPPED A series of flare teeth behind her, and when the powdered dragonbone and magnesium inside them detonated, the labyrinth monsters chasing her and her friends screamed and whimpered as the blast temporarily blinded them.

Given their reliance on bright lights of various sorts in combat— Godrick’s opal, Hugh’s starfire, Talia’s flare teeth— all of them had anti-glare defenses going at all times in battle.

Talia took a moment to look over these particular creatures as she shredded them with a storm of red-hot steel nails. They were almost insectoid, albeit with asymmetrical body plans— their right sides were bulkier and with more legs than the left. They almost looked like the wingless children of wasps and locusts, each the size of a boar, and they reeked. It was a mix of rotten fruit and brimstone, and while it wasn’t the most powerful stink Talia had ever run into, she’d seldom encountered any stench that filled as much of her nose as this one. Not for the first time, she was jealous of Hugh’s scent absorbing marble. And Godrick’s scent magic, which she’d entirely failed to learn so far, beyond creating odors of burning.

Oh, and the flesh of the insects was hot enough to char wood on contact. Her dreamfire had proven useless against them, as had her burning winds. The nails were working fine, though. It didn’t really matter what temperature metal was, if it was moving fast enough.

Talia and her friends only had to hold off the asymmetrical burning insects for a couple more minutes, and then the swarm was past them, climbing along every side of the labyrinth passages in their path without any regard to gravity. They’d thankfully only faced the edges of the swarm— the air in the center of the swarm was hot enough that debris was catching on fire as the creatures climbed over it.

Mackerel had been especially squeamish about closing with the creatures. Even though he wasn’t made of paper, he sometimes still acted skittish around flames. Of course, other times Talia had seen the spellbook actually playing in fire, so she assumed he was just being his usual weird self.

“You said the Havathi labyrinth connects to some nasty universes, right?” Talia asked Hugh, who nodded. “I’m betting that swarm came from one of them.”

“They weren’t demons,” Hugh said, “but from one of the hot worlds the prison connects to, maybe?”

Sabae shook her head. “We can worry about that later. Hugh, does Mackerel have a lead on Alustin?”

Hugh conferred with the spellbook, then shook his head. “He’s in one of the zones where the labyrinth effect is still absent. Which means everyone else can track him, but we can’t.”

Sabae scowled. “Let’s keep moving for his last known location, then.”

The four of them took off at a sprint, each step launching them three times farther than it should. Sabae with little windjumps, Talia and the others with their force boots.

Their route was a convoluted one— they had to skirt the edges of great power battles, especially the one centered around Heliothrax— as well as avoiding areas with too many sunbeams descending. They might be able to survive for a few moments in the sunlight, but they didn’t want to risk it— it was getting hot enough to melt stone. Plus there were the ever-growing numbers of monsters streaming from the labyrinth entrance in the center of the city, the remnants of the Havathi army stranded throughout the labyrinth, and of course Alustin’s own forces, which were cutting towards the city center. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Coven’s army lay on the far side of the city center, and along with suffering badly during the labyrinth emergence, they were largely pinned down by labyrinth monsters and remnant Havathi forces.

If that wasn’t complicated enough, the group had to worry about navigating the vast three-dimensional tangle as well. Mackerel could only chart some of the path for them, and only where the labyrinth’s influence overlaid their own universe— where the path left it, they were on their own, and they kept finding themselves lost and having to backtrack.

They tried to keep to roughly five hundred feet off the ground— high enough to avoid most of the ruins, as well as the labyrinth monsters swarming across the ground— while low enough that little sunlight penetrated to harm them.

Talia’s mind wasn’t on their path, though.

No, she was still focused on the revelations about her power.

She felt stupid for never questioning why Alustin had been so careful to keep her away from most bone mages. All the clues had been there, hardly even hidden, and she’d never even thought to poke at them.

Hugh’s words kept running through her head alongside Alustin’s in a useless tangle. Part of her regretted answering Hugh with a joke, when he’d only been trying to comfort her, but at the same time, leaving him worried about her mental state would keep his mind off battle. Which in turn left her feeling guilty that she wasn’t being honest with him, which…

Talia forcibly turned her attention away from her maelstrom of thoughts, with a little help from what lay in front of them.

Another waterfall.

This one not of dust and debris, like they’d been passing before.

This waterfall was a magmafall.

Molten bronze and marble seethed together, half-mixing, half clinging like oil and water to one another as it descended from the heights far above. It wasn’t particularly impressive— no more than a trickle, one that dissolved into droplets now and then— but even as Talia watched, that trickle became a rivulet, with promises of brooks and streams to come.

“How much debris do yeh think is up there?” Godrick asked, uncomfortably.

“Too much,” Sabae said. “More and more problems just keep cropping up.”

“Emergent effects,” Hugh muttered.

Talia gave him a curious look.

“Conversation I had with Avah last time we saw her,” he explained. “Every time mages fight, there are unpredictable, emergent effects— but they’re usually on a barely-noticeable scale. When great powers fight, they not only get noticeable, they can become a bigger deal than the sum of the spells producing them. And we’re dealing with more great powers fighting in one spot than I’ve ever even heard of, along with multiple magic superweapons. This isn’t going to be the last, or probably even the biggest, effect.”

“Well this effect is right in our way,” Talia said, eying the growing pool of molten stone and metal blocking their path as it crept towards the sides of the corridor-top. “I’d call it more of a problem than an effect, really.”

Talia felt an odd sensation through one of her new affinity senses— like her muscles and tendons were itching, and then an unfamiliar voice interrupted them. “It’s not the only problem you have.”

Talia whirled, spellforms for dreamfire and burning winds already held in her mind’s eye, to see, of all things, a finely dressed man in his late twenties or early thirties, holding a half-full wineglass.

“Who the blazes are you?” Talia demanded.

He frowned at her, as if offended by her directness, then turned his frown on her friends, all of whom were facing them, ready for battle.

“My name is Mattin Kos, heir to the throne of Ruhn.”

“Ruhn? Ruhn fell decades ago,” Sabae said.

Talia was already hurling dreamfire. “He’s Ruhn Syndicate!”

The gangster flickered, and the dreamfire passed harmlessly through him. Talia felt the same weird itching inside her muscles again.

“Rude!” he said. “And here I was, just wanting a quick chat.”

“He’s a spatial mage,” Hugh said. “A powerful one.”

“Again, one who just wants a quick chat,” Kos said, sipping at his wine.

Talia didn’t take her eyes off him, but didn’t attack again, either.

“It sounded like you were threatening us,” Sabae said. “Not the only problem we have?”

Kos shrugged. “Well, that depends on how our chat goes, doesn’t it? That is to say, I have some rather pointed questions for you all.”

His gaze ran across all of them, though it didn’t linger on Mackerel like it did the rest of them.

“About Ras Andis. About a certain armor spell. About the debts of a sphinx. And about Clan Castis.”

Talia ran mana into her gauntlets, and a pair of dragonbone blades extended from their tops over her fists.

Mattin Kos just smirked at her. “Oh, and I’ve got quite a few questions about your former teacher, as well. I may be working with him now, but who knows how long that will last? It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?”

“Screw you,” Talia said, and then all five of them were launching spells at the man.

Each and every one missed. He was close enough for Sabae to hit him with a gust strike, and yet his flickering took him out of the path of everything they threw at him. The itching inside Talia’s skin just grew and grew.

The itching exploded into near-pain, all at once, and Talia felt the world lurch around her.

Then it stopped, just as fast, and Hugh was staggering beside her.

“I can stop him from teleporting us thanks to our bond,” Hugh said, “but not any of his other teleports.”

Mattin Kos tilted his head curiously. “It’s unusual for such a young mage to be able to do anything at all with spatial or planar magic— and given Kanderon’s well-known disdain for teleportation, I wouldn’t have thought she’d teach you much about it.”

“The countermeasures aren’t exactly difficult to figure out,” Hugh said.

“We don’t have time to chat magic with you,” Sabae said. “Nor any other topic. We have far more important things to do.”

“A pity,” Kos said.

The itching exploded into near-pain again, and Talia looked up to see a massive boulder falling towards them that hadn’t been there before.

Before it hit, before she could even react, the sky above her went dark.

No, not dark. Completely black.

Then the blackness receded, the boulder was gone, and an entirely unexpected figure stood between them and Mattin Kos.

“It’s my favorite evil storybook vizier!” Talia said excitedly.

Eudaxus Scalesworn glanced back at her and sighed. “I’m not evil, nor from a storybook, nor a vizier, Talia. I’m a high priest, thank you.”

Talia smiled and did her best not to stare at his huge nose. “Well, it’s good to see you regardless.”

Eudaxus nodded, then turned back to Kos. “Run along on your mission, children. I’ll take care of this repugnant criminal.”

“Take care of me, will you, old man?” Kos said. He drew a knife and flickered.

By the time he’d reappeared, knife stabbing where Eudaxus should have been, Indris’ High Priest had sunk into his own shadow and reappeared where Kos had once stood, drawing his own dagger.

The gangster great power tossed his wineglass off the side of the labyrinth corridor, sighed dramatically, then teleported again.

And, just like that, the gangster and the high priest were bouncing all over— appearing on one labyrinth corridor, then the next, each waiting for the other to appear somewhere predictable.

Talia’s smile grew even wider at that, and the maelstrom of thoughts in the back of her head sank even farther away.

“Teleporter fight!”

Sabae groaned. “No, Talia, we can’t stay and watch. We need to find Alustin.”

Talia sighed, then followed the others in a detour around the steadily growing magmafall.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Teleporter Fight!

WHEN EUDAXUS HAD been a child, he’d dreamed of fighting in Indris Stormbreaker’s armies, of smiting his queen’s enemies with fire and lightning.

When Eudaxus had first learned of his affinity, had first learned he was a shadow mage, he’d dreamed of becoming a covert agent for his queen, of engaging in spycraft and sabotage against her enemies.

When Eudaxus had first seen his queen up close as a young man training to join his queen’s forces, he had, for the first time, felt the call to join her cult, to serve however best glorified his queen, rather than himself.

And that last dream stuck. Eudaxus dedicated himself to Indris’ glory, Indris’ fame, and over the years, his dedicated service ushered him up through the ranks, until he became her youngest ever High Priest, still in his late thirties. And he’d held that position for decades, for more than half his life so far.

Throughout all of those dreams, both lived and unlived, Eudaxus had known one truth.

He would be honored to die for his queen someday.

And it looked like today might just be that day.

High Priest Eudaxus had fought countless enemies in his years serving Indris, but this was only his fourth time fighting another teleporter.

And none of them had been as dangerous as Mattin Kos.

The gangster prince great power could teleport faster, farther, and more frequently than the shadow and spatial mages Eudaxus had fought before, could shift multiple tons of material with a single spell.

Teleporters were rare, and having the capability ranked one automatically as an archmage, but it was far rarer for one to stand among the great powers.

Mattin Kos absolutely stood among at least the lesser ranks of the great powers. Eudaxus absolutely did not.

And yet Eudaxus refused to back down.

He dodged back from an obvious feint by Kos, but as the gangster flickered behind him, he found that Eudaxus had already sunk to his waist in his own shadow, spinning around to slash at him.

Kos flickered away well before Eudaxus could cut him, of course, but for the first time since their duel had begun, the gangster found himself on the back foot.

Eudaxus pressed him mercilessly. Pursued the man through crumbling palaces hoisted high into the sky, down steeply tilted labyrinth corridors, down into the rubble and exposed sewers of Havath City below.

And then Eudaxus misjudged one shadowstep, stumbled, and Kos regained the initiative.

The gangster chased the priest through the middle of a confused crowd of Havathi seers, stranded hundreds of feet in the air, and slit a few throats before the seers even knew the two of them were there. He chased Eudaxus through a duel between one of the few remaining Intertwined and a Sican Elder, the two colossi battering away at one another with fists the size of wagons as they ducked and clambered through the cathedral spaces of the emergent labyrinth. They traded feints up and down the very shoulders of the two gargantuan great powers, stayed so long that the Sican mages riding the Elder even noticed them.

They didn’t stay long enough to witness the seeds deposited in the Elder’s deep footprints grow into mighty trees, banyans and baobabs that tore apart the lich’s demesne. Didn’t stay long enough to witness the fall of the lich, witness its fully functional avatar seize and convulse as the rising trees tore up the already-ravaged physical substrate of its mind.

Their chase took them higher and higher into the emergent labyrinth, until they reached heights where the burning sunbeams threatened instant incineration, where magma pools and streams grew common, where the air itself was growing too hot to breathe. And then that same chase took them back down into the murky depths, where they dueled in the middle of a burning government office still on the ground, dodged between flaming desks and crumbled pillars.

Eudaxus couldn’t help but be reminded of his cult’s offices back in Theras Tel. The two buildings were comparably grand, if very different in design. Even as he took a cut across his off-hand from Kos’ dagger, even as he coughed and wheezed in the smoke, he wondered what work had taken place here, whether there was any real difference in the lives of the clerks here and there.

And then their battle took them out of the offices again, and into the heart of the city.

They raced across labyrinth corridors faster than any but a Thunderbringer, dueled above rampaging herds of labyrinth monsters slowly dying in the cold of Ithos, and Eudaxus marveled at the strangeness of the creatures.

They found themselves on a great labyrinth platform, with some sort of immense chamber inside, and the two of them pulled out magics besides their teleportation. Eudaxus and Kos tried to warp the very properties of space— Eudaxus trying to stab Kos with spears of shadow, Kos aggressively dispelling his efforts by altering distance itself. Eudaxus almost had the spatial mage when he sent his voice through the shadows as a distraction, but almost wasn’t good enough. Kos tried to rebut by teleporting hundreds of tons of rubble above Eudaxus’ head, but Eudaxus was easily able to shadowstep out of the way.

And then they were off hunting one another again.

This battle had gone longer than Eudaxus had expected, longer than his mana reservoirs should ever have been able to maintain. Most such battles between teleporters were over in seconds, a minute or two at most.

But the mana rich air of Havath City, the unnatural density of its aether after the labyrinth’s rupture, let their duel just keep going and going.

Eudaxus could remember the first man he’d killed for his queen. Not the man’s name, but his face, as his brimstone magic died, as he slumped down on the spear of shadow Eudaxus had impaled him on.

He couldn’t remember why the man had deserved death. Had he been a thief? An assassin?

Had he ever known? Had he ever asked?

The teleporters chased each other through the Coven’s army, struggling to reunite and fortify their position on the ground as escaped labyrinth monsters swarmed around them, Ramyl the Chained forming an immense scaled wall around part of the Coven’s position— though he couldn’t stop the labyrinth monsters clambering down the emergent labyrinth.

They caught the attention of one of Clan Castis’ rampaging elementals in what had been the wealthiest neighborhood in the wealthiest city on the continent, and both were forced to flee. They dueled in the strangely intact grounds of a Havath City park, teleporting around its charming little lake, filled with ducks disturbingly unfazed by the cataclysmic battle around them.

They were both lured into a trap by Havath’s strange bamboo great power, trapped by wards and hunted by the mage-acrobats within as they hunted each other still. And when they escaped, they did not strike at one another until they were well out of reach of the perambulatory bamboo circus.

Inanely, Eudaxus wondered whether the bamboo mages ever hired themselves out for entertainment— his queen would surely enjoy the show.

Their duel took them through the middle of the battle renewed, took them into the field of fire between a reorganized Havathi legion and Alustin’s army. They dodged and weaved between fireballs, lightning bolts, splinterstorms and simple enchanted arrows. They danced far above the battle atop labyrinth corridors, alongside Tsarnassan gryphons hunting a few surviving Havathi dragons through the interlocking mazes of the labyrinth and the burning sunbeams.

Their duel took them into a warehouse filled with cowering Havathi deserters, and when it them back out, none of the Havathi soldiers were left alive.

And then they found themselves in the last place they wanted to be. Not because they had teleported themselves there, but because that place had overtaken them.

When you could teleport, you learned to think differently about place. Not merely as a geographic location, exclusive of other placehood, but as an intersecting series of definitions, an overlapping and interlocking series of categories.

There were the simple geographic places, of course. Then there were magical places. Desert oases hidden by attention wards. Caves where spatial mages long dead had warped distance to be longer in than out— or worse, longer out than in. Extraplanar spaces that had begun degrading over time, that opened themselves up in spasms and flickers.

There were places defined by crowds, that stopped being places when the crowd dispersed, the line they’d waited in or the entertainers they’d watched gone. There were the places that followed the crowds across a city, angry mobs or parade-goers. There were the places that only existed at certain times of day, when the sun cast the shadows just right across a street, making it feel strange and mysterious. There were places that existed only in certain seasons, or even just once a year. Places that were physically temporary— dunes that would shift over time, wastelands of coastal debris that would vanish and be reborn with every changing of the tides. Places that required you to be in a specific emotional state to understand, or that forced you into that emotional state. Places that were defined by the people that had once been there— the battlegrounds of dead powers, the corpses of liches.

Some teleporters ignored the study of spaces like this, viewed it as a philosophical indulgence that had no impact on the mathematics or art of teleportation. Mocked those teleporters who contemplated and wrote on the topic, mocked those spatial and shadow mages who went out of their way to study old, inaccurate maps and landscape paintings idealized to the point of falseness.

None of the doubters ever joined the greatest ranks of the teleporters, though.

The place that had overtaken Eudaxus and Mattin Kos was a moving place, a place that destroyed other places, a place defined by an event.

It was the place where Indris and her allies battled the monster that had once been the Sunwyrm. It was the place that was riven by fire, lightning, and sand. Sunbolts and flesh-tearing winds threatened to annihilate Eudaxus and Mattin Kos, and it was doubtful the four rampaging great powers even knew they were there.

The battle separated Eudaxus and Kos instantly, both desperately teleporting from place to place— but place had no meaning, inside the place created by the clashing giants.

As the four immense fliers dodged around labyrinth columns, reaching out to one another with annihilating columns of flame, Eudaxus realized with dread that the monster was winning. That cuts and shattered scales were scattered across his queen’s body, that she, her storm queen rival, and the phoenix mysteriously aiding them were struggling to even touch the monstrous, bloated dragon opposing them.

Even as he watched in dread, Heliothrax drew up a vast cloud of toxic gases, evaporating from the exposed pipelines of the Intertwined demesne, hurling it at her three foes.

And then the place defined by destruction and battle had passed, revealing a brand new place, a place scoured by their wrath, leaving only the battered but intact emergent labyrinth.

And then a hand was wrapped around Eudaxus’ throat from behind.

“FINALLY CAUGHT YOU now, you slippery old bastard,” Mattin Kos said, relishing in the moment. “No more slipping into the shadows, not while I have you in my grip.”

Eudaxus reached up with his hand, grasped Mattin Kos’ wrist tightly, and the gangster abruptly felt himself flying through the air over Eudaxus’ shoulder, his grip on the high priest’s neck gone. He blindly lashed out with his knife, feeling resistance as it hit something, and then slammed against the top of the labyrinth corridor hard enough to expel his breath, to send his knife flying.

Mattin Kos couldn’t see through his disorientation for a moment, but his vertigo stabilized after a couple of blinks— his spellform tattoos helped with that.

He looked up, still struggling for breath, to see Eudaxus standing over him, still clutching his arm. He looked up to see that he’d cut open the front of the priest’s voluminous robes.

Eudaxus ripped free the top of his robes with one hand, and Mattin saw something he definitely hadn’t expected.

High Priest Eudaxus was absolutely ripped. Muscles bulged in places they had no business bulging, even on a young man, let alone someone closer to eighty than seventy. He made Kos himself look like a skinny little child, and the gangster prince was far from a small man.

“Finally caught you now, you slippery young idiot,” Eudaxus mocked. “No more flickering away now, not while I have you in my grip.”

And then the High Priest was kneeling— not in prayer to his dragon queen, but kneeling with both hands around Mattin Kos’ neck.

The heir to the fallen throne struggled to get away, futilely attempted to teleport out of the high priest’s arms and magic, but the struggles slowly weakened and faded.

And before long, the lost kingdom of Ruhn didn’t have an heir anymore.

ONCE EUDAXUS WAS sure the gangster prince was dead, he staggered back up to his feet, stretching his muscles.

It was astonishing the degree to which you could train your body, if you could afford healers to aid you. Oh, he still got far more aches and pains than any man half his age, and the training process, even with healing magic, was brutally painful, but it was worth it.

Too many mages neglected their bodies. The vast majority of battles might be determined from afar, by spells and by tricks, but you never knew when you’d find yourself at arm’s length from a foe.

Mattin Kos had been a fool. A fool who’d wanted to gloat, and who had lost his life for it. He should have just stabbed Eudaxus from behind while he’d been distracted by his queen’s plight.

Eudaxus had always dreamed of dying honorably in service of his queen, had pledged his life to her long ago. It seemed that this was not the hour of his death, that his service to Indris Stormbreaker would continue.

But who knew? Today might still be the day, even if this hour was not the hour.

Eudaxus smiled grimly, and sank back into the shadows without fear.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Mind Blind

THEY’D BEEN RUNNING from the teleporters for fifteen or twenty minutes when they arrived at the new battle— with, thankfully, no sign of Mattin Kos. Even with his planar affinity, Hugh had no way to effectively stop a teleporter— spatial mana was more powerful than planar mana in a direct clash, and he suspected the man had been an extremely powerful teleporter at that.

Hugh was the first one to spot the skirmish beneath them.

A small force of mages had been pinned down by a rampaging swarm of labyrinth monsters— not the swarm of burning asymmetrical insects from earlier, but instead, a pack of hunting demons.

He had no idea how he knew they were demons, just as he had no idea how he’d known that Bakori or the hyena-worms they’d encountered in Skyhold’s labyrinth had been demons. It was as if they sent out some disorienting, unsettling vibration through the aether.

The horse-sized hunting demons weren’t hideous like the other demons Hugh had encountered. Instead, they resembled nothing so much as walking fish. Hugh didn’t know fish well enough to say what sort of fish, but something predatory and hungry. Long, lean, with a mouth full of vicious teeth. No body fins, save at their tops and tails.

Their legs weren’t clumsily grafted on— no, each of their six long, slender legs sprouted seamlessly from their body, each angled backward, ending in a bizarre cluster of grasping talons. Each leg bore several fins, and Hugh suspected the creatures were as swift in water as they were on land.

And oh, were they swift. Despite their huge size, they effortlessly dodged and wove through the spells from the defending mages, darting in and out, and sometimes seizing one of them by the leg and dragging them away over the rubble.

The mages had retreated onto a little peninsula of rubble, no more than ten feet wide. The peninsula didn’t extend into water, or even magma— though they’d seen little magma this low so far— but into a pool of vile alchemical reagents, glowing a hideous yellow-green. Hugh had no doubt that it would burn flesh on contact, and likely give him some intractable, lingering illness if he touched it or breathed in too much of its fumes. Even the demons avoided the stuff.

Alchemical brews were notoriously toxic, and the ones necessary for normal lich demesnes were even more dangerous than usual.

“Can yeh make out details?” Godrick asked.

Hugh nodded. “They’re Havathi.”

“So leave them to their fate,” Talia said. “We need to track down Alustin.”

Hugh shook his head. “We’re almost at his last known location, and Mackerel still can’t track him down. And there’s something different about this group. It looks like they’re protecting someone important.”

Sabae scowled and peered down. “You’re thinking we could extract them, as a target of opportunity, while we wait for clues to Alustin’s location.”

Hugh nodded. “Whoever it is, they’re not participating in the defense— and it doesn’t look like they have any significant archmages guarding them.”

Godrick’s fingers drummed on his breastplate, with a clatter of stone on stone. “We don’t know how dangerous those creatures are, though.”

“They’re demons, but not powerful ones,” Hugh said. “We can handle them.”

Talia snorted. “We don’t need to handle them. We just need to kidnap whoever the Havathi are guarding, and leave them and the demons to fight it out.”

Sabae nodded. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

THE ABDUCTION ITSELF went incredibly smoothly. Part of Hugh— his inner Talia, he suspected— thought it had gone too smoothly.

The four of them worked their way down to the nearest labyrinth corridor over the peninsula in the virulent alchemical lake. Hugh wrapped them all in a layer of the Stormward’s Crown, set as an attention ward.

Then, next time the fish demons darted at the defensive line, Hugh, Sabae, and Mackerel dropped down into the crowd. It said something about how many extra crystal nodes he’d built since recovering his magic that he was able to maintain his personal armor, the attention ward around the three of them, another attention ward around Godrick and Talia, and then, before they even landed, wrap their target in a ward cage.

Sabae hit first, detonating her wind armor to knock most of the Havathi to the ground, and a few down into the yellow-green lake. She also sent out a pulse of steel magic, sending Havathi weapons and armor tumbling away from her.

Hugh, bearing a stronger levitation cantrip, gently settled down atop the ward cage a moment later, then began to lift it gently through the air. The instant it lifted off the ground, Mackerel shot underneath it and began to lift from below.

It used a lot more mana to lift and move weight with the Stormward, but with the current aether density, Hugh wasn’t even remotely worried about draining his mana reservoirs. Especially not with Mackerel’s help.

Hugh did his best to ignore the fish-demons as they swarmed over the collapsed defensive line of mages, and the screaming of the Havathi who had fallen in the caustic lake, but it was an uphill battle.

He turned the wards in the cage opaque, and the five of them took off at high speed, looking to get both height and distance away from the battle below.

At no point during the chase did Hugh feel attempts to escape or break out of the wards, which was unquestionably strange.

When they finally stopped, sure they weren’t being pursued, Hugh turned the ward transparent to the outside, though left it mirrored on the inside— which took quite a bit of tricky meddling with the way light passed through the ward.

“Storms and tides,” Sabae whispered in shock.

“What?” Hugh asked.

“Yeh recognize her?” Godrick asked Sabae.

Sabae slowly nodded as she stared at the finely dressed, middle-aged woman huddled inside the ward cage.

“That’s Duarch Icola.”

HUGH IMMEDIATELY STEPPED back away from the ward cage and began pumping more mana into it.

“What kind a’ mage is she?” Godrick demanded, hefting his hammer.

“And why hasn’t she tried to break out yet?” Talia said, extending her dragonbone wristblades and setting them ablaze.

Sabae gave them all perplexed looks. “Because… she’s mind-blind?”

“Wait, really?” Hugh asked.

Sabae nodded. “The most politically powerful woman on the continent, and she’s mind-blind. Not even from a prominent noble family— she’s the fourth daughter of a minor rural noble family. She worked her way up to the top the hard way, with cunning, patience, and ruthlessness. She might not be able to cast any cantrips, but she’s more dangerous than the vast majority of great powers.”

Godrick whistled at that.

Talia groaned, and Hugh shot her a confused look.

“This is a complication we really don’t need right now,” Talia explained. “We’re here to stop Alustin from destroying the continent, not get involved in politics. We should just drop her a few hundred feet and be done with her.”

“No,” Sabae said. “No, I think she might be useful to us.”

“Useful how?” Talia demanded. “As a lure to get every Havathi we come across to attack us?”

Hugh shook his head. He didn’t know where Sabae was going with this, but… “I doubt the Havathi know she’s alive. I suspect most of them think she died when Ilinia destroyed the Conclave. And I can keep her identity concealed easily enough with the Crown.”

Sabae nodded at him. “Exactly. No, I think we should use her to persuade the Havathi to ally with us against Alustin.”

Hugh blinked. He definitely hadn’t expected that.

“Are you mad?” Talia demanded.

“Ah gotta say, when Talia thinks a plan is mad, that’s a bad sign,” Godrick said.

“Thank you,” Talia replied. “And Kanderon specifically warned us against involving others, didn’t she? Against our own allies? So how in the blazes is it a good idea to involve our enemies in the hunt for the Tongue Eater?”

“That’s easy, we don’t,” Sabae said. “We involve them in the hunt for the elemental plague.”

“You know, I kind of forgot about the whole elemental plague thing,” Hugh said, staring off into the distance, where he was pretty sure he could see glimpses of Andas Thune hunting someone or something through the labyrinth and burning sunbeams. Or at least an illusion of Andas Thune doing so.

“Yeh forgot about our fake superweapon cover story?” Godrick asked.

“I’ve kind of had a lot on my mind,” Hugh said, gesturing vaguely around them.

“Fair enough,” Godrick said.

Talia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what magical superweapon we tell the Havathi about, they’ll try to steal it. And probably try to kill us, on top of that.”

“I fully agree,” Sabae said. “At least, for most of them.”

“Most of them?” Talia asked.

It was Godrick who realized what Sabae was thinking first. “Yeh want us ta try and work together with Valia? She tried ta kill us, remember?”

Sabae rolled her eyes. “She didn’t try that hard. She still sees us as kids, even though she knows we’re dangerous.”

“I feel pretty uncomfortable about how often we use other people’s ethics and morals against them,” Hugh said.

Sabae shrugged. “No one said revolutionaries have to be good people, did they? And even if we’re trying to save the continent now, don’t forget that our long term goals remain the same.”

“Bring down the great powers,” Hugh said.

“And empires alike,” Talia added.

“Yeh really think the Duarch could get Valia ta work with us?” Godrick asked doubtfully.

Sabae shook her head. “No. We’ll get Valia to work with us. She clearly respects us enough for that. We don’t even need to speak with Icola— probably better not to, in fact. Bargaining with Icola would be as foolish as all those Havathi idiots that keep monologuing at us. Keep her in the box.”

Sabae hesitated. “She’s got enough airflow in there, right?”

Hugh gave her a slightly exasperated look.

“Right, fair, sorry,” Sabae said. “It just might not be great if we gave Valia a dead Duarch in a box.”

Talia giggled at that.

“Seriously, though— I’m not sure we can take Alustin on our own even if we didn’t have to worry about everyone else hunting him too. With Valia on our side, we have a chance.”

“Why Valia, though?” Hugh asked. “She’s literally our enemy, has literally tried to kill us!”

“We can’t trust any of our allies,” Sabae said. “Certainly none of the great powers, or any of our allied archmages. Definitely not Rhodes. I’m not sure if I’d even trust Talia’s family. No offense, Talia.”

Talia shrugged. “None taken. My family and clan generally try to do the right thing, but asking them to turn away from an ancient, deadly magical superweapon? That’s a lot of temptation for anyone. And even our supposedly benevolent actions usually have ulterior motives that gain us more power. But that doesn’t explain why you think we can trust Valia.”

“Because she wouldn’t want the rest of the Dominion destroyed by Alustin,” Sabae said. “Because she’s obviously an honorable woman, even though she’s become trapped in a ruthless, power-hungry system. Because she’s repeatedly had mercy on us, even when it made no sense. And most of all, because of her history with Alustin. The two of them have been crashing against each other for years in some twisted, emotionally unhealthy rivalry— one that I doubt either knows how to escape. If we give her another chance to go after Alustin, she’s going to take it— and I doubt she’s going to think too hard about the context.”

“Their story arc needs a climax, a conclusion,” Talia said.

Godrick frowned. “As much as I don’t like the idea… it makes sense. From everythin’ we know about the two a’ them, it would be easy ta’ manipulate her into goin’ after him again. There’s no way ah’d believe two mages could fight one another that many times without death or major injury, unless they’re holdin’ back.”

Hugh sighed. “First we rely on the good morals of others to defeat them, now we’re manipulating the emotional wounds of an honorable enemy to force her into battle with her childhood best friend. Yep. We’re definitely not the good guys here.”

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to wait until after the battle for worrying about that?” Sabae said.

“When have you ever known me to wait on anxiety?” Hugh asked.

“So you’re all in, then?” Sabae asked.

“It’s insane, but ah don’t have any better ideas,” Godrick said.

One by one, the three of them nodded, then Hugh turned to his spellbook.

“Still no sign of Alustin,” he said eventually, “but Mackerel found Valia easily, and she’s alone and not too far.”

“What’s she doing?” Talia asked.

Hugh consulted Mackerel again, then frowned. “She’s just… sitting there atop a labyrinth corridor, by herself.”

“She probably thinks she’s already lost, and that it’s all over,” Sabae said, frowning. “Now’s the perfect time for us to approach her.”

“Unless she goes mad and wants revenge. Who wants ta bet this gets us killed?” Godrick said.

“You literally can’t win that bet,” Talia said. “If we survive, you lose. If we die, you can’t get paid. It would be crazy to take that bet.”

“Crazier than approachin’ one a’ our worst enemies ta help us?”

“…Fine, I’ll take the bet.”

Hugh just shook his head.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Honorable Traitor

NAVIGATING THROUGH THE ruins of Havath City with Mackerel’s aid was much more complex and difficult than navigating through an actual labyrinth. Mackerel could only scry parts of the ruined city and emergent labyrinth, and those parts were slowly shifting about, growing and shrinking sporadically.

If that weren’t enough, Mackerel struggled to make out the exact routes of the sunbeams penetrating down into the maze. He struggled with light and darkness at the best of times, and now was not the best of times. More than once, their intended path was blocked by a slowly shifting sunbeam, powerful enough to melt stone and metal. Other times, streams and falls of magma and molten metal shifted paths in between Mackerel’s scrying, forcing them to either change course or use their magic to clear their path or build bridges. It was easy enough— they could all use mixtures of stone, wind, crystal, and water affinities to help cool magma or build bridges over it. Even Talia’s burning wind was significantly cooler than magma, after all.

The temperature in the ruins was starting to get uncomfortably warm— even in the deepest shade, it was starting to reach the temperature of the hottest summer days. Their armor was more than up to the task of handling the heat for now, but Hugh was hoping it didn’t grow much worse.

Duarch Icola was the biggest problem, though. She wasn’t trying to escape— no, the issue was that moving too fast was liable to throw her around her ward prison and injure her. Hugh had a few ways to compensate for that, but simply lowering their speed was his best option.

Though he’d be sure to work on the problem next time he had an opportunity to upgrade the Crown.

A few times during their trip, Mackerel caught glimpses of Alustin, but never for long enough to pinpoint his exact location. At least they knew he was alive and free.

It took half again as long as expected to reach Valia, but she hadn’t moved a muscle in the meantime. She was still sitting where Mackerel had scryed her, dangling her legs off the ledge of a labyrinth corridor as she stared down at a heap of rubble.

They’d discussed approaching her more carefully— perhaps just Sabae or Godrick, whose armors would be more resistant to her atthuema magic than Hugh or Talia’s wards. In the end, they’d decided to approach her all together— slowly, in clear view, at a walking pace, with the ward cage opaque.

Valia glanced up at them once, but with only a vague look of interest, then slowly turned her gaze back to the rubble below.

They stopped twenty feet away, and no one spoke.

Valia was the one to finally break the silence. “What’s in the box?”

“Not what,” Sabae said. “Who.”

She nodded at Hugh, and he turned the outside of the box transparent once more, though he left the inside reflective, keeping Icola in a one-way prison of mirrors.

Valia raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess, you’re going to kill her unless I surrender.”

“No,” Sabae said. “Call it a gesture of good faith to open negotiations.”

Hugh levitated the box forward, lowered it slowly to the ground, then dissolved the wards and reclaimed the Crown nodes around the Duarch.

The Duarch sprang to her feet the instant she was released, but froze when she saw Valia in front of her.

“Captain Warwell, explain,” the Duarch demanded.

Valia didn’t even look at her ruler, just pointed behind her and straight at Hugh and his friends.

Duarch Icola whirled to face them. “Captain Warwell, these are enemies of the state. I command you to deal with them immediately.”

No one moved.

“What state?” Valia said. She tore one of the bronze decorations off her uniform, then idly flicked it off the side of the labyrinth corridor, towards the ruins hundreds of feet below.

“The Dominion is not finished,” Icola insisted, slowly backing away from Hugh and the others. “We’ve lost a battle, but we haven’t lost the war. We…”

“We crossed lines we shouldn’t have,” Valia said. “We never should have carried out Project Vengeful Sword.”

“I fully agree, and I was the one to leak its details to the continent at large,” Icola said. “It was the action of corrupt, terrified elements of the Conclave.”

“We never should have turned my warlocks into disposable shock troops,” Valia said. “I’m as guilty as you, there.”

“The Sacred Swordsmen predate both of us as an institution,” Icola said, still staring at Hugh and the others in fear. “It’s a regrettable situation, but it would have taken political capital we lacked to change this state of affairs.”

“I never should have taken the Weapons of Last Resort out of their vault,” Valia said.

“I… had no idea you did so,” Icola said.

Valia laughed humorlessly. “No one outside the Sacred Swordsmen did. It was purely of my own volition.”

She stood up and grabbed Icola’s shoulder from behind. “Forget the child soldiers, Icola, and look where we are.”

“Valia, have you betrayed the Dominion? Are you working with the agents of Kanderon Crux?” Icola demanded, not turning away from Hugh and the others, who remained silent and impassive.

It was surprisingly hard to do— Hugh couldn’t say he particularly enjoyed the feeling of someone being terrified of him, even if they were his enemy.

“They were the ones who captured you and brought you here,” Valia said. “I’ve got no idea what they want, but it’s not you dead. Now quit whining and look.”

Valia forcibly spun Icola around to face the ruins below. Hugh couldn’t help but look down as well.

At first, they just looked like any other ruins. Just huge heaps of marble and bronze, with a few scattered puddles of sparking enchantment spellforms and alchemical reagents.

And then, all at once, the great heap resolved itself in his mind, and Hugh realized he was staring at the broken body of one of the great lich avatars that had once stood around the borders of Havath City, that had fought against the rampaging great powers just a few short hours ago.

“It is… regrettable what happened to the Intertwined,” Icola said. “But it must have consoled them that they died in service to the Dominion.”

“Funny,” Valia said. “Because they’d considered themselves slaves to the Dominion, and had asked me to support them in a coup against you.”

For once, Icola didn’t have a glib response, and Valia didn’t give her the chance to come up with one. Instead, she leapt off the side of the labyrinth corridor, hauling Icola with her, and descended on the winds to the rubble below.

Icola, to her credit, only gave one short scream, just before Valia summoned the winds.

Hugh exchanged glances with his friends, then the five of them levitated down after the Duarch and the warlock.

HUGH MISSED A bit of the conversation between Valia and Icola— their descent had been slower than the two Havathi.

“…and yet you did nothing to change their situation. You left them enslaved, used the chains installed in their demesnes to control them just as each Duarch before you had,” Valia accused, as she forced Icola to a stop atop a pile of rubble, one that looked up to the ruin of what had been the lich avatar’s face.

“Sometimes we must make dreadful choices for the greater good, and live with the dreadful choices our predecessors made,” Icola said. “There were no easy answers for me, and the very Duarch system itself kept me from taking drastic action.”

“Oh, so you would have made the system less corrupt if you’d had more power?” Valia demanded.

“I…”

“No. It doesn’t matter. Because you’re right— sometimes we are presented with terrible choices. We were both presented with those choices, and we both chose to sacrifice others. To sacrifice children, to send them into battle unprepared.”

She glanced back at Hugh and the others. “We might abhor Kanderon and Alustin for forging these children into weapons, but at least they sent them into battle prepared. Us, though? We made those choices, took the abhorrent path— and failed. All our sacrifices— no, all the sacrifices we forced from others— were in vain.”

“They were for a good cause!” Icola insisted. “They…”

“They were a waste! We failed. Havath City is dead, and our monstrous deeds are for nothing. Me condemning young warlocks to death in battle or worse? For nothing. Your continued enslavement of the Intertwined? For nothing. We only had an excuse for demanding sacrifices from others if those sacrifices were worth something, if those sacrifices worked. It was only a bare, paltry excuse, and one that should have been laughed at in a just world— and we failed to live up to even that. All those sacrifices were for nothing.”

“So what then? You’re turning coat?” Icola demanded. “You’re going to kill me, then side with the great powers? Abandon our dreams of stability and security, of restraining unchecked personal power?”

Valia sighed. “Havath deserved better than you, Icola. It deserved better than me.”

Icola snorted. “We were what it had.”

Valia shrugged, then gave Icola a strange look. “I have a question for you, Duarch. Are you a member of an organization from another world, interfering with the rightful course of Ithonian history?”

“That’s absurd,” Icola spat back immediately. “Have you gone mad, Valia? This is the sort of accusation that a village idiot would spout in his cups.”

Despite her fast recovery, even Hugh could spot the shock on Icola’s face.

“To answer your earlier question, no,” Valia finally said. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to do anything to you.”

There was a rumbling not so far above them, and rubble began pouring off the great ruined face of the lich avatar above them. To Hugh’s shock, one of the great stone lids opened, revealing a great bronze eye, filled with spellforms and slowly turning gears.

“Valia,” the lich avatar rumbled. “You yet live.”

“As do you,” the warlock said.

“Not… for long. My demesne is torn and bleeding, my memories slipping away from me. And I am the last. One of my siblings fallen to the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells. One to the fires of Clan Castis. One to the vengeful Threadqueen. Two to the risen labyrinth. And one to the Sicans.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

The open eye looked vaguely up into the maze above them. “Perhaps siblings is the wrong word. We were… not siblings by blood, hardly knew each other as humans. But our overlap… had consequences beyond pain. Our demesnes leaked between one another. Our memories, emotions, trickling and sloshing back and forth, until at times it was hard to remember which of us was which.”

Icola stepped forward. “You can still serve the Dominion, lich. You may still give meaning to their deaths. You…”

The very ground seemed to rumble, and Hugh realized the lich was growling.

“Do you know my name, Duarch?”

Icola took a step back, depositing her precisely where she had been before she’d spoken, and Hugh wondered whether it was an act of genuine fear or calculation.

“Are you… North, perhaps? Southeast? I have no idea where we are in the city now, so I have no idea which of the Intertwined you are,” the Duarch said. “I apologize for that.”

Hugh noticed that Valia was no longer standing behind the Duarch, but had begun drifting backward through the air towards himself and the others.

“No. Not my designation, not my mere directional label. My name, Duarch. From before I was a lich.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Icola said. “Your prior identities were carefully concealed to prevent reprisals against your family and friends. I don’t know your name, nor those of any of your compatriots.”

The massive lich avatar sighed heavily. “Neither do I.”

And then the pile of rubble under Icola began to move, to flow freely, and then to float, forming the shape of a vast hand.

Icola seemed to know what was coming as she stood on the lich’s palm, and didn’t bother trying to run.

She just turned to Hugh and his friends and sighed heavily. “I never should have sent that letter to Alustin.”

And then the hand clenched, and there was only a clenched fist.

“What letter?” Hugh asked in confusion.

The massive bronze eye shifted then, slowly focused in on Hugh and his friends.

No, on Valia, hovering before and slightly above them.

“These are not the circumstances we had anticipated, Valia Warwell,” the lich said. “But are you still willing to aid me?”

“I am,” she said.

“Before, we had intended for you to use your magic to amplify the harmful effects of the overlap. But now, I’m not sure…”

Valia shook her head. “Don’t worry. I should be able to use my atthuema magic to accelerate the decay of your demesne substrate.”

“Thank you, Valia Warwell,” the lich said. “At least I die free.”

Valia bowed her head. Hugh couldn’t see any effects from her magic, but the distant and not so distant noises of battle rumbled around them began to echo strangely, and the light refracted in odd rainbows at the corners of his eyes.

The gears inside the lich avatar’s huge bronze eye began to slow, and then silently ground to a halt. A moment later, the echoes and refractions in the air vanished.

Valia seemed to slump in mid-air, then slowly turned to face them. Despite her posture, when she spoke, there was steel in her voice.

“Negotiations over what?”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Never Volunteer

RAFE OF CLAN Castis always told himself never to volunteer for things, that it would always go badly. And yet he somehow always found himself volunteering.

His fiancée Sarai liked to tease him about that, claiming that he just enjoyed being miserable. He was, after all, a night-owl who had fallen for a baker— it wasn’t uncommon for him to still be awake while she was rising for work.

He really didn’t enjoy trouble, though. He would far prefer to just be left to his studies.

Rafe should be standing with his brothers among the coven forces, ringed by a wall of living hydra-flesh and chains, and a wind shield generated by Indris’ children. But no, instead he’d volunteered to help track down mages separated from the main force during the labyrinth rise.

It had thankfully been both slower and less destructive near the center of the city— slow enough to get out of the way at a brisk walk as they rose.

Though the labyrinth didn’t, Rafe was careful to note, rise out of the ground. There wasn’t nearly enough debris pushed up by its rise. No, if dirt and stone mages were to dig into the few remaining streets of Havath City, they’d find that many of the labyrinth columns and corridors only descended a few feet into the soil. Maybe a few went deeper, but the labyrinth hadn’t been buried at all.

Rafe, of course, didn’t need to dig to see that.

The first minutes after the labyrinth rise had been terrifying, but once Luthe and Ramyl the Chained had restored command, they’d quickly established fortifications out of the ruins of a Havathi palace.

Part of securing their location had involved taking control of the columns and corridors directly above them, which had been easy enough, considering that the bulk of Indris’ children had converged with them, but as the Eye of Heliothrax had intensified, the heights grew steadily more lethal.

It hadn’t been long before surviving Havathi forces started probing at them— even with the sheer devastation unleashed against Havath City, they’d had so many soldiers and mages stationed there that they still vastly outnumbered the Coven’s forces. And as the day dragged on, the Havathi steadily restored their lines of communication, rescued their own stranded troops from the labyrinth above, and began closing in on the Coven army.

It had been nightmarish enough leading lost mages back to their lines just through the moving Havathi troops, but twenty or so minutes ago, Alustin’s forces had begun probing at both the Havathi and the Coven.

And unfortunately, they had more surviving great powers than Havath, while the Coven’s powers were tied up in battle against Heliothrax.

Ramyl’s heads and chains were barely fending off the periodic assaults by Casser Spellstorm, who was dodging in and out of battle at high speed. Along with his signature ball lightning, the man delighted in redirecting the molten debris dripping down back towards the Coven position, as well as pushing clouds of evaporating alchemical reagents from the lich demesnes towards them.

Karna Scythe had remained with the bulk of Alustin’s forces, thankfully, and their fiber mage great power was off doing who knew what, but thanks to the dueling armies and great powers, the terrain between Rafe and the Coven position was a nightmare.

And that didn’t even mention the molten stone and metal raining from above across the battlefield, or the lethal sunrays that were starting to pierce through the labyrinth as the sun slowly shifted across the sky and found new angles to penetrate through the maze.

The only point that offered them cover was the biggest nightmare of all— an active duel between two other great powers— Andas Thune and the gorgon smoke mage Zersin Grey. Several city blocks of ruins had been enveloped by a great hemispherical cloud of smoke and warping illusions, with lightning and fire occasionally bursting out of the shifting outer edges.

It was like a migraine drawn out into the real world.

Given that he was escorting two water mages and a badly wounded plant mage, all from Highvale, he didn’t see how he could make it safely through any of the battlefield, not without spending an hour or more navigating around the outside of the battle, hoping not to be found by Havathi patrols.

The worst part, in Rafe’s opinion, was how pointless the fighting between the Coven and Alustin’s forces were at this point. So far as Alustin’s forces knew, they had already won— he doubted most of them took the Coven’s claims of Alustin’s elemental plague seriously. They had no good tactical reason to keep engaging.

In Rafe’s experience, great powers didn’t need a reason to fight— their power was its own justification.

He kept watch on the battlefield for several minutes from his position inside a ruined palace, occasionally hushing the other mages hiding behind him.

It wasn’t long before something changed, and for the better.

Clan Castis began summoning a new elemental.

Rafe felt a thread of anxiety deep within him begin to relax— that meant that enough of Clan Castis had made it back to the Coven’s position to begin elemental summoning once more.

And then another thread of anxiety began weaving itself inside of him as a truly terrible idea came into his head.

“Nope,” Rafe muttered. “Not doing that. Just take the long path. Plenty of other people out searching for stragglers, you don’t need to be in that big of a hurry to head back out.”

Despite his muttered complaints, Rafe was already gesturing for the three Highvale mages to follow him.

The four worked their way carefully through the ruins, staying as low under cover as they could. They weren’t heading towards the Coven’s position, though.

They were heading straight for the immense dome of smoke and illusions cloaking Andas Thune and Zersin Grey’s duel.

“You’re insane,” one of the water mages told him, as they clambered into the closest approach to the huge migraine cloud. “We’ll never make it through there.”

“You might be right about my sanity, but we can definitely make it through there,” Rafe said.

He pointed to the elemental that was slowly rising above the Coven encampment and beginning to push against its wind shield. “My affinity senses can use that as a beacon.”

“Your affinity senses really reach that far?” the other water mage asked.

Rafe nodded, even though that wasn’t strictly true.

Rafe had been deeply fascinated, from a young age, with their clan tattoos and their workings, and had been closely involved with the design of his own tattoos. It would be a bit audacious to say he designed them himself, but the final vision and plan had most certainly been his.

His tattoos provided less amplification of his flame magic than many members of Clan Castis, and less in the way of protection against flames. Much of the toolbox of tricks present in other Castis tattoos was missing in his tattoos.

What his tattoos did instead? What they were overwhelmingly focused on?

Enhancing his affinity sense— specifically for range.

Rafe wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was the least deadly of his siblings in combat. After all, that left plenty of room for lethality— he was more than a match for the vast majority of battlemages, and few archmages could dismiss him easily.

Rafe’s massively enhanced affinity sense allowed him to offer something else besides overwhelming combat power— scouting ability past anyone else in the clan. Raw strength was a common currency in Hold Castis. Enhanced senses? Not so much.

Oh, Leon’s combined ice and fire affinity senses certainly were more detailed at close range, but Rafe could see for half a league in shades of heat with his affinity sense.

Which was the first reason he was the only living member of Clan Castis to be recruited to the Hidden Clan. The Hidden Clan had more than enough combatants, archmages, even a couple of minor great powers to send against targets— they didn’t need more destructive brutes. No, what they needed more of were scouts to help them find their targets in the first place.

The other reason he’d been recruited, of course, was the fact that he was one of the best spellform tattoo designers in Clan Castis— he’d been one of the main designers of Ilinia’s new lightning amplification spellform tattoo. He’d helped develop quite a few tattoos for the Hidden Clan since Ranna of Clan Derem had recruited him.

His mission from the Hidden Clan while he was in Havath City had been to use his affinity sense— which could easily peer through the ground— to find hidden bunkers and armories below ground, for future raids.

Of course, if they survived all this, he suspected that it would be a madcap scramble to loot everything possible from Havath City before withdrawing, rather than carefully planned thefts.

Rafe shook his head, then focused on the cloud of illusions and smoke with his affinity sense. He could spot the density of smoke easily enough— it was hotter than air, after all. The illusions were a bit trickier, but…

The best way to get around illusions was not to see them.

With that, Rafe pulled out a roll of cloth bandages from a pocket, then began to fashion blindfolds for himself and the Highvale mages. He had some rope to tie them together— though he’d need to be careful to keep to mostly level ground.

Andas Thune was the bigger threat of the two great powers— even though he was on their side. The dragon was spitting lightning and hurling dreamfire almost at random as he hunted Zersin Grey through the smoke.

Even if the draconic illusionist wielded dreamfire in far greater quantities than his sister did, Rafe was proud to say that Talia’s control of the stuff was much more precise.

Still, if he stayed alert, he should be able to lead the other mages through the…

Through the wasteland of smoke and illusions, ground broken by siege magic and rising labyrinth corridors, and rubble warped into bizarre shapes and materials by dreamfire.

Oh, blazes. Sarai was right, wasn’t she?

He really did enjoy making himself miserable.

CHAPTER FIFTY

With the Enemy

SABAE KEPT EVERY affinity sense she’d mastered trained on Valia Warwell— as much to watch for betrayal as to try and get a read on the woman’s feelings.

Her wind and dream affinity senses gave her the most information. The wind affinity sense gave her a better read on of Valia’s breathing, while the dream sense picked up the faintest hints of Valia’s atthuema magic. And… something else, something quiet, coming from the woman’s Helicotan sabre.

Her own eyes and ears remained the most useful senses she possessed, though— and what they told her was deeply concerning.

Valia Warwell was a woman devoured by despair.

It filled every motion of her body, every ounce of flesh and bone. Despair dragged on her frame, sank its hooks into her shoulders and brow. Despair dragged Valia Warwell groundward, pulled at her so hard she should have been dashed against the rubble hard enough to leave only a smear.

Valia was a woman broken, who had made monstrous sacrifices, only to find them all in vain. She had seen her adopted home annihilated, watched its corpse be fought over by jackals.

Valia Warwell was a woman who thought she had nothing left to lose, and Sabae absolutely knew how dangerous that made her.

Sabae had spent the whole search for Valia trying to figure out how best to convince her she could trust them, had wracked her brain in search of the perfect words to say.

Until she’d realized that she and her friends didn’t truly matter to Valia. That only one thing would matter to her.

“Alustin isn’t done,” Sabae told his oldest friend and greatest enemy. “He has an even deadlier weapon left to use.”

Valia laughed bitterly, and Sabae could feel her friends tense alongside her. “Use it on what? Havath City is dead.”

Sabae raised an eyebrow. “Havath City might be dead, but its population still lives. Do you really think he plans to stop here? No, and he has a…”

Valia interrupted her, rolling her eyes. “You’ve already spread one set of lies about him stealing a plague, Flea. I assumed it was because you were still working for him— which clearly is no longer the case— but whatever the reason, how should I trust your claims about an elemental plague?”

Sabae was only mildly surprised to hear that Valia knew of the elemental plague.

Their trustworthiness wasn’t the right argument, though. Trying to prove themselves to her was a waste of time.

“You said it yourself, Alustin always needs the final word. Would have to carry his ultimate weapon himself, no matter what.”

“I was wrong,” Valia spat out.

“Maybe,” Sabae agreed. “Or maybe he hasn’t used his ultimate weapon yet.”

Valia glowered at her, but Sabae just stared back impassively and waited.

And slowly but surely, that glower shifted inward, as she considered Sabae’s words.

“It can’t be anything conventional,” Valia finally said. “There are fundamental limitations to the destructive reach of a normal magical superweapon— they top out at city-killer ranges.”

Sabae said nothing, though inside she winced. Alustin had claimed the exact same thing, and more and more, part of her was whispering that Kanderon had been wrong, that the Tongue Eater’s imprisoned languages wouldn’t spread far beyond the borders of the Dominion.

“Is it actually an elemental plague?” Valia finally asked. “Or is it something stranger, something worse?”

Sabae smiled mysteriously at Valia.

She’d spent a lot of time perfecting that look.

“I suppose that’s not the question that matters, is it?” Valia said. “No, the question is, can you stop the weapon if we retrieve it?”

Sabae nodded. “We believe so.”

“You believe so?” Valia asked, looking unimpressed.

“Enough to bet our lives on it,” Sabae said.

Valia let herself touch down on the ground, and Sabae realized, to her mild surprise, that she was taller than the woman.

“Though the more immediate problem is retrieving it. I can’t imagine Alustin would keep the object anywhere but in his extraplanar storage, and it’s a nightmare accessing even a regular one— let alone one made by the Crystal Sphinx. We’d need entire teams of spatial mages and enchanters, not to mention weeks.”

Then she frowned and turned on Hugh. “Unless Kanderon left you some sort of key to open them?”

Sabae’s stomach clenched at that. Kanderon had done nothing of the sort, but even a suspicion of that sort of key would make Hugh a far greater target than he already was.

Hugh shook his head. “There was nothing like that. One of the lessons Kanderon drilled into my head over and over again was that any weakness you built into your magic could and would be found and exploited by your enemies. Even she had to open the Librarian Errant extraplanar spaces the hard way.”

The Havathi captain scowled, but nodded. “That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. Well, no one ever accused the Crystal Sphinx of being a fool, just of being a monster.”

Hugh scowled at that, but to Sabae’s relief, didn’t respond.

“So, what, you were planning to try and seize the weapon at the last second, just before he used it?” Valia asked.

Sabae hesitated, then shook her head. “No. We think there’s another way to access Alustin’s storage. One inspired by your fight with Alustin at Dragonclaw Yardang.”

Valia gave her a perplexed look. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

Sabae smiled. “One of us just needs to close the distance to grappling range with Alustin, and then someone else needs to launch an attack big enough that he can’t reasonably dodge.”

Valia gave her a baffled look, but Sabae pressed on.

“We can track Alustin, we can stop his weapon, but we don’t know if we can beat him. He’s got too many tricks, and even with our new ones, I’m not sure we stand a chance. Even with his new ink affinity, you know him better than anyone, you have the best chance of stopping him.”

“And what if I demand to know what his weapon really is?” Valia said. “What if I’m not willing to work with so little information?”

Sabae forced herself not to smile. She had her. Valia was speaking in hypotheticals now, falling into negotiation strategies.

She was planning to join them, it was only a question of price now. Not price in gold, but more intangible, important things.

“Kanderon Crux, as she lay wounded atop Skyhold, seemed even more terrified of the knowledge of the weapon getting out than of it being used. She explicitly spoke of beings that would tear this continent apart hunting for it,” Sabae said. “Do you think your curiosity outweighs the Crystal Sphinx’s fear?”

That caught Valia’s interest in a way she hadn’t been expecting. Alarm, maybe tinged with a hint of skepticism? That she might have anticipated. But the piercing gaze Valia gave her next felt off, somehow.

“When she said beings, was she, by any chance, referring to beings from other…?” Valia trailed off hesitantly.

“From other worlds, most likely,” Sabae said.

Valia scowled. “Give me a moment.”

She stalked away, and began pacing back and forth through the rubble that had been the lich avatar. Sabae could immediately spot the woman’s Helicotan footwork training— she walked with every ounce as much unnatural balance as Alustin had, traversing the broken terrain with ease.

“Are the negotiations going well?” Talia said, leaning over towards her. “I really can’t tell.”

“Yeh think it was a good idea ta tell her about other worlds?” Godrick asked, almost simultaneously.

“Yes and probably yes,” Sabae said, then glanced over at Hugh, to see if he had any questions.

He looked up at her from Mackerel, who was peacefully resting at his side. “Mackerel wants you to know how good he’s being and not causing trouble at all, and that he deserves all the praise for it.”

Sabae struggled to keep a straight face at that, and she could see the corner of Hugh’s mouth twitching. “Tell him I’ll buy him lots of paper to eat once this is all over.”

The spellbook flapped his pages excitedly at that.

And then simply froze, as did Hugh.

“Hugh? Mackerel?” Sabae asked slowly.

Hugh shook his head. “Mackerel finally spotted Alustin, and he’s been encircled. He’s not in immediate danger of capture, but we need to get moving fast.”

Sabae turned back to Valia, who immediately noticed that something was different, and stalked back over to them.

“We’ve tracked down Alustin, we don’t have any more time. Are you in?” Sabae asked.

“Alustin claimed that Havath is being manipulated by some mysterious force from other worlds,” Valia said. “Do you know anything about that?”

Sabae exchanged glances with her friends, then nodded. “Only a little, but we’ll tell you what we know on the way.”

Valia sighed. “I did just help murder the leader of my nation, so I guess allying with the enemy to stop another enemy isn’t too big in comparison. Let’s go.”

As the six of them took off in Alustin’s direction, none of them paid any special attention to the labyrinth corridor they’d jumped off of. Even if they had, they might not have noticed the hairline crack along one side.

And it’s even less likely they would have noticed the crack was slowly growing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Endless Hunt

ALUSTIN HAD KNOWN, the instant his labyrinth stone shattered, that his enemies were going to be hunting him, were going to do their best to bring him down.

He could have hidden in the lingering influence of the emergent labyrinth, concealed from the vast majority of seers— but that would have let his students track him down.

It wasn’t that his students were particularly powerful foes— they were dangerous, well into the realms of archmagery at a precocious age, but there were dozens of more dangerous archmages and great powers rampaging through the ruins of Havath City.

It was, rather, the fact that his students were the only ones who knew of the Tongue Eater.

He was fairly confident they had no way to stop the linguistic superweapon, but he refused to risk being wrong.

Not even his death would stop the Tongue Eater now. He still fought and fled his foes not out of some will to survive, but out of sheer stubbornness, out of desire to watch the Tongue Eater rupture, spill out its devoured languages in a tidal wave of madness across the lands of the Dominion.

He could feel the book straining, feel the stress the resonators were creating in the Tongue Eater’s cover and binding.

And every single dead word seeping out of the book and through his mental defenses were words of satisfaction.

Niana Everflame was the first of his foes to track him down. He had no tools to counter her, no weapons against the phosphorous mage, but for all of her lethality, Alustin was simply faster than she was, and was able to trade places with an empty decoy suit of paper armor while dodging through a particularly thick tangle of labyrinth passageways.

Two of Indris’ children, bearing mages from Ras Andis and Skyhold, were the next to find him, and Alustin cut them out of the sky mercilessly, lethal sheets of paper shredding through dragon and human alike.

He tried not to look at the Skyhold mages, tried not to recognize them.

He failed.

The next foe to track him down was Elathay Apex. The buffoonish excuse for a great power actually took him by surprise, somehow tackling him in midair, sending him tumbling most of the way to the ground.

Alustin managed to recover control over his wings and armor just barely before he hit the ground. Elathay Apex rolled gracefully to a halt, then hurled himself back to his feet facing him.

Oddly, he had a black eye and seemed to be favoring one foot. Must have tried to go up against someone too strong for him— Karna Scythe, perhaps? Given how durable and fast-healing Apex’s human affinity made him, he must have taken fairly extreme injuries to be still showing them at all.

“Your time has come, villain!” the pompous great power declaimed.

Alustin rolled his eyes and tried to tune out his ranting as he scanned their surroundings. The two of them had come to rest on an island in one of the many growing lakes of alchemical toxins spreading from the destroyed lich demesnes. To one side of the lake, a stream of molten rock from above trickled closer and closer— Alustin had absolutely no intention of waiting around to find out what would happen when the toxic liquid around them was heated abruptly.

“Hey, Apex, did you know that it’s illegal to till soil for farming in Sica’s eastern territories?”

The great power gave Alustin a blank look. “Excuse me?”

“Their soil is arid and poor, and tilling causes too much erosion and topsoil degradation. Besides, it’s not like there’s a shortage of dirt mages there, they make tilling completely superfluous.”

