The Siege of Skyhold

Mage Errant Book 5

John Bierce

To caffeine.

Also to my little brother L., who dreams of the stars.

Mostly to caffeine, though.

Copyright © 2021 John Bierce

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Breathe

Hugh Stormward, once known as Hugh of Emblin, couldn’t breathe.

“Should I get the healer?” Talia asked him.

Hugh shook his head between coughs and let Talia and Godrick help him over to a nearby fallen log.

The coughing finally subsided after another minute or two, and Hugh took shallow, gentle breaths to avoid aggravating his lungs.

He gingerly felt his side, but he didn’t seem to have recracked any of his ribs this time. He’d already done that three times during coughing fits— even with magical healing, it would be a while before his broken ribs were fully healed.

Sabae offered him a waterskin, and he gratefully sipped from it.

While he got his breath back, Hugh took a moment to look around the valley.

They’d been in this little, sheltered valley in the Skyreach Range for several weeks while Hugh recovered from his injuries, but he’d only gotten permission from Grennan, the Librarian Errant healer, to join his friends in exploring it a couple days ago. If Hugh had been healthy, he probably could have covered the width of the valley in half a day.

As it was, it had taken him half an hour to cover just the short distance to the lake, even with his friends’ help.

In some ways, the small, sealed-off valley reminded him a little of Emblin. The trees were mostly pine and cedar, and though the birds were different than Emblin’s, they were oddly comforting after so much time spent in the desert, at sea, or in the jungle.

Even with all the reasons Hugh had to hate Emblin, he did miss its alpine forests at times. After his parents and sister had died, he’d spent most of his time wandering the woods to avoid his extended family.

“Are yeh goin’ ta’ be alright ta’ walk back ta’ the cave?” Godrick asked.

Hugh shrugged, not wanting to worry about it just yet. He glanced back at the cave, where he could see Kanderon conferring with several of her Librarians Errant. Not that cave really described it adequately. When they’d moved down into this valley from their prior location, Kanderon, Artur, and Godrick had used their magic to carve it out of solid stone in less than a day. It had grand halls large enough to fit the barn-sized sphinx, balconies for all the rooms, and even clear quartz windows Kanderon had recrystallized from the greenschist of the mountain.

Across the rest of the mountainside, the greenschist just looked like any other stone, with only a faint green tint, but it had been polished until the stone of the cave was a green nearly vibrant enough for jewelry. The polished, faintly oily-looking stone was a stunning sight.

The Librarians Errant had even filled the rooms with furniture taken from their storage tattoos. Not for the first time, Hugh wondered how much space the tattoos actually contained.

The colossal sphinx was busy dealing with the aftermath of Imperial Ithos’ return, but every time Hugh left the cave, Kanderon somehow ended up in a position where she could keep an eye on him. It had been weeks since Hugh was wounded during the battle over the lost city, and Kanderon had barely let him out of her sight since.

Part of Hugh resented being coddled, but another part found it oddly comforting. At the moment, he honestly couldn’t take care of himself— he still spent most of his time sleeping.

When Hugh was feeling better, he let Talia and Godrick help him back up again, and the four of them set out toward the lake again.

“Any word from Kanderon on when Alustin will be back?” Sabae asked him.

Hugh shook his head. Alustin had left almost a week ago on a scouting expedition to watch for Havathi activity in the mountains near them. Hugh found it a little strange that someone with a farseeing affinity would need to personally visit places, but scrying and counter-scrying was, apparently, a complex game of cat and mouse, and a seer changing their location could help them peer through magical defenses.

Hugh was growing to appreciate his spellbook’s anti-scrying abilities more as he learned about scrying. Its blanket denial of scrying was incredibly rare— even Kanderon didn’t have a mobile defense against seers like his spellbook.

Speaking of which…

Hugh reached out mentally, calling Mackerel to him. He struggled not to chuckle at the name. Talia had chosen it, and despite the repeated efforts of Kanderon and Sabae, the spellbook now refused to answer to anything else.

He heard a loud cracking noise in the distance, followed by the noise of splintering wood and falling debris.

As usual, Hugh found it best to not try and imagine what sort of nonsense Mackerel was up to. His sanity tended to do much better that way.

When they reached the lake a couple minutes later, Hugh gratefully sank down on a conveniently sized boulder on the lakeshore. Talia settled down next to him, while Godrick and Sabae took their shoes off to go into the lake.

They weren’t planning to go swimming or have fun, though. The two of them had been training compulsively ever since the battle for Imperial Ithos. Sabae was trying to figure out some new technique that she’d thought of during the battle, while Godrick…

Godrick seemed to blame himself for Hugh’s burns.

Mackerel arrived a moment later, settling down on the boulder with a theatrically innocent look. Hugh carefully moved one of Sabae’s books— some dry treatise on political philosophy— away from the spellbook.

Hugh glanced back at the cave and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Talia asked.

Hugh picked up Mackerel, flipping the green crystal spellbook open to a random page and tracing his finger across it, pushing just a little mana into the pages. The crystalline structure shifted inside the page, forming flaws in the shapes of letters.

It took half an hour to walk down here, Hugh wrote. It should have taken a third of that.

“You’ll be back to normal soon enough,” Talia said. “Proper healing takes time.”

She reached out and took Hugh’s hand. He gave her a frustrated look, but nodded.

When they returned to the cave, Hugh had to put up with the indignity of being carried. The walk uphill quickly proved too much for him, and Godrick had scooped him up like a child.

Of course, Godrick was big enough that Hugh basically was child-sized to him, so it wasn’t exactly hard.

Partially out of gratitude and partially out of spite, Hugh used a levitation cantrip to lower his weight down to almost nothing, but that had led to even greater indignities, with his friends gently tossing him around like a ball.

Hugh barely restrained himself from laughing, not wanting to cough more. That failed when Talia hefted him into the air with one hand and started flexing her muscles.

The resulting coughing fit was almost worth it.

When they arrived back at the cave, they found that Alustin had returned.

What’s more, he was wounded.

“At least two full flights of dragons,” Alustin said. “A mix of Sacred Swordsmen and battlemages riding them, and even a few regular soldiers.”

“Hold still,” Grennan said.

The healer gently shoved the paper mage back down onto the stone slab outside the cave as he tended to a sword wound on Alustin’s leg. It didn’t look too deep, but Hugh still felt a little queasy looking at it.

He quickly turned his attention back to the ward surrounding the slab that kept the crowd of Librarians Errant at least fifteen feet away from Alustin.

The ward appeared to be… some sort of toxin ward? He’d never seen anything exactly like it before. Its construction was fairly normal— just chalk on stone— but the actual spellform construction was unusually minimal and streamlined.

He couldn’t help but think the ward seemed familiar, somehow.

Hugh waved to get Kanderon and Alustin’s attention, then pointed to the ward.

“Hello, Hugh!” Alustin called cheerfully. “Good to see you finally up and about!”

“I still think he should be in bed,” Kanderon muttered. Of course, a mutter from the barn-sized sphinx was as loud as a shout from anyone else.

Hugh pointed at the ward again.

“I had a bit of a run-in with some Havathi,” Alustin said. “I was, uh… forced to use a contingency device Kanderon gives to the Librarians Errant.”

“Call it what it is,” Grennan snapped. “It’s an airborne alchemical toxin, and I still object to its use.”

Judging by the expressions on the faces of the Librarians Errant standing around, this was an old and well-trodden argument.

“Skyhold alchemists developed the contingency device out of research into the toxins that render the southern polar regions inimical to most life, after a failed exploration effort,” Alustin said to Hugh and the other apprentices. “Librarians Errant are given dangerous alchemical treatments for years to render us resistant to the toxin, but it’s still best to avoid getting it on the skin or inhaling it. I’ll need to stay behind this ward until Grennan can confirm there aren’t any traces left on or inside me. We especially want to keep it away from you, given the state of your lungs, Hugh.”

“How bad is it?” Sabae asked. She had something of a shocked look on her face, and Hugh didn’t blame her—

“You heard me say how many Havathi it killed just now, right?” Alustin asked.

The group nodded.

“All that in just a few minutes after exposure. If I were to activate it inside a city, it could probably kill thousands.”

“Why didn’t you use it in Ithos?” Talia asked.

Alustin raised a brow at that. “For one thing, the four of you and Artur were there, and none of you have developed an immunity to it. For another, Ithos is upstream of Zophor, and it almost certainly would have gotten into the river, and I have no idea if his water filtration systems would have been able to keep the toxin out of his citizen’s drinking water. Or, for that matter, what it would have done to the wildlife of the river.”

“Ah’m properly appreciative,” Artur said, from the other side of the circle.

Kanderon cleared her throat. “If we’re done sharing Librarian Errant secrets with the apprentices, can we get on with the debrief?”

Alustin nodded. “The Havathi are out in force. There’s a whole army of scouts and mages working through the eastern Skyreach range, both on foot and in the air. It’s almost certainly the largest mobilization of Havathi forces outside their territory since the last war.”

“How far are they from the valley?” Kanderon asked. She shot Hugh a glance as she did so. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that it was a worried one.

“We’ve got at least a week before we have to either leave or fight,” Alustin said. “The Havathi are securing territory in the mountains slowly and methodically, not rushing after us. When they do get closer, however, they’re certainly not going to miss the valley.”

“We should consider returning to Skyhold,” one of the Librarians Errant suggested. Hugh didn’t recognize him, but he’d only been introduced to about half the mages there.

Kanderon shook her head. “I want Hugh as healthy as possible before we move. I don’t want travel making his condition worse, and Skyhold’s enough of a snake pit even when you’re in good shape.”

“With all due apologies to Hugh, there are more important concerns at the moment,” the Librarian said. “The Skyhold Council’s messages are getting more and more frantic. It’s only a matter of time before Havath formally declares war, and you need to be there to help keep things under control.”

Kanderon gave the man a flat look. “We’ll be back at Skyhold long before any significant Havathi forces arrive. There are clear procedures for preparing Skyhold for war, they merely need to follow them.”

“It would go more smoothly if you were there,” Alustin pointed out from inside the ward.

“I’m no general,” Kanderon said. “Headmaster Tarik and other members of the council have far more skill and knowledge at that sort of preparation.”

“Wars are won and lost on morale, not by simply killing all your enemies,” another Librarian said. “If you’re there, it will do wonders for Skyhold’s morale.”

The sphinx snorted loudly at that. “Killing all my enemies has worked for me often enough in the past.”

Kanderon started debriefing Alustin in-depth. Hugh followed his friends into the cave as the small crowd dispersed, and he tried to ignore all the significant looks he was getting from the Librarians Errant.

This wasn’t the first time this argument had happened in the last couple weeks. As far as he could tell, the Librarians Errant were right that Kanderon should be heading back to Skyhold in haste. She was absolutely needed at Skyhold, both to help prepare its defenses and raise morale.

The only reason for her to stay was Hugh.

He wasn’t sure whether he was more comforted or more unnerved by that.

CHAPTER TWO

Philosophy of Armor

Hugh knew he was recovering absurdly fast, at least by normal standards. Without a healer, he would have died in Ithos, and even if he’d miraculously survived, it would have taken years to recover, if ever. He was feeling stronger every day, able to walk longer without exhausting himself and talk longer without breaking down into coughing.

Though that still didn’t stop him from feeling endlessly frustrated with the speed of his progress.

Or with the way his body kept swelling up with fluids every night as he slept. Most mornings, he could barely move, he was so puffy and swollen. Apparently, his body didn’t understand that it wasn’t burnt any longer, and kept trying to heal burns that weren’t there anymore. According to Grennan, it took the body time to catch up with magical healing— longer the worse the healed injuries were.

He was getting fewer headaches than he had been, at least, and his mental focus was getting back to normal more swiftly than his body was.

On the third day after Alustin’s return, he came to an abrupt realization.

He was idly tracing some of the wards in the cave with his eyes, Mackerel dozing next to him, when the realization came to him. The wards seemed deeply familiar, for some reason. It was as if…

Hugh carefully stood up and grabbed Mackerel off the ground, much to the sleeping spellbook’s surprise and disorientation. Not for the first time, Hugh reminded himself that he needed to get Mackerel a new strap.

Mind racing, Hugh stalked off to find Alustin.

He found the paper mage working at a table on the second floor of the cave, repetitiously copying complex glyphs on page after page of paper. Alustin’s magic, for all its combat effectiveness, required significantly more preparation time than many other battle mages.

“Loarna’s here,” Hugh said.

Alustin raised an eyebrow.

Hugh opened up the still-groggy Mackerel to write in, to save his voice.

I recognize her ward work, Hugh wrote. It’s elegant, it’s precise, and it uses as few ward-lines as possible to accomplish its tasks. I can’t even make my wards as lean and efficient as hers, even with will imbuing. Not that I really want to. I prefer more redundancies in my wards. She’s definitely here.

“You’re right, she is,” Alustin said. “What of it?”

I need to speak to her, Hugh wrote.

“Loarna’s a deeply private person,” Alustin said. “She has… difficulties… with people. Her unusual class structure isn’t merely an educational eccentricity on her part. If you’re just wanting to speak with her out of curiosity, I can’t in good conscience…”

Tell her I’m working on a recombinant noncontiguous ward, and I need advice, Hugh wrote.

Alustin blinked at that. “I… I’m honestly not even sure what to say to that. That seems a bit absurd, to be honest. I don’t see why you’d need recombinant wards in the first place, since they’re mainly intended as a way for mages like myself to put up a ward in a hurry, which isn’t a problem for you. And are noncontiguous wards even theoretically possible? I’m not even sure what the combination would do, look like, or be needed for.”

Hugh just smiled at Alustin.

Finally, the gangly paper mage sighed. “I’ll let her know. But in exchange, I need you to do something for me. I need you to talk to Kanderon.”

Hugh gave Alustin a curious look.

“Skyhold needs Kanderon back, Hugh. You’re the only reason she’s staying put here, and I suspect you’re the only one who can convince her to move.”

Hugh hesitated, then nodded. The thought made part of him deeply uncomfortable, and he had no idea how he could convince Kanderon of anything, but he would try, at least.

He needed to talk to Kanderon about his noncontiguous ward idea anyhow, so it wasn’t out of his way.

“I don’t understand what you mean by the philosophy of my armor,” Sabae said.

Artur scratched at his beard and grimaced. It was a frequent tell Sabae had noticed from the stone mage when he was deep in thought.

“Armor doesn’t just… stop yeh from gettin’ hurt,” Artur said. “It has to have a specific means of doing so, of preventing the power of an attack from getting to you.”

“My wind?” Sabae asked. She glanced in puzzlement at the others. They were all sitting at a table grown out of the stone of the cave’s upper balcony, looking out over their little valley. Godrick didn’t seem to be paying attention— he was repeatedly shifting a lump of sand into quartzite, then back into sand. Talia just shrugged, then sipped her revolting Tsarnassan fermented tea.

“Nah, not that sort a’ means,” Artur said. “It might be best if ah explain it by example. Take a metal breastplate. It protects yeh via redistribution. The force from a sword-strike gets spread out across the whole breastplate and doesn’t bring enough force ta’ bear on any one spot ta’ cause yeh harm. The redistribution a’ force is the means, not the metal itself. Or take a regular windshield, not yer weird one. It doesn’t redistribute force, it bleeds it off and redirects it. It forces an attack ta’ waste its energy on the windshield. It’s that drainin’, that pushin’ against, that does the trick there. Godrick, are yeh even paying attention?”

Godrick shook his head, not taking his eyes off his lump of half-fused quartzite. “You’ve given me this lecture before, Da. I’m training my lithification spells.”

“A refresher wouldn’t hurt yeh,” Artur said. “Yeh’ll need ta’ consider yer own armor’s philosophy soon enough— just mimickin’ mine won’t be enough. And why are yeh so focused on lithification spells?”

“Yeh said they make yer stone magic more powerful?” Godrick asked.

Artur gave his son a long, considering look, then sighed. “It does improve yer control over stone, but only types a’ stone yeh practice makin’ with the spells. Make sure ta’ vary yer practice.”

“What’s the philosophy behind your armor?” Sabae asked.

“Sheer size?” Talia suggested.

Artur snorted at that. “Pretty much. Alustin’s armor is more interestin’— the outer layers a’ his crumple ta’ waste the force a’ attacks, while the inner ones are incredibly strong, and almost as good as steel at redistributin’ impacts. Not great against blades, but still impressive fer paper. But how armor protects yeh is only part a’ the question. There’s also how yeh move in it, how long it takes ta’ put on— there’s a lot goin’ inta the construction of regular armor other than just materials, and even more inta mage armor. And there’s no one best way ta’ build armor, either— different approaches are better fer different situations.”

“So mine would be… spinning? Redirection?” Sabae asked.

Artur shrugged. “Might be. Yeh’ll need ta’ give it some serious thought. Ah’ve never heard a’ armor or magic exactly like yers, and who’s ta’ say where it’ll end up? Maybe yeh’ll even figure out that weavin’ idea.”

Sabae frowned at that. She’d been absolutely convinced that weaving the different parts of her magic together in her armor would work, instead of trying to layer or merge them. She’d thought that was the direction Alustin was pushing her, but wanted her to figure it out the hard way.

When she’d said that to him after the battle in the ruins of Ithos, however, he just gave her a blank look, then told her that weaving her armor sounded like a terrible idea and that he’d been leading her in no such direction.

For the first time, Sabae found herself disagreeing with Alustin about how to do magic. For all her other disagreements with him, she had never had any doubt in his training or knowledge. It was rather surprising how uncomfortable she felt about disagreeing with him about this.

“So, uh…” Talia said. “What about wards?”

Artur smiled widely at that. “Ah’m glad yeh asked. Wards are a bit weird in this regard— they work by changin’ the rules fer a space, or at least the rules a’ the borders a’ the space. They’re not pushin’ against or redistributin’ force, they’re makin’ it impossible fer attacks ta’ enter the space at all.”

Talia nodded absently, then sighed.

“I think I need my own armor,” she said.

Everyone gave her startled looks at that.

“I thought you said armor was for people with insufficient firepower?” Sabae asked.

Talia pulled up her sleeve, revealing a fresh, ugly scar on her shoulder. Her spellform tattoos had already started healing over it, but it was still the first thing the eye was drawn to.

“I was wrong,” Talia said. “If I’d been a second slower burning Grovebringer’s arrow out of me, I would have died, a tree growing out of my corpse. You all have defensive armor, even Alustin. Hugh has his wards, but I have… nothing. I can’t always be the fastest to cast spells, or be able to notice ambushers before they notice me.”

Sabae thought about teasing the redhead about the admission, but decided against it when she noticed how serious the other girl looked.

“What were yeh thinkin?” Artur said. “Neither a’ yer affinities are particularly well suited ta’ armor— despite the fact bone mages are usually some a’ the best on defense. Were yeh wantin’ ta’ commission physical armor, or?…”

“I don’t know,” Talia said. “I’d actually been trying to create mobile floating wards out of dreamfire around myself. The only problem is that dreamfire is really unstable and shifts around a lot, especially in any sort of breeze, so I haven’t been able to make any stable wards so far. I’d prefer not to commission enchanted armor because that’d be absurdly expensive, even for me. I had a couple other ideas involving wards, too, but I just don’t know enough about them to know if they’d work.”

“Have yeh talked ta’ Hugh about the wards?” Artur asked.

Talia shook her head. “He’s still healing, and I’m sure he’d think my ward ideas were terrible, and…”

“Talk ta’ Hugh about it,” Artur interrupted. “Ah’m sure he’d welcome the distraction and be happy ta’ help yeh. Also, did yeh forget that yeh’re datin’, now? Yeh’re bein’ ridiculous. Actually, all three a’ yeh are bein’ a bit ridiculous, as though yeh need ta’ get powerful all at once. It’s not a race.”

“Tell that ta’ Havath,” Godrick said. “We could have died in Ithos. Hugh almost did, and if ah’d been a little faster, or a little more powerful, maybe ah coulda prevented him bein’ injured in the first place.”

Talia nodded at that, and Sabae hesitated, but followed suit a moment later.

Artur chuckled. “Yeh’re not even eighteen, and yeh’re already each more dangerous than an average battlemage, and yeh think that’s not enough?”

Godrick didn’t say anything, just turned back to his lithification practice. Sabae and Talia just stared at Artur.

The big mage sighed. “Yeh’ve all got a lot ta’ learn still. Yeh’ll get more powerful, but there’s a lot a’ risk in rushin’ it. Can’t tell yeh how many apprentices ah’ve seen injure themselves, tryin’ ta’ go too fast.”

“The Havath Dominion doesn’t seem likely to be patient and give us all the time we need,” Sabae said.

Artur started to respond, then frowned and started scratching at his beard.

Sabae stayed silent— Artur was the type to dig in if you pushed him too hard, but if you stepped back, he’d stumble forward soon enough.

Finally, he sighed. “There are ways. Most a’ them aren’t worth it, and a lot a’ the others involve sacrificing yer future growth or even yer health, but ah can think of a’ few things we can do.”

All three of the apprentices leaned in at that.

“First,” Artur said, “we can try an’ talk Kanderon inta givin’ yeh all those storage tattoos the Librarians Errant all have early. Ah’ve often wished ah had one mahself, though not enough ta’ join the Librarians Errant. Probably not what yeh were thinkin’ of, ah know, but don’t underestimate the value of being able ta’ carry anythin’ yeh need with yerself. Though, Talia, ah’m not sure it’ll be possible fer yeh ta’ get one, given how many tattoos yeh already got.”

Talia hesitated. “I… I think I might actually know how to get around that. I’ll need to think about it, though.”

Sabae nodded, trying not to seem too eager about getting one of those tattoos. That would be a huge advantage. Plus, it would just be nice to keep her hands free more often.

“Ah don’t know much about magical tattoos, so that’s something we’ll need ta’ talk ta’ an expert about,” Artur said. “Next, however, we can put yeh in an accelerated curriculum. More class hours each day, and puttin’ off everythin’ that isn’t a magic class. Yeh’ll still need ta’ take those classes eventually— Skyhold requirements aside, ah’m not havin’ mah son lack a basic education in history— but it’ll give yeh the time ta’ accelerate yer trainin’. Ah’ll have ta’ run that by Alustin, though. Ah’m not even sure ah should— it’s uncomfortably easy ta’ sacrifice the future fer the present, doin’ that sort a’ thing.”

“I was hopin’ yeh might have somethin’ more unusual, not just more classes,” Godrick said.

Artur gave his son a serious look. “Yeh’re as powerful as yeh are because a’ what yeh learned in class. And none a’ yeh are as far along with yer magic as yeh could be. Especially Sabae— yeh’ve got a whole fourth affinity yeh aren’t even usin’ yet. And Godrick, yeh barely know how ta’ use yer scent affinity, beyond a handful a’ specific spells.”

Sabae winced and ran her hand down one of her scars. She’d known she needed to start learning to use her lightning affinity eventually, but she still sometimes dreamt about the pain she’d felt the first time she’d tried to learn to use lightning back in Ras Andis.

“Mah scent affinity doesn’t make any sense,” Godrick muttered. “All the spells are bizarrely specific, and… ah dunno, just weird.”

Artur shrugged. “We need ta’ find yeh a teacher, then. Ah’ve been lookin’ fer one fer a while, but ah can pick up the pace even more. And ah have some other, more unusual ideas fer yeh all, but ah’ll need ta’ do some thinkin’ and research before I get yer hopes up.”

Godrick scowled, and Sabae gave him a sympathetic look.

CHAPTER THREE

Loarna of the Vault

Kanderon was doing something inscrutable with crystals when Hugh finally felt like he was ready to speak to her the next day.

She had set up a hovering grid of crystals in mid-air and was rapidly shuffling them around with her magic in an orderly pattern. What, exactly, the order was, Hugh couldn’t say. Next to her, a crystal pen was rapidly writing out numbers in a book on the floor, occasionally stopping to dip itself in an inkwell.

“It’s somewhat like an abacus,” Kanderon said, unprompted.

Hugh gave her a confused look.

Kanderon paused the movement of the crystal grid and gestured at it. “It’s like an abacus, but designed to handle far more complex mathematical operations. The location and quantity of crystals stand in for various numbers and operations. Much of it would be familiar to you if I wrote it out, since I’ve been teaching you the foundations for this math for some time now.”

Hugh opened Mackerel and wrote in him.

You’re planning a spatial affinity spell?

Kanderon frowned at that. “Not a spatial affinity spell, a planar one. They’re highly similar, yet still distinct. I’ve told you this before.”

What’s the difference?

“Planar is to spatial what iron is to steel, stellar is to solar, or stone is to granite.”

So… weaker? But didn’t you develop our planar affinity artificially? Why would you choose the weaker one?

“I also developed our stellar affinity artificially. Crystal is our only natural affinity. As for why… weaker, yes, but more versatile, able to affect more.”

Hugh sat on the stone near Kanderon to consider that. She stared at him for a moment, and then a chair began crystallizing out of the stone floor beneath him. Mostly garnet, it felt like.

It wasn’t precisely the most comfortable seat, but it was better than just sitting on the cave floor.

“Thank you,” he said out loud.

Kanderon nodded.

So I think I understand why you’d pick a stellar affinity over a solar affinity— I suppose a stellar affinity might be more effective at night, when we see better? But I honestly don’t understand what greater versatility means at all when it comes to planar versus spatial affinities.

Kanderon actually smiled at that. “While stellar affinities are slightly more effective than solar affinities at night, it’s a narrow margin, and not the reason I chose our affinities. Stellar affinities work under the light of any star, while solar affinities only work well under the light of our sun. Or a bit more literally— solar and spatial affinities only work on Anastis, while stellar and planar affinities work anywhere. Not to the same degree, though— solar affinities are still usable to an extent on other worlds, while spatial affinities aren’t at all.”

Hugh blinked at that.

“You chose our affinities for traveling to other worlds? Have you ever been to other worlds?” he asked.

He immediately regretted it when he started coughing.

Kanderon patiently waited for him to stop coughing and drink water before she answered.

“I’ve lived most of a millennium, Hugh. Of course I have. And I didn’t choose them specifically for that reason, but it was a major consideration on my part. I doubt that was why you came to speak to me, however,” she said.

Hugh was about to respond when Mackerel struggled out of his hands and flew off. He turned in his chair to watch the book, thinking it was chasing a bird or insect, only to see it flying into Talia’s arms.

“Well hello to you too, Mackerel,” Talia said, gently scratching the book’s spine. She walked Mackerel back over to him, then climbed up on one of the arms of the crystal chair and draped an arm around Hugh. “What are you two talking about?”

Kanderon gave Talia an irritated glare, then apparently decided to ignore her. Hugh leaned his head against her side, then wrote in Mackerel again, showing both Talia and Kanderon.

I wanted to talk about two things, actually. The first is to do with our planar affinity, or at least one specific part of it.

Kanderon frowned at that. “You’re a long way from having the mathematical or spellform construction background to cast any planar spells, Hugh. It’s entirely too risky to allow you to attempt casting a planar spell before you have that knowledge.”

Hugh shook his head at that.

I don’t want to cast a planar spell, exactly. I want to adapt the parts of planar spellforms that define the distances encompassed by planar spell borders into a ward.

Kanderon’s frown shifted from irritation to puzzlement. “Why, exactly, would you want to do that? It seems like a much more complex and time-consuming means of accomplishing a task that even the simplest wards do simply by being drawn.”

I want to make a noncontiguous ward. Well, a recombinant noncontiguous ward.

Hugh reached into a belt pouch and pulled out a fist-sized quartz crystal, which he tossed over towards Kanderon, who caught it with her magic. Over the past week, he’d started crystallizing in various ward spellforms.

“A what now?” Talia asked him as Kanderon examined the chunk of quartz.

Hugh mentally sent an image to Mackerel, and the spellbook flipped a few of its crystal pages back to a set of notes with several diagrams Hugh had drawn. He knew for a fact that the diagram had been far earlier in the spellbook than that, but Mackerel seemed to be able to reorder his pages at will.

Talia spent several minutes puzzling over the diagram while Kanderon did the same to the crystal.

Almost at the same moment, both looked back at Hugh.

“Would this really work?” Talia asked.

“There’s no way this would work,” Kanderon said.

The two of them took a moment to sort out their confusion, then Talia glared at Kanderon. “If anyone can do it, Hugh can.”

Kanderon, to Hugh’s surprise, looked almost apologetic. Most of the time she appeared to consider Talia an unfortunately unavoidable nuisance. “I don’t mean to insult Hugh’s abilities with wards, I’m genuinely questioning whether it’s possible for anyone to do it at all.”

I asked Alustin to set up a meeting for me with Loarna , Hugh wrote , but I haven’t heard back about that yet.

Kanderon snorted, hard enough to ruffle Hugh’s hair. Talia’s hair was still too short to move very much in the wind, though it was growing back much faster than Hugh would have expected.

“Loarna! In here, now!” Kanderon called, loud enough to make Hugh wince. She turned to them and spoke in a quieter voice. “If you’d left it to Loarna, it would have taken weeks for her to make up her mind about meeting you.”

Kanderon turned back to Hugh’s crystal for a moment, and then, with another snort, she turned back to her floating crystal grid. She entirely reset the positions of the crystals, then began doing math rapidly, consulting Hugh’s crystals every now and then.

Talia gently poked Hugh to get his attention again. “So if this is possible, would it be possible to… extend a ward out from the actual ward lines?”

Hugh nodded before writing again.

Of course. That’s part of every ward. You draw it on the ground, and it extends up from the ward lines from there. On the ceiling, it extends down from there.

Talia shook her head. “No, I mean extend it parallel and outside of the ward lines, not rising directly from them.”

She reached out to Mackerel and drew a pair of circles, one inside the other. She decorated the inner one with markings Hugh suspected were meant to represent a ward.

Hugh frowned, then nodded. It can, but isn’t often done, he wrote. The greater the area a ward encompasses outside the ward lines like that, the less stable it becomes. Over a certain size, it collapses entirely.

“And if the distance is a couple hand widths?” Talia asked.

Hugh did some rough math in his head.

That should be fine so long as the ward itself isn’t too large, but I don’t really see the point. It makes the ward much more complex, and is simply an inferior solution to making the ward a little larger.

“Well, what if you want the ward hidden on, say, the opposite side of a wall, but still protecting that wall?” Talia asked.

Hugh gave her a curious look, but nodded.

“And, uh… I know wards can be more complex shapes than wards or lines, but can the shapes change during operation? Like, three-dimensional shapes whose parts move and shift relative to one another while staying connected?”

Kanderon actually looked up from her math at that.

Where are you going with this? Hugh wrote.

Talia gave him an embarrassed look. “This is probably a stupid idea, but… I was reading in the copy of Ruatha’s Ossuary you gave me, and he was talking about how some bone mages carve glyphs in their own bones so that you always have easy access to certain spells. He personally thought it was a bit silly, but it got me thinking that maybe you could carve, uh… wards into your bones? To act like armor?”

“It’s been tried before,” a quiet, unfamiliar voice said. “It always failed horribly— tore the mages apart from the inside out.”

Hugh looked up in time to see an attention ward dissolve, and a mousy older woman step out. She wore immense spectacles and looked like the most stereotypical librarian from a children’s book ever. She even had a stick of chalk tucked behind one ear.

She caught Hugh’s glance, then winced and looked away.

“Ah, Loarna,” Kanderon said. “Took you long enough. That terrible idea wasn’t actually why I called you here. Hugh here had another, more interesting idea. You should…”

“I didn’t say it was terrible,” Loarna said quietly, staring at the ground.

Kanderon stopped. “Go on, ” she said gently, as if worried about breaking her.

Hugh had often imagined what Loarna of the Vault might look like. She was the strangest teacher he’d ever had, never actually showing up to any classes. Instead, they were a series of escalating challenges that tested her students’ warding abilities, as well as their critical thinking and creativity, in unusual ways. He’d expected her to look strange and exotic— to maybe have hovering swords around her, like Aedan Dragonslayer, or an independently moving shadow, like some shadow mages he’d encountered.

Then he felt a tingling sensation from his crystal affinity sense, and realized there was something floating around her. Some sort of… crystalline dust, almost too small to see with the eye, filling the air near her.

Was that chalk dust?

“All the old mages that tried it did so decades or centuries ago,” Loarna said. “The last one I know of was before I was born. Warding has advanced significantly in those years. We’ve had huge advances in wardcrafting techniques since then.”

“Half of which you were involved in,” Kanderon said.

Loarna hunched over even more when Kanderon complimented her.

“You think it can be done?” Talia said. “My idea’s not terrible?”

Loarna slowly nodded.

“It’s an excellent idea,” Loarna said. “The problem is in the execution, not in the idea itself.”

“It’s a game-changer,” Kanderon said. “This would offer a huge advantage to any force wielding it. Personal defensive wards? Why has no one done this before?”

Loarna shrugged. “People have, just not with their bones. There are plenty of mages who get ward armor tattoos on the Cloudspine continent, for instance, or weave them into their clothes. It’s been common for at least thirty years now. Like any magic, there are advantages and disadvantages. You can’t ward against everything, and personal wards tend to use steadily increasing amounts of mana the longer you leave them on for— there’s a reason why normal wards tend to have simpler shapes. Not to mention, they tend to interfere with each other, so you couldn’t have more than a small handful of people with them in close proximity, which renders them useless for armies.”

“Not, however, for independent agents like the Librarians Errant,” Kanderon said. “We need to look into this immediately. Not just the bone wards, but the tattoos and clothing as well. You should have told me about this years ago.”

Loarna visibly crumpled in on herself.

Kanderon sighed. “I apologize, Loarna. I’m not angry, just excited. You had no way of knowing I’d be interested in these specific wards.”

Can we go back to the part where Talia’s planning to carve up her bones? Hugh wrote. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with that.

Talia rolled her eyes. “A normal bone mage would be able to do it simply with their magic and affinity sense, but causing explosions, even tiny ones, inside my body is a terrible idea. Alustin also has made it clear that I’m not ever to use bonefire on my own bones, for fear that it would set off a chain reaction and blow me up from the inside. I considered using dreamfire, but that could end up with bits of my bone turning into, I dunno, shards of glass or maybe tiny snakes inside me? I don’t really want tiny snakes inside my flesh.”

“I can safely say that no one but a gorgon wants tiny snakes in their flesh,” Kanderon said. “Nor does anyone sane generally think about tiny snakes inside their flesh.”

Talia ignored her. “I thought about having healers cut me open and carve the wards into my bones, but then I stumbled across a passage in the Ossuary that mentioned that it was possible to tattoo living bones. You have to be a bit clever about it so as to not tattoo the skin when putting the needles in, and they have to go past the surface of the bone, but with a thin enough needle and healers on hand, it shouldn’t cause any lasting harm. I’d want to write to my family to confer with them about any potential interactions with my tattoos as well.”

You’re a madwoman, Hugh wrote, and I’m legitimately a little terrified of you sometimes.

Talia smiled at that and kissed him on the cheek.

“It will take considerable planning, but I believe it feasible,” Loarna said. “If that wasn’t what you called me here for, what was it, then?”

“Hugh had an idea with… somewhat similar function to Talia’s, but far more ambitious,” Kanderon said. “Involving noncontiguous wards, which I don’t believe are even possible.”

“They are. I made one before with the help of a greater shadow mage once,” Loarna said.

Kanderon sighed heavily. “I think we need to have a long conversation soon, and I think you need to make more of an effort to inform me when you prove laws of magic incorrect, Loarna.”

After that, Loarna started going over Hugh’s notes and his crystal, as well as Kanderon’s math. Hugh hardly noticed Talia slip off as they moved further away from the bone ward idea and into his own idea, engrossed as he was in the conversation.

It was already growing dark when they wrapped up, at which point Hugh remembered the second reason he’d come to speak to Kanderon.

It would be easier to work on and test all this back at Skyhold, wouldn’t it?

Kanderon started to nod, then gave him a suspicious look. “Did Alustin put you up to asking?”

He did, but I only agreed because I think he’s correct. And it really would be easier to work back at Skyhold. And I really am starting to feel a lot better, I think I could handle the flight back.

Kanderon gave him an irritable look, then sighed. “I’ll consider it.”

Hugh smiled at her, then remembered something else.

He cleared his throat, deciding this was important enough to risk coughing. “Oh, and Loarna, it was good to finally meet…”

He turned as he spoke, then abruptly stopped.

Loarna had vanished again.

“She does that,” Kanderon said. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

After thinking for a few minutes, Hugh wrote in Mackerel again and waved for Kanderon’s attention.

I need to tell you something.

“Yes, Hugh?”

You know how Mackerel ate the communication diary you gave me?

“What of it?”

Hugh took a deep breath, then started writing about the messages he’d intercepted between Kanderon and Keayda, and Kanderon and some unknown party. When he was done, he hesitated, half-convinced he shouldn’t tell Kanderon— then he forced himself to turn Mackerel around and show Kanderon his writing.

Kanderon read it, then raised her eyebrow at Hugh.

He squirmed in his crystal chair for a moment.

Then Kanderon smiled faintly and turned back to her calculations.

Hugh gave her a puzzled look, then felt the crystal structure of his chair shifting through his affinity sense. He turned to see writing forming on the arm of the chair.

Some things are best not spoken aloud, save in the most secure of locations, which this is not. I lack the ability to make my communications network entirely impervious to spying, Hugh, but I absolutely possess the ability to tell if anyone is listening in, and to take corrective measures. The issue will not repeat itself.

Hugh frowned as the message erased itself.

“Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Kanderon said out loud.

Hugh picked up the hint and changed the topic, asking Kanderon about the fact he hadn’t acquired a rare book for the Library this year— a requirement she gladly waived for him this time around.

He was, however, absolutely convinced there was a lot she wasn’t telling him about the mysterious messages.

CHAPTER FOUR

Enchantments

The healer had just magicked away the swelling in Hugh’s limbs the next morning when Kanderon made her decision.

“We’ll start heading back towards Skyhold tomorrow,” Kanderon said. “We’ll be taking the long way back, however— there are a number of installations I’d prefer to personally supervise the evacuation of before the Havathi penetrate farther into the Skyreach Range.”

“I’ll let the others know after I’m done here,” Grennan muttered, not looking up from Hugh, who was resting on Kanderon’s foreleg.

Kanderon had insisted Hugh stay with her at night since he was injured. Hugh wasn’t complaining too much— Kanderon’s fur was more comfortable than most beds— but he did feel a bit embarrassed about it.

Grennan turned his attention to Hugh’s throat and lungs next, and Hugh struggled not to cough at the tickling sensation of the healing magic inside him.

“Say something,” Grennan said, then pressed his ear against Hugh’s chest.

“Something,” Hugh said.

“Very funny,” Grennan said, not sounding amused in the least.

“Is he showing signs of improvement?” Kanderon asked.

Grennan nodded as he stepped back. “Slowly, but he is improving. Hugh is exceptionally lucky— if I’d gotten to him any later, much of the damage would have been irreversible.”

Kanderon made a noise that, if it had been coming from a human, Hugh would have described as a sigh of relief.

“Go get some breakfast,” Grennan said. “And no lowering your weight as you walk around. You need exercise right now.”

Hugh grimaced, but nodded.

After breakfast, Hugh and the others got new magic items.

The Librarians Errant hadn’t been in Ithos longer than a few hours, but in that time, they’d managed to recover dozens of magical items— mostly from the slain Havathi troops— but there were a few ancient Ithonian enchantments that had survived the centuries in the dark, rather than succumbing to the decay of time.

“Artur tells me you all want to get more powerful in a hurry,” Alustin said.

Emmenson Drees, Hugh’s spellform teacher, snorted at that.

Alustin sighed but otherwise ignored the man. “Enchantments are about the easiest way to do that. Some mages center their entire combat strategies around their enchanted items. Up until now, I’ve largely left you to your own devices as far as they were concerned— giving too many enchantments to apprentices is not only expensive, but also can come to serve as a crutch for them, hindering future growth. We plan to largely keep you out of the upcoming battles against Havath, but I’ve agreed that it seems prudent for now, so long as you don’t get arrogant and seek out unnecessary fights against the Havathi. Getting caught up in a fight against the Sacred Swordsmen is one thing, but Havath will be mobilizing archmages and great powers in the upcoming months.”

“Why are you staring at me?” Talia asked.

Hugh snorted at that. Talia looked like she was about to elbow him but settled for mock-glaring instead.

“We’ve laid out all the enchantments that we recovered and we’ve deemed safe for you to pick from,” Alustin said. “We removed any awakened weapons from the Havathi, as well as any damaged enchantments, enchantments that we deemed worthy of further study, or enchantments simply too valuable to give to an apprentice, no matter how favored.”

“I’m sure you’ll make foolish choices,” Emmenson said. “It would have been better to select the items for you.”

Alustin rolled his eyes at that. “Keep it to three or fewer items total. And for safety’s sake, Hugh, assume Mackerel and your stink-absorbing marble count as one together.”

“Where is Mackerel?” Godrick asked.

Hugh shrugged.

“He was stacking pinecones, last I saw,” Talia said.

“How can a book have a gender?” Sabae asked.

“I just think Mackerel seems like a boy,” Talia replied.

“More importantly, ah want ta’ know why he was stacking pinecones,” Godrick said.

Hugh thought about trying to explain, but he had no idea how to pantomime Mackerel’s conviction that pinecones defied the laws of reality, and that they needed to be gathered together and quarantined to protect them all.

At least, that’s what he was fairly sure Mackerel thought of pinecones. It was hard to interpret the garbled images he sent Hugh about pinecones. They seemed to short-circuit the way the spellbook perceived the universe.

Mackerel was definitely more concerned with the cosmic threat of pinecones than with any question of gender, though.

Alustin sighed yet again. “Let one of us know if you have any questions about the items.”

Emmenson just rolled his eyes.

The enchanted items were spread throughout a large room in the cave, each placed atop their own individual stone pedestal to keep them from interfering with one another.

Enchanted weapons were the most common type of item in the room— nearly half of their choices were weapons. Hugh spent a solid hour looking at them.

There was a Havathi sword with a gravity enchantment that temporarily increased the weight of anything it struck. It didn’t have a mana reservoir of its own, so it clearly wasn’t a Sacred Swordsman weapon— it probably belonged to another Havathi battlemage.

There was an Ithonian sickle with a wood enchantment, of all things, that let it chop through wood like butter. The dossier lying next to it, which Artur appeared to have written, speculated that it had been designed for ship-to-ship combat. It also lacked a mana reservoir of its own— few of those had survived among the Ithonian enchantments.

One of Hugh’s particular favorites was a sword that had two enchantments with mana reservoirs— one that could accelerate the natural healing process, and one that let the wielder slide along the ground like it was ice. It had begun the awakening process with its Havathi wielder, but hadn’t even got as far as Godrick’s broken ice hammer.

Hugh frowned as he looked at that one, then mentally called for Mackerel.

In addition to those three, Hugh had considered at least a dozen other weapons. There was a sword with a fire enchantment, whose wielder Talia had killed. There was a halberd with a steel enchantment that strengthened and sharpened the blade, and a wood enchantment that could change the wooden haft from being solid to becoming rope-like. There was a dagger with a light enchantment that could be used to generate a shifting haze of illusionary arms wielding it so that someone could slip past a foe’s defenses with it. Alustin had written the notes on that one, and he had been somewhat dismissive of it— not for the enchantment, but for the fact that it was on a knife, which he considered ill-suited for that enchantment.

Hugh wondered if Alustin considered it too similar to his own sword’s bizarre echo enchantment, or perhaps a cheap copy.

There was even a particularly strange weapon that looked like three crooked daggers fused at the hilts, each blade pointing outward at identical angles from one another. It was apparently meant to be thrown, and had wind and force enchantments on it. They let the wielder guide its flight and make it return to their hand.

Mackerel arrived as Hugh was contemplating the bizarre weapon, and Hugh took the spellbook over to Alustin.

Would it be possible to pact with one of the weapons with reservoirs to give me new affinities? Hugh wrote.

Alustin frowned. “It would be possible, yes, but I’d consider it carefully. More isn’t always better. You haven’t even mastered your own affinities yet. Not to mention, Kanderon has never sought to develop affinities beyond them, even after all these centuries. All three are powerful and offer compelling advantages for those that take the time to master them. Even Kanderon doesn’t know everything there is to know about her affinities. I’m not saying you never should, merely that it might be better to wait for now. You’d gain more out of further developing your three than adding new ones.”

Hugh slowly nodded. He’d been quite excited by the idea of adding new affinities— especially a healing affinity— but that made a lot of sense to him. Then another thought occurred to him.

How does Aedan Dragonslayer manage five affinities? He wrote.

“Aedan taught himself will imbuing, similar to a warlock, in order to help him manage all his affinities at once, along with a couple of other related mana techniques,” Alustin explained. “It takes less of his conscious attention to wield his magic than other mages. He’s also had decades longer than you to master his various affinities.”

“Yeh can learn will imbuing?” Godrick asked, looking up from an enchanted tower shield.

Alustin nodded. “And quite a few other skills that can alter your spellcasting. They’re collectively known as mana techniques, though that’s just an arbitrary label— most have little in common outside of altering the way you cast spells. Your father’s actually already gotten you started on a couple of them, in fact— I’m a little foggy on the details, but by using the massive spellforms for your armor, you’re actually exercising your mind’s eye to make it larger, which, in turn, will let you hold even larger spellforms in your mind’s eye, or even more individual ones. The mana layering you, your father, and Sabae practice is a mana technique as well, as are the other techniques I’ve been teaching Sabae. Siege magic is a mana technique as well.”

“Can yeh teach me will imbuing?” Godrick asked.

“I’ll have to confer with Artur on any changes I make to your education, but possibly,” Alustin replied. “There are other mana techniques that might serve you better, and mages at Skyhold are seldom taught many mana techniques before they reach the journeyman level.”

Emmenson groaned out loud at that. “They don’t teach them for a reason, Alustin. It’s almost always best to have the student master the basics first, then specialize with mana techniques later— if for no reason other than to keep them from regretting a hasty decision later on.”

“These four are considerably farther along than the average journeyman already, Emmenson. I’m confident they can handle it.”

Hugh was starting to get the impression Alustin and his spellform teacher didn’t get along very well.

As the two of them argued, Hugh wandered over to look at enchantments again.

He ignored the weapons this time, and instead went over to join Talia in looking at the magical jewelry.

She gave him a quick kiss, then turned back to the dossier for the necklace she was looking at.

I’m surprised you’re not looking at the weapons, Hugh wrote in Mackerel, then poked Talia to get her attention.

“I’ve got my daggers still,” Talia said, “and my magic is already offensively oriented enough. I think I’d prefer to round things out with something different. A healing item, maybe, or something less combat-oriented? There’s a waterskin that purifies its contents that could be useful.”

Are you doing alright? You seem… less belligerent than usual.

Talia took her time responding.

“We almost died in Imperial Ithos,” she finally said. “We’ve almost died plenty of times before, but this was different, somehow. The inside of my shoulder, where Grovebringer’s arrow started growing, still feels… wrong, somehow, and I keep getting aches and pains, but I also get flashes of cold or of pressure. Last night I woke up feeling as though the healed wound was packed with pickled herring, of all things. I think the dreamfire I used on the arrow did something strange to the nerves in my shoulder, and even Grennan had no idea when I asked him, nor could he find anything with his magic.”

Hugh reached out and took her hand.

She smiled weakly at him. “Seeing you wounded was even worse. I… I really thought you were dying when we found you. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I need to stop being so reckless and running off on my own— if I’d been with you, I might have been able to stop Qirsad from burning you. More firepower isn’t what I need.”

For once, Hugh was glad he couldn’t speak. He had no idea what to say to that, so he just let go of Talia’s hand and wrapped his arms around her instead.

She held him for a moment, then pushed him away, surreptitiously wiping the corners of her eyes, which he pretended not to notice.

“I need to focus, and you’re too distracting,” Talia said. “Go be pretty and caring somewhere else.”

Hugh was fairly sure Talia just had terrible taste, but he couldn’t make the smile leave his face for some time after that.

The non-weapon enchantments were far more diverse than the weapons. He glanced at the shields next. The tower shield Godrick had been eying earlier had an enchantment that let the whole massive thing fold up into an arm-bracer. Godrick had abandoned it because it was too small to cover all of him— and because the bracer would get in the way of his stone armor. Hugh, on the other hand, abandoned it because when unfolded, it was simply too large for him to move around.

There was a metal rod meant to be planted into a stream bed, and over time it would precipitate tiny amounts of gold out of the water onto the rod. It could then be removed, and simply funneling mana into another enchantment would force the precipitated gold to crumble off the rod. Hugh had no interest in taking up gold mining, however.

There was an Ithonian crafter’s headband with a number of lenses, each of which had different effects. Some magnified whatever the wearer was looking at, while another could roughly tell how much mana was running through the spellforms of an enchantment. It was too fragile for use in combat, however, not to mention cruder than similar enchantments that could be produced today.

That was actually a recurring theme, really. For all the fabled power of Ithonian enchantments and magic, there had simply been so many advances in the understanding of magic since the Empire’s fall that it all came off as crude to Hugh. Not weak, of course— magical strength was more a factor of the aether density available and the mana reservoir size of a mage than anything else, so enchantments, outside of a few terrifying outliers like the Exile Splinter, had remained largely on the same power scale. The older ones were were, however, generally less versatile, and often less efficient.

They’d still all find use, of course. Enchantments would never go to waste, so long as they weren’t dangerously unstable. The enchanting process was simply too expensive to turn up one’s nose, and there were never enough enchantments to go around. The fact that Hugh and his friends were being given their pick of the spoils from Ithos was fairly humbling, not to mention clear nepotism on Kanderon’s part. There were certainly more deserving full mages at Skyhold who could use them.

Lenses were one of the most common enchanted items atop the rows of pedestals. Lenses that granted night-vision, let their wielders see heat, acted as telescopes, or helped detect illusions. Some went over both eyes, while others were meant to strap onto the head at an angle, only covering one eye. There were even a couple that simply corrected vision like a normal pair of spectacles, save for their ability to adapt to any vision problems.

None of them were good options for Hugh. His sphinx-eyes already gave him night-vision, distance-vision, improved color range, and fine detail-vision— he could see far better than a normal human. That meant many of the lenses were simply useless to him. Most of the others simply wouldn’t work for him— they were meant for human eyes. There were a few meant for gorgons, naga, or stranger creatures, and even one shield-sized one meant for a dragon, but none for sphinx eyes— they just hurt his head when he looked through most of them.

From there, he examined some of the miscellaneous pieces of armor, including one particularly impressive suit of enchanted full plate. As tempting as they were, Hugh really didn’t need a defense oriented enchantment.

Hugh examined a fork that wouldn’t pick up poisoned food, a waterproof cloak that could reshape itself into a cramped, one-man tent, and an eye-sized stone that could radiate or absorb heat to help keep its owner comfortable. He quickly dismissed an Ithonian flute that could light up its finger holes at pre-set times— it appeared to be a training device for apprentice musicians, which seemed extraordinarily frivolous to Hugh.

He was extremely tempted by a small, shapeless iron lump that could reshape itself into anything its wielder pictured— a dirk, a teakettle, or a simple rod. Its actual spellforms were all on a small iron core that remained inside the center of the iron lump, and that couldn’t itself be reformed. He spent a few minutes reshaping it into various forms— including an iron copy of Mackerel, who promptly tried to fight it.

He ultimately decided to put it back, however— he could shape crystals into just about anything that the iron lump could make, and the dossier specifically noted that sufficient stress would cause the lump to lose its shape, making it nearly useless as a weapon, a hammer, or any number of other forms.

There was an entire row of badges, brooches, and bracelets meant to interfere with wind, gravity, and force spells in various ways. Solo fliers regularly carried magic items that could make it more difficult for other fliers to operate near them— the harder your enemies had to work to stay in the air, the less attention they had to spare to you.

Hugh could have spent hours more playing with everything, but by lunchtime, he’d finally made his choices, as had the other three.

Well, mostly Godrick chose, the others just went along with his idea once he’d told them.

CHAPTER FIVE

Empty Palaces

“Yeh all chose the same thing?” Artur asked, incredulously. He took another bite of his fish, giving them a skeptical look.

Most of the temporary inhabitants of the little valley were dining on a mismatched set of tables out in front of the cave, half of them taken from various storage tattoos, and half constructed with magic since they’d arrived.

Godrick frowned. He had expected his father to be a little more excited about his idea.

“I didn’t,” Sabae protested.

“We chose it to keep up with yeh,” Godrick pointed out.

Hugh nodded seriously at them, which was somewhat ruined by his huge mouthful of bread. Godrick worried about Hugh’s relationship with baked goods sometimes.

“It’s not a bad choice, ah just think yeh coulda made a better one,” Artur said. “Yeh coulda focused on yer individual strengths a little more.”

“We did with our other choices,” Godrick said. “Or, at least, Hugh and I did since Talia already had two enchanted items.”

“I’m actually planning to replace my daggers when we get back to Skyhold,” Talia said. “The enchanters have been trying to get me to sell them some more of Ataerg’s bones for ages now. I’ll trade them for expedited construction of what I want. I might lend them the use of my bonefire affinity as well, like Godrick did for the construction of Hugh’s marble.”

“And the boots?” Artur asked.

Hugh, Talia, and Godrick had all selected force boots from the collection of looted enchantments. Godrick had been rather shocked to find a pair that fit him. Most enchanted boots could resize themselves to a small degree— enchanters with leather affinities were quite common, and those enchantments were cheaper to make than most. Godrick’s surprise vanished when he read in the dossier that these particular boots had belonged to a Lothalan rust mage in Havath’s employ who Alustin had slain during the battle, whereupon the surprise was replaced with mild discomfort.

Force boots were fairly simple enchantments— bursts of force could be launched from their soles, which could help the wearer run faster, kick harder, and jump absurd distances. They took considerable training to use properly, but they could be a huge advantage on a battlefield, and given their comparative ease of manufacture, they were quite common. There’d been no less than nine pairs among the dozens and dozens of captured enchantments.

“Yeh said it yerself, Da,” Godrick said. “Our teamwork is one a’ our biggest advantages. Increasing our mobility ta’ better keep up with Sabae makes us much more effective as a team.”

“I approve,” Alustin said, waggling his fork in the air. “Mobility is highly important to battlemages who aren’t working as part of an army. For a small team like yours, it’s paramount. Artur sometimes forgets that since his armor offers him additional mobility purely as a byproduct of its sheer size.”

Artur threw a buttered roll at the paper mage, who snatched it out of mid-air and took a bite.

“Besides, the boots aren’t identical,” Godrick said. “Talia got tha’ best pair since she could only pick one magic item— she’s got the only ones with mana reservoirs, and a secondary enchantment that cleans up her tracks behind her. They’re five centuries old, too, and don’t seem to have decayed at all.”

“I’m also the only one whose feet they’d fit, even with the resizing enchantments,” Talia said.

“Hugh’s are… well, absurdly comfortable, ah suppose?” Godrick continued.

Hugh nodded happily at that. His new boots were lambskin with the wool still attached on the inside. Or, well, not lambskin— no one was really sure what kind of creature it was from. It was just as soft as lamb’s wool if not softer. The wool appeared far more resistant to grime and compression than lamb’s wool, and the wool was a soft, buttery gold in color.

“Ah’ve got a monstrously overpowered pair that should be able ta’ work with mah armor, and should play well with mah new toy.” Godrick said. He patted his new hammer, which leaned against the bench beside him.

“Yeh’re just goin’ ta’ break that one sooner or later, Hammerbreaker,” Artur said.

Godrick made a rude noise at his da, who just laughed.

“And the rest?” Artur asked.

“Sabae’s new spear is pretty self-explanatory, ah should think,” Godrick said.

Talia glowered at that, still grumpy about Sabae’s choice. Unreasonably so, in Godrick’s opinion— Talia hadn’t even wanted the short-spear.

“My new goggles are excellent for scouting and dealing with illusionists,” Sabae said.

Sabae’s new goggles were the best magic lenses from the loot— they had several different functions that could be activated, up to two at once, one in each lens. They included distance vision, heat vision, and illusion distortion, as well as a couple other strange ones they couldn’t quite figure out yet. The heat vision showed heat as a sort of dull reddish glow radiating away from warm objects, while the illusion distortion… messed with the colors you saw somehow, which made light-based illusions much more obvious.

“I honestly have no idea what Hugh’s plan for that belt is,” Godrick said.

Hugh smiled at that, then whistled. Mackerel came flying over from his self-appointed pinecone clearing duty, and Hugh, of all things, began attaching the long, thin belt to the loops on Mackerel’s bindings.

“Ah suppose he intends ta’ use it as a replacement strap, though ah have no idea why he chose that particular belt fer that,” Godrick said, and rolled his eyes.

“Alright, ah can understand most a’ that, save fer whatever Hugh’s up ta’— but what about yer little necklace there?” Artur asked.

Godrick smiled, and held up the pendant. It held a massive black opal, wider than his eye, backed by an ornate, spellform-coated silver frame. The opal was filled with more fire than he’d ever seen in an opal before. It wasn’t actual fire, of course, it was just called that— gem-quality opals contained brilliant specks of different colors that vanished and reappeared as you tilted the stone. Godrick’s new pendant held vibrant shades of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The non-fire parts of the opal were pitch-black, rather than the white more common among opals.

It was perhaps the first enchantment Godrick had ever encountered where the value of the materials far outweighed the value of the enchantment itself. The stone was worth more than most people made in their lives.

It was exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to loot from the ruins of Imperial Ithos.

About half the spellforms on it reinforced the opal, which weren’t exactly among the most durable of gemstones. The other half, however…

Godrick activated the enchantment, and a flash of multicolor light blasted out across the table. Artur, Alustin, and Sabae all covered their eyes, and even Talia and Hugh to his left flinched away.

“Yeh coulda just told us, yeh didn’t have ta’ blind us,” Artur muttered.

“It can produce flares like that, directed beams, or just a soft glow, and everythin’ in between. The soft glow’s not the most useful fer battle, but ah can think of a dozen uses fer the others. Ah’m plannin’ on findin’ a way ta’ fix it ta’ my helmet, ah think. Whoever wrote its dossier thought the Ithonians used it fer parties, but it’s perfect fer mah role in the team. Yeh told me ah needed ta’ find a way ta’ pull enemies’ attention away from mah friends and towards me— between mah hammer and this, ah reckon ah can hold attention pretty easily.”

“I think you’ve all chosen well,” Alustin said, covering his eyes. “You all chose enchantments that either synchronize well with your style of magic or that help you work better as a group, rather than simply choosing the most powerful enchantments you could find.”

Godrick couldn’t help but grin at that— the boots and Sabae’s lenses had both been his idea. Sabae’s spear and Hugh’s new strap for Mackerel were the only items he hadn’t picked out for the group.

Artur hit Godrick right in the forehead with a buttered roll. “That’s fer blindin’ yer poor old da.”

After lunch, the various Librarians Errant were bustling about madly, preparing for their departure. Godrick wasn’t sure what to do with himself at first and was considering going down to the lake to practice his lithification spells until his father called him over to help do the dishes after lunch.

“Are yeh goin’ ta’ collapse the cave after we leave?” Godrick asked as he began casting the cleaning cantrips.

Artur shook his head. “Yeh leave these sorts a’ structures intact. It’s traditional, in case travelers in the mountains get stuck in a storm or somethin’. They’re called losthomes, and ah’ve seen hundreds a’ them in mah travels, ranging from a simple hollow with benches ta’ whole palaces. There’s one mountain just south a’ Highvale that’s been treated as somethin’ a’ an art project for years now by travelers— mages have built enough losthomes there it looks like a whole empty city.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Godrick replied.

Artur chuckled at that. As they cleaned up, he described a handful of his favorite losthomes, including a couple that he’d built.

As they were cleaning off the last of the plates, Godrick sighed.

“Ah feel like everythin’s movin’ faster and faster, and ah don’t have any control anymore.”

Artur gave him a sideways glance. “Welcome ta’ adulthood.”

Godrick glared at him.

“Ah don’t know what else ta’ tell yeh, son. None a’ us, nah matter how powerful, ever really have control over life. Yeh can control how yeh react ta’ change, but yeh can’t stop it, and yeh can hardly guide it,” Artur said.

“Not even Kanderon?” Godrick asked.

Artur gently set the final bowl into a crate. “If yeh think Kanderon feels in control right now, ah suggest yeh take another look at her fussin’ over Hugh.”

Godrick looked uphill towards the cave, where the massive sphinx was tucking away the enchantments recovered from Ithos into the various extraplanar spaces hidden about her person.

Every few moments, Kanderon would turn her head to make sure Hugh was still sitting nearby with Talia.

Godrick made a thoughtful noise, then shook his head.

“Ah’m goin ta’ go get some more lithification practice in at the lake,” he said.

As he was walking away, Godrick glanced back to see his father looking after him. He waved at Artur, but he couldn’t help but think that Artur’s expression looked remarkably similar to Kanderon’s.

CHAPTER SIX

Salt Flats

“I still think we should have visited the agricultural research station,” Alustin said.

Hugh didn’t even glance over at his teacher— the paper mage had been complaining all morning about Kanderon’s choice of destination. Hugh kept his eyes fixed on the mountain range rolling past beneath them instead.

Kanderon’s broad back was surprisingly stable, and her wings rarely moved. Individual blue crystals— most larger than Hugh, some that dwarfed Artur several times over— shifted places within the overall pattern of the wings, but the wings themselves rarely beat or flapped.

Hugh realized he actually had no idea how Kanderon was flying. However she was doing it, though, they were moving at an astonishing pace.

Skyhold, it turned out, had a dozen or so outlying facilities in the Skyreach Range. About a fourth of them were well-hidden enough that Kanderon had decided they should be fine, but the rest were already being evacuated back to Skyhold. Kanderon had decided to stop by a couple of them on their way back. They’d stopped by the first earlier in the day— it had been merely a waystation for Skyhold fliers, as well as a scrying station.

As they left with the small station’s staff on Kanderon’s back, along with the crowd of Librarians Errant, Kanderon had annihilated the waystation behind them, so the Havathi couldn’t use or study it. Hugh had felt the crystal bonds in the stone making up the station simply disintegrate, and the whole compound had collapsed into a field of dust in moments. Kanderon had followed that up with a starbolt of terrifying size, rendering the field of dust into a field of glass.

That seemed a little excessive, to Hugh.

“Yeh’ve been whinin’ about that all mornin’,” Artur said. “Yeh’ve been there before, so it’s not like yeh’re missin’ anythin’.”

“They have cabbage mages, Artur!” Alustin said. “Six of them! Well, three cabbage mages, two mustard mages, and a kale mage, but they’re all the same plant, really. You can breed it into an absurd variety of cultivars even without magic— there are somewhere around two dozen known cultivars on this continent alone! And with magic…”

“We know,” Sabae said. “They’re trying to grow cabbage houses.”

Alustin spluttered for a moment. Hugh did his best to ignore the argument, and simply gazed off Kanderon’s back down into the mountains below.

Hugh felt like he could see forever from up here. The mountains seemed to stretch on for eternity in every direction— great snow-capped behemoths, with greenery-filled valleys appearing every now and then in the depth between them. Hugh had seen flights of dragons a couple times already during the day, as well as an astonishing structure that was apparently the crumbling demesne of a lich that had chosen to commit suicide after lonely centuries of lichdom. The stone lich, before its death, had carved an entire mountain into concentric spirals of immense stone monoliths, each covered in the largest spellforms Hugh had ever seen.

“It’s more complicated than just being cabbage houses, and that’s far from their only project, Sabae,” Alustin said. “They’re working on high-elevation crops that could radically expand the growing territory in Highvale and other mountainous nations, they’re working on an especially fibrous cabbage cultivar that could be used in paper production, they’re…”

“They’re making cabbage houses and cabbage paper,” Sabae repeated. “No sane person would ever want to live in a giant cabbage or write on cabbage paper.”

“I like cabbage well enough,” Talia said, petting a content-looking Mackerel in her lap. “It wouldn’t be my first choice for a house, but I probably wouldn’t mind too much.”