“What are you blathering on about?” Apex demanded. “I don’t care one whit about farming, I’m here to bring you to justice.”

“Oh, I’m just distracting you,” Alustin said, with a smile.

And then a flood of paper erupted from Alustin’s storage tattoo, plastering all over Apex’s body.

For all the man’s absurd strength, for all his impossible durability, he didn’t weigh much more than a normal human, and Alustin was able to pick him up easily with the layers of paper. Apex ripped apart dozens of sheets, but the scraps just plastered back to his body as Alustin levitated him over the alchemical lake.

“I hope you can swim,” Alustin said, as he took flight once more.

Then he dropped the great power into the toxic yellow lake.

Apex hadn’t even made it halfway to shore when the magma stream reached the lake and set it on fire.

The pompous idiot would almost certainly live, but he was going to have a hilariously bad time.

AFTER THAT, IT was a blur of one foe after another. Most of his enemies went after his decoys— but he was losing them faster than he could rebuild and spread them across the city.

It would have gone much worse for Alustin if his foes had been able to come at him in larger numbers, but even before he’d built the relay golem, he’d been one of the most effective seers on the continent. With the relay golem, it was easy to avoid the larger task forces hunting him.

Alustin battled a pair of twin hemp mages, each swinging at high speed through the vertical maze on tentacles of rope, weaving a web around him as they tried to trap him in a particularly tight cluster of vertical labyrinth columns. Each time he sliced apart a rope, its strands wove back together faster than he could blink— but that didn’t save the pair from the pages he suffocated them with.

Alustin dueled a powerful gravity mage bearing a massive suit of enchanted plate in front of the largest magma-fall he’d seen yet, a hundred feet from side to side. The gravity mage used his magic to hurl streams of magma at him and try and force Alustin into the magma-fall, while chopping at him with his enchanted greatsword. The mere presence of the magma was almost too much for Alustin’s armor, even with his glyphs, and his paper frequently ignited or smoldered when it got too close to the magma-fall. Alustin beat him not through clever tricks, but by sheer skill, cutting into the joints and weak points of the armor with his Helicotan sabre one by one until the gravity mage fell from the sky, bouncing off labyrinth corridors one by one as he plummeted groundward.

Alustin ran into a labyrinth escapee, a mage clad in the chitin of slain labyrinth monsters, committed to its depths for who knew what crimes. The paper mage and the prisoner clutched their weapons and stared at each other for a moment, then both flew off in other directions.

He found himself in a gauntlet of illusion-camouflaged Havathi sharpshooter mages perching atop labyrinth corridors with overlapping fields of fire, and was lucky to make it out of the storm of magic-propelled arrows with only superficial wounds.

Alustin was hunted by two wings of dragons, one Havathi, one Coven, who fought each other as he led them on a merry chase through a field of sunrays piercing down from above, each hot enough to instantly roast any dragon who couldn’t make the sharp turns in time and passed through them.

In the end, he only made one mistake.

He stayed out of the areas of labyrinth influence where his scrying didn’t work, and someone realized it.

The Havathi communal bamboo great power.

They split their massive bamboo frame in two, hiding each on one side of a canyon of scryable space between two zones of labyrinth influence. One half lurked in a grape-like cluster of labyrinth caverns, while the other flattened itself along the backside of a particularly massive vertical labyrinth corridor— probably one of the labyrinth’s main mana vents.

Both were concealed by attention wards built into their frame.

When Alustin passed between them, they folded out around him with terrifying speed, wrapping him in a colossal hollow sphere of bamboo and wards.

And then the sphere crawled into the depths of the zone of labyrinth influence, slowly constricting around him as it forced him deeper in and away from any nearby magma.

Alustin wasn’t about to give up, of course. He swarmed the bamboo construct with recombinant paper-and-ink wards, triggering as many ward overloads as he could. He detonated explosive glyph after explosive glyph, drained most of his supply of cutting pages, filled the air with paper chaff. All while dodging and blocking countless bamboo spears that flew through the sphere like omni-directional rain.

It was his Helicotan sabre that did the dragon’s share of the work keeping him alive, though. The sword echoes he left hanging in the air cut through or bound against the bamboo, binding the movement of the bamboo frame as much as said frame bound Alustin’s own movement.

Still, the bamboo mages were relentless, and despite their large numbers— there had to be nearly a hundred of them scattered throughout the frame— their coordination was near-perfect.

And the whole time, they mocked him.

Rude rhymes about Helicote.

Jokes that the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells had really been one of the lich’s farts.

An assortment of wisecracks about paper mages.

Alustin just responded with a lecture on how Emblin farmers tended their fields without magic.

Neither side let up on the violence for an instant.

The bamboo acrobats, like Alustin, only made one mistake.

They focused too closely on Alustin, and not enough on their surroundings. They had, it seemed, thought that dragging him into the labyrinth’s anti-scrying zone would be enough to prevent others from tracking him down, along with the attention wards built into the outside of the framework.

Maybe it was enough for most of the threats in the ruins of Havath City, but Alustin knew that his students would be coming. Knew that the Stormward’s Crown and Hugh’s knowledge of wards gave his students a genuine chance of punching through the encirclement and coming for him.

It wasn’t Hugh and his friends that arrived first for them, though.

No, it was a mad beast, sixty feet from nose to tail, that rabidly began tearing into the side of the bamboo sphere, seeking to devour the bamboo mages and Alustin. It was a scaled, furred, and feathered monstrosity with hundreds of forward-facing talons, no two alike, erupting from its flesh around its neck.

Kraggoth Claw-Mane, the chimera that had been imprisoned inside Havath City’s labyrinth.

Kraggoth Claw-Mane, the insatiable beast that had devoured literally hundreds of people until it was captured by an entire Havathi army.

Kraggoth Claw-Mane, whose flesh was nearly as durable as Heliothrax’s, and whose regeneration put any hydra to shame.

Kraggoth Claw-Mane, who spat venom, shot storms of needles from each joint, and exhaled clouds of hallucinogenic gas.

Alustin dove straight at the beast. Relied on his warded and glyphed armor to protect him from the gas. Surrounded himself with paper swarms to block the needle storms. Barely dodged the blast of venom that came his way.

And then he was through the hole the chimera had torn in the bamboo frame, pushing his paper dragonfly wings to their limits to make space between himself and the two warring great powers.

Of course, that was when his students struck.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The Final Lesson

IT HAD BEEN Talia’s idea to lead Kraggoth Claw-Mane towards the bamboo great power— honestly, Hugh would have been shocked if the idea had come from anyone else.

Mackerel had been the one to spot the beast via his labyrinth scrying, and Hugh had only told the others so they could detour safely around them. Part of him wished he hadn’t even mentioned it to the others.

Valia had, to his surprise, immediately supported Talia’s idea.

Hugh had to say, it was bizarre working with one of the Havathi, but once Valia had decided to join their efforts, she had been entirely professional and terrifyingly competent.

When Talia had asked whether Havath had a school for monologuing, Valia rolled her eyes and laughed. “It might as well, it’s so common among Havathi mages. I find myself doing it sometimes, if I’m not careful, even.”

Sabae, Mackerel, and Valia, as the most mobile members of the group, took care of baiting the monstrous chimera, while Hugh, Talia, and Godrick prepared the trap for Alustin.

They approached the outside of the massive bamboo framework, concealed inside the Stormward’s Crown in attention ward mode, and began their work right at the spot the others were planning to lead the chimera to.

Above them, in the distance, sat a particularly large Havathi palace that seemed to have been lifted entirely intact into the air, suffering little to no damage in the process.

From the way magma was beginning to drip out of its doors and windows, Hugh suspected that wouldn’t be the case for long.

The three of them crafted a massive set of wards in the rubble, and along the surfaces of labyrinth corridors. Talia and Godrick used their stone and crystal magic to carve the largest, simplest parts of the ward, while Hugh took care of the more complex parts.

Talia’s tattoos made it so her stone and crystal magic warmed the stone she was working with quickly, but given how hot the entire city was getting under the influence of Heliothrax’s gaze, a bit of hot rock was hardly noticeable. Especially compared to the steadily growing rains of molten metal, along with magma-streams and falls.

Even with their armor, they stayed as far away from those as possible. Coming within a few feet of magma or molten metal would cook flesh, and it was still plenty dangerous even in armor.

Mackerel sent Hugh a warning message through their link as Kraggoth Claw-Mane approached, and the three of them hastily finished their work, then hid up near the top of their ward trap behind the Stormward’s Crown.

The other three came racing ahead of Kraggoth Claw-Mane just minutes later— Sabae bouncing between labyrinth columns, the other two flying.

Hugh used his will-imbuing to shift the Crown’s attention ward from repelling attention to attracting it— but only for Sabae, Mackerel, and Valia.

Kraggoth only hesitated for a moment when he lost sight of his prey, diverting his attention almost immediately towards the bamboo great power.

The weakest part of their plan was, of course, Alustin’s reaction. They didn’t have any guarantees that he would try to immediately exit past the chimera, but Valia seemed confident that it was exactly the type of risk he would go for.

And her guess had proven correct.

As the bamboo framework began to flee, pursued by the seemingly unkillable chimera, Alustin darted out of the framework and straight into their trap.

Hugh activated the wards immediately, sealing Alustin inside, and the rest of them outside.

THEY DIDN’T EVEN try to speak to Alustin, at first. Instead, the six of them split up, running, flying, or jumping around the outside of the ward trap, raining attack spells in on Alustin. Even Sabae launched her inertial spear in at Alustin, pulling it back each time it missed.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Alustin said dryly, his voice amplified by glyphs until it echoed over the cacophony of their attack spells. “All my favorite people, throwing me a surprise party.”

None of them answered.

Alustin took a few hits from a rain of superheated steel nails Talia fired at him, but Hugh doubted they’d punched through his armor, from the way Alustin was immediately dodging at high speeds.

Their attacks were a veritable storm, made even deadlier by Valia’s atthuema magic.

Dreamfire bolts split, then split again in midair, and when they struck paper, their effects were copied across to pages that hadn’t even been struck.

Hugh’s lightning bolts branched again and again, far beyond what they should have done.

When Godrick’s dancing swarm of enchanted weapons, Anastan and Kemetrian, cut through pages, the cuts were copied on dozens of nearby sheets as well.

Even Mackerel’s frost and force bolts found themselves duplicated in mid-air.

“What lovely gifts,” Alustin said. “I know the party’s for me, but I brought gifts for you all as well.”

At that, Alustin began launching paper swarms with recombinant wards at the ward trap in an effort to overload it.

“Next phase!” Hugh shouted to his friends and Valia.

At that, everyone but Hugh and Talia dove straight into the ward, passing through it easily.

Hugh and Talia, meanwhile, began to summon a wind shield just inside the trap.

Hugh was the one focusing on growing it, while Talia just helped spin it. But every time she seized the spinning winds with her magic, it pumped heat into it faster and faster. In under half a minute, sheets of paper trying to breach the ward were igniting into flame before they even reached the ward.

Hugh’s wind magic could still control the superheated wind well enough, though it felt weird to his affinity senses.

Slowly, the space Alustin could maneuver in began to shrink, and yet he still held off their assaults almost single-handed. It was as though Alustin was able to split his attention on all six of them at once, casting spells to counter each and every one of their assaults.

“So what brings you here, Valia?” Alustin asked in a friendly tone of voice. “I didn’t think you got along well with my students.”

“I’ve had a bit of a change of heart,” Valia said. “They brought me a lovely peace offering.”

“You’ve piqued my curiosity,” Alustin offered. “What could they possibly have given you? Students, would you care to enlighten me?”

None of them answered him, and Alustin sighed.

“I really regret not training them in battlefield banter, Valia,” he said.

“I mean, their whole silent warrior thing is fairly creepy,” Valia said, then seized a dozen sword echoes with her magic and hurled them at Alustin. “But to answer your question, they gave me a captured Duarch Icola. Who I promptly gave to the last of the Intertwined to kill.”

Alustin actually stumbled in mid-air at that. “You did what?”

Valia didn’t let up her attack, as the others circled around the two, making occasional attacks of opportunity from below. “Turns out you were right about the whole multiversal organization. Also turns out that the Intertwined were enslaved and tortured this whole time.”

“So why are you aiding my students in battle, then? Just because they let you kill your boss?” Alustin demanded. “Or do you just want revenge for Havath City this bad?”

“I think your elemental plague is reason enough,” Valia said.

Alustin began to laugh, and Hugh’s stomach clenched.

“You mean they didn’t tell you? My ultimate weapon isn’t some elemental plague.”

Hugh drained his stellar mana reservoir desperately, launching four starbolts in the blink of an eye, staggered in case Alustin attempted to dodge. Godrick launched a single siege starbolt, nearly the size of three of Hugh’s starbolts combined. Talia launched a massive volley of dreamfire and dreamwasps. Even Sabae got in on the action with a storm-strike.

They had forgotten something important, though.

Dreamfire and starfire react violently.

And before Hugh could even blink, it had encompassed the entirety of the ward trap, then shattered it. The reaction blasted the spinning wall of hot air outward, ripped and tore at the rubble on the ground, tore at the labyrinth columns about them.

The Stormward’s Crown barely held together against the explosion, and Hugh was hurled away swiftly enough that he should have blacked out. Only his Limnan adaptations prevented it, and he was still left feeling woozy.

For a moment, Hugh panicked, looking for his friends in the hallucinatory synaesthetic smoke the blast had left behind. Then he recalled their warlock pact, and reached out to their bonds, finding all of them still intact.

Slowly, the rainbow smoke’s nonexistent colors dissolved, blowing into the breeze.

Sabae was the first to be revealed, her armor swirling with captured starfire and dreamfire, slowly reacting against one another to dissolve harmlessly away from her body.

Godrick was the next to be revealed, the surface of his armor melted into obsidian in every shade of the rainbow, already cracking and shattering off his armor as he moved.

Talia was revealed next, her bones glowing so red and her tattoos so blue that she looked like a living personification of the color purple, her scrimshaw ward crackling around her like a storm.

Then Mackerel broke his way up out of some rubble on the ground, and sent a happy feeling to Hugh that he could really only interpret as “pretty.”

The reality warping fog the explosion had left slowly receded towards the center of the blast where Alustin and Valia had stood. As it drew closer to the epicenter, the warping of reality grew stronger and stronger. Stalagmites of molten stone had dripped up and then frozen in seconds. Piles of rubble had been smoothed into huge heaps of marbles. Several cobblestones sprouted legs and waddled off like toads.

And then the dreamfog vanished entirely, revealing Alustin standing at the epicenter, almost completely unharmed, holding a bewildered and half-conscious Valia in his off-hand.

Alustin dropped his fellow Helicotan on the ground, then glanced at his main hand, which was his only injury from the blast.

“You dislocated my arm!” Alustin said. “Rude!”

“I knew it,” Hugh muttered.

He and his friends began circling Alustin.

“What… what just happened?” Valia demanded, staggering to her feet.

“Alustin just pulled the same trick he did against yeh at Dragonclaw Yardang,” Godrick said.

“He folded himself into his own storage tattoo,” Talia continued. “And took you with him.”

“Something that requires an astonishing grasp of geometry,” Sabae said.

“A grasp of geometry that an origami master requires,” Hugh concluded.

Alustin laughed. “Now, there’s some proper banter. You’re the first ones to ever figure that out, did you know that? Not even Kanderon knew it was possible— but if you have access to your own private artificial direction, why would you possibly not try folding things in that direction?”

“You pulled me in with you?” Valia asked.

Alustin nodded. “It would have killed you to keep you in longer than a couple heartbeats— after that, all your blood would start pouring out of your veins in the same artificial direction my storage tattoo lies in. After all, your vein walls don’t extend in that direction.”

“And yours do?” Hugh asked.

Alustin nodded. “They do now. I imagine yours are already there as well. It’s not so much a matter of growth as it is your aetherbody learning to recognize a new direction for your biological body. Funnily enough, it’s only really a problem for sapient beings.”

“Really?” Godrick asked. “Yeh feel like givin’ us a lecture right now?”

Alustin shrugged. “One last lesson? Why not. We’ve got an hour or two to live at most. That said, there’s one thing I find curious— why you’re not trying to attack me.”

“Wait, why don’t water barrels empty out inside our storage tattoos?” Talia asked.

Sabae gave her an exasperated look, but Alustin was already answering. “Because they don’t have aetherbodies. Aetherbodies muck things up.”

“Valia, did you see anything inside there?” Hugh asked the slowly recovering Havathi.

She shook her head in bafflement. “I didn’t see anything at all. Not even darkness.”

Hugh couldn’t see Alustin’s face behind his paper armor, but he could hear his teacher’s smile in his voice. “That’s why you’re not attacking. You’re waiting for me to put my arm back in my socket so you can use it again. You’re trying to break into my storage tattoo.”

Valia seemed to shake off the last of her befuddlement, then raised her Helicotan sabre once more.

But not at Alustin. No, she pointed it at them.

“You didn’t want me hearing what Alustin was about to say before you attacked— to the point that you were willing to kill me as well. I’m getting sick of being lied to.”

Alustin chuckled. “Oh, it was only a small lie. An important one, but a small lie. I do have a weapon capable of destroying the Dominion in my tattoo, it’s just not some elemental plague.”

He leaned theatrically forward, then spoke in a stage whisper clearly audible to all of them. “It’s the Tongue Eater.”

Valia stared at him, then laughed. “The Tongue Eater was a ritual that required Ithonian language mages, and there haven’t been any of those for five centuries.”

Alustin began to pace around Valia, moving counter to the circling of Hugh and the others. “It was a weapon of two parts. The ritual and a repository— the latter of which was the important part. Language mages were never anything but warlocks pacted to the repository, and the ritual was just a kludged-together activation spell. And all this time, until I reclaimed it, it’s just been sitting in the Vault of Skyhold. And no, before you ask, I’m not stupid enough to want to destroy the Ithonian language with it.”

Valia sighed theatrically, though Hugh noticed that her fist was clenching her sabre hilt so hard it was turning pale. “And this is the part where you dramatically wait for me to ask you what you want to do with it.”

“I…” Alustin started to say, but Talia interrupted him.

“He wants to blow it up and release all the extinct languages inside!”

Alustin sighed in exasperation.

Mackerel sent Hugh an uncertain feeling, for some reason.

“I love ruining monologues,” Talia said, unapologetically.

Alustin sighed even heavier. “Yes. I want to blow it up, spreading dead languages across the territory of the Dominion and driving its citizens permanently insane. Not across the entire continent, like Kanderon said, that would defy a half-dozen laws of magic.”

“And, what, you children want to prevent unnecessary civilian casualties out of the kindness of your hearts?” Valia asked, a hint of skepticism in her voice.

Mackerel sent Hugh another note of alarm, and Hugh turned to make sure that neither the bamboo great power nor the chimera had turned back towards them after the explosion. Both had already moved out of sight in the depths of the emergent labyrinth, however.

Then he turned to follow Mackerel’s gaze, and froze in horror.

“Kanderon wouldn’t claim that level of threat for no reason,” Sabae insisted. “I was there, I heard how serious she was. And how serious she was that telling others about the Tongue Eater was nearly as dangerous.”

“Uhhhhh…” Hugh said.

Valia shook her head. “And what if Alustin is correct? What if it’s only a threat to the Dominion? Would you still aid me against him, or would you just abandon this fight?”

“Yeh’re not goin’ ta’ try and convince us Alustin’s wrong?” Godrick asked suspiciously.

“Everybody?” Hugh said nervously.

“Based on everything I know about magic, he’s almost certainly correct,” Valia said. “I’ve been lied to enough of late that I have no interest in retaining allies with more lies.”

“If Alustin succeeds, it drives us insane as well,” Talia said. “It drives my family insane. We’re with you.”

“Seriously, everyone, shut up and look behind us!” Hugh yelled.

Everyone gave him curious looks, then followed where he was pointing, looked at what he and Mackerel were both fixating on.

There was a crack in one of the labyrinth columns, torn there by the explosion they’d set off. A crack big enough for one of them to walk through, one that ran all the way through the wall. And inside it, they could see the spellform-coated interior of the labyrinth column, one of its massive mana vents.

They were paying much less attention to the contents of the labyrinth column than to the fact that the crack was growing rapidly.

“I think we should maybe run,” Hugh said.

At that, the column began to fall.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Burning Palace

AS GODRICK SPRINTED through the falling rubble, he found himself grateful that the labyrinth collapse wasn’t worse— they were only having to dodge a few hundred feet of collapsing column, and a few corridors branching off its side.

Of course, those few hundred feet of collapsing column, freed from the strange reinforcement effects of the labyrinth, were still made up of countless tons of stone— far more than were in the palace Godrick had dropped on the Mud King.

The difference lay in the few seconds of warning Hugh had given them.

Godrick leaned on his stone affinity sense to keep track of the falling rubble behind him, as the column crumbled straight down. He pushed as much mana as safely possible through his force boots, pushed himself forward with wind, had his armor elemental shed great chunks of stone to lighten his weight.

And even still, it was a close call. He had to shove away several tumbling boulders with his magic, as well as throw himself to the ground to dodge a particularly large bouncing boulder.

The moment Godrick climbed to his feet, he found himself embroiled in battle once more, as the melting palace loomed above the clearing they found themselves in.

Alustin, though his sword arm was still dislocated, was wielding his blade in his off-hand, while his paper swarm was expanding rapidly around him.

Godrick, however, didn’t find himself fighting Alustin.

Instead, he found himself protecting Alustin from Valia.

“I thought you all wanted to stop Alustin,” the Havathi spat out, as her sword shattered one of his floating Kemetrian daggers.

“If he dies, yeh can’t get the Tongue Eater out a’ his storage tattoo,” Godrick pointed out.

For a moment, the woman looked like she was going to attack again anyway, then nodded. “A fair point. So what’s our plan?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough!” Alustin called out, while exchanging blows with Sabae, who was darting around him almost too fast to track. “You have to set my arm back in its socket while I’m trying to stab you, then force me to retreat into my storage tattoo again while one of you other than Valia is grappling me— and hope that your adaptations to your own storage tattoo allow you to survive mine!”

Godrick sighed as he began pulling up more stone from the ground to rebuild his armor. “Yeah. That. Also, yeh gotta try ta ignore his awful banter in the meantime. He’s just trying to delay us until the Tongue Eater detonates.”

“You also need to worry about more of the labyrinth collapsing, because its magic is clearly dying!” Alustin called out cheerfully.

“That too,” Godrick said, then reached out with his stone and crystal magic to try and imprison Alustin’s legs in the ground.

Alustin, of course, just hopped over the rising stone with perfect coordination, then sprayed ink at Godrick.

Before Alustin could craft the ink into spellforms, Godrick’s armor elemental dissolved the outer surface of the armor to dust, carrying the ink with it.

“Good boy, Gravel,” Godrick said.

The armor elemental seemed pleased at that.

“Uh, everyone?” Hugh called out.

“Please tell me it’s not a labyrinth collapse,” Godrick said.

“It’s not another labyrinth collapse,” Hugh said, pointing.

Godrick followed Hugh’s finger, while blasting Alustin with lightning.

He didn’t really care that Alustin blocked the lightning with another of his recombinant wards.

Because the melting palace had started to fall apart. Maybe it had been affected by the labyrinth collapse, or maybe it had just melted too far, but great chunks of it were crumbling or dripping to the ground.

Godrick had assumed that the palace had been melting due to magma dripping down from the sky.

Unfortunately, it turned out it was melting because of a sunbeam almost miraculously descending through the miles of tunnels to the depths.

And with the palace crumbling, the sunbeam was starting to flicker through, hints showing through the cracks in the masonry.

Straight at them.

GODRICK’S EYES WIDENED as he did some quick geometry. Then he hurled himself at Hugh, throwing them both out of the way, just as a particularly large chunk of the palace fell away.

The instant it did, a beam of sunlight lanced down where Hugh had been standing, and began melting its way into the stone.

“We need ta move!” Godrick called. “Ah don’t know how much longer we’ve got before that palace collapses and we all melt!”

“Speak for yourself!” Alustin called. “I’m quite happy here!”

“Alustin, you need to stop this madness!” Valia yelled. “Killing innocent civilians won’t bring back Helicote, won’t honor your sisters!”

“It will stop Havath from melting any more cities though, won’t it?” Alustin said, forming a paper doppelganger next to him, then sending it towards Godrick, who began hacking it apart with his floating weapon swarm. The green-glowing entropic axe from Kemetrias proved especially effective against it.

“I still think you’re wrong about the risks of the Tongue Eater,” Sabae called, preparing to throw herself at Alustin, only to use a windjump to kill her momentum as another sunbeam broke through in front of her. “I saw Kanderon’s face, heard her fear— she was terrified of the Tongue Eater being used.”

“If I’m wrong, explain to me how!” Alustin demanded, kicking off the flat of one of his sword echoes, then launching a swarm of pages at the Stormward’s Crown, which immediately started flickering and failing when they made contact with it.

Hugh didn’t even blink, sending a blast of stored water out of his tattoo at the pages. The Crown almost immediately stopped flickering and returned to full strength.

“You’re the expert,” Hugh called. “You taught us to avoid, what did you call it? Motivational reasoning? Why don’t you come up with reasons why?”

Alustin sighed, then threw himself out of Mackerel’s path. The spellbook flew past with enough momentum he would almost certainly have broken quite a few of the paper mage’s bones.

“It’s motivated reasoning, not motivational reasoning, and I’ve been exhaustive in poring over the possibilities. In fact, the Tongue Eater was extremely low on my list of preferred options— but it’s the only weapon in the Vault that stayed on the list after I did my research. I won’t think of anything in the time we have left I haven’t already exhaustively imagined.”

“The Tongue Eater’s rituals traveled farther than yeh claim the explosions will,” Godrick pointed out, then winced as a couple more of his Kemetrian weapons dissolved in yet another sunbeam— the greatsword that could drain and vent heat.

He hadn’t even gotten to use it properly in battle yet.

At least Kemetrian weapons didn’t explode like Anastan ones when they were destroyed. Their runes just fizzled a bit, then went out as the weapons melted.

“They were also rituals,” Alustin said. “Spells sustained for hours or even days. It’s the difference between hitching a cart to a horse to go to the next town, and applying all the force necessary to get to the town all at once. The cart’s just going to explode, not get to the next village.”

“That’s a terrible metaphor,” Valia said, slamming Alustin against the ground with a downburst of wind.

Alustin’s armor crumpled enough that the paper mage took no injury from being thrown down, and a moment later, some of the hundreds of pages flying around the battlefield formed a recombinant ward and blocked the downburst, allowing him to roll aside.

Godrick didn’t think the pages had even been ward segments before— Alustin was terrifyingly fast with his ward magic. He had absolutely no idea how the man was doing that while controlling the paper swarms.

“If you can think of a better metaphor, let me know,” Alustin complained.

“It’s technically an analogy,” Talia said, then pulled out her bone dart gun and fired one of her bonefire needles at Alustin.

He barely dodged, and the needle— by then, almost three feet long— charred a path along the side of his armor.

“We’re trying not to kill him,” Sabae called out.

“Right, sorry.”

“What about the way the Ithonians reinforced their language?” Hugh called out. “That lasted for centuries, and accents like Godrick’s have only started developing recently. I thought spells couldn’t last that long.”

“I have no idea how they did that,” Alustin admitted. “Spells shouldn’t be able to linger in the aether like that.”

“That’s how I always knew the Last Echo wasn’t actually one of the Lord of Bells’ spells,” Valia said, hurling a few blade echoes at Alustin, who barely parried them.

Interestingly, the sword echoes seemed entirely unaffected by the new sunbeam that sprang up in their path.

“Exactly. But it doesn’t particularly matter, because I’m not doing any sort of logic-defying language magic,” Alustin said. “I’m just blowing up an enchanted item. It’s just a bigger version of what Godrick does to all his hammers.”

Godrick ignored the gibe, taking a moment to eye the crumbling palace above them while yanking at Alustin with his gravity hammer. As the paper mage used his wings to resist the pull, Godrick frowned at how rapidly the palace was collapsing.

They couldn’t stay here much longer, it…

Then his mind caught up with something Alustin had just said.

“Yeh said spells shouldn’t linger in the aether that long?” Godrick asked.

“No, the instant a mage stops sustaining them in their aetherbody, or in an enchantment or ward or something, they start dissolving,” Alustin said, flooding the battlefield with origami golems.

Valia hacked one apart, and several dozen others were sliced in half identically, but there were hundreds swarming them, ignoring a few that flew into sunbeams and were incinerated.

“What if the Tongue Eater’s effects aren’t in the aether at all?” Godrick demanded, an idea sitting in the back of his brain, but refusing to crystallize fully.

“Where else would they be?” Alustin asked.

For a moment, Godrick struggled for words, as he tried to grasp the idea forming in his head— and that very moment gave him the answer.

“Language,” Godrick said. “Ah think the Tongue Eater’s effects spread through language itself.”

Then something happened that Godrick wasn’t expecting.

Alustin stopped dead in his tracks.

A small swarm of dreamwasps from Talia went for his legs, only to be blocked by origami golems that refolded themselves into impossible polyhedrons, then tore themselves to shreds.

“Wait,” Alustin said.

Hugh and Godrick blasted lightning at Alustin simultaneously, forcing the papermage to expend more of his golems and ward pages to block them.

“WAIT!” Alustin bellowed, his voice amplified by magic.

And, despite the fact that Alustin was his enemy now, Godrick’s instincts took over, and he stopped when his teacher told him to.

So did all the others. Even Valia, oddly enough.

“That… that actually somewhat makes sense,” Alustin said. “The way the Tongue Eater’s effects spread across seas and continents, even to other worlds? I’ve never heard of another spell going that far. Admittedly, it’s alien magic we don’t really understand, but…”

“That could explain how it stabilized Ithonian for so long as well,” Sabae said.

“That’s why Kanderon was so worried about it potentially affecting the whole continent,” Hugh said.

“Because it wouldn’t be spreading through the aether,” Talia continued.

“It would be spreadin’ through the Ithonian language itself. The released languages are goin’ ta infect everyone who shares a language with us,” Godrick finished.

Mackerel clattered his pages in agreement.

“It’s kind of creepy how you continue each others’ thoughts in sequence like that,” Valia said.

Everyone just looked at her for a moment.

“Right, continental destruction, sorry.”

“Can ah suggest we finish this conversation somewhere else? Pretty sure that palace is about ta’ collapse for good,” Godrick said.

“Probably a good idea,” Alustin said.

THE PALACE, THANKFULLY, waited for them to get out of the sunbeam’s path before collapsing entirely.

When the full force of the sunbeam hit the ground, Godrick swore he could feel the ground shake from the impact, and even with the anti-glare functions in his crystal faceplate, it was almost too bright to look at.

Alustin spent a few minutes pacing, while everyone stood in a circle around him.

“He’s still just delaying,” Valia finally said, raising her sword once more.

“Agreed,” Talia said, extending the wrist blades from her bracers and igniting them.

Alustin shook his head. “No. I needed to think over the possibilities. And… Godrick’s right. Or, at least, there’s a significant enough chance that he’s right, which is too much for me.”

“How much is significant?” Sabae asked.

Alustin dismissed his helmet, allowing Godrick to see his teacher’s face again.

“You want me to make up a percentage? Because I’ll be pulling it from thin air. But it’s absolutely a real possibility, which is unacceptable. I want vengeance, not a continent driven entirely insane,” Alustin said.

“So that’s it? Yeh’re goin’ ta stop this madness?” Godrick asked.

The paper armor around Alustin’s arm swirled and tightened, and then forced the paper mage’s arm back into its socket with an unpleasant noise. Alustin barely even winced at the pain.

And then there was a book sitting in his hand.

The Tongue Eater didn’t look like a language-eating superweapon. It was large and thick, but still held in one hand easily enough. Its cover was heavily embroidered in illustrations that Godrick couldn’t quite decipher, in a frankly pleasant pattern.

The only alarming things about it were the way it twitched and quivered, and the fact that Godrick could hear faint whispers coming from it.

“I don’t know if I can,” Alustin said quietly.

“You just have to not blow it up,” Talia said.

Alustin shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Everything I’ve done here today has been a means to an end, a way to destroy the Tongue Eater and unleash its languages. The whole reason I stole the chitin wand and not some giant magical explosive was for the increase in aether density the labyrinth’s destruction would provide— it wouldn’t be possible to destroy the Tongue Eater without it.”

“That’s why your war made no sense, why your plans seemed so irrational,” Sabae said.

“Ah mean, they’re still irrational,” Godrick pointed out. “Like Hugh says, vengeance is a fool’s game.”

Alustin raised an eyebrow at that, then looked around at the ruined city around them. “I’d say it feels pretty good to me, but keep telling yourself that.”

Valia snarled wordlessly at Alustin, and Godrick had to fight not to do the same.

“We don’t have time for squabbling,” Sabae said. “Alustin, finish your explanation, and hurry.”

Alustin nodded, giving the Tongue Eater a funny look. “I had Sydapsyn’s enchanters build a series of deliberately flawed enchantments, designed to trigger a resonance cascade that would interact with the precise frequencies of the Tongue Eater at huge distances. They’re scattered around the city, steadily building in power.”

“So we destroy them, then,” Hugh said.

Alustin shook his head. “I designed a safeguard in for that. Each one destroyed will pass on its current resonance to both the other resonators and the Tongue Eater itself, accelerating the process, if weakening the final damage dealt to the Tongue Eater. Before Godrick suggested that the Tongue Eater spread through language itself, I assumed that an early detonation would just result in languages leaking out more slowly, and affecting a smaller total area over a greater amount of time, but…”

“So we fly the Tongue Eater away,” Valia said. “Get it as far away from the resonators as possible.”

Alustin shook his head. “I thought of that too. Their range is far enough that we’d never get it away in time without a Thunderbringer. Not even Ilinia could do it. And I placed safeguards against teleporters too— any teleportation of the Tongue Eater or the resonators will trigger the final blast.”

“There has to be some way to get enough distance,” Sabae almost growled. “Can we delay it somehow?”

Alustin shook his head.

“We already know how to get enough distance,” Talia said.

Everyone looked at her, and then it dawned on Godrick what she meant.

“Yeh mean the same way we put enough tension in Hugh’s bond with Kanderon?” Godrick asked.

“We take it through a labyrinth to another world? Would we even have time for that?” Sabae asked.

“Hold on, what now?” Valia asked.

“We might not even need to take it all the way through the labyrinth,” Hugh said, ignoring the Havathi. “Just entering the labyrinth alone would probably be the equivalent of a few hundred leagues, so far as any sort of magical link goes.”

“That wouldn’t…” Alustin started, then paused. “That might actually work, but that runs into the same problem. I just murdered Havath City’s labyrinth, and there aren’t any others close enough.”

“There is one,” Talia said.

“It’s essentially impossible to conceal a labyrinth for any amount of time,” Alustin said. “We’d know if there were another nearby.”

Talia just pointed. For a second, Godrick thought she was pointing at Hugh, and then he realized she was pointing just beside him.

Right at Mackerel.

“Mackerel’s a baby labyrinth,” Godrick said. “And he’s basically built for devouring books!”

Everyone turned to look at Alustin, who gave Mackerel a considering look.

“That… might actually work,” he finally said.

Hugh gave his spellbook a long look, then nodded. “He’s willing to give it a try.”

Mackerel slowly drifted towards Alustin, who held out the Tongue Eater to the crystal spellbook.

Godrick could tell how nervous Mackerel was, but the spellbook just kept advancing on the Tongue Eater.

And then, just a hand’s length from the embroidered book, Mackerel turned and fled straight back to Hugh.

“What’s wrong?” Valia demanded. “Why’d your weird little book run away?”

“Be nice,” Talia snapped. “He’s our weird little book.”

Godrick ignored them and focused on Hugh, who spent a few moments comforting Mackerel before looking up at them. “He says the Tongue Eater’s not a book.”

“Of course it’s a book,” Valia insisted. “It’s got covers, pages, a binding! It’s even full of words, if in a different manner than usual. It’s a book!”

“If it’s not a book,” Alustin asked slowly, “then what is it?”

Hugh looked back down at Mackerel, gently petting the book’s spine.

Then he looked up, an unsettled look on his face.

“He says it’s a prison.”

There was a long, drawn out silence at that.

“Well that’s horrible and ominous,” Talia finally said.

“So that’s it, then?” Sabae demanded. “We’re screwed? We can’t just be out of options.”

“Are we going to ignore the whole prison thing?” Talia asked.

“Yes, because we don’t have time to worry about that,” Sabae snapped. “There’s got to be something else we can try, some other way to…”

“Mackerel still works as a plan,” Alustin said.

“He’s not going to touch the Tongue Eater,” Hugh insisted.

“He doesn’t have to.”

Alustin pulled out another book from his storage tattoo. This one was heavily and obviously enchanted, and seemed to be vibrating.

“I had the resonators crafted as books as well,” Alustin said. “And I kept one of them with me.”

Godrick exchanged glances with Hugh, who gently pushed his spellbook towards the resonator.

Mackerel gingerly eased his way towards the resonator, still clearly alarmed by the Tongue Eater. When Alustin tucked the linguistic weapon back in his storage tattoo, however, Mackerel found his courage once more, and flew more confidently up to the resonator.

And then, in a flash of green crystal, he swallowed the resonator whole.

“Did… did it work?” Sabae asked.

Alustin pulled out the Tongue Eater from his storage tattoo, and Mackerel promptly fled again.

The paper mage spent a couple minutes carefully inspecting the book, even measuring it with strange arcane tools he removed from his tattoo as well.

Then he sighed with audible relief. “It worked. Now we just need to feed Mackerel the rest of the resonators, or at least most of them.”

Godrick wanted to cheer, to hug someone in celebration, but Sabae’s next question and Alustin’s answer brought him up short.

“How many more?”

“Seven.”

Godrick looked around at the ruined city, the emergent labyrinth, the lethal sunbeams, the dripping magma, the pools of alchemical toxins, and the battles raging in the distance. “And how long did yeh say we had ta gather all the resonators and feed ‘em ta Mackerel?”

Alustin grimaced. “A couple hours. If we’re lucky. And I can only track the ones outside the labyrinth influence. Hopefully, Mackerel will be able to track down the others.”

“Delightful,” Valia said sarcastically.

Godrick couldn’t disagree.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Split the Party

“SO OUR OPTIONS are splitting up, bringing in outside help, or both,” Sabae said.

Hugh didn’t particularly like any of those options, but didn’t say anything.

“Mattin Kos is our best bet,” Alustin said. “Unlike most teleporters, he can easily and safely move groups of people. We can track down the resonators quickly and easily that way.”

Hugh raised his hand.

“You don’t need to raise your hand, Hugh.”

He blushed slightly at that— it had been an automatic reaction from years of studying with Alustin. “Mattin Kos tried to murder us, then got involved in a duel with High Priest Eudaxus.”

“He did what?” Alustin demanded, his face like a thundercloud.

“Well, he was trying to threaten us for information first,” Hugh added. “Including about you.”

Alustin scowled. “Well, I can’t track down either of them via scrying. Mackerel, do you see anything through the labyrinth influence?”

Mackerel slid back and forth through the air to indicate a negative, then made some weird motions with his covers and pages.

“He says the labyrinth zone of influence is getting… flickery and weird?” Hugh translated.

“So that’s out, then,” Alustin said. “Well, I could probably reach out to what’s left of my army, get Karna Scythe to send out teams.”

“How do you think they’re going to feel about handing over the resonators to the enemy?” Sabae asked.

“We need some sort of story to convince them,” Talia said. “Some narrative they want to believe.”

“Easy enough,” Valia said. “We lie and blame Havath. Say it’s one of our superweapons that is at risk of activating.”

Hugh and the others all shot the Havathi captain a surprised look.

“As surprising as it is that you’d propose that, it won’t work,” Sabae said, shaking her head. “We’ve layered too many lies, all of us. If we come along and change our story again, who’s going to believe us?”

“My family won’t care,” Talia said.

Hugh nodded at that.

“Likewise, I can’t imagine many will trust me at this point,” Alustin said.

“I’m not talking about any of you convincing anyone,” Valia said. “I’m talking about myself.”

“Ah think they might distrust yeh a bit, since yeh’re the enemy and all,” Godrick said.

“And Havath’s forces are barely holding together, and are almost out of archmages,” Alustin said. “And we can’t trust great powers with this— and even if we could, we’ll draw too much attention.”

“I’m not talking about Captain Valia Warwell, leader of the Havathi Sacred Swordsmen,” Valia said. “I’m talking about Valia Warwell, Helicotan sleeper agent who has spent decades aiding her childhood friend in preparation for Havath’s defeat.”

“But… you’re not a Helicotan sleeper agent,” Alustin said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Talia said. “Everyone will want to believe it, it’s a much stronger story.”

Hugh turned to look at his girlfriend, then nodded. “She’s right. It fits perfectly with Helicote’s legend. It’s exactly the right kind of dramatic. And… I still don’t understand what the Last Echo was, but it would be entirely believable as an act of sabotage.”

“I subverted the Havathi bureaucracy,” Alustin said. “Altered their orders and procedures using my magic to push their infrastructure to the very breaking point.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows at that, then shook his head. “Sabotage is more believable.”

Alustin just sighed.

Valia nodded at Hugh and Sabae. “Precisely. Even more convincingly, I can claim I was the one who leaked Project Vengeful Sword to the target cities. To my knowledge, no one alive knows that Duarch Icola was the true leak.”

Alustin actually spluttered at this. “Excuse me? Duarch Icola did what?”

Valia rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, does that idea offend your black and white perception of the Havathi as the villains from children stories?”

“It definitely does,” Sabae said.

“Oh, also Icola claimed she sent yeh some sort a’ letter?” Godrick added. “Yeh know what letter she means?”

Alustin groaned. “The letter I received in the skiff that night in Theras Tel, the one that revealed Kanderon’s multiversal connections. I figured one of her enemies had sent it to me to try and break my loyalty to her, and it worked, but I never even considered it might be one of the Duarchs of the Havath Dominion.”

“That’s because you refuse to allow any moral complexity into your vendetta,” Talia said.

“No question, Alustin’s an idiot about his whole vengeance thing,” Hugh agreed.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Alustin demanded.

“Because you are,” Hugh said, growing steadily angrier. “People keep assuming that your plan is anything but stupid just because you have power, but you’re no different than any other belligerent, idiotic great power. Power doesn’t bring wisdom, just power. Havath was already doomed, you were just grumpy because you weren’t the one to kill it.”

“I’m not…”

“And your tantrum was somehow worth betraying me and Kanderon,” Hugh finished.

A guilty look crossed Alustin’s face, but Hugh didn’t wait for a response.

He was somewhat surprised with himself for snapping at Alustin, but there wasn’t time to indulge his anger further. It seemed from their expressions, his friends hadn’t expected his outburst either.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hugh said. “How are we going to contact and coordinate with those we recruit?”

“I can summon the remaining Librarians Errant easily enough,” Alustin said, not looking Hugh in the eye. “Valia?”

“Even if I had an easy way to contact the remaining Sacred Swordsmen, we can’t recruit from Havath’s forces if we want this lie to work. And we need to invent a weapon,” Valia said.

“We could stick with the elemental plague?” Sabae offered, then shook her head. “No, that doesn’t explain why we need to feed the resonators to Mackerel.”

“Ah think we could just claim the resonators are threatnin’ ta shatter the elemental plague’s containment device?” Godrick offered.

“And I suppose we can also claim that you convinced us the elemental plague would spread farther than we thought it would?” Alustin offered, looking none too pleased about the concession.

“And that its release will be explosive enough to kill everyone in the city,” Talia added.

“Good enough,” Valia said. “Now let’s get moving. Alustin and I will go after the first few resonators while he mobilizes the Librarians Errant, you all go recruit some Coven archmages and get hunting the resonators inside the labyrinth influence.”

“I believe one of the resonators is in the Coven’s camp as well,” Alustin said. “Too many anti-scrying defenses to tell exactly where, though. It shouldn’t be anywhere near there, though, so someone had to have brought it there.”

Mackerel nudged Hugh, then glanced at Alustin.

“Mackerel can exclude you from his scrying block, Alustin,” Hugh said. “Track us down as quickly as you can.”

Alustin nodded. “Each resonator we feed Mackerel slows down the detonation just a little more, so there’s no sense in waiting to collect all of ours. Also, I can use these to communicate with you.”

Alustin held out a paper band, remarkably like the one he’d given Hugh before the battle for Skyhold.

The very sort of band he’d used to attack Hugh’s bond with Kanderon.

Hugh glared at his former teacher, then snatched it out of his hand.

He didn’t wear it, though. Instead, he sealed it in a ward box generated by his Crown.

His friends all took them as well, but none of them wore theirs either.

And if Alustin looked a little guilty at the mistrust, well, Hugh couldn’t find much sympathy for him there.

THE COVEN’S BASE in the center of the ruins wasn’t far— only twenty minutes atop some of the horizontal labyrinth corridors at their top speed, which was considerably faster than a horse could run, between their enchantments, magic, and body enhancements.

They didn’t all go to it, though— instead, they split up. Sabae, by far the fastest of the group, could get there in half the time they did.

The rest of them split off to track down one of the resonators in the zone of labyrinth influence, which was half again as far as the Coven base in another direction.

That half-hour sprint following Mackerel felt like days.

“Hugh, how are you feeling?” Talia asked cautiously.

His first instinct was to pretend he was fine, and to just tell her to focus on the mission.

Almost immediately, he realized that was the sort of thing that one of the emotionally stunted protagonists of one of Talia’s adventure novels would say, the ones completely incapable of expressing their emotions other than rage until the villain was defeated.

“Angry, distracted, and confused,” Hugh admitted, as he used his force boots and a summoned tailwind to leap a fifteen foot gap with a lava lake hundreds of feet below. “I was expecting for us to have to fight Alustin to the death, honestly— I wasn’t expecting for us to actually talk him into joining us. Let alone Valia.”

“I’m not sure I would have believed it an hour ago,” Talia asked.

Hugh shook his head, then took a deep breath.

There wasn’t much conversation as they crossed the city after that, avoiding magma-falls and sunbeams slowly dragging across the city as the sun moved across the sky.

Several labyrinth collapses occurred as they ran, one at least twice the size of the one they’d triggered earlier, but all were in the far distance, and Hugh did his best to ignore them.

Most of the foes they came across were labyrinth escapees, which they were able to avoid or annihilate easily enough. For once, Talia wasn’t the one doing most of the destruction— Godrick’s flock of flying weapons was more than a match for the swarms of insectoid monsters they kept running into.

A few times enemy mages— or possibly friendly mages mistaking them for enemies— cast spells at them from a distance, but most missed, and the few that hit deflected harmlessly off their armors.

They never even slowed down or cast spells back.

At least, until they reached the location of their target resonator.

It was another of the dozens of palaces that had been lifted almost a mile into the sky by the emergent labyrinth. Hugh was pretty sure there had been more palaces lifted into the air today than even existed on the ground in any other city on the continent.

This palace was entirely stable, perched atop a huge labyrinth cavern, was surrounded by a massive lava moat, and had been turned into a base of operations for a small army of Havathi mages. Hugh could spot dozens if not hundreds of mages through windows and doors and feel at least a dozen significant wards. There were three full-grown dragons perched on the palace roof, and there were dozens of floating spheres of magma orbiting the palace, kept aloft by some combination of magma and gravity magic, most likely.

“It couldn’t just be sitting in, I dunno, an undamaged bookshop on the ground?” Hugh muttered.

“Where would be the fun in that?” Talia asked.

“Yeh think we should be tricky, or just smash through the front door?” Godrick asked.

Mackerel clattered his pages in excitement.

Hugh just groaned.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

The World's Mightiest Flea

SABAE HAD EXPECTED trouble getting to the Coven encampment, but of a more moderate sort.

Siege mages trading building-destroying spells across an open field? Entirely plausible. Lakes of lava and sunbeams carving molten trenches in the rubble? Highly likely. Swarms of dragons battling wind mages and gryphons? Sabae wouldn’t have blinked twice. Great powers skirmishing? A regrettably likely possibility.

What she hadn’t expected, however, was an all-out brawl between most of the surviving great powers, straight between her and the Coven encampment.

Even before she landed in a miraculously-intact garden suspended four hundred feet above the ruined city, with a view of the vast cathedral-like space containing the Coven encampment, she could see the great powers raging.

Ramyl the Chained and the Sican Elder dominated the battlefield, shaking the ruins around them with every move they made. The colossal wooden figure of the Elder towered hundreds of feet into the sky, staggering about as it attempted to free itself from the constricting coils and burning chains of Ramyl, whose six-hundred foot hydra body, no longer flattened out as it had been for the sky drop, dwarfed the rest of the combatants.

Niana Everflame hovered in a massive cloud of smoke and painfully bright fire, spraying huge quantities of phosphorous fire towards Ramyl’s tail, leaving burns even the hydra’s regeneration struggled to repair. Simultaneously, she swung a two-hundred foot whip of smoke and flame through the air towards Casser Spellstorm, who was blocking it with huge clouds of dirt. Dirt magic was usually thought of as one of the weakest combat magics, but it was commonly agreed among other great powers that it was Casser’s mightiest affinity.

Casser’s other magics were trained on no less than four Clan Castis fire elementals, the smallest of which was a wolf thirty feet from nose to tail. The largest elemental was in the shape of a dragon even bigger than Andas Thune, though still far smaller than Indris, and was being ripped apart by dozens of house-sized boulders being thrown by the gorgon queen Karna Scythe, who stood atop a forty-foot pile of rubble.

Dozens of copies of Andas Thune darted in and out of the brawl, most of them obvious illusions, though Sabae couldn’t tell which of them was real. Several of them were spitting lightning across the battlefield, and Sabae realized that she could hear all of them with her lightning affinity sense. She had no idea how he was doing that, he was supposed to just be a lightning dragon, not a lightning mage as well.

The unknown fiber mage they’d seen fighting Andas Thune and the bamboo great power swung into sight, hanging off the Sican Elder and surrounded by another fiber anemone. The nightmare-inducing form of Kraggoth Claw-Mane, apparently done chasing the bamboo power, bounded after the fiber mage, tearing through the smoke rising twenty feet off the ground across the entire brawl. Sabae would wager the entire contents of her storage tattoo that Zersin Grey was lurking somewhere down there and up to something.

And the lot of them were being bombarded with battle and siege spells from not only the Coven position, but also the surviving Havathi army and Alustin’s own forces.

Sabae groaned and rubbed her head. Then, reacting to movement to one side, she whirled and leveled her inertial spear.

Only to see a possum waddling through one of the flower beds.

Sabae glowered at the hideous little creature, but it paid her no mind.

“I hope you get melted by the Eye of Heliothrax,” Sabae told it, tucking her inertial spear away in her storage tattoo.

It gave her a dull, idiotic look, then hissed at her.

Sabae hissed back, then made the single most foolish move of her life.

She launched herself straight into the middle of the brawl of great powers.

SABAE LIKELY WOULDN’T ever be able to fly in the traditional wind-mage manner. It simply required manipulation of wind much farther away from her body than she’d ever be able to handle. She had a few ideas and plans that might lead to flight in the future, mixing and matching her twelve affinities, but they were all a long way off.

Her new magics had, however, proven extremely effective in lengthening the distance of her magical jumps.

Her new stone and crystal affinities allowed her to push off from the ground with much greater force than usual.

Though she hadn’t learned any planar magic, her planar affinity sense had paralleled her sense of balance, slightly enhancing her grasp of how far she was moving with each jump, making her flight just a little more accurate.

Her new bone affinity and her Limnan adaptive magic allowed her body to resist jump forces better, allowing her to push herself harder than ever.

And, most helpful of all, she could simply use her unused affinity reservoirs and mana battery ring to lighten herself with levitation cantrips.

There were a handful of vertical labyrinth columns leading closer to the brawling great powers, and she kicked off one after another, but they only took her so far.

Before she could hesitate, before she had time to change her mind, she’d reached the end of those columns, and then launched herself off the biggest gap— aiming straight at Ramyl the Chained’s back.

Sabae detonated and rebuilt her wind armor again and again, fast as she’d ever done, all while carefully correcting her flight path.

She made it to Ramyl’s back, just barely— but unfortunately, Kraggoth Claw-Mane chose that moment to clamber up on the hydra’s back and lunge at her.

She was fast enough to keep away from it if she kept her distance, but she’d learned— almost the hard way— that the creature could put on ridiculous bursts of speed over short distances— well, what counted as short distances for a creature sixty feet long, at least— and had barely avoided being eaten.

And right now, the chimera was closer to her than it had ever been while she and Valia were luring it towards the bamboo great power.

As the massive, asymmetrical jaws began to snap around her, Sabae yanked a Limnan skyspear staff out of her storage tattoo.

The jaws, big enough to bite an aurochs in half, struck the skyspear staff and came to a halt.

Sabae immediately launched herself away, not waiting to see whether the chimera could shatter the skyspear wood, or whether it would be smart enough to just spit the thing out.

Sabae wasn’t happy to be abandoning one of the near-indestructible staves, but better that than getting eaten.

She windjumped several times to the next of Ramyl’s coils, but it wasn’t much better. She found herself skidding to a halt next to a patch of phosphorous flames as big as a farmer’s field, spewing garlic-scented flames, with several of Ramyl’s burning chains rising up out of it, each link half again her height. She promptly launched herself upwind, not wanting to pull any of the phosphorous smoke into her wind armor.

Unfortunately for her, the next of Ramyl’s immense coils was pulled out of her path as the Sican Elder yanked on the hydra’s body in their struggle.

Which left her two options. Land on the ground in the smoke, or land on the Sican Elder.

It was insane that landing atop an enemy great power was the lesser danger here, but setting foot on the ground anywhere near Ramyl and the Sican Elder was just asking to be crushed like a bug.

Sabae spun in mid-air and redirected towards the Sican Elder.

Halfway to the giant walking plant mage, however, Andas Thune flew directly in front of her.

Even though it was probably another illusion, Sabae spun her legs forward, prepared to crash into the back of the dragon if it was the real version.

It wasn’t, but she still flinched as she passed through the dream and other illusion magic, and when Sabae passed through the illusion, found she was no longer heading for the Sican Elder’s shoulder.

Instead, she was heading for the forest growing down the Elder’s back, above where Ramyl had smashed it while constricting the wooden titan. Even as she descended, she noted that the wrecked parts of the forest were already regrowing.

Sabae barely managed to land safely inside the horizontally growing forest, kicking off two pines, a date palm, and an elm before skidding to a halt on an ash tree.

The forest wasn’t quite full-sized— Sabae didn’t see any tree over forty feet tall— but to have even a small forest as back hair, even disproportionately large and thick back hair, really put the size of the Sican Elder in perspective.

Sabae didn’t have time to reflect on her amazement before she was under attack.

Dozens of Sican plant mages and wind mages came for her within seconds of touching down. Tree branches and hanging vines lashed out at her, sharpshooter mages pelted her with arrows, and the wind mages formed a massive wind shield bubble around several acres of the back hair forest, trapping her inside.

As Sabae desperately bounced from tree to tree, she began weaving additional mana types into her armor.

Water first, woven in strips along her wind armor to create her tideweave armor— the physically most powerful of her pre-warlock pacting armors, but also the most mana intensive and hardest to control. Her tide-strikes were especially unpredictable.

Steel second, creating currents of magic that she released several pounds of steel nails into from her storage tattoo. The nails whirled chaotically along the outside edge of the tideweave armor, shredding anything that came in contact with her— vines, branches, even one particularly foolhardy wood mage with living bark armor that tried to grapple her when she landed near him.

And finally, dream mana, in as high quantities as she could maintain.

She didn’t try to control the dream mana, didn’t try to craft it into dreamfire or a specific illusion. Just spun it around her body at high speeds, and let it react as it would. The dream mana didn’t directly affect any of the other mana types spinning around her, intersecting them freely.

They’d tested this extensively while training on Limnus, and the results had deeply pleased Sabae.

It was as though she was wrapping her body in pure psychological chaos.

People staring at her dream armor suffered a few effects. First off, it warped and distorted her form until she was completely unrecognizable, leaving viewers unable to tell which body part was which or how she was moving them. They even struggled to tell what direction she was moving in, half the time.

Those were the least important effects of her dream armor, though.

Dream magic was different than other illusion magics— it operated not by the extensive work of mimicking reality, but rather, by tricking observers into doing it. Dream illusions weren’t about precisely detailed images, but about the feelings those images engendered.

And chaotic, unstructured dream mana? Pushed protean, evershifting sensations into the minds of observers. Gave them flickers of recognizability, empty frames on which to weave delusions of familiarity. One moment an observer might see a loved one whose identity they couldn’t recognize, the next they might see a childhood nightmare or a glimpse of battlefield trauma.

It was not a powerful effect, was easily resisted enough if an observer were prepared for it, but unprepared in the chaos of battle, trying to track a swift-moving target?

The Sicans completely lost track of her. One vine mage even fell out of a tree, though he caught himself.

Sabae didn’t take advantage of their temporary confusion to attack them. There was no point to it— she was here to get to the Coven encampment, not to fight the Sicans, who had absolutely no logical reason to be in the city. Maybe they were trying to get their hands on one of the who knew how many magical superweapons floating about? Maybe they just felt left out? Sabae had absolutely no idea.

Instead, Sabae matched her direction of flight to the spin of the wind shield trapping her, sent the nails orbiting her exploding out in every direction, then detonated all the water out of her tideweave armor in a long sustained burst, trying to match the wind shield’s spin.

Then, surrounded only by wind and dream armor, she merged into the wind shield.

Normally, the enemy wind mages should have been able to prevent another wind mage moving through their wind shield like that, but they had three things working against them.

First was the fact that Sabae’s wind shield was just better than most other wind shields. It was more cohesive, more powerful, and harder to disrupt. She had far better control over it than other wind mages over their own wind shields.

Second was the dream armor spinning around her, making it hard for the Sican wind mages to tell exactly where Sabae was passing through their wind shield.

And third, and possibly most importantly, at least half a dozen of them had been wounded or killed by the swarms of nails Sabae had just detonated into the back hair forest.

Sabae let the wind shield carry her around its circumference a couple of times as she eased her way towards the outer edge, then waited for the perfect moment to launch herself out.

The spin of the wind shield added considerable momentum to her jump when she exited, and she curved in an almost flat arc towards the coven encampment. She came uncomfortably close to the immense thorns jutting from the Sican Elder’s elbow, and then she was free and clear, arcing towards the Coven encampment.

Until, that was, another Andas Thune passed in front of her.

She tried not to flinch this time, tried to stay focused on her destination— but when her dream armor hit the dream illusion in front of her, something bizarre happened. The illusion seemed to fracture on the inside, and Sabae actually saw the internal construction of the dream illusion, saw how the various moving parts connected with the emotional parts. She saw the lightning mage flying inside the head, mimicking the lightning dragon’s breath weapon.

The sudden glimpse of the illusion’s mechanics distracted her, and her next wind burst sent her tumbling out of control as she passed out of the illusion.

That tumble revealed something else fascinating— all of the versions of Andas Thune in the brawl were illusions.

She didn’t have time to contemplate whether he was invisible near the battle, or elsewhere in the city. Nor did she have time to wonder whether it was just her dream armor that allowed her to see it, or whether it was the dream armor in combination with her magical goggles. Instead, she regained control of her flight in time to find her off-course and on an intercept path with dozens of projectiles from Casser Spellstorm, mostly ball lightning.

Sabae immediately spun up her lightning and stellar mana around herself, then aimed straight for a dense cluster of ball lightning— mostly because there were few other types of projectiles there. Her armor absorbed it one crackling sphere at a time, then as she passed out of the rear of the storm, detonated them away all at once, in a huge flare of light.

When the lightburst cleared, she found herself descending towards yet another of Ramyl’s coils, itself wrapped in his coils of burning chain.

And atop that was the fiber mage’s anemone armor, somehow fighting off a Clan Castis elemental without being burned.

Sabae crashed down near the anemone armor, well within its tendrils’ grasp, barely avoiding one of the massive red-hot chains jutting from the hydra’s flesh.

Then Ramyl began to move, and Sabae found herself moving away from the Coven encampment.

It was then that the fiber mage noticed her, and dozens of fiber tendrils raised in the air towards her. Sabae idly noticed that there were literally thousands of spellforms woven into the tendrils— if she had to guess, fire-resistance spellforms, to fend off the fire elementals, Niana Everflame, and Ramyl’s chains.

Rather than launch herself away, though, Sabae acted on a whim, dispelling her dream armor and waving at the fiber mage.

“Think I could get a boost?” Sabae called, amplifying her voice with a cantrip and pointing at the Coven encampment.

The anemone armor’s tendrils paused— at least, the ones not fighting the Clan Castis elemental.

“Are we even on the same side?” a woman’s voice asked, echoing from vibrating strands in the fiber armor.

Sabae shrugged. “I don’t even know how many sides there are in this battle anymore, but I’ve got no feud with you.”

“This is the oddest battlefield conversation I’ve ever had, but fair enough,” the fiber mage said.

Then a single fiber tendril, twice the width of Sabae’s torso, extended itself, coming to a halt right in front of her. The tip slowly flattened, giving Sabae a platform to stand on.

She took a deep breath, decided to take a particularly Talia-like risk, and hopped on.

“Hold on,” the fiber mage told her.

There was a rush of motion, Sabae almost blacking out even with her Limnan adaptations, and then Sabae was halfway to the Coven encampment.

Behind her, the Sican Elder and Ramyl the Chained lost their grips on one another and were sent staggering, as Karna Scythe began to shake the very ground they stood on, as she focused enough quake magic to level a small city on a circle a few thousand feet across.

SABAE’S LANDING WENT smoothly. There were a small handful of battle-spells cast at her, but it seemed she’d been recognized, and the defensive wind shield parted to let her through.

She aimed her landing at a patch of empty soil— perhaps there’d once been another garden atop it, before the Coven mages flattened and cleared the site. Even doing her best to slow down, her legs buried themselves almost up to the knees and dug trenches in the ground.

Between her Limnan adaptations, her bone affinity modifications, and her armor, the impact barely even hurt.