“No sane person,” Sabae repeated.

Several of the Librarians Errant were working together to maintain a wind-shield around Kanderon’s back— the winds from the speed they were traveling at would have torn the crowd off the sphinx otherwise. On top of that, the air up this high was thin and frigid— almost too much so to breathe. Kanderon was, apparently, flying near the upper limits of what wind mages could normally reach— other fliers couldn’t even come close, let alone get higher, save for a few highly unusual mages from the past, like Thunderbringers or the Kettle.

Hugh tuned out the ongoing argument and leaned against Talia. She smiled at him briefly before returning to the cabbage conversation.

They reached the weapon testing facility in the early afternoon.

Along the way, one of Skyhold’s fliers was sent north, with messages bound for Highvale and even farther north, to Clan Castis. They would absolutely need Clan Castis’ opinion before moving forward with Talia’s bone tattoos or storage tattoo.

The facility was nestled at one end of a valley, but one nothing like the valley they’d spent the last couple weeks in. Where the last valley had been lush and green, this one was barren, white, and almost perfectly level— it was a salt flat several leagues across.

Rainwater would collect in the valley, which had no streams leading out of it. The rock and soil was rich in clay, so the rainwater was unable to sink into the ground, and simply pooled up until it evaporated. When it did so, it left behind trace quantities of salt that it had picked up from the stones of the mountains surrounding the valley, which had, over time, crystallized into the salt flats.

The reason it was almost perfectly level, rather than perfectly level, had to do with all the various craters formed by weapons testing.

Testing enchanted weapons, alchemical weapons, and weaponized wards could be done in Skyhold, but beyond a certain size or level of power, it simply grew too risky. Any weapons beyond that threshold— or, for that matter, any untested and potentially unstable magical constructs— were brought out here for trials.

The fact that it was Skyhold’s ninth weapon-testing outpost in its history said a lot.

The actual facility was nestled at one end of the salt flat, built behind a truly massive stone wall crafted in a single piece by stone mages. The wall was far thicker than it was tall— Kanderon could comfortably land atop it.

The four students were sent off to amuse themselves on the salt flat, though they were warned to stay away from the sections with craters and blast marks, for fear of alchemical residues or undetonated magical weaponry.

“This salt tastes terrible,” Talia remarked.

“Why would you lick it?” Sabae demanded. “It could have weird alchemical compounds on it or something.”

“It’s not the kind of salt you’d put on your table,” Hugh said. “Or, it is, but it has a bunch of other kinds of salt in it too.”

He managed not to cough this time.

“Ah’m pretty sure there are some alchemical residues in it,” Godrick said. “Ah can sorta smell them with mah scent affinity.”

Sabae sighed. “Talia, if you start feeling sick, we’re heading straight back. And we’re getting Grennan to look you over regardless. And stop licking random rocks.”

Talia grumbled a bit at that but didn’t argue.

Mackerel, meanwhile, was absolutely delighted by the salt flat, and was zooming about at high speeds just inches above the ground, a wake of salt being blown into the air behind the book.

“This doesn’t feel entirely real,” Godrick said. “Ah grew up knowin’ that Skyhold was impregnable, and that no one would dare attack it, and now…”

“Bakori attacked it easily enough,” Talia said.

“Yeah, but he was already inside it,” Godrick replied.

No one spoke for a while as they wandered across the salt flat, each step crunching underneath their boots.

“Do you think Havath has a chance?” Talia asked.

Everyone looked at Sabae.

She sighed, then shrugged. “They’re an empire of millions, and they’ve got at least a dozen great powers of their own. Maybe more, it’s hard to say. None quite on the scale of Kanderon or my grandmother, but all of them at least as powerful as Artur, Headmaster Tarik, or Aedan Dragonslayer, and several to rival Chelys Mot or Ampioc. If you’d asked me before, I would have said no, but… the fact that they’re attacking at all means that they think they have someone who can stand up to Kanderon in a fight. I’ve got no idea who that might be. The numbers of non-lich great powers on the continent who can survive a fight with Kanderon is in the single digits, and none of the ones I know of would willingly work with Havath. That doesn’t even take into account Skyhold’s magical defenses, which operate on the level of a major great power.”

“Maybe one of their own got more powerful, or they’ve been developing a new great power in secret?” Talia said.

Sabae shrugged. “Maybe, but concealing a mage that powerful from an entire continent’s worth of spies and seers isn’t easy to do. Havath is the most-watched nation on the continent, no question.”

“But they are movin’,” Godrick said, “so they have ta’ have a new great power or somethin’ of the sort.”

Sabae shrugged. “Maybe, or maybe they’ve developed some new alchemical weapon or enchantment they think can give them an edge. Regardless, something’s changed. They’ve never openly moved against Kanderon or any other power west of the Skyreach range before.”

There was a long silence after that, as they wandered across the salt flat.

“Ah think we should practice with our new force boots while we’re here,” Godrick finally said. “It’s a good spot fer it— no obstacles ta’ worry about.”

“Just the ground,” Sabae said. “I promise, you’re going to crash a lot, even considering how much smaller your force jumps are than my windjumps.”

“Hugh can catch us with levitation spells,” Talia said. “For that matter, we can do it ourselves— all of our mana reservoirs are big enough to catch ourselves now if we need to.”

Sabae gave her a skeptical look. “I promise, you’re going to crash a lot, even with levitation spells. You might as well, though. Not Hugh, though, while he’s still healing.”

Hugh gave her an indignant glare.

After he saw how bruised and salt-covered the other two got while practicing, however, he felt significantly less irritated at Sabae.

No less frustrated, however.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Center of Attention

Hugh didn’t even notice the edge of the Skyreach Range approaching at first. He wasn’t looking forward, admittedly— Kanderon’s head and wings tended to block much of the view— but rather off to the side. He still glanced that way every few minutes, however.

At one glance, the Skyreach Range kept rolling on forever through the gaps in Kanderon’s largely motionless wings. With the next glance, they just… ended, and Hugh could see the pale sand of the Endless Erg ahead.

They turned north as they hit the Endless Erg, and within the hour, Skyhold drew into sight.

It was immediately recognizable from the surrounding mountains. Its twin peaks seemed to have more balconies, windows, and structures built into them than they did from the ground. The taller, larger peak had its tip simply shaved off, and though Hugh couldn’t see any details from here, he knew there was a circle of thrones atop it, with a single wide open space along one side for Kanderon.

He wondered whether the dead council members had been replaced, the thrones repaired and restored.

Ships were bustling about the harbor in huge numbers— Hugh had never seen it this busy before, even at the beginning of the school year, which was still a few weeks out. There were literally dozens, if not hundreds of ships.

Part of Hugh started looking for the Moonless Owl , Avah’s family ship, and he immediately felt guilty, especially since his arm was wrapped around Talia.

“Do you think the Moonless Owl is down there?” Talia asked.

Hugh gave her a surprised look.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Avah, is all,” Talia said. “She’s good people, and I have some gloating to do.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow at that.

“I’m entirely too amazing and dangerous to feel any need for jealousy,” Talia said. “Besides, it would probably do you both good to talk, now that your breakup is a little farther behind you.”

Hugh smiled, then ruffled Talia’s short hair.

There were, he had to admit, some upsides to avoiding talking. He was pretty sure he would have found some way to put his foot in his mouth during this conversation if he didn’t have lung and throat damage.

Small upsides, to say the least, but upsides nonetheless.

To Hugh’s surprise, activity at the docks barely slowed when Kanderon landed on the sand of the harbor, right next to a pier. The ship that had been aiming for it quickly turned aside without a complaint, which almost caused a collision with another moving ship. As busy as the harbor was, Hugh would not want to be out on the sand right now.

As they climbed off Kanderon’s back onto the docks, gusts of wind shoved them randomly this way and that. There were so many wind mages pushing sandships about the harbor that the air was in utter chaos.

Avah’s ship wasn’t at Skyhold, but there were at least a half-dozen other Radhan ships, all unloading supplies.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of ships were unloading huge quantities of grain, vegetables, potatoes, salt fish, and other foodstuffs. There were also a shocking number of jarred pickles of various sorts being unloaded.

“Siege preparations,” Alustin said, unprompted. “Pickled foods keep especially well, help fend off scurvy, and taste delicious.”

Artur snorted. “They’re delicious in moderation, not alongside every meal. Yeh’ll be singin’ a different tune after a’ few weeks a’ eatin’ them.”

As the two men bickered, Hugh and his friends gathered their things and headed towards the nearest entrance to the mountain.

Well, Hugh didn’t gather his things. Godrick snatched them up before he had a chance.

“Hugh, where are you going?” Grennan called. “You’re coming with me to the medical wing. There are a number of other healers I want to have look at you, including some specialists.”

Hugh expelled air from his nose in frustration.

Kanderon, as if able to hear that tiny noise over the clamor and blowing winds of the docks, turned and glowered irritably at him.

Hugh slumped his shoulders, then nodded at Grennan.

As they walked into Skyhold, Hugh could feel Kanderon watching him, feel her irritation at having to be surrounded by the crowd. Her presence wasn’t as strong as Mackerel’s in the back of his head, but she was there more strongly than she had ever been before.

No one was paying attention to us, Hugh wrote in Mackerel.

“Are you complaining?” Sabae said, glancing up from the newest political philosophy text she’d borrowed from Alustin. Hugh wasn’t sure why she was so interested in them all of a sudden.

Hugh shook his head vigorously, prompting one of the healers examining him to glare.

“It was weird,” Talia said. “People are usually always staring at us, and we literally just flew in on Kanderon’s back, but they barely spared us a glance. And we did just fight over the ruins of Imperial Ithos and provoke a war against Havath.”

One of the healers seemed to freeze, then shook her head in confusion.

“Is the Exile Splinter’s power still in effect or not?” Sabae said.

Talia just shrugged.

Kanderon thinks it will take several months to break completely , Hugh wrote.

He was getting to the point where he didn’t even need to be touching Mackerel to write in the book’s crystal pages, though he still needed to be within a few feet.

“Do you think the Exile Splinter is why people aren’t paying attention to us?” Talia asked.

“Not this time,” Godrick said, striding into the infirmary. “Ah saw a couple people ah know on mah way ta’ drop off our things at our rooms, and apparently there was another breakout from the labyrinth this summer. One a’ the repaired doors had flaws in it, and a few particularly nasty monsters got out. One a’ them spent several weeks eating mages, and a’ group a’ students managed ta’ catch it. We’re not the heroes a’ the hour this time.”

“What was it?” Talia asked, eagerly.

Godrick shrugged.

“We’re going to need you to say a few words, so we can listen to the airflow,” one of the healers told Hugh.

“Something,” Hugh said.

The healer rolled her eyes. “A bit more than that.”

“How was the monster killing people?” Hugh asked. “Drinking their blood, crushing them, stealing their bones?…”

“Talia is a bad influence on you,” Sabae said. “Stealing their bones, really?”

Hugh huffed indignantly.

“No, she’s not, I’m…”

He burst out coughing. The healers cast soothing spells on him almost immediately, but he switched back to writing in Mackerel rather than risk another fit.

I’m just interested in monsters, is all. I wonder if the creature is in Galvachren’s Bestiary.

“ Ah’d be shocked if there was anything not in that book. It’s absurdly huge,” Godrick said.

Mackerel perked up at that.

“You’re not eating a copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary,” Talia told the book. “Remember what happened last time you ate an enchanted book? And this book’s ten times your size.”

Mackerel gave her a chagrined look.

Between the monster killing students and the Havathi, we might actually get to be relatively anonymous this year, Hugh wrote, smiling at his friends.

“See, because you said that, now that’s not going to happen,” Talia said. “We’re absolutely going to get caught up in something to make us the center of attention again.”

Sabae just sighed and turned back to her book.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Fire and Lightning

The biggest opponent of Artur’s accelerated curriculum proposal was, to Talia’s surprise, Alustin.

“Yeh’ve already pushed them harder and faster in their trainin’ than any other students here,” Artur said. “Ah’m not sure why yeh’re balkin’ at a little more.”

“Because a healthy, well-balanced individual needs variety in their education,” Alustin said. “I don’t solely study paper magic, do I?”

“You also study agriculture to a weird degree,” Talia said, firing dreamwasps at the stone targets on the other side of the training room. “Do you plan to have a farm someday?”

Alustin sighed. “No, I don’t plan to have a farm someday, I just find it fascinating. I’d be a terrible farmer, even if I had useful farming magics. That’s the point, though— I’m not pursuing it for any reasons other than my personal enjoyment.”

There was a loud bang from where Sabae was practicing with her armor, but the three of them ignored it. At this point, Hugh was the only one that hadn’t grown accustomed to Sabae’s endless failures to get her armor working the way she wanted it, and he was with the healers again, Godrick keeping him company.

“Most of Hugh’s entertainment reading is dry, boring texts on wards,” Talia said. “He seems to enjoy it, though.”

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what you’re good at,” Alustin said, “but you need other interests as well, unless you want to get burnt out.”

“Ah’m not sure worryin’ about the long term while Havath is preparing an army ta’ attack us is the best use a’ time,” Artur said.

Alustin sighed. “Look, I’m willing to accelerate their curriculum somewhat, but I’m not letting them drop all their non-magic studies.”

“Can we drop cryptography?” Talia asked.

Alustin rolled his eyes. “I’ll consider it. In the meantime, however, I think there’s something else we need to work on.”

Alustin waved Sabae over.

“I think it’s time we get you started with your lightning magic,” he said.

Sabae nervously ran her fingers across her scars but nodded.

Artur gently patted Sabae on the back. “Yeh’ll do fine, lass. Just stay calm an’ trust yer teacher.”

The big mage gestured to Talia to follow.

Talia hesitated before squeezing Sabae’s shoulder and following Artur out of the training room.

“You’re sure I can’t stay for moral support?” Talia asked Artur.

“Very. Yeh don’t want ta’ be anywhere near a lightnin’ mage in trainin’,” Artur said. “Ah’ve got somethin’ else fer yeh ta’ work on, in the meantime.”

“New combat techniques?” Talia asked.

Artur shook his head. “Ah’m honestly not sure what else ah’ can teach yeh there. Combat tactics, sure, but techniques and spells? Yer magic is unique, and yeh’re goin’ ta’ be figurin’ out most a’ it on yer own from here on out. Ah think yer armor idea is excellent, but we can’t do much with it until yer family writes back ta’ us.”

Talia grimaced at that. She still didn’t know how her family would react to the idea, or if they might decide to order her to stop entirely.

“So what are you going to have me working on?”

“Well, ah’ve been thinking heavily about yer necklace,” Artur said. “Remember yeh told me about the tooth yeh filled up with bone dust and bits a’ magnesium, used it ta’ blind yer enemies?”

Talia nodded.

“Yer story got me wonderin’ if yeh might be able ta’ make other combinations. Ah’ve got yeh a consultation’ with a couple alchemists set up ta’ experiment a bit,” Artur said. “Bought yeh a few unusual types a’ bone ta’ try workin’ with, includin’ some fossils. Let’s see what new kinds a’ explosions we can come up with.”

Talia felt a wide smile start to creep onto her face.

Artur was now officially her favorite teacher.

Sabae stared at the sparks drifting just over her fingers. She wasn’t using enough lightning mana to do more than give herself a tiny shock if she lost control, but her mind just kept racing back to her first ever lesson in lightning magic— the one that had put her into the care of Stormseat’s healers for weeks and had given her the scars across her arms, face, and much of her torso.

“You can let it go,” Alustin said.

She knew she was consciously safe, but she couldn’t pull her eyes off the sparks, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and…

“Sabae, stop the mana flow from your reservoir. Now.”

Sabae cut off the flow of lightning mana, and the sparks winked out.

“Take a deep breath,” Alustin said. “You’re fine. It didn’t hurt you.”

Sabae nodded and focused on breathing.

“I thought I was over all this,” she said, finally. “I mean, I’ve fought against lightning mages before, and it wasn’t this bad.”

“You weren’t the one trying to make the lightning, then, were you?” Alustin asked.

“I don’t understand why that makes a difference.”

Alustin shrugged. “I don’t, either, but I don’t have to understand why to see that it does.”

“How am I supposed to ever learn to use my magic if I freeze up in fear when I try to use it?” Sabae asked.

“A few ways. First, Talia’s dreamfire. If I had realized you still had all this bottled up, I would have had her start using it to break up your fears ages ago, though its effectiveness would only be minor against a fear this old. Second, you’re going to keep reviewing everything I’ve taught you on lightning magic. I’ve been giving you readings on it for years, now. You know the basic principles, you know how it functions, and we’ve been planning how you can use it safely this whole time.”

Sabae nodded but couldn’t focus on any of that at the moment. She just kept running her fingers over her scars, over and over.

“Third… Sabae, look at me.”

Sabae let out a long, shuddering breath, then looked up.

Alustin pulled up his robes to expose his right shin. Running across the front was a massive scar, almost straight up and down.

“I was thirteen when I finally got my sword from the Lord of Bells. The very first day, I cut my leg open on one of its echoes while training. I’d been practicing for that day since I could walk so that wouldn’t happen, yet it still did. The echo cut deep into the bone, and if there hadn’t been healers immediately on hand, I might have died or lost the leg.”

Alustin let his robes drop. “It was weeks before I could even pick up my sword again. If it had been left to me, I don’t know if I even could have done it. Every time I came near it, I could feel the pain in my leg again, and I just kept envisioning that same pain across my body. I kept imagining its echoes coming for me, and I don’t think I slept all the way through a single night.”

“How did you make yourself pick it back up?” Sabae asked.

Alustin sighed, then pulled the sword in question out of mid-air.

“I didn’t,” he said, examining the spellforms that resembled nothing so much as ripples inside the metal. “My father forced me to pick it back up. He never stopped pushing me. He wanted me to outshine his legacy and reputation and be an even more respected and celebrated Citizen of Helicote than he was. The fear never went away entirely— I still feel twinges of it to this day. It was horrible, and I hated him for it, but it worked. The constant exposure numbed me, eventually. I’ve picked up plenty of other injuries from this sword over the years, and I feel little fondness for it, but I can use it without flinching.”

Alustin made the sword vanish again. “I won’t force you to walk down that path unless you’re willing. There’s no guarantee of success, and it’s as likely to break you as aid you. I wouldn’t even offer it to you in other circumstances. Your worth to me isn’t contingent upon your power as a mage. Regardless of what you decide, I won’t discard you and send you away, like my father did to me when my affinities manifested.”

Sabae gave Alustin an uncertain look.

“I know you have plenty of reasons to distrust me, but for what little it’s worth, I genuinely mean it,” Alustin said.

Sabae stared at her hands for what felt like minutes, then asked the first question that popped into her head.

“Why is Artur alright with cutting back our non-magical education, while you’re the one opposing it?”

Alustin blinked in surprise. “That’s, uh… are you trying to change the subject? If you’re uncomfortable discussing…”

“It’s relevant,” Sabae interrupted.

Alustin frowned.

“You’ve effectively turned Hugh, Talia, and I into weapons and helped Artur do the same for Godrick,” Sabae continued. “You’ve pushed us far beyond what is expected of other students at Skyhold. We were already taking the bare minimum of non-magic classes before. Artur, meanwhile, is the one that convinced you to start expanding our magical education beyond our specialties. I want to know why.”

“I’m still not sure I understand why you’re asking, but that’s easy enough to answer. Artur didn’t have a formal education like I did. He taught himself most of his own magic from books and scattered lessons from other mages. He had already developed his armor by the time he was invited to join Skyhold, and simply never found much reason to value non-magical education. Even more importantly… he came closer to dying than he has in years in Ithos, Sabae. Worse, the four of you all came close to dying. It was a bigger reminder of mortality than he’s had in years. I think he’s pushing you all to get more powerful to alleviate his fears for you all. He cares quite a bit for all of you, not just for Godrick, you know.”

“And you oppose streamlining our education further because?…” Sabae asked.

Alustin shrugged. “You can’t just live for power. Believe me, in the years after Helicote’s fall, I tried. I cut almost everything else out of my life to pursue strength, in hopes of avenging myself on Havath. I burnt myself out in the worst way, and almost gave up on my mission entirely. It was only in learning to rest, to explore my interests in unrelated topics, to allow myself time for romance and friendship, that I was able to continue down my path. You need a wider foundation. Countless people who have lived a life as harsh as Artur have been broken by it, and I think he sometimes forgets that.”

Sabae slowly nodded.

“I didn’t know the details, but that’s essentially what I imagined,” Sabae said. “Why would you oppose a path that would make us even better weapons if that’s all you wanted for us? It’s also why I’m willing to trust you that you’d forgive me if I didn’t pursue lightning magic. On top of that, do you remember what I told you after the battle in Ithos? I was serious when I said I was giving you another chance as our teacher.”

Alustin gave her a long, searching look, then nodded slowly. “I hope I don’t disappoint you as a teacher, then,” he said.

Sabae tried not to think about the caveat in that statement as she looked at her hands, took a deep breath, and summoned a spark of lightning between her palms.

CHAPTER NINE

Start of Term

More students returned to Skyhold, even with the impending siege, than Hugh had expected.

The remaining weeks of summer until the start of term had gone quickly. Those weeks for Hugh were evenly split between his studies and time spent with the healers, slowly rehabilitating his lungs and throat. His body was finally starting to accept that it really wasn’t burnt anymore and had mostly stopped swelling up overnight in an effort to heal injuries that no longer existed. He could walk long distances without coughing or feeling short of breath, though running or any serious exercise was still well beyond him.

The worst part had been the ring. The healers had forced him to wear an enchanted ring that delivered an unpleasant shock to his hand whenever he inhaled through his mouth or let himself slouch too much— both of which were apparently bad for his airways. The ring had woken him up countless times throughout the night at first, but it had been quite some time since it had woken him at all.

The healers had seemed baffled when he asked if there was a less painful way to do it, and one of them had muttered something about him probably wanting medicine to taste good too.

He’d long since given up trying to keep track of what spells the healers were casting on him— they were casting literally dozens per day, and Hugh’s interest in healing magic had never been particularly deep to start with.

At the very least, the healers finally started letting him sleep in his own room in the library, instead of in a bed in one of the infirmary halls.

His studies were, for the most part, focused on developing his and Talia’s proposals for armor. He was meeting with Kanderon, Loarna, Alustin, and quite a few others multiple times per week.

The war, meanwhile, had been steadily heating up. Havath’s advances into the mountains had slowed to a crawl— between the constant harrying by Skyhold scouts, the various dragon flights and great powers holding territory in the way, and the sheer ruggedness of the terrain, it was a little surprising that Havath’s incursion into the mountains hadn’t ground entirely into a halt. It was only the sheer size of their armies and mage corps that was keeping the invasion moving forward at this point.

Artur was especially heavily involved in the fighting, to the point where he was absent more often than not. He and Headmaster Tarik, the two most powerful stone mages in Skyhold, were being shuttled around the Skyreach range by Skyhold fliers, where they were destroying mountain roads and passes, crushing enemy encampments under avalanches, and tearing down fortresses constructed by Havathi mages.

Godrick had grumbled quite a bit when he found out that the Havathi feared Tarik more than his father. The only time the apprentices had seen Tarik use magic had been during Abyla and Bakori’s attack on the council, and her magic had failed her quickly due to Bakori’s spellform-degrading field.

Normally, however, Tarik’s absurdly huge mana reservoirs, combined with her hyper-efficient spellforms and mana conservation techniques, meant that she could move impossibly large quantities of stone at once. In the rugged Skyreach Range, that made her nigh-unstoppable against any fixed position.

Fewer students left for the summer than Hugh had imagined— those from Sica, Tsarnassus, or similarly far destinations would only have time for a week or two at home with months of travel, and that was only if they traveled particularly quickly, so most stayed. Those from Theras Tel, Lothal, Highvale, and other nearby nations and city-states were the only ones that usually left for home in the summer.

There were a few students who had stayed away, but most of the returning students and their families seemed rather undaunted by the oncoming siege.

He didn’t ask any of them why, but Godrick, who was on friendly terms with quite a few other students outside their little group, relayed that most of them honestly weren’t worried. Havath was powerful, but Skyhold’s reputation as an impenetrable fortress meant that many parents actually considered it safer than them staying at home. Kanderon might prefer to keep a lower profile than most great powers, but Skyhold’s defenses were some of the strongest on the continent, and quite a few of the more powerful mages of Skyhold, like Artur, Aedan, Sulassa Tidecaller, and Headmaster Tarik, were household names known across the region.

Regardless of their parents’ reasoning, he felt a bizarre sense of unreality staring out of his bedroom window at the sandships unloading students at the docks. It was almost as though the battle for Ithos and the oncoming Havathi forces were just some strange dream.

There were two major changes from last year, however. First, and most visibly, was the addition of nonhuman students. With Rutliss the Red either missing or dead, the Skyhold Council had voted to take their severe limits off nonhuman students at the academy.

The bulk of new nonhuman students were gorgons from their city of Sydapsyn, which was halfway between Skyhold and Highvale in the Skyreach range. The scale-covered gorgons towered over most humans— Godrick and Artur were on the short side for them. Many gorgons reached twice the height of a short or average human. And they did, in fact, have snakes for hair, but as these gorgons were all teens themselves, most of them had only had their snakes implanted in their scalps recently, so they were still fairly small.

Along with the gorgons, there were a decent number of naga, who though they didn’t have a nation or city-state of their own, had traditionally been on much better terms with humanity. Most of the new naga students were from Theras Tel, so Hugh resigned himself to the new snake-tailed students excitedly pointing him out and calling him Stormward in the halls.

There were even a pair of dragons enrolling in classes, though special accommodations were being made for them— they would hardly fit in the majority of hallways or classrooms, after all. Both were around thirty feet in length.

The other major change, apart from the nonhuman students, was the lack of Rhodes Charax.

Hugh’s old bully had had a truly massive confrontation with his master, Aedan Dragonslayer, at the docks over the summer, leading him to flee Skyhold. Hugh was fairly sure he knew what had provoked it— Aedan had refused to inform Rhodes of Bakori’s manipulation of him their first year and had put him through a nightmare of constant harassment and abuse over failings that had only partially been his.

Hugh still hated Rhodes, but he certainly hadn’t deserved that. His opinion of Rhodes might be rock bottom, but his opinion of Aedan had dropped from his old near-hero worship of the mage down to bedrock-level disgust.

With any luck, he wouldn’t have to deal with either of them ever again. Aedan never paid him a drop of attention when they passed one another in the halls.

Artur and Alustin had ended up compromising on the altered curriculum plan. They remained in most of their non-magic lectures, but Alustin requested special permission to exempt them from most of their homework, freeing up their time considerably.

Hugh was hardly going to complain about that.

Several of his teachers, however, seemed thoroughly displeased with the situation and made a point of calling on him more often in class. They seemed even more irritated when Hugh was able to answer most of their questions— he hadn’t stopped paying attention in class simply because he didn’t have homework.

He still would have preferred if they didn’t call on him. Not simply because he hated having even more attention on him than usual, but also because Mackerel was getting sick of being used to talk with, like a small child being forced to do chores for too long. Hugh could speak for longer now than he could before, but it still hurt, and he was still prone to coughing fits.

Mackerel was always better behaved after Hugh had a coughing fit because the book decided to be uncooperative, but would usually forget again within a few days or hours.

His magic classes, however, were going far better. Loarna was actually showing her face at some of her bizarre, practical exercise classes. Hugh suspected that was because more than two-thirds of the students from last year had either refused to return or had failed the last class— Loarna seemed to hate crowds even more than Hugh. He’d still never heard her discuss anything but wards out loud.

Emmenson Drees’ class, meanwhile, was almost the same size, missing only a single journeyman mage who had decided against returning to Skyhold due to the siege. He’d also started dropping his noise cancellation spell at times and letting his students speak and ask questions. Not often, but it did happen.

Hugh was starting to suspect that Emmenson wasn’t as foul-tempered or curmudgeonly as he liked to portray himself.

He’d started to be able to figure out Emmenson’s tells as well, after the weeks spent with him and the other Librarians Errant in the mountains. When he was actually angry, he’d start tracing his metallic spellform tattoos with a finger, and his voice would get far more precise, his words sharply clipped off at the end.

Emmenson always seemed to get genuinely irritated when he spent too much time around Alustin.

Hugh’s spellform construction skills had played second fiddle to his ward construction skills for quite a while now, but with all the exhausting work he was putting into his and Talia’s armor, along with some of his other ward projects, he was actually starting to look forward to spellform construction over warding classes, just as a change of pace.

To the surprise of Hugh and his friends, they were continuing their combat seminars with Anders Vel Siraf, Skyhold’s Dean of Students. They’d helped discover that he was a traitor last year, so Hugh was a little shocked to see that he was not only on the council, but still teaching them. They’d only had the combat seminars with the silk mage in the first place to investigate him.

His classes were excellent, though, so Hugh didn’t mind at all.

Sabae just seemed thoughtful about Anders’ presence, but merely shook her head when Hugh asked and went back to reading another treatise on political philosophy.

CHAPTER TEN

Mentors

Three things started to shake the confidence of the student body in the invulnerability of Skyhold.

The first was dramatic and immediate. Two members of the Skyhold Council were killed in battles with Havath— Sulassa Tidecaller, Skyhold’s most powerful water archmage, and Noxious Xulf, a chlorine mage. Sulassa fell to a Havathi mold mage, while two Hands of Sacred Swordsmen sacrificed themselves to kill Xulf within his clouds of choking green fog.

The second arrived as rumor. Three Havathi great powers had finally entered the war. Which great powers, no-one seemed to know, save that at least one was a dragon. That didn’t, however, narrow it down very much, since there were at least six or seven draconic great powers in service of Havath.

The third crack in their confidence was the subtlest. More and more magic classes for students at all levels became obvious siege preparation.

Plant mages began force-growing massive quantities of food in Skyhold’s greenhouses. Water mages stepped up the pumping of water from the aquifer beneath Skyhold to an absurd degree, while stone mages shaped countless new cisterns and larders to store supplies. More stone mages, including Godrick, pored over every inch of Skyhold’s slopes, reinforcing the stone protecting the halls of Skyhold. There were far too many openings to seal them all off, but many of the unused windows and balconies unnecessary to the ventilation system were being molded shut by stone mages, and they were reinforcing the slopes of the mountain to prevent any tunnel collapses. Most of the actual defense was going to be from Skyhold’s grand wards, though— fighting would only happen on the mountain itself if every other defense failed.

Sand mages were being sent out into the Endless Erg around Skyhold to do… something. Hugh wasn’t entirely sure what. Seers and fliers constantly scouted the nearby mountains, and wood mages put in extra shifts repairing the sandships that were arriving and departing with supplies at all hours of the day and night.

Skyhold’s enchanters and alchemists were especially busy. All non-Skyhold commissions were put on pause, including Kanderon’s sponsorship of liches. Hugh hadn’t really ever paid too much attention to either department before, but apparently the bulk of Skyhold’s alchemical production was composed of various primers, sealants, catalysts, and other ingredients for the production of lich demesnes. A sizable minority of Skyhold’s enchantment output was put towards the same purpose. Instead, the alchemists and enchanters were being shifted towards the war efforts.

Talia, to Hugh’s surprise, had been assigned to work with the enchanters. Enchanters could use the magic of others to imbue items, much like Godrick had helped imbue Hugh’s scent-absorbing marble. Talia didn’t have any training in or knowledge of enchantment, but she was really only needed for two things— her bonefire affinity, and her massive supply of dragonbone, pretty much as she’d predicted. She was being well-recompensed for both, though she wasn’t telling the group with what, yet.

Talia took far too much enjoyment out of surprises.

Hugh was working with the wardcrafters, going over countless wards that had been built into Skyhold over the centuries. He spent most of his time wardbreaking, rather than wardcrafting— there were far too many wards decaying dangerously with age or simply poorly made in the first place, and you didn’t want failing wards around in the best of times, let alone during a siege.

Loarna even let him accompany her a few times while she inspected Skyhold’s three grand wards. They were built into immense concentric ring-tunnels buried deep beneath the ground, far below the bedrock. Each ward was several ship’s lengths in width, filled with intricate spellforms built to channel terrifying quantities of mana. They dwarfed even the stormward Hugh was named for. The spellforms were crafted of strange metal alloys, poured into molds in the stone of the bedrock, forming immense, perfect ward inlays stretching down the tunnels.

The innermost ring was smaller than the circumference of the mountain and was built for some arcane purpose relating to the labyrinth— Hugh suspected it had to do with regulating the flow of mana from the labyrinth into the aether, though Loarna wouldn’t answer any questions about it.

The second was a surprisingly straightforward defensive ward. It was massive, completely surrounded Skyhold, and could withstand an insane amount of punishment. It was built to generate three layers of hemispherical wards, each composed of thousands and thousands of triangular segments, which could be rapidly replaced when damaged. The whole thing was permeable to spells being fired outwards by Skyhold’s mages, as well. It was, according to Loarna, so powerful that it could light up the night sky with the waste energy that bled off it during battle.

The third, a truly massive ring that arced leagues out into the bedrock hundreds of feet beneath the sands of the Endless Erg, was the most interesting to Hugh.

One of the traditional weaknesses of wards was that you could only fit so many into an area before they started interfering with one another. A skilled wardcrafter could counteract this to an extent, but only so far and with diminishing returns.

The massive third ward was a countermeasure for ward interference issues. It acted to dampen the resonances that wards put off into the aether inside its circumference, allowing Skyhold to maintain thousands of smaller wards, as well as the two other grand wards, inside its halls.

Loarna had heard rumors that Kanderon had built a fourth ring tunnel, far larger than the others, but no one knew for sure. All Loarna knew was that if it existed, it wasn’t being used for wards, and so she wasn’t interested. Her interest in wards dwarfed even Hugh’s.

She puzzled Hugh at first, but he soon grew used to some of her quirks— her lack of eye contact, the strange way she would flap her hands when excited, her obsessive interest in wards. He didn’t understand them, but he didn’t really need to. They were just the way she was. Kinda odd, but nowhere near as strange as having snakes for hair or being a living, sapient city, so Hugh didn’t feel a need to judge.

Many of Loarna’s other quirks, however, Hugh immediately recognized. The way she’d flinch when anyone touched her or cringe at any loud noise. Her obvious anxiety with strangers and crowds. The way Kanderon was always so careful speaking to her, as if Loarna were made of spun glass.

He never asked anyone about those behaviors— there was no need. He was fairly sure Loarna recognized those same behaviors in him as well, after all, even if his were better concealed than hers. More, he suspected that if he looked hard enough, he’d find those same behaviors in quite a few of the Librarians Errant.

Kanderon had a soft spot for broken things, it seemed.

Hugh was worried about Sabae— she didn’t have anything to contribute directly to the siege preparations, unlike the rest of them, and instead she just pushed harder and harder in her training. Talia was having to use dreamfire on a regular basis to help Sabae deal with her nightmares and fear of lightning. Sabae was also spending every moment of free time not spent learning lightning magic or working on her armor buried in works of history, politics, and philosophy, for reasons she hadn’t explained yet.

Of course, Talia was using her dreamfire on Hugh as well, for his nightmares about volcanic ash, but those weren’t as bad as he’d thought— he barely remembered it, and the bulk of his initial healing had been done long before he’d awoken.

Their studies weren’t pushed entirely off-track by the siege preparations, of course— there were more than enough mages at Skyhold to get everything done in time without completely abandoning normal day-to-day functioning of the academy.

There was one big change that Hugh hadn’t been expecting, however— they were assigned as mentors to first years.

It wasn’t an entirely new program, but it had been defunct for decades. With the turnover in the Skyhold Council, however, Kanderon was pushing through a series of reforms and changes, including both the inclusion of non-human students and the mentorship program.

Hugh could really have done without the mentorship program.

“Did you really help kill Ataerg?”

“No,” Hugh responded. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“How did you power the Stormward around Theras Tel? Are you really that powerful?”

Hugh sighed, then hauled a copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary up onto the library table, and gestured for the four first years to gather around it. The massive oak table shook a little when he dropped the book on it.

“This,” he said, “is Galvachren’s Bestiary. It’s the most reliable bestiary out there. It’s enchanted so that Galvachren can regularly update all the copies at once when he adds new entries, and it’s going to be your best bet for finding a contracting partner.”

“Could I contract with Heliothrax?”

“Heliothrax doesn’t do warlock contracts,” Hugh said, shooting a glare at his interrogator. “She’s famous for it.”

Thaddeus of Westcliff was from Theras Tel, the son of a pair of Indris’ palace servants. He, like the other three students, was an uncontracted warlock.

He was also the single most high-energy, annoying person Hugh had ever met.

Hugh felt a little bad snapping at him over the Heliothrax thing— there were more heroic stories about the Sunwyrm than any other mage alive. Hugh had even wanted to pact with her when he was Thaddeus’ age, though Heliothrax stories weren’t often told in Emblin.

Hugh took a long sip from his waterskin, as much for an excuse to not have to answer Thaddeus’ questions for a moment as to soothe his throat. There was a little lemon and honey mixed in with his water, which was, without a doubt, his favorite of the various medical treatments Grennan and the other Skyhold healers had put him through.

Hugh pushed Mackerel away from Galvachren’s Bestiary and off the table— he didn’t like the way the book kept eying the larger tome.

“Can we contract with multiple monsters?” one of the other students asked. Hugh honestly couldn’t remember her name. Betha? Bella? Something like that.

“Probably not,” Hugh said. “Most warlocks have considerably smaller mana reservoirs than usual, which prevents them from having more than one contract.”

“Doesn’t contracting grow your mana reservoirs?” Kanna, the third first year, asked.

“It can, yes, but you can’t use the results of that growth for contracting new partners,” Hugh said. “You’ve got to wait for your mana reservoirs to grow naturally enough to form a second contract.”

“Don’t you have giant mana reservoirs?” Thaddeus asked. “Couldn’t you contract multiple monsters? Wait, do you have contracts with multiple monsters?”

“Yes, my mana reservoirs are naturally large enough to contract multiple times, but no, I haven’t yet,” Hugh said.

“Why not?” Thaddeus asked. “Can’t you also contract with magical weapons? Are you…”

The last of the fourth years covered Thaddeus’ mouth with her hand— quite easily, considering she was taller than Godrick, and her scaled hands were proportionately large.

Thaddeus just kept talking, but Hugh mercifully couldn’t make it out. He nodded his thanks at Venta, trying not to stare at the dozens of black-and-white striped sea snakes growing out of the gorgon’s head. The scales across her body had mostly shifted to the same black and white striped pattern, starting with her scalp and spreading downwards across the dull green of her natural scale coloration. The process apparently took most of a year to complete, and was mostly done with Venta.

The gorgon was a year older than the other first years— gorgons generally got their snakes implanted around the same time as their affinities developed, but Venta’s warlock magic had developed late, something that was more common among gorgons than humans.

Kanderon had given orders to specifically recruit warlocks this school year— not to contract with herself, but to protect them and make sure they weren’t scooped up by the first overly ambitious dragon or lich or the like. Many great powers tended to value warlocks highly, both for the fact that they had much more incentive to stay loyal than other servants, and that the mana reservoir growth often went both ways. The effect was more pronounced on the side with the smaller reservoirs— there were greatly diminished returns for larger mana reservoirs in a warlock contract. Still, there was always some increase, no matter how small.

Kanderon had judged it not worth her while before Hugh— there were plenty of other ways to increase mana reservoir size. There were mana techniques, spell training regimens, low aether density training regimens, and plenty more. Simple time and regular spellcasting could do the trick. There were diminishing returns for most beings, and your initial mana reservoir size was a major factor, but a great power by no means had to rely on warlock contracts for mana reservoir growth.

It bothered Hugh a little that Kanderon was only now deciding to start helping warlocks, and purely because she’d met him. She’d simply never paid them any mind before then, nor had any concern for their struggles. It was only when she got one of her own that the issues they faced started mattering to her.

That was the way it always was with these things, though. Nothing Hugh could do about that. Still, it did matter to Kanderon now, and that was more important than why, to Hugh’s mind.

Thaddeus managed to struggle free of Venta’s grasp for a moment. “Can your mana reservoirs be damaged by a spell?”

“No, they exist inside the aether,” Hugh said.

“I’m actually most interested in the physical alterations from being a warlock,” the gorgon said, covering Thaddeus’ mouth again. “It seems fairly similar to the bonds we share with our snakes. Is there any way to choose how your body changes?”

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t believe so, but there are types of contracts that make physical changes more likely. They’re almost always positive changes, unless you mess up the contract severely.”

“Do you have any?” Kanna asked.

Hugh nodded. “My eyes are turning sphinx-like. I can see way better than a normal human.”

He gently shoved Mackerel off the table and away from Galvachren’s Bestiary again.

“Actually, what sorts of changes can choosing different snakes have, other than on your colors?” the second student asked.

Peltia, that was her name.

“Bond with a python, you’ll get stronger. Bond with a viper, you’ll pick up their heat sense and venom. Seasnakes, like mine, generally give aquatic adaptations and venom.”

One of the snakes on her head started fighting another, and Venta let go of Thaddeus to separate the two.

“Someone told me that Havath has a whole legion of warlocks bonded to magic weapons,” Thaddeus said. “Could we do that? I want to contract with a magic sword! Do you…”

Hugh sighed and wished that his throat wasn’t healing as well as it had been. Maybe then he could have begged off this duty. Given how unique their magics were, Talia and Sabae weren’t having to participate in the mentorship program. Godrick was, but he actually seemed to enjoy tutoring his group of first-year stone mages.

He sighed again, even louder, then shoved Mackerel away from the Bestiary a third time. This was going to be a very, very long day.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Math with a View

Sabae was studying quietly with Godrick in the library one morning when Talia stormed in, looking absolutely furious. She flopped down in a chair across the library table from them, yanked on her short hair, and made a loud noise like a teakettle.

A nearby librarian glared and shushed her, but Talia just glared back.

“Talia, what’s wrong?” Sabae asked.

“Everything,” Talia said. The librarian shushed her again. Talia glared again, but when she spoke again, she lowered her voice. “Hugh and I finally spent the night together last night.”

“Uhhhh…” Godrick said. “I’m a little nervous askin’ why that would make you upset, but…”

“If you make a joke about it being that bad, I will set you on fire,” Talia said.

“Ah was just goin’ ta’ ask why,” Godrick said. “Yeh’re clearly not in a jokin’ mood.”

Talia thunked her head against the table and groaned. After a few moments of Talia not speaking, Sabae reached out and gently set her hand on Talia’s shoulder.

“Talia?” she asked.

“I saw his back for the first time without a shirt,” Talia said. “He actually tried to hide it from me at first, but…”

“But what?” Sabae asked.

“Scars,” Talia said. “Old scars. Lots and lots of old scars, all over his back.”

Godrick gave Talia a puzzled look, but Sabae’s heart sank. “Oh, Hugh,” she said.

“What?” Godrick asked.

“They were switching scars, weren’t they?” Sabae asked.

Talia nodded. “Ones that looked like they weren’t properly cleaned or cared for afterward, too.”

Godrick’s face switched from puzzlement to anger. “His family.”

Talia nodded again.

“Ah knew they were scum and treated him awful, but he never told us it was that bad,” Godrick said. “He never said anything about… ah really, really want ta’ pay Emblin a visit right now.”

“I’d like nothing more,” Talia said, manifesting an orb of purple-green dreamfire above one hand. It cast her face into flickering, nightmarish shadows, ones that didn’t match her features at all.

Then she sighed, and quenched the dreamfire. “But that wouldn’t do anything for Hugh, would it? We’d just be doing it to satisfy ourselves, to alleviate our own guilt that we couldn’t help Hugh, even though we didn’t know him then.”

Godrick looked like he wanted to argue, then just sighed. Sabae knew exactly how he felt. Then he stood up, walked around the table, and wrapped Talia in a hug.

Sabae didn’t hesitate for a moment before joining in.

“You know, I already thought pretty well of Avah,” Talia said once they’d all sat back down, “but even more so now.”

“Why’s that?” Sabae asked.

“She never even once said anything about the scars,” Talia said.

None of them spoke for a few minutes.

“Shouldn’t Hugh’s burn healing have cleared up the old scars?” Godrick finally asked.

Sabae shook her head. “Scar mages and some skin mages can get rid of scars, but they’re both rare affinities. Scarring is how the body accelerates healing, and it’s way more difficult to heal someone without creating scars. Most healers are more concerned with saving their patients.”

She found herself running her fingers across her lightning burn scars, but forced herself to stop. “Grennan did it for Hugh’s skin burns, but Grennan is terrifyingly good at healing. And healing an injury over an old scar usually restores the scar as well— bodies tend to remember injuries, and they often refuse to believe that magical healing has actually happened.”

There was another long, awkward silence.

“Could you not tell Hugh I told you this?” Talia asked. “I just really needed to vent— I had to hide most of my anger from Hugh. I think he mostly wants to try and forget about Emblin.”

Sabae and Godrick both nodded.

None of them got much more studying done before their next class.

Havathi skirmishers started hitting their supply ships in the desert soon after the deaths of Sullassa Tidecaller and Noxious Xulf. It was just a few of them slipping through the Skyreach Range, at first, but as the Havathi forces pushed deeper and deeper into the mountains, Skyhold’s hit-and-run tactics proved less and less effective at keeping out enemy forces. Skyhold simply didn’t have nearly enough manpower to effectively patrol everywhere they needed to be.

Half of the merchants running supplies had refused to do any more runs when the raids started, and most of the rest started running in caravans and demanding Skyhold mages for protection. Skyhold’s mages were getting further and further stretched by the demands of the siege, however, and the Havathi forces hadn’t even arrived yet.

Which had led to the current argument, which Hugh was doing his best to ignore. He was in far too good of a mood today to let it be ruined. Instead, he turned back to the piles of paper sitting on the stone in front of him.

“You want Hugh to do what?” Kanderon demanded.

“I want Hugh and the others to escort a supply ship,” Alustin said, then took a bite from his sandwich.

Kanderon growled at that, but Alustin just chewed unconcernedly.

“Hugh is still recovering from his injuries,” Kanderon said.

“He only needs appointments with the healers once a week now. He’s more healed than not, and can speak without Mackerel’s help most of the time,” Alustin said. His voice was somewhat muffled from the half-chewed food in his mouth.

The three of them— four, if you counted Mackerel— were in the Skyhold council chamber, which sat on the very tip of Skyhold’s higher peak. The last time he’d been up here was during Bakori’s attack on the council, and he’d definitely been nervous about returning— though Kanderon’s presence had helped a lot with that.

There wasn’t a trace of the battle to be seen. Skyhold’s stone mages had restored all the damage to the mountaintop within weeks. The thrones of the surviving council members had been restored, and the thrones of the deceased council members were replaced as quickly as the council members themselves.

The thrones weren’t just ceremonial— each was built to represent the affinities of the council member in question, and more importantly, was built to supply them with the materials for their affinities. Xulf’s throne had been glass, filled with churning chlorine gas. Headmaster Tarik’s throne was a massive carved chunk of rough, undressed granite. Abyla Ceutas’ throne, before her betrayal and death, had been solid obsidian.

Other thrones varied wildly in form. One was built of glass, with great metal spines rising from the back. It belonged to a lightning mage, and while she was seated, lightning constantly arced between the spines, rising in sequence from the base upwards, reminiscent of the spines of a lightning dragon. A new throne that especially drew the eye was made of thousands of interlocking ceramic hexagons, each the size of a human hand.

At the center of the circle of thrones for the thirteen council members sat a great metal seal. Carved in it were the most intricate spellforms Hugh had ever seen. It was the gateway to the Vault of Skyhold, which stored some of the most horrific and powerful magic weapons in existence. The vault could only be opened at Midsummer and Midwinter, and only in the presence of multiple council members.

There were only ten thrones surrounding the metal seal at the moment. Sullassa and Xulf’s thrones had already been removed, and Kanderon didn’t have a throne— just a deep basin worn into the stone from centuries of sitting in the exact same spot for every meeting.

When Alustin arrived, Hugh was sitting against one of Kanderon’s massive forelegs, working through planar magic calculations with her help.

Planar magic spellforms were fiendishly complex, and even the simplest spells demanded immense amounts of mana handled with precise control, but the calculations necessary were by far the most challenging part, and the reason it took years longer than almost any other magic to learn to use. Every single spell demanded careful math to plan out the necessary spellforms, and said math changed based on your current location, altitude, the size of the space you were casting the spell in, the presence of other active planar or spatial magic, and a dozen other factors. Planar magic was intensely useful, but not even Kanderon was able to casually throw around planar spells in a battle. Each casting took days or weeks of calculations beforehand.

On the other hand, planar magic and spatial magic could permanently distort parts of space, and the effects of those spells could easily be used in battle with a little creativity. The storage tattoos of the Librarians Errant were the most obvious example. Hugh had long suspected that the crystals of Kanderon’s wings were much larger than they appeared, and were partially submerged in extraplanar spaces, and the story of her arrival at Ithos had confirmed that. Kanderon wouldn’t tell him precisely how big her wings were at full size, unfortunately, and extraplanar spaces tended to interfere with affinity senses.

The specific calculations Hugh and Kanderon had been going over were the ones for the storage tattoos Kanderon would be giving him and his friends.

Hugh suddenly felt a surge of frustration from Mackerel, and looked up to see the book straining in mid-air, apparently unable to move forwards. He felt a brief surge of concern, then realized that Mackerel had merely flown outside the boundaries of the council chamber’s primary defense— a one-way spatial fold that made the space larger when going inwards than going outwards— and now was unable to get back in. It would take hours or days to fly into the council chamber from the outside, but you could leave it in a single step.

Since that single step would also take you off the side of the mountain, Hugh hadn’t ever tried.

He rolled his eyes at Mackerel and turned his head back to the conversation.

“The risks are simply too high,” Kanderon said.

“Hugh and the others are already more capable than many fully-trained battle mages,” Alustin said. “Besides, if we try and sideline them for the whole siege, I guarantee they’ll get into trouble somehow. If we give them clearly defined missions with straightforward tasks, it’ll keep them safer than, well, trying to keep them safe.”

“Hugh wouldn’t do something so foolish in a siege,” Kanderon said. She shifted her forelegs in closer a little bit, which sent Hugh sprawling onto the ground.

Alustin gave the sphinx a wry look. “Ignoring the fact that he definitely has done plenty of foolish things just like that— because his crippling social fears are balanced by an unhealthy lack of fear for literally anything else— Talia most certainly would. And do you really think Hugh would refuse to go along with Talia or one of the others on a ridiculous adventure?”

“You make me sound like a complete pushover who would do anything to please my friends,” Hugh said, picking himself up off the ground.

Alustin and Kanderon both gave him flat looks.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” Hugh finally said.

The argument went on for another quarter of an hour, but by the end, Kanderon had entirely failed to come up with an effective counter to the Talia argument.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Supply Run

It would be a lie to call Quiet Humility a merchant ship, but it was one that its captain engaged in constantly. Quiet Humility was clearly and obviously a smuggler, built for speed and stealth, with three illusionists and a seer on the crew.

It wasn’t the only obvious smuggler ship being loaded on the Skyhold docks on the late afternoon they were departing on their mission.

“Yeh be careful now, yeh hear?” Artur told Godrick, as they stood on the Skyhold docks near the smuggler ship. “Don’t go trustin’ smugglers more than yeh have ta’, and don’t go fallin’ in love with any a’ them. These aren’t Radhan, just mercenaries.”

Godrick rolled his eyes at his da. Artur’s hatred of ships hadn’t particularly receded over the summer, but he had, at least, warmed up considerably towards the Radhan.

“Yeh’re sure yeh want ta’ go? Yeh’re not technically Alustin’s apprentice, he can’t order yeh along,” Artur said.

“Ah’ll be fine, da,” Godrick replied. “Yeh’re the one leavin’ ta’ fight against Havath again tomorrow. Ah should be worryin’ over yeh, not the other way around.”

Artur sheepishly ran his fingers through his beard. “Ah’m sorry fer bein’ a nag, it’s just yer first mission without a master along.”

“We’re only goin’ ta’ the Dragonclaw Yardangs, da,” Godrick said. “Most a’ the raiders have been south, near Lothal, Seltathel, and the Mole’s Pass. The Yardangs aren’t even a week’s travel out. What could possibly go…”

“Don’t say it,” Talia snapped from beside him.

Godrick jumped. “Where did yeh come from? Liable ta’ scare the wits out a’ me.”

“Never finish that sentence you were about to say,” Talia said. “Skyhold likely would have avalanched on us on the spot if you had.”

“Ah feel like ah’m channelin’ Sabae at the moment, but yeh can’t just keep livin’ yer life like yer a character in one a yer adventure novels, Talia,” Godrick said.

“I can and I will!” Talia said, striding up the ship’s ramp.

“Yeh watch out fer mah boy, Talia,” Artur called.

“Of course! A protagonist always watches out for her supporting characters!” Talia shouted back.

“Ah’m not a supporting character,” Godrick said. “That’s absurd.”

Artur chuckled. “Ah don’t think yeh’ll be winnin’ many arguments against that one.”

Alustin strode up with a thick sealed scroll as Godrick hugged his Da again.

“Didn’t yeh have that big battle at the Dragonclaw Yardangs, during that whole incident with the gorgons?” Artur asked Alustin.

Alustin shook his head as he handed the scroll to Godrick. “No, at Polchang’s Yardang. Dragonclaw is still technically in Skyhold’s territory, even if the Herdsman doesn’t like to admit it. Polchang’s is at the edge of Indris’ territory and neutral sands. Godrick, you know who to deliver this to, right?”

Godrick nodded but didn’t say the name out loud. Better not to until they reached the huge wind-carved stone ridges of Dragonclaw.

Sabae darted up to them as Godrick tucked away the scroll. Her new goggles were resting on her forehead, and her spear was stuck to her shield, which in turn was stuck to her back.

“I just saw Captain Bandon,” she said. “I definitely did, this time.”

“Who?” Godrick asked.

“From Theras Tel? Hair redder than Talia’s? I followed him for a solid minute, but then he gave me the slip in a crowd— probably turned invisible or something. I thought I’ve seen him a couple times before over the last year, but this time I definitely…”

“Didn’t see him,” Alustin said, idly looking upwards.

“What?” Sabae asked. “No, I definitely…”

“Didn’t see him,” Alustin repeated. “Even if you did, you didn’t.”

Godrick gave him a confused look, but Sabae’s eyes widened, then she nodded.

“I was definitely mistaken,” she said. “I should go ahead and get on the ship.”

Godrick caught a flicker from the corner of his eye, and looked just in time to see Sabae surreptitiously catch a scrap of paper flying through the air. He tried not to frown, and turned back to Alustin.

“Mackerel has the ability to call us for help. Don’t hesitate if you meet trouble. We’ve got ships and agents all across this part of the Endless Erg. Your goal isn’t to prove yourselves, you’ve already more than accomplished that. Your job is just to buy time if the ship is attacked.”

Godrick nodded.

“Hurry up, we’re only waiting on you, Godrick!” Sabae called down from the deck.

“When did Hugh board?” Godrick asked.

“Just now! He launched himself from his bedroom and levitated down to the ship!” Sabae said.

“There have ta’ be healthier ways ta’ avoid crowds than jumpin’ off cliffs,” Artur muttered.

“Hurry up, Godrick!” Sabae called again.

“Be patient!” Talia yelled back. “It’s important for supporting characters to have conversations with mentor figures in order to gather plot-vital information for later!”

Godrick wasn’t sure whether he or Alustin rolled their eyes harder at that.

His Da just laughed.

Leaving Skyhold was different this time than any other sandship expedition Godrick had ever been on. Before, most other ships faded out of sight long before Skyhold, let alone the Skyreach Range, faded from the horizon.

This time, ships stayed in sight for leagues. Ships heading northwards to Sydapsyn, ships coming from Lothal, great convoys passing one another to and from Theras Tel, immense mercenary warships patrolling for raiders. So many sandships were traveling to and from Skyhold that wide flat roads had been carved into the sand dunes, and sandship wind mages were having to carefully modulate their windstreams to allow vessels to pass one another safely. It was so busy that ships could only move at a fraction of their normal speed close to the mountain.

Godrick and his friends stood on deck for hours, watching.

“Storms, that’s a lot of ships,” Sabae said. “I’ve only seen this many at once before when grandmother was organizing a major expedition to another continent.”

“Yer mother’s on one a’ them, right?” Godrick asked gingerly. Sabae didn’t talk about her mother often, and it usually put her in a bad mood.

Sabae nodded. “To Cloudspine. Her fleet won’t be back for another year or two, at least. She’s a powerful archmage in her own right, or they wouldn’t be able to take that trip, no matter how many lesser mages we packed on-board the fleet. The trip to the Cloudspine continent is much farther and more dangerous than the trip to Gelid. Still safer than trying to reach the bigger continents on the far side of the world, though.”

“Has your family ever sent missions down to the southern polar regions?” Talia asked. “Alustin said something about them being poisonous?”

Sabae shook her head. “Not for a century, now. Storm mages aren’t enough to keep the poison away from the ships, and even healers and poison mages have trouble surviving exposure to the poisons for long. We lost a lot of mages and sailors trying.”

“What’s down there?” Hugh asked quietly. His throat must be hurting him more today.

Sabae shrugged. “No one knows. Nothing except leviathans travel to and from those regions. The few survivors that have returned from there have reported bizarre life like nothing they’ve ever seen before. The leading theory involves volcanoes constantly spewing toxic gases.”

“Ah’m not sure that explains the weird creatures, though,” Godrick said. “And volcanic gases just choke yeh ta’ death, they don’t kill super-fast like Alustin said Kanderon’s contingency devices do.”

“I don’t think the actual polar regions kill that fast, I think Alustin said it was based on the poisons, not that they were the same,” Sabae said.

“Still, volcanoes don’t explain the weird lifeforms,” Hugh said. “Maybe a labyrinth connecting somewhere nasty ruptured?”

Sabae shrugged, and the conversation died out for a while.

The herds of ships slowly began to thin out, and the Quiet Humility eventually left one of the paths carved into the sands. Soon after they entered the dunes, Talia started turning greenish, then left for their cabins. Hugh turned to follow her, but stopped abruptly.

“I just figured out what Kanderon had the sand mages doing,” he said.

Godrick and Sabae looked at him curiously.

“The composition of the sand just shifted abruptly,” Hugh said. “Closer to Skyhold, it has a way higher quartz content than usual, but out here, it’s much more mixed. I think Kanderon had the mages filtering out the non-quartz particles closer to Skyhold and pushing them out.”

Godrick reached out with his stone affinity sense. It wasn’t as well-suited towards figuring out sand as Hugh’s crystal affinity sense, but it worked well enough.

Hugh was definitely right. Fading behind them, he could feel almost nothing but quartz. Where they were now, he could find almost no quartz, but instead massive quantities of feldspar, granitic minerals, and other grains.

“Ah don’t understand what Kanderon could possibly want with that much quartz,” Godrick said.

Hugh frowned. “The more homogeneous sand or any other mixture is, the easier it is to grow crystals in it a lot of the time. You don’t have to worry about impurities and such.”

“Literal leagues of sand, though?” Sabae asked. “What could she possibly need that much sorted quartz for?”

They all stared at the dunes for a few moments.

“I’d rather not think about that right now, because it’s kind of terrifying,” Hugh said. “I’m going to go check on Talia.”

Godrick and Sabae stayed on deck as the ship picked up speed, but getting through the ship traffic had taken long enough that the sun was already setting by the time the Skyreach range began dropping out of sight.

As Skyhold dropped behind the horizon, Godrick’s thoughts weren’t speculating about Kanderon’s preparations for the siege anymore. Instead, his thoughts dwelt on his father.

As a child, Godrick had always thought his father’s armor to be invincible, but in Ithos he’d seen the armor fail. He’d genuinely thought that his father, and maybe his friends, had died. It had been the worst moment of his life. His mother’s illness had taken months, and he’d had time to adjust to the idea of losing her, but he was still waking up with nightmares of his father’s death. Somehow, it felt wrong to ask Talia to get rid of the nightmares with dreamfire.

Now, with his father heading back into the mountains to war against Havath again, he couldn’t get the nightmares out of his head. He couldn’t stop seeing the armor crumble into the canals of Imperial Ithos.

Skyhold set in the east just before the sun set in the west.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Dragonclaw Yardangs

Nothing exciting happened during the three days sailing to the Dragonclaw Yardangs, which Hugh was quite happy about. Talia was seasick, the rest of them took turns standing watch alongside the smuggling ship’s crew, and they spent the rest of their free time training.

Captain Lesthenes and his crew were far less friendly and welcoming than the Radhan or any other ship they’d been on— they rarely talked to the four of them. Hugh would have enjoyed that, if the rare occasions when the captain and crew did speak to them, they weren’t consistently unpleasant and rude. The crew seemed to think they’d just had the first convenient apprentices hoisted off on them and that they wouldn’t be of any real use in a battle. Jibes about Talia’s weak stomach were especially common.

The first mate was especially unsettling. He never said anything, but Hugh was always catching him watching the four of them, and there was something that just seemed… off about him.

Hugh was annoyed by all that, but he didn’t bother correcting any of them, or telling them he was the Stormward. He didn’t honestly care what a bunch of smugglers thought— he wouldn’t be surprised if they turned to piracy when they had the chance.

Talia probably would have argued with them if she wasn’t sick, but Hugh doubted she’d even noticed their rudeness.

The Quiet Humility ’s ship cat was just as awful as its crew. It was a dog-sized lizard that looked like nothing more than the vile child of a crocodile and a gecko. It ran around the ship, climbing the bulkheads and snapping at everyone. The crew didn’t actually seem to even like it, though they took a perverse pride in the awful creature.

Sabae seemed nearly as miserable as Talia— she was forcing herself to practice using her lightning magic every day, something she clearly hated.

Talia had told Hugh that she was having to use dreamfire on Sabae’s nightmares about lightning every night— she kept reliving the incident that had burned the scars into her while she was younger. Old traumas and fears were much harder for dreamfire to deal with, though repeated applications were slowly starting to work.

The yardangs rose over the horizon on the fourth day.

There were plenty of inhabited yardangs in the Endless Erg. The wind-carved stones formations were often excellent for cliff-dwellings— at least the largest ones. Many smaller yardangs were no larger than a person, of course, but those were regularly swallowed up by dunes as they migrated across the Endless Erg. Only the largest yardangs stayed permanently above the sand and attracted settlers.

The Dragonclaw Yardang was composed of three long, teardrop-shaped parallel ridges that, when viewed from above, looked remarkably like the talon marks left in the ground by a walking dragon. The broader end of the ridges faced into the wind, with the ridges narrowing towards the lee.

According to Godrick, it was actually the sand blown in the wind carving the yardangs, not the wind itself, but since you didn’t really get wind without sand in the Endless Erg, Hugh wasn’t overly concerned about the distinction.

The yardangs were still leagues away, however, when something else caught his attention— a series of massive stone pillars, each as thick and high as a ship’s mast, jutting out of the sand. They were engraved with spellforms from top to bottom, and Hugh’s crystal affinity sense detected at least twice as much length concealed beneath the sand. Hugh could see hundreds of them, running in a huge curve. You could sail a half-dozen ships between each pillar, if you wanted.

“The Sunfence,” Godrick said. “It forms a circle leagues across around Dragonclaw.”

“What does it do?” Hugh asked.

“Keeps the herds in and the predators out,” Godrick said.

“Herds?” Hugh said.

“Yeh’ll see.”

Hugh started to ask what he meant, but then they passed through the nearest gap between columns.

A bizarre sensation started at his fingertips, then covered all the skin on his body. It was halfway between a tingle and an itch— not painful, but not pleasant, either. It rose as they grew closer to the columns, and when they were through, it began to weaken again at the same rate.

Almost as soon as the sensation vanished, something rose up from the desert sand in front of them. Hundreds of somethings. Weird, leaf-shaped creatures hovering just above the desert, with shiny black scales scattered across their backs.

“Are those sunlings?” Hugh asked.