Though it was definitely mostly her armor. Even with the body modifications, her bones would have snapped on impact without her armor.

Within seconds of her climbing out of the dirt, she was being lead towards a command post, of which there were several, just in case a siege spell or great power managed to take one out.

The encampment itself was bizarre. There were no tents, only magically dug trenches and bunkers. Minimal supply depots, with only enough to maintain the army for a day at most. Almost no noncombatants.

There was no possible way this army could hold a city, but it had never been intended to.

This specific command post was a ward-wrapped stone bunker sculpted out of marble rubble, and held Talia’s brother Luthe, one of the two highest commanders of the encampment, and was connected to the other two command posts via seers and illusionists, projecting the images of other command posts into each command post. It was an incredibly difficult collaborative magic to pull off, and had a maximum range of under a league, but it was perfect for a distributed command post.

“What have you got for us, Sabae?” Luthe asked, looking up from a three-dimensional sand map of the ruins and the emergent labyrinth, maintained by sand mages and seers. There were huge gaps in the map, as much of a third of it, where the labyrinth influence blocked scrying. “Have you succeeded in your mission?”

“Halfway,” Sabae said, then started lying. “We’ve contained the elemental plague, but the resonators Alustin used to detonate the chitin wand are threatening to destabilize it. We’ve figured out how to prevent it, by feeding them to Hugh’s spellbook, but I need more mages to help us track them down— including one in this very camp. Also, it turns out Valia Warwell was loyal to Helicote all this time, and was behind the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells, and once we convinced her that the elemental plague would spread beyond the Dominion, she persuaded Alustin to help us track down the resonators.”

Luthe narrowed his eyes at her, but before he could say anything, arguments burst out from the handful of archmages in the bunker, as well as from the projections from the other two command posts.

“We can’t trust…”

“…can’t work with Alustin or…”

“…deceiving us somehow!”

Luthe snapped his fingers, simultaneously setting off a small explosion of flame over his hand to shut everyone up.

“How many mages do you need, and where is this resonator in the camp?”

Sabae sighed in relief. Talia had said that her brothers definitely suspected how serious the situation was, and Luthe’s intervention backed that up. And, since none of the other field commanders objected, it shut everyone else up.

“I need a highly mobile force of archmages,” Sabae said. “There are seven more resonators, including the one in this camp, left to find. We can roughly track down most of them. They absolutely cannot be destroyed— if we lose more than one or two of them, it will trigger a chain reaction that collapses the elemental plague containment even faster.”

There were several more attempts at interruptions, but the various field commanders hushed them. Sabae couldn’t get a read on the Highvale commander, but Eddin Slane was clearly taking her seriously. The ranking priest of Indris’ cult commanding her forces here seemed a little skeptical, meanwhile, and the distant Kaen Das cousin, Geris, commanding the Ras Andis mages was giving Sabae a calculating look. He probably thought she was making a play for favor with Ilinia, but Sabae knew the man just well enough to know he wouldn’t try to interfere with her mission over family politics.

When the interruptions ceased, Sabae described the resonators, and to her relief, Eddin immediately recognized it.

“The Frost Ghost killed a small group of Librarians Errant and retrieved a book like you’re describing,” the ceramic mage said. “He assumed they were retrieving it, not planting it, though. I’ll have our windtalkers direct him to you immediately. He’ll work perfectly for your task force, too.”

Sabae tried not to grimace. Of course it had been Rhodes to find it, and of course they’d try to send him with her.

She couldn’t offer any good reasons not to bring him without outing his identity to the Highvale general, which might cause a fracture within the Coven force when they could least afford it.

Plus, despite the fact that Rhodes was a terrible human being, Sabae had no reason to suspect he would betray or fail them. His interests clearly aligned with theirs, for now.

For now.

As her new strike force gathered, good news arrived from the edge of the encampment— Zersin Grey had fallen, either stepped on by the Sican Elder or devoured by Kraggoth Claw-Mane, their seers and scouts weren’t sure. The smoke cloud was already dissolving and drifting away, revealing a massive series of spellforms, also made of smoke, that were drifting away more slowly.

The gorgon smoke mage, it seemed, had been crafting some sort of massive offensive ward out of smoke— though what it was intended to do, or who it was targeted at, they couldn’t tell— the ward was too degraded already.

Finally, Sabae’s archmages were assembled.

First was the Frost Ghost himself, Rhodes Charax, who handed over the resonator silently, giving Sabae no idea what he was thinking. She did notice that he was wielding the skyspear staff Hugh had given him, and had attached some sort of oversize, heavily enchanted spearhead to it.

Next was, more surprisingly, Eddin Slane himself.

“Aren’t you needed to help command?” Sabae asked him.

“Luthe and the others are more than competent enough to handle things without me,” Slane replied, as he armored himself in a form-fitting grid of hexagonal ceramic plates. “And everything here is secondary to securing the elemental plague. Securing the Vault is Skyhold’s entire reason for existence, everything else is secondary. I will personally ensure that this elemental plague is returned to containment, even if we can’t get Skyhold’s Vault open again and have to build another.”

Sabae blinked at that, realizing that the man wasn’t just a close ally of Kanderon’s, but a true believer in her purpose. There were far worse causes to be a true believer in. That gave her yet another reason to respect the man, alongside his magical skill and his commitment to the open sharing of magical knowledge.

The only surprising part of having four of Talia’s family members join in was that it wasn’t more.

Leon, minus a finger and with a few minor phosphorous burns, showed up alongside Gram and Haela.

“This idiot tried to pick a fight with Niana Everflame,” Gram said.

“I had to freeze off my own finger to stop the phosphorous from spreading through my body!” Leon said excitedly, looking like losing a finger was the greatest thing in the world.

Gram and Haela just sighed heavily.

“I’m so proud of my boy, trying to kill a great power,” Talia’s mother Rose said, joining them. Her bizarre armor and sword practically radiated heat. “He’s going to join their ranks sooner or later, I just know it.”

Sabae contemplated telling the woman about Talia killing the Herdsman at Dragonclaw Yardang, but decided that could wait for later.

She didn’t even consider for a moment telling her about Talia’s skeleton being a city-killing superweapon.

Tena Brand and Shimmering Cardovan showed up next. The heat and water mage bore hundreds of new scars— tiny little cuts running along her skin, all in the same general direction and widening as they went. They’d all been healed recently— Sabae’s healing affinity sense could feel the lingering traces of the healing spells in Brand’s flesh.

Sabae had absolutely no idea what could have done that. The scars looked nothing like paper cuts, or she might have suspected Alustin.

Shimmering Cardovan, meanwhile, looked none the worse for wear, apart from a few cracks and scratches in their beryl armor. They were humming some sort of cheery, upbeat tune, which resonated unnaturally with every solid object in the command bunker. It almost destabilized the sand map before Luthe ordered Cardovan to stop.

After that it was a half dozen fliers, mostly not archmages, aside from another cousin of Sabae’s, Vervyn, who was a powerful wind mage and a weak sound mage. He rarely cast offensive or even showy sound magic— instead, he used his sound affinity and affinity sense to map out his surroundings for hundreds of feet in every direction, allowing him to fly in dangerous conditions safely, often while carrying multiple passengers.

And, finally, one of Indris’ children joined them— Scrathinax, a fifty-foot long younger dragon with a strong gravity affinity.

“Are you sure you don’t need more mages?” Luthe asked.

Sabae shook her head. “Any larger force would attract too much attention. This will have to be enough.”

Luthe nodded, then turned back to directing the battle.

She turned as well, then stopped, and strode over to Luthe’s side.

“The labyrinth is giving way,” she said softly. “Who knows how long until it collapses onto you. It could be minutes, it could be hours, it could be days. You need to get the army out.”

“I know,” Luthe said at the same volume, without looking at her. “But with the Eye of Heliothrax beating down, we have no exit from the city. We’re working on trying to dig a bunker, but… we’re not sure we can go deep enough or reinforce it enough for the labyrinth’s collapse, even burrowing under the remains of the Intertwined’s demesnes. All we can do is try, and hope the labyrinth will last beyond the battle. You have something more important to worry about, though.”

She nodded and left.

Sabae wasted no time getting her mages onto Scrathinax’s back— the great power brawl had moved farther away from the encampment, so now was a perfect time to rejoin the others.

She just hoped their resonator was lying somewhere nice and easy for them to find.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Palace in the Sky

TALIA SCOWLED AT the Havathi occupied palace with its magma moat, as though her glare could pierce its defenses.

“Maybe we could use the Stormward’s Crown to swim up one of the magma falls?” Talia asked.

Hugh just shook his head.

“Ah’d think yeh would just want ta go fer a full frontal assault,” Godrick said.

Talia shook her head. “Too much at stake to risk that unless we have to. There’s got to be another way in. Hugh, Godrick, any other ideas?”

Both of them shook their heads. Talia started to turn back to glare at the suspended palace some more, then paused and turned back.

“Mackerel, do you have any ideas?” she asked.

Probably a terrible idea, on her part, but…

To her surprise, the spellbook didn’t immediately propose something absurd and ridiculous through Hugh, but floated over beside her to gaze at the palace, then just watched it for a couple of minutes.

Then he bobbed up in the air, gave her an excited look, and whirled on Hugh.

Talia could tell, based on Hugh’s facial expression, that whatever Mackerel was proposing was definitely crazy.

Her boyfriend sighed, then rubbed the back of his head.

“Mackerel says that there’s a weak point in the labyrinth right below the palace, that it’s starting to decay there. He wants us to find another weak spot or opening, climb in, and work our way to the palace through the inside of Havath’s Labyrinth.”

“Ah couldn’t think of anythin’ that would possibly go wrong climbin’ around in a dead labyrinth,” Godrick muttered. “Nothin’ at all.”

Talia just smiled.

MACKEREL LED THE group to a crack in a vertical labyrinth tunnel, around half a mile of sprinting away. It was thirty feet above the nearest horizontal labyrinth tunnel, and Godrick carved handholds for them to ascend to it.

Talia couldn’t help but recall their first labyrinth test, when they’d been pinned against a wall by animated statues that she’d held back with a dreamfire trench. Godrick had carved handholds for them then as well, but it had been an arduous process, each one taking them precious seconds as the statues tried to breach the dreamfire.

This time, Godrick had already finished the hand and foot-holds before he’d even climbed his own height off the ground.

Talia was expecting Godrick to wait a while at the entrance to the crack, for him to craft handholds or something to ascend, but to her surprise, he just made a puzzled noise and hopped right in.

Hugh, likewise, just hopped in after looking inside.

When Talia reached the hole, she looked inside to see Godrick and Hugh both, bizarrely enough, standing perpendicular to the planet’s surface on the wall to her left.

“It’s safe, just watch yer head,” Godrick told her.

Talia shrugged and clambered in. She felt a moment of disorientation as gravity was tugging her legs one way and her upper body another, and then Godrick was helping her to the surface they were standing on.

“I thought there were a weirdly high number of vertical columns,” Talia muttered, as she looked either direction down the hallways. “There’s no correspondence to up between here and outside, is there?”

“I don’t think so,” Hugh said. “Though the vertical columns still make a sort of sense— Havath City’s labyrinth was almost as large as Skyhold’s is, but lacks anything like its discrete floors. Though I don’t know if there was any gravity weirdness before Alustin killed it.”

Mackerel clacked his covers sadly, as though mourning the dead labyrinth, and Talia reached out to stroke his cover gently.

“As curious as ah am about that, ah think we should get movin’ before this section a’ the labyrinth decays any more, and natural gravity reasserts itself,” Godrick said.

“Good idea,” Hugh said.

Talia patted Mackerel’s cover comfortingly one last time, then began walking down the labyrinth passage.

Or, up it, she supposed.

THE LABYRINTH FELT curiously empty to Talia. Not just because most of its monsters had already flooded out into the city, but because there was some sort of… absence. Some sort of vital force missing from the labyrinth’s halls, as though the remaining labyrinth influence were just the heat fading from a fresh corpse.

There were, at least, plenty of traps, but Talia suspected that if they triggered any, they wouldn’t reset themselves this time.

As they climbed closer to the suspended palace, Talia began seeing more and more signs of labyrinth decay. More cracks in the walls, of course, but also stranger effects.

Corridors where the gravity of the labyrinth was fighting the gravity of Anastis, and debris was tumbling back and forth between the wall and the floor as the labyrinth gravity flickered. Another passageway where the size-altering properties of the labyrinth halls had failed, gruesomely trapping and crushing an adult dragon in a space a third the width of his torso, his undamaged neck and head sprawled across the hall. Cracks in the labyrinth that magma had begun to ooze into from outside. Mana vents where the spellforms were starting to whine as they decayed, giving rise to symphonic squeals almost recognizable as music.

And through it all, they only spotted a handful of labyrinth denizens, and those only cat-sized insectoid creatures that fled at their approach.

Every now and then, they heard the roar of magical battle from one of the cracks in the walls, but for the most part, the dead labyrinth was eerily silent as they closed in on the palace. There was one tricky bit where the floor crumbled away beneath Talia, but she locked her kinetic bracers into place until Godrick had a firm grip on her to haul her to safety.

There wasn’t anything special about the spot where Mackerel stopped them to burrow into the palace, save for two simple facts:

First, that they were in a corridor, when the palace clearly rested atop a vast labyrinth cavern. And second, that they’d be digging through the labyrinth floor to ascend up into the palace.

“Seems like normal gravity isn’t the only thing this place ignores,” Talia said. “It looks like it ignores basic spatial relations as well. There’s no way we’re standing upside down in relation to the real world, with the various turns we took to get here.”

Talia absolutely trusted that Mackerel had guided them to the correct place, though, and together with Hugh and Godrick, began digging away the stone floor with their stone and crystal magic.

It was unnervingly easy— the stone wasn’t just weak for a labyrinth wall, but weak for stone in general. The basalt was crumbling like a particularly weak mudstone, and Talia was halfway convinced that she might be able to break it apart with her bare hands.

Hugh and Godrick handled most of the digging, since they were more experienced working with stone, while Talia just handled moving the debris away from them, since her magic started heating up the stone as soon as it touched it.

Their progress slowed considerably when they hit a thick layer of dirt— none of their twelve magics directly affected dirt, after all. Hugh and Godrick ended up crafting stone scoops to shovel the dirt away with their magic. As they cleared more dirt, it grew easier and easier— they were, after all, digging up from below, so the dirt began collapsing towards them.

When it fell down to the labyrinth, however, gravity was pointing the opposite direction, so a small cloud of dirt quickly started oscillating up and down in the center of the hole, until they cleared it away.

As they worked, they heard an odd noise, and Talia turned to see that the paper bands Alustin had given them were buzzing. Talia wasn’t wearing hers, and had instead kept it in her storage tattoo as a safer option.

When neither of the others moved to grab their bands, Talia sighed, then reached into the storage tattoo around her mouth and pulled out her band and pushed mana into the part of the spellform that would respond to Alustin.

“I’ve been trying to contact you for a few minutes now,” Alustin's voice quietly buzzed from the paper. “I’m assuming you were in an especially dense area of labyrinth influence?”

Talia looked at the labyrinth around them— the hole they were digging must have let Alustin’s communications spell reach them.

“Something like that,” Talia said.

“We’ve got news on another resonator,” Alustin said. “The Librarians Errant found one destroyed— drowned in one of the magma flows dripping down from the upper reaches of the labyrinth.”

“Is there a risk of that triggering the Tongue Eater?” Talia asked.

“No,” Alustin said, to her relief. “But if we lose another, there’s a better than even chance the Tongue Eater will detonate, and if we lose a third, it’s guaranteed.”

Part of Talia immediately suspected they’d find one more resonator destroyed— it wouldn’t be a proper story if the odds of destruction didn’t push right against the limit. She managed not to say anything about it, however, because now was not the time.

“Understood,” she said instead. “We’re infiltrating a Havathi position to retrieve another.”

Then an odd impulse came over her, and she spoke again. “Were you telling the truth about me earlier?”

Alustin was silent for a moment before answering. “I was.”

Talia stepped away from the dig site a few feet— Hugh and Godrick didn’t really need her help.

“It just doesn’t feel…” she started, then stopped.

Alustin sighed. “This isn’t really the best time for this, but if we fail, I suppose there won’t be another time.”

Talia just grunted, not sure what to say.

“When I was young,” Alustin said, “I was raised knowing I’d be one of the Lords Citizen, the champions and civic leaders of Helicote— the Lord of Bells’ own representatives. For all of my father’s terrible parenting, for all of his failures as a person, he trained me well for my role. And then, when I was fourteen years old, I developed my paper and farsight affinities, and my father rejected me as his heir. Everything I’d trained for, the future I knew I was destined for, was gone.”

Talia’s insides clenched at that, because Alustin might as well have been telling her story.

“I tried for years to fill the hole my lost destiny had left inside me, never with any success. And no matter how many people told me that I didn’t need to weigh myself against the future I should have had, I couldn’t stop. My vengeance helped fend off the pain from the loss of my family, my city, my friends, but it never helped fill the hole that should have been my future.”

There was a long silence, and for a moment, Talia thought that Alustin must have gotten caught up in battle.

“It was only when I realized that it wasn’t a hole, but a thorn inside me, that I realized I needed to stop trying to fill it, and then pull it instead.”

“I don’t understand,” Talia said quietly.

“You spent your childhood being told you would become Clan Castis’ greatest weapon,” Alustin said. “And then you’d thought you failed, and spent years trying to fill that hole. No matter how powerful and deadly you grew, it wasn’t as a fire mage, wasn’t as your Clan’s weapon. Now you’ve found that you’re more powerful than Clan Castis had ever anticipated, a weapon on a scale far greater than they’d ever hoped. That knowledge doesn’t help fill the hole in you at all, does it?”

Talia closed her eyes. The revelations were still too much, still too raw— she still hadn’t absorbed them, still hadn’t come to terms with them.

But she knew for a fact that Alustin was right.

“No,” she whispered.

“It’s a thorn, not a hole,” Alustin said. “Stop worrying about who you’re supposed to be, and start thinking about who you are.”

And, just like that, Talia knew the answer. Hugh had told her earlier, and she’d humored him, but she hadn’t really believed it, had set it aside to attend to battle and to fret about her status as a great power.

“I’m not a weapon,” she whispered into the paper. “I’m a warrior. I’m not wielded by others, I choose my path.”

“Now that,” Alustin said, “is an excellent first step.”

Talia smiled faintly, and then put away the paper band. Not back in her storage tattoo, but on her wrist.

Alustin might still have to answer for his betrayals, but for now, it would be foolish to slow down their speed of communication by a potentially crucial few seconds just because she was afraid to wear the paper band on her arm.

At least, that’s what she told herself as she put it on her arm.

Then she returned to the others to help them dig.

TO TALIA’S AMUSEMENT, the foundation was common limestone, not marble— it seems the decadence of Havath City had only gone so deep.

There were structural reinforcement enchantments running along the base of the foundation, but they were lucky enough to only have a couple of the metal bands where they were digging, and could easily work their way around them. Hugh and Godrick moved more quickly than with the dirt, but were still extremely cautious to stay as quiet as possible while they worked, even with the sound ward Hugh crafted.

“We could drill a tiny hole to peer through to look for anyone?” Hugh suggested quietly.

Talia rolled her eyes. “We have twelve affinity senses each now. There’s no way someone’s going to be able to hide from them.”

Talia crouched down over the hole, closed her eyes, then reached out with her affinity sense.

Searched for breath with her wind affinity, sweat with her water affinity, and skeletons with her bone affinity. Looked for swords and knives with her steel affinity, looked for the flickers of imagination her dream affinity could pick up in even the most awake mind.

Talia found plenty of Havathi, could almost make out the specific details of what they were doing with her affinity senses. But none of them were anywhere near their entrance.

“We’re clear,” Talia said. “Open up.”

Godrick and Hugh severed the palace floor together, all at once, and the hefty oval-shaped chunk of floor fell down towards them— or from Talia’s perspective, up towards them.

It promptly got caught in the gravitational oscillation, until Hugh and Godrick pulled it out and set it in the hallway beside them.

“Here goes,” Talia muttered, then swan-dived into the hole head-first.

She felt her stomach lurch unpleasantly as she passed the gravitational divide, and barely managed to catch the edge of the hole above her.

Once she’d grasped, it, though, it was easy to pull herself up into the palace below. Or perhaps it was easy to pull herself down into the palace above.

Talia found herself, off all places, in a half-empty wine cellar. Not the kind of cellar where they’d keep the good stuff, the kind of cellar where they’d keep the servants’ wine and the like.

The important part was that the room was empty, just as her affinity senses had claimed.

She moved aside so that Hugh and Godrick could climb up.

“It’s about twenty feet above us, and two hundred feet to the side,” Hugh said, consulting with Mackerel. “I think.”

“Violence or stealth?” Talia asked.

“Stealth,” Hugh said immediately.

“Stealth,” Godrick agreed.

Mackerel clacked his covers together quietly.

Talia sighed heavily. “Fine.”

Hugh wrapped the group in the Stormward’s Crown, and they slipped up the stairs out of the wine cellar.

The palace wasn’t quite as intact as it appeared from the outside, but the damage was almost entirely cosmetic. Decorations and paintings fallen to the floor, a few shelves collapsed, that sort of thing.

And, of course, the supplies of the Havathi mages and soldiers scattered about the floors and furnishings, painfully obtrusive in their utilitarianism compared to the lavish palace, and the Havathi themselves.

Talia couldn’t help but wonder how many of the Havathi had already been inside the mansion when it lifted to the sky. Surely it couldn’t have been empty— the idea that all of these mages and soldiers could have ascended all the way up here to the mansion was a bit hard to believe, and surely the magmafall would have incinerated the palace foundations, swept the whole thing off the great platform into the depths below.

A few times Talia was convinced that someone would spot them, notice the enemies in their midst. Each time, the Crown’s attention wards made their attention just… drift past them, as though their group were merely more Havathi soldiers bustling about the palace.

It wasn’t powerful magic at all, really— anyone with training could break through an attention ward, even non-mages, even the mind-blind. And surely at least a few of the Havathi they passed had that training.

But none of them saw through it, for a simple reason. Not luck, not the Crown’s complexity, but due to the plain, ordinary fact that the Havathi felt prepared, that nothing would slip through their defenses without a fight.

It was their own confidence that let Talia and her friends slip past them.

And then they’d reached the resonator. It wasn’t guarded by the Havathi, wasn’t hidden in some strange spot— it was merely tucked into a bookshelf, resting quietly among volumes of history and magical theory, where the Librarians Errant had hidden it.

None of the Havathi occupying the fortress had even glanced twice at one of the devices that had destroyed their city.

And then the resonator was gone, fed to Mackerel, and they were moving back towards the basement again, in a profound anticlimax. Things went smoothly, defying Talia’s every sense of good story, of dramatic tension, and then they were back in the labyrinth. They had successfully infiltrated an impossibly fortified position without any errors or slip-ups.

They left no traps, didn’t seek to destabilize the palace at all.

It would fall soon enough, as the labyrinth rotted away beneath it. Plummet a mile to the ground, perhaps interrupted by still-sturdy labyrinth passages, perhaps not.

Regardless of whether the Havathi remained within it.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Heirs of Helicote

THE LAST TWO Helicotans flew side by side through the slowly crumbling maze that had sprouted from the ruins of Havath City, united in purpose for the first time since childhood, and all Alustin could think about was how awkward it felt.

It should have been glorious, should have felt right, and instead Alustin just spent most of the flight trying and failing to come up with awkward small talk. Worse, it was a long flight— this resonator was the farthest out.

The reports from the Librarians Errant and his long-overdue conversation with Talia at least gave him an escape from the silence. They weren’t even attacked— they kept to zones of labyrinth influence, now that there was no reason to evade the attention of his students.

It was Valia who finally broke the silence between them, speaking through the voice transmission paper glyph Alustin had provided her.

“So how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” Alustin asked, even though he knew what she meant.

“Vengeance. Finally laying waste to Havath City, avenging our childhood home. Does it fill the hole in your heart?”

Alustin wondered whether Valia had eavesdropped on his conversation with Talia, but it didn’t matter.

“Honestly? It feels pretty great,” Alustin admitted. “Doesn’t fill the hole in my heart, doesn’t bring back my sisters, but it feels pretty good, I suppose? Honestly, it still doesn’t feel entirely real, as though I’ll wake up from a dream anytime now.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me for considering this more of a nightmare,” Valia said. “But if this was enough to satisfy you, why the Tongue Eater?”

“Oh, I never said I was satisfied,” Alustin said. “I doubt that’s ever in the cards for me, even if I do survive today and find a way to fully wipe out the Dominion and their multiversal backers. No, today feels great as a step in the right direction on that path.”

Valia grunted, then fell silent once more.

“How’re you holding up?” Alustin asked her, not willing to return to silence.

“What do you mean?” Valia asked, even though Alustin was sure she knew what he meant.

“How are you holding up with the revelations about the Dominion, with having your loyalty be repaid with lies?”

“That’s kinder than I thought you’d phrase it.”

“How did you think I’d phrase it?”

“I expected you to ask me how losing felt.”

Alustin winced. “I may be a vengeful city-killing madman, but that doesn’t mean I need to be a jerk.”

Valia actually snorted in amusement at that.

“It’s not the lies that hurt the worst, not the fact that Havath never truly followed its own ideology. It’s the fact that all of the sacrifices that I made, that I pushed others into making, were all for nothing. I wasted my own life and those of others. I believed in our mission… no, I still believe in that mission. Still believe it would be possible to drive back the chaos of the great powers with a strong, just system. It just needs someone better than my superiors. Someone… better than me.”

Alustin struggled to find a response to that. Banter in battle against Valia had always been so easy, but now, during the first genuine conversation they’d had in decades…

“I won’t try and justify what you did, say you should feel better, but at least you made those sacrifices in good faith. Better than doing so cynically in the pursuit of power, as your superiors did.”

“Or in the pursuit of vengeance?” Valia asked pointedly.

“Or that,” Alustin said. “You may have sent your followers to their death, but you never knowingly betrayed them, like I did.”

“So I’m awful, but I could be worse? Forgive me if that doesn’t help me live with myself.”

Alustin snorted a laugh filled with precious little humor. “I don’t know that either of us get to live with ourselves or forgive ourselves. We’ve both done too much, crossed too many lines. We’re either going to die in battle or turn into a bitter mass of scars.”

“How cheerful.”

Alustin chuckled with actual humor at that, and a moment later, Valia joined in.

As they laughed, Alustin could see the blast radius of the battle between Heliothrax and the Coven roll past them on their left, heading back in the direction they’d come. Even from over a mile away, with labyrinth passages blocking their view, Alustin could see the shockwaves of power, see labyrinth collapses triggering one after another as the great powers clashed.

“Why did you save my life against your students, earlier?” Valia asked unexpectedly.

Alustin sighed heavily. “Because I meant what I said at Dragonclaw Yardang.”

“When you invited me to abandon all of this, to flee with you to another continent?”

Alustin nodded. “We could have traveled to Cloudspine, visited the Lord of Bells’ homeland, maybe.”

“I always wanted to visit the Gelid mudflats,” Valia admitted. “See the mudflower cities.”

“I’ve heard they smell terrible,” Alustin said. “But they’re not too far from the Pottery Hills.”

“Do you think they were really a great power’s art project, or just the result of a battle between great powers?” Valia asked.

“Probably the latter,” Alustin admitted. “I’d still love to see it, regardless.”

“The Caldera of Flowers after that?”

“Do you think they really have a giant scent elemental, or just a bunch of scent and flower mages defending it?”

“Probably the latter, but you never know.”

“I’ve heard there’s a waterfall that permanently flows uphill somewhere in Cloudspine, with a massive enchantment powering it. Some ancient city high in the mountains built it to supply their water before they were wiped out by a roving great power.”

Valia raised an eyebrow at that. “I’ve never even heard of that, but I’d love to see it.”

“We’d have to find it first, it’s lost deep in the Cloudspine mountains.”

“I’m up for it,” Valia said. Then her expression soured. “Except we’ll probably never get the chance, will we? Even if we survive today, we’d be hunted down long before we can escape the continent.”

Alustin’s mind went back to his students’ admission of traveling to other worlds through labyrinths, and he smiled. “Maybe not. I might know of a path no one would expect. And even if someone did track us down… we’re the last two scions of Helicote. I’d love to see who’d get in our way.”

Valia actually smiled back at him at that. “I thought we were inevitably destined just to become bitter masses of scar tissue, though?”

“I’m happy to keep living just to spite our enemies,” Alustin said, smiling at his oldest friend.

They didn’t get to continue their conversation, though, because they’d finally arrived at their destination.

Only to find someone else had arrived before them.

The Havathi bamboo great power.

NOT FOR THE first time today, Alustin cursed his inability to scry in zones of labyrinth influence. He’d expected trouble, but he hadn’t expected a great power to be hunched over the resonator’s hiding spot, like the skeleton of one of Havath City’s countless palaces. The bamboo frame kept itself pulled just away from the resonator, hidden inside one of the invisible zones of labyrinth influence.

Alustin and Valia both immediately dove behind a labyrinth corridor, hoping the bamboo great power hadn’t spotted them.

They immediately began moving, flying along the back of the corridor, just in case.

“Of course the Circus is here,” Valia muttered. “I’ll go in alone, try to convince them to let me get the resonator. You wait here, and…”

“Well, well, well,” a chorus of voices echoed. “It’s about time the two of you got here. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Valia and Alustin both cursed.

“How did they find us?” Alustin demanded quietly. “Or figure out where we were going?”

“The Circus has a number of seers of multiple types, farseers and windtalkers included, among their ranks, who can use their whole bamboo frame as a scrying device,” Valia said. “Not the best material for it, but its sheer size and easily altered shape make up for quality and quantity. They might have just caught glimpses of us passing between zones of labyrinth influence.”

“We’re quite curious as to what your little toy here does, Alustin,” the Circus chorused. “You’ve already destroyed the city, so what else do you intend? And Valia, we’re so disappointed with you. You made us lose our bet— we’d wagered you and Alustin would duel to the mutual death today. Admittedly, we lost against ourselves, but most of us didn’t believe you’d actually make common cause with Alustin.”

Alustin scowled. The Circus was acting different than last time— the talking in unison thing was new, and the betting.

He knew they were just playing mind games, but that didn’t make it less effective.

“Any way to get past them to the resonator?” Alustin asked, as they skimmed through a close-knit junction of labyrinth corridors, narrowly avoiding a beam of sunlight. The air around said beam of sunlight was still hot enough to char the edges of Alustin’s paper wings, though.

“Not likely,” Valia said. “The Circus was specifically designed and trained to control large spaces— they’re one of the most defensively focused collaborative great powers the Dominion was planning.”

“How many were you planning, exactly?” Alustin asked.

“Dozens, but that’s probably a conversation for later,” Valia said.

“Right, focus. Well, if we can’t go past them, go through them?” Alustin asked.

“Absolutely. Only… how are we supposed to do that?”

Alustin smiled beneath his paper helmet, then began quietly relaying his plan to Valia through their paper glyph communications.

ALUSTIN AND VALIA’S attack on the Circus was preceded by a vertical avalanche of paper, one that differed from a true avalanche in very few regards, besides its material composition.

It nearly emptied Alustin’s storage tattoos, and he never would have had the mana to guide it without the labyrinth emergence event, nor could his mind’s eye and focus have handled it without the relay golem. There were at least several dragonweights of paper descending towards the bamboo great power.

The first to strike were entire crates of paper, still sealed. There was not any significant difference between dropping hundreds of pounds of paper and the equivalent weight of rock, and the defensive wards built into the upper framework of the Circus flickered visibly, more than a few bamboo poles cracking and splintering under the stress. A few of the crates shattered, a few bounced, but almost all settled on top of the bamboo frame wards, forcing the Circus to restructure their upper levels to dump the paper and reduce the weight simply sitting atop the ward.

As they were repositioning, the second wave of paper hit— cutting pages, driven straight down at high speed by Alustin’s paper magic and Valia’s wind magic. The bamboo wards blocked most, but hundreds struck exposed bamboo poles, slicing through and descending deeper into the bamboo frame, killing at least one bamboo mage as it did so.

The third layer was the true threat, though.

Modular, preconstructed paper wards.

Alustin hadn’t even bothered to customize the wards, hadn’t done anything but put together and activate as many wards as possible, in an effort to overload the Circus’ own wards.

The instant the wave of modular wards began plastering themselves to the Circus wards, both began flickering and rupturing, in rapidly growing circles of destruction. Which, of course, was exactly when Valia cast one of the biggest atthuema spells Alustin had ever seen from her— one that amplified the ward overlap effects.

The top layers of the bamboo frame simply dissolved in the resulting explosion, taking even more of the Circus mages with them.

As Valia had warned, the Circus had been trained for ward overload attacks. The initial waves worked, but the Circus responded rapidly. The entire structure began to shift, increasing the internal distance between wards.

And after that, they started their counter-attack.

Bamboo spears by the thousands began to launch themselves vertically through the paper avalanche. Behind them came a series of massive bamboo ward-discs, each fifty feet across or more, filled by fire wards that incinerated falling paper that passed through them. And whenever one of the ward discs passed through a particularly dense zone of modular wards, they set of a ward overlap effect inside the paper avalanche, taking the pressure off the Circus’ main wards.

Most of Alustin’s paper was still making it through, though, and in the cloud of loose paper following the modular ward hid two dozen paper-armored figures.

Most were simply inert origami sculptures, poor decoys that wouldn’t work outside the conditions of the paper swarm. There were only two that could actually move.

The two moving suits of paper armor dodged and wove, descending at breakneck speeds towards the bamboo frame, using the paper avalanche and decoys as cover.

They almost made it. Almost.

Not even two hundred feet above the decaying upper layers of the Circus, they intersected hundreds of swift bamboo spears, followed by multiple, rapidly spinning ward discs to incinerate what remained.

That was the exact moment Alustin and Valia chose to launch their true attack.

The focus and defenses of the bamboo circus, pointing straight up at the paper avalanche, were entirely unprepared for a drill of sword echoes to impale the side of the framework at high speed.

In the drill’s center flew Alustin and Valia, weaving around one another in a tight spiral, leaving sword echoes at a rate to strain their sabers’ enchantments behind them. As the echoes passed their feet, Valia seized them with her magic, pulling them into the conical whirl of echoes around them.

The Circus didn’t even have time to formulate a response before the last Helicotans alive punched into the center of the framework and dove for the resonator. As they dove, Valia released the whirl of sword echoes, sending them slicing into the bamboo framework around them and cutting down more than a few bamboo mages.

A pair of Helicotan blades— the last two sabres of the Lord of Bells— sliced into one last bamboo ward, and a heartbeat later Alustin had the resonator in his storage tattoo.

“We underestimated you,” the Circus said in ragged unison. The mockery was gone from their voices, replaced with barely contained rage. “Fitting, we suppose— underestimating Helicotan Lords Citizen is practically a Havathi national pastime. It’s almost sad that this is the last time it will ever happen.”

Alustin and Valia exchanged glances, then moved back to back. Above them, the bamboo frame rippled and shifted, repositioning itself to face inward, its movements almost reminiscent of the sea as it reformed into an inverted fractal thistle, pointing at them with thousands of bamboo points. The surviving bamboo mages— the majority of them, unfortunately— danced and swung through the frame in perfect synchrony, as if moving to some unheard beat. Alustin’s paper avalanche still strained downward, but there was little chance it could break through to the bottom of the bamboo frame in time— or at all.

The fractal sphere slowly shrank inward, until Alustin could have reached out and touched the nearest bamboo spears with his sword.

He tried not to look at the faint marks on most of the bamboo poles.

“You fought your way in,” the Circus said. “Now fight your way out.”

The frame around them convulsed, preparing to impale them from a thousand directions.

Then Valia sliced a single bamboo spear with her sabre, and the entire Circus collapsed.

ALUSTIN AND VALIA’S attack had been sleight of hand the whole time. Overwhelmingly destructive sleight of hand, yes, but sleight of hand nonetheless.

Alustin hadn’t used an ounce of ink mana for the paper avalanche.

No, instead, as the Circus’ defenses shredded the pages Alustin dropped on them, Alustin’s magic pulled out the ink on the pages, then wove them through the bamboo ward maze, splattering ink across every single bamboo pole it passed. Not much ink— it would be barely visible to the naked eye, drawing spellforms so faint you’d have to stare carefully to make them out.

Alustin’s paper spellcasting style was heavily designed around replicating the same actions again and again, copying paper folds and cuts across hundreds or thousands of sheets at once. It hadn’t been hard to design his ink spellcasting style using the same principles, and he’d had most of a decade to research and design it, since he’d first envisioned creating an artificial ink affinity for himself.

Each and every one of those ink spellforms he drew across the bamboo frame was perfectly identical. Each and every one was a beacon spellform, putting out an almost-impossible to detect magical signal— one that, given its location inside the bamboo framework itself, would be impossible for even the Circus to easily detect.

Each and every signal was just as identical as their spellforms.

When Valia swung her sabre through one of those beacon spellforms, casting an atthuema spell with all her remaining mana, the cut wasn’t just replicated a few dozen or hundreds of times.

It was replicated across every single beacon signal.

And Alustin had drawn them on the overwhelming majority of the bamboo poles.

Just like that, the bulk of the Circus’ bamboo was cut into two or more pieces.

The Circus might still have survived, might have reassembled a smaller version of the framework, but there was one important consideration pressing on them.

Literally pressing on them— the paper avalanche.

As the Circus collapsed, its wards entirely in tatters, Alustin drained most of his remaining paper mana to redirect the paper avalanche, sending countless glyph and cutting pages after the surviving bamboo mage acrobats.

“I’ll need a couple of minutes to collect the remaining paper,” Alustin said, as the noise died down, and the last few bamboo splinters rattled down against the ground. “I’m not going to do anyone any good without a paper supply.”

Valia nodded, looking exhausted. “My atthuema reservoir could do with a charge as well, but we can’t stay here more than a minute or two. Risk of someone else finding us is too high, and we’re on a timer.”

Alustin nodded, and got to work collecting the surviving paper. Valia even helped a bit, blowing loose pages his way with her wind magic.

Despite their years of animosity, despite fighting on opposite sides of a long, simmering conflict, it felt good, standing at Valia’s side once more.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Ever Burning

NIANA EVERFLAME’S HEALERS had once told her that her insides more closely resembled someone in their eighties, rather than someone halfway through their thirties. Even after most of a decade since retirement, even with an entire dedicated team of healers working to alleviate and repair the damage her own magic had done to her, Niana Everflame’s body was barely holding together.

It didn’t matter to Niana. She had no regrets over her years of service. They may have broken and corrupted her body, but she had crushed more foes of the Dominion than she could count. She was a patriot, and it would have been a pleasure to die in service of the Dominion. She had only agreed to her early retirement in the first place on the promise of being recalled to service, should her country need her.

And now, in a single day, her regrets had come to outweigh all her service.

Havath City had fallen, and she had been unable to save it. The Shining City, the beacon of peace that had stood against the bandit great powers that ravaged the continent, shone no longer.

Niana Everflame would not allow her career to end in complete ignominy, however. Those jealous cretins who had brought down her city would burn.

THERE WERE THREE ways to tell when a youth developed a gravity affinity.

The first was, of course, the moon. Within a few months of developing a gravity affinity, a teen would start being able to feel the pull of the moon as it and Anastis danced around one another, neither large enough to truly rule the other.

The second way was more surprising to most non-gravity mages— it was simply travel. It was extraordinarily common for teens taking long trips, before their lunar awareness arose, to realize their gravity affinity sense, for a bizarre reason— gravity was not constant. It varied, subtly but noticeably, across the planet. Ore deposits, mountain ranges, caverns and aquifers could all warp the pull of gravity beneath one’s feet, and any gravity mage could learn much about the depths, if they spent the time to learn.

Niana had learned of her gravity affinity the third way— other gravity mages. The very day her mana reservoirs first congealed, she heard one of her family’s servants using their weak gravity magic to help move crates into the pantry of their manor in Stoneflute City, the southernmost provincial capital of the Dominion.

Stoneflute was in ruins now, like Havath City— it had fallen to the Sican invasion weeks ago.

Niana hadn’t even realized that the drumbeat she was hearing was her gravity affinity sense at first— she’d gone down to their kitchens looking for the musician, and stood puzzled for several minutes trying to find them. As she grew older and more powerful, she learned to read gravity magic by its drumbeats— its strength, direction, and permutations all contained in the beat, tone, and resonance of the drums it sounded in her mind.

Her family had been delighted at her gravity affinity, of course— gravity magic was one of the most practical affinities to possess, applicable in dozens, if not hundreds, of fields. One of her distant cousins had made a career out of using her gravity magic for low-gravity dances and balls. When her family realized how powerful Niana’s gravity affinity really was, they were even more delighted— she started out with larger mana reservoirs than most full battle mages had at the peaks of their careers.

As for her second affinity, her white phosphorous affinity, well…

Stories of mages who struggled to discover their true affinities abounded. The Wanderer most famously, of course, who had taken decades to discover her affinity. Mages of forbidden affinities, such as yellowstone, sometimes went their whole lives without discovering theirs. Mages of affinities for rare plants and animals often spent months or years visiting botanical gardens and menageries. Mages of obscure variant affinities often confused their affinities with their more common forms, such as when affinities for a specific blood type were confused for an unreliable standard blood affinity. Mages with strange affinity senses likewise struggled at times— Niana had once heard of a common fire mage who took five years to discover her affinity, because her affinity sense manifested as a sense of fatigue, and her family spent years taking her to various healers, trying to diagnose her strange sleeping disorder.

Niana was none of those. They had discovered her white phosphorous affinity not even three hours after her gravity affinity, when they took her to Greyflute City’s most prestigious affinity testing hall. It was a rare affinity to be sure— it had taken over an hour of walking through the halls with their specimen cases before Niana heard the singing of the little chunk of white phosphorous in its airless glass container.

Her family, when the affinity testers explained the dangers of white phosphorous magic, promptly forced her to swear never to use it.

Ever the dutiful daughter, Niana listened. For five years, she cast not a single white phosphorous spell.

NIANA HAD RETREATED from the brawl near the Coven encampment seething in frustration, as Casser Spellstorm and several of the giant Coven fire elementals united against her. She had intended to burn the Coven encampment down to the ground, to leave nothing but a field of toxic ash in her wake.

It wasn’t her mana reservoirs that forced her to retreat, in the end— her white phosphorous magic was far more lethal per droplet of mana spent than any other affinity on that battlefield, and her gravity mana techniques were built for endurance and defense, letting her engage in battle far longer than even mightier gravity mages.

No, it had been Niana’s own body that had betrayed her. Even floating weightless, even using the breathing exercises meant to keep her heart rate low, the stress of battle had been too much, had started her heart beating raggedly and her breath tearing at her throat.

If she had fought more offensively-oriented foes, rather than the heavily defensive great powers dominating the brawl, she might have tried for one last all-out assault, might have tried to overwhelm the others.

As the battlefield stood, that would have been a waste of her life, and Niana retreated to let her body calm itself. Only a single illusory copy of Andas Thune pursued her, and she dissolved it with a vast lash of phosphorous smoke. The mage that had been hiding within it tumbled into the depths, choking to death.

She found a nook in the labyrinth corridors that had killed Havath City when they were torn up from the land, far from any of Heliothrax’s purging light or the dripping magma, and settled inside to rest, to get her heart rate down to safe levels.

When the attack came, she was rubbing an alchemical ointment on some of the sores that were an always-present irritant for the last decade, that healers could only alleviate, not prevent.

She had expected an attack sooner than later, like the fool Castis fire mage that had tried to ambush her earlier. She was still a little amazed he’d gotten away— he’d dodged each of her attacks as though he could predict them.

She had not expected to be attacked by another gravity mage.

NIANA HAD JUST turned twenty when she disobeyed her family’s order not to use her white phosphorous magic. It was, aside from a few amusing early childhood stories, the first time she’d willingly disobeyed her elders.

In fairness, they were all dead when she disobeyed.

The summer had started out normally enough. They had fled the sweltering heat and humidity of a Stoneflute summer. The slender musical towers the city was named for fell silent as the winds stilled in the heat, and only the poor stayed in the city.

Their summer home lay on the coast, atop a vast, flower-covered hill that sloped down to a seacliff. Niana’s family had taken her there since before she could remember, and it was always a place of peace and happiness for her.

It had been a gorgeous, sunny day when her family was murdered. Just a bare handful of clouds, gently drifting landward, and just enough breeze to carry thrown flower petals.

And then their manor had been ripped from its foundation as the kraken gravity mage rose from the city.

Niana had never learned why the monster had attacked— it stole nothing, ate none of its victims, had not crossed the Dominion’s forces. It seemingly had attacked out of pure boredom, or perhaps to vent unrelated frustrations.

Most of her family died the instant the manor struck the sea. Niana, her grandmother, and her great-aunt had been picnicking outside when the attack happened.

There had been a few servants outside as well, too far from Niana for her to protect them as the kraken gravity mage hurled them leagues out to sea, one by one.

Niana had joined the Havathi military two years prior, been training for battle alongside Havath’s archmages, even though she hadn’t been recognized as such yet. She was more than a match for any normal battle mage.

The kraken toyed with her like a child.

She managed to protect her grandmother and great-aunt for several minutes before the kraken managed to pull her great-aunt away and throw her out to sea, her light affinity useless to save her.

With only herself and her grandmother to protect, the next few minutes were a grueling slog, as the kraken constantly teased and pulled at the two of them, trying to split them apart, or to simply overwhelm Niana with raw magical might.

In the end, her grandmother had been ripped in two by the dueling gravity mages at Niana’s first slip-up, her first failure to compensate for one of the kraken’s tricks.

And then the kraken just left, waving its thorned tentacles mockingly as it flew out to sea, easily blocking the gravitational anchors Niana sought to seize it with, the boulders she hurled at it from the ruined foundation of her family’s manor.

And then she was alone on the flowered hill, a few flower petals dancing in the gentle breeze.

NIANA’S ONLY WARNING of another gravity mage attacking was nausea and disorientation, a common precursor to gravity mage assaults.

Niana immediately launched herself out of the hidden nook in the labyrinth corridors, slamming down a gravity lock on her surroundings to enforce Anastis’ natural gravity, preventing other gravity mages from altering gravity within the lock.

Or, it should have prevented any other gravity mages from altering gravity around her. And yet she found herself flying off course, almost slamming into a vertical labyrinth corridor.

Gravity magic, more than the vast majority of affinities, was a game of raw power. There were tricks and gambits one could attempt when one gravity mage fought another, always a few cunning stratagems that might work— but less than other affinities. And while her gravity mana might outlast other gravity mages, they could still crush her through her own, long before either’s mana ran out. In the end, it was almost always the stronger gravity mage that won in battle.

There were quite a few mightier gravity mages on the continent. Before his death at Skyhold, Symon the Shaper wielded gravitational forces that dwarfed Niana’s. There were a half-dozen members of the Tsarnassan Champions and the Alikean parliament that rivaled or bettered her gravity magic. There were rumors of a dangerous new gravity archmage from Sica, as well.

And, in the far north of the continent, between Alikea and the Skyreach Range, roamed Solintus the Patient, a gravity mage so powerful that he only had peers among the continent’s great powers— not betters.

For the attacking gravity mage’s power to affect her at all, to pierce through her gravity lock in the slightest, was a clear sign that she faced a stronger gravity mage.

Solintus would have annihilated her immediately— and besides, it would have taken him months to reach Havath City, and their seers kept constant watch on him.

Or had kept constant watch on him, at least. Who knew how many of the Dominion’s seers survived today?

It was possible that gravity mages from the Alikean Parliament had joined the battle, but extremely unlikely— the Alikeans had stayed carefully neutral in this war, clearly intending to wait for Tsarnassus to be weakened to take advantage of them.

Which left the known Tsarnassan threats and the possible Sican one.

Niana carefully eased her way out into open space, away from any labyrinth corridors another gravity mage might slam her into.

And that careful movement almost killed her. She felt another surge of gravity, and her slow motion accelerated dangerously, to the point where she was barely able to stop before plunging through one of Heliothrax’s sunbeams. Nausea and disorientation surged once more inside her, and she felt like she was about to pass out from the conflicting gravity pulling on her.

She could hear the drum beat of her opponent’s gravity magic with her gravity sense. It was faster and more irregular than any she’d ever heard, and it seemed to ripple through her very flesh.

Niana wished she could scream at her foe, wish she could demand they reveal themselves, but it had been years since she could speak above a whisper, and she’d been forced to give up her speaking enchantments for more perpetual healing enchantments.

Niana wasn’t named or known for her gravity enchantments, though. She had no need to duel her unknown foe on terms that advantaged them.

She was the Everflame.

She was the only living white phosphorous mage.

Niana began to pull white phosphorous from her spatial storage pouch, and it began humming to her affinity sense.

She ignited it, and it began singing.

The garlic-scented smoke began to coil around her, and began whispering softly.

Niana Everflame’s affinity senses played music in her mind when she went to war.

THE DOMINION HAD judged it unlikely they could track down the kraken that had murdered her family. With as badly wounded as the Dominion had been by the Helicotan terror war, there was every argument to be made for letting the matter go.

The Dominion went after the kraken regardless. They were not the petty, corrupt bureaucracy of lesser nations, which only protected its citizens when convenient, and never bothered avenging them. They were the Dominion, and their purpose was to shield the weak.

They tracked down the kraken in mere days, and Niana flew into battle alongside the archmages and great powers assigned to the hunt. The foul creature had continued its rampage, slowly working its way north along the coast, not bothering to hide its path.

They found it finishing off a fishing village atop a particularly tall seacliff, whose rope mages lowered their boats via winches down to the sea and back up each day. The rope mages were doing their best to fight back, to keep their people from being thrown to sea, but it was a losing battle.

When the Dominion hunting team arrived, it was over within minutes. Niana merely helped suppress the kraken’s gravity magic while the beast was impaled with obsidian spears, bathed in dragonflame, and had great chunks of its flesh blown apart by cavitation spells.

Again and again, Niana had been warned that once you’d had your revenge, whether it was satisfying or not, it would leave you empty. Drain you of the fire that had kept you going since your loss.

Her fire had been replaced with something else entirely— pride in the nation that had avenged her family so swiftly, even when there was little hope of success, nor profit in it.

Niana was to be fast-tracked in the archmage programs after the battle, would likely have ended up a lesser great power of Havath even without her white phosphorous magic. There were already discussions of helping her develop an artificial affinity.

That was, until she announced her intention to train her white phosphorous magic. To become the most lethal weapon in Havath’s arsenal.

Oh, many tried to dissuade her, but there were too many threats on the continent of Ithos, too many Dorsas Ines and Kanderon Cruxes for the Dominion to be able to turn her down. It was only with great reluctance that her superiors found alchemists and spellform designers to help design her white phosphorous magic.

After three years of carefully supervised training, of only using white phosphorous magic in carefully shielded alchemical facilities, Niana was sent on her mission, sooner than anyone had hoped. The Dominion could have built several fortresses for what they’d spent on her training, and if she fell half-trained, it would all be for not.

There was no one else, though. Between the Sican border war and the current Dorsas Ine incursion, there was no one else to stop the flight of draconic raiders and their acid archmage leader.

Niana had annihilated them. Had burned dragons alive, leaving only their weakest member to flee with a warning for other prospective bandits.

The instant she returned to her training base, her assigned healers put her through dozens of tests.

They immediately found white phosphorous in her system. Not much, not a dangerous amount, but it had slipped through all her spells and mana techniques designed to prevent it from entering her system. It would take two weeks to clear it from her system.

She only got a week and a half before she had to fly out to battle once more against Havath’s foes.

And so it went, again and again. She would be given a little time to recuperate, for the alchemists and healers to attempt to purge the white phosphorous from her system, but there was never enough time. If she had chosen to turn down one of her missions, her superiors would have accepted it without question, but she accepted each and every mission that came her way.

If she didn’t fly forth, Havathi civilians would die, when it had been in her hands to save them.

Oh, there were other Havathi great powers who only stirred themselves at the greatest crises, who preferred to dabble in politics or indulge themselves— but Niana would never be one of them. She would never share their moral weakness. They were mere weapons wielded by the Dominion.

Niana Everflame was a loyal soldier.

All but the mightiest great powers learned to fear Niana, and even they treaded lightly around her— for none doubted that she’d gladly sacrifice herself to injure one of them, if need be.

And so it went, over the few short years of her career. She did more to turn the tides of battle than any other Havathi power, was instrumental in Havath reclaiming the strength that had been theirs before the dishonorable Helicotan invasion.

Her career didn’t end in a grand way, didn’t conclude on one grand finale. She merely incinerated a group of bandit plant mages with a walking tree fortress— they hadn’t even managed to counterattack.

And when she returned, and the healers examined her, she was given an ultimatum.

Retire, or die from white phosphorous poisoning in months, if not weeks.

Too much phosphorous had built up in her system, and had done too much lingering damage.

It took weeks of arguing with her healers and superiors before she accepted their conclusion— and she only accepted her retirement under one condition.

That they would bring her to battle one last time, when the Dominion needed her most.

They had, and it hadn’t been enough.

She had failed her nation.

RIBBONS OF BEWILDERING smoke danced behind blazing phosphorous embers, twining an ever-growing sphere of confusion, flame, and poison around Niana. As it grew, her affinity senses sang to her— but this time, the song was off-key, the drumbeat of her gravity magic drifting away from the phosphorous melody.

Each and every time Niana used her gravity magic to help coordinate her phosphorous magic, her unseen foe applied just enough gravitational force to punch through her gravity lock and shift the course of her own gravitational manipulations. The shifts were slight and random, but more than once Niana was forced to block her own phosphorous from slamming into her, something utterly new for her.

Whenever she moved, the disruptions were even worse, almost sending her careening into the labyrinth, Heliothrax’s sunbeams, or her own phosphorous.

Whoever she was facing was toying with her, and Niana had no time or patience for it. She was needed in battle— none were better suited for challenging the Sican Elder wandering the ruins than her. It was seemingly impossible that the Elder could be here at all, but understanding could wait until after violence.

Niana stopped all use of gravity magic, save the gravity lock protecting the space around her and a gravity anchor to let her hover in place. Her breath came fast and heavy, as though it would tear her throat.

Then she began rapidly expanding her sphere of phosphorous, pulling greater quantities from her spatial storage than she ever had since her retirement.

The sphere of bewildering smoke and poison flames surged outward like the tide, enveloping labyrinth column after labyrinth column, incinerating anything flammable in its path.

From the volume of her enemy’s drumbeats, they had to be near. And since they were remaining hidden, Niana would wager they were a stealth mage, not an armor mage.

She was going to burn them out, and not worry about the consequences.

As the sphere expanded, Niana grew lightheaded and dizzy at pushing her magic so hard, and her gravity anchor slipped twice. Both times, the enemy gravity mage tried to knock her from the sky, and both times, Niana barely regained control.

Then she reached into her spatial storage with her magic and found nothing left. Her entire supply of white phosphorous, who knew how many tons of it, was orbiting in a great sphere around her, forming a discordant chorus in her mind.

And yet the enemy drumbeat still sounded.

Niana wished she could scream in rage and frustration, wished her body could do more than weakly clench her fist.

So she displayed her rage with her magic, and detonated the roiling sphere in every direction.

Niana wasn’t aware of it, was barely retaining consciousness, but that explosion killed hundreds. Surviving Havathi soldiers and mages who had been carried up into the sky by the labyrinth, and had been making their way down ever since, trying desperately to avoid magma, sunlight, and rampaging great powers. Several scout teams working for both the Coven and Alustin’s forces. Two of Indris’ children. Not to mention countless labyrinth escapees.

The enemy drum still beat in Niana’s mind. Weakly, erratically, but still going. She knew she had wounded them, knew they were unlikely to live long, but she also knew she wasn’t likely to outlive them.

Barely conscious, Niana Everflame sank to the nearest labyrinth corridor, with barely enough presence of mind to sweep it clear of phosphorous debris. The enemy mage barely opposed her, only offering token efforts, as though to show they yet lived.

She sank to her knees and began to vomit, the contents of her stomach as pungently garlicky as the smoke drifting around her.

Then, seemingly without any intervening time, she was sprawled out on the stone of the labyrinth, limbs not wanting to respond. It was there, waiting to die from her own magic, that Niana came to a dreadful realization.

She hadn’t been hearing the enemy drum with her affinity senses.

It was her own heartbeat. It had always been her own heartbeat.

The enemy mage, pushing against her? It had always been her own gravity magic. It had been the failure of her senses of balance and proprioception that had thrown her about, as they told her mind wildly different stories than her gravity affinity sense had. The last spasms of a failing mind.

Niana Everflame had tried to fight her own illness with violence. There was just enough left of her to find the humor in the situation before consciousness fled her.

The Dominion’s most loyal champion died dreaming of a flower-covered hill near the sea.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Unwilling Allies

HUGH WAS USED to social situations being awkward, but he was less used to that awkwardness having potentially lethal consequences.

He’d been hoping that Sabae and the Coven reinforcements would be the first to make the rendezvous, but had been prepared for Alustin and Valia to be the ones to meet them.

He had not really imagined that it would be the surviving Librarians Errant to reach the meeting point first.

Their rendezvous itself was a particularly odd tangle of labyrinth corridors. While the vast majority of the emergent labyrinth stuck to vertical or horizontal alignments, there were still plenty of corridors jutting into the air at odd angles. Their chosen site was a tangle of almost thirty such angled corridors, coming together in mid-air. There were no directly descending corridors, creating a sort of unnatural amphitheater, well removed from any sunbeams, dripping magma, or rising clouds of alchemical toxins.

It was also located outside the labyrinth influence, but even Alustin couldn’t have gotten the Librarians Errant to accept a meeting place they couldn’t scry and scout out beforehand.

From what Hugh understood, Skyhold’s Librarians Errant had never been a populous order, never topping fifty members or so.

Now, though, they were a fraction of their former strength.

There were exactly twelve Librarians Errant left, not counting Alustin and Grennan the healer, and only one of them Hugh knew by name.

His former spellform construction teacher, Emmenson Drees.

There were few mages in Havath’s ruins that Hugh was less interested in fighting than Emmenson. The man was a lethal sound mage, which made him an excellent counter against Hugh— there was little that posed a greater threat to wards beyond sound magic. On top of that, Emmenson was extraordinarily skilled at developing new spellforms— not quite the genius in his field that Loarna of the Vault had been in wardcrafting, but it still made him a deeply unpredictable foe.

Not to mention that Hugh had absolutely no idea what his former teacher’s metallic spellform tattoos did.

There was a tense silence as Hugh and his friends levitated down to their meeting place from the horizontal corridor they’d been sprinting along for the past mile or so.

At first Hugh was sure the Librarians Errant were contemplating betraying them, from the way they were shifting uncomfortably and watching them— watching him, especially.

It came to Hugh, suddenly, that they weren’t contemplating betraying him, but rather, that they were half-convinced he was about to attack them, to seek revenge for their betrayal of Kanderon. He doubted they knew she was still alive, nor did he feel particularly inclined to tell them at the moment.

Emmenson was the one to step forward and break the silence. “I assume Alustin informed you that the resonator we sought was destroyed?”

Hugh nodded. “He did.”

Emmenson gestured at another Librarian Errant. “Celia, the remnants?”

A burly woman pulled a wooden box from her storage tattoo, then levitated it over towards Hugh.

“It’s probably useless, but we brought it just in case your spellbook could still do something with it,” Emmenson said.

Hugh nodded, then collected the box with several Crown nodes and their wards, carefully boxing it up in case it was a trap. He levitated the lid off, revealing nothing but paper scraps and ash, then turned to Mackerel.

His spellbook eyed the debris skeptically, then shook his covers and flapped behind him.

Hugh sighed, a little disappointed, but not surprised, then used the Crown nodes to set the box down in the center of the labyrinth amphitheater, right in between the two groups.

There was a long silence, which Hugh used to check on Sabae’s progress through their bond.

To his relief, she was almost there.

“So,” Emmenson said, “have you been keeping up with your studies since you dropped out of Skyhold?”

“Ah wouldn’t precisely say we dropped out,” Godrick said. “Ah’d say it were more a matter a’… needin’ ta depart the premises ta take care a’ urgent business offworld.”

“That’s dropping out,” Talia said.

Godrick made a motion like he was about to protest, then sagged a bit. “Me da would not have been pleased about that.”

Emmenson snorted. “Your father would have been delighted to simply see you alive and well, after everything you’ve gone through.”

Godrick started to speak, then just nodded sadly instead.

“You didn’t answer my question, though, Hugh,” Emmenson said. “After all the work I put in teaching you, I’d be greatly disappointed to find you abandoning your studies.”

Hugh shrugged, then answered honestly, not feeling the need to keep the secret any longer. “Well, the four of us warlock pacted to one another, and we all have twelve affinities now. I’ve been using what you taught me to design us new spellforms to fit our magic styles.”

Surprise passed over Emmenson’s face, one of the rare few moments of emotion Hugh had ever seen from him.

Before Emmenson had a chance to press him further, Sabae and the Coven reinforcements arrived.

They flew in slowly in plain sight, atop the back of one of Indris’ children or flying alongside it.

The Librarians Errant proved that they were professionals then— only most of their attention switched to the newcomers. Several of them, Emmenson included, kept their focus on Hugh and the others.

The dragon settled to a halt in the junction between two descending corridors, and the Coven forces descended to the makeshift amphitheater, Sabae in the lead.

Hugh noted that none of them made any aggressive moves towards the Librarians, though more than a few wore unfriendly expressions— especially Eddin Slane, who looked disgusted to be allying with traitors.

“This is all the Coven could spare, sorry,” Sabae said, striding down into the labyrinth junction.

Emmenson snorted. “Don’t apologize, girl. Most nations would struggle to assemble this many archmages on short notice. Together, the lot of us are a match for most great powers. Perhaps not Heliothrax or the storm queens, but for anyone else on the battlefield? Absolutely.”

“The traitor is correct,” Eddin Slane said. “A combined force of archmages can apply force far greater than the sum of the whole.”