Godrick nodded as the sunlings began flying alongside the ship, hundreds in each direction. They weren’t as cautious of it as the last sunlings he’d seen, and these ones actually seemed to be playing with the ship, seeing how close they could come to touching it. A few especially brave ones even flew under the ship and between the ship’s runners that held the hull off the sand.

“Dragonclaw’s main export is sunling meat and scales,” Godrick said. “Ah don’t know how the pillars work, exactly, but they’re not a ward. They keep the sunlings in and most a’ the predators, especially the sunmaws, out.”

Sabae hauled Talia onto the deck about then, and the sunling herds were enough to actually pull Talia’s attention away from her seasickness for a while.

When they got close enough to the yardangs to start making out details, it stole all their attention back from the sunlings.

For all that it was small compared to the great cities they’d visited, Dragonclaw was a stunning sight— the population lived, worked, and shopped entirely in cliff dwellings built snugly into the inner faces of the three huge ridges. Dozens, if not hundreds, of bridges arched over the gap between the ridges, ranging from rickety rope constructions to massive, covered stone buildings grown in a single piece by stone mages. Temporary markets had sprung up on many of the largest bridges, with people bustling around in densely packed crowds of colorfully dressed people. A few mages flew between the bridges, and Hugh could see a fire juggler and a couple of other mage-performers among the crowds. Despite the fact that Dragonclaw’s population was smaller than Skyhold’s, it felt much livelier and more active.

None of that was what seized most of his attention, though.

No, it was the turtle shell he couldn’t look away from.

A massive sea turtle shell was wedged, perfectly level, between two of the cliffs. It was bigger than Kanderon. Bigger than any living animal he’d ever seen save Ephyrus. Indris could have perched comfortably atop, or perhaps even sprawled. There was enough air beneath it to sail a large sandship past, and there were several trails in the sand indicating that captains did just that.

Filling the turtle shell was a palace. A massive balcony jutted out from the opening where the tail should have been, with an opulent ballroom visible behind it.

“It looks just like Chelys Mot’s shell, only bigger,” Hugh said.

“A lot bigger,” Sabae said.

“Mot was the one who put it there, century or so back,” a voice said.

Hugh glanced back to see that Captain Lesthenes had joined them at the prow, a sour look on his face.

“There’s a reason that turtle doesn’t go back to sea no more,” the captain said, then spat over the side of the ship. “He’s well quit of it. The deeps are a nasty place. Plenty a’ great powers that’ve fled the sea fer drier climes. Mot just had the bad luck to be followed out by his enemies. I’ll take honest sand over deep water any day.”

“Can we help you with anything?” Hugh asked, hoping the captain would leave them alone.

“Watch the sunlings,” Lesthenes replied.

A little puzzled, Hugh turned to watch the sunling herd again.

For a little while, nothing seemed to change— the sunlings danced alongside the ship, glittering in the sunlight. Then, all at once, without any discernible signal, they turned and fled from the yardangs at once, heading back out to open sands.

“The Herdsman,” Captain Lesthenes said, “is a prickly sort. He’s a great power, sure, but he still jumps when Skyhold says. He don’t much like being reminded of that fact. Keep it in mind, aye?”

Captain Lesthenes turned to leave them, then stopped.

“Oh, and he ain’t called the Herdsman for the sunlings,” he said.

He pointed at the end of the nearest ridge.

The four of them turned to look where he’d pointed, even Talia, who mostly seemed focused on her seasickness.

“Ah don’t see anything,” Godrick said.

Hugh inhaled sharply. “I do.”

Without the enhanced vision his contract with Kanderon had given him, he probably never would have seen it, but it jumped out clearly to his eyes once he knew where to look. The colors were off just a hair, the contours bulged just a little too much, and the shadows were just a little deeper than they should have been.

“There’s some kind of huge lizard hanging on the cliff there,” Hugh said. “Its skin blends in almost with the rock.”

Sabae flipped her enchanted goggles down over her eyes and fiddled with them for a moment.

“It’s a chameleon,” she said. “I’ve never seen one longer than my hand, though. This one’s got to be half the length of the ship. And I’ve never heard of one this good at concealing itself— they mostly use the color changes to communicate with one another.”

“Ah still don’t see anything,” Godrick said.

Sabae took off her goggles and handed them to him.

“Is it related to dragons or something?” Hugh asked.

Sabae shook her head. “Nope. Dragons aren’t reptiles. They’re warm blooded, and they all have legs that go straight down from their hips. Reptiles have limbs that splay out to the side from their hips.”

“Uhhhh… ah don’t want ta’ interrupt, but there’s rather a lot a’ these things,” Godrick said.

Hugh turned his gaze away from the massive chameleon, and found that Godrick was right. Dozens of the lizards perched all over the rocks, many nearly as large as the first, and a few even larger. One, perched atop the center ridge, had to be two-thirds the size of Kanderon.

“Let me see,” Talia said, reaching for the goggles.

Captain Lesthenes chuckled.

“That’s why he’s called the Herdsman. Animal magic like his chameleon affinity might be worthless in a straight fight, but not all animal mages are farmers. The Herdsman bred and grew those monsters with his magic, and they’re perfectly loyal, and don’t go down easy. ‘Course, that’s a pretty decent reason not to pick a fight with any farmer— anyone tough enough to keep monsters off their herds deserves a bit of respect. Don’t be stupid enough to give the Herdsman a reason to have his lizards eat us all, eh?”

Lesthenes smiled unpleasantly and walked off.

Up in the rigging, the first mate was staring at them.

Hugh turned back to the prow and kept his eyes on the massive chameleons as the Quiet Humility slowly sailed into one of the many sandship docking caves carved into the base of the yardangs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Herdsman

Talia was starting to feel considerably better as Captain Lesthenes and the creepy first mate led them to the Herdsman’s palace.

While the actual distance between the cavern docks and the massive, suspended sea turtle shell wasn’t far, the walk took them through a long, confusing series of tunnels, staircases, and balconies.

“Isn’t this place a little exposed?” Talia asked. “Wouldn’t a sandstorm do a lot of damage here?”

Sabae shrugged. “We’re too close to the Skyreach Range. The winds blowing down off the mountains weakens the storms pretty severely— it’s why we don’t ever really get them at Skyhold.”

Talia, not for the first time, considered spending some time with a wind-map of the continent— given how many great powers were weather mages, it would be useful to know. Stone liches were likely the only type of great power that were more common. Draconic great powers were plentiful, but in great part because being dragons gave them a massive head start power-wise, not because of any shared affinity.

Their progress was slowed as they worked their way across a market bridge— not simply because of the bustling crowd, but also because they couldn’t help but eye the contents of various stalls. The goods on sale weren’t quite as diverse and plentiful as in Theras Tel or Zophor, but it was an impressive array nonetheless.

At one point, Talia was amused to spot two city guardsmen— one older and overweight, the other so ugly she wasn’t entirely sure he was human— clearly stealing from the merchant booths. Talia didn’t say anything— she wasn’t here to stop petty crime, and city guards engaged in petty theft in every city she’d been to. Usually not quite as blatantly as this, though.

Hugh had been distracted for the entire walk, watching for more of the giant chameleons. Talia glanced at Mackerel, who was half asleep, hanging off Hugh’s shoulder. When Talia was sure Mackerel knew she was looking, she gestured at Hugh with her chin.

Mackerel rustled his pages— the crystal spellbook was definitely a he, she didn’t care what anyone else said— and sleepily yanked on his strap.

Hugh stumbled into her.

“Mackerel, quit that!” Hugh said. “I’m sorry, Talia.”

She smiled at him. “It’s not your fault.”

Hugh smiled back and reached out for her hand. When he wasn’t looking, Talia winked at Mackerel.

“Do we know anything else about the Herdsman?” Hugh asked.

Sabae shook her head. “There are dozens of great powers in the Endless Erg, I didn’t learn about anywhere close to all of them before I left Ras Andis for Skyhold. All I know is that he mostly keeps to himself, and has been in power for fifteen years or so. Kanderon doesn’t tolerate many challenges to the tributary powers in her territory.”

“How many tributary powers does she have?” Talia asked. “I’ve never really heard people talk about them. Also, why isn’t sunling ever served in the Skyhold cafeterias, if there are herds this big nearby?”

“Only a handful, and almost all the rest are liches deep in the Skyreach Range,” Sabae said. “I doubt she even pays much attention to them. And you have eaten sunling meat before. It’s pretty bland and tasteless, and falls apart super easily, so it’s mostly used in soup stock and meat pastries and such. No one ever makes it the core of a dish. I guarantee it’s used to bulk up lots of the food served at Skyhold.”

“There’s no way I’d miss an entire new kind of meat in my food for years,” Talia said.

Godrick tapped. “It’s definitely in our food, ah can smell it.”

“And you never told us?” Talia asked.

The four of them bickered and laughed all the way up to the palace. Talia ignored most of the glaring from the captain and first mate, though she might have summoned a ball of dreamfire above her hand when it got particularly annoying. Just a little one, though.

The palace itself was a bit of a let-down to Talia. There wasn’t any coherent theme to the tapestries, sculptures, and other treasures on display, and most of them weren’t even that impressive. The Herdsman, or more likely his predecessors as the great power of Dragonclaw, had clearly just added whatever they could find, leading to an eclectic, jumbled mess of decor. It wasn’t that surprising, though— most great powers moved in and out of cities like hermit crabs, battling each other constantly for dominance. It was never particularly good for the inhabitants, but trying to stop the dominance battles of the great powers was like trying to stop the moon in the sky.

Not that Talia would voice her criticisms of the palace out loud, it kind of ruined the image of being a battle-hungry barbarian when you talked about art curation. Also, there was the whole “don’t anger the Herdsman” thing, which she was rather less concerned about.

After all, strong opinions on art aside, she actually was a battle-hungry barbarian.

The Herdsman’s throne room must have taken up at least a third of the space inside the shell. One end of the room opened onto the balcony they’d seen on the ride in, while the Herdsman sat at the other end. The ceiling was just the curving upper shell of the turtle, far above their heads.

The decor was a bit more to Talia’s taste than the rest of the palace— there was no gold, jewels, or any other decorations. Instead, there were just immense columns and rafters of yellowing scrimshawed bone, almost certainly from the turtle that had once filled this shell. Even the floor was made of countless mismatched planks of bone, albeit without the carvings.

Unlike the shell, she could feel the bone with her affinity sense. She wasn’t sure what the shell was made of, but it wasn’t bone.

The scrimshaw columns and carvings were purely decorative, at first glance— scenes of war and battle, dragons and sunmaws. Talia even spotted one great mural that had to depict one of the risings of the Sleeper Under the Sands. There was certainly no structural need for the columns and rafters— most of them didn’t even reach up all the way to the shell above.

When she took a closer look at the columns, however, she realized that there were, in fact, spellforms woven throughout the scrimshaw. They were cunningly concealed in the etchings, but they were there.

“Anti-magic enchantments,” Captain Lesthenes muttered, noticing her looking at the carvings. “Mage prisons aren’t worth a cup of salt for containing a decent mage, but they can certainly dampen spellcasting for a short time. And a short time is all the Herdsman’s pets need.”

By the way Hugh’s gaze was darting around the room, Talia was guessing that there were more than a few of the giant chameleons around them.

The walk to the throne was a long one, as it should be. Give visitors time to be impressed, give yourself time to observe them from your throne.

The Herdsman’s throne was, well… it wasn’t. The Herdsman was, so far as Talia could tell, merely sitting in mid-air.

The Herdsman himself would have been huge in any company that didn’t include a Lothalan. He was only a hand shorter than Godrick, and his shoulders were just as wide. The middle-aged man looked like some battle-scarred pre-Ithonian warrior-king. He was dressed in rough sleeveless leathers and comfortable boots, and other than his location, the only sign that he was the ruler of Dragonclaw Yardang was the jeweled goblet he clutched in one hand. Talia’s eyes kept being drawn to one particularly nasty scar on the sun-leathered skin of his upper arm— a wound that had clearly been badly sewn together without the attention of a healer.

It all added up to an effective display, Talia had to admit. She hardly paid any attention to the handful of nervous-looking servants along the walls— it was all reserved for the Herdsman and the empty air he sat on. Given how much time and energy Clan Castis gave to controlling appearances, it was seldom that she felt impressed by the displays others put on to impress people. The Herdsman did so easily.

Then the air beneath him started to ripple.

Streaks of pink, red, orange, and yellow began appearing around and underneath the Herdsman. They rapidly congealed together, then solidified into a light green wall of scales.

The Herdsman was sitting on one of his massive chameleons.

The immense lizard’s eyes shifted about independently— one seemed to be examining each of the visitors individually, while the other tracked semi-randomly throughout the room as if watching for threats. Its mouth hung slightly open, and a massive, bulbous pink tongue was visible just inside. If the mouth had been fully open, the creature could have easily swallowed Godrick whole.

Captain Lesthenes came to a halt and bowed, and the others quickly followed suit— though Talia had to nudge Hugh to pull his attention away from the chameleon.

Talia kept her attention fully on the Herdsman as Captain Lesthenes introduced him. For all the smuggler clearly disliked the apprentices, he showed none of that now, adding Hugh and Godrick’s titles, Sabae and Talia’s families, and a few of their deeds over the past two years.

Talia had thought the captain hadn’t known who they were, but…

The Herdsman’s scowl just grew deeper as the smuggler spoke.

Finally, the ruler of Dragonclaw interrupted. “Dress it up however you want, Captain, they’re just apprentices. The big cat thinks that I’ll be so scared by Havath showing up that I’ll just fall into line and behave.”

Sabae stepped forward. “I assure you…”

The Herdsman threw his half-empty cup, which bounced off the bone floor in front of them.

“I wouldn’t pay a bent copper for any of your assurances,” the Herdsman said. “History’s turning against your master and her puppets, and I won’t be risking my city to help her out of the trap she’s climbed into. I’ll let you take the supplies you’ve paid for, but I want you gone by noon tomorrow.”

“That’s hardly enough time to load the ship,” Captain Lesthenes said.

“That’s hardly my problem,” the Herdsman said. “Is there anything else you want to waste my time with?”

The chameleon was looking at them with both eyes and starting to shift restlessly.

Godrick pulled out the sealed scroll, and offered it to the Herdsman, not saying anything.

The animal mage eyed Godrick for a moment, grunted, then levitated the scroll over to himself with a cantrip.

“You can leave now.”

Talia narrowed her eyes at the man, but swiveled to follow the rest of the group.

Among the bone columns of the room, at least a dozen chameleons were fading in and out of view. Talia ignored them, though Hugh couldn’t take his eyes off them.

As they walked, Talia sped up gradually until she took the lead of the group. She didn’t turn towards the hallways leading out, but instead, she kept walking out onto the balcony at the far end of the throne room. The Endless Erg loomed beyond the railing, framed by the massive ridges to either side.

When she reached the edge, she leapt up onto the wide, flat banister, using the smallest burst of force from her enchanted boots. The others followed her up, having caught onto what she was doing. Even the smuggler seemed to have caught on, though his first mate looked slightly alarmed.

Talia turned back to the Herdsman and bowed mockingly. After standing back up, she stared at the man long enough for him to understand that she meant him no respect.

Then she leaned backwards and fell.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Grand Arc of History

Hugh had a brief moment of panic when his levitation spell didn’t work at first— casting was like trying to wade through chest-deep honey. The instant they got far enough away from the magic dampening enchantments of the throne room, however, the levitation spell caught them easily, and their fall to the sand below rapidly slowed to a safe pace.

He couldn’t tell whether it was Captain Lesthenes or his first mate, but one of them was using a levitation spell to slow their fall as well. It was well-made, and just lowered the burden on Hugh’s mana, rather than slowing their fall further. A force spell, most likely.

Hugh tried to ignore all the camouflaged chameleons watching them from the cliffs. Apart from their sheer size, Hugh could not stand the way their beady, almost-entirely-covered eyes moved independently of one another. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand.

Quite a few citizens of Dragonclaw were watching them as well, pointing and gossiping— their jump had attracted a lot of attention, which Hugh wasn’t particularly happy with either.

Neither the chameleons nor the crowds had the gaze Hugh was most concerned about, though.

“There were invisible people in the room watching us,” Hugh said, as soon as they’d all landed.

“Yeh can see invisible mages?” Godrick asked.

Hugh nodded. “Apparently so, at least these ones. Not very well, of course, but I was already looking for chameleons. There was a whole group of them, off behind the Herdsman and to one side.”

“Is the kid right?” Captain Lesthenes asked, giving his first mate a sharp look.

The first mate nodded.

“How many were there?” Sabae asked.

“Four or five,” Hugh said.

“Five,” the first mate confirmed.

Sabae and the captain cursed simultaneously.

“What?” Hugh asked.

“The Sacred Swordsmen travel in groups of five, remember? Hands, they call them.” Talia said.

“Ah think we should be careful about jumpin’ ta’ conclusions,” Godrick said. “They coulda’ been guards.”

“Maybe,” Sabae said, but she sounded doubtful.

“Remember what the Herdsman said?” Captain Lesthenes asked. “History’s turning against Skyhold. You know who loves to use rhetoric filled with talk of the grand plan or the grand arc of history? Who believes that there is an inevitable pattern to history?”

“Havath,” Sabae said.

No one spoke much as they trudged back to the docking cave.

“So what is this whole Havathi obsession with history?” Hugh asked Sabae.

The four of them were sitting in the empty ship’s mess of the Quiet Humility , with an untouched jar of unidentifiable jerky on the table between them and Mackerel sitting sleepily next to it . Godrick was especially cramped in the tiny space, but none of them wanted to be out on deck with the chameleons lurking about. There were at least two of them perched on the walls of the docking cave.

There was always the threat that the Havathi might make a move, but it seemed unlikely in broad daylight. They were all keeping their weapons close to hand, though.

“It’s really weird,” Sabae said. “I’ve been reading about it quite a bit these last few weeks. They believe there are these grand patterns of history, that there are certain paths history inevitably takes.”

“Like a prophecy or somethin’?” Godrick asked.

Sabae shook her head. “No, more like… a flash flood in the desert seeking out the same few canyons each time it reoccurs. The debris carried by the floods might change each time, but it’s still carried along roughly the same paths. The debris, in this case, being the specific details of history. Basically, they believe that there’s a deeper, underlying pattern that history inevitably follows, and that the differences are just superficial ones. They obviously also believe that the rise of a centralizing empire is inevitable, and that their rise fits that deeper, underlying pattern.”

Mackerel sleepily slid across the table towards Hugh, clearly wanting its spine scratched.

“What about the fall of empires?” Talia asked. “You’d think that the fate of the Ithonian Empire would make them worry a bit.”

Sabae shrugged. “Not really. Ithos ruled for centuries before it fell, and while it had already been in decline for most of a century when Kanderon destroyed it, it would likely have taken decades longer still, if not a century or more, to fall entirely without her. They think that Ithos’ fall wasn’t inevitable, rather that Ithos didn’t fully understand that grand underlying pattern, and Havath can avoid that fate if they hew safely to that same pattern. They view Kanderon as an aberration, as some sort of awful monster from outside the flow of history.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hugh said. “History’s just… stuff that’s happened in the past. How can something that happened in the past not be part of it?”

“It’s absurd, I agree,” Sabae replied. “But that’s what they do with everything inconvenient in history— either label it as some freak event, or as irrelevant surface details. The only reason their theories even seem consistent is that they’ve presented a version of history rendered into reductive pap, with more lies of omission than facts. They simply can’t allow themselves to acknowledge that history’s basically nothing but messy absurdities, and that there is no inevitable path to it. Every shape will fit into a round hole if you carve it and hammer it enough.”

“History’s one a’ mah worst subjects, and even ah can tell it’s nonsense,” Godrick said. “Stuff doesn’t happen due ta’ some grand plan. Stuff happens because other stuff that happened before it caused it, which was caused by stuff before that, an’ so on.”

Sabae shook her head. “There’s not a plan— they’re very clear about that. Nobody’s plotting out history ahead of time— rather, they think of history as a natural force, like gravity or the weather.”

“It sounds like a bunch of self-serving drakeshit to me,” Talia said. “Whatever best justifies their conquests.”

Hugh started to nod, then paused.

“Is this what you’ve been up to with your books lately, Sabae?” he asked. “Trying to figure out how the Havathi think?”

“I mean, sort of,” Sabae said. “Or at least that’s part of it.”

She looked vaguely embarrassed by the question, but continued when everyone just kept watching her.

“I’ve been trying to find a purpose,” Sabae said.

“I mean… don’t you already have one?” Talia asked. “Aren’t you trying to become a powerful battlemage?”

“Not that kind of purpose,” Sabae replied. “That purpose is just what I want to be, not what I want to do.”

They all stared at her, slightly puzzled. She groaned and rested her forehead in her hands.

“I’m explaining this terribly,” she said. She groaned again, then lifted her head. “After the battle for Imperial Ithos, I got to thinking about what I actually wanted to do with power after I got it. Having power means nothing if you don’t use it, and if you use it without some greater purpose, you’re only serving the interests of the power that already exists. Even if I were to somehow become a great power someday, without a purpose of my own I’d just end up perpetuating the cycle of great powers battling for dominance, constantly threatening the lives of those weaker than them.”

Hugh traded uncertain glances with the others. Mackerel pushed at his hand, not wanting him to stop scratching its spine.

“I mean, what alternative is there?” Talia asked. “It’s awful, but that’s how it’s always been.”

“It’s not, though,” Sabae said. “There are plenty of nations that have remained stable for centuries without it, like Highvale and Alikea. Highvale is in a constant state of low-grade military mobilization to fend off any ambitious great powers, and Alikea has channeled the ambitions of its great powers into petty political squabbles in their Parliament. All of them seem to be at their limits, though, and their solutions have all failed when tried anywhere else. Even Havath’s goal, is, at its heart, an attempt to break free from the chaos of the great powers. I want some purpose that frees me from the games of the great powers, but I’ve got no idea what.”

Hugh exchanged glances with Talia and Godrick, sighed, then poked Sabae gently in the forehead.

“You’re being ridiculous right now,” he said.

Sabae scowled and pushed his hand away. “What, just because I’m trying to think of the larger picture, and because I want more purpose in life than just engaging in the same ridiculous power games that my family’s played for centuries? I might not know what it will be, but I’m going to find it.”

“Not knowin’ yer purpose is why Hugh’s calling yeh ridiculous, not because yeh’re thinkin’ bigger,” Godrick said.

“I don’t understand,” Sabae said.

“They mean you’re whining and moaning about not knowing what your purpose is, when you literally just told us what it is,” Talia said, rolling her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Sabae demanded.

“You want to end the constant coups and conquests,” Hugh said. “To stop the games of the great powers. To find a way to stop them from battling over cities and trading them like hermit crabs do shells.”

Sabae just stared at them, her jaw working, but no sound coming out. After a few seconds, she spluttered and managed to find her voice.

“That’s insane,” she said. “That’d be like me saying I want to punch a new crater into the moon. That’s not an even remotely sane or plausible goal for one person, even if I somehow became as powerful as my grandmother. I want to change things, but there’s no possible way to do anything on that scale. I need to be a little more realistic with my ambitions. Find some way, at the least, for me to personally contribute. There’s nothing I can do on my own.”

“Good thing you’re not alone,” Talia said, then grabbed a piece of jerky out of the jar between them.

Hugh and Godrick nodded at that.

Mackerel locked its gaze on Talia’s slice of jerky.

Sabae’s gaze shot back and forth between the others. “Are you… are you serious? We’ve done some crazy things together, but overthrowing the political order of an entire continent seems like a bit of a heavy demand to place on the bonds of friendship.”

“Any friendship whose end goal isn’t bloody mass revolution seems like a pretty boring friendship to me,” Talia said.

Sabae stared for a moment, then banged her forehead against the table.

“I’m being serious,” she said, face still on the table.

“So are we,” Hugh said. “Do you think we haven’t seen it, too? We were all there when Ataerg made his move on Theras Tel. Last I heard, there were over seven hundred dead, crushed beneath falling debris and dragons, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was even higher than that. And that’s considered a fairly light death-toll for a battle between great powers at their level.”

“Before Ampioc took over Lothal,” Godrick said, “there was a new ruler every year or two. There was one year where there were nine different great powers that seized control. Me da’s parents were killed in one a’ those coups. There’s a reason there are so many Ampioc cults in Lothal, and why he’s so beloved. Even if he were a terrible ruler, which he isn’t, ah think he’d still be beloved, just for bringin’ stability.”

“When Intet Slew destroyed Louthem and built her hideous lair in its ruins, Clan Castis had a major trade mission there,” Talia said, waving her piece of jerky in the air. “We lost one out of every ten members of the clan that day. Most of our clan today wasn’t even born then, and we still tell stories about how we’ll take vengeance on her someday.”

Mackerel’s gaze followed the strip of jerky in her hand as though hypnotized.

“Back in Emblin,” Hugh said, “I was told nightmarish stories about how horrible the world was outside our borders, how mages constantly ravaged and destroyed the land, and everyone else huddled in terror at night. They were an exaggeration, sure, but they weren’t entirely wrong.”

“Ah don’t think literally anyone has ever actually liked the way things are,” Godrick said. “Lotta people say it’s the only way things can be, but most a’ them are either great powers or beholden ta’ them. It serves their interests ta’ say things can’t change.”

“You want to change things, we’ll follow you the whole way,” Hugh said.

Sabae’s gaze bounced back and forth between them.

“You’re all actually serious,” she said. “You know this is an impossible fight, don’t you? Seriously, the whole punching a crater in the moon thing is more realistic.”

“Some impossible fights are worth fighting,” Talia said, then finally took a bite of her jerky.

Mackerel seemed fascinated by that and began shifting his gaze between her chewing and the jar of jerky.

“What if it turns out that Havath’s answer is the right one?” Sabae asked.

“Ah highly doubt it,” Godrick said. “Conquerin’ everyone as a solution ta’ people conquerin’ each other all the time doesn’t sound quite right ta’ me.”

“We’re just a bunch of apprentices,” Sabae said. “I can’t repeat that enough. We’re not powerful enough, and there’s not enough of us. If someone can solve the problem, it’s not going to be us. Again, and I really can’t reiterate this enough, we can’t do this any more than we can punch a crater in the moon.”

“If not us, then who?” Hugh asked.

“I mean… half the nations on the continent?” Sabae said.

“None a’ them seem ta’ have pulled it off yet,” Godrick said. “Ah’m pretty sure they’ve been at it fer a while now. No reason not ta’ try. Like Talia said— it’s not about our chances a’ winning, it’s about how important the cause is.”

“Can we actually do the blasting a new crater in the moon thing after we overthrow the political order of the continent?” Talia asked. “That sounds like fun.”

“You’re all crazy,” Sabae said.

“And?” Hugh asked.

Sabae hit her forehead against the table again. “I guess I am too.”

Talia reached out and clapped Sabae on the shoulder. “So where do we start?”

“I have no idea,” Sabae said. “Not in the slightest. Other than keep training, I suppose. And hope we somehow survive this war against Havath.”

“Easy enough,” Godrick said.

Hugh reached out and gently lifted Sabae’s forehead off the table.

“We believe in you, but you don’t need to come up with the solution overnight,” Hugh said.

“We could always just murder all the great powers,” Talia said.

Hugh chose to ignore that suggestion. “We’ve got your back, Sabae. We all trust you. Take your time.”

Sabae took a deep breath, then sat up straight. “Thank you, Hugh. That… that really means a lot.”

Mackerel took that moment to lunge at the jar of jerky, sending it flying all over the ship’s mess.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Knock at the Door

Hugh was readin that evening when someone knocked on his cabin door.

Godrick hadn’t turned in for the night, but whenever they shared a cabin he usually called through the door rather than knocking, so Hugh knew it wasn’t him.

He set down Mackerel on the little cabin table that was affixed to the wall, took a deep breath, and nervously straightened his hair with his fingers.

Hugh opened the door for Talia, fixating on the fact that Talia’s hair was finally getting longer than his again, when he heard what sounded like an explosion.

Then the whole ship rocked, as though something huge was climbing up its side.

Hugh groaned.

Talia grinned at him. “Well, I’m sure this will be fun too.”

Hugh sighed. “Come on, Mackerel, we’ve got giant invisible lizards to kill.”

“Best date ever,” Talia said.

“Flare!” Hugh shouted as he rolled out onto the deck of the ship. A heartbeat later, he summoned a massive starfire beacon just beneath the cavern roof.

The ship and the docking cavern were doused in the painful, actinic radiance of the beacon, and if Hugh’s anti-glare cantrip hadn’t been active, he would have been blinded by it, just as the sailors and the attacking chameleon were.

Hugh spun to face the lizard in question, readying a starbolt spellform in his mind’s eye. The creature was halfway up onto the deck, the railing smashed beneath its bulk. Its camouflage had failed to compensate for the blinding glare, and it was clearly visible to Hugh.

Just as he prepared to launch the starbolt, Hugh spotted something wedged halfway into the chameleon’s mouth, and he jerked his aim to the side. The glowing energy blast lanced into the creature’s shoulder instead of its head, and not even a second later a massive dreamfire bolt lanced into the creature’s other shoulder.

Hugh winced a little. The starbolt just turned a chunk of the creature into a charred mess, but the dreamfire bolt had turned the creature’s other shoulder into a mass of teeth.

The chameleon let out an awful hiss, and Godrick’s armor tumbled out of its mouth, the chameleon’s tongue still attached to it. Something was different about Godrick’s armor this time, but Hugh didn’t take the time to figure out what.

Before Hugh could hit it with a second starbolt, a cloud of what looked like white birds launched into the lizard’s mouth, severing its tongue and vanishing into the roof of its mouth.

The chameleon shuddered, went still, then collapsed fully onto the deck.

Hugh let the starfire beacon fade.

“One of the alchemical explosives detonated early,” someone said.

Hugh turned to face Captain Lesthenes and the first mate, who weren’t stumbling around blindly like the crew.

“Thanks for giving us warning about the flare,” the captain said.

“You’re a paper mage?” Hugh asked. He’d never heard of another battle mage with a paper affinity other than Alustin.

Captain Lesthenes grinned and waved his hand at the first mate.

Then his face dissolved into Alustin’s, his body following suit a heartbeat later.

The first mate, meanwhile, dissolved into the redheaded form of Captain Bandon, wearing at least four short swords in scabbards. Two of the sailors nearby dissolved into the actual Lesthenes and his first mate.

“Of course you were with us the whole time,” Talia said. “I’m not sure whether to be relieved you’re here or angry you didn’t trust us to do this mission on our own.”

“Oh, if the ship had been attacked by pirates or something, I wouldn’t have helped you defend it at all,” Alustin said cheerfully. “Couldn’t risk breaking my cover before the mission was complete.”

“What did yeh say about an alchemical explosive?” Godrick asked, approaching them.

Hugh glanced at Godrick’s stone armor. It was covered in some sort of sticky substance from the chameleon’s tongue, and Godrick hadn’t assembled the helmet portion of the armor yet, but neither of those things were what caught his attention.

Godrick’s armor was made of translucent crystal.

“Is your armor made of quartzite?” Hugh asked.

Godrick nodded. “Ah was practicing lithifying sand inta sandstone, then sandstone inta quartzite, when the explosion went off in the distance. Barely got mah armor on in time.”

Hugh pulled Godrick’s quartz faceplate from his pocket.

“You left this in our cabin,” he said.

Godrick nodded his thanks and began assembling his helmet around the faceplate.

“As much fun as this is, we likely only have a few moments until we’re attacked,” Alustin said. “Hugh, ward the entrance to the cavern. Godrick, seal off all the other entrances. Talia, get up into the drake’s nest, I want you ready to annihilate any threats that get in here. Where’s Sabae?”

“I’m here!” Sabae shouted, running up onto deck. She was carrying her enchanted spear and buckler. Her wind armor was already spinning around her, and her goggles were already in place. “Sorry, Alustin, I was in bed when I heard the explosion.”

“You knew Alustin was here?” Hugh asked.

“I trusted her to keep a secret,” Alustin said. “Not to mention, she was the most likely to get angry at me if she thought I was using you all for bait or the like without your knowledge. Which I wasn’t doing— you were cover, not bait. Very different things. Also, get moving, everyone. Sabae, go grab Godrick’s hammer for him.”

Hugh nodded, then launched himself towards the cave entrance with his force boots. He started crystallizing the ward beneath the sand of the entrance before he even started to fall, and easily managed to levitate himself down to the ground without stopping ward construction.

It was only a few heartbeats later when he finished the ward, but when he tried to run mana through it, the ward refused to ignite. Hugh ran his crystal affinity sense over the threads of quartz he’d grown, but he couldn’t detect any errors.

He switched his affinity sense to the stone above and smiled. There. Wards meant to keep ships inside the docks, probably carved by a stone mage. They weren’t activated, but he imagined they would be if someone tried to leave without paying the docking fees. Even inactive, however, this ward was interfering with his own.

Hugh unlinked the mineral crystals in part of the ward, severing it and causing a small rockfall on one side of the entrance.

The moment he ignited his own ward, something smacked against it, hitting the ward hard enough to send a wave of white light across the ward, like a pond ripple in mid-air.

A fleshy pink chameleon tongue.

Hugh hadn’t even seen it move, it was so fast. It had hit the ward hard enough to drain a sizeable chunk of his mana— enough to cause some serious damage to a person even if the tongue wasn’t going to pull them into a giant mouth afterward.

If Hugh had been a second slower with the ward, he’d have been a goner.

He really needed to get his armor idea working when they got back to Skyhold.

The tongue withdrew, leaving a smear of sticky, honey-like fluid hanging in mid-air on the ward.

Then it hammered against the ward again, followed by second, third, and fourth strikes that had to be from other chameleons. Each knock against the ward sent more white ripples racing across the cave’s entrance.

Hugh could feel his mana draining rapidly, and he quickly switched from using crystal mana to power the ward to using his planar mana— he didn’t have as much of it, but he wasn’t going to be using it for anything else soon.

Hugh searched the cliff of the ridge opposite him, and quickly counted at least a dozen chameleons out in the darkness, with more crawling into sight. They were annoyingly hard to count— his sphinx eyes let him see past their camouflage to an extent, but not entirely. There were a lot of them, though, and he wouldn’t be surprised if there were as many more on the cliff face directly above.

Mackerel slid from hanging to his side to hiding behind him.

“I really hate chameleons,” Hugh said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Battle of Dragonclaw Yardang

Godrick had just finished sealing the other entrances to the cavern when Sabae returned to the ship’s deck with his new hammer. For all that his magic wasn’t great for working at a distance, a little bit of stone-shaping over a doorway was no problem at this range.

She also brought his opal pendant from Ithos with her. He thanked her for both, then sealed the opal pendant into the stone of his helmet, under the quartz faceplate where it overlapped the quartzite.

Hugh landed back on deck a moment later, visibly distressed. Godrick, Sabae, and Alustin all converged on him at the same time.

“What’s wrong?” Alustin asked.

“There are way too many chameleons out there,” Hugh said. “My ward won’t hold for long. This isn’t a safe hideout.”

Alustin cursed. “We’re going to need to move into the tunnels, then. The Hand of Sacred Swordsmen is almost certainly going to come after us, and I hate fighting them in enclosed spaces— most of them are much more dangerous there. Captain Lesthenes!”

The real captain jogged over to them.

“We’re going to need to evacuate into the tunnels,” Alustin said. “Get your crew ready, we’re leaving in a minute.”

Lesthenes shook his head. “Not a chance. We’ll stay here and defend the ship.”

“Based on our intelligence, the chameleons can see straight through illusions, which are half of your defenses,” Alustin said. “They can perceive shades of violet past normal vision ranges, ones only the most powerful light mages can perceive.”

“They’re covered in bright glowing patterns, if you can see into that range of light,” Captain Bandon said, materializing out of thin air. “It’s quite beautiful, really.”

Godrick wasn’t sure if this Bandon was an illusion or the actual Bandon turning visible.

“Why didn’t the chameleons see through your disguises, then?” Lesthenes demanded.

“Big lizards aren’t exactly renowned for being able to recognize the faces of strangers, are they? Didn’t much matter what we looked like to them,” Alustin replied. “You want to depend on your illusions? Fine. Enjoy finding out what it’s like in a chameleon’s stomach. Hugh, how much longer can you hold this ward?”

“Five minutes, maybe, before I have to switch to my crystal mana?” Hugh said. “And then only if they don’t increase the rate they’re attacking.”

Godrick looked at the ripples of white light marking the tongue-strikes against the ward and shuddered. He’d only been in the chameleon’s mouth for a few seconds, but he would be happy never doing it again. He’d have been crushed like a bug for sure if his armor hadn’t been on.

“Captain, you have two minutes to get your crew ready, then we’re leaving. Your ship should be fine so long as there’s no one on it— it’s not what they’re after.”

“Skyhold’s compensatin’ me fer any losses,” Captain Lesthenes said.

Alustin waved him off.

“Godrick, get ready to unseal that passage over there,” he said, pointing.

Godrick nodded, and jumped over the railing to the sand below. Rather than use a levitation spell to slow his descent, he activated his force boots just before impacting to slow his fall. He, Talia, and Hugh had been practicing with the boots for weeks, now, and they were all starting to master them.

“Talia, get back down here!” Alustin called up into the rigging.

“I just got up here, though!” Talia called back.

Godrick rolled his eyes. He’d just sealed all the doors with stone, and now he had to unseal one of them immediately. He didn’t see what Talia had to complain about.

Godrick and Sabae were the first ones through the opening when he blasted through the stone wall he’d grown over one of the passageways. A wave of fire washed harmlessly over their armor, and beside Godrick, Sabae launched herself forward. The fire stopped almost immediately, and Godrick looked around.

The squad of guards that had been stationed there had almost all been knocked down by the explosion of boulders Godrick had caused— only the fire mage in the back had avoided injury, and she was suffering from a sudden case of being impaled on Sabae’s new spear.

Godrick kicked one of the Herdsman’s guards that were still moving, and bounced his hammer off another. “All clear!”

Alustin and Talia were through next. Alustin had assembled his paper armor around himself, while Talia had one of her enchanted daggers in each hand. They were followed by Captain Lesthenes and his crew, while Hugh and Captain Bandon held the rear.

He and Sabae led the group down the hallway for several ship lengths, Godrick collapsing several intersecting hallways on the way.

“Here!” Alustin called. “The hallway’s too small for the chameleons to get through now.”

Sabae poked her head into the doorway Alustin had pointed to.

“It’s clear,” she said after a moment, adjusting her goggles.

Captain Lesthenes’ men poured into the mostly-empty storeroom, which was presumably there for merchants to rent.

“Remember what I said about my ship,” the captain said.

Godrick couldn’t see Alustin’s face through his paper armor, but he could imagine his teacher’s annoyed expression.

“Oh, and apprentices?” Lesthenes added. “I’m not actually as bad-tempered and annoying as Alustin made me out to be. I apologize for his terrible portrayal of me.”

Lesthenes stepped through the door, and a moment later, the doorway rippled and became a stone wall.

“My illusions are better,” Bandon muttered.

As the six of them headed down the hall, Alustin shot a glance back at the hidden storeroom.

“He’s not as bad as I portrayed him, he’s worse,” the paper mage muttered.

“Yeh’ve got a bit a’ a grudge there,” Godrick said. “Yeh used ta’ date him or somethin’?”

Alustin didn’t reply.

“He did!” Talia crowed.

Alustin sighed. “We’ve got more important things to worry about at the moment.”

“I can’t imagine what,” Bandon said dryly.

Godrick chuckled but adjusted his hands for a better grip on his hammer.

The next few minutes were a blur of dodging through identical hallways carved into the stone of the yardang. Twice they were attacked by more guards, but Hugh and Godrick used their magic together to drop a tunnel roof on one group, while Talia and Alustin took out the second group with dreamwasps and paper birds.

Even Godrick looked away from that second group in a hurry, and Hugh vomited. Godrick was a little surprised Hugh hadn’t vomited when they dropped the tunnel roof on the first group, but there hadn’t been any bodies to see there, just rubble.

The instant Hugh had collected himself, the group was moving again. When they reached a staircase leading up, Alustin gestured for them to halt.

“Remember, if we run into the Sacred Swordsmen, the first target is the illusionist,” Alustin said in a low voice. “Bandon, Sabae, Hugh, you’ve got the best odds of spotting them. Once we’re up this staircase, we’ll take the next left, and it will lead us out onto a bridge to the next ridge. The instant we’re out there, Hugh, send up another starfire beacon, then get wardcrafting. Everyone make sure to have Kanderon’s anti-glare cantrip working, and don’t stop moving unless you want to get eaten by a chameleon. Sabae, Godrick, you’re in the lead again.”

Alustin pulled a pair of goggles with dark glass lenses out of mid-air, then handed them to Talia.

“So you don’t hurt your eyes with the anti-glare cantrip,” Alustin said.

Talia nodded, put on the goggles, then tightened the strap around her head.

Then Alustin told them the rest of the plan, and they all stared at him like he was a madman.

“Everyone ready?” Alustin asked.

No one said anything.

“We don’t have all day, people,” Alustin said. “Are you ready?”

Alustin got a round of uncertain nods at that.

“Let’s go then,” he said.

Godrick took a deep breath, hefted his hammer, and charged up the staircase.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Gravity of the Situation

Hugh was the third one out onto the bridge, behind Sabae and Godrick, with Bandon by his side.

He summoned a starfire beacon above the stone bridge on his second step onto the bridge.

He almost tripped in shock on his third step. There were hundreds of guards, mages, chameleons, and Sacred Swordsmen, all filling the dozens of bridges between the yardangs.

A fourth step, and he realized that most of them were flickering and phasing, merely illusions. All of them were recoiling from the brilliant light of the starfire beacon, and the few arrows, chameleon tongues, and spells coming their way were wildly off-target.

A fifth step, and Bandon threw his sword. It flew at impossible speeds, impaling one of the Sacred Swordsmen. It was traveling so fast that it actually sunk into the stone behind the man.

A sixth step, and the illusions facing them began to dissolve into specks of colored light.

A seventh, and illusory copies of their own group began to appear. There weren’t nearly as many as the Sacred Swordsman had summoned, but Bandon’s illusions were of far higher quality than the Havathi ones, and Hugh couldn’t help but feel a little disconcerted running next to a copy of himself, and seeing other copies leap to nearby bridges.

An eighth step, and the Skyhold group opened fire. Dreamwasps hammered into a chameleon that was clawing at its eyes, storms of paper sliced into crossbowmen, and Godrick sent a chunk of railing flying at one of the Herdsman’s mages, who was trying to fly away from the painful glare of the beacon.

A ninth step, and a flying light-haired woman landed on the bridge in front of them, dressed in the white and bronze of the Havath Dominion.

A tenth step, and the Sacred Swordsman casually deflected one of Talia’s dreambolts with her sword.

There was no eleventh step.

Hugh jerked to a halt against his will and looked down to see his chest and legs wrapped with paper, immobilizing him.

The others had been halted the same way, though Sabae had been halted by a wall of paper— her wind armor was probably too difficult to wrap.

The whole battlefield seemed to have frozen, no one launching spells or arrows.

The pages slipped off Hugh as Alustin stepped past him, joining a growing cloud of paper orbiting the Librarian Errant.

“It’s good to see you again, Alustin,” the woman ahead of them said. “I regret not getting a chance to speak to you at Imperial Ithos.”

“Valia,” Alustin said, his voice colder than Hugh had ever heard it. His Helicotan sabre flickered into his hand out of nowhere.

Hugh’s eyes bounced between the two.

Their swords were identical.

“Hugh, Talia, continue the mission. Godrick, Sabae, Bandon, make a mess,” Alustin said.

“Alustin, are you sure…” Bandon started. He was visibly nervous, unable to take his eyes off the woman with the Helicotan sabre.

“Now,” Alustin interrupted.

He lunged at Valia, and the entire battlefield exploded into motion.

Sabae windjumped off the bridge, aiming for another, higher bridge, but something slammed into her armor mid-flight and knocked her off-course.

Then a second impact, followed by a third, sending her tumbling.

On the third, she actually managed to catch sight of what had hit her— a chameleon tongue. They couldn’t stick to her wind armor, but they still hit hard.

Sabae scowled, windjumped again to stop tumbling, then activated one of her spear’s enchantments. The shortspear rapidly came to a halt in mid-air. Sabae spun about it in a tight circle using her momentum, then deactivated the enchantment and went flying off in a new direction, narrowly missing another chameleon tongue and several crossbow bolts.

It looked like their enemies were adjusting to Hugh’s beacon quickly.

As she flew, she caught glimpses of the others leaving the bridge by the dozen— Bandon had filled the battlefield with copies. There were more than enough enemies to go around for all the copies, however.

She also spotted a hellish storm of flying paper and phantasmal swords shredding the center of the stone bridge, Alustin and Valia barely visible inside.

She crashed into a group of archers on an uncovered stone bridge, and detonated her entire wind armor at once, dropping to the ground as she did so. The shockwave sent most of the archers flying off the bridge towards the sand below. A fall from this height would have absolutely killed the archers on stone, but there was a chance they might survive the impact with the sand.

They wouldn’t be standing back up anytime soon, though.

Not even two heartbeats later, her armor spun back up and she launched herself shield-first at one of the archers still on the bridge.

Before she hit him, she found herself falling straight up into the sky.

Gravity magic.

Sabae let the gravity spell pull her up uncontested, searching the area nearby for the attacking mage.

It wasn’t difficult. The woman was plummeting towards her at high speed, wielding a glowing halberd, wearing an unstained white uniform and an enchanted bronze breastplate. A Sacred Swordsman.

Sabae smiled, then windjumped upwards with as much power as possible. Between the power of the gravity spell and her windjump, she accelerated so quickly that she began to black out. She kept her focus on keeping hold of her spear and shield, however.

The Havathi warlock panicked and launched herself back up into the sky. Sabae felt the gravity spell begin to pull her down instead of up.

For a moment, it seemed as though her momentum would still be enough to catch up to the fleeing mage, but then she felt her upwards flight falter.

Before she could start falling, Sabae hurled her spear at the other woman as hard as she could, accelerating it forward by detonating her wind armor on that arm. It shot forward even faster than Sabae had earlier, and the gravity spell abruptly fell off her. She was attuned to the spear enough that she could feel the gravity spell concentrate on the weapon, doubling then tripling in strength.

The spear’s speed wasn’t affected in the slightest.

Talia had been angry when Sabae selected the spear— not because it was a copy of her own kinetic anchor dagger— rather, it was an inertial anchor. Talia had been angry because the spear had been superior to her dagger in every way.

Kinetic anchors were just a clever use of force affinities. Inertial affinities, unlike force affinities, were incredibly rare and powerful. Inertial enchantments were even rarer. Not only could they mimic the halting effect of a kinetic anchor using far less mana, they also had a second, even more terrifying use.

They could stop a weapon from slowing down. Well, strictly speaking, make it take more energy to slow down, but most mages, short of archmages, couldn’t summon nearly enough power to stop them.

And this mage was no archmage.

Gravity mages weren’t nearly agile enough fliers to dodge something moving this fast, but the woman managed to get her halberd in front of the spear. Sabae’s weapon, however, just punched through the shaft without slowing.

Then it punched through the front of the bronze breastplate, the gravity mage, and the back of the bronze breastplate.

And just kept going.

Sabae started to deactivate the inertial anchor enchantment before she activated the recall enchantment, then stopped.

The halberd and the breastplate weren’t falling. They’d stuck together in mid-air, the Sacred Swordsman still inside the breastplate.

Their spellforms were both flickering.

Sabae flipped upside-down and windjumped straight for the ground moments before the enchantments detonated. A light even brighter than Hugh’s beacon filled the narrow canyon. Sabae had launched herself away fast enough to avoid most of the blast, however.

Then gravity seemed to shift, and she felt her momentum slow. Around her, she could see archers and mages being pulled up off bridges towards the explosion.

Sabae detonated her wind armor towards her feet all at once, regaining a bit of momentum. She frantically spun up and detonated her wind armor on her legs again and again, but the gravity towards the center of the blast just grew and grew.

The explosion seemed to be partially contained by the gravity as well, fluctuating in and out as the two forces battled for dominance, forming some sort of perverse pseudo-sun above the canyon.

She was just feeling the heat of the explosion on her neck when the gravity simply cut out. Sabae launched herself downwards with another windjump, then began hastily spinning up her full wind armor again.

She hit the ground hard enough to collapse her wind armor and send a huge plume of sand into the air, but the explosion didn’t touch her.

As she staggered to her feet, she looked around the canyon.

Several of the massive chameleons, revealed by her goggles, were stalking slowly towards her plume of sand, archers were already starting to fire into it, and one of the Herdsman’s sand-skiffs was accelerating straight towards her.

Sabae sighed, raised her shield overhead to block any arrows that might hit her by luck, and started spinning up her wind armor again. Then she deactivated her spear’s inertial anchor and recalled it to her. It had flown well out of the blast radius, so it would take a few seconds to get back to her. She wouldn’t get another throw like that during this battle, unfortunately— using that part of the enchantment drained huge amounts from the spear’s artificial mana reservoirs.

“I hope Talia’s having fun, at least,” Sabae muttered.

Talia was having a blast, pun fully intended.

Hugh gave her a queasy look as the whole bridge shook from another of her explosions, then turned back to whatever he was doing with his wards.

They’d only just landed on this bridge from the first one when some weird gravity implosion had occurred up above the canyon, pulling half the combatants on the battlefield into the air. Surprisingly, few enemies had died from it— most had been able to grab onto railings or had been inside covered bridges. A few had been pulled into the explosion, however, and others had been pulled up into the air and then dropped to the sand below.

Mackerel had saved Hugh and Talia, pulling them back down towards their bridge with all his might.

Talia got distracted for a moment watching an illusion of her dance around on the railing of a bridge waving her daggers until a chameleon tongue slammed into the ward protecting them. Mackerel tried to lunge at the tongue, pulling Hugh off balance for a moment.

“Best date ever!” Talia yelled.

“Could we just get dinner next time?” Hugh asked.

Talia laughed, then yanked another bone cylinder off her necklace. Whale-bone, harvested from a whalefall on the seafloor by Lothalan water mages. It was naturally oily and tended to spray drops of burning oil everywhere when she detonated it.

With the help of a few Skyhold alchemists, Talia had found a way to drastically improve the yield of burning oil— namely, if they blended bone dust with oil, the resulting slime-like mixture reacted to her bonefire affinity just like regular bone did. And the whale-bone cylinder in her hand? It was filled to the brim with that mixture. The alchemists had some terrifyingly flammable oils, and they’d even added some powdered dragonbone to the mix to make it burn hotter.

Several chameleon tongues battered against the ward dome covering them, sending ripples of light across the ward. Most retracted their tongues immediately, but Talia had noticed that it sometimes took a little longer— as much as a half-second before the tongue withdrew.

More than enough time.

She held the bone cylinder right by the edge of the ward and waited for the next chameleon strike to linger. The instant one did, she jabbed the bone cylinder into the sticky substance on its tongue and started pumping magic into it.

The bone cylinder started growing immediately, and by the time the tongue retracted to the seemingly blank patch of wall where the giant chameleon was hiding, it was already the size of a person’s head.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then that section of wall began to visibly distort and shift as the bonefire grew inside the lizard. Lines of black and brown rippled across the distressed chameleon.

Then it exploded, sending burning oil splattering across the cliff face, and raining down onto the sand below. At least four more chameleons were caught in the burning oil, and their hissing screams filled the air.

A pair of lightning bolts hammered into the ward from above them, and Talia turned and fired a swarm of dreamwasps. To her displeasure, they hammered into a wind shield wrapped around part of a covered bridge a couple levels up.

Talia scowled. She hated wind shields— they were ideally suited to dealing with dreamfire. There were ways to deal with them— layering her dreamfire, for instance— but it was a serious hassle to pull off.

She considered trying to get bone shards up through one of the bridge’s windows, but that would likely rain debris down onto them, and Hugh’s ward was already overworked enough.

Then an idea occurred to her, and she smiled.

Well, less an idea, more a spell she hadn’t used in quite some time.

She pointed forward with both index fingers, then swept her hands upwards in an arc. Her tattoos starting glowing a brilliant blue, and twin beams of purple-green dreamfire shot out of them, slicing into the bridge on either side of the windshield. Through the dark-lensed goggles, she could see little bits of yellow in the flames as well. The beams were far thicker and brighter than they had been when she’d used the spell in their first trip down into the labyrinth.

A line of dreamfire burned in two strips along the bridge for a moment, then both of those strips of stone simply… vanished. No dissolving into noodles, no turning into fish made of ice that floated in mid-air, nothing. No bizarre transmutations at all.

Weird.

The segment of bridge with the enemy mages inside still fell just fine when it was cut free, though.

No one climbed out of the rubble after the bridge smashed into the ground.

“I need to drop the starfire beacon, I’m running low on stellar mana,” Hugh said.

“That’s fine, we’ve got plenty of light now,” Talia said, gesturing towards the segment of cliff she’d ignited. She hoped that all the citizens had retreated deeper into the ridge— even with the sturdy storm shutters closed, she imagined that a few droplets of burning oil had gotten inside some residences.

The light of the beacon went out, and Talia pulled the goggles up onto her forehead. She glanced back behind her in time to see the bridge they’d started on collapse— Alustin and Valia’s fight had torn it to shreds. That hadn’t significantly affected the fight— the two Helicotans were still dueling at the center of a cloud of paper and phantasmal swords, so thick Talia could only catch glimpses of them.

“Are you ready yet?” Talia asked, turning back to Hugh.

Hugh nodded, reached for her hand, and then they jumped over the railing.

Their feet landed solidly on nothing, and they took off running through mid-air.

Hugh had built a ward sideways, one stretching horizontally from their bridge to a covered bridge, closer to the Herdsman’s palace. The actual ward was grown into the crystal structure of the stones of the bridge they’d just left.

Talia spotted a fireball heading towards them and laughed. It slammed into the air beside them and dissolved.

Hugh hadn’t just built one ward.

He’d had built wards beneath the sand far below them to give their invisible path walls, and a ward in the cliff wall to give them a ceiling. Somehow— Talia didn’t understand how the technical details worked— the wards were only active as part of the corridor. It would have been amazing from a tactical sense to divide the canyon up like that, but in a battlefield this active, Hugh would run out of mana in seconds.

Chameleon tongue-strikes, crossbow bolts, and a storm of agate needles hammered against invisible walls around and above them. At one point, the section of the invisible corridor they were in had been entirely bathed in a massive gout of flames, but Talia didn’t feel even a hint of heat through the wards.

Hugh was staring straight ahead, focusing solely on maintaining these wards and building the next ward ahead of them, but Talia laughed maniacally the whole time.

Talia conserved her mana as they ran, only sending one quick burst of dreamwasps at a flying mage who was following their path through the air, waiting for an opportunity to attack. She didn’t hit him, but the mage quickly broke off his pursuit.

Then Hugh and Talia were through the window onto the next bridge and into the dome ward Hugh had built for them there.

“That was amazing!” Talia said. “Come on, Hugh, tell me this isn’t great?”

Hugh didn’t say anything, just wheezed, and Talia turned to see Hugh red in the face and gulping air.

“Hugh?” Talia asked. “Hugh, what’s wrong?”

Hugh pointed at his throat.

“Oh no,” Talia said. “This isn’t good. Alright, remember what Grennan said— inhale slowly through your nose, take your time breathing it out. Give your lungs time to process the air. They can’t while you’re breathing so fast.”

The whole bridge shuddered a bit as something hit it from above, but Talia ignored it as she focused on Hugh. She pulled Mackerel’s strap off him and breathed slowly for Hugh to try and match. Finally, his breathing slowed, and his face started to turn a normal color again.

“Are you feeling alright to move?” Talia asked. “We need to get to safety.”

Rather than respond, Hugh pointed behind her.

Talia turned to see a wave of yellow gas roll straight over them. It completely enveloped the dome of Hugh’s ward, which hissed and glowed at the contact with the gas, and Talia had absolutely no desire to see what would happen if the gas came in contact with them.

“Well, well,” a whispery voice said. “Look what I’ve caught.”

Talia couldn’t tell what direction it had come from and wildly fired a burst of dreamwasps out into the yellow fog. They carved a series of brightly colored blue streaks through the gas but didn’t travel more than a few feet before using up their power.

The world became a featureless void of yellow, lit only by the static from Hugh’s ward and by murky, flickering light from the battle.

The voice laughed, seeming to come from the other direction, and Talia whirled and fired a dreamfire bolt. It froze the gas it hit, but it ran out of power almost as fast as the dreamwasps.

“I’d resist the urge to try using your bonefire on the gas,” the voice said. “That would almost certainly ignite the gas, and I doubt your ward can survive that.”

Between the bright yellow color and the threat of exploding, Talia would wager this was some sort of brimstone gas. Plus, even through the ward, she could smell just a hint of rotten eggs.

Poison gas mages of any sort were always a hassle and a half to deal with. Her family had devised more than a few tricks over the years, though. One in specific appealed to her for its irony.

Talia scowled. “Are you trying to ruin our date night?”

“You’re trapped, and you’ll surrender if you want to live. We might be enemies, but Havath treats its prisoners of war with respect.”

A Sacred Swordsman, then.

Talia laughed. “I’ve already been told that the Sacred Swordsmen don’t have any intentions of ever taking me alive. Nice try, though.”

She ignored the Havathi’s next words entirely. Instead, she leaned down to Hugh to whisper something, surreptitiously palming a squid pen from her necklace as she did so.

Squid pens were long, thin needles of bone— the only ones in a squid’s body, in fact. Although, according to Raultha’s Ossuary, it was actually made of the same material as nautilus shells and wasn’t properly bone. Her affinity still worked fine on it, though. Regardless, when she used bonefire on a squid pen, they tended to emit choking black smoke, with little actual flame. With the help of Skyhold’s alchemists, she’d modified this one as well. They’d been trying to develop an ink suited for tattooing bones for her ward project, and inspired by that, they’d tried tattooing the bones she used for her spells. They’d found that the composition of different inks would sometimes modify her explosions.

For this squid pen, they’d chosen an ink whose components were deeply unfriendly to human lungs.

Talia snapped the squid pen in half, then threw one half to each side, pouring bonefire mana into each.

She’d long since gotten used to the pain of casting spells using her bone mana, but casting more than one at a time was far worse than simply adding the pain from the two spells together. Talia just ignored it.

She couldn’t see the squid pens growing through the smoke— not even the glow. She was taking a risk that it still might ignite the gas— but a much lesser one.

The two halves of the squid pen detonated, and inky black smoke tore through the yellow fog. That was the signal for Hugh and Mackerel to act. Mackerel lunged out of the ward into the inky black smoke almost simultaneously with the Swordsman starting to cough.

The thing about poison gas mages? They could only control and keep their lungs clear of the specific gas they had an affinity for. The best way to take out a poison gas mage was with a different poison gas.

A heartbeat later, Hugh finished his work, and the circle of stone they stood on, the one containing their ward, simply dropped free from the stone around it as Hugh severed the crystal patterns of the stone around it.

As the two of them dropped straight down out of the bridge on their stone disc, the yellow and black gases gave way to the explosions, giant lizards, and shifting illusions of the battle.

Talia smiled. This really was the best date night ever.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Burning Bridges

Godrick was really starting to loathe chameleons.

No less than three times he’d been dragged into the mouth of one of the giant chameleons. That wasn’t even counting the first time in the cave.

It was shocking how much force the chameleon bites could apply, but he wasn’t in any real danger, not now that his armor was fully constructed. It was just intensely frustrating to have to repeatedly fight his way out of the creature’s mouths, covered in the nasty clear goop they used to stick their tongues to their prey.

It was worse for the chameleons, admittedly. Shaping dozens of quartzite spikes from his armor inside their mouths couldn’t be fun for the creatures.

He’d actually been inside a chameleon’s mouth when gravity had briefly reversed, but the chameleon hadn’t seemed significantly bothered, not moving from its spot on the wall. He still wasn’t entirely sure what had caused it.

It was also fairly surprising to Godrick that he’d managed to hold onto his hammer through it all.

Godrick had just climbed out of the third chameleon’s mouth and wiped the slime off his visor when an arrow hit him hard enough to send him sprawling into the sand. He rolled to dodge a second, but the third sent him skidding several body lengths across the sand.

Either a wood or a force mage, probably. Nowhere near as powerful or dangerous as Grovebringer, thankfully.

He managed to spot the archer standing on a bridge far above by his massively oversized bow and activated the enchantment on his opal. Brilliant, multicolored beams of light shot out of it, heading straight for them. The fourth arrow went wild, sending up a spray of sand nearby.

The archer was too far away for Godrick to accurately hit with a boulder, so he activated the enchantment on his hammer instead.

Honestly, he might have activated the enchantment even if he had been close enough to launch a boulder— he’d been looking for an excuse to use it ever since the battle had started. He’d tested it in practice, but that wasn’t the same at all.

The archer lurched off his feet and flipped over the railing. He didn’t fall straight down, however— he started falling at a steep angle, pulled straight towards Godrick’s hammer.

Definitely a wood mage— a force mage would have stopped her fall.

The archer was falling far faster than terminal velocity when Godrick cut off the gravity and light enchantments and stepped to the side. He was sprayed with sand as the archer was buried in the sand, only his feet and part of his bow sticking out.

Godrick kicked the archer’s foot. Not Havathi, unfortunately— clearly one of the Herdsman’s mages.

He needed to get back up to the battle, to help protect Talia and Hugh so they could finish the mission. Godrick turned to scale the cliff, then stopped.

His father’s words from after Ithos ran through his head.

Godrick’s job wasn’t to protect his friends. No, his job was to pull attention away from them.

Godrick smiled. He could definitely do that.

In three huge leaps, using his force boots, he reached the center of the canyon between the yardangs. As he did so, he altered his quartzite armor, making the surface smoother and smoother until it looked as polished as a gemstone.

Godrick took a deep breath, adjusted his grip on his hammer, then activated his opal enchantment again. Not in the directed beam function, or even the flare function— instead, he activated a function of the enchantment he’d only discovered a couple of weeks ago.

Talia, to his irritation, had named it party mode.

Dozens of beams of multicolored light lanced out from the opal, sweeping madly across the bridges and battlefield. Some flickered madly as well— Godrick wasn’t sure if that was an intended aspect or whether it was enchantment decay, but it only made party mode even more distracting, which was exactly what Godrick wanted.

He spun in place, sweeping the beam across all the nearby bridges and balconies.

Then he started yanking enemies off the bridges with his gravity hammer. He didn’t bother pulling them down to the ground as hard as the first one, switching to a new target whenever an old one tumbled off the side of a bridge. If someone managed to hold onto the railing or resist with magic somehow, Godrick didn’t fight them— he just switched to a new target immediately.

The response was delayed, as if no-one could believe that anyone would make an attack this audacious. The hesitation only lasted a few heartbeats, though. Dozens of crossbow bolts bounced off his armor. A stone mage tried to seize control of his armor, but Godrick easily shrugged off the attempt. Multiple chameleon tongues hammered into his suit, but with the newly polished exterior, they couldn’t get a grip. They still hit hard enough to stagger him, though.

To Godrick’s amusement, one lightning bolt sent his way actually struck a chameleon tongue aiming for him. The affected chameleon actually fell off the side of the cliff, its colors fluctuating wildly.

Even though none of the individual attacks could break through his armor, maintaining his armor against all of them steadily drained his stone mana. Oddly, not as much as he would have expected it to— it seemed that Alustin and his father had been correct about practicing lithification spells. He’d been practicing lithifying sand into quartzite since they’d arrived back at Skyhold, and it was astonishingly easy and mana-efficient to manipulate the translucent stone now.

Godrick had just yanked the lightning mage off a bridge— who, unfortunately for her, was not a wind mage too— when something rammed into the side of his armor with unbelievable force. He lost his grip on his hammer and tumbled through the sand until he came to a halt against the cliff face nearby.