The two men glowered at one another, and Hugh spoke up before they began arguing with one another.

“Sabae, did you get the resonator?” Hugh asked.

She nodded, then strode over to him and pulled the book out of her storage tattoo.

Rose of Clan Castis followed right behind her, smiling cheerfully, and Talia groaned and tried to hide from her mother behind Hugh.

Mackerel devoured this resonator easily enough, but Hugh felt a slight resistance through their bond, as though the resonators his spellbook had devoured had already started to fill him up.

As Mackerel did so, Rose started fussing over Talia, thankfully leaving Hugh to focus on his spellbook.

Though, he had to admit, he would have enjoyed paying a bit more attention to his girlfriend’s embarrassment.

Finally, Mackerel finished forcing the resonator down into his labyrinthine stomach, and Hugh looked up again. “Four resonators left.”

“Three,” a voice called out, and Hugh looked up to see Valia and Alustin descending from above.

If the gazes the Coven forces had given the Librarians Errant were angry, the looks they gave Alustin were positively hateful.

The glares the Librarians Errant gave Valia were even worse— murderous was about the gentlest description Hugh could offer.

“Lovely,” Hugh muttered, then had Mackerel lock down scrying across the entire labyrinth junction.

No one attacked, though, and the tenuous peace held as Alustin handed Mackerel the next resonator.

This one was a struggle from the start, Mackerel having to fight to choke the smaller book down— something Hugh had never seen before. His spellbook was normally able to swallow books significantly larger than him without difficulty.

Alustin looked as though he wanted to speak to Hugh, but Hugh turned away and focused on Mackerel, not ready to deal with the paper mage yet.

Slowly, the forces began to intermingle, making introductions where necessary and planning out combat roles.

Hugh only glanced up every now and then, making sure the unhappy allies weren’t about to break out into open battle. None of the assembled were idiots, thankfully, and those with the most incentive to fight carefully avoided one another.

Hugh couldn’t help but notice that Talia seemed absolutely delighted by the fact that her brother Leon had lost a finger in battle somehow. So did Leon, for that matter.

He really wasn’t sure he’d ever entirely understand his girlfriend and her family.

Once Mackerel finished digesting the resonator, Hugh stepped closer to the center of the makeshift amphitheater, then gestured for everyone’s attention.

“How long do we have left?” Hugh asked Alustin, loud enough so that everyone could hear.

“It’s hard to say,” Alustin said, gazing at his arm where his storage tattoo was hidden. “Three hours, maybe.”

Hugh scowled. That was hardly an improvement over before. “No time to mess around, then. Mackerel’s tracked down another resonator, have you had any luck?”

Alustin nodded. “One more, but it’s in a bad spot.”

“How bad?”

Alustin grimaced. “Bad. The position is surrounded by the biggest swarm of those burning insect monsters I’ve seen yet, and they’re besieging a demon who could practically be Bakori’s sibling, from what I could catch of its appearance. I can’t get a great look at it, unfortunately— it’s clearly got the same spellform degrading abilities Bakori did.”

Murmurs and whispers raced through the crowd at that.

“It’s going to take most of us to punch through that mess. I really hope you have better news,” Alustin continued.

Hugh grimaced. “Not really. This one’s at the top of the labyrinth.”

Alustin raised his eyebrows at that. “How far up, exactly?”

“The very top. It slipped into the labyrinth somehow, so the Eye of Heliothrax hasn’t touched it yet, but all the nearest approaches are in direct sunlight. It’s also well above the flight ceiling, so there’s no flying.”

“Maybe we could try triggering a labyrinth collapse?” Talia’s brother Leon called out.

Hugh shook his head. “Even if there are any supporting elements that have rotted enough to collapse, the still-living portions would just hang in the air above them. Besides, a collapse would likely throw the resonator into direct sunlight, destroying it.”

“We could climb up inside the labyrinth?” Sabae suggested.

Hugh shook his head again. “Mackerel’s been looking, there aren’t any paths fast enough. We’d have to traverse at least a league of labyrinth tunnels to get there.”

“We could build a tunnel up the side of the labyrinth?” someone else called.

Hugh just shook his head. “It would melt too fast. No, someone’s going to have to climb the hard way.”

A few heads started to turn, looking for potential volunteers— Rhodes was the most common choice.

“I’ll do it,” Hugh continued.

That got everyone’s attention.

“Absolutely not,” Talia almost yelled. “There’s plenty of folks better suited for this task, and we can’t risk you and Mackerel. You’re too important to… to the mission.”

Hugh shook his head. “No, there’s no one better suited for this task than me. I’m one of the only mages who has a way to ascend above the flight ceiling, thanks to the Crown. Likewise, I can make the Crown completely reflective— it’s too dangerous to let any light in. And with twelve different affinity senses and Mackerel’s scrying, I’ll be able to find my way even without any light, something no one else can do.”

There were more than a few arguments at that, but most seemed ready to accept Hugh volunteering.

The last two holdouts were Eddin Slane and Talia.

Eddin Slane kept arguing because he had volunteered himself. And, in fairness, he was a viable potential candidate. His ceramic plates were well-capable of resisting the Eye of Heliothrax, and they likewise allowed him to ascend past the flight ceiling.

He did not, however, have a way to compete with Hugh’s non-visual senses.

Talia kept trying to argue, even as the rest of the mages prepared to go into battle against the labyrinth monsters, and as several other mages aided him in preparing for his ascent. She volunteered to go herself, but her scrimshaw ward was poorly suited to the task, compared to Hugh’s armor. All of Hugh’s friend’s armors had their own abilities and advantages, but for this task, Hugh’s was clearly the best choice.

Her family started closing in on her, clearly ready to drag her off if need be, but Hugh headed them off.

He didn’t try arguing with Talia. He just wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, until he needed to take a breath.

“You’d better come back to me,” Talia whispered, leaning her head against his chest.

“Make sure to kill a few bug monsters for me,” Hugh whispered back.

Talia smiled at him, then stepped away.

Godrick was right there waiting to wrap Hugh in a hug of his own. “Yeh’ve got this, Hugh.”

“Thanks,” Hugh managed to wheeze out, convinced that his ribs, even enhanced by the magics of two different worlds, were about to crack.

He definitely spent several seconds gasping for air after Godrick released him. Then Hugh turned and found Sabae standing next to a mage that looked remarkably like her, but a decade older and almost a foot taller.

“Hugh, this is my cousin Vervyn,” she said. “He’s most likely the fastest flier among the group that can carry passengers, he’ll take you as high as he can.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Hugh,” Vervyn said, offering his hand.

“Likewise,” Hugh said, shaking it. “It’s too bad it’s not under less stressful conditions.”

Vervyn chuckled at that, as did Sabae. Then she stepped forward, and wrapped him in a hug of her own.

“You lied to me,” Sabae said quietly.

“What?” Hugh whispered.

“You told me, a little while back, that if you had to choose between public speaking and letting the world get destroyed, that you’d let the world get destroyed. And yet, I just saw you doing public speaking to save the world.”

“That didn’t count,” Hugh said automatically. “That wasn’t me doing public speaking, that was just me… speaking to Alustin. In public.”

Sabae laughed and let him go. “You be careful up there.”

Hugh nodded, then stepped over to join Vervyn.

A few heartbeats later, and the labyrinth junction was fading away behind the two of them.

CHAPTER SIXTY

The Scrapheap of History

GODRICK COULDN’T SAY he particularly enjoyed gravity magic assisted flight— it left his stomach queasy and unsettled— but at least he was doing better than Talia, who was struggling not to puke all over Scrathinax’s back.

Eddin Slane, at least, offered him a ready distraction from his stomach. The ceramic mage was delighted that Godrick had begun integrating his mathematical spellforms into his own casting, and had quite a few tips for maintaining and controlling a swarm of non-identical objects using his casting style.

Godrick couldn’t help but notice Eddin Slane’s gaze drifting over to Alustin every now and then, anger clouding his face each time.

“It’s not goin’ ta be easy working alongside Alustin again, is it?” Godrick asked.

The ceramic mage scowled. “I despise the need to do so. Working alongside the man who almost killed me, who did kill my friends and fellow council members, that betrayed Kanderon? The very thought is repulsive. What makes it worse is that it’s only to clean up his mess. None of this should have been necessary in the first place.”

Eddin noticed Godrick’s searching gaze, and sighed. “You don’t need to worry about my commitment to the mission, lad. I won’t make a move against Alustin today, nor allow him to come to harm by my own inaction. But I promise you this— he will see justice someday, for what he’s done.”

Godrick nodded, then gently guided the conversation back to Slane’s mathematical spellforms, not wanting the older mage to dwell on his grudge any longer than necessary.

He just hoped the rest of their force would practice similar restraint against Alustin and Valia until this was all over.

After that, though…

Well, Godrick had no intention of hunting either of the two Helicotans, but besides that, he genuinely didn’t know how he’d feel about them being hunted down.

He was sure he’d find out, though.

GODRICK LIKELY COULD have kept talking with Eddin about magic for hours— the man was a font of knowledge, and had zero compunctions about sharing it freely.

It wasn’t long, however, before their target came into sight.

The ruins of Havath City’s central bank.

Most of the magical fortress was a great heap of rubble and debris— the monolithic building had been lifted hundreds of feet into the air by the labyrinth, and had landed upside down as it slammed into some now-unidentifiable government office. Surprisingly large chunks of the bank were still intact— it had, after all, been designed to protect its vault from attack by archmages and great powers.

The largest chunk of the bank that was still intact was, of course, the vault itself, which was supposedly one of the most impregnable on the continent.

Despite all its security wards and enchantments, Godrick couldn’t help but notice that the vault door was wide open.

The lower building in the rubble was unidentifiable only partially due to the larger building having crushed it. An even bigger hindrance? The swarms of burning insects coating the bulk of the mound, and the ruined streets around it. More clambered up the labyrinth columns around it, rushing across horizontal labyrinth corridors in an effort to drop down atop the rubble pile. There were so many of the dog-sized burning wasp-locusts that the air rippled with heat.

Not all of the insects were dog-sized, unfortunately. Dragon-sized behemoths strode through the carpet of insects on long, flat legs, carrying entire hives on their backs, hundreds of the wasp-locusts crawling in and out at all times. Falcon-sized flying insects buzzed clumsily over the swarm in huge numbers, while horse-sized warrior-forms skittered about with four-foot sickle mandibles and a trio of scorpion tails rising from their backs. Aurochs-sized pillbugs, venting bursts of steam, dragged themselves awkwardly through the rest of the swarm.

The small horde of imps defending the open vault entrance looked like nothing in comparison.

“Ah think Alustin might a’ understated the size a’ the problem,” Godrick said, to no one in particular.

“We’re archmages, my dear boy,” Shining Cardovan said dramatically. “We’re simply going to stride right through and squash these bugs like, well, bugs!”

“They’re not wrong,” Rhodes said, in his guise as the Frost Ghost. “Swarming monsters like this are fundamentally limited by how many of their number can approach at once— they get in each other’s way. Layer enough attack spells, put up some cursory defenses, we should be able to rip through this horde.”

Tena Brand called out from the other side of Scrathinax’s back, then— probably not responding to their conversation, just making an announcement to the force of archmages in general. “They’re not actually generating their own heat, they’re absorbing and then releasing it from their surroundings. You can see a bunch of them clustering around the edges of sunbeams and magma pools, gathering up heat to share with the rest of the swarm. I imagine that when this battle is over, and things cool down again, they’re all going to freeze to death— I don’t think they can survive our world without supplemental heat.”

Godrick turned to Rhodes. “Seems like yeh’re goin’ ta be especially useful fer this battle.”

Rhodes nodded, his cockiness apparent even through his ice mask. “I’m useful in every battle, Hammerbreaker. Don’t sell yourself short, though— you’ve got what, three different affinities adjacent to ice magic? Four?”

“Stone, crystal, water, wind,” Godrick agreed.

“You’ll be almost as useful as me, then,” Rhodes said. “You just focus on expanding the ice I start. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“You’re not going to be taking care of the demon, Frost Ghost,” another voice called out.

Alustin.

“Do you expect it to have the same spellform corrosion abilities as Bakori did?” Emmenson Drees called.

Before Alustin could answer, Scrathinax banked to begin circling the swarm, giving them a better overview and time to plan before they moved in. Godrick was expecting to have to brace himself, but Scrathinax’s magic shifted the pull of gravity to make the turn hardly perceptible.

“I’m highly confident of it,” Alustin said. “Bakori’s whole demon species fled their world when its aether criticality advanced too far— he’s not the only individual recorded. He was a particularly powerful and vicious member of the species, but I expect this demon will have capabilities in the same general magnitude.”

“So we should set up some sort of attack rotation, so that no one uses any given spell enough that it decays?” Gram called, from back near Scrathinax’s tail.

“We should just overwhelm the demon with sheer force at range!” Talia called.

“I love the way she thinks,” Shimmering Cardovan confided loudly to everyone.

“No to both,” Alustin replied. “We can’t risk damaging the resonator with either strategy. We need to get in close and perform a targeted strike.”

“Count me out, then,” Scrathinax rumbled. “I won’t fit in that vault.”

“I can do it,” Sabae called.

Everyone turned to look at her, where she was perched atop one of Scrathinax’s horns.

“I hardly use spellforms, and Bakori’s magic didn’t affect my armor at all when we faced him,” Sabae said. “I’m perfect for the job.”

“Ah’ll go with her,” Godrick offered.

“You’re not…” Sabae started, then stopped, considering.

Godrick smiled at the look of realization that passed over her face and Alustin’s.

“Your armor elemental should be immune, or at least highly resistant, to spellform degradation,” Alustin said. “And even if your spells don’t work, you’re still huge and wielding a giant hammer.”

“My armor should be fine too!” Talia called. “I want to stab another demon!”

“That’s not fair, some of us haven’t gotten to stab any demons yet,” her brother Leon replied.

“Most of us aren’t crazy enough to want to stab demons,” Gram’s wife Haela said.

“Oh, don’t be a prude, dear,” Talia’s mother Rose said.

“How is not wanting to stab demons prudish?” one of the Librarians Errant asked.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” another responded.

“It’s definitely prudish,” Shimmering Cardovan boomed.

Valia, who had moved her flight path closer to Scrathinax’s, sighed heavily. “We’re wasting time here. Alustin’s students are the payload we need to deliver to the bank vault, we need a plan to get them there through the swarm.”

“I suggest excessive violence!” Shimmering Cardovan said.

“Oh, I really like them,” Rose said. “Cardovan, dear, you absolutely must come visit Hold Castis after all of this.”

Valia coughed pointedly. “Social invitations later, everyone. Planning now.”

There was a general round of chuckles, and then the assembled archmages began trading ideas.

Godrick did catch one more comment as he turned to start discussing their plan, though.

“Of course Alustin trained his students to be able to take down demons,” Celia the Anchor muttered. “Next we’ll find they’re dragon-slayers, too.”

Godrick was very careful not to react to that comment.

GODRICK FOUND HIMSELF standing beside Alustin in the battle-line when they attacked.

Despite the archmage force’s extensive flight capabilities, they had chosen to launch their attack on land— not so much due to the swarm’s fliers, which were apparently scouts and posed only a moderate danger, but due to the ungainly, aurochs-sized pillbug beasts. The pillbugs, so far as they could tell, served two functions— as heat storage for the rest of the swarm, and as anti-air defenses.

Terrifying anti-air defenses.

The instant Alustin had sent a trio of paper decoys flying out over the swarm, dozens of the pillbug beasts had instantly focused their alien sensory organs on the paper, aimed their abdomens, and cut the decoys out of the sky with highly pressurized streams of superheated fluid.

From what little information the decoys’ diagnostic spellforms had sent back to Alustin, the streams were hot enough to cook a person, moving fast enough to cut through flesh or knock a flier out of the air, carried a galvanic charge, and were lethally acidic to boot.

One of the Librarians Errant reported that her poison detection spellform tattoo had activated when the streams were fired as well, which seemed utterly gratuitous to Godrick.

They probably still could have made it through an aerial attack, but the pillbugs didn’t react to decoys close to ground level, even when Alustin sent them flying right by their heads.

Godrick had suggested they use Eddin Slane’s ceramic tile shields to defend from the pillbugs, but Eddin Slane himself had turned down that idea.

“My shields are far better suited towards handling massive attacks and widely distributed attacks. Individual, highly precise attacks like the streams? There are decent odds they could break through a few of my tiles, or just knock a handful out of alignment. I’m more capable of defending us from a great power than from this nonsense.”

Instead, Slane was the one building them a path— a raised barge of ceramic tiles, floating several feet off the ground, with a chest-high wall around it.

Well, chest-high for Clan Castis, considerably less than that for Godrick.

Shimmering Cardovan and Emmenson Drees took point, standing in the prow of the ship and clearing a path for them.

Cardovan’s magic was impressively destructive. Various beryl gemstones darted about the battlefield at extreme speed— aquamarines, emeralds, heliodor, and even a single scarlet emerald flew in highly angular, zig-zagging patterns ahead of them, punching through insect carapaces at high speed. To add a visually impressive but completely unnecessary twist, Cardovan filled their gems, both the ones darting about and in their armor, with light, turning their portion of the battlefield into a brilliant spectacle.

The bulk of Cardovan’s insect kills, however, came not from his gemstones, but from their sound magic. As the archmage force advanced, Cardovan belted out an innuendo-filled tavern song, and each note tore apart a different part of the insects facing them. One note might tear apart armor plates, the next might rupture flame valves atop carapaces, a third sensory organs.

Emmenson Drees, also in front, made a far less dramatic sight than Cardovan. He simply stood in place on the moving ceramic platform, and any flame insect that approached his position exploded into goop under the concentrated force of his sound magic.

The biggest threat on the battlefield, even this close to the ground, remained the pillbugs. They weren’t actively aiming for the archmages, but if they were injured, they had a tendency to rupture entirely, their pressurized acid bladders containing a shocking quantity of superheated acid. Not to mention the crackling lightning inside the explosions.

Scrathinax and Celia the Anchor, their two gravity mages, took care of the pillbugs. They snagged them with gravity spells, one by one, and sent them tumbling through the air to the far reaches of the swarm. Their targets largely detonated on impact, or after a few bounces on the ground.

A few times early on they messed up and sent the pillbugs flying in too high of an arc, and pillbugs were shot down by other pillbugs, but thankfully the explosions were far enough away not to harm the archmages.

They simply avoided the walking hives, never coming close to them.

Rhodes was, to Godrick’s minor irritation, as useful to their advance as anyone. The disgraced noble was drawing moisture out of the air at ridiculous speeds to coat the ground around their path in a thick layer of ice. Ice mages shouldn’t be anywhere near that good at pulling moisture from the air, even in combination with his wind magic, yet Rhodes was accomplishing it easily. He was even helping reinforce the ice against being melted by the burning insects. Not to mention, his force blasts were more than enough to send insects flying left and right.

Godrick was dedicating the bulk of all four of his ice-related affinities to helping grow and reinforce the ice, and he still wasn’t contributing anywhere near as much as Rhodes.

Or Tena Brand, for that matter, who was almost as effective as Rhodes— though Godrick hardly resented her for it. Likewise Leon and Rose, who were draining astonishing amounts of heat from their surroundings, then launching fireballs back the way they came.

The fire insects hated the ice. They almost universally hesitated on reaching it, but the pressure of the swarm behind them pushed them forward.

Without the magical reinforcement the archmages were offering, the insects likely would have immediately melted through the ice, but with it, they only melted the very surface of the ice— which made the ice itself insanely slippery, to the kind of comical effect you usually needed a friction mage for.

Of course, a few of the burning insects still made it to the ceramic road, mostly by crawling over their sliding kin. They, in turn, ran straight into the wind shield being maintained by Valia, the Librarians Errant, and the Coven fliers, which sent most of them flying back out into the swarm easily. The wind-mages had to be careful not to extend their shield all the way to the ground so they didn’t waste mana blocking the sliding insects, though.

The ice-field below them and the wind shield around them were among the only reasons they could survive the heat inside the swarm— that, and the ridiculous amount of heat Eddin’s ceramic tiles were absorbing.

Maybe one in a hundred of the burning insects made it past all their defenses and began scaling the sides of the ceramic road— and that was being generous. The swarm was so large, though, that even that one-in-a-hundred would have been enough to overwhelm another group of mages. Godrick wasn’t given a single moment to breathe, as he ceaselessly wielded every trick he had in the book to fend off the swarm of insects.

His dancing Kemetrian weapons tore through chitin like butter, hardly making a dent in his steel magic, while he sent lightning arcing out into the storm whenever his lightning reservoir filled up— whatever their resistance to heat, only the pillbugs seemed resistant to lightning. He used the most basic of dream spellforms to send raw, almost entirely uncontrolled dream mana straight at insect sensory organs, sending them into alien seizures, while he did his best to suppress their hideous stench for the whole force with his scent magic.

And, of course, he battered them mercilessly with his hammer, though he held off on the gravity enchantments for now.

The rest of the force showed off an absurd variety of destructive magic.

Gram’s fire magic, which seemed to work differently than other fire mages, allowed him to somehow force the insects to release all their stored heat at once, causing detonations that ripped open the lines of approaching insects. His wife Haela almost casually tore all the oils out of the insect’s systems— of which there were incredible amounts— and then splattered them across the rest of the swarm, causing numerous explosions, and mass panic once she figured out how to separate out the insect pheromone oils.

Talia unleashed her usual horrific devastation— avoiding most of her new affinities, since they would have provided the swarm with more heat. Her dreamfire, however, proved terrifyingly effective against the swarm— one particularly large dreamfire blast, notably, started some sort of illogical coldfire that spread and froze dozens of insects before sputtering out.

Sabae, meanwhile, was swimming about in their wind shield, reaching out to hammer insects away and disrupt their attempts to crawl over one another. Godrick couldn’t help but think she looked oddly fish-like. Save, of course, for those moments when she flooded her armor with dream mana, when it was painful and confusing to look at her. It was even more maddening for the insects, though, and they immediately started swarming after her whenever she tried it.

When they weren’t swarming her, Sabae kept pulling out her spellform-etched skyspear staff, the one that let her extend her spells along its length, and kept using it to lash bugs with lightning, then hurl them away.

Of any of their number, Godrick would have expected Alustin to face the biggest challenge against this foe, but the paper mage was sending densely folded paper triangles whizzing at high speed into insect sensory organs. There was no reclaiming the burnt and stained pages, but there were literally hundreds of blinded insects after he was done.

Partway through the swarm, Alustin started laughing when he discovered that the flying scouts produced biological ink that they used to mark prey for the swarm, and soon the fliers were simply exploding in mid-air in a vast radius around the archmage force. Half the collected ink Alustin was using to form floating mid-air wards, or to paint exploding spellform glyphs on the sides of attacking insects, while the other half Alustin pulled into his storage tattoo.

Lot of uses for heat-resistant ink, Godrick supposed.

It was during a brief pause given to them by a couple of the Librarians Errant setting off a truly nasty alchemical weapon in the ranks of the swarm that Alustin folded back his paper faceplate and finally spoke to him.

“I’m sorry about your father, Godrick. He was a good man, and he would have been proud of you.”

Godrick spared Alustin a brief glance through his ichor-splattered quartz faceplate. “Appreciate it. Though ah can’t imagine he’d be proud a yeh’ right now.”

Alustin winced. “No, I’m sure he wouldn’t be. In fact, I imagine he wouldn’t have minded the thought of stepping on me too much. Still, I’m sorry he’s gone. I’m sorry he can’t see you today.”

“He deserved better,” Godrick growled, smashing a warrior-form with his hammer. Two of its scorpion stingers skidded off his armor, and he felt Gravel’s irritation at the creature as the elemental healed up the cuts the stinger had left in the stone surface.

“No,” Alustin said.

Godrick shot him an incredulous look.

“Artur died defending his son and his home— and succeeded. If he had to die in battle, I can’t think of a better way. I can guarantee, he would have done the same thing a thousand times over, with no regrets.”

Godrick furrowed his eyebrows as he grabbed an insect head in one gauntleted fist and squeezed.

Then he sighed heavily, and shredded another warrior-form with a barrage of steel nails. “Ah suppose so.”

Alustin nodded. “Don’t waste his gift— especially not chasing Heliothrax for revenge.”

“It’s a bit rich havin’ yeh of all people argue against revenge,” Godrick said.

“I got my revenge, even if not in as full of form as I would like. So far as I’m concerned, though, the Dominion was the easier target. Heliothrax was a monster even before her defeat. And now she’s fighting off both of the storm queens and a nigh-unkillable phoenix singlehanded, and I’ve got no idea who’s going to win.”

Godrick mixed a nail barrage in with lightning, shredding a pair of warforms in a particularly nasty fashion. “Ah wasn’t much plannin’ on goin’ after her. Ah actually listened ta Hugh, unlike yerself.”

“Why does everyone keep deferring to Hugh on matters of revenge?” Alustin asked dramatically, stabbing the air repeatedly to leave a series of sword echoes in the path of a mutant, extra-large warform with extra legs striding their way. The thing didn’t have to worry about sliding on the ice or being blown away by the wind shield— its legs ended in spikes that punched through the ice and into the ground below.

It didn’t do particularly well trying to charge through the sword echoes, though, and then Godrick’s flying Kemetrian weapons diced it to bits.

The green-glowing entropic axe, as usual, did the vast bulk of the damage.

“It’s because Hugh’s got plenty a’ good reasons ta seek revenge, from plenty a’ folks— yerself included— and decided not ta. He decided that he had more important goals, and that revenge would waste them. How much more yeh think he can contribute ta the world designin’ wards than pursuin’ yeh fer vengeance? How much more could yeh have contributed ta the world, if yeh hadn’t wasted yer life on revenge against a civilization that the Coven was slowly strangling ta death already? Nothin’ yeh’ve done here really means anythin’. It’s just a different arrangement a’ trash fer the scrapheap a’ history.”

That one struck home, and Alustin said nothing for several long minutes, as the ceramic barge crept its way through towards the rubble of the bank.

Godrick was the one to finally break the silence. “By the way, what did yeh mean, what Heliothrax did ta herself?”

Alustin started to answer, then staggered and clutched his head, muttering quiet nonsense words. He got a hold of himself quickly, though, and no one else seemed to have noticed.

“Was that the…?” Godrick asked.

Alustin just nodded. “It’s getting worse. Somehow, I almost feel like it knows what we’re doing, that we’re trying to prevent its release.”

“That shouldn’t be possible? Yeh can’t really think it’s alive?”

“It is… of course it’s alive, it has to be to infect other elementals,” Alustin said, sticking to their cover story. “It’s whether it’s aware that’s the question at hand, and one I’d prefer not to worry about. You asked about Heliothrax, though— well, you’re not the only one who’s given yourself a bunch of new affinities lately.”

As Alustin described the way Heliothrax had forcibly grafted the heads of living dragons to her own body, then subverted their magics into her service, Godrick found that he wasn’t sure whether he was more horrified by that, or by the thought that the Tongue Eater might be alive and thinking.

THEY MADE IT with only a single casualty— an unlucky flight mage surprised by a warrior-form. The ceramic barge only went so far as the base of the rubble heap, because Godrick, Sabae, and Talia were getting thrown from there.

After all, they didn’t actually want to fight through the imps— if they broke through the imp lines, it would risk allowing the swarm into the vault, which posed a non-negligible risk to the resonator, so the three of them were being launched in to reclaim the resonator, take out the demon if possible, then to get back to the main force.

Thanks to the risk from the pillbugs, they were being launched wrapped in multiple spheres of ceramic tiles, a wind shield, even a spinning gravity shell, an extremely difficult gravity magic defense that required both Celia the Anchor and Scrathinax to maintain— and all they could do was hope that would be enough.

It was enough to get them through— barely.

When Godrick and the others erupted out of the layered defenses into the bank vault, ready to brawl a demon without using any spells whatsoever, they were greeted with the last response Godrick possibly could have expected.

“I surrender!”

Godrick stared at the demon in puzzlement, not lowering his entropic axe. The creature was clearly of the same species as Bakori, though a bit shorter and much thinner. Their tail had a chitinous, three-pronged grasping claw instead of a stinger, and its skin was considerably wartier and uglier. It had the same protuberant, translucent gut that looked like it was filled with tadpoles, though.

It wasn’t making a single move against Godrick and the others, nor were its imps.

“I surrender!” the demon repeated, holding his hands in the air. “Please don’t hurt me, I’m just a carpenter!”

“A what now?” Talia asked, as baffled as Godrick.

Now that Godrick was calming down, not so ready to fight, he started to notice other details. The fact that the demon was, in fact, wearing a tool belt filled with carpenter’s tools sized appropriately for a twelve-foot tall carpenter. The fact that there were loads of bizarre, alien-looking woods piled up in the middle of the gold and jewels of Havath City, mostly in plank form. The fact that many of the imps seemed to be carrying the contents of a large woodworking shop.

“I’m a carpenter!” the demon repeated, clearly terrified. “I was on a buying trip through the labyrinth, looking for rare materials for a large commission, when all… this happened. I’m just trying to survive and get home!”

“Huh,” Sabae said, about summing up Godrick’s own feelings.

“Ah don’t suppose yeh’ve seen a bizarre enchanted book around anywhere, have yeh?” Godrick asked.

“You mean this one?” the demon asked, pointing over at one of the imps, who held up the resonator they were looking for. “I found it in an unruined bookstore, it was just lying on a shelf. Clearly magical, so… thought it could be useful.”

The imp slowly walked over and handed the book to Sabae, who took it with a bemused expression on her face.

“I’m Tienkis, by the way,” the demon said. “And, uh, I don’t suppose I could convince you all to help me escape this swarm? Poor things, they’ve been driven mad by the cold— they’re usually quite docile, so long as they don’t feel threatened.”

Godrick chuckled in slight bewilderment. “Ah… suppose we could help? Can yeh turn off yer spellform-degradin’ field, though? Also, how do yeh know Ithonian?”

“Learned it from Helicotan prisoners in the labyrinth,” Tienkis said. “And do you mean my aura? I can’t turn it off, but I can pull it close in to my body so it doesn’t interfere with your magic.”

“How do we know you’re not messing with our minds?” Talia demanded. “We’ve met your kind before.”

The demon gave her an offended look. “Because first off, I’m the wrong gender for mind magic, only three of our genders can do that, and only one of those to aliens like you.”

Tienkis gestured at their clawed tail-tip, as though that should mean something.

“And second, even if I could do mind magic, only a monster would do mind magic on someone without their consent. I’m just an honest carpenter, thank you very much.”

“Oh. Uh… sorry?” Sabae said.

The demon sagged. “I feel like I should be apologizing to you, if you really met a member of my kind who did something so monstrous, lived up to every awful stereotype about our kind. It’s mostly just the sort of awfulness people say about refugees of any sort, but… criminals like that do exist, sadly.”

“We really don’t have time ta’ chat now,” Godrick said. “We should probably get movin’, we have a magical superweapon ta stop.”

“That sounds dramatic and terrible,” Tienkis said.

“Yeh can say that again.”

Talia picked up a jeweled chalice off the ground, then tucked it into the dimensional storage tattoo around her mouth. “Do you think we have time for just a little looting, maybe?”

“I didn’t know your species could eat gold,” Tienkis said curiously.

Godrick and Sabae both sighed heavily.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

By Greed Entrapped

INDRIS STORMBREAKER SNARLED in triplicate before her two stormbodies leapt upon Heliothrax.

The Sunwyrm ripped apart the larger and better-defined of the two stormbodies before it even reached her. Indris could feel wind magic exerting itself against her own, but also believed she could variously feel force magic, water magic, gravity magic, even stone and glass magic against the sand and debris carried in the stormbody’s wind.

It was the first time she’d felt gravity magic from Heliothrax, and it was deeply concerning— along with her new wind and force affinities, Heliothrax had the potential to become a Thunderbringer. There had, to Indris’ knowledge, only ever been one dragon in Ithos’ history to develop the magics to fly faster than sound— most that attempted it tore themselves apart in the process, whatever species they were.

Heliothrax’s bodily modifications, however, made it entirely likely that the abomination could survive the process.

The Sunwyrm could not be allowed to survive past this day. If she were allowed to live long enough to master all of her magics, who knew what other terrifying combinations of power she might develop? It was almost certain that no great power on the continent would be able to rival Heliothrax once she achieved mastery.

And now that she’d stepped across the line, began harvesting other dragons for their magics, there was absolutely nothing stopping Heliothrax from doing it again, save her own self-restraint, and Indris wouldn’t bet a bent copper on that. Once the powerful crossed a line in the pursuit of power, they were almost guaranteed to cross it again and again.

Indris refused to allow it. Refused to allow Heliothrax to potentially come after her or her children, for her friends and lovers. Refused to let the abomination become a leech on the back of Ithonian dragonkind.

Heliothrax had lashed out at the second stormbody as well, but hadn’t paid it as much attention. While the first stormbody had been almost as large as Indris herself, with clearly defined edges and a lethal mix of sand and debris, the second stormbody was smaller, fuzzy around the edges, and hardly carried enough material to be a threat.

Heliothrax might be powerful, might wield a monstrous number of magics, but until she actually did master those magics, well…

She’d be vulnerable to some of the oldest tricks in the book.

The second stormbody had taken almost five times as much mana to build as the first, because it was little more than a mobile low-pressure pocket. A fairly extreme low-pressure pocket, at that— the limits of what a storm great power could handle.

When Heliothrax tore it apart, the pocket collapsed— and yanked half of the abomination’s own protective winds into it.

The Sunwyrm was thrown off course, which was when Sarchus Vye and Ilinia struck.

Sarchus, who had been badly wounded and thrown down into the ruins by Heliothrax for at least the fourth time now, had played possum and pretended to still be healing. The instant Heliothrax’s winds were thrown off course, he unleashed a gargantuan column of flame, straight up at the Sunwyrm.

Ilinia, meanwhile, dropped a massive column of cold air— or at least, the coldest she could make, in the melting nightmare that had been Havath City.

The flames and cold air slammed together against the Sunwyrm, and then Ilinia and Indris seized the air around the columns and set it to spinning.

Within heartbeats, Heliothrax was being whirled about in the cyclone, and the three powers facing her unleashed their wrath.

The phoenix kept the fire flowing from below, but pumped it into the walls of the cyclone, setting the whole thing ablaze. Ilinia let loose another of those insane explosions of lightning against the Sunwyrm, fueled by her new spellform tattoos.

And Indris let loose with good old ordinary dragonflame.

For all her modifications to herself, for all her new affinities, Heliothrax still wasn’t immune to dragonflame. Outside of a few extraordinarily rare metals, not much was.

Not to say dragonflame would do much damage to Heliothrax, but it also served a more important purpose.

It, along with Sarchus Vye’s flames, was drying out the air around Heliothrax and the cyclone, even more than the Eye of Heliothrax and the dripping magma around them already were.

Which was when Indris and Ilinia settled dehydration spells around the abomination.

Dehydration spells were usually far from worth it in combat— they were far too mana-intensive even against a human, were easily countered by enemy water mages, healers, or any one of a dozen other affinities, and were slow even when they did work.

Between all their current battlefield advantages, the fact that Heliothrax’s new water affinity was by far one of her weakest, and the ridiculous aether density around them, it was worth a try, though.

Heliothrax began to scream inside the cyclone, and to Indris’ joy, she actually felt her spell begin to pull moisture from Heliothrax— specifically, from the living heads of other dragons vivisected to the Sunwyrm’s spine.

The Sunwyrm might have modified the attached heads to be almost as durable as the rest of her in some ways, but she’d clearly lacked the time to complete the modifications.

Indris slowly settled down on a labyrinth corridor to keep a good attack angle on Heliothrax, and started fusing sand into dragon-length sandstone spears for when she started running low on dragonflames.

Just before she launched the spears, however, something landed on the labyrinth corridor in front of Indris.

A human. Bruised, battered, and burnt, but oddly confident.

“Indris Stormbreaker!” the figure shouted. “Too long has your tyranny oppressed the human masses! Too long have you fostered chaos for your own petty greed! I, Elathay Apex, am here to slay you and…”

Indris stepped on him.

Elathay Apex, in the end, had made one mistake when challenging Indris. Oh, he’d found fascinating ways to improve his body, in his pursuit to become the human equivalent of Heliothrax, all despite the fact that humans were far less biologically mutable than dragons. He’d pushed his physical strength and durability to absurd, almost unbelievable levels.

It was only that one mistake that did him in. That one iron law of nature that none of his self-augmentations could overcome.

Mass.

It didn’t matter how much he’d upgraded himself, in the end— the sheer tonnage that came down on him, the vast bulk of an elder wyrm like Indris, left only a smear on the ground.

The storm queen didn’t waste a single thought on the human mage after stepping on him, just turned back and started launching the sandstone spears at Heliothrax.

Then Indris felt a now-familiar stirring in the aether around her, and quickly launched the rest of the spears and made sure her wind shield and sand wards were prepared.

And, once more, Heliothrax stopped trying to fight intelligently, and just blasted out uncontrolled spells in every direction.

It was a profoundly wasteful, inaccurate, even laughable attack— but Heliothrax simply had so many different kinds of magic, and so much mana available to her, that the resulting shockwave tore apart the cyclone and forced Indris and her allies to withdraw a considerable distance from the Sunwyrm.

“You’re running out of tricks,” Heliothrax taunted. “You can throw yourselves against my might all day, if you’d like, and you’ll never be able to bring me down. I can simply outwait you, if need be.”

Indris opened her mouth to taunt the abomination back— the overgrown braggart was amusingly thin-skinned to insults— when something unexpected struck Heliothrax in the face.

A lightning bolt.

Not that there were a shortage of lightning bolts being thrown around the battle, of course— Ilinia and Heliothrax both were tossing them around like candy to children— but this was, even to a non-lightning mage like Indris, immediately recognizable as not theirs. It wasn’t a spell at all, in fact.

It was clearly and obviously the attack of a lightning dragon.

“Fancy meeting you here, Sunwyrm,” a cheerful voice called out, echoing from a dozen different directions.

Andas Thune.

Indris growled quietly. That pretty little idiot had been warned specifically to stay away from Heliothrax. He might have stolen her territory, yes, but he’d done so with patience and trickery, spending years carefully preparing illusions with his mirage and dream affinities, and then activating them all at once when Heliothrax had been away hunting a particularly murderous minor great power.

He hadn’t been a match for Heliothrax in a direct fight even before she had turned herself into an abomination, and he absolutely wasn’t now.

With all of Heliothrax’s affinities— at least thirteen or fourteen, if not more— it would be easy for her to detect Andas Thune’s movements based on his impact on the world around him.

That was, of course, ignoring Heliothrax’s dragon affinity.

Indris should have let the beautiful moron suffer the consequences of his impetuousness, should have taken advantage of the abomination’s lunge to launch another assault from range.

Instead, Indris found herself diving faster than she ever had before, racing to intercept Heliothrax with all the mana she could squeeze out of her wind reservoir. She felt the strain of her dive in her bones, but she was, amazingly, on-course to intercept Heliothrax, who was rightfully renowned as the fastest flier in the skies outside of Thunderbringers.

It was a tactically stupid move on Indris’ part, but she’d always had a weakness for a graceful pair of wings.

Of course, what went for illusionists went doubly for threats approaching Heliothrax out in the open. Indris wasn’t sure which of the Sunwyrm’s affinities had warned her of her dive, or maybe she’d just peered through the eyes of the living dragon heads fused to her spine.

The how wasn’t so important as the response— Heliothrax spinning in mid-air, impossibly agile, her disturbingly long claws reaching up to meet Indris’ descent. As the two dragons inexorably closed on one another, the third to last thing Indris felt was a curious buzzing sensation in the aether, coming from one of the living dragon heads grafted to Heliothrax.

The next to last thing Indris felt as the two elder wyrms came together was regret at her own impetuous foolishness.

The last thing Indris Stormbreaker felt was pain.

AS INDRIS’ BROKEN, gutted body tumbled into the depths of the ruins, Ilinia knew they had lost. Knew that they didn’t have a chance to bring down Heliothrax.

She threw her magic against the Sunwyrm anyway, hammered at her with wind and lightning, kept trying to dehydrate her with water magic.

It didn’t stop a rising avalanche of bronze scrap from ripping through a seemingly empty patch of air, revealing the shredded body of Andas Thune, who quickly followed his lover down into the depths, the manifested dreams he had been attempting to summon simply dissolving. And it didn’t stop Sarchus Vye from simply turning and fleeing. Even if Ilinia were able to afford the price that Indris had offered Sarchus Vye, there would be no price worth Sarchus facing the Sunwyrm with only a single ally.

“It seems I won’t need to wait until you get tired after all,” Heliothrax rumbled mockingly.

Ilinia didn’t bother responding, just whirled in mid-air and fled.

Heliothrax might be the fastest flier in the air, but Ilinia had two advantages in retreat. First, the fact that Heliothrax’s recent modifications had clearly slowed her down just a bit, and reduced her agility significantly. And second, Ilinia was a gnat compared to Heliothrax— she could easily fly through spaces the Sunwyrm would never fit, even before she’d grown into a massive, swollen bulk of a monster.

Dodging between close-set labyrinth corridors and darting through tangled labyrinth junctions only helped so much, though. The cavernous emergent labyrinth still offered plenty of wide-open lanes for Heliothrax to follow her, and the sunbeams were only an obstacle for Ilinia. Worse, the numbers of sunbeams were increasing drastically, as more labyrinth collapses occurred, as more of the labyrinth melted under the Eye of Heliothrax, and as the sun shifted slowly across the sky.

Ilinia flew over horrid melted scars in the ruins from the shifting sunbeams, over homes and businesses carried into the air by the labyrinth, and over pointless, ongoing fragments of battle between fools who should have ceased hours before. Whose victories and losses were utterly meaningless posturing in the ruins of the continent’s greatest city.

She was struck with an abrupt and convincing image of Sabae raising a sardonic eyebrow at that thought, but shoved her imagination aside to focus on survival.

Her ever-annoying granddaughter’s image just smugly crawled back into her head, though, and almost seemed to be sighing in exasperation.

Pushing aside imagination to focus on survival. That’s what the back of Ilinia’s mind was trying to tell her, obnoxiously dressing it up as the voice of her granddaughter.

Setting aside imagination for survival. Setting aside imagination for victory. Setting aside imagination to protect the status quo. Ilinia and her ancestors had done it for generations. Her mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother, going back for centuries had all relentlessly scrabbled for more power, always holding onto their rule with the ragged edges of their fingernails, always desperately fighting against other great powers doing the exact storming same thing.

Ilinia spun out of the path of a small tenement building Heliothrax had thrown at her, using who knew what combination of magics. Wind, at the least, probably stone and bronze as well. Gravity, maybe?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the dodge slowed down Ilinia just a little more, let the Sunwyrm pull just a little closer to her.

“Alright, annoying imaginary granddaughter, let’s be imaginative,” Ilinia muttered, using a half-dozen bolts of lightning to knock aside a volley of bronze shards from her pursuer.

Absolutely no ideas came to her as she flew between two particularly large magma-falls.

Ilinia’s scowl grew, and she yanked her flask off her belt, screwed it open to take a swig of the nasty rotgut she preferred.

Not because she liked the taste, no. She doubted it was physiologically possible to like the taste of the stuff.

No, she liked it because it kept her grounded. Helped keep her from losing all touch with the common run of humanity, helped remind her that her shit still stank.

Ilinia smirked humorlessly at the thought, then took one more swig as she passed through a column of smoke from a burning city block. She very carefully isolated the air inside her personal wind shield from the smoke— who knew what sort of nasty alchemicals were inside the smoke, after all. Just about the entirety of the ruins had been contaminated by the destruction of the Intertwined.

Sealing off her personal bubble like that quieted the world around her for a moment, drowned out the monstrous roars of Heliothrax’s magics and the distant rumblings of battle.

That very quiet let Ilinia hear a noise she’d long since learned to tune out, a noise she’d heard every time she’d drank from her flask for years.

The Kaen Das family had more powerful enchanted artifacts than any great power clan had a possible right to, and even more decoy enchantments that looked impressive, but were just bait for thieves and saboteurs.

Their most powerful tool was unquestionably Stormseat itself, the impossibly huge artificial mana battery that had been built off the power of the Kaen Das line for countless generations, that let each new Protector of Ras Andis wield the mana to redirect typhoons and sink fleets with ease.

Their second most important tool, however, was far less prepossessing.

It was Ilinia’s own flask.

The flask served three main functions, ignoring a few side functions like poison detection. The first, and most important, of course, was just to hold alcohol. Ridiculous quantities of it, hundreds or even thousands of gallons in its internal storage space.

The second was as a mana battery, a mana reservoir separate from Stormseat. Also fairly important, to Ilinia’s mind.

The third function was the one making the noise. The foolish mindchild of Ilinia’s own great-grandmother, Merae Kaen Das.

The Kaen Das family had fought so many enemies over the centuries. They had killed or driven off most, though a few enemies took multiple tries.

There were a handful that they’d never found a permanent solution to, that had required imprisonment or trickery.

There was no way to kill the Sleeper in the Sands, so the Kaen Das clan regularly contributed to the upkeep of its prison. There were a handful of true abominations in Anastis’ deepest waters, ones that the Kaen Das line conspired with marine civilizations and intelligences to keep pacified in their chasms and seamount lairs.

And, well over a century ago, there’d been the Storm, and Merae Kaen Das, that over-ambitious fool, had decided to catch it.

She’d succeeded, somehow. Locked the thing away in an extra-dimensional space, linked it to the flask that was the true symbol of Kaen Das rule.

And every time Ilinia took a drink from her flask, she could hear its winds raging, trying to break free.

Ilinia had always thought of it as a reminder of hubris. Merae had died young trapping the Storm, had almost bankrupted the family and the city of Ras Andis to buy its planar prison from Kanderon. Had left them vulnerable to enemy interests and rampaging great powers, had almost ended their dynasty. Not just Merae’s foolishness, though— that of her mother and grandmother as well.

Because the Storm wasn’t truly a storm. No typhoon could last a century in a bottle, because in the end, all a storm really was? An energy imbalance. All the rage and power of a storm, all the furious wind and thunder? Just energy being shifted from an area with more temperature to an area with less. A violent restoration of stability, a futile attempt by the world to restore fluidic homogeneity by shifting atmospheric and oceanic heat. Even a storm’s lightning was mostly just energy imbalances of a different sort.

A normal storm would have finished its transfer within hours of being trapped in an extra-dimensional space. Would have become stale air and water.

The Storm wasn’t a storm.

It was an elemental. A typhoon elemental. A futile attempt by a long-dead storm mage to seek immortality and power embodied in the wrath of nature, only to become a mindless, undying knot in the atmosphere, a wound in the world that constantly stymied its already futile efforts to restore energetic homogeneity to the wind and waves.

And Ilinia’s fool family had kept trying to harness it, kept trying to turn it into a weapon, or another power source, or even trying to find a way to hijack its consciousness and succeed where its centuries-dead creator had failed.

And oh, had there been costs. Oh, had there been casualties, and mind-boggling expenses that strained the Kaen Das treasury. And all for naught.

They hadn’t stopped with Ilinia, of course. She’d kept trying, kept funding research into elementals over the decades— but merely at normal, bearable levels that didn’t strain the budget of a city-state, even one of the continent’s mightiest and wealthiest. It wasn’t in Ilinia to abandon avenues to power, after all.

As the Krakenbane raced through the ruins, dodged collapsing labyrinth corridors and ceaseless magical assaults from the Sunwyrm, the voice of her granddaughter popped up in her head again, with her ridiculous youthful idealism, her impossible demands that the course of history shift to please her. As the greatest living storm mage in the world raced towards the half-poisoned, half-evaporated Greywise River that bordered the city, in an effort to fight in more favorable terrain, her imagination took the form of Sabae once more, and pointed out something vital.

Ilinia already had given up avenues to power. Was bleeding away the Stormseat’s artificial mana reservoir to empower the first of her new warlock students.

She laughed to herself, took one last sip of rotgut, and closed the flask.

Then she re-opened it, but unscrewed the cap in a different direction than normal. Not in the opposite direction, but an unreal direction, one that only existed for the wielder of the flask.

As she did, she whirled to face the Sunwyrm once more.

And Heliothrax had the dubious honor of being the first to greet the gargantuan typhoon elemental as it was released from imprisonment.

EVEN LOCKED AWAY and dreaming inside her self-made prison, Kanderon Crux was the third person to know of the typhoon monster’s release. She kept close track of a few of the planar spaces she’d sold over the centuries, and of those, the typhoon elemental’s prison was easily the largest.

Of course, it hardly compared to some of Kanderon’s truly huge planar spaces, but she’d sold none of those. Still, she knew exactly what the Kaen Das family had been keeping in that planar space, and the instant Ilinia cracked open its prisons, mental alarms went off inside Kanderon’s mind— in a quite literal sense.

The sphinx’s impatience boiled over. For hours, she had paced the inside of her own mind in frustration and growing rage, with only the barest trickles of news from Keayda to keep her company.

When the chitin wand’s aether ripple passed Skyhold, Kanderon had needed to forcibly restrain herself from trying to waken her demesne, even knowing that it wasn’t possible, that she would break herself trying.

And now this? This was entirely too much to bear.

As the typhoon elemental freed itself from its prison and began rolling out across the ruins of Havath City, Kanderon began to scream inside her own mind. As the unnatural winds began to spiral out across the emergent labyrinth, sweeping unprepared Havathi soldiers off the corridors where they’d been stranded, Kanderon’s rage shook the very fabric of her own demesne. As lightning began crawling in vast webs across the labyrinth corridors, seeking out and clinging to the molten and recooled bronze of the city, the blue crystal sphere atop Skyhold began to shudder and glow. As entire walls of rain burst into steam against the streams and rivers of magma, Kanderon strained at the bonds of her own lich dream, so powerfully that it might have sent a dream mage into seizures, if any had been so foolish as to delve into her dreams just then. As the top of the rising stormcloud climbed up the emergent labyrinth like a rising flood, and the Eye of Heliothrax began stirring its cloudtop into boiling steam, Kanderon brought her rage to bear, swung her mental representation of her own leg against her mental representation of her yellowstone detector, an enchantment designed to let her track down the poisonous, forbidden mineral.

As yet another superweapon picked over the bones of Havath City, Kanderon shattered the yellowstone detector, rending it completely from her demesne.

And even in her rage, Kanderon froze in shock.

As the spreading typhoon elemental began sweeping suspended buildings of their labyrinth perches, as the gale winds began to trigger one labyrinth collapse after another, the monumental collapses audible even over the screaming storm, Kanderon slowly felt at the hole where the yellowstone detector should have been. Felt at the space in her mind where the enchantment hadn’t yet been stitched into her demesne, hadn’t yet become one of her organs, and now never would.

With uncanny swiftness, before the typhoon elemental could even envelop a third of the dead city, Kanderon felt a message arrive from Keayda.

What have you done, Kanderon? Why have you harmed yourself?

Kanderon didn’t look at the communications diary lying inside her lich dream, inside her nascent domain, and yet read Keayda’s message anyway.

It doesn’t matter, Keayda.

Of course it matters, fool child. You are ripping and tearing at your own body and mind, out of what? Frustration that your favorite Ephemerals are playing games without you? They’re toys. They don’t matter to beings like us, who watch years pass like months, centuries like decades. They repeat the same foolish mistakes, again and again and again, unwilling to learn from the mistakes of those who have come before them, always convinced that their story is the new one.

An old, tired argument from an old, tired lich, desperately seeking reasons to safeguard his irrelevance. I will not uselessly debate it for the thousandth time. No, the real toys? I have surrounded myself with the real toys.

With that, Kanderon reared back once more, then dropped the entirety of her mental weight down on a ward intensity tester, still unintegrated, and her demesne shuddered once more.

Kanderon! Cease this childish tantrum at once! You throw away years of work and progress now for what end?

Kanderon’s immense fangs closed on a small inertial enhancer, one meant to help Kanderon come to a halt faster from a full charge, and her demesne shuddered once more.

It’s a toy, Keayda. All of these things, toys. Distractions I spent years, decades playing with, all because I was too afraid to take the final step into lichdom. All trivial amusements, gaudy accessories I never needed. And I will gladly sacrifice them for those who matter to me.

Insanity! You speak of throwing away abilities many great powers would kill for, merely for the unhealthy attachment you’ve formed for your own warlock, for a desperate and futile attempt to reclaim your lost family!

Lost family? No. I throw my toys away to rescue my new family. No, not that, either. I throw them away to rescue myself. I throw them away out of selfishness, out of refusal to be left alone once more. What is the point of power if it costs you the very things you wish to protect?

Kanderon began to rip and tear, to smash and break, like a being possessed. Each time she shattered a new demesne component, each time she severed the connection of a half-integrated new tool, the demesne shuddered and shook— but each time, the tremors grew smaller, the demesne more stable.

Kanderon, please!

The sphinx just snorted, ignoring the pleading.

Instead, she set her eyes on the last demesne addition, on the greatest and most powerful of her designs.

On the worldgate ripper. On the tool that could instantly vault her into the upper ranks of multiversal powers.

For a moment, she felt hesitation. For a moment, Kanderon seriously weighed the value of the worldgate ripper against Hugh. Weighed the decades it would take to rebuild and integrate into her demesne.

The weight of the scales tipped overwhelmingly in favor of Hugh, and Kanderon once more began to rip and tear.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Sudden Onset

SABAE FELT THE typhoon elemental’s release only a few short minutes after they dropped off Tienkis safely away from the swarm. The whole time, as the demon— or demoness, Sabae wasn’t really sure— chattered away at the assembled archmages, she had somehow felt bizarrely embarrassed, as though by not having an epic battle against a demon, she was failing the mission, somehow.

The vague embarrassment lingered as the group flew away atop Scrathinax’s back, heading towards their rendezvous site with Hugh and Vervyn.

Sabae was distracted from the feeling when she noticed Alustin simply stop talking to Valia, his face paling. His fellow Helicotan, and a few others nearby, immediately started interrogating Alustin, but the paper mage just shook his head as he stared off into space, his attention fully fixed on his scrying for several minutes. She didn’t try to climb down from Scrathinax’s horn and work her way down to Alustin— her hearing had grown significantly sharper since her visit to Limnus.

The last remnants of her embarrassment vanished alongside her interest in what had scared Alustin the instant she felt the typhoon elemental surge out into the world.

All the other wind, water, and lightning mages among the group had detected the typhoon elemental’s emergence, but so had a surprising number of other mages— their sound mages both heard the roar of the storm and their fire mages felt the rapid drop in temperature— but only Sabae understood what had just happened, only Sabae knew the family stories about Merae’s storm.

“Scrathinax!” she yelled. “Find us a labyrinth entrance high off the ground, now! Anyone with scrying ability, make sure the labyrinth influence is still strong wherever Scrathinax takes us— the storm’s going to take out any part of the labyrinth that’s even close to collapsing!”

Sabae spoke as though she expected to be obeyed, and to her shock, she was. Scrathinax immediately banked, then accelerated, the shift in gravity making her a bit queasy.

It was likely only two or three minutes as Scrathinax accelerated through the city, his gravity magic letting him fall as much as fly in the right direction as he hunted for shelter. Sabae spent the whole time staring off into the distance, where she could feel the typhoon elemental rapidly growing as it feasted on the heat of the ruins, drank deeply from the magma, the smoldering fires from the Last Echo and the battle, and the Eye of Heliothrax.

By the time Scrathinax tracked down an opening into the labyrinth— a great hole in the side of a vertical column, where a labyrinth collapse had torn free an intersecting corridor— Sabae could just barely make out, deep within the maze of the emergent labyrinth, a looming, roiling darkness, devouring the ruins and the labyrinth as it rushed towards her. Could just make out the claw-like grasp of lightning spreading forwards.

But it all screamed to her affinity senses, and Sabae could only hope Vervyn remembered the family lessons about Merae’s storm, and hid from the typhoon elemental.

And then Scrathinax dove into the ruined labyrinth, using his gravity magic to counter the gravitational oddities of the corridor, and flew purely with his gravity magic, his wings tucked fully against his side.

The dragon didn’t stop immediately, to Sabae’s relief, but went through several turns and intersections before landing in a round, almost drum-shaped chamber. It was good that he’d kept going, because the storm almost certainly would have penetrated into the first few corridors. Here, they should be fine with merely a couple of protective wards over the chamber entrances.

It was to be expected from one of the children of Indris, she supposed. They grew up learning as much about the weather as any Kaen Das, and she would be shocked if they lacked knowledge of Merae’s storm.

As Godrick and a couple other mages set up protective wards, the rest of the archmages clustered around her, demanding an explanation of what had just happened. Sabae told them the short version of the story of Merae’s storm, then answered a few questions— though she was careful to avoid certain Kaen Das family secrets. Rose, Leon, and Gram seemed especially interested in hearing more about the typhoon elemental— unsurprising, given Clan Castis’ use of elementals. Quite a few others were demanding why Sabae’s grandmother would have released it— a question Sabae had no solid answers to.

Halfway through the questions, the storm hit.

Part of Sabae had expected the whole structure to shake, but the segment they were in was still unrotten, was far from a labyrinth collapse. The sound of the storm, though, rolled in through the halls like an explosion, and quite a few of the archmages winced until Emmenson Drees and Shimmering Cardovan used their magic to block most of the storm’s roar.

Valia took the opportunity to take over Sabae’s questioning, and her focus was much less on magical minutiae or historical questions than on the actual, practical implications of the storm.

“It’s probably going to be at least an hour before the storm expends its initial wrath and settles down to feed on the city’s heat,” Sabae said. “It’s going to be suicide to venture out before then.”

“It’s suicide to stay in here for too long,” Valia pointed out. “We have a magical superweapon to stop, after all, and we’re on a short timer.”

“Of which we’ve got maybe two hours left,” Sabae agreed. “We’re going to be cutting it close, but we don’t have any better options.”

Valia nodded, then whirled on Alustin. “Now, I’m curious what had you so distracted before the storm.”

Alustin sighed heavily. “Bad news and worse news.”

“Bad news first,” Valia said.

“Indris Stormbreaker and Andas Thune have both fallen to Heliothrax.”

There were audible gasps, and then the room burst out into arguments, questions, and demands. Scrathinax gasped loudest at the news of his mother’s defeat, then curled up into a trembling ball.

Alustin waited patiently as Valia tried to restore order, but before she was successful, the entire room fell eerily silent, even though mouths still moved.

“Alustin, continue,” Emmenson Drees ordered.

“Sarchus Vye promptly fled after Indris fell. Ilinia Kaen Das released this storm against Heliothrax while trying to escape. I lost track of both of them in the storm, though I’m still trying to find them. It’s still extremely difficult to scry out of the labyrinth’s influence, even with it decaying.”

“And the worse news?” Shimmering Cardovan asked, easily speaking through Emmenson’s silence spell.

“I figured out why the last resonator has been so hard to find. It was in the one place neither Hugh nor I would have ever thought to check while scrying, at least until now. Heliothrax has been storing various magical weapons she’s captured in the mouths of the living dragon heads she’s fused to herself, and one of them is holding the last resonator.”

“Oh. Lovely.” Shimmering Cardovan said.

Emmenson Drees dropped his silence spell with an angry wave of his hand, and the room exploded into argument once more.

IT WAS MORE than a few minutes before Alustin finished answering questions to the crowd.

If it had been any other group, Sabae might have expected debate over whether they should abandon their mission. But the assembled were all archmages, along with a few specialist mages worthy of inclusion among a group of archmages. Aside from a couple of pointed questions about their odds of success if they failed to feed any of the resonators to Mackerel, most of the interrogation rapidly switched to the practicalities of the situation, trying to figure out the best approach to stealing the resonator.

A group of archmages could match a great power in battle, but even with the absurd number of archmages among their group, none of them had the slightest confidence they could successfully challenge Heliothrax, and certainly not in her new, monstrous form.

The group quickly started working on various plans, but there were two most common proposals.

The first, obviously, was to track down Ilinia. If she were to work together with the archmages, they would have their best chance— especially in the middle of this storm.

The second was Talia’s suggestion— track down Eudaxus, who was, so far as anyone knew, the only remaining teleporter in the city. There was a chance he’d be able to steal the resonator from inside the dragon maw without having to engage Heliothrax at all. Only a chance, though— magically reaching inside the closed mouth of another being wasn’t generally something greater shadow mages were known to be capable of, and even weaker solar mages had some moderate abilities to counteract greater shadow mages. Still definitely worth a try, though.

A few also suggested recruiting one of the other surviving great powers, but given the strength of the great powers already felled by Heliothrax, most doubted they’d convince them to join. More likely would be the great powers trying to flee the city— the selfless seldom became great powers. Almost certainly either Ramyl the Chained or the assembled Clan Castis could be convinced, but it was entirely implausible to transport either across the city to Heliothrax with their resources. No one was quite ready to take the idea off the table, though— at least until Alustin managed to scry them through the decaying labyrinth influence, and report on the disheartening news of the battle against the Sican Elder.

While Alustin was being interrogated about that, Rhodes and several of the fliers that had been sent on the mission were pestering her with questions about the typhoon elemental.

“Yes, you’ll definitely need some way to filter your air if you’re in the worst of it,” Sabae said. “The elemental is going to be picking up literal tons of poisonous alchemical substances leaking out of the Intertwined demesnes. We’re literally going to be dealing with a poisonous hurricane, here. It won’t kill you, at least not in the short term, but it will make you extremely sick. And it will almost certainly cause you lifelong illness with enough exposure.”

One of the fliers raised a hand. “Wouldn’t it technically be a venomous hurricane, since it’s alive and spitting the poison at us?”

“This is,” Rhodes said, adjusting his ice mask, “an argument that I would have been much, much happier never having considered.”

Sabae eventually managed to break away from her own questioning, and found Alustin standing at her side.

“It’s my turn, then?” Sabae asked, pulling a deck of cards out of her storage tattoo.

“Your turn?” Alustin asked, eying the deck of cards with recognition as Sabae began to shuffle it.

“You’ve been talking to us one by one. Talia, then Godrick, and now me.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Is it absolution you want? Because of all of us, I’m the least forgiving,” Sabae pointed out. “I gave you multiple chances to do right by us, and you’ve failed every time. Betrayed us and used us.”

“You did, and no, it’s not absolution I want,” Alustin said. “I just… You owe me nothing, but at the very least, I owe you answers to any questions you have.”

“What questions are there to ask?” Sabae said. “Your motives are childish and uninteresting, your means are interesting but probably useless to me, and your future plans are moot, because it’s doubtful you’ll survive the day, one way or another.”

Alustin winced at that, but Sabae didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. Forgiveness had to be earned, or it was worthless, and Alustin had entirely failed to do so. His own remorse hadn’t stopped him from betraying his students again and again— Sabae would be a fool to accept it, or to expect it would prevent him from betraying them again if he felt it necessary.

“Actually, I do have one question,” Sabae said. “Has your destruction of Havath City’s labyrinth significantly affected Anastis’ aether? Have you accelerated our world’s risk of aether criticality for your vengeance?”

Alustin shook his head. “No. Our world has hundreds, if not thousands, of labyrinths. One dead labyrinth, even a large one, won’t affect the fate of our universe, save on geological and cosmological timescales.”

Sabae nodded, then turned to go, only to have Alustin keep talking.

“I understand that you hate me, and I won’t say I don’t deserve it, but you probably won’t get this opportunity again, Sabae. Like you said, I probably won’t make it through the day, and…”

Sabae shook her head. “You’re desperate to have these conversations with us, aren’t you? You need to explain yourself, need to at least be able to tell yourself that you tried. You won’t get that from me, though. Now why don’t you contact Hugh through your little paper communicators? He might have more pity for you.”

Sabae used just a drop of wind magic to spray the deck of cards at him, and was already walking away to speak with Godrick and Talia before the cards started hitting the ground.

She didn’t even bother to look back to see the look on his face.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Hasty Negotiations

THERE WAS ONE warning needed for anyone who would dare challenge one of the Sican Elders, one warning to heed absolutely. They were not mere brutes, and their enormous size and strength were only two of a vast number of threats they posed.

Karna Scythe had gone into battle heeding that warning, but hadn’t truly understood its importance.

At first, as the brawl between the powers rampaged in the vast cavernous space around the Coven enchantment, Karna had done her best to let the focus of the Elder rest on the various enemy great powers, to avoid direct confrontation with them. Not least because she genuinely had no idea why one of the Sican Elders was rampaging around the ruins of Havath City. There shouldn’t even be a second Elder involved in the Sican war against the Dominion, for one. Nor did there seem to be any plausible gain for Sica to have one of their Elders brawling with random great powers.

Against Havathi powers? Certainly. But against the Coven great powers and Karna’s own alliance? Entirely illogical, so far as she could tell.

And yet it fought, and taught Karna and the other assembled great powers why the Sican Elders were considered a threat even to the mightiest.

The hundreds of Sican mages carried about by the gargantuan wooden figure were a well-trained, disciplined force, who kept fighting even when many of them were crushed by the flailing, chain-riddled hydra serving the Coven. All but the most powerful great powers would be a fool to ignore the siege mages, sharpshooter mages, and the like among their numbers.

Next was, of course, the seeming invulnerability of the Elder. It shrugged off all but the strongest attacks, and when it was injured, it regrew the damage as swiftly as the Coven hydra. Even the lethal spells of Niana Everflame had done little more than inconvenience the verdant behemoth.

Finally, and most importantly, was the plant magic of the Sican Elder.

Every footstep it left blossomed into a huge field of plant-life, well on its way to being a forest. Each chunk of wood broken off it in battle sprouted vast swathes of moss, spreading across the ruins. With every step it took, its body shed thousands, if not millions, of seeds across the ground.

And those plants weren’t growing randomly.

Living wards the size of streets and combat glyphs the size of houses sprouted in the wake of the Elder. Vast root networks spread from them, erupting from the ground thousands of feet away to impale foes. Unnaturally large flowers spat great clouds of toxic pollen into the air.

As the number of great powers brawling shrank, green enveloped the ruins, began spreading up the labyrinth columns. Vast, twitching liana vines, long and thick enough to garrote a dragon, began rolling down from the labyrinth corridors above them. Vast fields of brambles, with thorns a foot long, began crawling over broken buildings.

Karna did her best to stop the green from spreading, using her quake magic to rip apart roots and bury leaves deep beneath the rubble, but no matter how much she shook the ruins around her, she only managed to slow the spread of the plant-life, not stop it.

As great powers fled or fell, soon Karna’s only standing allies were Casser Spellstorm and Threadqueen Iblint. On the Coven side, only the immense hydra and the elementals of Clan Castis still brawled.

It was only when Casser Spellstorm fell that Karna realized how outmatched all of them were.

The Sican Elder didn’t swat Casser like a bug, didn’t pull him from the air with countless vine hairs and tear him asunder. Wasn’t even paying any particular attention to the Tsarnassan Champion’s endless attack spells when the man died.

No: Casser was fine one moment, then coughing the next. Several of the forever-juvenile hydra heads on Karna’s skull witnessed what happened next— sprouts and leaves erupted out of Casser’s mouth.

Oh, the mage tried to stop what was happening, tried to use his seven affinities to tear the plants from his body, but when green tendrils started sprouting from his tear ducts, when vines curled out of his nose and flower buds began blooming through his skin, his struggles quickly ceased.

Casser, after all, had been a wind mage, and that still hadn’t been enough to protect himself from the wind-born seeds that had infected him. Maybe he’d let his wind shield slip just a little, maybe the seeds had found their way in as his attack spells exited. It didn’t much matter, though.

By the time Casser fell out of the air and hit the ground, you could hardly tell he’d once been human.

Karna cursed, then launched herself over to Threadqueen Iblint, using her own impossible strength, along with a shockwave from her quake affinity, to cross hundreds of feet in a single bound.

Iblint provided a convenient platform for her landing, though the woman didn’t pause in throwing great chunks of rubble at the Elder and the hydra with her immense fiber tendrils.

“Casser fell,” Karna said. “Inhaled seeds, got turned into a human flowerpot.”

“I saw,” Iblint replied. “Neither of us have to worry. Your immune system is annihilating the seeds faster than you can inhale them, and my fiber and healing magics are enough to protect me.”

Karna shook her head, then joined Iblint in launching debris at the Elder.

“If we keep going like this, we’re going to lose. The two of us don’t stand a chance against the Sican Elder and the Coven’s allies. We need to narrow down our enemies.”

“What are you proposing?” Iblint asked, looking directly at Karna for the first time.

“An alliance with the Coven.”

Iblint shrugged, sending ripples through her anemone armor. “I hold no grudge against them or their forces. I’m only here to kill Havathi— fighting Sicans is just a nice bonus. Not much more of a fan of them than I am of the Havathi.”

“One of us needs to get into the Coven outpost and try to negotiate with them. I’ll…”

“No need,” Iblint said. “I’m already communicating with one of their commanders. Seized enough stray threads from clothing in their command post to create impromptu vocal cords and listening threads. Quiet for a moment.”

Karna glowered at the little human, then turned her attention back to the Sican Elder, focused her quake magic entirely beneath its feet. She managed to send it staggering, giving the hydra an opening to knock the immense figure to its knees with a blow of its tail.

The gorgon queen shifted her attention towards an oncoming Clan Castis elemental, ready to launch enough stone rubble at it to tear it to shreds, when the fish-shaped elemental paused.

Then it turned aside and swam straight at the Sican Elder.

“They accept,” Iblint said. “They’ve extended an invitation for the remains of our forces to enter their base.”

“Ask the Coven if they can loan any of Indris’ children to help ferry our troops, and send the orders to our army to get moving,” Karna said.

“Say please,” Iblint said. “I’m not your subject, I’m your ally. You ask, not order.”

Karna glowered. “Please.”

It rankled her pride, but unchecked pride was the downfall of monarchs and great powers. She would do far more humiliating things for victory. And, in fairness, the Threadqueen had more than earned Karna’s respect.

She’d make sure to have her historians write something insulting about Iblint in a few years, though.

“Giving them the orders now,” the fiber mage said.

Karna turned her glower away from her ally, only to be distracted by something else entirely.

“Keep it from regaining its feet,” the hydra rumbled back at them.

Karna Scythe stared in shock for a moment. Alustin’s briefings had claimed the thing could speak, but she hadn’t truly believed it— she’d been bonded to the hydras on her head for most of her life, and the things were as stupid as it was possible for a living thing to get. The ancient draconic empire had bred their hydras as siege engines, built to conquer world after world with unknown magics— and no part of that required intelligence on the part of hydras. Seeing an intelligent, talking hydra was about as likely as seeing an intelligent, talking rock.

Though she supposed a stone lich counted as an intelligent, talking rock.

Karna shook her head, then redoubled the quake under the Sican Elder’s feet.

THE ONLY REASON the evacuation into the Coven encampment was even possible was that the bulk of Karna and her allies’ forces were positioned on the far side of the encampment from the great power brawl. Even still, the casualty reports Iblint periodically relayed to Karna were nightmarish. Her army was moving under assault from the surviving Havath army in the area, which was bad enough, but the lethal seed clouds of the Sican Elder were spreading throughout the whole area, and the mage army quickly came to refer to them as blood gardens. Hundreds of her mages died before healers were distributed widely enough among them.

When the healers were there, at least, they could stop the blood gardens before they tore their victims apart. Likewise, plant mages could slow the infection long enough for a healer to get there, and wind mages could help shield the army from some of the seeds.

There were plenty of deaths inside the Coven encampment as well, but their massive wind shield kept it down to dozens, instead of hundreds, and by the time her first mages had entered the encampment, they had already constructed wards against the seed clouds.

Karna just had to make sure the Sican Elder’s destructive root swarms didn’t tear that ward apart. She practically liquefied a great trench in the soil between the Elder and the Coven Encampment, turning the ground into a monstrous grinder that shredded any root trying to pass through it. Simultaneously, she kept knocking the Elder off its feet with quakes, while throwing a never-ending stream of house-sized boulders at it, and dodging its plant magics.

Her allies, likewise, unleashed their full might against the Sican Elder.

Threadqueen Iblint swung about the battlefield, her immense fiber armor hanging from labyrinth corridors as she darted in and out, slashing at the Sican Elder with her fiber tendrils. All while constantly wrestling with the enemy great power for control of the plants around them— the Themeseran mage trying to rip apart the very fibers of the plants, while the Elder tried to keep the plants intact. The Elder had the edge so long as the plants were intact and alive, but every time plants were crushed under a flying boulder, or ripped apart by the thrashing tendrils of Iblint’s anemone armor, the fiber mage gained the advantage, spreading an aggressive, writhing carpet of plant fibers across the ground, smothering and shredding plants in its way.

Though, Karna noted, the Threadqueen kept her actual anemone armor very carefully free of any of the fibers from the Elder’s plants.

The hydra— Ramyl— was the most straightforward of them in his tactics. His six-hundred foot body outweighed even the Elder, and he simply battered away at it with his bulk, sinking his fangs into its wood and even spitting horribly caustic venom. His giant burning chains wrapped around the Elder’s limbs and flailed against its chest and face, again and again. The Sican Elder was forced to dedicate the majority of its destructive powers against the hydra, but the two titans were almost evenly matched in their seeming invulnerability, for now.

Clan Castis, meanwhile, just kept spawning more and more fire elementals. They’d stopped sending them directly against the Elder, who could easily grab and extinguish any one of them in his fist. Instead, they were swarming the ever-spreading plant life around the elder, doing their best to keep it away from the Coven base. Each elemental spawned was a little smaller than the last, and the time between each was growing, but they were still proving far more effective against the spreading greenery than against the Sican Elder.

It wasn’t enough, though. All of their efforts combined only served to weaken and slow the Elder, not to stop it. Even the combined battle and siege magic of the Coven in their encampment only slowed the spread of the hungry green— and only the edge approaching the encampment. In every other direction, the green spread almost unopposed. It crept up the columns and corridors of the emergent labyrinth, steadily turning the maze green. It webbed vines, roots, and branches between the labyrinth corridors, slowly arcing around the immense cavern in a vast green cage. It crept right up to the edges of magma-pools and lethal sunbeams, constantly testing and probing as it did so.

Karna Scythe had absolutely no doubt that the greenery would devour the ruined city entire if given the chance.

It put Karna’s vow to end Heliothrax in dreadful perspective— if she was struggling so against a Sican Elder, what chance did she have against the even mightier Sunwyrm?

It was then that Karna’s quake affinity sense felt the entire city begin to rumble, felt something impossibly powerful rolling towards the encampment.

Even the Sican Elder paused in its struggles, halfway turned towards the river to see what raged towards them.

By the time the typhoon elemental struck, only a third of Karna’s army had made it to the shelter of the Coven encampment.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Bottomless Heights

VERVYN COULD ONLY take Hugh to within a mile of the resonator— either almost directly below, or half a mile higher, but even farther to one side. There were simply too many unblocked sunbeams, too much dripping magma for Sabae’s cousin to get him any closer.

Hugh chose to have Vervyn take him to the higher but farther away approach— Hugh could run along the labyrinth corridors more swiftly than he could ascend vertically.

Even if Hugh and his friends had somehow mastered flight in their short time on Limnus, a task that usually took two to three years, it wouldn’t do any good. He’d just cook himself alive trying to fly with wind magic where he was going, and it wouldn’t take him nearly high enough.

After Vervyn dropped Hugh off, he gave the wind mage directions to the nearest opening into the labyrinth, told him to wait inside. So long as he was inside a healthy part of the labyrinth, Hugh could find him.

Without Hugh’s anti-glare cantrip, without the Stormward’s Crown, and without the ice and fresh air the archmages had aided him in filling his storage tattoo with, he couldn’t have navigated the heights. Couldn’t have survived the heights.

The labyrinth at this altitude was eerily empty, silent but for the echoes of battle that drifted up from miles below. Even Mackerel seemed uneasy, clung to Hugh’s side quietly.

There weren’t sunbeams, this high up— no, that would be too easy. There was light and shade, broken in geometric patterns, like a distorted, chaotic grid of light. The heat would have led swiftly to heatstroke and death for an unprotected human, would have charred flesh in time, despite air too thin for unaided lungs to breathe. Splatters and drips of magma lay everywhere even in the shade, cooling slowly if at all. There was less magma, this high, if only for the fact that less of Havath City had been carried this high, and much had already drained away.

There were remnants— a house in deep shade, intact save for a few foundation cracks, curtains blowing in the fatal breeze. A merchant’s cart, all the wood burnt away to ash by dripping magma, yet the metal frame still held mostly intact. A trio of Havathi mages lay unmoving, nestled in a dense labyrinth junction, with no sign of if they’d asphyxiated in the thin air or overheated to death. Perhaps this part of the labyrinth had just risen so quickly that the drop in pressure had killed them.

Would that have been a mercy? Hugh didn’t know, didn’t know which death was more painful, which more dignified, whether it would be better to go swiftly and unknowing or have time to confront the end.

He had time to think on it, though. Time to dwell, time without any distractions. There were no labyrinth monsters this high— even the most monstrous creatures, those from burning worlds, seemed to rightfully fear the Eye of Heliothrax.

Could Apoptan life have survived the Eye? Could the color-changing plants, mirror-backed grazers, and predatory tree mimics have outlasted hours of stone-melting heat? Hugh couldn’t imagine so— the Apoptan sun’s lethality was a gentle thing compared to this. Equally lethal to humans, but what wasn’t lethal to humanity?

Could the Kyrene have survived? Beings of pure aether crystal, of mana made physical. Their preferred worlds were supposed to make Apoptis seem kind and gentle. Would they have gracefully climbed about the emergent labyrinth, their vast transparent legs reaching across the bottomless gaps?

As Hugh drew closer to his destination and more useless, pointless thoughts raced each other through his head, the light grew and spread like a tumor, deepening and cutting, until his anti-glare cantrip wasn’t enough, until Hugh was forced to increase the opacity of the Stormward’s Crown. Hugh found paths of shadow becoming rarer, becoming almost patches. More than once, he was forced to hop off the labyrinth corridors entirely, creating ward platforms for himself with the Stormward’s Crown.

Above him, the labyrinth slowly peeled away, as though his footsteps were a knife paring away the skin of an apple. With each scrape of the metaphorical knife, Mackerel clung closer to his side, his unease echoing through their bond.

And then his destination came into sight. A single spire, a labyrinth column stretching impossibly for the sky, bathed in a wall of sunlight that should have annihilated it. The Stormward was opaque enough now that nothing else was visible, had all become beaten darkness washed out by the light.

Hugh took a deep breath, then quenched the light. Brought the Crown to full opacity, then full reflectivity. Left himself in darkness too thick for even his sphinx eyes to see, without any internal light that might weaken his ward mirrors.

And then Hugh stepped out into the light.

HE DIDN’T SET foot on the labyrinth corridor in the light, of course— even his wards would fail to protect him from direct heat conduction, would act as a stove-top instead of an insulator. Convection and radiation heat, he could handle, though, so when he stepped forward, his foot came to rest well above the ground, suspended on a small ward platform hovering inside his bubble.

Then his next footstep landed the height of a single stair above the first, and the third the height of another stair.

And in pitch blackness, Hugh climbed his staircase of wards.

He saw nothing, save the random flickers of the eye in darkness, and the regular images Mackerel sent him, the vague impressions of direction. He heard nothing, save the sound of his heart and breath, for the ward cut off the boiling air around him. His only true sensory input, his only contact with the outside, came from his affinity senses, shaped as though it were his proprioception, his sense of his own body.

He felt the burning wind desperately push about, trying to escape the Eye of Heliothrax. He felt the lonely, desperate bits of water vapor being blasted apart by the wrathful light, smearing any hint of clouds across the sky. He felt the labyrinth-strengthened stone as if it were his own flesh and bone, and he felt the rare, too small to see crystals suspended in patches of magma. His planar affinity sense, in the absence of his natural senses, gave him more information than ever before, showing him the twists and folds in the labyrinth’s dimensional warping.

His affinity senses gave him a flickering outline of the world, and he followed it into the sky, spiraling gradually around the impossible labyrinth column.

It had been tricky, designing the Crown configuration that would let him achieve this climb. The Crown nodes, after all, were made of quartz— a material well known for its transparency. To prevent the Eye of Heliothrax shining through them, Hugh had adapted a variant of the configuration he’d used against Amalda Veil, the hovering prison of interlocking cubes, where the faces of one cube concealed the corners of the other.

The Crown nodes remained points of weakness, though, so Hugh had added a third layer, so that he could shift the outer two layers back and forth, preventing either set of Crown nodes from being exposed to the sun for too long. While they were in the sun, Hugh used a combination of his affinities to keep them from melting— air to funnel as much heat away as possible through convection, crystal and stone to prevent melting, and his stellar affinity to weaken the impact of Heliothrax’s Gaze on the nodes.

The shifting nodes held Hugh’s attention and Mackerel’s anxiety for a time— if they failed, even for an instant, both of them would be dead.

They didn’t fail, though, and boredom slowly reasserted itself, as Hugh began his mile-high stair-climb. Along with the boredom came the useless thoughts again, and along with the useless thoughts came the heat.

The heat didn’t come from outside— if any heat or light had been leaking in from the Eye of Heliothrax, Hugh would have been dead in moments. No, the heat was all from him. It was his body heat, given no possible exit from his reflective ward bubble.

Talia had even loaned him her new heat resistance belt, and Hugh knew it wasn’t going to be enough.

He waited for it to start growing uncomfortable, for the air inside the Crown to start growing stale, before he opened his storage tattoo, then used his wind magic to begin exchanging air, replacing the hot air in the bubble with the air that had been clinging to the torso-sized ice blocks in his storage tattoo, the ones made for him by Rhodes and Leon.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

All in total darkness.

All while his mind tormented him with anxieties about running out of air, even though he knew he should have at least six hours before the air he had became too stale to breathe. That, not even counting the fact that his Limnan adaptations had likely extended that time.

His brain kept taunting him regardless. Brewed up worries that his Limnan adaptations had actually increased his need for air, that he was going through his air faster than ever. That Valia or one of their other wind mages— maybe Vervyn, even— had traded out some of his good air for stale, even though Hugh’s wind affinity could give him a vague sense of whether the air was stale or not.

Mackerel rubbed up against Hugh’s side comfortingly, and he took a deep breath.

Hugh did his best to force the dark thoughts aside, and tried to imagine what the ruins of Havath City looked like from above, how the labyrinth appeared from this height. Did the magma glow in the depths? Was there a pattern to the labyrinth corridors? Had any of the outskirts of Havath City survived the labyrinth emergence, only to be melted by the Eye of Heliothrax?

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

By now, the lone rising labyrinth column was the only solid object outside himself he could feel in any detail with his affinity senses. His stone and crystal affinity senses gave off a vague impression of the ground, but no more. Other affinity senses flickered at times, but never long enough to even tell which they were, let alone what they were detecting.

Mackerel had scryed the old labyrinth entrances, still located in their spot under the ground, while the rest of the labyrinth had risen upward. Had the labyrinth completely inverted on entrance to the world? Had this been one of the lowest depths of the labyrinth, some seemingly endless pit? Had it been an exit to another world, access to some exceptionally dangerous, aether critical universe?

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Something else impinged on his affinity senses, then. On his wind, water, and lightning senses. Something massive, far below him, that pulled on the fabric of the aether like a lead weight.

It grew and grew, weighing more heavily on his affinity senses.

The only thing Hugh could imagine it to be was a storm, called up for some reason by Indris and Ilinia.

Why, though? The time and mana needed to raise a storm like this surely wouldn’t be an effective strategy against Heliothrax. Had the labyrinth collapses accelerated to a point where they simply needed shelter from the Eye of Heliothrax? Had some other, new threat arisen? Some unknown labyrinth escapee, creeping out of its crumbling corpse?

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Even with his Limnan adaptations, all the physical training Alustin had him do, and even his years climbing stairs in Skyhold, Hugh’s muscles were starting to burn. He had no idea how long he’d been climbing, how far he’d gone, or how far he had left to go.

He just kept climbing. Kept moving the air in and out of his storage tattoo to try and keep cool.

He was tempted, oh so tempted, to just use a single ward platform like a lift, to just propel himself upward. It would use an absurd amount of mana, certainly, but Hugh had an absurd amount of mana, between his twelve affinities and his aether crystal mana reservoir ring. Not to mention the density of the aether around Havath City, raised far beyond anything Hugh had felt outside the depths of a labyrinth, by the death of this labyrinth.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Hugh kept losing track of which side of the labyrinth column he was on, as he slowly spiraled upward. He could tell when the column was between him and the sun, but only because of his stellar affinity sense. It wouldn’t be any cooler in the paltry shade, and one column wasn’t truly enough to block the murderous light.

He kept reaching down with his affinity senses, trying to grasp the storm, but it lurked far out of his reach. He could feel its immensity, but not any details. That didn’t make any sense— Hugh wasn’t much of a storm mage yet, only knew the most basic details so far, but he knew that any storm that powerful should loom into the sky, far beyond the flight ceiling, far beyond even the highest reaching labyrinth column.

His mind was racing with fantasies that he’d been sucked into some spatial warp, a directional gradient like that around the Skyhold Council chamber, when Alustin contacted him through the paper band he’d given him, the one that Hugh had been carrying around in a tiny ward box ever since.

“Hugh, report.”

Hugh and Mackerel both started in surprise, and Hugh missed his next step, tumbling off his impromptu ward stair. There was no real harm done, save to his pride— he only fell a couple of feet to the bottom of his ward bubble.

“I’m still ascending,” Hugh answered. “Not sure how close I am to the top yet. Or how long it’s been.”

“We’ve got maybe an hour and a half to feed all the resonators to Mackerel. We might earn some more time once you claim the one you’re heading for.”

“I’d ask if that meant things are going well, but I suspect there’s more news, from your tone of voice and the weird storm I can feel below me,” Hugh said, clambering back onto his ward staircase in the pitch darkness.

Alustin sighed heavily, then began explaining to Hugh about the fall and presumed death of Indris, the typhoon elemental, and the location of the final resonator, inside one of Heliothrax’s grafted dragon heads.

Which, in turn, required yet more horrifying explanations.

Hugh sighed after Alustin was done. “Doesn’t really change anything, does it?”

“Of course it changes things,” Alustin said. “It dramatically lowers our chance of success, and increases our odds of fatalities even if we do succeed.”

“It doesn’t change what we need to do,” Hugh said.

“No. No, I suppose not.”

There was a long pause, and Hugh suspected he knew what was coming.

“Hugh, I’m sorry…”

“You already apologized,” Hugh said. “I suspect rather sincerely, too, though I doubt you would behave differently if you had to do it all over again. Betraying me isn’t something I can imagine you ever enjoying, it was just the price you felt needed to be paid, even if I was the one paying it.”

“I… suppose I deserve that,” Alustin said. “I…”

“I’m not as angry as you might imagine,” Hugh said. “Oh, I’m angry, but not enough to seek vengeance from you. I’m just… done with you. Once today’s over, we go our own ways. Or, at least I do. I’m not the one you should have been worrying about holding a grudge.”

“Sabae already made her feelings towards me quite clear,” Alustin said. “Or do you mean the surviving Havathi, or maybe the entire population of Theras Tel, or who knows who else, after this whole war? I’m well aware of how many enemies I have.”

“None of those,” Hugh said, then mentally checked to make sure Mackerel’s anti-scrying field was working, on top of being in a zone of labyrinth influence. Since Alustin was in a zone of labyrinth influence as well, the odds of them being spied on were incredibly low, so Hugh took the risk.

He might not want true vengeance, but he had no problem with a little petty vengeance.

“You failed, atop Skyhold. Kanderon is still alive, and will be waking soon,” Hugh said. “How do you think she’s going to feel about you then?”

There was a long, pregnant silence, and then Alustin burst into bitter laughter.

Part of Hugh felt the petty satisfaction he’d hoped for, but another part just felt… pity, he supposed?

“I always knew she was alive, even when no one believed me,” Hugh continued. “Rather than fixating on revenge against you, I focused on trying to save Kanderon from the beginning. You warped our pact, and I spent weeks figuring out how to repair it, to allow Kanderon to awaken.”

“So you’re just better than me?” Alustin asked. “Nobler of spirit, purer of purpose?”

Hugh frowned, as he climbed in the dark. He wasn’t quite sure what he heard in Alustin’s voice. He didn’t think it was resentment, but he wasn’t really sure what it was.

“No, not really,” Hugh said. “You and I are almost the same, in a lot of ways. We both have traumatic back stories, as Talia would put it. We’ve both been hurt, over and over. Both been used by others for their own purposes. The main difference is which way we chose to walk.”

“And what made you choose better? Where’d you get the wisdom I lacked, then?” Alustin asked, mostly just sounding tired.

“I think it’s two things, really. First, the fact that I’m not as competent or brilliant as you,” Hugh said. “And that’s not my own mental hangups and low self-worth talking. I’ve met a lot of brilliant mages over the past few years— Loarna, Artur, Eddin Slane, Emmenson Drees, even Kanderon, and you’re sitting at the top of the heap in so many ways. If I’d been in your place, pledged vengeance against an entire empire? I’d never have succeeded. I’d have died, or become some bitter, petty foe of the Dominion, pledging myself against them in every war, but never truly making the difference. I’d have been just like one of your allies, and look what’s happened to them. I chose my path because I couldn’t follow yours, and I’m at least wise enough not to declare war on the ocean.”

“As flattering as it is to be favorably compared to that list, I can assure you that I’ve felt plenty intimidated by all of them before,” Alustin said. “For that matter, I find myself intimidated by you, at times. In just a few years, you’ve far outstripped me with your wards.”

“Specialists, one and all,” Hugh said. “I’m a specialist as well. It’s much easier to delve to the depths we do when we’re focused so sharply on one realm of knowledge and skill. You’re a generalist, an expert in adapting widely disparate magics. In finding solutions no one else would even consider, in attacking problems at angles even a planar mage would have trouble envisioning. I have to lean on others to achieve my greatest works. The Stormward’s Crown required the aid of Kanderon and Loarna to achieve. I never could have done it on my own. You? You plotted the destruction of an empire and constructed the Last Echo of the Lord of Bells all on your own. But… that’s also the lesser answer to the question.”

“More condemnation with great praise?” Alustin asked.

Hugh rolled his eyes, there in the dark, as he took another step. Alustin might be bitter, might be facing his end, but he could hear how much the praise had cheered the paper mage. Alustin was nothing if not vain.

“No,” Hugh responded. “Just another choice. In this case, what we chose to value. You chose to value your past and what you lost over your future and what you could build. I chose to value my future and the people I care about over my past and what I lost.”

“That seems a little simplistic,” Alustin said. “I did have assassins hunting me for years when I was your age, I should point out. Havath didn’t really give me a choice.”

“What would you have chosen, if they weren’t?” Hugh asked. “What would your dreams have been?”

“I would have been a Lord Citizen of Helicote, a…”

“No,” Hugh said. “Not what was expected from you. Not what you lost. What would you have dreamed? You always talk about agriculture, would you have dreamed about a farm, maybe?”

Alustin laughed again, and the balance between bitterness and amusement had shifted just a hair towards the latter. “I tried growing a garden once. Turned out I was terrible at it, and didn’t enjoy it at all. I just like reading about it.”

“So what, then?”

Alustin fell silent for a time, and Hugh began counting his steps.

He reached fourteen steps before Alustin responded.

“I… I’ve always loved magical research and development,” Alustin admitted. “Especially in scrying, communications, that sort of thing. That’s really all the Last Echo was— I figured out a new way to transmit information at distances, and used that to infect Havath City’s bureaucracy, to make it sow the seeds of its own destruction.”

“What would you have done if you’d set out to build something, rather than destroy?”

Alustin sighed. “Oh, I have a whole list. It doesn’t matter now, though, does it? You’re not telling me anything I hadn’t already told myself, really. I’ve made my choices, and now I have to live with them.”

“Do you want me to ask Kanderon to take mercy on you?” Hugh asked impulsively. “To try and protect you from your enemies?”

Alustin sighed. “I absolutely want that. I would be content dying with my sword in Havath’s heart, but if I had the chance to live, I would seize it with both hands. I want to build all those dreams on my list. But you can’t. Intervening on my behalf will make you a whole list of enemies you can’t afford— you’ve already made more than your fair share. I’ve already betrayed you enough, I won’t make things worse for you.”

“I could ask secretly?”

“Absolutely not, Hugh. Besides, I’m confident that there’s nothing you could say to calm Kanderon’s rage at me. She loves you like a child, Hugh, and I hurt you.”

“There must be something I can do,” Hugh said, knowing that Alustin was right about Kanderon.

There was another long pause, and Hugh began counting steps again.

This time, he only got up to seven before Alustin answered.

“Actually, there is one thing.”

Hugh smiled as he listened to Alustin’s request. “That, I absolutely can do.”

“I don’t deserve it, but thank you, Hugh. And… I wasn’t being kind, when I called you wise before, but… you really are. Astonishingly so, for your age.”

“I wish I weren’t. I wish I’d had a boring, normal childhood. I wish I’d been allowed time to be an idiot, to learn wisdom the slow, normal way, instead of being forced into it by trauma. I wish you’d been allowed a boring, normal childhood as well.”

“I wish that too.”

There was a long silence, one that Hugh didn’t bother measuring in counted steps.

“Hugh? Can I ask you one more question?”

Hugh nodded, feeling silly doing so, there in the dark, miles above Alustin, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Of course.”

“What are your dreams? What would you want to do, if my vendetta hadn’t dragged you into this war?”

Hugh definitely hadn’t expected that question, but…

“Do you know what I’m proudest of? Of everything I’ve done, over the years?” Hugh asked.

“Saving Theras Tel?” Alustin guessed. “Stopping the Dominion from seizing the Exile Splinter? Designing your Crown?”

Hugh shook his head, immediately feeling silly again, but he just couldn’t seem to stop making the gestures he would in a face-to-face conversation. “Both of the first two were things I had to do. If I hadn’t, countless people would have suffered. And I’m proud of the Crown, but the thing I’m even prouder of? The Stormward’s Gift.”

“That refuge for Radhan ships in the Shattered Isles you came up with, and roped everyone into helping you with?”

“That’s the one,” Hugh said.

“That’s a worthwhile thing to be proud of, but why that?”

“Do you remember the first piece of advice you gave me?” Hugh asked.

“I could hardly forget,” Alustin said, amusement in his voice. “I told you where to hide from bullies in the library. The law stacks, as I recall.”

“You told me where I could find refuge,” Hugh agreed. “And I built that refuge for myself, in the little room I found. I didn’t tell you, but when I left Skyhold, I sealed the room’s wards against myself, did I tell you that? Set up new attention wards to draw in the next lonely, scared, bullied kid that wanders through the library looking for somewhere to hide. Turned it into a place of refuge too. Come to think of it, I’m as proud of that as the Stormward’s Gift.”

“That’s… remarkably kind of you, Hugh.”

“That’s what I want to do. Sabae wants to bring down empires and the system of great powers. Talia wants to become a storybook hero, or maybe a storybook villain. Godrick’s still trying to figure out what he wants. Me, though? I want to support all their dreams, of course, but I also want to build refuges, like my room and the Stormward’s Gift. Hidden places, tucked away from the violence of the great powers. Maybe even building extra-planar refuges, someday, if I follow Kanderon’s path with planar magic.”

“That… that’s an excellent dream. I hope you get to live it, someday.”

“I hope you get to live kinder dreams someday as well,” Hugh said, and absolutely meant it.

“I… I need to go help plan our frankly suicidal attack on Heliothrax,” Alustin said quietly. “But… thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Good luck, Hugh.”

“Good luck, si… Good luck, Alustin.”

“Velohu.”

Hugh heard a quiet sigh, and then he heard a rustle of paper as the link to Alustin closed.

“What do you think, Mackerel?” Hugh asked his spellbook.

Mackerel just fluttered his pages and pressed against Hugh’s side, as though he thought Hugh needed comfort.

And maybe he did.

Then Hugh’s mind caught up with the last thing Alustin had said.

Velohu.

Obvious Tongue Eater leakage.

Hugh went from maybe needing Mackerel’s comfort to absolutely needing it.

He shook his head after a moment. There was nothing he could do about that, now. He just had to hope Alustin could hold on long enough to deal with the last resonator.

Then Hugh was back to climbing.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Strange Sights

HUGH DWELLED ON Indris’ death, for a time, trying to figure how he felt about it. Upset, certainly, but it was hard to parse out the mix of emotions. How much was personal sadness? He hadn’t known Indris well, had only spoken to her a handful of times, despite her outsize influence in his life. How much was fear over today’s tactical concerns? Probably a lot, though that shamed Hugh to admit.

Much of it was empathy for the people of Theras Tel— especially those he knew or had met. For Eudaxus, who had dedicated his life to the dragon queen. For Scrathinax and the others of Indris’ children. For the festival goers in Theras Tel’s streets, during its sandstorms.

Most of all, he realized he was worrying about Thaddeus. The young warlock had just pacted with Indris, there was no possible way he was going to keep his new affinities. He would have just lost them, with no idea why— and might have to wait for days or even weeks to get the full story.

And Hugh climbed.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Take a step.

Exchange the air.

Lost in the interminable ascent in the dark.

Until he wasn’t. Until something changed.

Hugh’s affinity senses detected something different, far above him.

It wasn’t with his planar sense, or his stone sense, or even his wind sense.

It was with his stellar affinity sense.

With every step Hugh took upward, the curious structure he saw grew more and more distinct to his stellar affinity sense, until all at once, his suspicions as to what it was crystallized into certainty.

He was sensing the Eye of Heliothrax itself.

Mackerel’s scrying hadn’t relayed its presence to Hugh, but then, there was much Mackerel didn’t seem to be able to perceive normally, let alone while he was scrying.

The Eye was, at least in part, a lens, concentrating and focusing the light of the sun. He could feel how it angled the light, and roughly estimated that the Eye had to be… a dozen leagues? More? Many times the diameter of Havath City, certainly.

It wasn’t that big of a surprise. Kanderon had made Hugh read extensively about the Eye while studying stellar magic, and Hugh had delved even farther in his own time. Plenty of magical researchers had claimed that the Eye was a lens over the years, and there were a handful of reports of a penumbra of shadow around the outskirts of the Eye, even if those reports were somewhat questionable.

A few scholars had debated the question for years, of course. It had led to decades of research, until a combination of mathematical advances and empirical research had shown that a lens could focus light to heat up a target to the heat of its light source, and no farther. No one quite had an answer for how hot the sun was, but certainly had to be hot enough to melt stone.

The lens argument had never quite satisfied many, though, and there were plenty of irregularities about how it behaved that weren’t precisely explained by a lens.

The biggest problem was the lack of data— surviving anywhere near the Eye of Heliothrax was a bit of a rarity.

Hugh might be the first person to perceive the Eye this close and live, and it absolutely wasn’t just a lens.

It was, so far as he could tell, dozens of lenses, in conjunction with multiple one way mirrors, reflecting the light back and forth. There was also a third type of layer, one that seemed to amplify the strength of the light to a ridiculous degree, pumping immense amounts of magical energy into it. The combination worked to not only concentrate the light, but also to… straighten it, somehow, to make it more orderly? Hugh wasn’t a light mage, and his stellar affinity sense couldn’t give him nearly as clear of a picture what was going on. He was sure that the Eye was forcing the light into a more coherent flow.

There were many other smaller components within the magic of the Eye, and Hugh had absolutely no idea what they were. Couldn’t even begin to guess.

The Eye was almost a hundred feet thick, which seemed strange to Hugh— he couldn’t help but think that it should have been much taller.

He briefly contemplated trying to sabotage it, but there was no way his own stellar magic could reach more than a tiny portion of the magical structure. Not to mention, he couldn’t even come close to matching the mana running through it.

There was also the risk of attracting Heliothrax’s attention, which counted by far the highest in his decision-making process.

Hugh felt a momentary terror about passing through the Eye, a worry that the Crown wouldn’t be able to survive it.

But it had been able to handle the Eye’s output, and barring some unlikely interference between the two magics, the power of the Eye should weaken the higher he went.

Just to be sure, Hugh sent a spare Crown node up into the Eye, and to his relief, it easily handled the transition. The stellar magic he had wrapped around the Crown node fizzed a bit at the edges on contact with the Eye, but it held.

Hugh took a deep breath, then began climbing up into the Eye.

The fizzing sensation between his stellar magic and Heliothrax’s solar magic was a little distracting, but posed no particular problem. Hugh had no idea what was happening there, and he paused and pulled open Mackerel to make a quick note to ask Kanderon once she awoke. He could read the text in Mackerel’s pages just fine— the letters were made of changes in the crystal structure, after all. He didn’t need his eyes to see them.

He didn’t close Mackerel after he took the note, though.

Instead, he looked around him with his stellar affinity sense, carefully peering at the Eye.

And then he began to draw, doing his best to copy all the various structures in the Eye. He slowly marched up his ward stairs as he did so, less worrying about placing his feet correctly than just moving the ward platforms under his feet.

By the time he reached the top of the Eye, he had mapped every structure he could perceive with his stellar affinity, some multiple times.

He climbed a few dozen feet above the top of the Eye, then came to a halt.

Then, ever so slowly, Hugh began lowering the opacity of his ward bubble.

The first hint of light was blinding, and for a moment, Hugh thought that he’d doomed himself, that the Eye was somehow in effect up here, too.

Then his sphinx eyes adjusted to the light filtering in, faster than any human eye would, and he realized that it was just a dim trickle.

Slowly, more confidently, Hugh increased the transparency of his wards, hoping to give himself a view of the battle from above.

He looked down, and saw only blackness.

The Eye allowed light to pass only in one direction, and that was towards Heliothrax’s targets. Any light that might reflect back was thrown forcibly back the way it came, to sear the Sunwyrm’s foes again and again.

Hugh shook his head, and looked up from the Eye.

The Eye’s disc stretched almost as far as he could see in every direction, with only a hint of its edge close to the horizon. It was almost as though Hugh stood atop a world of pure darkness, with only a few thin, wispy clouds drifting above it.

And punching through the vast plane of shadow was the labyrinth.

There were dozens of labyrinth corridors rising into the sky, some miles above the Eye of Heliothrax. Most were lone spires, but a handful were small labyrinth networks stretching up, or branched out into more labyrinth corridors at the top.

Still, they seemed few and far between, compared to the scope of the skyscape around them, and were clustered near the center of the Eye. In some ways, it seemed a pale copy of Limnus— but the purple iodine clouds covering the surface of that world weren’t anywhere near so ominous as the Eye from above.

Hugh looked up, and realized that the top of his own labyrinth spire wasn’t that far above him— maybe five, ten minutes’ climb. Now that his attention wasn’t on the Eye, he realized he could actually feel the top with his affinity senses. It was dwarfed by some of the absurd labyrinth spires rising around him.

The thing that struck Hugh most deeply? How normal, how weak, the light of sun was. He wasn’t fool enough to stare at it— even with an anti-glare cantrip— but the fact that he could stand under it at all without being annihilated still felt strange.

Hugh stretched, then began climbing once more.

As he did so, he contemplated the sheer scale of what he was seeing. None of the recorded uses of the Eye of Heliothrax were even half this size, not even during the battle of Skyhold. This had to be a product of the ridiculously overfilled aether, from the shattering of the labyrinth.

Of course, Hugh had also noticed a strange quirk of great powers. That they seemed to be able to accomplish greater things on a large scale than on a small scale, as though they… had trouble concentrating their power, somehow? Ilinia, for instance— and Indris, before she died— had been able to harness absolutely absurd levels of power, to summon and move entire storms. If they’d been able to bring all that power to bear in a small space, they would be able to annihilate literally anything in their path, and yet they didn’t. Likewise, if Heliothrax had been able to concentrate this much power in a small space, the Coven wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long in battle against her as they had.

After all this was over, he needed to speak to Sabae about this. Maybe there was a way to use it as another weapon against the system of great powers, if it was true?

Hugh shook off his musings as he finally— finally— reached the top of the labyrinth tower.

ONCE HE REACHED the top, the penultimate unclaimed resonator was remarkably easy to find. Hugh just had to stick his head inside the narrow crack that lay twenty feet shy of the apex, fighting through the strong wind blowing out of it, and found the book lying twenty feet to his side, on to what, by its perspective, was the floor.

In reality, of course, the resonator’s down was Ithos’ west.

Hugh pulled himself fully into the labyrinth corridor, relieved to have a short break from standing on his own wards above a miles-high abyss.

Hugh was still genuinely puzzled at how the resonator had ended up here— it was an unlikely turn of events, to be sure. But he wasn’t about to complain— better safe and sound here than destroyed somewhere else.

While Mackerel set to devouring the next resonator— the most arduous digestion yet— Hugh set to refreshing his air. Even with the labyrinth air steadily leaking out the crack in the floor, it was still much cooler and fresher than the air he’d brought with him. While he did that, he took a moment to look around the corridor.

It was, unsurprisingly, not just a miles-long straight corridor. Instead, when he looked in the direction that should be down outside, he saw a triple fork in the path about two hundred feet away.

When he glanced in the other direction, towards the top, he found that this one remained just one corridor. It was at least sixty feet to the end, instead of twenty, but there were no splits or junctions.

There was, at the very end, a surprisingly ornate door, covered partially in densely packed spellforms, and partially in some kind of inscrutable fractal shapes.

Hugh got up onto his aching legs, wincing, and half-staggered towards the door, leaving Mackerel on the floor where he was digesting the resonator.

Ten feet away from the door, Mackerel noticed what he was doing, and sent him an immediate projection of alarm and a wordless demand that he halt.

Hugh did so immediately. “Do I need to back away?”

Mackerel eyed him, then the door, and slowly lowered his cover in a no.

“It’s fine as long as I stay here and don’t get closer?”

Mackerel lifted his cover in a yes.

Hugh nodded, then turned back to the door.

It was only then that he noticed faint flickering coming from one of his affinity senses— his planar sense, specifically.

It didn’t take him long to understand what his affinity sense was trying to tell him, especially with what little he could understand of the spellforms. This door had been exactly what he had speculated earlier— an entrance to another world, found deep within Havath City’s labyrinth.

Only this entrance had been torn asunder from its connecting world.

Hugh suspected that if he’d gone any closer, or worse, tried to open the door, the results would have been incredibly awful. Probably not “cast away into the nonreality between universal membranes” awful, but…

He slowly stepped back, then returned to Mackerel.

Hugh spent a couple more minutes resting, and wondering whether his hunch about the highest labyrinth spires had been just a hunch, or something that had leaked into him from Mackerel via the scrying visions. There was no way to tell, ultimately, and Hugh decided not to worry about it. If his bond with Mackerel hadn’t driven him mad already, it probably wasn’t going to anytime soon.

Though Mackerel’s behavior might, one of these days. Mackerel had been unusually well-behaved lately, after all. Hugh wouldn’t be surprised if his spellbook was just saving up his mischief for after all this was over.

At that, Mackerel rippled his pages in an impression of a human burp, and flapped back over to Hugh, done digesting the resonator.

Hugh really hoped the last two uneaten resonators wouldn’t be too much worse— this day had enough complications already.

“Let’s get back, then,” Hugh said.

He slung Mackerel over his shoulder, then brought the small ward box containing the paper communicator floating in front of him. He carefully reached out with his mana, then activated the appropriate spellform.

“I found the resonator, and fed it to Mackerel,” he said.

“That’s excellent news,” Alustin said. “I’ll check the condition of the weapon.”

Hugh couldn’t hear a hint of the emotions from their earlier conversation, and was guessing he was around others.

It was only a short wait before Alustin spoke to him again. “I’m guessing we have over two hours now.”

“How’s your situation?” Hugh asked.

“The initial fury of the typhoon elemental has calmed enough that we’re preparing to venture back out again,” Alustin responded. “We’ve managed to track down both Ilinia and Heliothrax, and are trying to contact Ilinia. We’re still looking for Eudaxus.”

“What are their conditions?” Hugh asked.

Alustin coughed uncomfortably. “Well, we have good news and bad. The good news is that Ilinia seems largely unharmed, while Heliothrax was badly injured by the storm.”

“And the bad news?” Hugh asked, wishing he’d asked for it before the good news.

“Indris is still alive.”

“How is that bad news?” Hugh demanded, his heart lifting.

“Because Heliothrax has her, and is laying down the preparations to graft Indris’ head to her spine, to steal her magic.”

Hugh was stunned into silence for a moment.

Heliothrax had already become a seemingly unstoppable monster with the grafted heads of lesser dragons— adding the power of one of the two mightiest storm mages alive would turn her into something else entirely.

“I’ll meet back up with Vervyn and rendezvous with you as quickly as I can,” Hugh said.

“Hurry,” Alustin said, and deactivated the paper band from his end.

Hugh settled Mackerel’s strap on his shoulder, then climbed out of the labyrinth through the crack in the floor.

DESPITE THE URGENCY, Hugh didn’t begin his descent immediately. Instead, he summoned a ward platform, then used the extra mana to ascend up above the very top of the labyrinth spire.

There was no sign of the door on the outside, just a blank stone wall.

Hugh shook his head, then prepared his descent.

It wasn’t a particularly complex set of preparations.

He opaqued his ward bubble again, then made it perfectly reflective, leaving him in the dark once more. He cast a weak levitation spell, to slow his fall.

Then he just let himself drop.

For the second time in one day, Hugh dropped towards Havath City from unimaginable heights.

He couldn’t tell his exact position compared to the labyrinth below, so he had to be careful to go slower— though still faster than Ramyl’s descent earlier.

There was really no telling how long his drop took— several minutes, at the very least. The instant he felt the labyrinth approaching below, he increased the mana flowing to his levitation cantrip, carefully adjusting his trajectory using his wind mana, then anchored the Crown in place just above the first labyrinth corridor he reached. It was still too hot to step on, so he set out walking along more ward platforms inside his ward bubble.

He was a little surprised that he’d reached the labyrinth before he reached the storm— it should be towering much higher into the sky. Its top wasn’t far below him, though.

It didn’t take him long to reach a spot where he could safely return the Crown to transparency, and the instant he did, he understood why the storm lurked so low.

It was hiding from the Eye of Heliothrax.

Around him was the same violent patchwork of lethal sunlight as before his ascent, but now, rising up from the depths was the top of the storm. It loomed and crawled around the labyrinth corridors, grasping up towards the heat it fed on, only to draw back when too much of it was exposed to direct sunlight, and started boiling away. Only to a point, though— the sunlight that descended too deep seemed to attract the wrath of the storm, and it began boiling about it, as though to keep it free from its depths.

Hugh’s water affinity could feel the alchemical poisons percolating through the typhoon elemental, as it drank from the leaks filling up the bottom of the ruins from the death of the Intertwined, as it absorbed the toxic smoke of burning alchemical lakes.

Even for a clash between great powers and mage armies, where emergent effects were effectively a guarantee, this storm was a bizarre result.

He carefully made sure that the Stormward’s Crown would only let pure air pass through— then double-checked. And triple-checked.

“Is Vervyn still waiting for us?” Hugh asked Mackerel.

His spellbook, still lethargic from digesting the most recent book, flapped his covers in the affirmative, then indicated the direction Hugh should go.

Hugh sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, then began his descent into the toxic typhoon elemental.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Forlorn Hope

SABAE HATED THE way Merae’s storm felt. Hated the grimy feeling of the alchemical toxins carried in its wind, hated the muddled feeling of malevolence the barely-sentient elemental carried.

She wasn’t even a particular fan of how all the extra mana the storm was adding to the aether felt. The aether density around them was already almost painful from the death of the labyrinth, and the aether increase from the storm made it even worse.

There was, at least, one benefit from the storm.

It empowered the windlode spellform, one of her family’s many secrets to power. The windlode was a spellform designed to absorb and rapidly help convert storm-born mana into proper wind mana in a mage’s reservoirs— and Sabae had taught the windlode to all of her friends. Hugh two years ago, Talia and Godrick while they were on Limnus.

As the force of archmages flew towards their rendezvous site with Hugh and Vervyn, Godrick and Talia were contributing a massively disproportionate amount of wind mana to their wind shield. Talia’s contribution was heating the huge wind shield significantly, but it was a welcome heat, inside the heat-thieving storm. Sabae was a bit disappointed that the heat wasn’t stronger or longer-lasting, in fact.

Sabae couldn’t contribute to their wind shield, so that just left her on watch.

If the battle was still raging anywhere in the city, Sabae couldn’t spot hide nor tail of it. All she saw was storm and ruin.

There were still a handful of dripping streams of magma, a few pools glowing ominously on the ground, but the unnatural storm was already devouring their heat, slowly turning them back into rock and metal.

Sabae could dimly make out a few corpses in the dark of the storm as she leaned off Scrathinax’s horn, human and dragon both, and had no idea who they had fought for or how they had died. She could only place one corpse, a gryphon, and that was because only the Tsarnassans had ridden them into battle today.

In the distance, Sabae watched another labyrinth collapse, countless tons of stone crashing to the ground, the first sound loud enough to penetrate the storm that she’d heard yet.

They passed over a dying swarm of the asymmetrical flame insects they’d fought, only a few of them still sluggishly moving, and Sabae had no idea if it was the same large swarm they’d fought. The swarm didn’t even seem to notice them, let alone attack. Sabae found herself wondering whether the demon carpenter Tienkis had made it to safety or not.

Then there was another wind shield ahead of them, another bubble in the dark, lit by a stable ring of lightning.

Her grandmother.

Then the two bubbles merged, and Sabae found her grandmother’s arms wrapped around her.

HUGH AND VERVYN arrived not long after Sabae’s grandmother, led by Hugh’s warlock connection and while Mackerel set to devouring the resonator from Tienkis, the rest of them set to planning.

Though Sabae couldn’t help but give Hugh and Alustin skeptical looks— she’d heard something, when Alustin handed Hugh the resonator. Just a little pinging noise from her planar affinity sense.

Sabae was fairly sure Hugh had just made a hand-off of something to Alustin. She scowled, but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t ever going to forgive Alustin for betraying Hugh— for betraying all of them— or for starting a completely unnecessary war, but she wasn’t about to dictate what her friends could decide in regards to their former teacher.

Alustin had already briefed Ilinia on the situation— save for the truth about the Tongue Eater— so they were able to dive into planning immediately.

“Eudaxus is on his way,” Ilinia said. “He’s got to be careful moving about in this storm, but he should be here well before we get to Heliothrax and Indris. I relayed the situation, and he does not believe he will be able to retrieve the resonator while it is imprisoned inside the grafted dragon maw. We’re going to have to reclaim it the hard way.”

“How long do we have until Heliothrax transplants Indris’ head?” Hugh asked.

Everyone turned to Alustin, who grimaced. “She’s still healing an unconscious Indris— at least until she’s stable enough for the transplant. She’s also rebuilding the top of her neck and head to receive Indris’ own head— even prioritizing both of those over healing herself.”

He gestured to Valia, who took over for him. “Once preparations are complete, the procedure itself probably won’t take long. My sources before Havath fell believed that most of the time Heliothrax needed to claim their powers was training— triggering pleasure and pain nerves, among other tricks, then integrating their nervous systems, until the grafted dragon was little more than a barely-sapient limb for the Sunwyrm. So even if Heliothrax succeeds, she won’t have access to Indris’ powers today, maybe not for weeks. We still can’t allow the integration to succeed, though.”

Sabae couldn’t help but shudder in disgust at the mental images.

“If need be, I’ll end Indris before I allow it,” Ilinia said. “I can say with certainty that she would rather die than live as an enslaved tumor atop Heliothrax.”

No one argued with that.

“The first obstacle is going to be getting to the two dragons,” Alustin said. “Heliothrax has put up multiple defensive barriers. A wind shield, to keep the storm out; a fast-moving barrier of scrap metal and debris, and even a dome of sunfire.”

“We can take those down with an all-out assault,” Ilinia said, “but even with my help, it will take time, and if Heliothrax has that time, she’s going to use it well— we can expect massive casualties. We need some other plan to break through.”

A truly reckless idea popped into Sabae’s head. “If someone punches a hole in all three defenses, can you expand it, grandmother?”

Ilinia gave Sabae a sharp look. “I can, but…”

“I can punch that hole,” Sabae said. “There’s literally no one better suited to the job than me.”

“If you do that, girl— if you even can do that— you’re going to be alone in a cage with the deadliest great power on the continent.”

Sabae didn’t get a chance to speak up for herself, because Godrick did instead.

“There’s no one on the continent better suited ta the job,” Godrick said. “Sabae’s magic is perfect for punchin’ through large-scale defenses like that. And once she’s through, well, Heliothrax has ta’ catch her ta swat her, and Sabae’s not called the Flea for nothin’.”

Ilinia gave Godrick and Sabae skeptical looks, and then, to Sabae’s irritation, looked to Alustin.

Alustin just nodded, and Ilinia sighed.

“Fine. What’s our next obstacle?”

“Just Heliothrax,” Alustin said. “It’s not like she needs defenses beyond that. She has at least fifteen affinities we’ve spotted so far, she’s the next best thing to indestructible, and with her recent self-modifications, she’s the biggest dragon I’ve ever heard of. We have to pry open one of the mouths on her back— the blue one, about one-third of the way down her spine from her head— and steal back the resonator. I’m guessing the blue head is as indestructible as Heliothrax, at this point.”

“Easy enough!” Talia said, seeming simultaneously cheerful and sarcastic.

“It’ll be oh so much fun!” Shimmering Cardovan added.

Ilinia and Sabae both glowered at them, but wiped their faces when they noticed their identical expressions.

“What then?” Emmenson Drees asked. “Even if we get the resonator back, we’re going to have an angry Heliothrax to deal with.”

Ilinia sniffed. “What happens then? I do my best to hold off the Sunwyrm while you all scatter and run. Then I run away. As to what happens after… well, let’s worry about that after we save the continent, alright? Now, let’s go from strategy to tactics, shall we?”

HELIOTHRAX’S POSITION WAS visible from nearly a mile away, even with the labyrinth columns and venomous typhoon blocking Sabae’s view.

They had layered every possible concealment upon themselves— Mackerel’s anti-scrying field, hovering attention wards built out of Eddin Slane’s hexagonal ceramic tiles, and even a thick shroud of wind and rain wrapped tightly around them by Ilinia.

They might not even have needed it. According to Alustin’s scrying, Heliothrax seemed so intent upon her work, so seemingly confident in her victory, that she didn’t look up once. They might have marched on her with full musical accompaniment and still have arrived safely.

Or maybe their stealth efforts had actually just worked.

Hugh gave her a launch platform— a box formed out of the Stormward’s Crown, with a front that was permeable to her.

The first thing Sabae did was make sure her enchanted goggles were set to protect her eyes from the light of Heliothrax’s sunfire. Her friends’ armors all handled that for them, in one way or another, and most of the rest of the archmage force would have to rely on anti-glare cantrips.

Sabae spent a couple minutes carefully judging the angle and speed of spin for all three of Heliothrax’s barriers before she started up her own armor’s spin.

She started assembling her starstrike armor with stellar, lightning, and steel mana, spinning them up as far from her skin as possible. She only took it halfway to starstrike armor, though— the Sunwyrm’s own barrier would provide the starfire. Or in this case, the sunfire. The armor would use relatively little mana until then— and Sabae had mana to spare right now.

As she did so, she felt her grandmother’s magic settle around her, turning her half-complete starstrike armor into a galvanic beacon.

Then Sabae spun up her dream armor. It wasn’t strictly necessary for breaching the defenses, but it would help her survive once she was in.

After that, she spun up her scent armor. This one was… frankly, a bit weird. All it seemed to do was produce weird, mild smells, but Sabae wasn’t doing anything else with her scent mana, and maybe it would help her dream armor confuse Heliothrax.

Next Sabae began spinning stone and crystal magic around her. With nothing carried by the magic, there was no risk of it reacting unpleasantly with her other magics, like had happened during her training with wind and water armors. She didn’t set up these spin patterns to carry stone and crystal, though, but to send it tumbling away from her.

It was, of course, just a supplement to her final magic.

Her plain old ordinary wind armor. Her first, and still favorite, armor. With one difference— she’d be empowering it with the windlode.

She’d empowered her armor with the windlode once before, during Ataerg’s coup at Theras Tel, to clear a path into the wind for the Moonless Owl. It had worked, but had turned her armor into a ridiculously misshapen mass, which had exploded violently when she lost control of it.

Her control over her magic was vastly improved since then, and she should be able to hold it far longer— but she ultimately only needed it for a few seconds.

As her wind armor spun up around her, rapidly growing malformed and swollen, Sabae pulled her inertial spear out of her storage tattoo.

Then she jumped up, kicked off the ward behind her, and launched herself like an arrow towards Heliothrax’s defenses.

The outermost, the wind shield, would have been the trickiest for another mage to punch through. Passing through a wind shield either required brute power or precise matching of wind vectors and speeds. The former was by far the preferred method for most mages— but wind was one of Heliothrax’s strongest stolen affinities, and it would have taken effort for even her grandmother to break through.

For Sabae, the latter method was trivial. It was easy for her to match her wind armor to other wind shields using her formless casting and mana techniques, as she’d done on the back of the Sican Elder. For all Heliothrax’s new power, she lacked experience with her stolen magics. There were no hidden crosscurrents, no high-pressure pockets to prevent Sabae’s breach. She passed through smoothly, with only minor turbulence, and didn’t slow down at all, as she activated her inertial spear.

As Sabae passed through the first layer, she felt a dozen lightning bolts creep through behind her, followed by a vast wedge of wind to split a gap in the shield.

The second layer was the most dangerous to Sabae— it was just a spinning mess of stone and metal, forming a rough dome.

All Sabae could do was hope that her preparations and armor worked. Lightning bolts flashed out from her starstrike armor, deflecting metal. Her crystal and stone magic diverted chunks of rock that slipped close to her, and her malformed windlode armor knocked away all the rest.

And behind her raced more lightning bolts, several dozen, this time, along with a far larger spiral of wind, ripping wide open the hole she’d punched.

It was the last barrier that was the most important, the hardest for anyone but her to break through— the sunfire dome.

Sabae passed through it easily, cleanly, her starstrike armor sweeping in huge quantities of sunfire. She didn’t fight the sunfire dome, but co-opted it, turning her into a burning hole in the world. Sabae couldn’t even imagine what she must look like, between the sunfire and her dream armor. She couldn’t see through the sunfire, relying entirely on her affinity senses.

And behind her, she felt hundreds of lightning bolts ripping open the sunfire dome. To her affinity senses, the crackles and whistles sounded nothing like the speech of the Kyrene— instead, they were a chorus of incoherent rage.

Her entire path, from floating launch platform to the vast protected space, took maybe a count of three.

And then Sabae hit the ground in a controlled roll, and detonated her armor. Sent a massive shockwave of wind from the windlode, immediately followed by waves of dream, scent, and starfire.

Before her eyes had even adjusted, she was already taking off in a run, spinning up her storm armor, empty starstrike armor, and dream armor all at once.

By the time she was wrapped in raging stormclouds, Heliothrax was already recovering from her surprise. Sabae doubted she’d even been singed by the sunfire, or more than inconvenienced by the blast of wind. The wave of unstructured dream mana had probably been the most effective distraction.

The Sunwyrm’s body had largely protected the unconscious Indris from the blast. Sabae wasn’t sure it would have harmed Indris— even wounded, and lacking Heliothrax’s modifications, the elder desert wyrm was incredibly durable.

Lightning crackled between her foot and the ground, and Sabae stormjumped away just in time to dodge a massive descending talon, which dug a deep trench in the stone where she’d been standing.

Heliothrax shook her head a little, having trouble focusing on the dream-infested clouds around Sabae.

Sabae was getting her first good look at Heliothrax as well, and the Sunwyrm’s grafted heads and body modifications were even more horrifying than she’d imagined.

Her wounds from being in the path of an entire escaping typhoon were also significantly worse than Sabae had expected, though. Three of her four wings had extensive injuries— two with bleeding rips and tears in the flight membrane, one broken in at least four places. One of Heliothrax’s legs bore a massive gash, at least twenty feet long, deep enough that it exposed the honeycombed bone mesh the Sunwyrm had replaced her skeleton with. Sabae could see multiple breaks and cracks in the exposed bones.