His head was spinning when he finally managed to force himself up onto his hands and knees. He reached out with his affinity senses for his hammer, then pulled it towards him with a simple steel spellform.

It didn’t move.

He increased the amount of mana feeding into the spell, and felt interference from another spell. Godrick scowled at that.

There was another steel mage opposing him.

Godrick redoubled the mana into his spell again, and this time he felt the opposing steel spell collapse— he was attuned to the enchantments in his hammer already, giving him an almost unassailable advantage in manipulating it with his steel magic. For the opposing steel mage to have resisted him at all, they had to be absurdly powerful. His hammer smacked into his hand, and he used it to push himself all the way up to his feet.

“You know,” a deep male voice said, “at first I was deeply disappointed that Valia wouldn’t let me match my armor against Alustin’s sword. She’s probably right, of course— her sabre could almost certainly cut through my armor like butter, and his sabre is every inch its equal as a weapon. This, though, is even more satisfying. The son of the Wallbreaker himself.”

Godrick looked up, his vision finally clearing.

An armored figure stalked towards Godrick, clutching a hammer even larger than his own. The armor was steel, not stone, but it was even bulkier than his own— though Godrick still had a solid half a head in height on the steel mage. His armor probably weighed twice as much as Godrick’s own. The helmet had no openings in it for a visor at all— Godrick had no idea how the other man could see through it. The only openings in the armor at all were a few air holes on the helmet, and they were pinpricks surrounded by spellforms— Godrick would wager they were intended to filter air in the exact same way the quartz faceplate Hugh had made for Godrick did.

The armor and hammer were both riddled through with bronze spellforms, though they didn’t seem to have been manufactured as a set. He was obviously a Sacred Swordsman, given the mention of Valia, along with the absurd expense involved in manufacturing a suit of enchanted full plate— let alone one this massive. Havath was one of the few nations wealthy enough to manufacture them for anything other than a ruler or their personal guard.

“Lovely,” Godrick said out loud. “Another copycat. Ah’ll be sure ta’ let me Da know all about yeh— ah’m sure he’ll be flattered.”

Godrick examined his armor with his stone affinity sense. The steel mage had hit him hard enough to put a deep set of fractures into his armor, but Godrick was able to easily reseal them with his magic. The fact that he’d been able to do so at all was intimidating, though.

The steel mage laughed and just kept walking steadily towards Godrick. “Inspired by your father, certainly, but I’m not vain enough to think myself his equal. Still, I’ve always wanted to test my armor against his, and I can’t imagine I’ll have a better opportunity than this.”

“Ah’ll try not ta’ disappoint,” Godrick said.

Then he kicked off the cliff wall behind him, launching himself as hard as he could with his force boots. As Godrick hurtled towards the steel mage, he activated his hammer’s enchantment with as much power as he could, pulling the man towards him. At the same time, he cast a steel spell that accelerated his own hammer’s swing.

Godrick’s hammer struck the steel mage harder than he’d ever hit anything before. The vibrations traveling through his hammer actually cracked his stone gauntlets.

He skidded to a halt twenty feet past the steel mage, digging a ditch in the sand behind him. Godrick whirled to face the other man before he’d even fully come to a halt, though he was fairly sure there was no way the man had survived that. Metal full plate, even enchanted full plate, wasn’t especially useful against bludgeoning impacts that powerful. Artur had disposed of plenty of copycats in the past exactly that way.

To his shock, however, the man was still alive, already climbing back to his feet as Godrick turned. There was a massive dent in his breastplate, but as he watched, the dent smoothed itself out and vanished.

“Not bad,” the man said. “Not bad at all.”

Godrick rapidly started repairing his damaged gauntlets. This was going to get messy.

Alustin was losing.

This wasn’t much of a surprise.

Before the Lord of Bells achieved lichdom, over four centuries ago, along with being a brilliant enchanter, he’d been a swordsman almost without peer. He’d dueled his way across the Cloudspine continent of his birth until he eventually killed the wrong person in a duel— an heir to some principate or other of the mountainous, snake-shaped continent. He’d fled to the continent of Gelid, learning more swordsmanship and enchanting before being forced to flee yet again for much the same reason, this time to the Ithonian continent.

When the Lord of Bells became a lich, crafting his demesne into the city of Helicote, he’d begun training his inhabitants in swordsmanship. By the time of Alustin’s birth, no one questioned that the Lord Citizens of Helicote were the greatest swordsmen and swordswomen on the continent, if not the entire world. In the wars against Havath, it was always the Lord Citizens fighting Havath’s Sacred Swordsmen on the front lines, and it was always the Helicotans who walked away, not the Havathi.

Alustin had trained with the sword from the time he could walk, but so had Valia. And, unlike him, she hadn’t been sent away to Skyhold in shame— better a warlock than a paper mage. She was only a year older than him, but she’d remained in Helicote until the very end, practicing with the sword at every opportunity, until her family had betrayed Helicote, bringing down the Echo Ward so Havath’s great powers could strike at the Lord of Bells himself.

Her family hadn’t survived their betrayal. They were found out, and only Valia managed to escape the vengeance of the Lord Citizens during the death throes of Helicote.

In Havath City, she’d trained relentlessly ever since, against every opponent the Dominion could find for her. Alustin had made sure to practice regularly with the sword, but Skyhold was hardly known for its swordsmen.

Even ignoring magic, Valia was Alustin’s better with a blade.

Bringing magic into the picture, however, put her even farther ahead. She had two of the Lord of Bells’ affinities, from her pact with the sabre he’d made for one of her ancestors. On top of that, she had a wind affinity from the belt of flying she was pacted with.

Valia Warwell, leader of the Sacred Swordsmen, was a great power in all but name— not through raw power, but through matchless skill with both magic and blade. Aedan Dragonslayer or Artur might be able to go toe to toe against her, but Alustin didn’t stand a chance against her in a fair fight.

In all their years of rivalry, however, Alustin had never once fought fair against her.

“Are we really going to keep fighting this same fight over and over forever?” Valia demanded as she chased him through the air above Dragonclaw Yardang. “You belong at my side, not serving that vile monster lurking in her library!”

“Well, I imagine eventually one of us will kill the other, so not forever,” Alustin said. “I’ll never stand alongside a traitor, though.”

Alustin sent dozens of razor-edged sheets of paper, sharp enough to cut through steel, at Valia.

Valia cut one in half, and every one of the others split apart at the same time, in the exact same spot. She seized several floating sword echoes with her magic and sent them flying towards him. Alustin dodged to one side, but they still managed to sever one of his four paper wings before dissolving.

Valia didn’t press her advantage in the moment he spent rebuilding his wing, even though it threw off his flight.

“Yes, my family betrayed Helicote,” Valia said. “I openly admit to it— as I always have. But I’ve told you a thousand times, and I’m sure I’ll tell you a thousand times more, Helicote was the villain in that war. The Lord Citizens slaughtered thousands of clerks and other civilians who had done them no wrong, merely to sabotage the gears of empire. They drowned thousands bringing down the Alabaster Dam on the Greywise River and condemned tens of thousands more to famine. The man-eating monster you serve is even worse, Alustin.”

Alustin let himself hesitate, didn’t return to the attack. Valia would preach at him for hours if he ever let her, and right now, delay served him far better than it did her— so long as she hadn’t seen the location of the alchemical explosion that had gone off early. That would give the whole game away.

“There must have been two million people in Imperial Ithos when Kanderon used the Exile Splinter on it,” Valia said. “Millions more died in the chaos, famine, plague, and war that followed the fall of the Ithonian Empire. In the centuries since, Kanderon has freely toyed with the fates of countless others, playing her political games across the continent. All to preserve the monstrous system that allows the great powers to continue their bloody dominance games. There is no greater monster on Ithos— not Intet Slew, not Tetragnath, not even the Sleeper in the Sands.”

Alustin dissolved his paper helmet, let Valia look him in the eyes.

“I’d hardly call Tetragnath a villain,” Alustin said. “Sure, he’s killed tens of thousands of Havathi soldiers and loggers, but in his defense, they were invading his forest and chopping down his trees. He’s been pretty clear about the consequences of doing that since before even the rise of the Ithonian Empire.”

Valia glared at him for a moment, then regained her composure. “You’re trying to distract me into useless tangential arguments. It doesn’t matter whether Tetragnath is a monster or not, because in comparison to Kanderon, there are no monsters on this continent. How can you deny what she is? How can you not see what she is by now? I know you saw what lay among the ashes in Ithos’ plazas.”

Alustin took a deep breath. It was so easy to hate Valia, but try as he might, he couldn’t help but remember their childhood friendship, remember how she’d been the only one to remain his friend when his paper affinity had manifested.

And it was even harder to forget the shards of bone lying in the ashes of Ithos’ last fires.

Some siege mage below sent a massive column of flame in their direction, but the last two living Helicotans dodged effortlessly to the side.

“What if I’m not defending her, Valia?” Alustin finally asked. “What if, after seeing the ruins of Ithos, after spending nearly two decades at her side, I fully know what she is? What if I’m willing to accept all that, to ignore every evil she’s done in the past or will do in the future, purely for the sake of my vengeance?”

Shock crossed Valia’s face then. They’d danced this dance so many times before— Alustin trying to kill Valia, Valia trying to do… whatever it was she was trying to do. Win her childhood best friend back, redeem herself for her family’s sins, gain his forgiveness, or carry on the Lord of Bells’ legacy in perverse servitude to Havath— Alustin doubted even Valia could truly explain her motives.

What Alustin had just said, though?

He wasn’t dancing the same old dance this time, not carrying out the tired old lines in their tired old play. Not trotting out the same stale old defenses of Kanderon.

Valia just stared at him as the two hovered in the air, dozens of flickering sword echoes hovering around her. Her edges blurred and shifted in the weak light of their swords, as though copies of herself were trying to break free.

“You don’t mean that,” she finally said.

Alustin shrugged.

“I still don’t understand why you so desperately want vengeance,” Valia said. “Helicote, your father— they rejected you, sent you away. I was the only one who remained loyal to you, who still wrote to you in Skyhold, Alustin.”

Alustin smiled sadly. Valia was trying to pull their encounter back onto the same old script again, to regain control of the situation. She knew exactly what he was about to say.

“Those letters meant the world to me,” Alustin said. “I don’t know how I would have survived my first year at Skyhold without them. You weren’t the only one to write to me, though, and you know perfectly well why I want vengeance. My stepmother, my little sisters, they wrote to me too. Do you remember how annoying we used to think my little sisters were, following us around everywhere?”

Valia looked away.

“I do,” she said.

“Do you remember that ridiculous dog of theirs, the one with three legs, half a tail, and the ugliest snout to ever grace a dog?” Alustin asked.

Valia chuckled weakly at that, even knowing what was coming next. The same place this old song and dance always took them to.

“Do you think the dog survived when Havath’s troops killed my sisters? When every single child, every adult, every old man and woman in Helicote were put to the sword? Do you think that dog escaped? Escaped the most beautiful city in the world, before Havath melted it? ”

She flinched, pulling back from him in mid-air.

“I’d have saved them if I could have,” Valia said softly. “If I hadn’t been unconscious from my wounds, if my parents had lived, maybe the massacres could have been stopped. Maybe we could have saved your family, at least. Not a day goes by I don’t regret it. It was wrong of Havath to destroy Helicote, even with as much provocation as they’d been given.”

Part of him wanted to let the dance continue. To hurt her again with the fact that Helicote’s allies hadn’t abandoned them, that Tsarnassus had finally begun to mobilize its armies and mages, though none in Helicote had known it at the time. That her family’s betrayal, carried out in exchange for Havathi promises that they would spare as much of Helicote as they could, instead of annihilating it, had been meaningless— the Echo Ward could have held out for weeks or months longer, enough time for Tsarnassus to relieve the siege.

As painful as that familiar old script was, Alustin almost followed it again. No matter how much the words hurt him, they were safe. They were familiar. All he had to do was walk the same old path and speak the same old insults, and he wouldn’t have to take a risk. Alustin knew exactly how it would turn out, and that predictability was bizarrely comforting.

Alustin took a deep breath, then ripped the old script in half entirely.

“I know,” Alustin said.

Valia’s eyes shot up to him, and she froze. The sword echoes in the air faded away, and her outline stopped blurring.

“I’ve known for a long time,” Alustin said. “I just didn’t want to admit it. I wanted to hate you, to blame you for what Havath did. You were still a child, though. Havath, your parents… none of it was your fault.”

“So you’ll…” Valia started, but her voice failed her.

“Even if I wanted to switch sides, to join you,” Alustin said, “you know I can’t. Once, perhaps, but I’ve killed too many Havathi, been a thorn in their side for too long. Even with as much influence as you have, you know you couldn’t protect me. More importantly, you know I can’t forgive Havath for what they did.”

“You really don’t hate me?” Valia said.

Alustin sighed. “Not for what happened at Helicote, but I don’t think I can stop myself hating anyone who serves Havath.”

Valia’s outline started to flicker again.

“So this is just another cruel game to taunt me, then?” she asked.

Alustin shook his head. “It’s an offer— one you’ve given me more times than I can count. Stop serving Havath, join me instead.”

Valia almost dropped her sword.

“Are you serious?” Valia demanded.

Alustin didn’t say anything, he just waited patiently as the battle raged below.

“Havath has done horrible things, yes,” Valia said, “but their greater mission is just. They’re trying to end the games of the great powers, to bring centuries of bloodshed and chaos to an end. I genuinely believe in it, and I’m working from the inside to make them better, to stop a massacre like Helicote from ever happening again. I can’t join your insane vendetta against them.”

“What if we just… left?” Alustin asked. “Sailed to Gelid, abandoned this whole conflict?”

Valia stared at him in shock.

Part of Alustin would always wonder what she would have said, how she would have answered. Wondered whether he even actually meant it.

But when Valia finally opened her mouth to respond, the rest of the alchemical explosives went off. In seconds, every single one of the stone pillars of the Sunfence surrounding Dragonclaw exploded, ringing the city in a circle of explosions leagues across.

Just for a moment, it lit up the desert like daylight, then faded just as quickly.

“This was all just another of your vicious tricks,” Valia spat. “You’re just enjoying making a fool out of me once again. You really did inherit every drop of your father’s cruelty, didn’t you?”

Alustin sighed and raised his sword.

“I suppose we’d best get back to it,” he said.

Valia flew at him sword first, exploding into a cloud of echoes, and Alustin countered with hundreds of sheets of paper.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Effectively Indestructible

Sabae kicked the wood mage in the chest with a windstrike, sending him flying a good thirty feet away. It would have been farther, but the cliff-side got in the way.

As the wood mage’s ridiculous collection of flying wooden daggers fell to the sand, Sabae took a moment to breathe.

She’d barely trusted Alustin’s plan at first— they were even more drastically outnumbered than they’d been in Imperial Ithos, even before you counted the giant chameleons.

The Herdsman’s forces, however, were frankly pathetic.

Most of his mages were trained about as well as a mediocre Skyhold first-year. Sabae wouldn’t be surprised if many of them were Skyhold dropouts. Few of them had anything other than basic attack spells, and none of them were liable to get through her armor anytime soon. They were barely coordinated, to the point where the only real threats on the field were the Havathi and the chameleons— and the chameleons were proving to be as much of a threat to the Herdsman’s troops as anyone. She’d seen at least six of the Herdsman’s soldiers and mages eaten by the giant lizards.

Sabae summoned her spear back to her hand from the chameleon it was buried in, then grimaced and wiped it off on the sand, which didn’t help much.

The enemy was at the brink of a rout, save for the chameleons. That was mostly due to Bandon— the redheaded Theran’s illusions had thrown the battle into chaos, and his swords and force magic were ripping through the enemy ranks with ease. Sabae would wager a boat out from under herself during a storm that Bandon was a Librarian Errant, though she had no idea how Kanderon could have slipped a Librarian Errant into Indris’ service at such a high level. Bandon couldn’t even be out of his twenties yet, and it would have taken years for him to work his way up the ranks in Indris’ palace— and for all the Therans that attended Skyhold, she doubted many Skyhold graduates made it so high in Indris’ service.

Sabae shook her head, focusing her head back onto the battle. This wasn’t the time for unraveling intrigue.

She considered launching herself over to help Godrick fight the armored mage, but the two of them had been battering each other’s armor for minutes straight, now. Sabae doubted she could stand up to more than a few blows from one of those hammers, nor whether her spear, as powerful as it was, could do much against magical armor that strong. Its artificial mana reservoirs were close to empty from taking down the gravity mage, anyhow.

No, Godrick was dealing with the armored mage well enough. The point wasn’t to defeat every enemy, it was to keep as many of them distracted as possible until Talia and Hugh completed their mission.

Sabae just needed a good way to do that.

The others were, unfortunately, all much better suited for drawing attention. If it were daytime, she could likely have attracted attention better. None of her abilities now were particularly flashy, however. Her lightning spells were still weak, pale things, and she wasn’t ready to try any of them out in battle yet. There wasn’t any easy way she could draw others’ sight in this battle. She…

She couldn’t draw their eyes, no, but maybe there was a way to draw enemy ears.

Sabae reached through her armor, popped off the cork on her waterskin, and drew some water out with her magic.

She took a deep breath, then tried to combine the water with her wind armor.

The resulting detonation sent her flying off her feet and collapsed the armor around one arm.

It also definitely drew attention.

Sabae windjumped out of the way of a series of firebolts, arrows, and chameleon tongues. She hurled her spear at a chameleon she could only half-see, even with her goggles, then prepared to combine water and wind in her armor again.

Then again.

Even directed outwards, the detonations hurt like getting thrown onto rocks by a wave. She didn’t spare a moment to heal herself, though— she could survive a few bruises. She needed to keep as much attention on herself as possible.

It was different seeking to detonate the merging wind and water deliberately, rather than try to keep them together as armor. She found each blast coming closer and closer together, making more noise, and taking less effort. She started pulling the water back the instant it exploded away from her, because otherwise she’d run out of water.

The whole time, the enemy attacks on her were increasing in frequency and intensity. Sabae was taking a huge risk by not fully armoring up again— even sheltered by her shield, her arm was left exposed by the repeated detonations. The explosions were throwing her jumps wildly off course, however, helping her dodge the enemy attacks.

Then she tried to detonate her armor again and nothing happened.

Sabae glanced down at her arm and started smiling.

It turned out both she and Alustin had been wrong about how to combine wind and water into armor.

Sabae found herself laughing as she windjumped towards the nearest group of enemies, already summoning her spear back to her hand.

Talia was a bad influence on her, she supposed.

Godrick snarled as he climbed out of yet another chameleon’s mouth. He was getting sick of doing that, but the battle against the Havathi steel mage had battered the surface of his armor until chameleon tongues no longer slid off it.

That very Sacred Swordsman was already stalking towards him again. Godrick was fairly sure he could hear the man laughing.

Godrick began a leisurely walk back towards the steel mage, repairing his armor as he did so. The steel mage was doing far more damage to Godrick’s armor than Godrick was doing to his, but that was how Godrick and his father’s armor was designed to work. Strong enough attacks would break apart the outside of their armor, dispersing the force of the attack. He was more than capable of keeping up with the damage the steel mage was doing, even having to lithify sand into quartzite as part of the process.

That was the problem, though. The Havathi’s armor was able to repair itself just as quickly from damage— not to mention being much harder to damage in the first place.

Even shining the beams from the opal into his helmet didn’t do anything. Godrick didn’t know what means the other mage was using to see, but using the opal didn’t seem to affect the other mage at all. Maybe he was blind?

Godrick was fairly sure he could put the other mage down if he could land a direct hit on the man’s helmet, but as much as he hated to admit it, the Sacred Swordsman was better with his hammer than Godrick was.

Rather than charge straight back in for battle, Godrick started circling the other mage.

“Can’t say I’m impressed so far, Godrick,” the Havathi called. “I was expecting better from Artur Wallbreaker’s legendary armor. I suppose that’s to be expected from someone just borrowing a spell, rather than its inventor.”

“Says the man relying on armor that’s even less his own,” Godrick called. “Yeh wouldn’t have armor like that without Havath’s backing. Yeh’re just one a’ their pawns.”

The man laughed. “Fair enough, I suppose. I’m honestly fine with being their pawn, though. They’re on the right side of history, whereas the monster you serve is…”

“Right behind you,” Godrick interrupted.

To Godrick’s shock, the man actually turned to look at that. Godrick didn’t let his surprise distract him, though— he immediately lunged and swung his hammer.

Only to have the steel mage spin his hammer low and knock Godrick’s legs out from under him.

The steel mage kicked Godrick’s gravity hammer off to the side. Godrick tried to pull it back with a spell, but his focus was interrupted by the steel mage’s hammer striking against his chest.

“Nice try, kid. Doesn’t much matter which way I’m looking, though, when I can feel where your hammer is with my affinity senses.”

Godrick tried to roll out of the way, but the man’s hammer smashed against his armor, again and again. Godrick could feel the cracks in his breastplate growing deeper and deeper, and he couldn’t keep up repairs.

“Guess your armor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” the steel mage said.

He lifted his hammer far above his head, and Godrick desperately threw his arms up to block.

The blow never came.

Instead, a barely visible ripple hurtled through the air and struck the Havathi. The man’s breastplate dented in slightly, and frost formed across the dent. Then another struck him in the shoulder, staggering him back, followed by a third that knocked him away from Godrick entirely.

Godrick didn’t waste the opportunity. He rolled to his feet, then launched himself in a flying tackle, using his force boots.

The other man’s armor out-massed his, but not enough to stop Godrick from bowling him over in turn.

Godrick grabbed the back of the other man’s helmet, reared back, then head-butted him.

The top of Godrick’s helmet fractured, but he’d not only repaired it by the time he head-butted the other man, he’d thickened the quartzite considerably.

Then he head-butted the man again. And again. And again.

The steel mage tried to bring his hammer to bear, but Godrick was too close for the man to get an angle.

Godrick took a deep breath, then smiled.

He could smell the other man’s sweat now. Before, the man’s armor had somehow totally blocked Godrick from smelling the Havathi, even with his enhanced sense of smell.

Which, in turn, effectively prevented Godrick from casting any scent spells on him.

Godrick held his breath and assembled one of the few scent spellforms he knew in his mind’s eye.

A spellform he’d once used in battle against a dragon in Theras Tel.

The Havathi started retching immediately as the foul stench erupted inside his helmet. He stopped flailing and trying to get free of Godrick, and instead, he dropped his hammer and reached for his helmet.

Godrick didn’t let him.

He could hear the man choking, and his flailing started to grow weak.

Then something hammered into Godrick’s side, sending him tumbling off to one side and sprawling into the sand.

Godrick got a glance of the projectile as it withdrew at high speed, unable to stick to his armor this time.

Another damn chameleon tongue.

The Havathi started to climb to his feet. He yanked his helmet off as he did so, though Godrick couldn’t get a good look at his face— too much vomit everywhere.

Godrick activated his force boots again.

He slid across the sand at high speed, ramming into the Havathi’s legs. Somehow, in the disorienting grapple that followed, Godrick ended up on his feet, his opponent’s legs in his arms.

Godrick smiled, lifted the Havathi, then pumped as much mana into his armor as he safely could.

Then he slammed the man headfirst down into the sand. The man drove down so far that his shoulders actually embedded into the sand.

For good measure, Godrick lithified the sand around the man’s head into more quartzite.

It was probably unnecessary— the steel mage didn’t even try to break free.

Godrick took a moment to catch his breath, then turned to face his rescuer.

“Ah appreciate the save, Hugh, but shouldn’t yeh be with Talia right…”

Godrick stopped.

It wasn’t Hugh.

It was Mackerel.

The enchanted belt Hugh had chosen was still attached to the floating book as a strap, and its spellforms were glowing, but the belt wasn’t attached to Hugh at all. Hugh was nowhere in sight.

The combined frost and force blasts had definitely been launched from the belt, though.

“Yeh can use that belt on yer own, without Hugh?” Godrick asked.

Mackerel bobbed in the air, looking pleased with itself.

Godrick sighed. “After this is all over, ah owe yeh as many spine scratches as yeh want, Mackerel.”

Mackerel twirled happily, then darted off into the air.

Godrick watched the book for a moment as it dragged an archer off a bridge, then hauled her screaming up into the sky.

“Ah really worry about that book sometimes,” Godrick muttered.

He shrugged, then picked up his hammer.

Then he paused, walked over, and picked up the Havathi steel mage’s hammer.

Unhand me, villain!

Godrick dropped the hammer when the voice popped in his head. It seemed that this hammer was considerably more intelligent than Hailstrike had been.

Then he reached down and picked it up again.

The hammer immediately spoke inside his head again. How dare you? I demand you return me to the nearest representative of the Havath Dominion!

“Ah don’t think ah will,” Godrick said.

Godrick ignored the hammer’s yelling, then used his steel magic to push it a good ten feet below the ground. He could come back for it later.

His job wasn’t done yet.

Hugh ignored everything but his wards and his breathing.

Inhale through the nose.

Crystallize the spellforms up ahead.

Exhale through the mouth, more slowly than the inhale.

Hugh’s ward tunnels were a hassle and a half to construct, even when he could breathe easily. Stretching the wards across the entire canyon would use far too much mana, so he had to build the spellforms to only activate the spellforms where one ward intersected another, then deactivate past where it intersected another spellform. The ward spellforms were fiendishly complex, and crystallizing four wards at once, in both sand and sandstone, was making his head hurt as much as his shortness of breath.

Not to mention the ward circle he was building for them on the bridge ahead.

Inhale through the nose.

Just ahead of him, Talia cackled with glee as she fired dreambolts left and right. The bulk of the battle was already behind them, but there were still plenty of chameleons and guards who hadn’t reached the main fight.

Exhale through the mouth.

They reached the next bridge, Talia dragging Hugh into the ward bubble he’d built for them.

“Do you need a moment to catch your breath?” Talia asked.

Hugh nodded.

“Make it quick,” Talia said. “This is the last bridge.”

Hugh blinked at her, then climbed to his feet and looked over the railing.

Below them, not two ship-lengths away, rested the immense turtle shell holding the Herdsman’s palace, suspended between the cliff walls.

Hugh reached out with his affinity senses towards the shell. Like before, he could feel some sort of crystalline structure in the shell, but when he pushed harder with his senses, it went opaque to his mind. It was the same with his magic.

He had no idea what was going on with the empty shell, but he really hoped it was as indestructible as Alustin claimed.

“Are you ready, Hugh?” Talia asked.

Hugh shook his head, then started assembling the next tunnel down. After a moment, he turned to Talia and nodded.

This one had a far steeper angle than the last, and Hugh didn’t even bother trying to keep his feet as he leapt into it, Talia following him a moment later.

As Hugh slid down the ward, he cursed inside his head at a sudden realization.

If he’d angled the wards in the sand like this, he could have just crafted all these tunnels as triangles, and only have to worry about generating three wards per tunnel, not four.

A moment later, Hugh stumbled to his feet on the turtle shell, already assembling a tunnel ahead of them.

This one he did make triangular— only using two wards, this time, since the turtle shell worked fine as a floor for it. He did make sure to put the vertex of the two wards far above his head, however.

He might not know what, exactly, the turtle shell was made of, but he could will-imbue his ward to only activate after it passed through the shell, rather than activate after passing through a horizontal ward.

The oversized sea turtle shell hardly had a curve compared to a tortoise shell, but Hugh was struggling to catch his breath as they ascended it.

“I’m in range!” Talia yelled, skidding to a halt at the highest point of the shell. “Get ready!”

Her tattoos began glowing brighter and brighter.

Hugh rapidly constructed a series of additional wards around them as he caught his breath again, including one under their feet. He made sure that all the wards other than the one below them were permeable to their bodies, just in case.

By the time he’d finished, Hugh was pushing the theoretical limit of wards in one area, and he still wasn’t sure if it would be enough if the shell wasn’t indestructible.

Talia’s tattoos, meanwhile, were glowing bright enough to dye everything around them a brilliant shade of blue. He could see the tattoos glowing even through her clothes.

Talia collapsed to her knees. Hugh moved to help her, but she waved him off and forced herself back to her feet.

Hugh could feel the shell starting to rumble below them. He couldn’t see into the opening to the east, the one containing the Herdsman’s throne room, but it was casting a brilliant red glow out across the desert sands.

It was almost a pity to destroy the beautiful bone carvings in the Herdsman’s throne room, but they made perfect ammunition for Talia’s magic.

Talia collapsed, and Hugh barely caught her. She didn’t say anything, just smiled.

Then the throne room exploded.

A massive jet of fire blasted out of the shell’s opening, scattering shrapnel out into the desert. A heartbeat later, more explosions blasted out of the rear opening of the shell. The cliffs to either side of them shook as fire blasted from the fin holes into the cliffside tunnels connecting to them.

The shaking grew worse for a moment, and the whole shell actually lurched downwards by a hand’s breadth on one side, knocking Hugh off his feet and forcing him to drop Talia. Thankfully, they didn’t fall far enough to hit the ward he’d built below them.

Hugh expected it to stop after that, but the explosion just kept going and going. Out in the desert, shards of bone grew, exploded, then repeated the process, scattering themselves farther and farther out. Gouts of flame erupted from the turtle shell, again and again.

The explosion slowly declined in strength, but it was probably well over a minute until it actually ended. Burning debris was scattered halfway down the canyon, and even farther out into the desert.

Hugh gave Talia a shocked look.

“I think igniting that much bone at once set off some sort of chain reaction,” Talia said, looking as shocked as he felt.

She started to climb to her feet, then collapsed again.

As Hugh helped her to her feet, he breathed a sigh of relief. Alustin had been right about the strength of the shell— he hadn’t needed to worry about it fracturing or exploding.

On the cliff walls, Hugh noticed the chameleons behaving oddly. Half of them had stopped camouflaging themselves and had started rippling in shades of black, brown, and yellow. Most of the chameleons were milling aimlessly or were sitting totally frozen. He even saw a few fleeing out into the desert, though the huge beasts were surprisingly slow.

Then someone touched down on the shell next to his wards.

“Well, well, well,” Valia said. “It looks like you lot have exceeded our expectations once more. Alustin has taught you well, I see.”

The Helicotan traitor slashed her sabre through the outermost of Hugh’s wards. It simply popped, like a soap bubble.

A heartbeat later, so did every other of Hugh’s wards as though she’d slashed through them as well.

Valia stepped towards them, her outline flickering.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

One Less Bottle

Hugh used the last of his stellar mana to cast a starbolt at Valia. To his shock, she didn’t even try to deflect it— instead, she leapt backward, leaving a shimmering afterimage of herself in place. The starbolt annihilated the afterimage, leaving the Helicotan unharmed.

Talia followed up with a burst of dreamwasps, but Valia just swept her sword through the air, forming a wall of sword echoes to block the tiny flares of dreamfire.

“I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced,” the Helicotan said. “My name is Valia Warwell, and I’m… I’m an old friend of Alustin’s.”

Hugh helped Talia back to her feet and started backing away from Valia.

“I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Valia said. “We might have stood on the opposite sides of battlefields, but I’m not the villain here, nor am I your enemy.”

Hugh reached out with his mind for Mackerel— he wasn’t sure how much Mackerel could help, but he’d burned through all his stellar mana and most of his crystal mana, and his planar mana didn’t do him much good. The aether wasn’t a desert here, by any means, but it was thin enough that his mana reservoirs were taking their time about refilling.

Hugh glanced at Talia. She could barely stand, but she’d drawn one of her daggers— the kinetic anchor Hugh had found for her back in Skyhold’s labyrinth. She seemed to be leaning on it as much as Hugh, though.

Valia had just lifted her foot to take another step forward when Sabae landed in front of her, releasing a massive shockwave of wind straight at the Swordsman.

The Helicotan flew backward a few body lengths, then came to a halt, hovering in mid-air.

Hugh noticed, to his surprise, that the wind armor over one of Sabae’s arms looked different— almost like her arm was surrounded by a swirling storm cloud, rather than simply gusts of wind.

“Ah, the Flea. We’re only missing one member of your little group, it seems,” Valia said. “Should we wait for Godrick to arrive as well?”

“Let’s not,” Alustin said from above them.