Not to mention, huge portions of Heliothrax’s body had been stripped of her mother-of-pearl scales, and lightning burns remarkably similar to Sabae’s own scars ran across her great bulk.

“Look how the Flea leaps,” Heliothrax growled. “Would you bite my flanks, little bug?”

A starbolt twice as large as Sabae slammed into her in midair, but her empty starstrike armor ripped apart its shielding and detonated it before it even reached her storm armor, then stole away half the sunfire.

Sabae immediately detonated the starstrike armor once more, then stormjumped again in midair as she restarted the starstrike armor. She scowled in worry— even if letting Heliothrax provide the sunfire saved massive amounts of mana, she was still burning through both her mana reservoirs and her ring’s mana reservoirs dangerously fast.

“That’s the plan, cannibal!” Sabae taunted.

“I am no cannibal,” Heliothrax growled. “I am essential to the order and security of this whole continent, and the noble sacrifices these dragons have made will not go in vain.”

“How much of their bodies did you eat after stealing their heads?” Sabae asked, forcing a laugh she didn’t feel.

The Sunwyrm bellowed in rage, then cast dozens of spells at her at once. Fireballs, lightning bolts, hurled boulders, even a shockwave of raw force.

Sabae dodged most of the spells, let her starstrike and storm armor eat the lightning bolts, then dissolved the force blast using her inertial spear, heavily draining its mana reservoir to do so.

The spells just kept coming, though, and Sabae desperately threw herself towards the only shelter she could see inside the sunfire dome.

The unconscious body of Indris Stormbreaker.

Heliothrax twisted and bit at her, but her recent, horrifying modifications had stolen much of her storied grace, and Sabae easily slipped past her snapping jaws.

She got her first glimpses of Indris’ wounds then— gashes from Heliothrax’s assault, numerous broken bones from her fall. Even with Heliothrax’s healing, Sabae was shocked that the Stormbreaker yet lived.

Sabae landed atop Indris’ thorned neck, and Heliothrax’s spell assault immediately ceased, to avoid injuring the wounded dragon further.

“Fleas don’t much care whose bodies they hide on, it seems,” Heliothrax growled.

Sabae felt a lurch as gravity magic pulled on her, but she drained the rest of her inertial spear’s mana to boost her inertia, to make it harder to get her moving.

Before Heliothrax could try any further tricks, the hole in the sunfire dome tore wide, and one of her grandmother’s stormbodies charged right through. Not a particularly large one, certainly not so large as the one that had destroyed Bakori, but still half again the size of Heliothrax.

And in her wake came the archmage force, behind the Stormward and a storm of Eddin Slane’s ceramic tiles, with her friends right in the vanguard.

Sabae couldn’t help but notice Godrick in the very front of the vanguard with several of Alustin’s paper decoys— and another Godrick, running with her other friends just behind the vanguard.

Heliothrax’s gravity magic vanished as Ilinia’s storm fist crashed against the dragon’s muzzle, sending the monster stumbling back in the cramped confines of the sunfire dome.

The instant the gravity magic disappeared, Eudaxus Scalesworn appeared beside Sabae, shirtless and tired.

And ridiculously, epically muscled.

Sabae wasn’t sure how to feel about that— old people were not supposed to be that athletic— but set the thought aside as Eudaxus spoke.

“I was unable to retrieve the resonator.”

“As expected,” Sabae said, altering her mix of armors to prepare to go back into battle against Heliothrax.

“My queen is stable?” Eudaxus asked, slowly running a hand over Indris’ huge scales.

Sabae took a moment to run her healing affinity sense over Indris, then nodded. “For now, at least.”

“Then let’s keep her that way,” Eudaxus said.

Indris’ high priest cracked his fingers together— a movement that showed off an absurd number of muscles— and then Heliothrax’s own shadow seemed to erupt free of the ground. Dozens of shadow-spikes stabbed up at the Sunwyrm, while umbral tendrils wrapped around her wings, trying to haul her to the ground.

Sabae smiled, then launched herself into battle once more.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

For Artur!

GODRICK WAS BOTH in the vanguard and just behind it.

Or, rather, he was just behind the vanguard. A copy of his armor was running in front of him, each of his footsteps sending up splashes from the toxic puddles coating the ground— the sunfire dome over them hadn’t managed to evaporate them, yet.

Not even his father had been able to run both his armor and a decoy copy before— besides the fact that not even Artur’s mind’s eye had been large enough to contain two full-sized armor spellforms, it was simply too far of a stretch for just stone and iron magic.

Godrick had two advantages over his father.

First was Gravel. His elemental handled the armor that actually protected Godrick, leaving his mind’s eye almost completely free to summon a duplicate.

And second was his pact with his friends— most specifically, the fact that he could use dream mana now.

Artur’s armor had been designed off illusion magic principles. It had used the illusion anchoring spellforms that dream and light mages used to project their image elsewhere to form the basis of his armor, to sculpt it around his body without the stone crushing him.

Godrick had taken that principle one step farther. He’d fully integrated those illusion anchoring spellforms into his father’s armor spellform, allowing an illusory copy of himself to pilot an entire second suit of armor, wielding his gravity hammer, while Godrick himself wielded his Kemetrian rune bow.

The feat said more about Artur and the many illusionists who had contributed to the illusion anchor spell over the years than it did about Godrick. Both were incredibly complex, yet easy to modify spellforms, even for a relative neophyte into spellform design like Godrick. The armor-wearing illusion could even act on its own with minimal oversight, as he’d seen Bandon Firehair and other illusionists do in the past.

Even Godrick and Alustin’s decoys were running behind their main defenses, though. Eddin’s ceramic tiles came first, drifting in a series of floating barriers to provide the archmages with cover, firing lanes between them. The Stormward’s Crown floated behind that, providing a ward over their entire force.

Even brawling with Ilinia’s stormbody, Heliothrax managed to send dozens of spells at the attacking archmages. Most of them were blocked by Eddin Slane’s tiles and the Stormward’s Crown, but more than enough spells made it through to destroy one of Alustin’s paper decoys and damage another. A fireball struck Godrick’s doppelganger, but just splashed off harmlessly.

In the background, Heliothrax’s throat inflated as she inhaled, and all the archmages readied their defenses.

One of Heliothrax’s many self-modifications had been to her dragonflame. She had altered the glands that produced the ultra-flammable viscous liquid, adding heavily reinforced sacs that she could pressurize, allowing the Sunwyrm to spray her foes with far greater than usual quantities of dragonflame at much higher velocities. There was an obvious tell, though— her throat inflating like a frog.

To Godrick’s relief, she didn’t target them, but Ilinia’s stormbody. As Heliothrax’s throat contracted, dragonflame punched straight through the stormbody’s outer layer, then spread out through the whirling winds and water, still burning.

If Ilinia had been inside the stormbody, it likely would have killed her. She wasn’t, though— she was still outside of Heliothrax’s defenses, controlling the stormbody remotely, while she was under guard by Scrathinax and the various flight mages. Heliothrax had merely made Ilinia’s stormbody more powerful with the attack— and it would be a couple minutes before she could spit dragonflame again, and considerably longer until she could use her pressurized dragonbreath.

Ilinia’s burning stormbody promptly headbutted Heliothrax directly between the eyes, and the grasping shadows beneath the Sunwyrm used that opportunity to grasp even tighter, pulling her down towards the ground.

Godrick and the others used Heliothrax’s shock to launch an all-out assault of their own.

Sadly, Godrick’s siege magic wouldn’t be much use against Heliothrax— she’d be able to tear apart his starbolt with ease. He gave it everything else he had, though. Launched a half-dozen boulders at high speed. Drained half his steel mana launching his entire remaining supply of steel nails at Heliothrax, then even more of his lightning mana to fill the air between the nails with a crackling web of lightning. Reached out with his water magic to splash some of the toxic water on the ground into one of Heliothrax’s many wounds. Set his own wind magic directly against Heliothrax’s, in an effort to weaken her. Crumbled the stone under one of her feet to dust with a pattern unlinking spell. Loosed arrow after arrow from his rune bow— even if he was a novice with it, Heliothrax was a target that was hard to miss.

And beside him, twenty-some archmages did the same.

Talia launched bonefire needles and saws as fast as she could, all of it backed by wind hot enough to burn, and the resulting explosions enveloped Heliothrax’s flank.

Hugh was unleashing dozens of his exploding wardstones towards the Sunwyrm’s wings, propelled by his wind and crystal magic. He used his water and crystal magic to grow razor-edged sword icicles from the toxic puddles filling the ruins, sending them at Heliothrax by the score. He used his steel siege magic to launch a steel spike so fast that Godrick’s steel sense could barely even register it, tying a lightning bolt to its end.

Shimmering Cardovan blasted dozens of gleaming gemstones at Heliothrax, each detonating in a burst of sound and priceless shrapnel as it struck the dragon in the side, while covering Heliothrax’s face in light and sound.

Emmenson Drees just aimed a wide column of sound at the Sunwyrm, so powerful that it turned the ground in its path to dust.

Rhodes, who had been keeping the full extent of his affinities largely concealed to ice and wind as the Frost Ghost, unleashed all of them at once. A dozen spears, tipped with magically reinforced ice and propelled by wood, wind, and force magic, shot straight at Heliothrax with speeds Godrick would have expected from a sharpshooter mage, followed by a half dozen spheres of ball lightning that would have done Casser Spellstorm proud.

There weren’t enough members of Clan Castis to summon any elementals, but between Gram and Leon, they managed to bathe an impressive amount of the Sunwyrm in flame, while redirecting most of the fire spells heading towards them. It seemed that there was a significant amount of oil in dragonflame, because Haela was picking up scattered pools of dragonflame burning on the ground around Ilinia’s stormbody and hurling them back at Heliothrax with her oil magic.

The various Librarians Errant, Tena Brand, and the other archmages all contributed in their own way, whether it was adding to the ridiculous offense or directly opposing Heliothrax’s magic. Their combined assault almost blocked out the sight of the Sunwyrm, unleashing absurd destruction against her.

There were a few spots on the Sunwyrm that avoided the destruction, though— most notably, their target head.

Which was exactly where Sabae, Rose, Alustin, and Valia struck.

The four of them were among the most mobile of their group, outside the specialist flight mages and Eudaxus, whose shadow magic was currently more useful than his teleportation.

They descended on the head, unleashing sword echoes, magically enhanced cutting paper, cuts from Rose’s flame-propelled greatsword, and who knew what bizarre armor combination from Sabae, as they worked to hack apart the flesh tendrils holding the blue dragon’s mouth shut.

Their assault only lasted a moment before Heliothrax’s response began.

Emmenson Drees was the first to die, as a sunfire containment field flickered into existence around him. Heliothrax didn’t even have to use that much mana to kill him— the lightning and solar mana she pumped into the containment field arced directly and violently to his steel spellform tattoos, melting them in the blink of an eye. Godrick quickly looked away from the gruesome sight.

Drees was the only one to get targeted so precisely— the rest of them were just hit by an explosion of barely structured magic. Ilinia had warned them about it, including the bizarre feeling the attack created in the aether before it unleashed, and Godrick desperately reinforced his armor the instant he detected it, as the other mages around him reinforced their own defenses. Godrick also started pumping as much stone and crystal mana as he could into a pair of new spellforms he quickly drew in his mind’s eye. Eddin Slane and Hugh wrapped the group in successive domes of ceramic tiles and Crown wards.

It wasn’t enough.

The shockwave of wild magic punched through both defenses in a hundred places, then expanded outward into their group in chaotic tangles of lightning, fire, light, force, and more. One burst of magic might freeze and shatter everything in its path, while another might electrocute while crushing targets to the ground.

At least half a dozen of their number died instantly. Most of them were among the Librarians Errant, though Celia the Anchor was the only one Godrick knew by name. A crack raced along the ground, then under Tena Brand’s feet, a moment later exploding into thousands of razor-sharp stone splinters.

Godrick himself was thrown off his feet by a burst of wind, gravity, and force, but wasn’t hurt beyond a few bruises.

Hugh and Eddin rapidly restored the original defensive formation, and through the firing lanes between the ceramic barriers, Godrick could see the impacts of their assault.

It was discouraging, to say the least. They had done plenty of visible damage, but most of it seemed superficial, save for a nasty circular pit gouged in Heliothrax’s side from Emmenson Drees’ assault— no wonder Heliothrax had targeted him specifically.

A few of Godrick’s rune-arrows had penetrated a few inches into injured parts of Heliothrax that had lost their scales, while Rhodes’ spears and a few other attacks had made it farther— but not that much farther. Heliothrax was still alive and enraged, and Ilinia’s stormbody had been entirely dispersed by the shockwave. Even Shimmering Cardovan’s light and sound distractions had been blasted away from her face.

To his relief, the four attackers were all safe— they’d retreated to Indris, and Heliothrax had carefully targeted the shockwave to avoid injuring her victim further. And he could feel Ilinia sculpting a new stormbody outside the dome.

He didn’t take the time to contemplate the situation— they needed to keep Heliothrax distracted.

Godrick was the first one to resume his assault on the Sunwyrm, hitting her with a lightning bolt, blasts of wind and contaminated water, and more rune arrows, which he was running out of quickly.

It barely fazed Heliothrax, and did little to draw her shifting attention.

So Godrick used a trick he’d been hoping to save for later in the battle.

His scent magic.

He dumped all of his scent mana into the foulest, most vile stink spell he knew, one far worse than the one he’d used against the dragon in Theras Tel, and cast it directly into Heliothrax’s nose.

The Sunwyrm froze in place, her nostrils flared.

Then she exhaled softly, and chuckled.

“Oh, so we have a clever scent mage, do we?” Heliothrax asked. “Do you really think you’re the first to try that on me? I’ve long since put biological limiters on my senses, thresholds to stop them from being overloaded.”

Godrick scowled, then stepped forward, and yelled back. “Da yeh know who ah am, Sunwyrm?”

Everyone else had stopped attacking, as if paralyzed by the conversation.

Heliothrax peered at him, and Godrick felt a flicker of fear as the dragon’s massive eyes made direct contact with him. The glow of the sunfire dome off her mother-of-pearl scales made the Sunwyrm resemble her namesake more than ever.

“I recognize that armor,” Heliothrax said. “Well, well, well, you must be the son of Artur Wallbreaker. Did you know, his final words were of you? Is it revenge you’re seeking? I’m always happy to give a fool a chance.”

Godrick shook his head, then started pushing as much mana from as many affinities as possible to a very specific target. Especially his wind mana, refilling at an impossible rate thanks to the windlode— he wasn’t sure it would have been possible for him to achieve his goal so quickly without it. “No, not revenge.”

“It certainly seems like you’re after revenge,” Heliothrax said. “But I don’t much care why you’re attacking me, only that you are, to be honest.”

With that, Heliothrax started launching spells almost exclusively at Godrick, and everyone else broke out of their paralysis, loosing another massive volley of spells at her.

Godrick just focused on surviving. Eddin Slane and Hugh both placed multiple rows of barriers in front of him, and Heliothrax’s spellswarm punched through, barely slowing down.

Barely was enough, though. Godrick had just enough time to launch himself to the side with his force boots and wind magic, throwing an object from his storage tattoo as he did so, straight at a nearby pile of rubble.

One of the attraction and repulsion rune-axes from Kemetrias.

If Godrick had kept going in the same direction, he would have been annihilated by a sunfire ray, but halfway through his original leap, he pushed himself violently to one side by activating the repulsion rune on the rune axe, launching him away from the pile of rubble.

“Want ta know the real reason I’m attacking yeh?” Godrick yelled after he rolled to his feet behind another pile of rubble.

“Why is that?” Heliothrax asked, amusement obvious in her voice as she switched targets, crushing another Librarian Errant with force and gravity magic.

“Not ta avenge my father, but ta honor him,” Godrick said.

“How noble,” Heliothrax started to say.

“For my father!” Godrick bellowed, then fused his suit to the stone of the ground.

“For Artur!” yelled back the other archmages, securing themselves in other ways.

Right before the gravity hammer his armor decoy had been carrying detonated.

Getting the armor decoy to Heliothrax had been his main goal all along. When the Sunwyrm had let loose her chaotic shockwave, he’d used immense amounts of stone and crystal mana to keep it from being blown away. When he had launched an assault on Heliothrax and started taunting her, it had been to keep her from noticing the illusion armor carrying his gravity hammer directly under her, and towards her badly wounded leg.

And when he’d yelled in honor of his father, and the other archmages had yelled in honor back? That wasn’t a spontaneous moment.

That was the pre-arranged signal that Godrick’s gravity hammer was about to detonate, and that everyone should retreat away from Heliothrax and anchor themselves in place somehow.

Godrick’s gravity hammer imploded, and he earned the name Hammerbreaker yet again.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Seize the Means of Destruction

TALIA ACTIVATED THE kinetic anchors in her four bracers the instant Godrick yelled “For Artur,” and she was still almost pulled into the resulting implosion. She felt like all her limbs were about to be yanked from their sockets as the gravity hammer’s destruction tried to pull everything around it into its embrace, her torso most definitely included.

All around the battlefield, chunks of rubble, corpses, and discarded weapons were pulled into the implosion. The only reason Indris’ unconscious body wasn’t dragged towards it was that Scrathinax had positioned himself near her, outside of Heliothrax’s defenses, and was shielding his mother with his own gravity magic.

Heliothrax was mighty enough to resist the pull of the implosion— mostly. Her wounded leg, the one with the great gash that exposed her internal bone mesh, was too close and too injured to stay out of reach. Talia could hear horrible cracking, ripping, and shattering noises as the gravity implosion broke more and more of the mesh.

The instant the implosion stopped, the explosion started.

Godrick had packed the inside of his decoy armor with every single alchemical explosive the archmage force had— and they’d had a lot. Especially the Librarians Errant, in their storage tattoos. To make things worse, there had been at least a few enchanted items caught in the gravity implosion, and the blast was tinged with a half dozen different magical effects, though none so extreme as the gravity hammer implosion.

The blast actually knocked Heliothrax’s rear end a few feet into the air, and did horrific damage to her wounded leg.

When she slammed back down into the ground, the wounded leg gave out completely, unable to support the Sunwyrm’s weight, and she almost collapsed to the ground.

With a snarl, Heliothrax restored her balance on just three legs, her anger shifting into murderous rage.

“Enough games!” Heliothrax screamed.

Talia’s stellar affinity sense started going mad, and she looked up at the sunfire dome around them to see solar prominences rising from its surface.

Heliothrax was about to set off an inverted solar flare, to burn them all alive.

To make things even worse, the sunfire dome slammed shut the hole that Sabae had torn in it and Ilinia had widened, offering no easy way back for Ilinia’s new stormbody.

Hugh and Eddin Slane started frantically building defenses around them. Simultaneously, Hugh and Godrick started trying to destabilize Heliothrax’s spell with their stellar mana— Godrick’s had an especially noteworthy impact, given he’d trained it as siege magic.

Talia didn’t bother adding her own stellar magic— it wasn’t going to be enough. The defenses wouldn’t stop this, and they wouldn’t protect Sabae and the others trying to retrieve the resonator. It seemed that Heliothrax’s new injury had even enraged her enough to give up her plans for Indris.

Before the defenses closed around her, Talia leapt through the Stormward’s Crown, past the closing ceramic tiles, and out into the open.

She rapidly assembled spellforms, filling up her mind’s eye with them, and then some. Each and every one was small, simple, and identical. Talia’s mind’s eye wasn’t on a scale like Godrick’s, but it was definitely larger than average— Alustin had specifically trained her to increase the size of her mind’s eye and the number of spellforms she could hold, starting during their trip to Theras Tel.

Each and every spellform was for summoning dreamwasp swarms, and Talia drained every drop of dream mana from her mana reservoir.

Talia unleashed more dreamfire at once than she ever had in her life, enough to dwarf the dreamfire ray that she’d killed Abyla Ceutas with during Bakori’s breakout from the labyrinth.

Not at Heliothrax, though the massive dragon flinched with surprise— dreamfire wasn’t much use against dragons, even far weaker ones.

Talia launched her dreamwasp cascade straight at the sunfire dome.

After all— dreamfire and starfire reacted explosively, so there was no reason to expect dreamfire and sunfire to behave differently.

Talia noticed one major difference right away, though.

Dreamfire and sunfire reacted even more explosively.

The blast as the sunfire dome destabilized completely threw Talia off her feet, damaged the ceramic dome around her allies, and completely collapsed the other two layers of Heliothrax’s defensive dome.

Heliothrax’s resulting bellow of rage was interrupted by Ilinia’s second stormbody rushing in with the toxic typhoon and punching her right in the scaled throat.

Talia stumbled to her feet, laughing maniacally, only to cut off mid-cackle.

The Eye of Heliothrax had just ceased.

And all of the mana the Sunwyrm had been dedicating to the Eye and the sunfire dome?

She was using it right here, right now.

The world lit up so bright that Talia’s scrimshaw ward had to entirely almost black out her view to protect her eyes from the obscenely massive sunfire ray that Heliothrax fired straight through the chest of Ilinia’s second stormbody. When her scrimshaw ward’s anti-glare function deactivated a few heartbeats later, the second stormbody had dispersed into scattered clouds, already dissolving in the poison rain. Behind where it had stood, two labyrinth collapses were already in progress, and vast clouds of steam rose where the sunfire ray had dissolved an entire tunnel through the rain.

Heliothrax turned her eyes towards Talia, who knew for a fact she would be dead in seconds if she didn’t do something, and fast.

Talia’s first response was to resume her maniacal laughter. Not as a taunt, not as a ploy, but out of genuine delight.

She was about to do something she’d been waiting months for.

Talia was going to get to use her siege magic in battle.

She sent every single drop of water mana she had into a single, basic spell.

It hadn’t been a hard choice, trying to figure out which affinity to turn into her siege affinity. Of all her new affinities, her Clan Castis fire tattoos had immediately and intensely hated one above all others.

Her water affinity.

She couldn’t levitate it with her magic. She couldn’t shift its flow, couldn’t drain it from cloth, couldn’t filter it, couldn’t freeze it. Talia could do one and one thing only with her water affinity.

Boil it.

Talia clapped her hands, and every polluted drop of rain and every contaminated puddle within three hundred feet of Heliothrax instantly boiled into superheated toxic steam.

The steam alone would have been enough to wound the Sunwyrm, but that much heat expansion in a small area at once produced a phreatic shockwave even bigger than the detonation of the sunfire dome. Talia was sent tumbling end over end until she used her kinetic anchor bracers to gradually slow herself, coming to a halt just feet in front of the ceramic dome, which was barely holding under the repeated explosions.

Anyone else struck by that sort of explosion should have been severely injured, even through armor. Talia had two advantages that let her spring back to her feet barely even feeling sore. First was her scrimshaw ward, which Hugh and Loarna had specifically designed to protect her against explosions, especially the monstrous pressure waves they gave off. And second were her Limnan adaptations. Given how many times she’d been around explosions in the months since she started developing Limnan magic, more than most people were in a dozen lifetimes, Talia was pretty sure the otherworldly magic had extensively rebuilt her body for explosion resistance.

Heliothrax had been brutally slammed down against the ground, and was actually whimpering in pain. Half her gorgeous, glimmering scales were gone, and even her insanely tough flesh underneath was scalded bright red from the blast. Her prior injuries looked even worse, horribly disfigured further by the steam blast.

Talia wasn’t done yet.

She blasted off the ground with every ounce of mana in her force boots’ mana reservoirs, and then pushed even more of her mana in from her reservoirs that she didn’t have an immediate use for. Her scent mana, her healing mana, her planar mana, from both her natural and ring reservoirs— she pushed all of them through her force boots, risking destabilizing their enchantments and detonating them, to repeatedly blast her hundreds of feet into the air, feeling like a budget Sabae. She backed her leap with a relentless gust of burning wind.

Then she reached a high enough altitude and locked her kinetic bracers into place, suspending her in mid-air. The toxic rain rolled in great streams over her scrimshaw ward, lit a terrible blue by her tattoos, which were glowing brighter than ever before in her life. The remaining steam boiling up past her added an eerie, bizarre texture to the blue glow.

Talia carefully checked her new heat resistance belt, just returned by Hugh. She happily noted that not only had Hugh and Eddin restored their defenses around her allies, that someone had wrapped them in an especially thick, powerful-looking wind shield, as well as Indris. Ilinia, probably?

Heliothrax thrashed to her feet, screaming in rage and pain, looking for the pest that had tormented her so.

Then the Sunwyrm seemed to notice the blue glow illuminating the battlefield, and looked up. It was a slow, hesitant movement, and Talia smiled in triumph when she saw it.

Talia didn’t know how much of the fear she saw in Heliothrax’s eyes was for her, and how much might have been out of the impossible fear that Kanderon might have returned, but oh, was it satisfying.

Still, Talia could do better.

She intended to make sure all of the fear was for her.

A burning wind rose up inside her storage tattoo, which shone into life around her mouth.

And then the burning wind erupted from her storage tattoo, carrying with it bones.

Not just a handful of bones, not even a heavy barrage of bones.

Each and every single bone Talia carried with her, taking up the overwhelming bulk of her storage tattoo, even with how much it had grown since she’d got it. She’d needed to store many of the bones inside her friends’ tattoos at first, even.

The bones Talia launched at Heliothrax were best measured by the ton.

There were dozens of carefully prepared bones— flare teeth, squid pens, whalebone liquid flame dispensers, alchemically treated bird bones and more. There were hundreds more carefully designed bone weapons meant for her necklace in various stages of partial completion. There were comparable numbers of bone needles and bone saws, both completed and partially completed.

Then there was her unprocessed supply.

Bundle after bundle of chicken bones and aurochs bones from the Skyhold kitchen. Several pounds of sunmaw bones, capable of warping magic itself when it detonated. The bones of dozens of bizarre mutant creatures from the planet Limnus, and the bones of a double-handful of monsters Talia had harvested from the labyrinth.

Most of all, though, there were the bones of Ataerg. The bones of an elder dragon, if not one on the scale of Indris or Heliothrax. Most of his bones had already been used up in the defense of Skyhold by its enchanters, but over half of the bones Talia had stored were remnants of his skeleton.

She sent every last fragment and shard of bone dust in her storage tattoo at Heliothrax, not holding anything back.

Then she flooded her bone mana into it. Every last drop from her bone reservoir from her ring, and almost every last drop from her natural bone mana reservoir. Not to mention literally all of her wind mana, accelerating and heating the mass even more.

At least her wind mana would refill rapidly, due to the windlode.

By the time the bonestorm was smashed down into the Sunwyrm by the gale of burning wind, it had grown until it probably weighed as much as a sandship, glowing a malevolent red. Well, except for the dragonbone, which was just on fire instead of growing, but Talia wasn’t complaining.

Talia deactivated her kinetic anchors a moment before the whole mess detonated. A good thing, because she was pretty sure they would have ripped her arms and legs off when the shockwave hit her.

As she tumbled upward through the air, eagerly straining for glimpses of the bone-blast making a crater in the ground with Heliothrax’s body, she sighed happily.

She’d just made three of the biggest explosions of her life in mere minutes. Three explosions that any archmage— no, any great power— would have been absolutely delighted to call their own.

If the entire continent wasn’t driven mad by the alien superweapon, Talia wasn’t sure it was even possible for her to have a better day than this.

And she wasn’t even done yet.

Another explosion triggered down below, but this one wasn’t hers.

This one was Heliothrax.

A blast of wind mana— likely most of what Heliothrax had left sent the burning bone debris flying in every direction, though most of it was harmlessly deflected off the wind barriers around Indris and her allies.

The wind blast launched Talia even higher into the sky, but she still got a decent view of Heliothrax through the wind and the rain.

She looked a bit like a half-cooked chicken, to Talia’s mind.

As Talia reached the top of her arc and started to descend, Heliothrax looked up once more, easily fixing on her location by her brilliant blue glow.

Talia could feel Heliothrax gathering her solar mana, preparing to unleash raw destruction on her.

Unfortunately for the Sunwyrm, she didn’t gather it quite fast enough.

Talia’s friends had written a long list of spell ideas that she was, under no circumstances, to ever use, or even experiment with.

In private, Talia called it the Special Occasion list, and if there was ever a time to draw from it, it was now.

Talia activated her bracers with windlode-gathered wind mana to slow her fall again, then drew two spellforms in her mind’s eye.

The first of the two wasn’t from the Special Occasion list, and really it was two almost-identical spellforms— one for crystal mana, and one for stone mana. Their function wasn’t complex in the slightest.

They melted rock.

Specifically, the rock under Heliothrax’s less-injured back foot.

Normally, the Sunwyrm would have quickly pulled her foot out of the rapidly deepening pool of magma, though her other, unusable back leg would have slowed her.

The other spell Talia cast threw normal out the window.

This one absolutely was from the Special Occasion list. From very, very high up the Special Occasion list.

Her tattoos glowing a blue brilliant enough to hurt unprotected eyes, Talia mixed all her lightning mana together with the dream mana together in a carefully designed spellform. One that wouldn’t have worked for anyone without her tattoos and her experience with dreamfire. One that shouldn’t have worked for her.

Talia blasted Heliothrax directly in the face with dream lightning.

Dreamfire might have been useless against dragons, but dream lightning absolutely wasn’t. And when Talia became the first mage in the history of the Ithonian continent to cast it, she introduced Heliothrax to a whole new flavor of horrible.

The lightning raced through the Sunwyrm’s body, but where normal lightning might have left tree-branch scars like Sabae’s, dream lightning left scars of actual tree-branches, flesh transmuted into actual wood. The dream lightning trail crawled across the flesh of Heliothrax face, barely missing one eye, then raced around the outside of her skull and down her neck, where the lightning climbed into the first two grafted dragon heads it encountered.

It was somewhat academic whether the lightning would have been enough to kill the two heads on its own, because the tree-branches it left riddled throughout the two brains would have absolutely finished the job.

Regardless of what actually killed the two dragons, it was unquestionably a mercy, freeing them from their torturous, enslaved existence.

Their deaths also cut the Sunwyrm off from three of her stolen magics— water, glass, and bronze.

The dream lightning didn’t stop after it ran out of enough power to transmute flesh into wood, though— it dispersed out into Heliothrax’s nervous system, and the nervous systems of her grafted dragon heads.

The Sunwyrm was immediately thrown into a seizure, flailing about with limbs capable of crushing a lesser dragon, as incoherent fragments of dreams rushed about through both her mind, and her grafted ancillary minds.

Talia took that moment to weaken her bracers and glide to the ground.

She was running on empty.

The only mana reservoir she had even close to full was her steel mana reservoir, and as fun as it would be to melt steel and blast it at Heliothrax, it wouldn’t do much against her. The windlode was using the storm’s aether to rapidly restore her wind mana, but without any other full mana reservoirs, it would be needed to power her scrimshaw ward. She had a little lightning mana left as well— her dream mana had been the limiting factor in the dream lightning, since she’d only had her bonded aether ring to rely on.

While Talia had plans for plenty of other means of mass destruction, her current possibilities were tapped out. Not to mention, she’d essentially used all of her magics as siege magics, which meant she’d need to spend weeks doing mana dexterity exercises to prevent any of her other affinities from joining her water magic as siege magic. As it stood, she was little more than an especially dangerous battlemage.

And Heliothrax was already getting back to her feet.

Scales torn off the Sunwyrm’s sides by the assault were flying off the ground and reattaching themselves. Superficial cuts and burns were already healing, while embedded bone shards were ejecting from wounds across her body. She hauled her uninjured back foot out of the magma, and though the burns were vicious, they weren’t crippling. Even the broken, useless back leg was slowly repairing itself.

It would be hours or days before Heliothrax would be able to heal herself back to full health, but the Sunwyrm had faced worse, had healed from worse. Talia had personally watched Artur hit Heliothrax with an iron mountain at close range, watched her be impaled with dozens of massive iron spikes while being battered with a lethal pressure shockwave from the mountain’s rapid expansion.

Nothing Talia had done had even come close to Artur’s last attack.

All she had done was to take advantage of a momentary lapse in Heliothrax’s readiness, then pressed the advantage repeatedly and aggressively. She wasn’t anywhere near Heliothrax’s level, and would never have done as much damage as she had if not for multiple great powers and archmages weakening the Sunwyrm over hours of relentless battle.

Even acknowledging all that…

No one else had hurt Heliothrax as badly as she had. No one else had taken out any of her grafted heads.

No one but Talia of Clan Castis.

If ever she had deserved to gloat, it was right now.

Talia glanced over at the magical defenses around her friends, as well as around Indris and the team meant to go after the resonator. The inner two defenses were coming down around the first group, but the two powerful windshields were still up in full.

Heliothrax shook her head, the confusion and bewilderment from her dream lightning-induced seizure fading from her eyes.

And then her gaze fixed on Talia.

“You’ve irked me, little barbarian,” Heliothrax growled. “I am unaccustomed to being challenged by one so puny as you. You never had a chance, though. My body is filled with so many redundancies that if even a quarter of it survives, I shall as well.”

Her gaze drifted back over her shoulder, the wood of her dream lightning scars cracking and breaking with the motion, and her eyes settled on the two dead grafted dragons. “Nonetheless, you have cost me dearly, insect. You will pay for that.”

Heliothrax turned to glare at Talia once more. “And I rather suspect you’ve played out all of your cards.”

Talia smiled at the Sunwyrm. She had one trick left.

She’d saved just a hint of bone mana.

And that hint would be more than enough to detonate her skeleton.

She’d like to see Heliothrax survive that.

“Hey, lizard-brain,” Talia called out.

Heliothrax’s eyes narrowed.

“How confident are you about that?” Talia said. “How sure are you that I’m done?”

“I’ve seen plenty of cocky young mages challenge their betters before,” Heliothrax rumbled. “If you still had anything left, you’d be attacking me still. Since you don’t, I rather…”

Midway through the Sunwyrm’s little speech, Talia jerked her body a few inches forward and stomped. Made the exact motion countless schoolyard bullies had made to intimidate their victims on countless worlds.

And Heliothrax, the Sunwyrm, the Bringer of Justice, the Queen of the Dawn, bearer of a thousand gloried titles over long centuries, did something entirely unbefitting of those titles.

She flinched.

Just slightly, but from a creature so huge, even a slight flinch was a massive motion.

Talia laughed, and started walking forward.

Heliothrax did her best to fix her posture, to pretend as though she hadn’t flinched, but that just made Talia laugh harder.

And then, before Heliothrax could do anything else, Talia channeled that last little bit of bone mana.

Into her bracers.

The dragonbone blades set above her wrists shot out, then ignited into flame.

Talia had really only considered detonating her skeleton for a second. It had hardly been more than an intrusive thought.

She wasn’t going to risk the lives of her friends, boyfriend, and family just to destroy Heliothrax. Nor would her sacrificing her life to detonate her skeleton help stop the Tongue Eater in any way, shape or form.

But there was no chance in any hell or deathworld in the multiverse that Talia wasn’t going to go down swinging.

Heliothrax growled, regaining more of her composure, then reared her head back, preparing to breathe dragonflame all over Talia. Even without pressurizing the dragonflame, the sheer mass of flammable liquid would probably be enough to crush Talia, even ignoring the steel-melting heat of its flames.

Before Heliothrax could blast Talia with dragonflame, though, both of them had their affinity senses go mad.

Both of them felt a massive amount of lightning brewing behind them, felt a massive surge of wind.

Talia, though, felt something else.

An absolutely obscene amount of water moving at cross-angles to the rain. Given that she’d killed the dragon head giving Heliothrax her water affinity, the Sunwyrm didn’t feel it before it was already on her.

Two palace-sized orbs of water slammed into Heliothrax from either side, then merged together, suspending her in an absurd orb of contaminated water.

“Save some of her for the rest of us, dearie,” Ilinia called, drifting down out of the sky to land next to Talia.

Talia smiled widely and gestured at Heliothrax. “Please, be my guest.”

Ilinia smiled at her, and her back and arms lit up with actinic white light, so bright it easily pierced her clothing, bright enough to rival Talia’s own tattoos. Then more lightning than Talia thought possible slammed into the orb of water from every direction.

“And dearie?” Ilinia said. “Welcome to being a great power.”

Talia smiled back, so hard it hurt. “It’s an absolute delight.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Preparation and Knowledge

ILINIA SMILED GRIMLY as she blasted the bubble of water around Heliothrax with lightning. It had taken hours of fighting, relentless assaults by multiple great powers and an absurd number of archmages to take Heliothrax to this point. It had taken irreplaceable resources, like Merae’s storm, and had cost the life of numerous archmages and at least one great power, Andas Thune. Two, if Indris fell to her wounds. It had taken an all-out assault by Talia, possibly the single most offensive-focused minor great power Ilinia had ever encountered.

All to leave Heliothrax wounded and vulnerable.

The monster wasn’t even close to being done for, but Ilinia intended to take her a lot closer.

“You can survive with only a quarter of your body?” Ilinia asked, projecting her voice into the water with a spell for underwater communication. “Then we’ll have to destroy even more than that.”

The lightning digging into the sphere of water intensified, the Sunwyrm writhing and convulsing in the galvanic current. Then, just to add insult to injury, Ilinia started spinning the water in the sphere, tumbling her massive foe end over end to disorient her.

Sabae’s angry little redheaded friend had done a shocking amount of damage in a hurry to Heliothrax— more than Ilinia had imagined any of the young mages to be capable for years yet, if not a decade. Ilinia and the other great powers had hit Heliothrax with plenty of even mightier attacks over the course of the day, but not in such quick order, and they’d done so before she had been so badly wounded and exhausted, especially by Merae’s storm.

Ilinia was delighted she’d spent the time to establish herself as an ally— both to Talia, and to her Clan.

If they survived this day, she had plans for both the girl and her family. The world was going to change after this, and Ilinia intended to make sure Ras Andis and its allies ended up benefiting.

“Do you know what the most powerful source of power on our world is, lizard?” Ilinia asked. “It’s not magic, not brute strength. It’s not bureaucracy or wealth, as Alustin and Indris have claimed.”

The sphere of water had shrunk further under the relentless lightning— Ilinia’s own mana reservoir was already long dry, and Stormseat was draining of lightning mana rapidly. Her wind and water mana were doing better, especially with the more efficient form of the windlode taught only to the wielder of Stormseat, but this spell was an expenditure of mana comparable to raising or redirecting storms. Those, at least, could be carried out over more time, and carried none of the inefficiencies of concentrating so much mana in a small area.

“It’s knowledge and preparation,” Ilinia continued. “My family has spent generations preparing to face foes like you, generations spent mastering every possible trick of our power. You barely bothered learning the basics of each of your new magics before stealing more.”

The sphere of water’s shrinking had accelerated even further, to the point that the Sunwyrm’s legs, wings, and tail had begun to protrude. It was an effort to keep the lightning bolts hitting the water and not Heliothrax directly.

She made sure to keep the sphere centered on Heliothrax’s head, though. It would probably take hours to drown her, but while air-deprived, even for a short time, the dragon’s healing abilities should be somewhat inhibited.

“You got greedy. Started seeking power without being ready and worthy to use it. And now it’s going to cost you, lizard.”

The sphere of water was almost gone now, and Ilinia was close to losing control of the greater spell.

She glanced over at Talia. “Want to see what real destruction looks like, lass?”

Talia nodded, her eyes wide as a kid in a candy shop.

Ilinia cut off the lightning barrage, then wrapped a new wind shield around Heliothrax, who’d just crashed to the ground.

And into that windshield, Ilinia pushed every loose breath of the gases she’d been gathering.

It was a funny little thing one of Ilinia’s ancestors had discovered, while she was fishing for sea serpents by electrocuting the ocean.

Water, when struck by sufficient lightning, evaporated into two different gases.

Both of which were explosively flammable, and which could be controlled by a wind mage of sufficient skill and power— a wind mage like Ilinia.

Ilinia had just gathered a huge amount of both gases, and had replaced every single bit of normal air around Heliothrax with the two gases.

The Protector of Ras Andis smiled at Heliothrax.

And then she cast a simple lightning bolt, no more powerful than that of a barely-trained apprentice, at Heliothrax.

The instant the lightning passed through the windshield, all the gases ignited at once.

Ilinia could only hold the explosion for a few heartbeats before she had to start venting flames out the top of the windshield, but during that time, Heliothrax was battered with more destructive force than all of Talia’s spells combined, with more fire than any of Sarchus Vye’s spells.

It turned out that storm mages could cast fireballs.

It was nearly a minute before the column of flame erupting from the top of the windshield began to flicker. Nearly a minute of Talia’s nonstop cackling barely audible over the roar of the flames.

It was only at the end of that minute that Heliothrax’s voice rang out.

“I fully agree with you,” Heliothrax called out. “Knowledge and preparation are king. They let me become what I am today. And you just gave me the time I needed to prepare, Ilinia.”

The aether twisted in that familiar, nauseating way that presaged one of Heliothrax’s shockwaves, the uncontrolled release of over a dozen forms of magic. Ilinia desperately reinforced the wind shield around Heliothrax, and another around her and Talia.

The shockwave ripped through the wind shield around Heliothrax, but it weakened the blast enough that Ilinia’s own wind shield protected her and Talia, if only barely. Both of the wind shields protecting her allies came even closer to falling.

Ilinia realized, to her horror, that the Clan Castis flame mages inside her shields were shouting in panic.

And there, as the blast cleared, was Heliothrax, sheathed in fire. Not burning, but safely armored in flame using her stolen flame magic.

Heliothrax made three moves in short order, then, and Ilinia desperately responded to each.

The first move was a wave of gravity magic trying to crush Ilinia against the ground.

She countered almost by instinct, seizing water from around her to suspend herself in a bubble, so that her buoyancy could protect her from having her bones broken. Even with reinforcement by bone mages, gravity magic was a genuine threat to her, since she hadn’t opted for more extreme body modifications.

Her healers would yell at her for exposing her body to the alchemical poisons contaminating the water, but better poisoned than crushed into jelly.

Heliothrax’s second move was a wind entirely of toxic gases, ones Ilinia suspected Heliothrax had filtered out of the water bubble that she’d been wrapped in. The fact that the Sunwyrm had been able to do so even while being electrocuted was impressive even by Ilinia’s standards.

Ilinia managed to block the poison wind easily with her own wind magic.

Which unfortunately left her wide open to Ilinia’s final attack, as intended.

Heliothrax had seized the fire venting upward from the wind shield, had kept it intact far above them.

Her third and final move was to bring all of that flame hammering down on Ilinia from above.

Ilinia tried to block it with wind and water, but she was badly overstretched with the number of other spells she was controlling at once, was still recovering from the shockwave, and Heliothrax’s force and wind magics dispersed her attempts. There was the water she’d wrapped herself in to protect herself from the gravity magic, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop the flames.

The only thing Ilinia managed to accomplish before the flames struck her was shoving Talia far away from her with a gust of wind.

ALUSTIN CURSED AS the gargantuan fireball descended onto Ilinia’s position and the wind shields began falling apart. Not immediately— Ilinia cast her spells to last— but visibly.

The old fool shouldn’t have tried to protect them all, should have let them out the instant Talia’s absurd assault ended.

“Rose?” he asked, noticing Talia’s mother’s tattoos glowing brightly.

“I did what I could, but ranged magic has never been my strong suit,” she said. “I could feel my boys trying to protect her as well. There’s a chance. My daughter?”

“Ilinia threw her out of the way in time. Probably didn’t earn anything worse than a few bruises.”

Alustin nodded, then activated one of the paper bands he’d given out. “Eudaxus, can you retrieve Ilinia, if she’s still alive?”

Indris’ high priest nodded, then vanished into his own shadow.

Alustin activated another paper band. “Eddin, organize an all out assault. The instant you have Heliothrax’s attention, we’ll try for the resonator one last time.”

“I don’t need you to tell me the obvious, traitor,” Eddin Slane snapped, then closed the connection from his end.

Alustin shrugged. Not like he didn’t deserve that, and worse.

Below his feet, Indris breathed shallowly, not even having stirred through the ruckus of battle.

“Everyone ready?” Alustin asked.

“Worry about yourself,” Sabae said, whirling the strange, indestructible wooden staff with the etched planar spellforms.

“I was born ready,” Rose said, adjusting a grip on her flame-propelled greatsword.

Valia just met his gaze and nodded.

In the middle distance, Heliothrax pushed any remaining fire away from herself, then focused on healing once more. She didn’t take her attention off the other wind shield— she was arrogant, but not foolish enough to ignore archmages while she was wounded— but it was clear she didn’t think the remaining forces were a clear threat.

Or, more likely, she was just waiting for Ilinia’s wind shields to fall.

“This doesn’t have to end in your annihilation,” Heliothrax rumbled. “Hand over the Helicotan, and I will allow you to flee, so long as you never set foot in my territory again.”

Alustin smiled at that, for two reasons.

First, that Heliothrax clearly had decided she’d won, and that the archmages would prefer to withdraw rather than fight her without Ilinia. Alustin would wager that she had no idea what the resonator even was— just that it was some sort of powerful magical item, and there were few greater hoarders of magic than the Sunwyrm. Alustin wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few other of the grafted heads held other magical items in their maws.

And second, Heliothrax was directing her gaze at the main archmage force— she clearly didn’t realize that Alustin and the other three were hiding atop Indris. It was entirely possible she hadn’t even noticed their first attempt on the blue dragon head.

Then again, it was entirely possible she was just playing mind games with them. His smile shifted back into a scowl.

And with that, the wind shields dispersed into thin air, letting the rain back in, and the battlefield erupted back into action once more.

Only a few attack spells hit Heliothrax before she counter-attacked with dozens of thin wandering sunfire rays, almost all of which Eddin Slane easily stopped.

The attack did unfortunately little to Heliothrax, but it didn’t need to— it just needed to get her attention.

And the moment her attention was caught, the four of them raced towards the Sunwyrm.

His paper armor struggled in the rain, but the wind Valia had summoned to propel all four of them was more than sufficient to accelerate them forwards.

There was only the barest twitch of Heliothrax’s tail before it happened. Alustin didn’t even notice it, though.

Valia did, though, and sent a burst of wind straight at Alustin, sending him tumbling off course.

Heliothrax’s tail moved through the air so fast it blurred, and then there were only three of them flying towards her.

If Valia hadn’t hit him with the burst of wind, hadn’t thrown him out of the path of Heliothrax’s tail, there would only have been two.

Alustin didn’t even remember regaining control of his flight or gliding down to the body on the ground. Couldn’t process the shouts of his remaining allies to help them, even with the relay golem.

All six shards of his mind were focused on the corpse lying on the ground. Even the Tongue Eater had slowed its near-constant babbling.

“So that’s what you’re after? That funny little book?” Heliothrax said mockingly in the background, but her words didn’t make sense to Alustin. They were muted, as was the rain and the noise of battle.

Nothing made sense to Alustin right now.

He had no idea why she’d saved him. Why, after so many years of their feud, she’d reacted immediately to protect him, even at her own expense.

She had almost certainly died instantaneously from the impact of the Sunwyrm’s tail.

She hadn’t gotten any final words, or closure to her story. Hadn’t had a chance to come to grips with her collapsing loyalty to the Dominion, hadn’t had the chance to run away with Alustin.

He didn’t… he had never been supposed to outlive her.

Alustin slowly bent down to close her eyes, and to pick something up off the ground.

Then the rain and the sounds of battle rushed in all at once, and Alustin turned away from the corpse of Valia Warwell.

Turned away from the corpse of his oldest friend.

Turned away from the last other survivor of Helicote.

Turned away from his rival and enemy of decades.

Turned away from the woman he’d been planning to escape this continent with.

And in either hand, he wielded a Helicotan sabre.

The first lesson every Helicotan warrior was taught was not to ever try dual wielding Helicotan sabres, that it was invariably fatal. That no one could keep track of that many sword echoes at once.

Alustin didn’t care in the slightest right now. No other Helicotan warrior had ever possessed the relay golem, no Helicotan Lord Citizen had been able to split his mind like Alustin.

He rose up into the air once more, a Helicotan sabre in each hand.

One of those sabres, though, had spent decades pacted to a Havathi warlock. Had grown, to his surprise, intelligent enough to recognize him, from the many times they had fought.

And to his bewilderment and pain, it recognized him as a friend the instant his hand closed around its hilt, even if it lacked any words to express that.

It didn’t need words to express it, though. Nor did it need words to express the grief that Alustin shared with it.

Alustin screamed in rage, then launched himself at Heliothrax.

Behind him trailed sword echoes, and ahead of him flew nearly his entire remaining supply of paper.

ATOP SKYHOLD, IN the depths of her crystal sphere, Kanderon ripped away one last unintegrated demesne segment.

It had been utterly frivolous, an extraspatial oven designed specifically for roasting dragons. Kanderon had always enjoyed the taste of dragon, and she had taken special care with the taste enchantments for her demesne, but it was hard to believe she’d spent months constructing something so unnecessary as a dragon oven for her demesne.

The moment she ripped out the oven, her lich dream collapsed. Wasn’t needed anymore.

She didn’t go through the gradual awakening of most liches. Didn’t slowly become aware of her periphery, her consciousness slowly working its way towards the center of her being.

She awoke all at once, because most of her demesne had been integrated for years or even decades. It had only been her final step, abandoning her physical body completely, that had delayed her.

Atop Skyhold, the crystal sphere hatched. Or perhaps it was better to say it uncurled.

And there stood the Crystal Sphinx. Her title fit better than ever, for where once there had been flesh adorned with crystal wings, now there was only crystal without flesh. Now there was a glimmering, faceted aether crystal giant with bottomless blue depths.

And deep within those depths glimmered a point of light, only visible from the corner of your eye.

The only thing that hadn’t changed were her wings, still two floating networks of blue crystal shards.

Despite all her urgency, despite all her rage, Kanderon couldn’t help herself.

She yawned and stretched, her front paws out, just like any other cat after a long nap.

She blinked twice, then exploded into motion. Not up past the directional gradient, though— she would never get to Havath City in time, that way. No, she flickered downward through one of her planar tunnels riddling Skyhold, leaving the witnesses bewildered.

And witnesses there were.

Not mages of Skyhold— the Skyhold councilors were assembled with Skyhold’s best seers, trying to learn what they could from the battle.

No, Kanderon was watched by other, stranger witnesses that had been keeping vigil.

By dozens of Tetragnath’s bodies, scattered around the nearby mountains, and even a few that had spun a web atop the shorter of Skyhold’s two peaks. His webs hummed with a thoughtful noise as Kanderon disappeared, and within seconds, his other bodies within Havath City were relaying the news to the Liar and the Wanderer, who were having tea with a nervous incipient Named atop three corpses.

By an immense crystal being perched atop another mountain, a Kyrene Birth Witness. The alien being sang a song of welcome in its electromagnetic voice, with no one to hear but a few confused lightning mages in Skyhold. Well, them, and the next witness.

The Living Song had waited patiently on the next peak over— not that it could or would live any other way. It politely listened to the Kyrene song, then started a song of its own— a song of normal sound, yet one that would be carried on the wind for hundreds if not thousands of leagues, seeking the Living Song’s creators. Then, its song and purpose complete, the being— whose body was pure sound, bound together by the magic forged into its aetherbody— chose to simply dissolve on the wind.

And Kanderon’s awakening was witnessed by one other being.

A highly perplexed sand drake, who had been eating a rat just on the other side of the directional gradient.

Then the sand drake shrugged its wings, and went back to its rat.

CHAPTER SEVENTY

Still Standing

ONE BY ONE, Hugh’s allies were falling.

Talia’s brother Leon went down, missing an arm. Not dead, but passed out unconscious after cauterizing his wound with his fire magic. Hugh hadn’t even seen what had taken the arm, though part of him noticed that it was the opposite arm from the hand he’d lost the finger from earlier in the day.

Hugh did his best to protect the others, pushing all of his mana into the Stormward’s Crown, in a desperate effort to protect them from the Sunwyrm. He couldn’t see Leon’s missing arm anywhere, but he didn’t have time to search. Instead, he used his crystal and stone magic to raise a short wall of stone from the rubble to shield the unconscious fire and ice mage.

Vervyn and Scrathinax led the flight mages back into battle— to their immediate deaths by sunfire, save for the two of them.

Hugh tried to detonate the sunbolts with his stellar magic, and even took out a half-dozen, but there were at least six times that many more. He tried to distract Heliothrax, sending all of his remaining charged crystal ward stones at her.

She simply ignored them, the explosions too small to do more than irritate her. Heliothrax had survived the worst Ilinia and Talia had to offer, there wasn’t anything Hugh could possibly do.

Speaking of Talia, Hugh could feel her rapidly charging towards the battlefield through their warlock pact, and wished something would delay her. There couldn’t possibly be anything else she could do to affect the flow of this battle, after the absurd display of power she’d shown off.

The Librarians Errant fell, one by one, as Heliothrax deliberately targeted them. Hugh could hear her taunting Alustin as they fell, calling him both the last Helicotan and the last Librarian Errant.

“Mackerel, go resupply Alustin with paper, and be ready to devour the last resonator when they free it,” Hugh said. Even Alustin would have trouble using up the ridiculous quantities of paper stored within Mackerel’s labyrinthine stomach.

Mackerel hesitated only for a moment, then darted off at high speed, flying just inches above the rubble while dodging lightning, fire, and whirling shards of bronze. Hugh did his best to trust his spellbook, to not fret about him, but he’d already come so close to losing him today.

“This isn’t working,” Rhodes snarled. “We’re all going to die if we don’t try something else.”

“Ah hate ta agree with yeh,” Godrick said from Hugh’s other side. “Yeh got any ideas?”

Rhodes made a frustrated noise. “I can try to adapt some of my former master’s dragon-fighting tactics, get up close and personal. It’s risky, but dragons hate having smaller enemies right up in their face. And it’s the same as fighting any bigger foe— if you’re right up next to them, they have trouble reaching you.”

“Not with her magic,” Hugh said.

Rhodes shook his head. “No, she won’t have trouble there. I doubt I can keep her attention for more than a minute or two.”

“That will have to be enough,” Eddin Slane said, blocking a volley of spells from a half-dozen affinities with his ceramic tiles, then launching dozens of them at Heliothrax’s broken leg, trying to enrage her.

It worked, because a moment later, hundreds of bronze scraps, like tiny jagged knives, swarmed through their defenses, punching easily through the Crown’s wards and Slane’s own defenses, then converged on the man.

Rhodes cursed. “Keep your spells away from Heliothrax’s head.”

Then he was gone, flashing through the air at high speed towards their foe, and the Sunwyrm’s assault weakened as she shifted her attention to Rhodes.

To Hugh’s shock, Eddin Slane sat up a moment later— a bloody mess, but still moving. A modular ward assembled itself out of fingernail-sized ceramic tiles, swept up all the bronze shards, then was thrown into the distance.

“How are yeh not dead?” Godrick demanded.

“Added defensive wards to my internal ceramic armor,” Slane said.

“Disturbing but impressive,” Shimmering Cardovan said.

“I want some,” Gram complained, as he stared at Heliothrax, not visibly casting any magic.

Haela sighed in exasperation as she tore globs of oil away from Heliothrax’s skin and exposed wounds, interfering with the Sunwyrm’s regeneration. “What would you do, start fires on your insides?”

Hugh was deeply impressed that she was sticking around for this— a battle against the mightiest great power on the continent, even badly wounded, seemed entirely out of her league.

“I could probably do it,” Cardovan mused idly.

Then the gemstone mage amplified their voice. “Frost Ghost, like we discussed! Get ready!”

They snapped their fingers, and Rhodes’ ice armor erupted with blinding, coruscating color, and a half-dozen illusions of the Frost Ghost erupted into being, each seeming to wield one of his flying spears. All seven began darting and whirling around Heliothrax’s head, stabbing and blasting the dragon with magic, as she bit at them and cast spell after spell near her own face.

Vervyn and Scrathinax, the only flight mages that had survived that abortive charge, chose that moment to strike Heliothrax in the side with a burst of gravity, wind, and sound. It didn’t knock her down, but it did force her to redistribute her weight.

Hugh felt Godrick use that opening to reach out with his crystal and stone magic, dissolving the stone under one of Heliothrax’s feet to dust, and the instant her foot plunged down into it, he reached out with a pattern linking spell and recrystallized the dust around her foot.

The Sunwyrm shattered the solid block of stone with a single flex of her foot.

Gram sagged, exhaling heavily, and Heliothrax visibly slowed, as if she’d grown winded all at once. Hugh had absolutely no idea how the fire mage had accomplished something like that.

Atop the Sunwyrm’s back, Hugh could see Sabae, Alustin, and Rose hacking away at the blue dragon head, futilely trying to cut away the thick ropes of flesh binding its jaw shut. Rose with her flame-propelled greatsword, Alustin with two Helicotan sabres, albeit without using sword echoes, and Sabae with the skyspear stave, using its planar spellforms to summon a blade of magic at either end. The blade’s core was the starfire metal cutting spell Hugh had taught her, the same one he’d used to kill Amalda Veil. Around it swirled molten steel, bound by a web of lightning, as well as a rapidly rotating cloud of crystal dust, moving fast enough to shred wood.

They were slowly outpacing Heliothrax’s regenerative capabilities, but the lightning bolts and ice shards curving up to strike at them gave them precious little room to maneuver. Alustin’s paper wards were barely keeping the attacks off the three of them, and they were falling apart rapidly in the rain.

Off to one side, Hugh felt Talia’s charge pause, and wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or concerned.

He didn’t have long to contemplate it, because Eudaxus chose that moment to re-enter the battle. Once again, a vast reaching grove of shadows erupted from beneath Heliothrax, seeking to bind and imprison her.

Hugh felt a surge of solar magic, and hundreds of tiny points of sunfire bloomed into existence all around Heliothrax.

Banishing every patch of shadow near her, and completely wiping out Eudaxus’ magic.

Hugh reached out with his own stellar magic, trying to snuff out the miniature starfield, but for each point of light he snuffed out, two more bloomed in its place.

Then, off to one side, Hugh felt something unexpected through his lightning affinity sense— something coming right from Talia’s position.

For a moment Hugh thought she was somehow, impossibly, preparing to fire more dream lightning, but he didn’t feel any dream mana.

Just more and more lightning, building up impossibly past what Talia should have been able to summon.

A glow rose in the distance, and while Hugh tried futilely to prevent Heliothrax from breathing with his wind magic, he peered through the toxic rain towards the glow.

He could just barely make out Talia’s tattoos and armor spellforms in the dark, even enough to give her a purple hue, but she wasn’t where most of the light came from.

No, it was the fallen tower she stood on that was glowing.

Not just any tower.

One of the huge enchanted lightning spires that had killed so many of the Coven’s mages during the aerial drop into Havath City.

It said something about how much Gram’s mysterious spell had exhausted her, and how annoying Rhodes was, that Heliothrax didn’t notice the buildup of lightning until heartbeats until after it fired, too late to block or dodge the lance of lightning.

It gouged its way across Heliothrax’s unprotected, scale-less flank for several moments, until it abruptly cut off, and the lightning spire started vibrating.

Hugh didn’t see Talia escape the lightning spire before it exploded, and his heart almost stopped before Eudaxus appeared inside the Crown ward, Talia at his side.

He was about to say something to Talia, whether to express his relief or scold her, he wasn’t sure, when the entire artificial starfield Heliothrax had been maintaining winked out.

And a familiar vibration in the aether started once more.

Hugh swiveled to Eudaxus. “Get them out of there, now.”

Eudaxus didn’t even respond before vanishing into his own shadow.

Hugh opened up his mana reservoirs completely to the Stormward’s Crown, prepared to use every single drop to protect them if need be.

Eudaxus reappeared, carrying Talia’s mother with him, then vanished into his shadow once more.

Eddin Slane began dumping ceramic tiles out of his storage tattoo faster than ever, wrapping layer after layer of interlocking shields around the outside of the Crown.

Eudaxus teleported in and out once more, delivering Sabae’s cousin Vervyn.

Shimmering Cardovan closed their eyes, and through the few gaps that hadn’t closed in Eddin’s tile shield, Hugh saw the very air around them begin to vibrate in some sort of sonic shield.

Eudaxus teleported in, carrying Rhodes. He barely even flickered into sight before he was gone again.

Godrick raised a thick stone wall between them and Heliothrax.

Eudaxus teleported in carrying Sabae, and then they were out of time.

Alustin and Mackerel were still out there.

The vibrating in the aether stopped, and Heliothrax’s shockwave rolled over them.

It shattered Godrick’s rock wall into boulders, pebbles, and dust, only weakening the front a little.

Hugh’s crystal affinity sense felt more than a few boulders simply dissolve as they were thrown into Cardovan’s sound shield. Most of the shockwave rolled through it unaffected, as over a dozen different magics interacted in the chaotic, uncontrolled release of magic.

The outer layers of ceramic tiles were almost entirely blasted apart by the shockwave, but as the wild magic rolled onward, more and more of each layer stayed intact.

Not enough, though. Great gaps in the innermost ceramic layer still collapsed, letting jets of wild magic strike the Stormward’s Crown directly.

Hugh threw everything he had into it. Threw every single droplet of his mana into the impacted ward segments— from his natural reservoirs, from his mana reservoir ring, from the windlode.

And Hugh held the Stormward’s Crown against the shockwave.

Threw the entirety of his will-imbuing ability into adapting the Crown against the wild magic shockwave, against the insane mixes of lightning, bronze, flame, and a dozen other magics. In the fractions of heartbeats they had, made the ward ever more specific— to the storm around them, to the time of day, to the monster they faced, until it would have done his teacher Loarna proud.

And Hugh held.

Hugh abandoned his personal ward, trusting his protection entirely to the outer layer of the Crown. Everyone was depending on him. The nodes around him clattered off his shoulders and limbs, falling to the ground.

And he held.

Crown nodes shattered, but Hugh had placed multiple redundancies, each node reconnecting with its new nearest neighbors when another died. Each time one broke, a spike of pain shot through Hugh’s head, but he gritted and ignored them.

But he held.

The shockwave kept coming and coming, seeming longer than any they’d faced before, seeming as though the wild magic wouldn’t cease until it annihilated all of them.

But Hugh held.

A shard of stone broke through one of the ward segments, cutting Hugh’s cheek, barely missing his eye. He didn’t even try to block it with his magic. Hugh flinched as the ward healed itself, cutting off the jet of fire that had followed the stone in.

But Hugh held.

And then the last drops of Hugh’s mana were gone, and the Crown nodes were falling to the broken ground they stood on. Hugh felt the poison rain on his cheeks for the first time today, and knew he would need the attention of healers soon.

He didn’t mind, though.

Because the shockwave had passed them by.

And Hugh had held.

Hugh sank to his knees in exhaustion, drained completely of mana, his brain wrung dry by his overuse of will imbuing.

Around him, the others sprang into battle once more. Ten mages still ready to fight, out of the thirty-some archmages that had gone to battle against Heliothrax.

No. Nine. Hugh was out of this fight now, whether he wanted to continue or not.

Someone shouted for Hugh to stay put, to shelter behind the low rock wall with the still-unconscious Leon.

In the distance, Hugh could see Indris’ body covered in gruesome new wounds by the shockwave, the first she’d endured unprotected. He heard a half-sob from Eudaxus, but the high priest didn’t rush to his queen’s aid, because he knew what was obvious to all of them— if Indris wasn’t already dead, she would be in moments.

Lying beside her was the corpse of Scrathinax, who had pointlessly tried to shield his mother from the shockwave with his own body.

Above them all stood Heliothrax. Still on her feet, despite wounds that should have killed a dozen great powers combined, despite hours of battle, Heliothrax still stood.

Hugh couldn’t find it in himself to do much more than stare at her as he sought out Mackerel and Alustin.

Not a sign. Not a corpse, not even a scrap of paper.

Hugh delved into the depths of his mind and hunted for his bond with Mackerel, hoping that his spellbook had survived the shockwave.

It wasn’t his bond with Mackerel that caught his attention, though.

It was his bond with Kanderon.

Hugh knew, with absolute certainty, that she was coming for him.

Without knowing exactly how it had happened, without knowing exactly what he planned to do, Hugh found himself on his feet once more, staring straight at the battle against Heliothrax.

Sitting on the ground wasn’t going to keep him alive long enough to see Kanderon again.

KANDERON DESCENDED IN a flash of blue and a roar of wind.

Most of the inhabitants of the mountain had no idea the sphinx had awoken, wouldn’t for minutes or hours yet. Many thought the wind was just playful air mage students, or something of the sort.

But when they found out that the crystal sphere had gone missing, when the Council discovered the mountaintop empty, the rumors would fly swifter than any dragon.

And every single one of them, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how insane, agreed on one thing.

Kanderon was alive.

Kanderon was back.

And Kanderon Crux was out for vengeance.

Not one of the rumors suggested that Kanderon was going to hide, that Kanderon’s sphere had been stolen or destroyed.

Not out of any logical reason.

But because this was her mountain.

This was her school.

This was her home.

This was where she had fought off the Dominion.

This was where she had crushed challenger after challenger for centuries.

This was where she had locked away the worst weapons of the world, in an effort to preserve it and redeem her own past.

This was where she had once raged for decades as the Mad Sphinx, the broken remnant of who she had once been.

This was where she had led the resistance against the Ithonian Empire, where she had spearheaded the construction of the Exile Splinter, where she had brought down an empire.

This was where she had once nested with a mate and a nestling.

This was Skyhold, where Kanderon had spent nearly all of her eight centuries of life.

And as the Crystal Sphinx descended, it came awake.

Old enchantments hummed, ready to activate at her call.

And call she did.

The Index heard her, and rejoiced as their connection bloomed to life once more.

It knew her intention immediately, understood precisely what she planned.

With a glee born of centuries of frustration, of being confined to a space smaller than it should have been, the Index exerted its magical muscles, and Skyhold’s Grand Library began to change.

Shelves moved by the hundreds, then the thousands. Books flocked by the thousands, then the hundreds of thousands. Walls and corridors rearranged themselves, shelves and staircases accelerated up and down.

The two dozen souls inside the library desperately clung onto whatever railings or shelves they could as the entire library shifted.

As a single door was revealed in one miles-tall wall. A door large enough to allow an entire wing of dragons to fly through at once, a door large enough to allow an entire wing of elder wyrms through at once.

When Kanderon had first designed the dimensional expansion of the Grand Library, had first planted the planar spaces, something entirely unexpected had occurred.

It had connected with something outside itself, connected with a far greater extraplanar space.

Kanderon had told everyone it had been an unanticipated interaction with the labyrinth, but she had already taken the labyrinth’s effects into account when designing the expansion.

No, the library had connected with the stronghold of the Council.

Seventy-odd years after the fall of Ithos, Kanderon and the backers of the Ithonian Empire had an artificial connection forged between the hearts of their strongholds. They almost went to war, threatened to destroy one another, until other factions within the Council managed to broker a truce, to bring Kanderon onto the Council as a provisional member, under one condition.

That the door not be reopened. That the connection between their stronghold and Skyhold’s library be kept sealed, until a new treaty was signed.

And for over four hundred years, that treaty held. For four centuries, Kanderon dueled with the Expansionists through proxies, foiled their plans again and again. She brought down aspiring empire after aspiring empire, crushed upstart conquerers and warlords again and again.

And she pushed the Expansionists back, as they were pushed back across a dozen worlds, as their dreams of safety through empire were crushed again and again.

By rebels. By barbarians at the gate. By environmental catastrophe, by economic collapse, by populations that simply refused to obey. By entire peoples that bound themselves with the magics of their worlds so that they were unable to perceive the Expansionists and their lackeys. By other peoples that implanted the memories of their dead as weapons, forced their conquerers to live through the traumas of those crushed in the gears of empire.

And on no world, across the reach of the council, did they have any foe fiercer than Kanderon Crux. No foe more relentless, no foe more willing to play at their own game and win than the Crystal Sphinx.

Kanderon, more than any other being in the multiverse, had pushed the Expansionists to the brink of defeat. Had forced the Expansionists to exhaust all their goodwill with their fellow factions on the Council, to call in every favor— and yet they just kept losing.

All Kanderon had to do now was to keep that door closed, and their final defeat was as good as guaranteed.

As Kanderon Crux descended through the maze of extra-planar tunnels riddling Skyhold, she ordered the Index to open the door.

The Index spun its gears, faster and faster, and began to tear down the defenses on their side of the vast door.

It had only opened partway by the time Kanderon descended to the Grand Library, not even wide enough for a dragon hatchling or a gryphon, let alone a sphinx.

And yet Kanderon fit through without touching the door. Shifted in size in midflight, pulling more of her living crystal demesne into the dimensional spaces that were a part of it, slipped through a fraction of her usual size.

By the time she passed her deactivated defenses and entered the Council’s defensive lines, Kanderon had let that mass back out of the extra-planar spaces, had grown back to her normal size and then some.

And when she passed through the Council defenses, she didn’t even slow down. Barriers inimical to all life did nothing against a lich. Wards powered by the magic of multiple worlds shattered before her charge. Illusions and mind-warping effects utterly failed to overcome the great calculating engines built into her demesne.

She intended to fly straight through the Council’s extra-planar home, and right through their private entrance to Havath City.

Kanderon Crux was coming for Hugh.

And she was done playing games in the shadows.

HUGH ALMOST COLLAPSED at his first step into battle, almost tripped over one of the Crown nodes scattered across the ground. Somehow, he kept his footing, though.

And then took another step.

He began to rummage through his equipment and his storage tattoo, looking for something that would turn the tide of battle, something that would help keep him and his friends alive long enough for Kanderon’s arrival.

No, that would help them get the last resonator in time. Hugh had no idea whether Kanderon would arrive in time to stop the Tongue Eater, if it was even remotely possible for Kanderon to travel here from Skyhold that fast. Not even a Thunderbringer could do it.

The first thing he found was a hatchet with Clan Castis markings, which made Hugh roll his eyes.

He put it back in his tattoo, then took another step.

He found supplies of different types of crystal, from feldspar to quartz to salt. He found the Clan Castis dagger Talia had given him years ago. He found skyspear wood staves and random Kemetrian rune ribbons. He found a puddle of water from the ice he’d used to cool himself during his ascent past the Eye of Heliothrax.

And with each new item, Hugh took another step.

Then he found the attention ward headband he’d used to sneak around in Skyhold when his magic wasn’t working, and slipped it on his head.

It was old enough, and had been used enough, that it probably wouldn’t last long, but Hugh didn’t need it for long.

Hugh took another step.

He looked back through his tattoo.

A few battered stolen hats Mackerel had hidden away in his tattoo. Dozens of sticks of chalk, which Hugh contemplated using to draw wards, before quickly discarding the idea.

Hugh kept walking, each step steadier than the last.

He rummaged past food and water supplies, past changes of clothing, and kept a steady pace forward.

And then Hugh came to his supply of wardstones. There were only three of them charged enough to explode, charged enough to be useful.

He almost passed them by, given his empty mana reservoirs and the exhausted state of his will and mind’s eye, but then paused and went back to them.

He actually stopped walking for a moment, as he realized what was coiled up next to them.

Hugh smiled, then pulled out a long band of leather with a simple cup sewn into the middle.

His sling.

He picked up a pebble, swung it around a few times, then launched it to the side, to make sure he was still coordinated enough to use his sling.

The pebble didn’t land precisely where he wanted, but close enough.

He kept walking, kept slinging pebbles and pieces of debris, as the archmages darted and weaved around Heliothrax, like flies around a…

Well, like flies around a dragon.

He kept focused on Heliothrax, only taking his mind off her to check his bond with Kanderon, to hope she would get here in time.

She was approaching swiftly, but not swift enough. At this rate, one or more of his friends might die.

Another of his friends might die. Hugh was rapidly losing hope that Mackerel or Alustin had survived the blast.

They’d all likely die, if Heliothrax managed to set off another wild magic shockwave. All they were doing now was keeping the dragon distracted.

No matter how distracted she was by illusions, ice bombardments, and fireblasts, though, she wasn’t letting the others anywhere near the blue dragon head on her back. It was surrounded by not only a windshield and whirling bronze scraps, but by an inner dome of sunfire, a miniature of her protections from before— one she was very carefully keeping Sabae away from, focusing disproportionately on her.

As Hugh mindlessly checked his bond with Kanderon one last time, he felt something else in the back of his mind.

Mackerel.

Just a pulse, just a hint of his presence.

Enough to make Hugh stop in his tracks and look around wildly for his spellbook.

The pulse happened again, and Hugh’s eyes narrowed in on the direction it had come from.

The air directly above Heliothrax.

The pulse happened again, and Hugh caught sight of something in mid-air.

A figure clad in white armor, with a green spellbook slung over one shoulder.

A figure with a dislocated arm.

And then Alustin and Mackerel vanished again.

Hugh burst into a halfway run, then climbed up the first pile of rubble that put Heliothrax in range of his sling.

He waited for the next pulse, to see if they were getting closer together, but the next one seemed to take just as long as the last two. Mackerel managed to send just a hint of emotion, though.

Anticipation.

Mackerel and Alustin were deliberately in hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Hugh dropped the first wardstone in his sling, then began spinning it.

He was going to give them their moment.

A few seconds before he expected Mackerel and Alustin back again, Hugh loosed the first wardstone.

And missed entirely.

Hugh cursed as Alustin and Mackerel phased into reality once again, then out once more.

They’d only get once chance to attack, and then Heliothrax would be alerted to their presence.

He needed to give them their chance.

Hugh dropped a second wardstone into his sling, and began it spinning once more. Waited until the last possible second, then released it.

The translucent sphere sailed in a perfect arc, straight towards Heliothrax’s face.

And then she lunged forward, trying to bite Rhodes out of mid-air, and the wardstone detonated harmlessly against her neck. Hugh didn’t think she even noticed.

Alustin and Mackerel phased in again, for longer this time. Hugh actually caught a glimpse of Alustin’s face, seeing the pain and exhaustion on it.

He had one more chance.

Hugh dropped the wardstone into his sling.

Began spinning it.

Waited what felt like an eternity, to try and strike just before Alustin and Mackerel phased out of the paper mage’s storage tattoo again.

Released.

Watched the wardstone sail through the air, in an arc as perfect as the last.

Watched Heliothrax open her jaw to exhale dragonflame towards Eddin.

Watched the translucent, spellform-engraved sphere sail straight towards the dragonflame gland in Heliothrax’s mouth.

And then felt a stirring with his air affinity sense.

He had no idea who’d summoned the wind. Rhodes? Vervyn? Godrick?

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that the wind, summoned to divert the blast of dragonflame, knocked the wardstone harmlessly to one side.

Alustin and Mackerel phased once more, still finding no opening, no distraction. Still finding the magical defenses up around the blue dragon head.

Hugh stood there, feeling exhausted. Out of wardstones, out of options.

All he could do was hope one of his friends got lucky, came up with some new plan.

Hugh lifted up his sling, stared at it bemusedly. Considered just dropping it off the pile of rubble into the toxic puddle below it.

Then he raised his other hand and slapped himself fully across the face.

Hugh'd had enough self pity for a lifetime. He could have a mental breakdown later, and almost certainly would.

But right now, his friends needed his help.

They still needed to stop the Tongue Eater, couldn’t afford to run and hope Kanderon would miraculously arrive in time.

Hugh peered back into his storage tattoo, hoping another of his wardstones might have charged from the ambient aether, or that he’d missed seeing a charged one before.

Then he stopped, and a smile spread across his face.

He grabbed one last translucent, spellform-encrusted sphere from his storage tattoo.

Dropped it into his sling.

Started the sling spinning.

And then, just before he released, changed targets.

Aimed, instead of at Heliothrax’s face, at one of the dragon heads grafted to her back. Not the blue one, nor one of the dead ones— another dragon head entirely, chosen purely for how easy it would be to hit.

Then loosed.

The sphere seemed to travel in slow motion through the rain. Passed terrifyingly close to a swarm of Eddin’s ceramic tiles and one of the Sunwyrm’s broken wings. Drifted impossibly slowly past the fading light of a distant magma-fall.

And then time seemed to speed, and the sphere shattered against the brim of the grafted dragon head’s nose.

There was no explosion.

No detonation of released energy as the broken shards fell to Heliothrax’s back.

And Hugh began to laugh.

Not in despair, not in frustration.

But out of pure relief and joy.

After all, the sphere was never supposed to explode. It wasn’t a wardstone. It wasn’t even made of crystal, but of glass.

It was the scent-absorbing glass marble Godrick had given Hugh for his sixteenth birthday.

Godrick had tried using scent magic against Heliothrax once before, against her real head, and it had failed miserably. Heliothrax had long since given herself defenses against sensory overload.

At least, for her own sensory organs.

For the dragon heads she’d grafted onto her spine?

Hugh suspected that she hadn’t had nearly enough time to replicate her defenses, beyond her normal nigh-indestructibility and regeneration. That she hadn’t copied over the sensory overload filters. That part of the reason the lot of them had survived battle against her as well as they had fell down to the fact that the sheer chaos of their magic had been overloading Heliothrax’s new senses in a way that she hadn’t dealt with in centuries, probably. That this whole battle, Heliothrax had been suffering from sensory overload of the sort Hugh used to get every time he stepped foot in a crowd.

He’d bet everything on it.

As Hugh laughed in the toxic rain, he saw the nostril of the imprisoned dragon wrinkle as the contents of the glass sphere drifted up into it. Felt the particulate and gases inside drift inwards with his scent affinity.

The stink of the burning insect swarms here in Havath City, and the reek of the leaking alchemicals from the corpses of the Intertwined.

The bismuth aura of Pitas the Younger’s demesne.

The brimstone and iodine vapors of Limnus.

The busy alien spice markets and ripe crowds of Kemetrias.

The acrid, bizarre scents of Apoptis.

The diverse smells of multiple labyrinths.

The stink of dozens of chamberpots over the years.

The smoke of the battle for Skyhold.

The overwhelming odors of flowers and rot from the jungle around Imperial Ithos.

The scent of magical mold from the Grand Library of Skyhold, and the even worse-smelling alchemical powder used to kill it.

The nonsense synaesthetic odors produced by dreamfire, ranging from the smell of green exhaustion to the smell of gravity’s song.

The overwhelming fragrance of a Theras Tel spice market.

The residue of multiple sea voyages’ worth of Talia’s vomit.

The foul guts of a crab monster in the depths of Skyhold’s labyrinth.

And most of all, nearly overwhelming all the other stinks, drifted the stench of years and years of Hugh’s own armpits, which would brook few rivals among even other teenage boys.

The imprisoned dragon head, even though it didn’t need to breathe, still had a perfectly intact nose.

And it smelled everything Hugh had just released from the glass scent-absorbing sphere.

Then passed those sensations right along to Heliothrax.

The Sunwyrm and all her spells simply halted. Froze in place, or in the case of many of her spells, dissolved and failed entirely.

Including the defenses around the blue head.

As Heliothrax began to heave and vomit, Alustin and Mackerel phased back out of the storage tattoo once more.

Only this time, they didn’t phase back in.

They dove, straight towards the blue dragon head.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

A Great Power Worthy of the Name

ALUSTIN DOVE TOWARDS the blue dragon head, his paper armor resetting his dislocated arm for him once again.

He ignored the pain, freed himself from Mackerel.

Then they set to work.

Alustin began hacking and slicing with the two Helicotan sabres, guiding each one with a separate mind fragment using the relay golem. With the third and fourth fragments, he manufactured more cutting papers inside his storage tattoo, using paper and ink magic. With his fifth fragment, he sprayed the cutting pages at the fleshy tendrils binding the jaw of the blue dragon shut.

The sixth fragment remained relentlessly focused on the Tongue Eater.

The eyes of the blue dragon rolled in their sockets, peering at him, and Alustin swore he could see pleading in the eyes.

Beside him, Mackerel spat out razor-edged green papers by the dozen, which swarmed and shredded at the biological tendrils, desperately racing against Heliothrax’s regeneration.

And then Sabae stood beside him, hacking away with her starfire blade at the end of her strange staff once more. Then the Frost Ghost was just past her, slashing with blades of ice and his enchanted spear.

Rose of Clan Castis arrived last, delivering a massive blow with her greatsword.

“Fashionably late, I see,” Alustin laughed, then winced when he caught a whiff of a truly foul smell.

Alustin could hear the sounds of magic below, could see great tendrils of shadow wrapping around Heliothrax’s limbs as she vomited uncontrollably. Briefly used one of his mind shards to scry, spotted swarms of ceramic tiles pressing themselves into Heliothrax’s runes, forming anchoring wards inside her flesh.

Slowly at first, then faster and faster, they began to outpace the regeneration of the tendrils. One parted completely, then a second, then three more in moments. Until there was only a single tendril holding the mouth shut.

And then one of Alustin’s cutting pages was thrown aside by a breeze.

He didn’t know what prompted him to grab Mackerel and fold himself into his storage tattoo again. It couldn’t be more than a hunch, or instinct, but as Heliothrax scoured her back clean with wind, knocked the attacking archmages away from the blue dragon head, Alustin dislocated his arm once more and vanished.

As many times as he’d done that today, he’d likely done permanent damage to his shoulder, unless he got some fairly extreme healing.

Alustin released pages from his storage tattoo, one by one, until the scouring wind ceased.

Then he launched himself back out of the storage tattoo, setting his shoulder back in its socket with his paper armor once more, only to find that the defenses were back. The sunfire, the spinning bronze, even the windshield.

They’d been too slow.

Alustin had… he had…

Just caught sight of motion where there should be none.

Of a vast form rising up behind Heliothrax.

A great power that should be dead, that couldn’t possibly be rearing back to strike.

But Alustin’s eyes weren’t deceiving him.

Indris Stormbreaker, the queen of Theras Tel, one of the greatest storm mages to ever live, and one of the mightiest great powers on the continent was on her feet. Was standing despite the fact that she was more wound than not, despite the fact that her body had been torn and broken beyond any healing.

Not only standing, but smiling, as she prepared to attack Heliothrax.

Not with her magic, not with wind or sand or water.

Because Indris wasn’t merely a mage.

She was the single largest dragon on the continent, magical abominations aside. She was a giant among giants, an apex predator among apex predators. She had jaws wide enough to fit a sandship, jaw muscles strong enough to tear steel, and teeth that could rip apart lesser wyrms with ease.

And Indris sank those teeth straight into Heliothrax at the base of her tail.

Right where no one sane in the multiverse wanted, in the most undignified and painful of possible bite placements.

Heliothrax made a high-pitched squeak that was entirely unbecoming of a dragon of her majesty, and the defenses around the blue head vanished once more.

Alustin and Mackerel lunged at the last remaining tendril, hacking wildly with swords, paper, and crystal pages.

But they weren’t the ones to break the tendril, to finally open the mouth and retrieve the resonator.

It was the blue dragon itself. Its jaw strained and pulled, and then, with a horrible ripping noise, tore the tendril asunder.

There, on its tongue, in its dry, saliva-less mouth, lay the final resonator.

Alustin lunged forward to grab it.

As though it could sense what they were about to do, the Tongue Eater responded.

A flood of words rushed into Alustin’s mind, overwhelming the first mind shard in an instant.

His hand passed under the blue dragon’s teeth, and a second mind shard collapsed under the phonemes of murdered cultures, the folktales of dead civilizations. A third collapsed under a dozen cultural epics, garbled with shibboleths from yet other cultures that never would have understood the stories. A fourth, flooded with the words of a species entirely removed from humanity, that spoke without sound.

Before the fifth mind shard came under assault, Alustin’s hand closed on the book, and was throwing it to Mackerel.

Hugh’s spellbook swallowed the resonator, saved the continent from a plague of madness, and the fifth mind shard was flooded with countless words for rage and despair.

The Tongue Eater didn’t even bother assaulting his final mind shard. It withdrew from his mind entirely, almost as if to sulk.

Before the linguistic superweapon could change its mind, Alustin grabbed Mackerel and flew towards the regrouping archmages below as fast as he could.

As he escaped Heliothrax’s back, the monster whirled, setting her own teeth into Indris’ neck.

The desert storm queen died with an infuriating smirk on her face, her jaw locked so hard into place that Heliothrax shrieked in that high-pitched whine once more as she tore her rival’s teeth free from her flesh.

Thus ended the glorious reign of Indris Stormbreaker.

The smile didn’t fade, even in death, and Alustin saluted her as he rejoined the others.

GETTING CARRIED BY Sabae like a sack of potatoes was a depressingly familiar experience to Hugh, as they raced across the battlefield, seeking distance from the Sunwyrm.

Only to have an entire wall of sunfire spring up in their path, then grow into a full dome once more.

“Did you really think I was just going to let you get away with your prize?” Heliothrax demanded. “Let you get away with the insults you levied on my person?”

Almost as one, the surviving archmages turned to face her. Each and every one of them was exhausted, wounded, pushed to their absolute limits. None of them had the ability to keep fighting much longer, and they were, one and all, confident about how long they would last against Heliothrax again.

It didn’t matter, though.

They’d won.

They’d stopped the magical superweapon, whether they thought it was an elemental plague or knew it was the Tongue Eater, and saved the continent.

Most of them gave Eudaxus hopeful glances that he’d be able to teleport them out, but he just shook his head, unable to shadow walk them past the sunfire dome.

And then, oddly enough, Hugh began to laugh.

One by one, the other archmages turned to look at him. Even Heliothrax gave him a faintly incredulous look.

Hugh struggled down from Sabae’s shoulder, then walked to the front of the group. Past Shimmering Cardovan, past Godrick, past Gram, past Talia, chuckling to himself the whole time.

“Hey, Heliothrax!” Hugh called.

The Sunwyrm looked as though she was torn between answering Hugh and just stepping on him, but he didn’t give her the chance.

“Look behind you!” Hugh said.

Heliothrax really should have listened to him.

Because the moment Hugh had started laughing had been the moment that Kanderon had flown out of the too-small front door of a mysteriously intact building, blazing right past the Liar and the Wanderer. Her crystal sides had still been smoking from the defenses she’d simply ripped through.

In the short time it took Hugh to walk through the other archmages, to confront Heliothrax, Kanderon had raced through the ruins of Havath City at insane, impossible speeds, weaving through rotting and collapsing labyrinth corridors as she unerringly raced towards Hugh, following their warlock pact.

If Heliothrax had listened, she might have had time to turn and prepare for Kanderon, might have had a chance. Or at least have died with dignity.

Probably not, though. And it certainly didn’t help that Hugh had lied, and that Kanderon was approaching from the side.

The sphinx punched through the sunfire dome without even slowing, crashed into Heliothrax with bone-breaking force— amplified by the fact that the form Kanderon had taken was twice Heliothrax’s size, a crude, brutal form of rough facets.

“Reverse parasite protocol!” Alustin shouted, his voice amplified by magic to be heard over Heliothrax’s struggles.

Hugh glimpsed just a moment of fear on the Sunwyrm’s face before Kanderon’s jaws clamped on her skull.

And then a starbeam blasted out of Kanderon’s mouth, and into the exact top of Heliothrax’s skull.

The starbeam was twenty feet across if it were an inch, and every second carrying more power than Hugh could produce with all his mana reservoirs combined.

And it just kept going.

Heliothrax writhed and twisted, trying to break free of Kanderon’s grip, but even had she been in perfect health, she would have been incapable of standing up to Kanderon’s new lich strength, to her sheer impossible mass. And she wasn’t in perfect health, was as broken and wrecked as the archmages were. Had Ilinia or Indris been in perfect health, and come across her now, they could have easily, if not quickly, annihilated the Sunwyrm. Even Heliothrax’s stolen magics were essentially useless against the sphinx.

Kanderon had decided to skip the dragged out, exhausting process of ripping apart Heliothrax, and was going straight for the best defended, most vital part of Heliothrax’s body— her brain. Even for Kanderon, in her new lich form, getting through Heliothrax’s skull was incredibly difficult— no bank on the planet had a vault more secure than the Sunwyrm’s braincase.

The surviving archmages all stood there in the rain and watched Heliothrax’s last, pathetic moments.

“Reverse parasite protocol?” Hugh asked Alustin.

“Magical parasites are common enough— healers that try to hijack the bodies of others to extend their own lives, that sort of thing. Grafting the heads of others onto your own body and hijacking their nervous systems to steal their magic is a new one, but it seems Kanderon understood what I meant easily enough,” Alustin said.

Hugh could tell how nervous Alustin was at Kanderon’s presence, but he wasn’t running. His grief and exhaustion visibly outweighed his fear.

“I’m sorry about Valia,” Hugh said.

Alustin sighed heavily. “So am I.”

He summoned the copy of Galvachren’s Guide to Worlds Hugh had smuggled him out of his storage tattoo, and handed it back. “Not much point to this now.”

Hugh took it back with both hands, then pensively stored it away in his storage tattoo.

“Is Mackerel digesting the last resonator alright?” Alustin asked.

Hugh nodded. “He is. The Tongue Eater?”

“Quiescent, and no longer at risk of detonating,” Alustin said. “Made it with at least twenty minutes left on the clock, too.”

“How is she doing this?” Sabae asked Hugh, staring at the starfire beam erupting out of Kanderon’s crystal mouth and boring into Heliothrax. “It’s going way too long, even for Kanderon, and something feels weird about that spell?”

Talia and Godrick joined them, both looking curiously at Hugh as well.

Hugh didn’t look at the sunbeam— with his magic so exhausted, he couldn’t even operate his anti-glare cantrip, let alone the Stormward’s Crown. He could feel it well enough with his stellar affinity sense, though.

“Because it’s not a spell,” Hugh said. “Reach deeper with your stellar affinity sense, tell me what you see.”

Sabae did so as Kanderon’s starbeam slowly bored through Heliothrax’s skull, through layers of bizarre, powerful materials the Sunwyrm had recovered from other worlds and woven into her own body. So did the other two.

“Is that…?” Godrick started, then trailed off.

Hugh just nodded. “It’s an infant star, at the heart of her demesne, deep within its extraplanar spaces. She’s just venting starfire from it directly.”

“So she found a way to keep her stellar affinity, then,” Alustin said, surprising Hugh as he joined them. “That was always going to be the trickiest of her affinities to keep when she fully transitioned into lichdom.”

Sabae shot him an irritated look. “Oh, are you going to tell us that you never intended to kill Kanderon, that you only meant to push her into lichdom?”

Alustin shook his head. “No, I definitely intended to kill her. Failed, obviously.”

“Wait, are you saying that Kanderon’s some sort of mobile lich now?” Eddin Slane demanded.

Hugh smiled. “She’s a lot more than a mere lich. She has a star for a heart, stores most of her demesne in extraplanar storage, and most of said body is made of pure aether crystal. She’s become a creature of nearly pure magic.”

“Like the Kyrene?” Talia asked.

Hugh shrugged. “Maybe stranger.”

He didn’t bother going into some of the stranger things he could perceive with his affinity senses. The liquid crystal circulatory system he could perceive inside her body, the directional gradients across what felt like calculating engines, and the like.

The conversation was interrupted by a final, horrid noise from Heliothrax as the starbeam punched through her skull, and then the monstrous dragon shuddered and went still.

The starbeam shut off, and Hugh lost any sense of the star at Kanderon’s heart.

“You’ve really let yourself go, Heliothrax,” Kanderon said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

Heliothrax’s body began twitching, save for the Sunwyrm’s own head.

Kanderon stared at it almost in pity, then turned towards the group.

Hugh took off running, and had his arms wrapped around Kanderon’s leg as far as they would go, which wasn’t far at all.

And then Kanderon was shrinking, until her crystalline body was no more than fifteen feet long, and she curled herself around Hugh. The surfaces that had been smooth, cold crystal had changed into fur once more— fur made of blue crystal fibers that seemed to carry light oddly through itself, but fur nonetheless.

“You’re safe,” Kanderon said. “You’re alright.”

“I feel like I should be the one saying that to you,” Hugh said, his voice muffled by Kanderon’s fur.

The sphinx snorted. “I’d have been fine, don’t you go worrying about me.”

“Yes, mother,” Hugh said, rolling his eyes a bit.

Kanderon tensed, and for a moment, Hugh worried he’d gone too far.

And then she relaxed, and started purring so hard it felt like she was shaking Hugh’s bones.

Someone had summoned a windshield over them, and despite everything there was still to be done, Hugh and Kanderon stayed there, not even speaking, for nearly twenty minutes.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

New Echoes

THINGS MOVED FAST, once Kanderon and Hugh separated.

Hugh took a couple minutes to recover his fallen Crown nodes, while the others helped Talia recover as much of Ataerg’s skeleton as could be found with their bone affinity senses in the rain and ruins. Most of it was lost, but they still managed to find a few hundred pounds for her.

Eudaxus had retrieved a badly wounded Ilinia from where he’d stashed her, then the group flew to the Coven encampment atop Kanderon, her size back to normal.

Behind them, they left the dead archmages, the corpse of Indris Stormbreaker, and the still-living body that no longer belonged to Heliothrax.

The Sican Elder had apparently retreated immediately on Kanderon crushing Heliothrax, finding out about it even before the Coven and Alustin’s forces. It left behind a colossal jungle of plantlife, encircling three-fourths of the Coven encampment and stretching a mile and a half into the sky. The Coven army, the broken remnants of Alustin’s army, and the allied great powers had managed to hold the Elder off, though who knew how much longer they would have lasted.

Kanderon used starfire— a spell this time, not starfire vented directly from her starheart— to incinerate any plant life within a quarter-mile of the camp.

“That’s going to be a nightmare to clean up,” Kanderon muttered, “But at least the main Sican mycelial network is still a hundred leagues away.”

Hugh gave her an inquiring look at that, but just received a shake of her head and a promise to explain later.

Kanderon’s first commands were for healers to tend to Ilinia and the surviving archmages, and to be sent to Heliothrax’s body, to stabilize it.

“It’s up to her victims whether they want to try and make a life together sharing the Sunwyrm’s body,” she said, “Some, maybe all, might not. But they deserve the choice.”

Hugh suspected that, if Heliothrax’s victims did indeed choose to try, there’d be a new great power in short order— and one with deep debt and gratitude to Kanderon. He wasn’t sure how cynical he should feel about the situation— Sabae was rubbing off on him quite a bit, it seemed.

He did, however, feel certain of how guilty he felt about the medical attention they were receiving. There were numerous mages who needed medical attention far worse than they did— the Sican Elder’s spore weapons had killed or horrifically wounded thousands, and plenty of battlemages had received much larger doses of the storm’s toxic rain than he had.

The various great powers couldn’t be ignored for too long, even by Kanderon.

There was one important bit of business Kanderon attended to before settling into council, however.

Alustin.

KANDERON SPENT NEARLY an hour interrogating Alustin privately, before beginning his trial.

Kanderon was the only judge or jury Alustin received, and though there were countless witnesses peering on from the Coven encampment, only a small handful of other souls stood within the ward against interference and rain Kanderon had built, and within Mackerel’s anti-scrying field.

Just six, in fact. Hugh, Talia, Godrick, Sabae, Mackerel, and Eddin Slane.

“All of this, for your own pride and vengeance,” Kanderon growled. “Thousands dead, a continent thrown into chaos, a city destroyed, all for your own pointless gratification.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“You betrayed me, you murdered your friends and allies atop Skyhold, and risked the lives of your own students.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“You lied to your new allies, and threatened to destroy the continent with your own overconfidence.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“You started a war that’s not likely to stop anytime soon, made refugees of millions.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“You broke into the Vault of Skyhold, stole and used weapons that never should have been touched.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

Then he visibly hesitated, and pulled a wooden box out of his storage tattoo.

Hugh couldn’t see inside the box, but he knew exactly what it was.

The Tongue Eater.

Kanderon took it from his hands with incredible care, pinching it between her immense talons with deliberate delicacy. She gazed at it for a long time before tucking it away in a dimensional space and turning back to Alustin.

The paper mage seemed to have thrown a great weight off his shoulders when he let go of the Tongue Eater, and now just looked exhausted, as if he could barely stand on his feet.

“You revealed the existence of Jycenna Deephome to the world, and she’ll have great powers and nations harassing her for decades to come, disturbing her peace as they try to scry her secrets and try to involve her in politics once more.”

“Yes,” Alustin said.

Hugh had no idea who Jycenna was, nor why Kanderon took the matter so seriously.

“You deliberately led your allies into a trap of your making, in order to weaken them on the international field, as vengeance for being too slow to aid Helicote,” Kanderon continued.

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“You committed numerous other crimes against Skyhold, myself, and civilization, enough that to list them would take hours,” Kanderon said.

“Yes,” Alustin said.

“Do you have any defenses to lay forth for your actions?”

Alustin closed his eyes, and was silent for a long time.

Hugh took a moment to look at the faces of his friends.

Mackerel didn’t quite seem to understand what was happening.

Eddin Slane looked entirely pleased with the proceedings, and Hugh couldn’t blame him. Alustin had almost murdered him, after all.

Godrick and Talia both looked deeply conflicted, much as Hugh felt.

And Sabae’s face was completely, utterly flat, not a hint of emotion shown on it.

“No,” Alustin said.

Kanderon gazed down at Alustin, her glimmering crystal face almost as inscrutable as Sabae’s.

Almost, but not quite. Hugh could read disappointment and betrayal on her face, mixed in with sadness and puzzlement. And, of course, a bit of rage, though far less than Hugh would have expected.

“Would anyone speak in Alustin’s defense?” Kanderon asked.

Hugh felt an overwhelming desire to speak out in Alustin’s defense, despite everything he’d done, despite the way he’d hurt Hugh— only he didn’t know what he could say. Couldn’t think of a single defense that might aid Alustin.

“I forfeit my opportunity for others to speak in my defense,” Alustin said, and Hugh realized that his former teacher was staring straight at him, an almost kind look on his face.

“There is only one punishment suiting your crimes,” Kanderon said.

Alustin just nodded.

“Do you have any final words?” Kanderon asked. “Any final bequests, any apologies you’d like to make?”

Alustin smiled sadly. “I’ve said everything that needed to be said, today. Anything else would just be pointless echoes from a city long dead.”

Kanderon looked down at Alustin pensively. “The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells may have rung today, but the echoes of Alustin Haber, the Last Loyal Son of Helicote will ring on for many years yet, for better or worse.”

Alustin sighed. “I suppose that’s all you can really hope for, in the end.”

“No,” Kanderon said. “There are plenty of better things to hope for than a place in history. Family. Community. A life well lived. I would have gladly traded my own such role in history for my mate and child back, centuries ago. Hope for the immortality of history is hope wasted.”

Alustin looked up at Kanderon sadly. “You know, that’s a trade I’d make gladly myself.”

Hugh couldn’t help but wonder the same. Whether he’d trade everything he’d done, everyone he’d met, for the chance to have his parents and little sister back from the fire that had claimed them. Whether he would have given up his chance to learn powerful magics, to travel the world, to visit other worlds, to bring them back. To give up his new family, to save his old.

Hugh didn’t know, but knew it would be a question he would worry at for a long, long time, even though it was an impossible trade.

Kanderon nodded at Alustin, as though she’d expected no other answer. “Is there anything else?”

Alustin started to shake his head, then paused.

“Yes, actually. One final glass of wine.”

Kanderon arched a crystal eyebrow. “A reasonable request, but I can’t say I brought any wine.”

Alustin shook his head. “I brought my own.”

Then, in the middle of his own trial, in the full view of thousands, Alustin began pulling things out of his storage tattoo.

A light, wire frame iron table, with two matching chairs. A tastefully embroidered tablecloth. Two crystal wineglasses. A packet of battered letters that had been torn apart and repaired with magic more than once.

And a single bottle of wine.

He picked up the bottle and carefully looked over the label. Hugh strained to read it, but Alustin held it facing away from Hugh.

“Last bottle,” Alustin said quietly, just barely audible to Hugh.

Alustin poured two glasses of wine, one in front of each chair, then sat down.

He took his time— swirling the wine, sniffing at it.

“Get on with it already,” Eddin Slane growled.

Kanderon turned an irritated look on the Skyhold council member, and he subsided.

Alustin ignored them all as he finally sipped from his glass, staring at the empty seat and untouched glass in front of him. He idly browsed through the letters before tucking them away in his storage tattoo again.

None of them spoke as Alustin drank, until the last Helicotan finally set down his glass, still a quarter full.

“I’m ready,” he said quietly.

Kanderon nodded, and Hugh felt an invisible starfire shield spring into being around Alustin.

Even though Hugh couldn’t cast an anti-glare cantrip on himself again yet, he didn’t look away.

Alustin raised his glass to Hugh and the others, as though sharing a toast, and then brought it to his lips, one last time.

And then the shield filled with starfire, and Hugh was forced to look away.

Eddin Slane grunted, then walked away.

Godrick sat on the ground, staring heavily at the fading starfire, at the steaming ground and melted iron table and chairs, his face conflicted.

Talia started crying quietly, and Hugh wrapped his arms around her.

Sabae turned away, but didn’t walk off like Eddin Slane.

And Hugh just stared at Kanderon, trying to understand what he saw in her face.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Fire Mage

“I LOST AN arm!” Leon said, sounding like a child with candy.

“You’re alright, otherwise?” Luthe asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“No, I’m all left!” Leon said, pointing to his missing right arm.

With the missing finger on his left. He very ostentatiously pretended to notice, then switched fingers. “Well, mostly left!”

Talia groaned.

“It’s too bad you had help fighting Heliothrax, otherwise you could have said you defeated her singlehandedly,” Talia’s father said, puffing on his pipe.

Almost everyone groaned at that, except for Leon, who laughed.

“These puns are really getting out of hand,” Rafe said, not looking up from the book.

Everyone groaned at that, including Leon, and Rafe looked up in puzzlement. “What?”

“Out of hand?” Talia’s mother said. “These puns are getting out of hand?”

Rafe groaned. “I promise, that was entirely unintentional.”

“Suuuuuuurrrrrrreeeee it was,” Talia said.

Rafe rolled his eyes, then turned to Leon. “Have you considered what you want to do next? Try to get a replacement of some sort?”

“We could try to construct you an elemental arm?” Gram suggested. “Maybe an ice elemental?”

“Maybe!” Leon said cheerfully. “Want to see something neat, though?”

He summoned a ball of flame over his left palm, and his tattoos began to ignite.

Including the ones around his missing limb. Talia could clearly make out the outlines of his arm, fingers included, from the hovering blue spellforms in mid-air. Leon started moving it around, waving it at them, then grabbing the ball of fire from his right hand.

“Weird,” Roland said.

“Seriously weird,” Haela agreed.

“I’ve heard of that happening, but never actually seen it before,” Rafe said. “That offers some fascinating possibilities.”

“Drool over them later,” Gram said. “For now, I hear a certain someone has news for us?”

He was staring at Talia as he said it.

Talia folded her arms. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, a little false modesty, is it?” Leon said.

Rose grabbed Talia then started kissing her cheeks. “My little baby got acknowledged as a great power by Ilinia Kaen Das herself!”

“Mom!” Talia protested, trying and failing to struggle out her mother’s grasp.

“First of my children to earn the label,” her father said proudly.

“I’m sure she’ll use her power responsibly,” Tristan said, entirely earnestly.

Talia’s family all looked at him oddly. He held up under their scrutiny for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.

Everyone joined in, and Talia glowered at them all.

“She’s going to be absolutely insufferable about it, I just know it,” Luthe said.

“Oh, absolutely,” Roland agreed.

“No question,” Gram added.

“You all would be too, in her place,” Haela pointed out.

“Of course we would!” Rafe agreed. “That’s how we know what she’s going to do.”

“Be endlessly annoying,” Tristan said.

“The most annoying,” Leon said, with a wide smile.

Talia tried to growl at them, but couldn’t help but smile back.

TALIA’S FAMILY TIME was eventually broken up by the report that one of their fire elementals had survived, was apparently stable, and was grazing on the Sican Elder’s greenery. Half her brothers took off to investigate the giant flying fire snake, while the other half and her parents dispersed to take care of various tasks needing to be done. Several of them were on spore-cleaning duty— there were still plenty of patches of the Sican Elder’s weaponized spores lying about odd corners of the camp, though they weren’t actively erupting when someone breathed them in anymore. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Luthe, meanwhile, went to join the meeting of great powers as their Clan’s representative, despite his efforts to convince their father to go instead.

Talia wandered off in the direction of Sabae, since Hugh was stuck in the great power meeting, Kanderon not wanting to let him out of her sight right now. It was easy enough to track Sabae by their warlock pact, but Talia found her course interrupted by spotting someone unexpected.

Eudaxus, Indris’ high priest.

Or former high priest, now that the Queen of Theras Tel was dead? Talia really wasn’t sure how that worked.

He’d found a shirt, at least. Ridiculously buff old men weirded Talia out.

She clambered up onto the pile of rubble he was sitting on, then flopped down next to him.

“I’m sorry about your queen,” Talia said, avoiding the urge to make high priest jokes.

“Thank you, Talia,” Eudaxus said quietly.

“Shouldn’t you be at the meeting of great powers?” Talia asked.

Eudaxus shrugged. “I received an invitation, but what’s the point? Without my queen, Theras Tel’s likely to get gobbled up by the next wandering great power to pass by. Probably quite a few are going to duel over it in the next few years, wreck a good chunk of the city. And none of them are going to want the former queen’s high priest around.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “You could ask for help, you know.”

Eudaxus snorted. “I’m sure Kanderon or Ilinia would be delighted for an invitation. It would give them a perfect excuse to claim the throne.”

It was Talia’s turn to snort at that. “Neither of them want it.”

Eudaxus gave her a skeptical look.

“No, really,” Talia insisted. “Neither of them want it. Kanderon hates empires with a passion, and has never claimed territory outside of Skyhold. The Kaen Das family has also never had territorial ambitions— their entire city is a monument to the Ithonian Empire’s hubris. They’ve got plenty of other ambitions, sure, but what Ilinia wants more than anything else is stability, far as I can tell. She wants to keep her family safe and intact, above everything. Plus, both of them owe you debts, now. Kanderon for saving Hugh, Ilinia for helping save her own life.”

Eudaxus looked at her thoughtfully. “All fair points. There are still plenty of problems, though. The storms, for one. Theras Tel’s weather mage corps is good enough to hold off a few of them, but doing so permanently? It would exhaust them, and their numbers are too few to maintain it for long.”

Talia raised an eyebrow at that. “So hire Hugh. Have him rebuild his original Stormward, and work on building up your weather mage corps. You could hire my Clan to give them all spellform tattoos, make them more effective.”

Eudaxus frowned. “That could probably work, but… there are still plenty of other problems. Defending from other great powers is going to be the big one. I’m powerful, but I’m no match for most great powers.”

“You are a great power,” Talia said. “You took down that teleporter today, remember? And he was a great power. More, I’m a great power, recognized by Ilinia herself, and I’m recognizing you.”

Eudaxus shook his head. “A minor great power, perhaps, but’s just a label, in the end. I’m no match for some of the monsters wandering the Endless Erg. There’s not much I could do against the Thunderclaw, or some of the pirate lords out there.”

“So find someone to help you,” Talia said. “A champion.”

“Great powers on the scale of Indris don’t grow on trees, Talia,” Eudaxus said. “And Theras Tel is one of the choicest jewels on the continent. It’s grown fat on trade over my queen’s rule. Her fortune alone would be enough to bring great powers calling— she was the richest individual on the continent, after all. Who is there to stand up to Dorsas Ine, when he comes for the city’s gold?”

Talia looked away and frowned, not having an answer to that.

At least, for a moment, and then she realized the answer was right in front of both of their faces, sitting at the edge of the council of great powers.

“What about him?” Talia asked, and pointed at the gargantuan, chain-studded hydra at the edge of the meeting.

“Ramyl?” Eudaxus asked, surprised.

“Why not? He seems trustworthy enough, and served to guard Skyhold in Kanderon’s absence. I’m sure you could convince him, if you tried. Plus, you’ve got to find Thaddeus a new warlock partner, you could use him as a bargaining chip, maybe?”

Eudaxus gave her a considering look. “Very mercenary of you.”

“Well, I’d still expect you to find him a good partner,” Talia said. “Keep to the spirit and the letter of Indris’ bargain with Hugh and all. But there’s definitely flexibility in there. Heck, get a bidding war started with Ilinia and Kanderon, maybe a few others. I have a suspicion that warlocks are going to start being much more in demand in the near future.”

Eudaxus snorted. “Indris had more than a single warlock, so that might be better advice than you know. Especially since I have my own suspicion that your suspicion might be a little more than that.”

“I have a suspicion that you’re right to have a suspicion about my suspicion,” Talia said, and laughed.

The High Priest was absolutely correct. As news of what the four of them had done with their warlock pact spread, there was going to be a whole shift in the way warlocks were viewed.

Eudaxus chuckled too, then sighed. “It’s… not going to be easy for me. Indris was more than a mere ruler to me. She was genuinely worth serving. She gave my life purpose.”

“So honor her by protecting her city,” Talia said. “Get to that meeting, call in whatever favors and make whatever promises you need to.”

Eudaxus nodded, then got to his feet.

“Thank you, my young friend,” he said. “I will do my best.”

“For Indris,” Talia said.

“For Indris.”

Eudaxus started to sink into his own shadow, then stopped, rose fully back up into the light— or what passed for light, in the gloom the storm and the slowly crumbling labyrinth cast over them all. “And you, Talia? What are you going to do, now that you’re a great power?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Talia said. “Well, other than help my friends get to great power status as well.”

“You genuinely believe they’ll reach it?” Eudaxus asked.

“Not a doubt in my mind,” Talia said.

Eudaxus chuckled. “Perhaps I’ll be approaching you about becoming the defenders of Theras Tel in the future, then.”

Talia smiled at him. “Don’t think we’ll give you a discount or take it easy on you during bargaining.”

“I would never,” Eudaxus replied wryly.

Then his face turned serious. “About Alustin— whatever he became, he was once a good man, and my friend. Don’t forget who he once was to you, and I’m sorry things ended up this way.”

Talia sighed. “Me too, and I won’t forget. Without him, I’d never have become a great power, never be where I am. Never have met my friends, most likely.”

Eudaxus nodded, then sank away into his own shadow.

Talia sat there for a long time, thinking about that.

She’d earned the title of great power for her skill and magical might, not just her skeleton— but it would always be there, lurking inside her, a magical superweapon more than worthy of inclusion in Skyhold’s Vault. Always a temptation to use when times were dire. Even simple intrusive thoughts and dark impulses, the sort of thing everyone dealt with, were going to be that much more stressful to Talia. She wasn’t even sure she’d ever feel comfortable drinking again, risking that loss of impulse control.

She might never have known what she truly was, if Alustin hadn’t told her. Might have accidentally, unknowingly destroyed an entire city someday, if she’d grown daring in her magical experimentation.

No, not what she was. What she carried inside her.

Talia sat and brooded, in the gloom of the ruined city.

Only for a time, though.

Then she shook it off, got to her feet, and headed off.

Given that she was an officially acknowledged great power now, no reason she shouldn’t crash the great power meeting too, even if only to bother Hugh.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Wallbreaker's Legacy

AFTER ALUSTIN’S EXECUTION, Godrick found himself wandering idly through the Coven encampment, not knowing quite what to do with himself.

He had a healing affinity, but without any real training with it, he’d be more of a hindrance than a help to the actual healers.

The mingling forces eyed each other suspiciously, having been enemies just a couple hours ago, but no one breached the peace, not with Kanderon and the other great powers, including a once-more conscious Ilinia, conferring in the heart of their camp.

Even now, the whole thing seemed absurd to Godrick. They’d all been enemies of the Dominion, but had fought each other as much as Havath, out of nothing but lies. Alustin’s lies, Sabae’s lies at Kanderon’s behest— it all seemed so pointless, so flimsy now.

He really hoped that Kanderon had been telling the truth about the dangers of the Tongue Eater becoming public knowledge, that there was at least some justification for the lies he was personally complicit in, and the deaths that had resulted from them. He hoped he hadn’t helped conceal the truth to, say, protect Kanderon’s legacy, the reputation of Skyhold’s Vault as unbreachable.

Godrick wandered past the Tsarnassan gryphon rider survivors, who were struggling to keep their mounts from picking fights with Indris’ children. It wouldn’t have gone well for them, since most of the dragons of Indris’ brood that had joined them today had survived— twenty or so gryphons were a poor match for over a hundred dragons.

Godrick’s father had told him numerous stories of the Tsarnassan gryphon corps as a child— he’d fought beside them in the war against Havath, and he suspected that Artur had dreamed of joining them when he was young. Now he wondered whether his grandparents had told his father stories of the gryphon riders as well, before they died as innocent bystanders in a Lothal palace coup, before his father was press-ganged into service at sea.

He wondered what his father’s life would have been like without the great powers, without the constant coups that had devastated Lothal for decades before Ampioc’s ascension. He likely would have never met Godrick’s mother, might never become a great power, might have lived to a ripe old age instead.

Godrick found himself thinking of Sabae’s self-proclaimed mission to end the great powers, and though he’d agreed with it before, he found his resolve to aid her growing stronger than ever. Not just for the sake of the system’s victims, but for the sake of those who were forced into becoming great powers themselves, just to seek safety and control over their own lives.

He forced himself to move on before the gryphon riders caught him staring.

He wandered past the surviving gorgon forces, all clustered around their queen. Karna Scythe held court in their center, while she used her magic to assemble a great stone statue of herself.

A bit odd, given it would probably be destroyed as the labyrinth finished decaying and collapsing, but Godrick wasn’t going to argue with Karna. She’d proven herself many times over today, from everything Godrick had heard. He imagined a lot of people would be reassessing the gorgon queen and Sydapsyn in the weeks to come.

He shrugged, and wandered off.

Godrick stood at the edge of the camp’s windshield, just watching the storm and the surreal vertical jungle for a time, and wondered what a world without the great powers would look like, whether it was even possible when there were beings who could do things like this.

He wandered over to Eddin Slane, who was conferring with some of the surviving Skyhold battlemages in the camp, trying to get a full accounting of how many casualties their forces had suffered. Shimmering Cardovan was with him, oddly, and Eddin informed Godrick that Cardovan had accepted an invitation to join Skyhold’s faculty, and that Kanderon was likely to fast-track the beryl, sound, and light mage to the Council.

On a whim, Godrick asked Cardovan what their enchanted platinum trident did, since he’d never seen them use it.

Cardovan wrapped them in a sound shield so that no one could overhear them, then leaned in close.

“It doesn’t do anything, dear boy. I just like the way it looks. Really completes my outfit.”

Godrick actually laughed a bit at that one.

After accepting an invitation to discuss Eddin Slane’s mathematical magic style in the future, Godrick turned to leave the Skyhold mages, only to be stopped by Eddin clearing his throat.

“There’s one more thing, Godrick.”

He turned back to the ceramic mage.

“Skyhold has already started harvesting the iron mountain your father left behind, but I ordered a commission to be made from some of the iron,” Eddin said.

Godrick felt as though he should be mad about the iron mountain, given that it was the closest thing his father had to a tomb, but he only felt tired.

“I’ve ordered the construction of a great stone statue in the mountain’s location, once the mountain is gone,” Eddin said. “A statue of your father to stand guard over Skyhold’s harbor, two hundred feet tall, carrying an iron hammer sized to match.”

Godrick couldn’t help but laugh. His da had never sought that sort of fame, would have been happy with a quiet life as a family man, but it seemed that he was going to have a place in history, regardless.

“There is one decision regarding the statue that I’d like for you to make, though,” Eddin continued. “We’ve had some debate as to whether the statue should be wearing Artur’s famous armor or not.”

Godrick didn’t even have to think about it. “Build it without his armor. And make sure he’s smilin’.”

Godrick turned, and wandered out into the camp again.

He eventually found Ranna of Clan Derem and Tristan of Clan Castis, conferring between themselves.

When they saw him, Ranna said something quietly to Tristan, who nodded, then left. As he passed by Godrick, he reached up to squeeze his shoulder.

“Your father would have been proud of you.”

Then Tristan was gone, before Godrick could respond.

“He’s right,” Ranna said. “I only met Artur a few times, but there’s no question he would have been proud.”

“Thanks,” Godrick said..

The two of them stood quietly together for a moment.

“What were yeh talking about with Tristan?” Godrick asked idly.

Ranna gave him a wry look. “Not you, if that’s what you wanted to know. You didn’t break his heart that bad.”

Godrick chuckled.

“I was just making Tristan a job offer,” Ranna said. “One I should have made long ago. Of all his siblings, he’s by far the least egotistical, the one best at working with others.”

Godrick raised both eyebrows at that. “Tristan’s the least egotistical? Ah’m not sure we’re talkin’ about the same man, here.”

Ranna rolled her eyes. “Sure, he’s got a flair for the dramatic, but you’ve met his siblings, right? Do you know how much work Clan Derem’s put into Clan Castis over the years, to make sure they don’t blow themselves up or declare war on the rest of the continent or something?”

Godrick thought of Talia and laughed.

Ranna and Godrick talked of nothing in particular for a while, until Ranna made her excuses and headed back towards Clan Castis.

It never even occurred to Godrick to wonder why a noncombatant scent mage like Ranna had accompanied a mage army into battle.

Godrick wandered for a while, past Sydapsyn gorgons and Starholt dragons, past a mage chasing after Mackerel and trying to get his hat back, past the healer’s tents and seers scanning the ruins of Havath City for survivors, until he came to the Kaen Das encampment and spotted Sabae speaking with her cousin Vervyn.

An idea popped into Godrick’s mind then, an answer to a question he’d been struggling with for a while.

Godrick knew what he wanted to do with his da’s armor. Knew precisely who he wanted to teach it to.

Everyone.

He was going to make sure his da wasn’t just remembered as a warrior, wasn’t just remembered as a great power, but was remembered as a brilliant magical researcher as well.

He probably never would have seriously considered it before meeting Eddin Slane, before hearing the ceramic mage discuss his ideals of open magic, of freedom of knowledge. It never would have crossed Godrick’s imagination.

But you only needed to hear a new idea like that once to grow your imagination into something greater than it had been.

Still, he wasn’t going to just give the knowledge of his da’s armor out immediately. If Sabae had taught him anything since he’d met her, it was that it would be a waste to use a resource like that for only a single goal.

And Godrick had a very good idea for how to use his da’s armor to further Sabae’s goals of disrupting the system of great powers.

Godrick pulled out his father’s last letter to him, reading over it a couple of times more.

Then he tucked it away, and headed towards Sabae. Not wandering, but striding with a purpose.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

Blueprints for the Future

SABAE’S GRANDMOTHER SUMMONED her the instant the meeting of great powers ended. She made her excuses to Godrick, then darted off to the healer’s tents.

Ilinia was just getting settled back into bed when Sabae arrived, and was being fussed over by a small swarm of healers. It was the first time Sabae had gotten a good look at her grandmother since the end of the battle, and her injuries weren’t as bad as Sabae had feared. They were nowhere near as bad as Hugh’s had been after the battle of Imperial Ithos. Most of Ilinia was covered with bandages, but her eyes were still alert, and her voice was still loud and clear.

Very loud and clear. It took several minutes of irritated yelling from her grandmother before the healers left her in peace.

“I’ll be fine,” Ilinia growled. “Not the first time I’ve gotten severe burns, and none got in my lungs.”

Sabae nodded, skeptically at first, then a little more honestly as her healing affinity senses gave her a better idea of her grandmother’s injuries. It wasn’t good, but Ilinia would be fine with half-decent healing.

“How’d the meeting go?” Sabae asked.

Ilinia made a disgruntled noise. “Nine-tenths pointless posturing and trying to sort out an unnecessary hierarchy.”

“Wouldn’t…” Sabae started.

Her grandmother promptly interrupted. “Kanderon be on top by leagues? Absolutely. Even if Heliothrax hadn’t been badly wounded, Kanderon would have crushed her. She’s unquestionably the most powerful great power on the continent besides the Sleeper in the Sands and the Listener in the Silent Straits, and they’re both largely non-factors in politics. Even she can’t operate without allies, though. She can’t be in multiple places at once, and not even she could stand up to a Grand Hunt of enough great powers. Especially if Iris Mooneye joins in— her blindlight is nearly dangerous to liches as it is to living beings. Not much chance of Solintus joining in a Grand Hunt, but Kanderon’s greater power won’t aid her that much against him.”

“They think they can profit for being useful to her,” Sabae said.

Ilinia nodded. “Absolutely. And those lickspittles are jockeying pathetically for her attention. Beings capable of leveling cities, behaving like petty nobles. That’s the problem with a hierarchy of personal power— you end up desperately enforcing it, even if you’re not on top, just out of hopes you either get to the top or gain the favor of those above you. You give someone committed to a hierarchy someone to look down on, and they’ll accept any number of indignities from above.”

“I can think of a few other problems with personal power hierarchies than that,” Sabae said. “You’re not jockeying with them?”

Ilinia snorted. “The only way to win those sorts of power games is not to play. I’d still wager myself in battle against any other great power on the continent. And for all Kanderon’s power, I’m still more effective against Solintus than she is— I can work my magic at fifty times the range she can. Besides, she owes me.”

“So nothing got decided, then?” Sabae said.

“I didn’t say that,” Ilinia replied. “It was only nine-tenths stupid jockeying for position. There was a little discussion of important matters. Our seers, myself included, have gotten a better grasp of the situation to the south, especially. Sica’s in full retreat, and not just because of Kanderon. As nasty and strange as their armies and tactics are, they were over-ambitious— the Dominion forces to the south wore them down through sheer numbers and spellpower. Not to mention, the Rust Queen is as close to a perfect matchup against a Sican Elder as is possible. It’s going to be months before they get that Elder back into fighting readiness, and they overstretched their capabilities, moving so many Elders at once.”

“Why was the Sican Elder even here?”

Ilinia frowned. “This is half conjecture, but… I think it was trying to turn Havath City’s ruins into a forward base for their expansion. Sica has decades of resentment at being penned in by the Dominion— their more ambitious internal elements have just been waiting for an opportunity to attack Havath again.”

“And the state of the Dominion’s other forces?” Sabae asked.

Ilinia shrugged, then winced from the motion. “They’re still the largest military on the continent, even with their losses today. Their elite units have been decimated, though, and other than the Rust Queen, we have no idea if they have any other great powers. But losing Havath City essentially beheaded them. If nothing else changes, we expect the remnants of the Dominion to collapse by the end of the year.”

“Something’s going to change though, isn’t it?” Sabae guessed.

Ilinia nodded. “Kanderon’s going to be putting out a declaration, with all of us as signatories. Your little friend Talia included. We’re going to officially recognize and support any Havathi provinces that declare themselves independent nations, and help them establish great powers to defend themselves— mostly in the form of liches.”

Sabae nodded thoughtfully at that. “Kanderon’s going to use greed and personal ambition as wedges to finish off the Dominion.”

“They’re deadlier weapons than anything in Skyhold’s Vault, lass. Don’t you forget it.”

Sabae shook her head. “I won’t. Was there anything else of import at the meeting?”

Ilinia shook her head. “Just tactical planning for the immediate future and codification of our terms of alliance. Everyone’s playing nice, now, and pretending as though we weren’t fighting one another a few hours ago. For now, the plan is to try and evacuate the ruins within the next two days— this central region should be largely stable for at least another week, the collapse is going to be swiftest towards the outside of the dead labyrinth.”

As if to mock her grandmother’s words, the roar of another labyrinth collapse echoed over the muted rumble of the storm.

Both of them frowned at that, then Ilinia continued. “Once I’m sufficiently healed, Kanderon and I need to rebottle Merae’s storm— it’ll probably flush itself of alchemical toxins before too long, but even a regular typhoon rampaging around the continent is a nightmare. We’ll keep it in place for now with enough heat offerings— Kanderon’s going to keep heating the ruins with starfire until I’ve regained my strength. Sadly, not going to get to keep it again— it’ll be going straight into Skyhold’s Vault at Midsummer. Nothing else especially interesting happened at the meeting, though. Well, save some developments regarding Theras Tel you should ask Talia about. Tell me, dear— what do you plan to do now? Are you still bound and determined to overthrow the great powers?”

Sabae nodded. “More than ever.”

“And you’re sure Kanderon won’t just be able to crush the system entirely, now that she’s the mightiest power out there?”

Sabae shook her head. “It doesn’t change the nature of the problem. You can’t punch your way out of it, you have to change the nature of the game— and Kanderon’s new power is still part of that game.”

Ilinia smiled. “I’ll enjoy seeing you flip the table, then. Best of luck, dear. Now, leave your poor old grandmother to sleep.”

Sabae turned to go, then paused.

“Are you going to miss Indris, grandmother?”

Ilinia sniffed. “That dragon’s been a thorn in our family’s side since before my mother was born. I might actually throw a party.”

Sabae raised an eyebrow skeptically, and her grandmother sighed. “Fine. It’s going to be a nightmare restoring the stability of our continent’s climate without her. I’m going to have to cede the winds east of the Skyreach Range back to Ephyrus, and it will likely take months to stabilize the winds of the Endless Erg without Indris’ help. Those desert winds are tricky, uncooperative things. Not to mention the plague of bandits and pirates we’re liable to face without her to keep the peace in the heart of the desert.”

“That’s not what I asked, grandmother,” Sabae said.

Ilinia glowered at her. “Fine. Yes, I’ll miss her. She may have been foe as often as ally, but she was always there, always a reliable presence. And… even a friend, at times.”

Then a wicked smile crept across Ilinia’s face. “She died the way she lived, though— being a pain in the ass.”

Sabae rolled her eyes at her grandmother’s laughter, and left Ilinia to rest.

IT WAS SURPRISINGLY easy for Sabae to get a meeting with Kanderon. It wasn’t hard to find her— even if she wasn’t a living crystal the size of a barn, Hugh and Talia were with her, and Sabae could have just tracked them.

Once she actually arrived at Kanderon’s position, the sphinx promptly dismissed most of the supplicants seeking her attention for one reason or another— not to mention Hugh and Talia, who she sent to go get Godrick.

“Leave your spellbook, Hugh,” Kanderon added as they left.

Her friends smiled at Sabae as they left, and then Kanderon was folding her wings around Sabae.

The wings sealed into a solid crystal dome, nearly opaque, that contained Sabae and the front half of the sphinx. A tiny starfield, like the one Heliothrax had used to counter Eudaxus, sprang into being in the top of the dome to offer them light.

It was remarkably pretty— not something Sabae had imagined Kanderon would worry too much about, but then, she’d also never expected Kanderon to develop the level of attachment to Hugh that she had.

Mackerel, of course, promptly flew up to the top of the dome and began chasing the tiny stars.

Sabae sat down on a pile of rubble, then looked up at Kanderon’s patient face.

“Alustin made everything worse, didn’t he?” Sabae said. “By breaking Havath the way he did, he just freed a lot of great powers to cause even more havoc.”

Kanderon nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. His actions may have crushed Havathi imperial ambitions and resulted in Sica being badly weakened, but in return, he greatly strengthened the violence and chaos of the system of great powers. It’s why I sought a slow death for the Dominion— it would have given me time to counteract the resulting chaos. Over the next decade, I expect a plague of great powers to rise up, all seeking to claim a bite of the pie, as you humans would phrase it. More, my own rise in power has created as many problems as it solved. It will, for instance, be far harder to call a Grand Hunt against monsters like Dorsas Ine or Intet Slew— even some of my allies will oppose efforts to clear my enemies from the playing field, no matter how monstrous those enemies are. And, even with as much power as I have gained, they’re hoping that trying to crush these foes myself might wound or damage my power in ways they can take advantage of, which is a far from unreasonable hope. These are not going to be kind years to come.”

“That’s why you never released Davragam’s Census,” Sabae said, pulling a copy of the offending book out of her storage tattoo. “You wanted to build enough liches, develop enough countermeasures to the system of great powers, that the shock would be limited. The more stable a system, the more chaos it can endure.”

Kanderon nodded. “Many of history’s greatest advances have come after times of great disaster, and that fact has led many fools to believe that by provoking disaster, by accelerating catastrophe, they can bring better times. They think that they can harness destruction in the service of creation, rather than putting in the hard work of creation in the first place. There are no shortcuts to making the world a better place. The only path to making the world better is to work towards making the world better.”

“So everything we did today just… means nothing, then?” Sabae asked. “We didn’t stop Alustin from destroying Havath City, didn’t stop him from bringing chaos to the continent.”

Kanderon shrugged, a bizarrely silent action. Sabae had expected chiming or ringing from her crystal body. “Nothing? No. You and your friends probably saved the continent today, that’s hardly nothing.”

“Probably?” Sabae asked. “Not definitely? Even Alustin was convinced, by the end, that the Tongue Eater’s effects rippling out through the Ithonian language were too high a risk to warrant.”

“I agree with him,” Kanderon said. “But the Tongue Eater is an alien weapon that was created centuries before I was born. I don’t understand it even as well as the Ithonians did, and it was largely a mystery to them. Perhaps it would have driven all speakers of Ithonian mad if Alustin had succeeded in destroying it, perhaps it only would have spread exactly so far as Alustin had expected. Even had it been the latter, though, your actions today would be praiseworthy— for all my opposition to empires, Havath’s citizens don’t deserve to be slaughtered like those of Helicote.”

Sabae sighed. “I suppose I’d just hoped you would have more answers for me, could have made things make more sense.”

Kanderon chuckled. “The world makes little sense, child. I must ask, what do you intend to do now? Will you release Davragam’s Census into the world?”

Sabae blinked in surprise. “You just expressed your opposition to releasing it, why would you allow me to?”

“Because I don’t claim omniscience, child. My might doesn’t make me right, and I’ve learned, at great cost, to admit that I don’t always have the answers. I’ve come to believe that the young and shorter-lived sapient species deserve a say in the world to come as well. You’ve earned my respect with your ambition. What you do with Davragam’s Census is your choice.”

Sabae stared at the little book for a time, then tucked it away in her storage tattoo. “I’m not going to release it for now. Someday, maybe, and probably sooner than you would choose to, but for now, I think you’re right.”

“What will you do, then?” Kanderon asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“I’m going to write a book,” Sabae said.

Kanderon raised a crystal eyebrow. “A political tract, decrying the great powers?”

“Partially,” Sabae said. “But not just that. Also a book of magics designed to weaken the great powers.”

Kanderon raised her other eyebrow at that. “What sorts of magics?”

“Well, a handful that are just going to be intended as incentives for people to read the book in the first place,” Sabae said. “Eddin Slane’s mathematical magics, for one. Godrick also volunteered to share his father’s spellforms, for another.”

Kanderon frowned. “Both seem more likely to generate new great powers than to weaken the system.”

Sabae shook her head. “The vast majority of users of either are just going to be battlemages— the knowledge of the two magics is hardly the reason Eddin and Artur each grew so powerful, at least alone. And both will drastically improve the survival rates of battlemages and archmages on the battlefield, even against great powers. They’re not the core of the magics I’ll be including, though.”

“And what will that core be?”

“Collaborative magics,” Sabae said. “Again and again, over the years, I’ve watched groups of mages accomplish astonishing feats working together. The Radhan specialize in cooperative magic, and it’s made their ships the best on any sea. The Havathi constructed their collaborative great powers— the glass sphere you fought at Skyhold, and the bamboo great power here.”

“They were working on others as well,” Kanderon said. “Including a storm mage corps that had been meant to challenge your grandmother and Indris.”

Sabae nodded. “I’ve not heard of anyone taking a storm mage corps to great power levels, at least not for long, but we even have one in Ras Andis, for when my grandmother is away.”

She had to force herself not to get distracted on that tangent, and continued with her list. “Clan Castis is another communal great power as well. Then you have less permanent arrangements— during our advance on Havath City, I watched Hugh, Godrick, and a few other archmages level a fort that a great power would have struggled with by combining their magics.”

“You believe advocating collaborative magics to be a counter to individual great powers,” Kanderon said.

Sabae nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, groups of people are capable of evils just as vicious as individuals, sometimes worse, but the worst of our problems, right now, come from unrestrained personal power. At the very least, a communal great power is less likely to impulsively level a town due to a petty insult. And, at best, it might serve as a counter to the current system in a similar way you hope for with your liches. Ultimately, though, our world’s problems derive from imbalanced concentrations of power. Spreading it out a bit seems worth a try.”

Kanderon frowned thoughtfully. “A fascinating approach.”

Sabae nodded. “Godrick is certain that Eddin Slane’s magical style can be adapted into a communal style, and that it would be far easier to use for groups than individuals, as well. Likewise, he thinks it might be possible to adapt Artur’s armor spell into a communal spell, though he’s less certain about that. Hugh’s got quite a few ideas for communally operated and powered wards to protect communities from rampaging great powers. I also intend to actually track down other communal spellforms and spellcasting styles to include.”

“I must caution you— one cannot simply rely on tools to accomplish change,” Kanderon said. “Tools may be adapted to purposes the creator never accomplished.”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” Sabae said. “Just look at my friends and I.”

Kanderon chuckled at that. “A fair point.”

“I hope to pair the magical guide part of the book tightly with my political ideas, though,” Sabae said. “Explicitly lay out all of these magics as counters to the system of great powers, as tools intended to weaken them. As Lucann the Sour said, the fundamental divide, in all political and social systems…”

“Is between those who want to consolidate power in the hands of one group or another and those who want to distribute and dilute power widely,” Kanderon finished. “It’s good to hear my old friend being quoted still.”

“You knew Lucann?” Sabae said.

“We corresponded by letter for decades,” Kanderon said. “Our conversations helped shape my ideas to this day. I still have them somewhere, I could dig them out for you, if you’d like.”

Sabae just gaped. The opportunity to read previously unknown letters between one of the most influential philosophers in Ithonian history and the sphinx that brought down the Empire was one many historians and philosophers would literally kill for.

“I was also a big fan of his serial arson,” Kanderon said. “Oh, he killed so many Ithonian noble families.”

“That… I thought that was just slander by his political opponents?” Sabae asked.

“Oh, no, he bragged to me often about it. The Emperor’s goons could never prove it was him, though, especially because he looked so much like any other beggar that lived in the trash, making witness accounts nearly useless.”

“Huh,” Sabae said.

She shook off her befuddlement. “Anyhow, Lucann touched exactly on the solution, though. I don’t want to give different people power, no matter how well-intentioned they are. I want to spread power as wide as I possibly can. I want to give the great powers reason to fear ordinary people.”

Then Sabae scowled. “If I do write this book, it’s the sort of thing that will absolutely irritate more than a few great powers. I…”

Kanderon smiled and interrupted. “If it irritates them, they’ll need to take their complaints to me. You write the book, child, and I’ll handle distribution.”

Sabae smiled back. “Here’s to overthrowing the great powers.”

“To overthrowing the great powers,” Kanderon echoed. Then she cocked her head. “Ah, I believe your friends have returned. We shall have to continue this conversation at a later time.”

Sabae was looking forward to it.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

An Unfolding Multiverse

HUGH SIGHED HEAVILY. “It was just a political ploy to get Ramyl into the war.”

Kanderon snorted at that. “Nonetheless, you declared yourself my heir. We’re going to have an official ceremony celebrating your new position, and that’s final.”

Hugh glowered up at the sphinx while his friends, the traitors, all laughed. They’d joined Kanderon, Sabae, and Mackerel inside the crystal dome a few minutes ago, and had used that time to share a brief version of their adventures since the battle of Skyhold.

“And the instant the ceremony is completed, I’m sending you off-world again,” Kanderon said.

“Wait, why?” Hugh asked. “I just got you back!”

Kanderon smiled gently at him. “Because I’m about to get tested heavily by my foes— which will almost certainly include having assassins sent after those close to me. I’m going to have an extremely busy schedule over the next year or two— I’m going to not only need to help restabilize the continent and slap down upstart great powers, but plenty of other tasks as well. Not least sorting all the weapons that Heliothrax stored in her lair, half of which should have been within Skyhold’s Vault, if not for her vanity and need for trophies. You’re going to need to train off-world until you’re comfortably within the realm of great powers. That means being able to sustain your strength, not just ramping up your spells into great power territory for a short burst.”

Talia made a rude noise, which Kanderon ignored.

“You’re also going to need to start picking up more magic from other worlds,” Kanderon said. “Most alien magics, thankfully, aren’t nearly as difficult or as time-consuming as Anastan magic to acquire.”

Hugh coughed awkwardly. “So… we might have already acquired some?”

Kanderon gave him a flat look. “You did what?”

“We acquired Limnan adaptive magic,” Sabae said. “Just the first stage of it, though.”

Kanderon frowned in thought, then sighed. “An inoffensive enough choice. Cuts off relatively few future paths off for you. It’s not useful for Ascendants, but I intended you to pursue Names instead. Ascendancy is for power-hungry fools, it’s little more than the great power system writ large across the multiverse.”

“What are Ascendants and Names?” Talia asked, but Kanderon just shook her head.

“Your link is your greatest advantage,” Kanderon continued. “The four of you…”

Mackerel clapped his covers in protest.

“The five of you,” Kanderon said, rolling her eyes, “need to stick together, try to acquire the same magics. Oh, none of you are warlocks with Limnan magic, are you?”

“Limnus has warlocks?” Godrick asked. “Oh, and six, if yeh count Gravel.”

Kanderon nodded, though she ignored the comment about Godrick’s armor elemental. “Almost every world’s magic has warlocks, though what their abilities are varies wildly. Limnan warlocks copy the adaptations of those they spend the most time with, rather than developing theirs in response to their adaptations. You would know if you’d developed it— and being a warlock on one world in no way guarantees being a warlock on another. The only real commonality between warlocks on different worlds, whatever they’re named, is their ability to connect with others magically.”

Hugh scrunched up his forehead, thinking about a few of the magics he’d read about in Galvachren’s Guide to Worlds. He genuinely struggled to imagine what warlockery would look like for some of them.

“Regardless,” Kanderon continued, “your pre-existing warlock bond will allow the lot of you to share power in some fascinating ways. I’ve got options for different worlds you should consider, ones that are relatively safe, make for good training spots, and offer useful magics. I would personally recommend more passive magics to make you harder to kill, like those of Limnus, as well as magics that will help you handle more sensory inputs— it isn’t uncommon for mages with six or more affinities to develop sensory processing disorders, later in life. The human brain struggles to handle as many additional senses as you possess. You have many options for either, and even more besides. Ultimately, if you are to become Named, the final choice must be yours, so long as you stick to certain guidelines.”

“Are yeh plannin’ ta pick up any new magics of yer own?” Godrick said.

Kanderon nodded. “It will be some time before I have the freedom to do so, but yes, starting with Iopan scrying.”

Hugh was about to ask about Iopan scrying, but Sabae’s question was much more interesting.

“What, exactly, are the Named?” Sabae asked.

Kanderon gave them a pensive look. “A sort of multiversal great power, as it were. Not the mightiest of their number, by any means, certainly not to compare to the greatest Ascendants, Endlings, and Uniques, but the most… stable, as it were.”

“Pretend we have no idea what that implies,” Talia said.

Kanderon’s pensive look grew deeper. “In more concrete terms, Named have a functional, living aetherbody, a complete organism of its own, rather than the random agglomerations of aetheric organs many other multiversal powers possess. They are twinned organisms existing in both the material world and the aether, sharing a single consciousness, and perpetually rebuilding one another.”

Hugh and his friends exchanged glances. “Pretend we didn’t understand what that means,” Sabae said.

Kanderon rolled her crystal eyes, and Hugh realized that he had no idea what her pupils were made of. They felt like more aether crystal, but… different, somehow.

“It means,” Kanderon said, “that the Named are nigh-immortal, and live for millennia. Which is among the least of their gifts. I do not intend to lose Hugh to mortality anytime soon, and I doubt he would consent to losing any of you to that.”

Hugh tried to wrap his head around that, but Kanderon had already moved on.

“Just be warned— those that seek Names purely to extend their lives universally fail. It is a pathetic, unworthy purpose, and I’ll expect you all to do better.”

Hugh had so many more questions, but Kanderon lifted her head, as if hearing a noise they couldn’t.

“I have business to attend to, children,” Kanderon said. “Do try to stay out of trouble.”

“One more question,” Hugh said, and Kanderon looked back at him.

“Why did Heliothrax do what she did?” he asked. “Why did she turn into such a monster, at the end?”

“Fear, Hugh,” Kanderon said. “Fear of losing her position, fear of falling from the top of the heap of great powers. Fear of not being a legend anymore, fear of not being the golden champion of humanity. This is what drives so many of the greatest powers. It is what drives Dorsas Ine in his constant pursuit of more gold. It is what drove Solintus to build his despicable little cult, what drives countless great powers out there. When you pursue power to unreasonable degrees, when you accumulate wealth and strength beyond what you could ever truly need, it brings no feelings of safety, security, or contentment— only fear of losing what you have, to the point of obsession.”

“Do you share that fear?” Hugh asked.

Kanderon smiled sadly. “I pursue power for purpose, Hugh, not for its own sake. I have already known far greater loss than any amount of power.”

Kanderon lifted her wings, opening the crystal dome, and began to stride away— only to pause, and return to Hugh.

She shrank down as she walked, until she was only about the size of an aurochs, then pressed her head against Hugh’s chest, sprouting soft crystal fur once more.

“I love you, little one,” Kanderon whispered.

“I love you too, mother,” Hugh replied.

Kanderon purred even louder for a moment, then turned away, and launched herself into the air.

Hugh stared after the sphinx as she flew through the camp’s wind shield.

“Maybe it’s just me,” Godrick said, “but ah think ah just want ta sit down and not have any more surprises fer a while.”

“Don’t count on it,” Sabae said.

Hugh chuckled at that, halfway out of humor, halfway out of resignation.

THE FIVE OF them ambled about the Coven encampment for a while, not heading anywhere in particular.

“Anyone else heard what they’ve started calling us?” Talia finally asked, looking at the survivors of the mage armies around them.

Hugh shook his head.

“The Hand of the Sphinx.”

They all contemplated that for a while.

“Like… a hand of cards, or the hand at the end of an arm?” Sabae finally asked.

“I think it’s supposed to be deliberately ambiguous?” Talia said.

“I’m not sure if I like it or not,” Hugh said. “On the one hand, it’s another title, which I could happily do without. On the other, it somewhat subsumes our fame to Kanderon’s own, which I’m definitely fine with.”

“Ah kinda like the sound a’ it,” Godrick said.

Mackerel clacked his cover angrily.

“What?” Hugh asked his spellbook. “Why would they possibly call Kanderon the Page of the Book instead?”

Before they could settle into arguing about it, they ran into someone Hugh had deeply mixed feelings about seeing— Rhodes Charax, still in the guise of the Frost Ghost. Unlike before, he was surrounded by Highvale officers, all seeming eager to discuss something with him. Hugh wondered whether any of them suspected his identity.

He braced himself for an awkward conversation with his former bully, but Rhodes just nodded politely at them and continued past, speaking with the Highvale officers.

“Weird,” Hugh said.

Everyone glanced at him.

“What’s weird?” Sabae asked.

Hugh shrugged. “It’s just… strange. I was expecting some sort of closure with Rhodes, I guess? For us to finally talk about how he’d treated me, or… I dunno.”

Talia patted him on the back. “It happens like that, sometimes. As satisfying as it would be to have a storybook conclusion in situations like this, this is real life, not a novel. You don’t always get meaningful closure.”

Everyone just stared at her.

“What?” Talia asked.

“Ah think we should ask her somethin’ only Talia would know, just ta make sure it’s really her,” Godrick offered.

“Very funny,” Talia growled.

Hugh couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“What do you think Rhodes is going to do next?” Hugh asked after they’d all stopped laughing— or in Talia’s case, growling.

“Probably try ta murder his family and seize the throne a’ Highvale,” Godrick said.

Hugh gave him a shocked look, but he looked dead serious.

“It’s pretty much traditional,” Talia agreed. “One of the leading causes of death for Highvale kings.”

“Hereditary royalty is almost worse than the great powers, in a lot of ways,” Sabae added. “Vicious, power-mad monsters, the lot of them. Will stab anyone in the back to hold their positions.”

“Lovely,” Hugh said.

Talia patted him on the back. “If it makes you feel better, most Highvale usurpers die horribly.”

Hugh just grimaced, and shook his head.

Their grim speculation about Rhodes didn’t keep him down for long, though. Hugh found himself once more riding high on an overwhelming sense of relief— that they’d survived Heliothrax, stopped the Tongue Eater, and rescued Kanderon.

He’d once dreamed of them taking a long, quiet vacation, him and his friends sailing down the coast of Ithos in a little boat. That boat trip wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon, but… Hugh intended to push for their first off-world destination to be somewhere where they could rest, finally catch a break from the battles, intrigue, and ceaseless training of the last few years.

Hugh Stormward intended to make sure he and his friends got time just to rest, if he had to force his friends into it.

His happy imaginings were interrupted by a disgruntled noise from Sabae.

“As much as I can’t forgive Alustin, it’s hard to believe he’s really gone,” she said, when Hugh looked at her. “That he’s not about to just show up with a dislocated arm and some mad plan to, I dunno, assassinate Intet Slew.”

Talia nodded slowly. “For all the awfulness his vendetta brought, I can’t forget all the good he did for us.”

“People are messy,” Godrick said. “Ah’m just glad me da never got ta see what his friend became before he died.”

Sabae nodded. “He might have left the world a worse place, but I’ll give him this— he certainly didn’t leave it a more boring place.”

Mackerel rubbed his pages together awkwardly, and they all turned to stare at him.

“What do you mean, which one was Alustin?” Talia demanded. “You spent literally years around him.”

Hugh’s spellbook gave her a blank look.

“He taught us all magic?” Sabae said.

“Betrayed yeh and Hugh?” Godrick asked.

“We fought him just a couple hours ago? Kanderon just executed him in front of you?” Talia said.

Hugh shook his head in amusement. “He’s messing with you all, you realize that, right?”

His friends all stared at Mackerel for a few heartbeats, then burst out into groans.

Hugh glanced at his friends, then silently asked Mackerel to block scrying again.

His mana reservoirs and spellcasting ability had recovered just enough for Hugh to activate the Stormward’s Crown again, and he wrapped himself and his friends in it, using it as an attention ward and an anti-eavesdropping ward.

“So, I know you said no surprises, Godrick, but…”

He doubted anyone other than him had felt what he had, during Alustin’s execution— after all, he’d only barely detected it, and he’d been trained to do so ever since he’d pacted with Kanderon.

As the starfire shield had filled with starfire, from the outside in, Hugh had felt the faintest flicker of planar magic.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

All is Revealed

KANDERON DIDN’T MAKE haste as she returned to the building she had entered Havath City through. Though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, the primary emotion she felt was nervousness at facing the consequences of what she had done.

Almost unconsciously, Kanderon extruded more of her demesne from its extra-planar storage, and by the time she’d reached her destination, she was nearly half again her normal size.

She came to a hard landing just in front of the bizarrely intact building she’d exited, and nervously eyed the figures sitting in front of it.

Well, nervously eyed one of them.

“Would you care to join us, Kanderon?” the Wanderer called. “We’ve got sausages! I don’t know what kind of meat it is, or what world I got them on, but they smell delicious! You’ll have to shrink, though.”

Kanderon nodded, and slowly reduced her body size until she was no larger than a tiger.

At no point did she take her eyes off the Liar. She made cursory examinations of the Wanderer, Tetragnath, and the unknown young man with her affinity senses, but her actual eyes stayed locked on the Liar— though she didn’t bother trying to translate the shifting words perpetually crawling across the Liar’s skin.

“Hey, kid, get lost for a second,” the Liar said, not bothering to look at Kanderon.

The unknown young man stood up nervously, then looked around awkwardly until the Wanderer waved and opened him a portal.

“Where did you send him?” Tetragnath asked curiously.

The Wanderer smiled. “Lovely little valley up in the Skyreach Range. Little cold this time of year, but he should be fine until we bring him back.”

Kanderon ignored this byplay, and just kept staring at the Liar.

“Oh, relax already,” the Liar said, finally meeting Kanderon’s gaze. “The Tongue Eater’s still intact, that’s all I care about.”

Kanderon reached into one of her storage spaces with a paw, and gently pulled out the wooden box containing the Tongue Eater.

“I failed in the charge you gave me,” Kanderon said, offering it to the Liar.

She didn’t take it, just scowled at Kanderon. “You kept it hidden for nearly five centuries, completely unused. No one else has done better than two. It doesn’t seem like news of its presence has spread widely, so as far as I’m concerned, the best place for it is back in your Vault.”

Part of Kanderon felt relieved that she still retained the Liar’s trust— it was a rare and valuable coin indeed.

Most of Kanderon, however, was deeply displeased that she wouldn’t be able to be rid of the burden. There was, so far as she was concerned, no weapon more horrifying in Skyhold’s Vault. Even its potential utility against Cold Minds didn’t justify its use— better to let a world die than to activate the Tongue Eater to its full potential, to risk those consequences.

She managed not to scowl too deeply as she tucked it away once more, though.

“So you’re trying to become one of the Unique, then?” the Wanderer asked.

Kanderon gave the Wanderer a level look. As fond as she was of the Named, she wasn’t sharing her future plans with anyone. She…

“Obviously she’s becoming one of the Unique,” Tetragnath asked. “Did you even need to ask?”

The Liar chuckled at that.

“The Council can’t be pleased to have you camping on their doorstep,” Kanderon said, changing the subject. “Any more pleased than they are with me. Your refusals to join have always rankled them.”

“On the contrary,” the Wanderer said, checking one of the sausages hovering in mid-air over the flames. Her pacted bat poked its head out of her collar as she did so. “The Council is delighted with us, and while perhaps not so delighted with you, is far from angry.”

Kanderon gave her a curious look.

“The Expansionists tried to cheat,” the Wanderer explained. “Sent two Enforcers, an incipient Named, and an Ascendant out to protect Havath City. We stopped them, but…”

Kanderon almost asked the Wanderer to repeat herself, almost believed it was a prank— but Kanderon had known the Wanderer since the Named had just been an affinity-less mageling in the decades after the fall of Ithos. For all that she had a reputation as a trickster, the Wanderer wasn’t the sort to lie about something like this.

“Recruiting an Ascendant would be enough to turn much of the Council against the Expansionists alone,” Kanderon said, working through the implications. “And add that to cheating against the terms of the agreement? I doubt they could get a roll call or minor procedural matter passed, let alone any important votes.”

The Liar snorted. “You’re thinking too small, Kanderon. The Expansionists aren’t crippled— they’re done. I’d be shocked if they aren’t stripped of faction status within a couple of your world’s months. Their mission was never particularly popular, and the Indexers and other inward-facing factions have grown sick of their wastefulness, brutality, and failures. Keayda has already fully rejected their platform and spoken out in favor of you being raised fully to the Council.”

Kanderon blinked in surprise at that. It was hard to imagine Keayda being pleased with her right now, after she’d rejected his advice as she had.

She explained what had happened between them, in her lich dream, and the Wanderer grimaced when she described his confusion as to why she’d chosen the path she had. “He’s getting worse.”

It was Tetragnath that explained, though. “Keayda’s temporally disassociating.”

Kanderon blinked in surprise. “But he’s surrounded himself with his staff, and his own Librarians Errant, and…”

The Wanderer shook her head. “It’s not enough. He’s hardly ever valued Ephemerals, and he barely notices when they die of old age anymore. He only values relationships measured in centuries now. I suspect he genuinely lacks the ability to understand why you gave up future power to save your warlock, at this point. I think his rejection of the Expansionists was as much about their high numbers of Ephemerals as any more practical concerns.”

Kanderon grimaced. Temporal disassociation was one of the great perils of unnaturally long lives— after a few centuries, you tended to lose track of the flow of time. The mind, after all, preferred to record novel memories over familiar ones, and the monotony of centuries was a relentless danger to the long-lived. Your ability to maintain normal relationships degraded, and you could spend years or even decades pursuing obsessions, hardly noting the passage of time. It was what had happened to Jycenna Deephome, and more than a few of the most ancient beings of Anastis.

In the end, the best antidote was maintaining relationships with those faster-lived with you, and constantly pursuing new experiences, new knowledge, and new ways of thinking. And Keayda, it seemed, had been neglecting that for too long.

“I’m going to try and convince him to change his habits,” the Wanderer continued, “but…”

“If anyone can do it, you can,” Tetragnath said.

There was a long moment of silence as they contemplated Keayda’s affliction, until the Liar shook her head.

“Well, it seems we don’t have to worry so much about that from you,” the Liar told Kanderon. “I hear you’ve found yourself an heir?”

Kanderon smiled, then settled down by the fire to chat. Not even the passage of centuries could strip away the joys of gossip, after all.

The firelight danced across the front of the Duarch’s Library, the only untouched palace of Havath City.

ALUSTIN HAD TO admit, the whole not being dead thing was a bit of a surprise.

Being trapped in a blue aether crystal prison, within an extraplanar space, was likewise a bit of a surprise, though less than the first.

He probably should have been anxious and terrified, pacing his prison as he awaited his fate, but honestly, he couldn’t see how it would get much worse than execution— Kanderon wasn’t one for torture or the like.

Instead, he pulled out a comfortable armchair and a book to catch up on his reading. Conducting a war against an empire, after all, hardly left time for reading about Sican vertical farming or Themeseran gravitational aquaculture.

He’d only read a couple of chapters when a sudden thought occurred to him.

Alustin activated the relay golem, pulled five other books out of his storage tattoo, set them hovering in front of him, then got to reading six books at once. If he ever saw Mackerel again, he would have to thank the spellbook for resupplying him with paper during the battle— otherwise, he might have needed to use his personal library for weapons.

Assuming he was guessing right that Kanderon didn’t intend to execute him, he could really get used to this.

It was several hours until anything happened, during which time Alustin finished two books and made significant progress on all the others he was reading. Of course, he didn’t keep his attention fully on his reading— every now and then, he’d pull out Valia’s sabre from his storage tattoo, and every time he held it, it greeted him cheerfully and wordlessly.

When Kanderon finally saw fit to deign him with her presence, she didn’t ignominiously yank him out of the extraplanar space, didn’t summon him forth with booming commands.

Instead, a simple door opened in the wall in front of Alustin.

He tucked away all the books into his storage tattoo, stood up, put away his comfortable armchair, then strode confidently out the blue door.

And found himself, of all places, in a library.

He glanced around in surprise, not seeing Kanderon until he heard her clear her throat behind him.

Alustin turned around, then struggled not to jump in surprise.

Kanderon was sitting on one of the library shelves at head level in a gap in the books, her crystal body no larger than a housecat.

“What an absolutely delightful perspective,” Kanderon said. “It’s no wonder housecats are so self-satisfied all the time.”

Alustin stared in bemusement at Kanderon. “Can… can sphinxes talk to cats?”

Kanderon shook herself, then hopped off the shelf. “I hardly think that’s the most important question you could be asking. Perhaps you might be curious why you’re still alive?”

Kanderon started pacing down one of the aisles, growing with each step.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Alustin admitted, as he started to follow her. “Though I’m also curious as to where we are right now.”

“The Duarch’s Library,” Kanderon said.

“How did it survive?” Alustin asked. “It should have been destroyed by the Last Echo, let alone the chitin wand.”

“Alien magics, and lots of them,” Kanderon replied dismissively. “Really not the important question right now, though.”

The idea of running, or maybe fighting, crossed Alustin’s mind. If there was anywhere on the planet he could potentially survive a fight against Kanderon in her new form, it was in a library this size. Win? Not a chance. But escape? Maybe.

He quickly dismissed the thought, though. Not because he thought the odds were too low, but because he just genuinely didn’t see the point. With his vendetta forcibly ended, with Valia dead… all he’d do by trying to escape would be to potentially reveal his existence to the world once more, which would not only provoke a manhunt approaching one of the Grand Hunts in scale, but put Alustin’s apprentices in danger once again. With him seemingly executed by Kanderon, his foes had considerably lesser reason to target Hugh and the others.

He’d put the children through enough already.

And he had to admit, Kanderon had provoked his curiosity with that last comment.

“Alien magics?” Alustin asked.

Kanderon, now tiger-sized, looked back at him as she led him deeper and deeper into the stacks of the library, entirely unamused.

“Right, sorry,” Alustin said. “Why did you spare me?”

“Because you gave a chance for the Havathi civilians to evacuate,” Kanderon said. “Because they’re still alive, and you avoided my mistake with Imperial Ithos. No, my crime. What sort of hypocrite would I be, to execute you for a far lesser version of my own crime?”

“The Havathi civilians would have died if my plan had come entirely to fruition,” Alustin pointed out.

Kanderon shrugged her wings, with the faint tinkling of crystal. “They didn’t, though. Of course, you’re still a monster, still engaged in absolutely reprehensible acts for your vendetta. There will be ample suffering from what you’ve done— the residents of Havath City are already precipitating the greatest refugee crisis the continent of Ithos has seen in centuries. Given that refugee crises happen several times a year from rampaging great powers and the like, that really says something, I think.”

“There was no Helicotan refugee crisis,” Alustin sniped, but without any real heat.

Kanderon stopped entirely, but didn’t turn to face him. “Oh, yes, those awful Havathi civilians, they each and every one personally contributed to the destruction of your home. Especially the children who hadn’t been born yet. How evil of them.”

Alustin grimaced. Rebuttals about communal guilt raced through his head, arguments about their way of life being built off Helicote’s destruction offered themselves, but none of them passed his lips, or even passed muster.

Being a cynical bastard with an extensive education in history and political philosophy didn’t leave Alustin as much room for self-delusion as he would like. No, he’d always known and admitted to himself that he was perpetrating a wrong in answer to a wrong, itself an answer to a wrong, in a chain stretching back through history. The destruction of Helicote in response to its war of assassination, in turn in response to Havath’s wars of expansion, leading inexorably back to the destruction of Imperial Ithos, itself in response to the murder of Kanderon’s family and countless other crimes.

Alustin sighed. “You’re right. Still seems a crime worth executing me for, though.”

“Most likely, yes,” Kanderon said. “I’ve eaten former servants for considerably lesser crimes. But… few have had comparable utility as you, and I find myself desperately short on tools, in a time when I need them more than ever.”

She turned and began walking once more, and Alustin followed thoughtfully.

“I would think the downsides of using me as a tool would outweigh any advantages. You know, with me being the most hated man on Ithos right now.”

“Ah, that’s just it,” Kanderon said, then stepped through a narrow gap between shelves Alustin somehow hadn’t noticed.

Alustin stepped through behind her, then stopped in shock as he saw what lay in front of him.

“I don’t plan to use you on Ithos,” Kanderon said.

Ahead of them stretched the single largest library Alustin had ever seen, one that dwarfed even Skyhold’s Grand Library. Its impossible numbers of books hadn’t appeared to Alustin’s affinity senses until the moment he’d stepped through the mysterious gap in the shelves.

The passageway they found themselves in was at least a league in height and width, and stretched so far in length that Alustin couldn’t see the end. Of course, the fact that there were actual clouds and weather rolling through the passage certainly helped obscure his view, but he could still see for leagues, farther than the horizon on Anastis. More, he could see at least three intersections in the distance with passageways of comparable size. Thousands of smaller passageways led off the main corridor between those intersections— smaller being relative, of course. A few of them were normal, human-sized corridors, but an elder wyrm could have flown down others.

In fact, Alustin was fairly sure he could see at least one elder wyrm, about the size Ataerg had been, flying in the far distance.

Bookshelves lined the entirety of the walls, ran in great mazes across the floor, and even cropped up on the ceiling. Immense bridges, wider than a city street, crossed the vast passageway miles above the floor, themselves filled with more books than anyone could read in a lifetime. Countless floating bookshelf islands drifted between clouds, while cargo ships…

Alustin blinked at the cargo ships, realizing that a full-sized river ran across the floor of the passageway, carrying dozens of ships. Cargo ships, houseboats, bookshelf boats, even a single-person raft that had been carved entirely from a single block of wood in the shape of a book.

The entirety of the passageway was filled with life. Flocks of books greater in number than Alustin had ever seen in Skyhold winged between flying islands. Entire villages were suspended on ropes between mile-high bookshelves or crowded onto the great bridges, bustling with humans, gorgons, dragons, and a dozen other sapient species.

A few hundred feet to Alustin’s left, he could see, of all things, an orangutan shelving books.

Alustin activated the relay golem, dedicated every shard of his mind to trying to comprehend what he was seeing, and was still overwhelmed.

“Welcome,” Kanderon said, “to the Library Between Worlds. I imagine you have quite a few questions.”

Alustin sputtered, unable to formulate anything coherent. Kanderon waited patiently, amusement visible on her crystal face as he collected himself.

Finally, he managed to ask the first, and most important, question that came to mind. “How do they keep the humidity from damaging the books? The weather systems in here are far larger than we ever had in Skyhold’s Library, and we never had a full river.”

Kanderon burst out into laughter.

“Of course that’s your first question,” she said, once she’d calmed herself. “You’re a librarian to the core. The answer, of course, is magic. Lots and lots of magic.”

“Alien magics?” Alustin guessed.

“Some of it. Anastan affinity magic is very much over-represented here, though— it’s hard to beat for tasks like that. Of course, the library’s own powers take care of much of the work— it doesn’t like letting knowledge decay?”

“It doesn’t like letting knowledge decay?” Alustin asked, incredulous. “Are you saying this place is alive?”

Kanderon nodded. “The Library Between Worlds is cousin to the labyrinths. Quite possibly the greatest single creation of the Labyrinth Builders, themselves the mightiest single civilization the known multiverse has ever seen. The Library’s mapped reaches contain as much territory as a small continent, and its exits reach out into over two dozen worlds.”

Alustin realized something, then. “Wait, the entrance we just went through isn’t on a mana well. Are we still on Anastis? We can’t possibly have entered into another universe.”

Kanderon smiled widely at that. “Excellent observation. I taught you well, it seems. We have and haven’t entered into another universe— or, rather, the Library itself is a pocket universe. The only stable artificial universe membrane in existence, so far as we know— all other pocket universes rely on the membranes of true universes. As such, it can intersect other universes as it pleases, creating its own mana wells, with such efficiency that they’re nearly imperceptible. It is the only means of inter-universal travel not dependent upon mana wells. Worldgates, labyrinths, even the Exile Splinter need mana wells to operate, because mana wells are the intersections of universes, and there is no between universes. Of course, the Library chooses where it emerges, not its inhabitants, but since it always emerges in libraries or other great collections of knowledge, the Librarians Between Worlds hardly have cause to complain.”

“Are there other connections to this place in our world?” Alustin asked.

“Dozens. Keayda’s library, the libraries of numerous universities, and even more locations scattered across other continents. And, of course, our own Grand Library.”

Alustin raised an eyebrow at that. “All those years working for you, and I never once saw any hints of any such multiversal connection in the Grand Library.”

Kanderon chuckled. “Of course you have. You’re forgetting one of the first things we tell new librarians.”

Sudden, obvious realization came over Alustin.

“That many of the books in the Grand Library don’t seem to come from our world,” Alustin said, feeling like a fool.

“I always told others that the Library’s strange behavior came from interactions with the labyrinth,” Kanderon said. “But no, it came from interactions between my planar magics and the Library Between Worlds, and no matter how strongly the Expansionists tried to keep the two separate, they perpetually leaked into one another. The Library Between Worlds craves connection to places of knowledge, and it cannot be kept out.”

“So are there any books from the Labyrinth Builders here?” Alustin asked hopefully.

Kanderon shook her head. “The Labyrinth Builders didn’t use books, so far as we can tell. The Library doesn’t care so much how knowledge is recorded, so much as the mere fact that it is recorded outside of sapient minds. There are halls filled with books made of knots tied into string, recorded on clay tablets, and even stranger forms.”

“This is where your multiversal organization works from, isn’t it?” Alustin said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “This was where the destruction of Helicote was plotted.”

Kanderon gave him a gentle look. “The destruction of Helicote was plotted in Havath City, Alustin. The Dominion may have been backed by one faction of the Library Council, but the strategies of imperialists are perpetually vile on their own, without needing outside guidance. Besides, the Expansionists were only one faction among many, the majority of which hardly care at all about the outside multiverse. And it seems the Expansionists are crumbling, in no small part thanks to your own actions.”

Alustin stared at her, considering. Part of him wanted to keep hunting his foes, to rip apart what remained of the Dominion and these… Expansionists.

The rest of him, though, just kept thinking of what Hugh and his students had said. How they’d considered his revenge an obstacle, not a goal.

“So what do you want me for?” Alustin finally said. “What sort of tasks do you need a tool like me for?”

Kanderon gazed out over the vast space in front of them. “The known multiverse is a nasty, deadly place, Alustin— and it’s getting worse every year. There are multiversal factions that travel between worlds like locusts. There are brutal multiversal empires that put the Dominion or even the Ithonians to shame. There are the Secondborn remnants, the Ascendants, even the Cold Minds. And among them all, the Library Between Worlds is one of the smallest, weakest factions— yet one of the rare few who have even the remotest good intentions towards sphinxes, humans, dragons, and other sophonts. Its only true advantage is the Library itself. We are going to need every weapon we can get if we’re going to keep our little corner of the multiverse intact.”

She turned to face him fully. “And you have proven yourself an exceptional weapon— especially against empires. And even apart from the greater multiversal factions, the Expansionists have left a great number of nasty little empires across the universes the Library touches. I intend to use you to help clean them up.”

Alustin raised an eyebrow speculatively. “My atonement for causing mass chaos and killing an empire will be causing more mass chaos and killing more empires?”

Kanderon snorted. “You’re a blunt instrument right now, Alustin. I intend to turn you into a scalpel. You’ll need more training, first— Anastan magic alone certainly won’t be enough for the job. I’ll probably send you to Kemetrias first, I believe— your magic should blend in fascinating ways with theirs. Of course, I will give you the final choice of what magics you acquire— doing otherwise would work counter to my long-term goals for you. Still, I think you’ll agree about Kemetrias. I’ll also need your help training more Librarians Errant in my style. The Library Between Worlds has its own, ironically— Keayda stole the idea from the Library, and I stole it from him, before I even knew the Library Between Worlds existed. I’m rather partial to my variety of Librarians Errant over Keayda’s or the Library’s.”

Alustin interrupted before Kanderon could get begin monologuing on her plans for him.

“I still have two other questions,” Alustin said.

Kanderon paused and looked at him. “Yes?”

“First off, now that Indris is dead… why did you ever have me steal her egg? This has been bothering me for years.”

Kanderon rolled her eyes. “I was hoping to prevent Ataerg from finding out about her affair with Andas Thune, but it turned out he’d already known. Not to mention, Indris’ reaction to the theft was a bit more… extreme than anticipated, so the whole thing was a severe oversight on my part.”

“Huh,” Alustin said. “That’s… a lot more straightforward than I was expecting. I’d thought you were doing magical experimentation on the egg, or had offered it in trade to some great power with a use for it or something.”

Kanderon gave him an offended look. “Of course not! I gave it to a lovely sphinx couple on Gelid who had been looking to adopt a child. One of them is a sculptor who carves entire mountains, his husband is a tea mage who has a delightful little tea farm.”

“Sphinxes raising dragons?” Alustin said.

“It’s common enough. There are far more dragon eggs in need of adoptive parents than sphinx nestlings, after all.”

“Fair enough.”

“You had a second question?” Kanderon asked.

Alustin nodded, a little nervous about this next question.

“I can perhaps understand why you faked my death on the other grounds, but… I hurt Hugh. How can you possibly forgive me that?”

Kanderon sighed heavily and looked away, as though struggling to find her words.

Alustin waited patiently, until Kanderon was finally ready to speak.

“When a child hurts their sibling, what kind of parent delivers death as a punishment?” Kanderon finally said.

“Oh,” Alustin said, completely lost for words.

“If I had cared for you better, treated you as the hurt child you were when I met you, rather than turning you into a weapon… none of this might have happened,” Kanderon said. “None of this might have turned out this way. My own failures as a parent are as much at fault here as your own rage and resentment.”

Alustin opened and shut his mouth in confusion a few times, utterly unsure what to say, and then the moment had passed.

Kanderon strode past him, clearly still uncomfortable with her confession, and began talking about her plans for the future.

As he followed behind her, the six fragments of his mind, held apart by the relay golem, each followed different paths.

One listened along to Kanderon’s plans.

One kept examining the Library Between Worlds, still overwhelmed by its immensity.

One considered Alustin’s own future plans. It looked over his future projects, choosing which to discard and which to prioritize. He had to struggle not to smile madly at some of them.

One turned Valia’s sacrifice over and over in his mind, tried to pick apart why she had given up her own life to save him, after so many years as foes.

One simply mourned. Mourned for Valia, for Emmenson, for Artur, for his own world that he’d never get to see again.

And the last mind shard?

It kept turning Kanderon’s confession over and over again in his mind.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

Peace and Quiet

THREE MONTHS AFTER the Last Echo rang, three months after Havath City fell, Hugh and his friends found themselves once more off-world.

This time, though, they actually had guides who spoke the language.

“And this is a hammock,” their exasperated guide said.

“We have hammocks,” Sabae said, rolling her eyes.

“I just want to make sure,” the guide said. “Given, you know, that apparently you claim not to know what a beach is.”

“It’s a physical impossibility, that’s what it is,” Hugh muttered, staring at the wide strip of sand. “How does the tide not wash it away every day?”

Their guide groaned. “Look, just because you come from a horrible deathworld where every tide is practically a tsunami doesn’t mean every world is like that. This world has three to four foot tides on average.”

“You’re sure you don’t mean thirty to forty?” Talia asked, glowering at the sand.

A bulge in the sand raced by her feet— Mackerel, at least, had no issues with the beach whatsoever.

“For the last time, no. It’s three to four feet. That’s all. It’s a lovely, beautiful beach. When you’re not in lessons or studying, you relax in the hammocks, splash around in the water. It’s not that complicated!”

“Why would I want to relax on sand?” Talia demanded. “Sand is terrible.”

“And what about sea monsters?” Sabae asked.

“Ah really don’t like all these crabs runnin’ around,” Godrick called.

Their guide groaned and buried his head in his hands. “There are no sea monsters on Raigon, at least not this close to land. The crabs are just crabs. They’re like an inch long, their claws barely even hurt, and they’re terrified of people. And I don’t know what to tell you about the sand, it’s just sand.”

“Ah’ve just had really bad experiences with crabs,” Godrick explained.

“You’re sure the tide isn’t about to wash us away?” Hugh asked.

Their guide just groaned, and stalked off in irritation.

His dignity was somewhat damaged when he tripped over Mackerel, still swimming about under the sand.

Hugh and his friends carefully waited for him to be out of earshot before bursting into laughter.

They’d made something of a game of annoying that particular guide, after he’d immediately treated them as uneducated country bumpkins after they’d arrived at the Library Between Worlds training facility here on Raigon. The rest of the staff had been much friendlier, at least— which made up for how uncomfortably thin the aether was, here. It took days for their mana reservoirs to refill from even moderate use on Raigon— it was almost as bad as Emblin.

Most of their training was, surprisingly, in languages. There were, it turned out, no widely available translation magics accessible to them— so they needed to learn more than a few. There were several multiversal trade tongues to learn, as well as the formal Library tongue.

This would normally be a huge challenge for them— Ithonian speakers tended to struggle with new languages, thanks to the lingering scars from the Tongue Eater and the language enforcement the Ithonian Empire had performed. Raigon’s magic, however, was the next best thing to translation magic— it boosted memory capabilities and sensory processing significantly.

It would be another couple of months before it really started kicking in for them, unfortunately— Raigon’s magic, like Limnus’, was acquired in stages over time. For now, they’d just have to tough it out and struggle through their language lessons.

After another six months or so on Raigon, they’d be able to pick up new languages in months or even weeks, though, so the struggle was well worth it.

They didn’t want to spend too much time on Raigon, of course— the later stages of its magic became progressively stranger, even awful. By late middle age, inhabitants of Raigon became profoundly alien beings as they accumulated unnaturally larger numbers of memories each day, and their thought processes warped to a degree seldom even seen among Anastan dream mages pursuing mind modification. The elderly on Raigon, meanwhile, were universally incapable of functioning at all, even to feed themselves— they were storing years worth of memory every day. They remembered every noise, every falling leaf, every smell that they encountered, until those useless memories entirely outweighed their memories of family, friends, even language.

Raigon’s cultures were truly bizarre as a result of its magic— it had some of the most complex languages in the multiverse and some of the most convoluted ritual practices. It also tended towards the hedonistic, given the relative youth of most members of society.

Most multiversal visitors only stayed here a few years at most, though. Hugh and his friends certainly wouldn’t have to worry about their own minds being warped like that.

Once the guide was completely out of sight, Hugh and his friends took their opportunity to relax on the beach— their admittedly real discomforts with it set aside, at least for now. It really was disorienting to not have to worry about the tides.

That discomfort was very much outweighed by their need for peace and quiet. Even with Talia’s dream magic alleviating their nightmares, the past few months had been extremely difficult for all of them. Without the stress of constant overlapping crises keeping them going, all of them had collapsed into bone deep exhaustion that had only lately started to lift.

The news updates they received from Anastis were as bad as they’d feared— open warfare had halted, but a constant simmer of guerrilla mage warfare was ongoing. Knowledge of the Coven’s high-altitude flight magic had spread, leading to a number of high-altitude attacks by rogue great powers and flying bandits, while cities and nations were reworking their defenses. Dozens of new claimants to great power status had arisen, and their depredations had spread across much of the continent. The pirates of the Endless Erg were raiding with impunity while Eudaxus and Ramyl struggled to restore order, and the Tomb Guards had reported increasing numbers of attempts to breach the Sleeper in the Sand’s prison.

Even in regions less affected by the war, chaos abounded. Alikea and Tsarnassus were on the edge of war again, as Alikea sought to take advantage of the death of Casser Spellstorm and Tsarnassus’ losses at Havath city. Only increased raiding by Solintus and his cult were preventing the Alikean parliament from making a move, and that could hardly be counted as a positive. Even Intet Slew had begun raiding more frequently.

If that weren’t enough, the now-independent provinces of the Dominion were coming close to war with one another. Some were trying to reunite the Dominion and declare war on their enemies once more— only no one could agree where their new capital should be, or who should lead it. Others were determined to hold to their new independence, but threatened conflict with their neighbors over the exact lines of their borders, or over simple resource issues. One provincial governor had simply declared herself the Ithonian Emperor reborn— though which Emperor, no one seemed to know— and seemed fully intent on launching a war of conquest.

None of the former provinces had attacked another yet, but it was likely only a matter of time. On top of all that, the ongoing refugee crisis had left many of the new nations deeply unstable.

That didn’t even get into the poisoning of the Greywise River. Enough alchemical toxins had leaked into it from the ruined demesnes of the Intertwined that even if times were peaceful it would have taken years for mages to clean up the river.

There was also the new great power that had been born from the merger of the Ninemetal Blade and its wielder. The new person that had resulted from their mind-merge was a bit of a mixed blessing— they seemed dedicated towards protecting former Havathi subjects, but they were highly erratic and unpredictable, and no one was quite sure whether they’d ever become fully sane. Kanderon had confided quite a few worries to Hugh on the topic— the last thing the region needed was another insane great power wandering around.

About the only bright spot in the former Dominion was in the south— the Rust Queen didn’t have much love for her former masters. In return for Kanderon helping her gather her family, scattered across the former Dominion, the Rust Queen had become a queen in truth, uniting the three southernmost former provinces into a single kingdom that served as a buffer against Sica.

The continent at large was watching her carefully, hoping that her long imprisonment had helped her restrain her deadly temper and impulsive nature.

Speaking of Sica, their ambitions showed few signs of abating, even with how badly they’d over-extended themselves. Not to mention, it would take years, or even decades, to clean up from the Sican invasion— between the poisons the Sicans had used in battle, the topsoil they’d drained utterly of nutrients with their plant magic, and the various floral booby-traps they’d left behind, they’d turned much of the region into a hellish wasteland.

At least there hadn’t been too much trouble in the Skyreach Range— the mountain clans were largely at peace for the moment, though Clan Castis was trying to call a Grand Hunt against Intet Slew. And, thankfully to Hugh’s mind, there hadn’t been any bad news from Highvale yet, though all his friends were still wagering that Rhodes would launch a coup against his family sooner than later.

Hugh didn’t envy Kanderon’s position— when she wasn’t flying about crushing upstart great powers, she was spending nearly all her time in complex negotiations. She barely had time to exchange more than a few messages with Hugh through Mackerel as it was— though as political systems rebuilt themselves, he hoped she would have more time for him again soon.

He’d never confronted her about Alustin, and despite his friends’ occasional curiosity, none of them had ever asked him to. He didn’t know if he ever wanted to see his former teacher again, nor what he’d say if he did. They’d had closure of a sorts in the ruins of Havath City, and for now, they were all happy avoiding Alustin.

Hugh took a deep breath, as he gazed out over the beach, and over the gentle waves lapping the shore. He watched Sabae using her limited mana to launch herself out of the water like a dolphin, Mackerel dancing in her wake. He watched Godrick painstakingly crystallize an anti-crab ward into the beach around them, every now and then scratching at his truly terrible attempt at a beard.

Then Talia called for Hugh to join her in one of the hammocks, and he smiled and joined her.

For now, Hugh and the others didn’t need to worry about any of the ongoing crises. Not the chaotic political situation of the Ithonian continent, not the rumors of what was going on in the greater multiverse, and not even Alustin.

No, they just needed to study new languages, gain a new magic, and rest. After years of near-constant crisis, they were finally getting a chance to just breathe again.

It still seemed unreal to him. Part of him was still convinced that a monster would jump out at them at any moment, or that they’d get embroiled in some sort of civil war here on Raigon, or something absurd like that. Learning to let his constant guard down was an endless struggle for Hugh.

But every now and then, he managed it. Every now and then, he was able to relax, and just enjoy his time with his friends.

As he snuggled with Talia in the hammock overlooking the beach, Hugh took another deep breath, and slowly let it out.

He could get used to this.

AFTERWORD

IT HAS BEEN one heck of a journey since I started writing Mage Errant. Hugh and company’s adventures took me from being a college dropout working a dead-end job to being a full-time novelist traveling the world, and then getting married and settling down in Vietnam. I may have written them, but Hugh, Talia, Sabae, and Godrick changed my life.

Thanks, gang.

And thanks to all of you readers for sticking with their story, for following them to end of Mage Errant. I’m still amazed that so many of you enjoyed Mage Errant enough to keep paying for it, and it means the world to me.

I get asked frequently whether Hugh and company will return someday, and the answer is absolutely, unequivocally yes. It’ll be a while— I’ve got a lot of other stories I want to tell and worlds I want to explore first— but Hugh and his friends are integrally bound up in the fate of the Aetheriad, of the Known Multiverse.

As of this writing, I’m already hard at work on the next series in the multiverse, More Gods Than Stars, a New Weird-inspired sword and sorcery trilogy. It’s set on Ishveos, a habitable gas giant moon with a mimic-based ecosystem, millions of gods (ranging from powerful city-gods to the gods of individual kitchens and street corners), and a megastructure arcology city growing unstoppably across the land. There were even a few hints about it here in The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells.

Oh, and if you’re looking for more Mage Errant content, you can check out my Patreon at www.patreon.com/johnbierce, where I post monthly short stories set in the Known Multiverse. Or, if Patreon isn’t your style, I’m releasing a Mage Errant short story anthology, The Gorgon Incident and Other Tales, later this year!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me on Twitter (@john_bierce), on Reddit (u/johnbierce), or via my website, www.johnbierce.com. You can also go to my website for news about the Mage Errant series, other upcoming works, and random thoughts about fantasy, worldbuilding, and whatever else pops in my mind. The best way to keep updated on new releases is to sign up for my mailing list, which you can find on my website. You can also discuss Mage Errant with other fans on the r/MageErrant subreddit, at www.reddit.com/r/MageErrant!

Cover art by Aaron McConnell and Lee Moyer.

Special thanks to my beta readers Travis Riddle, Tobias Begley, Sarah Lin, Andrew Rowe, Maxwell Siegel, Sundeep Agarwal, Otto Schloegl, Charissa Williams, F James Blair, Gregory Gleason, and Samuel Hinton!

Further special thanks to my $5 level Patreon subscribers Ryan Campbell, Cortney Railsback, James Titterton, Ruediger Pakmor, Josh Fink, Otto Schloegl, Andy Barnett, Christian, Kyle Matthews, Daniel Williams, AARON F SIU TOUNG, Paolo Ruiz, Stephin Neville, Jeff Petkau, Nathaniel Lunsted, Acoga, Cory Leigh Rahman, Jacob William Perkins, Jeff Chang, Mikal hofstad, Branden Rudolph, Florian Kotnik, Robert I rodabaugh, Joseph Lee, Jeremy miller, Andrew Alves, Anika Howard, Leah & Justin Treptow-Miller, Zachary Tilson, David Kidd, Frankie Hernandez, Dylan Alexander, Nathaniel Ownbey, Tim, Marc Chang, Jesse Boles, Moonsong, Chris Ironside, Artgor, Oken, Holly Edge, Doom, Clyde Williams, Kharokit, Colin Huber, Timothy Felker, ziv plotnik, David Mckenzie, Eric Rood, Ryan Cosgrove, Ramsey Hufford, Connor Brennan, Udy Kumra, Zeyaad Pandey, Kwane Ricks, Lucian von Brevern, Harrison Hogan, Andy Marx, Charis .Kotfila, Kientha, Andrew Tobin, Aleksie Besogonov, Tyderion, Ryan McWilliams, Van Tarver, BoboTheTroll, Nikki, Peter Trško, Donovan Banh, Nathan Cutler, Lazlo, Munirah Hutchinson, Andrei, E.Anthony.H, Justin Barnett, octopuddin, P1nner, Brad Barnes, Sean Elliott, Archer, JasonD, William Organ, Casey Connelly, Michael Redman, John Berrett, Michael Lody, Jacob, Harrison Hogan, Lukas Ketner, Mikel Gray, Matthew Feril, Calvin Brindley, michael prescott, Cody Luna, Andrea Jensen, Tiffany Hamilton, bbjace, Derek Sweiger , Orthes, Noah Swartwood, Robert Tafoya, 0ersor0, Lloyd Hale, Justin Sorensen, Dominic Hills, Nìlat, Joao Souza, Raymond Lenihan, Vic "Puck" Florist, Duncan, B Dryad, Jared Gerhardt, Wonkula, Kristofer, Alex, Shibby Says, Charles Hernandez, Jacob Beisel, Valerie Keryk, Scott Meyer, Gareth Gavan, Tpaeart, Ben, James Evans, Emmy Sivertsen, Rodrigo Mireles, Jeremy Rosa, Kaeson, John Glover, Jordan Dodds, Samuel, Haven Lee Murphy, david tavera, Tobias Begley, bronson kerr, Kha Nguyen, Jacob Gorenburg, Valerie Prevosnak, Ash Black, The Shard, Jose Caudillo, JP, Brennon Woolridge, David Coleman, Julene May, Josh Chappell, Zack Leach, CAMILLA GRAHAM, Michael Guder, Pride mystic artificer, Leon Elcock, Amotz Oppenheim, Eric Wolf, Lex Cazares-Salazar, Joshua Day, Mo, Nicole Sakowitz, dawsen Morgan, Nathan Welch, Lala, Lila, Daniel Levitt, Takoda Sons, Kirk Robey, Zakk Getz, Tyler Price, Alyxandria Zavetnya, Wesley D Lin, End Well

AETHERIAD

MAGE ERRANT IS part of the Aetheriad, a set of stories by me that are all located in the same overarching multiverse. The different settings all have ties and links to one another, and I’m planning to bring them all together in a grand finale series eventually.

Mage Errant: Magic school, kaijucratic governments, the works. You just finished it, so I hope you know what it’s about, hah!

The Wrack: Standalone epidemiological fantasy novel following a plague across a continent. Awkwardly came out at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Features a novel-in-stories plot structure and a magic system that lets people see into the inner workings of things by replacing an eye with a gemstone.

More Gods Than Stars: My upcoming New Weird-inspired Sword and Sorcery trilogy. It’s set on Ishveos, a habitable gas giant moon with a mimic-based ecosystem, millions of gods (ranging from powerful city-gods to the gods of individual kitchens and street corners), and a megastructure arcology city growing unstoppably across the land.

FURTHER READING

IF YOU ENJOYED The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells, you might also enjoy:

The Umbral Storm, book one of The Sharded Few, by Alec Hutson: A fast-paced, action packed progression fantasy novel with one of the coolest settings of any fantasy series I’ve encountered in years. Absolutely worth a read. (Are there tree crabs? Yes. Yes there are. And do you really need anything other than tree crabs in life?)

Titan Hoppers, book one of Titan Hoppers, by Rob J Hayes: A dark progression science fantasy novel, set on a refugee fleet of spaceships following around a massive, moon-sized larger ship filled with monsters, traps, and the resources needed to keep the refugees alive. Incredibly fun books in a super cool setting.

Soul Relic, book one of Manifestation, by Samuel Hinton: I’m a huge fan of environmentalist fiction, but it’s not usually anywhere near as action-packed or just plain fun as Soul Relic. I definitely recommend it to fans of both progression fantasy and environmentalist fiction.

Mark of the Fool, book one of Mark of the Fool, by J.M. Clark: Mark of the Fool strives to be as classic of a D&D-style fantasy setting, and it achieves it masterfully. It’s living proof that execution is far more important than novelty in writing, and I’m a huge fan.

Mageling, book one of Millenial Mage, by J.L. Mullins: There are plenty of books where new mages have to face ancient threats and deadly monsters. In Millenial Mage, however, the greatest foe is one far more terrifying: student loans. (There are still a few ancient threats and deadly monsters, of course.)

Blood of a Novice, book one of The Eternal Ephemera, by Davis Ashura: Have you ever imagined about what it would be like if Stand By Me was the prologue to a ridiculously epic progression fantasy novel with talking pandas and demon-producing tumors in the land itself? Because that’s what Blood of a Novice is, and it’s great.