The paper mage landed beside Sabae, looking rather the worse for wear. His paper armor was burnt and shredded, his sword arm appeared to be dislocated, and even though Hugh couldn’t see the actual injuries, blood was soaking into the armor in half a dozen spots.

“Sorry I’m late, Valia here trapped me in a cage of sword echoes,” Alustin said.

“How did you even get out?” Valia demanded.

Alustin gestured at his dislocated shoulder.

“That… literally doesn’t explain anything,” Valia said. “There’s no reasonable way for you to have gotten free from hundreds of lethally sharp blades simply by dislocating your own arm.”

“It’s really no fun if I give away all my secrets,” Alustin said.

Valia scowled at him.

“You can’t fight me, wounded like this,” Valia said.

Alustin laughed. “The Sunfence is destroyed, the Herdsman is dead, and the sunlings will be scattered across the desert by tomorrow. You won’t be able to use Dragonclaw Yardang to help supply Havath’s armies anymore. You’ve failed to achieve every single objective you came for. Oh, and a flight of Indris’ children incinerated seven of the eight ships in your flotilla, then perched the eighth on top of a rock spire. You might be able to rescue the crew before the ship crumbles and drops them all to the sand below if you hurry. Of course, then you have to help them find a way across the desert.”

Valia swept her gaze across the group. “There are other objectives I can achieve tonight.”

Alustin pulled something out of his armor. From behind him, Hugh couldn’t make out what it was, but Valia and Sabae stepped back in alarm.

“Are you mad?” Valia demanded. “You’d use that in the middle of a city? Around your students?”

“What lengths do you really think I’d stop at?” Alustin asked.

Valia just stared at him, her face expressionless.

“Your little barbarian student killed the Herdsman,” Valia said. “I’ll do you the favor of assuming she won’t be claiming the title.”

Alustin nodded. “It’s much appreciated.”

Valia started to turn away, then stopped. “Oh, and Flea?”

“Flea?” Sabae asked.

“You jump all over the place and are seemingly impossible to kill. It fits,” Valia said. “Do you know how many thousands of people have died in the storms your grandmother and Indris are sending over the Skyreach range?”

Sabae shifted her grip on her spear.

Valia smiled at that. “You should ask Alustin. I’m sure he knows.”

“Valia…” Alustin said.

“History will crush you underneath its gears, Alustin, sooner or later,” Valia said. “As much as I hope to see it happen to your master, I hope I’m not there to see it happen to you.”

Then she was gone, flying off into the night sky.

No one spoke. Hugh watched the Helicotan woman fly off into the night, his sphinx eyes easily able to track her to the horizon.

Then Alustin started to laugh. He turned and shook a glass vial at them. It was filled with a writhing, multicolored liquid that made Hugh queasy just to look at. Sabae’s gaze was fixed on it, and she looked terrified with every move the vial made.

“Relax, Sabae, it’s not the alchemical contingency weapon. This is just fish oil, olive oil, a bit of water, and a bunch of different dyes. The actual toxin takes months to manufacture and is obscenely expensive. It’s not a particular priority to manufacture more during a siege.”

“What did she mean, do us a favor?” Talia demanded. “What was she…”

Then she stopped, and a smile spread slowly across her face. “I killed a great power. That makes me a…”

“NO!” Alustin yelled.

Everyone froze.

“Don’t say it, don’t even think it,” Alustin said. “Instead, ask yourself why Artur has never claimed the title of great power. Why Headmaster Tarik hasn’t, nor Aedan Dragonslayer, nor even Valia, despite all of them being more than powerful enough. Aedan’s killed at least half a dozen draconic great powers, and he still hasn’t claimed the title, though several great powers have proclaimed him as such. Of course, there’s also some… complicated Tsarnassan internal politics, in his case.”

Talia opened her mouth to reply, but Alustin interrupted again.

“Do you know what the average lifespan of a great power is, Talia?” Alustin asked. “Less than a week. For every great power that rules for years, there are over a dozen who die within days of proclaiming themselves great powers or being recognized as one. Many of them last only hours. Making that proclamation is declaring yourself a part of their games, and one or more of them will react. You make that proclamation, you’re going to inevitably draw attention to yourself that you can’t handle. As dangerous as you are, you’re not even an archmage yet. More, you’ll draw that attention onto your friends as well. You declare yourself a great power, you’re not coming back to Skyhold with us.”

Hugh blinked in surprise. He’d never seen Alustin this angry before. He’d rarely seen anyone this angry before.

“More pertinently— what, exactly, do you think Kanderon is likely to do if you declare yourself a great power? Especially if that declaration poses a threat to Hugh?” Alustin asked.

Talia paled at that.

“I think she’s taken your point,” Sabae said.

“She’d better have,” Alustin muttered.

Mackerel picked that moment to arrive. The book was absolutely drenched in… something. Hugh had no idea what the viscous fluids were.

Mackerel gave everyone a pleased look, then spat a dagger onto the turtle shell.

The dagger was leaking wisps of bright yellow gas out from its spellforms.

“Good boy,” Talia said.

“What is he covered in?” Sabae asked.

Hugh cleared his throat and managed to force out a whisper. “Mackerel wants you all to know how much fun it is inside a chameleon.”

Everyone just stared at the crystal book for a moment.

“Hugh, rest your voice,” Alustin eventually said. He seemed to have already calmed down for the most part. “Grennan said you shouldn’t be having fits this bad anymore, unless you inhale something else to damage your lungs. Did you get any brimstone gas in your lungs?”

Hugh shook his head.

“What will happen to all the chameleons, by the way?” Sabae asked.

“They’ll eventually die off,” Alustin said. “They’re not true-breeding— the Herdsman used his magic to modify them in the egg. They’re modified to mainly eat sunlings, and unfortunately for them, the Herdsman altered their feet to climb cliffs, not to walk on sand.”

Hugh started using a cleaning cantrip to get the gunk off Mackerel.

“Aren’t they going to be a threat to the inhabitants of Dragonclaw?” Talia asked.

Alustin shook his head. “He also altered them to ignore people unless he was using his magic to make them attack. I imagine you saw how many of them were going after the Herdsman’s own people in the confusion as well— they’re not smart enough to tell the difference. It probably would have been smarter of him to have them go berserk and start attacking people after he died— would have discouraged him being targeted— but while he might have been a little too ambitious, he wasn’t quite that callous for the well-being of his subjects.”

Can all animal mages alter animals like this? Hugh wrote in a now-clean Mackerel.

Alustin shook his head. “No, most just enhance their animals in lesser ways. Make them a little stronger or smarter, clear away their fatigue, heal them. By our best guess, the Herdsman had an exceptionally powerful affinity for one specific species of chameleon.”

Sabae opened her mouth to say something else, but Alustin raised a hand to cut her off.

“Now’s really not the best time,” he said. “Sabae, go help Bandon and Godrick mop up what little resistance is left. Hugh, Talia, let’s go collect the crew and head back to the ship.”

Hugh glanced down at his book, then regretfully shut it on the question he hadn’t gotten to ask.

What affinity was Valia using?

He’d ask later.

“I don’t like the fact that Valia’s name is so similar to mine,” Talia said. “I vote we name her something else. Like Stinky.”

“How about we call you Stinky instead?” Alustin muttered.

Hugh ignored their bickering. Instead, he looked out over the battlefield at the burning debris, corpses, and other wreckage.

Then he vomited onto the turtle shell.

Alustin couldn’t help but feel a bit bad about the destruction of the Sunfence, even if it had been strategically necessary. It had been an absolutely brilliant way to secure a food supply in a land too inhospitable for actual agriculture— it released a vibration into the aether that repulsed sunlings and sunmaws, but had little effect on other creatures. It was far less labor-intensive than Theras Tel’s great mushroom caverns or the desalination magic Qilastas and several other coastal cities on the edge of the Endless Erg used to water fields. Not to mention, all sunlings needed to grow was sunlight and aether.

He ignored the bustling crew of the Quiet Humility as they summoned a breeze to take the ship out of port. Instead, he watched the city of Dragonclaw Yardang slowly slide past. It hadn’t even been a full hour since the battle ended, and the citizens of the city were already cleaning up debris, helping the wounded, and shooing confused giant chameleons out of pathways.

A few shot glares towards the departing ship, but most of them just looked resigned, ready for the next great power to scoop up their city.

“You owe us some explanations,” Sabae said.

Alustin turned to face his students.

“No, I didn’t know the Havathi would be there; yes, we were planning to destroy the Sunfence from the beginning; no, we didn’t originally intend to still be at Dragonclaw when the alchemical explosives went off— we accelerated the schedule when the Havathi showed up; and no, we didn’t originally plan to assassinate the Herdsman,” Alustin said. “Any other questions?”

The four apprentices all just stared at him for a moment. Unsurprisingly, Sabae was the one to recover first.

“Captain Bandon is a Librarian Errant, isn’t he? I thought he was just someone the Librarian Errants bribed, but then it wouldn’t make sense for him to come along on this mission. How’d he infiltrate Indris’ guard?”

“Yes, he is, but you should ask him about that,” Alustin said. “The short version is that Kanderon placed his grandparents in Theras Tel as sleeper agents. He’d never even been to Skyhold until last year. When you live as long as Kanderon, you think very long-term. She might not have a formal cult, but there are an awful lot of people across the continent whose family have been loyal to Kanderon for generations.”

“What kind of affinities does Valia have?” Talia asked. “How was she doing whatever it was she was doing?”

Alustin sighed. “She’s a warlock, pacted with two of her weapons. One’s just a belt of flying, enchanted using a wind affinity. Nothing particularly noteworthy. The other is her Helicotan sabre.”

Alustin pulled his own sabre out of his extraplanar storage space, wincing as he did so. His shoulder was still sore from popping the joint back into place. Sabae had used her healing on it, but she was a fairly rudimentary healer.

He did his best to ignore the shouting of the two Havathi weapons they’d captured, both stored in his tattoo. The gravity mage’s gear had been destroyed, and Valia must have recovered the illusionist’s weapon, so they only had the steel mage’s hammer and the sulfur-spewing dagger. Alustin was a little shocked that Havath had actually sent two sapient weapons on the same mission— any weapon that had been in use by warlocks long enough to develop speech was sure to be powerful and nigh-irreplaceable since the process took decades.

Unfortunately, they also tended to be quite loyal to Havath.

“The Lord of Bells was one of the few multi-affinity liches on the continent,” Alustin said as he showed off his own sabre. “Of those liches, most only had two, maybe three affinities. He had a half-dozen. He had a stone affinity, several metal affinities, an affinity for flowering non-tree plants, and, well… one other. These sabres? He only made them using two affinities. One was an affinity for the specific steel alloy used for swords in his homeland. The other was his final affinity, the one he got his name for.”

Alustin leaned against the railing to gather his thoughts for a moment.

“It’s… there’s no direct translation of the name of his affinity in Ithonian,” he said. “His plant affinity is easy— it comes from the word hanathos in the language of his birth country on the Cloudspine continent. It just meant flowering non-tree plants. His sword steel affinity had some other specific name I can’t recall. The last one, however, was the important one. Atthuema .”

The apprentices gave him blank looks.

“Most people just translate it as echo and say that the Lord of Bells had an echo affinity,” Alustin said. “That’s… honestly a terrible translation, one that poorly describes what the atthuema affinity could do. It could create phantasmal echoes of past actions, like the sword echoes or the way Valia can create echoes of her own body. It could copy one action onto a material similar to the first action that it occurred with as well. Valia slices apart one sheet of paper I send at her, she can replicate that exact same cut across every other sheet of paper with the same glyphs in range— hence why atthuema was sometimes translated as sympathy or sympathetic reaction. The final use of the affinity was something of a combination of the other two— it could be used to amplify the physical consequences of an action. Drop a stone in a pond, you could make the ripples larger and larger until the pond erupted right out of the ground. Hence it often being translated as a ripple affinity. Valia doesn’t seem to have mastered that aspect of her magic, thankfully. Ultimately, there simply is no satisfactory translation of atthuema in Ithonian.”

“Ah honestly don’t see how that makes any sense as a’ affinity,” Godrick said. “Are yeh sure it wasn’t just multiple affinities workin’ together?”

Alustin nodded. “Positive. It’s a meta-affinity, like a dream affinity or greater shadow affinity, and it’s been documented often enough on Cloudspine. It’s extremely rare, though. I’ve also seen atthuema translated as repercussion, redoubling, growth, consequence, and half a dozen other ways. It encompasses all of these and more. And no one on Ithos has ever developed an affinity for it— or, for that matter, several of the Lord of Bells’ other specific affinities. Some scholars believe it’s lingering damage from the Tongue Eater— it’s said that many Ithonian speakers were literally incapable of learning other languages for the first century or so after the Ithonian Empire did… whatever they did with the Tongue Eater to reinforce the Ithonian language. And it was only in the last century or so that accents and dialects of Ithonian started to appear here on the continent, or that Ithonian speakers started developing affinities centered on difficult to translate concepts from other languages.”

Hugh wrote something in Mackerel’s pages. The crystal letters glowed brightly in the dark. How did the Lord of Bells manage to include that affinity in his demesne? I thought liches could only use affinities for physical materials in their affinities? Also, I thought you said shadow and dream were the only meta-affinities.”

“Honestly, I didn’t want to talk about Helicote then, so I left atthuema off the list,” Alustin said. “And no one knows how he did it. But anyone walking through Helicote left faint afterimages in the air behind them, like streaks of oil on water. Some sounds lingered in the air far past when they should have died. Theaters were built in some of the locations where this effect was most powerful, where full images would linger in the air and sounds would echo, again and again. Entirely new forms of art were invented that were only possible in Helicote, where a single dancer could fill an entire stage, or where a lone singer could be an entire chorus simply with their own echoes.”

Alustin fell silent as the ship picked up speed and sailed out of the canyon between the yardangs.

His students, to his gratitude, didn’t say anything.

“There’s a legend about Helicote’s fall,” Alustin finally said. “It’s said that sometimes, the air will ripple behind a visitor to the fields of glass and slag that are all that are left of Helicote. That their voices will hang in the air just a little too long on that flat melted plain surrounded by forest. They say that the Lord of Bells cast one last spell as he died. Set one last ripple in motion. That someday, that echo would come crashing down on Havath.”

Alustin left his students with that.

As the Quiet Humility sailed back towards Skyhold in the dark, Alustin returned to his cabin. He scryed the desert around them one last time for threats, checked on his students on-deck, and then sat on his bunk.

He winced as he reached into his storage tattoo again, his shoulder still in pain. He gingerly removed a goblet, followed by a bottle of wine.

One less bottle of his family’s wine. Not many left to go, now. Not many left at all.

As he poured his first glass, he ran his senses over his third, unfinished mana reservoir.

Just a matter of weeks now until his third affinity was fully congealed. Likely even sooner. Not even two months left until Midwinter.

Alustin smiled joylessly, then drank deeply from his goblet.

He pulled out a stack of letters from his storage space.

They’d been handled so often in the past that they were barely holding together, and the writing was close to illegible in places. Alustin only handled them with his magic now.

He’d long since memorized every word of the letters from his little sisters and his stepmother, but he reread them all anyways.

As dawn and the bottom of the bottle approached, Alustin put away those letters and took out another set.

These letters had been torn to shreds multiple times in the past, then healed back together with paper magic. Alustin had read these ones far less often than the others, but he remembered the words just as well.

As he worked his way through the rest of the bottle and Valia’s letters, he almost let himself weep.

Almost.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Fire at the Skyhold Docks

“Did you really blow up a whole palace?” Thaddeus asked.

Hugh groaned quietly, then massaged his forehead. “No, that was my girlfriend.”

“Let him be, Thad,” Kanna said, looking up from a copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary.

It had been a week since Hugh and his friends had returned from Dragonclaw Yardang, and to Hugh’s deep displeasure, the story had traveled all over Skyhold in mere hours, most versions grossly distorted. The attention of the mountain’s inhabitants had shifted from the impending siege and the students who had hunted down the monster that escaped from the labyrinth over the summer.

Hugh still hadn’t managed to find out what the monster was. Not, of course, that he’d actually tried approaching the group of students and asking them. Hugh’s curiosity wasn’t stronger than his disinterest in starting conversations with strangers.

Peltia waved Hugh over, then pointed at an entry in her own copy of the Bestiary, which Mackerel was gnawing on.

Hugh pushed his spellbook away, then read the entry.

Hepthet Dras: Despite commonly being referred to as a giant sentient beetle, Hepthet Dras is actually a hive mind of mites living on the house-sized creature. This reclusive compound being wanders the depths of the Endless Erg. Polite, but not overly friendly. Lethally dangerous sand mage when crossed.

“Hepthet’s one of the burial guards on the Sleeper in the Sands,” Hugh said. “Decent choice. Kanderon could arrange an introduction for you after, well… you know. I’ve never met them, but Alustin or one of the other Librarians Errant meet with the Tomb Guards yearly to check on the spells keeping the Sleeper comatose.”

His voice still sounded raspy and awful, but it was improving much more rapidly this time— Grennan and the other healers had missed a part of his throat that hadn’t healed as well as they’d thought.

“Could someone pact with the Sleeper?” Thaddeus asked.

“No, Thad,” Venta said, not even looking up from her own copy of the Bestiary. Hugh noticed that her black and white stripes had spread across even more of her scales.

There was hardly enough room on the table for five copies of Galvachren’s Bestiary— the book was still oversized even compared to the eight foot tall gorgon. Though somehow they’d managed to fit a few other books on warlock contracts on the table as well.

Hugh pushed Mackerel off the table yet again— he didn’t need to get in trouble for Mackerel eating any more library books. At this point, his spellbook had devoured literally every other one of his books, save for his own copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary. He could still read them all easily enough in Mackerel’s pages, unless the spellbook was in a particularly mischievous mood, but it was slightly annoying.

He glanced over at Venta’s list of potential patrons.

Aliantha Wavebreaker : This lightning dragon is often referred to as Indris’ poor cousin. This is a bit dismissive, but she’s clearly set herself up as a copycat of Indris’ methods of rule, or at the very least uses her as a role model. She wields water and fish affinities, and has ruled over an island group in the far south of the Shattered Isles for fifteen years now. Prior to that, once failed to seize the rule of Lothal from Ampioc.

Hugh raised an eyebrow as he finished reading through the list.

“They’re all water mages, save for Ampioc,” he said.

Venta nodded. “My parents are merchants, and I used to travel with them to Lothal and a couple other seaports a few times a year. I’ve known since I was little that I wanted to be a ship’s mage, if my affinities allowed. That’s why I picked sea snakes to bond with.”

“Ampioc’s not a great choice for that— he’s a basalt mage, not a water mage, and he seldom goes out far to sea,” Hugh said. “The others are decent choices, mostly.”

“If Venta pacted with someone, and then I pacted with Venta, would I get Venta’s new affinities?” Thaddeus asked.

Hugh just sighed.

Thankfully, before he had to figure out how to answer, an origami golem in the shape of an oversized bee darted into the room, then started circling around Hugh. Before he could grab it, Mackerel lunged at it.

“I read in one of these books that the average warlock contract has four to six clauses in it,” Venta said. One of her snakes grabbed the bee out of mid-air, and she gently extracted it from its jaws and handed it to Hugh. “How many does yours have?”

“That’s a bit personal,” Hugh said, unfolding the origami golem.

“I’m sorry,” Venta said.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Hugh said. “I need to leave early. Keep working on your lists of potential contracts.”

As Hugh strode towards the Skyhold sandship docks, he couldn’t help but drift back to Venta’s question. The gorgon had clearly been asking innocently, but Hugh would need to double-check whether the average number of clauses was really so few.

His contract with Kanderon had twenty-seven clauses.

Hugh ran into Godrick on the way down to the docks.

Or, rather, Godrick spotted Hugh, picked him up, and excitedly shook him in the air.

“Me da’s on that ship, Hugh!”

“Gah,” Hugh said, quite eloquently.

“Right, sorry,” Godrick said, and he set Hugh back on the ground.

“It’s alright,” Hugh said. “I already knew, it was in Alustin’s note.”

“Ah, right,” Godrick said. “Do yeh think he’s goin’ ta’ get sent out again after this?”

Hugh shrugged as they started down a spiral staircase. “No idea. I kinda doubt it, though— from what I hear, the Havathi are just a few days out now. They are regularly hitting supply ships out in the Erg, too— Kanderon’s pretty angry about it. Not exactly sure why, we’ve got to have several years’ worth of pickles stockpiled at this point. Apparently, Skyhold’s bought so many of them that the price has tripled in Theras Tel, and merchants have been pickling everything they can get their hands on.”

When they’d returned from Dragonclaw Yardang, the sphinx had promptly ordered Hugh to her side and made the healers attend to him there. She’d barely let him out of her sight for the first couple of days, so Hugh had been forced to sit through several mind-numbing logistics meetings in the council chamber.

Come to think of it, he still didn’t know how she got in and out of the library.

“Pickled carrots?” Godrick asked.

“Lots of them,” Hugh said.

“Pickled cabbage?”

“Yep?”

“Pickled eggs?”

“Seven different kinds. Chicken, duck, drake… I don’t even remember the rest.”

“Pickled potatoes?”

“Who pickles potatoes?” Hugh demanded.

“Ah’ve had them in Lothal, they’re good!” Godrick insisted.

They bickered over various pickled foods a quarter of the way down the mountain. When they reached a long hallway with great arched windows looking out over the desert, Hugh finally got tired of pickles and changed the subject.

“What did Artur ever say about you learning will imbuing?” he asked.

“Me Da absolutely forbade it,” Godrick said. “His armor’s designed ta’ mimic what yer body does, not what yer mind wants. Will-imbuin’ it would probably just end with mah legs and arms broken unless ah stayed perfectly focused— and ah definitely couldn’t pull that off.”

“What about other mana techniques?” Hugh asked.

“He said he’d research other options with me when he had time, so ah’m hopin’ this will be it,” Godrick said. “Ah’ve already assembled a list a’ potential choices.”

They spent the rest of the walk down to the docks discussing some of Godrick’s options. Quite a few were mana techniques similar to those Headmaster Tarik used, centered entirely around making spells and mana use as efficient as possible. One, a mental exercise intended to reduce turbulence in mana flows, was especially effective for continuous spells, making it seem like a fairly good match for Godrick’s armor. The technique was only invented a couple years ago, so it seemed possible Artur hadn’t encountered it.

Other techniques were riskier or stranger— a method of spellform construction that allowed for multiple mana types to be used more easily in a single spellform; mana techniques that could marginally narrow or expand the focus of an affinity, for the purposes of trading breadth for power or vice versa; and most alarmingly, a mana channel exercise that helped a mage flood their spellforms with far more mana than they were designed for.

Hugh immediately warned Godrick against the last— that was essentially the exact reason he’d failed at magic at first, and he couldn’t imagine what possible legitimate use a technique like that might have.

Talia, Sabae, and Alustin were all waiting for them at the docks. Alustin was standing atop a crate taller than Hugh, looking extremely pleased with himself, so Hugh went out of his way to ignore his teacher.

Hugh exchanged a quick kiss with Talia— she wasn’t as into public affection as Avah had been, and Hugh tried to respect that— and hugged Sabae.

Mackerel tried to get free of his strap and climb into Talia’s arms, but the book was in a particularly ornery mood— Hugh didn’t trust it not to go stealing hats or something.

“So,” Alustin asked, rocking back and forth on his heels, “are you all excited to see Artur again?”

Hugh looked up at Alustin, sighed, and turned back towards the others. “He’s got a surprise, doesn’t he? He’s only this annoying when he has a surprise for us.”

“I beg your pardon,” Alustin said. “I’m nowhere near that predictable.”

“He’s been dropping hints ever since we got here,” Sabae said, rolling her eyes. “We’re fairly sure there’s a surprise guest on-board the ship.”

“Maybe Artur’s ship is the Moonless Owl ,” Talia said. “It’d be great to see Avah again.”

Godrick and Sabae gave her weird looks, and Hugh awkwardly ran his hand through his hair.

“What?” Talia asked. “She dumped Hugh, not me. I like Avah. Plus, I can gloat over winning Hugh.”

“Talia,” Sabae said, “that, uh… might not be as enjoyable for Hugh as it would be for you.”

Talia’s smile briefly turned downwards, then shot right back up again. “Well, what if you seduced Avah, Sabae? That would clear up the awkwardness, wouldn’t it?”

Sabae groaned. “That’s ten times worse. Did you get that idea from one of your ridiculous novels?”

“I don’t see the problem with it,” Alustin said.

“Ah hope yeh don’t take offense, Alustin,” Godrick said, “but ah think ah want ta’ generally strive fer the opposite a’ however yeh’d act in romance.”

Alustin gave him a wounded look.

They all made a point of ignoring him.

Mackerel started spinning himself and his strap in circles around Hugh’s torso, up over his shoulder, and back down again. Hugh did his best to ignore the book along with Alustin, but he finally gave up and let Mackerel off his shoulder.

The group’s good-natured bickering was interrupted a moment later by the arrival of Emmenson Drees. To Hugh’s surprise, Mackerel lunged excitedly at his spellform construction teacher. Emmenson, however, pulled a pinecone, of all things, out of his storage tattoo.

Mackerel stopped in mid-air and curled his pages at the pine cone, reminding Hugh of a hissing cat.

“None of that, you wretched little book,” Emmenson said.

He nodded politely at Hugh and pointedly ignored Alustin. Unlike the apprentices, this wasn’t a teasing sort of ignoring— it was clearly unfriendly, and even more clearly mutual.

Emmenson was even visibly muttering under his breath as he looked anywhere but at Alustin.

“Artur’s ship should be just cresting the horizon,” Alustin said. “Right… about… now.”

A sandship poked its mast above the horizon right on cue.

As the ship drew closer, more Librarians Errant, several important mages Hugh vaguely recognized, and even a couple of council members showed up at the docks.

“Is your grandmother arriving or something?” Hugh asked Sabae.

Sabae shook her head. “No, she would have let me know if she were on her way, I think.”

She looked troubled at the mention of her grandmother, and Hugh’s mind flashed back to what Valia had said in Dragonclaw. He wondered if she’d ever asked Alustin about it.

The ship arrived in port unusually fast, as though its captain couldn’t wait to offload his passengers, and it had barely come to a halt before the ship’s ramp had been lowered to the docks.

Artur was down first, waving excitably at the group.

Next off was an exhausted-looking Librarian Errant. Hugh recognized him as the one who’d been sent north as a messenger on the way back to Skyhold this summer.

After him, well…

After him came redheads. Lots and lots of redheads. All of them Hugh’s height or shorter, most of them shouting, putting each other in headlocks, or hazardously balancing on the ship’s railing. Several of them looked like they might be drunk.

All of them with bright blue tattoos.

“It’s Clan Castis!” Talia shouted. “Look, Hugh, my brothers!”

Sabae groaned. “We’re all doomed.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Last-Minute Preparations

It wasn’t actually all of Clan Castis. Just thirty or forty of them.

Including all six of Talia’s brothers.

Hugh, Sabae, and Godrick were dragged into an absurd whirlwind of introductions. A few members of Clan Castis had even brought their spouses and children. Some of them, like Talia’s sister-in-law Haela, were effective combat mages on their own. Others much less so— Luthe’s husband was a baker, and their daughter was still a toddler.

Hugh’s ribs were aching just a few greetings in— Clan Castis members seemed universally fond of hugging, and despite their small stature, most of them hugged nearly as hard as Artur or Godrick.

Of course, Artur’s own greeting didn’t help Hugh’s ribs very much.

Somewhat to Hugh’s dismay, he realized that by the standards of Clan Castis, Talia was actually reserved and aloof.

Talia’s letter to Clan Castis had only been for the purpose of getting feedback on her plan for ward armor, but they had, on hearing about the siege, apparently decided it would be quite a lot of fun to come help.

So much about Talia was now making more sense to Hugh.

Within a few minutes, the Skyhold Council members looked even more frazzled than they had meeting Sabae’s grandmother.

Hugh was already feeling completely overwhelmed when someone yanked him behind a pile of crates.

He turned and found himself face to face with Talia’s brothers.

All six of them.

All looking extremely serious.

“Uhhhhh…” Hugh said.

None of the brothers said anything for a moment. All had fairly grim looks on their face.

Finally, Talia’s eldest brother, Luthe, broke the silence.

“So you’re dating our little sister,” Luthe said.

“Yes?” Hugh said. Then he winced at his uncertain tone and repeated himself more firmly. “Yes.”

The six brothers all exchanged glances. All of them were Hugh’s height or shorter, but most were considerably burlier than he was, and between their scars, their tattoos, and their rather absurd numbers of weapons, Hugh found that his mouth was oddly dry.

Luthe stepped forward and rested his hand on Hugh’s shoulder. Hugh realized that he’d backed up against the wooden crates behind him.

“Hugh…” Luthe said, his voice serious.

“Yes?” Hugh repeated, his voice cracking a little.

Luthe leaned in even closer, and Hugh glanced to the side, noticing the other brothers were clustering closer as well.

“Talia didn’t threaten you into dating her, did she?” Luthe asked.

Hugh blinked. “What?”

“She’s not implanted some sort of magical explosive under your skin?” Gram asked.

“Has she kidnapped one of your family members?” the youngest brother asked. Hugh was pretty sure his name was Tristan.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” a fourth brother said. “Talia told us Hugh doesn’t get along with his family, remember?”

“So? She still might have kidnapped them, just as a gift,” another, either Rafe or Leon, said.

“They’re all the way in Emblin; she’s never been to Emblin,” Gram said. “Did she sneak into your room and threaten you with a knife?”

“That’s how I got my scar,” the tallest brother, Roland, said. He pointed to a nasty-looking scar running down his forehead, skipping over his eye, and down his cheek. “Almost lost my eye.”

“She didn’t cut you with a knife,” Luthe said. “You stole her knife, so she threw a chicken on you while you slept.”

“It was my knife,” Roland said, “I was just stealing it back. And no one will respect me if I tell them that this scar came from an angry rooster clawing my face as a child.”

“No one respects you anyhow,” Tristan said. “You spend all your time fishing, carving wooden toys for your children, or rescuing stray kittens.”

“I once harnessed a mossback turtle, rode it into an enemy clan’s hold, set fire to half the village, and stole their chief’s hat,” Roland said.

“You literally rescued a stray dog as well when you did that,” Tristan pointed out. “Actually, wasn’t the dog the reason you attacked in the first place?”

“I could see its ribs!” Roland said. “And they let their children torment it. No way to treat an animal. Also, you should respect me because I punch a lot harder than you.”

“A valid argument,” Tristan said.

“Enough, you two,” Luthe said, sounding exasperated. “Quit getting distracted.”

“Is Talia blackmailing you into dating her?” yet another brother asked. Leon, that was it. He was the fourth oldest.

“She hasn’t hurt you, has she?” Gram asked.

Hugh finally managed to find his words. “No, she hasn’t hurt me. She hasn’t forced me to date her at all!”

The brothers all gave him doubtful looks.

“She hasn’t drugged you and left you out in the snow naked?” Tristan asked. “I almost lost three toes that way.”

“What?” Hugh demanded. “No! Anyway, it doesn’t snow here.”

“She hasn’t threatened you with bees?” the second youngest brother said. Rafe, that was his name.

“No, she hasn’t… Why would she threaten me with bees?” Hugh asked. “ How would she threaten me with bees?”

“Father took away her books and grounded her once for punching a merchant in the jewels, so she threw a beehive into the outhouse while Father was in there, then somehow managed to roll a huge barrel of salt fish in front of the door— we have no idea how. She was only seven years old and no bigger than one of Roland’s stray kittens,” Leon said.

“Why did she punch a merchant in the… No, she hasn’t threatened me with bees. She hasn’t threatened me with anything!” Hugh said.

They all stared at him doubtfully.

“She hasn’t threatened me, she hasn’t blackmailed me, she hasn’t kidnapped anyone from my family, and she hasn’t hurt me,” Hugh said. “I’m dating her because she’s loyal, and caring, and smart, and has always had my back. I’m dating her because I care about her.”

The brothers exchanged significant looks.

“Ayup,” Luthe finally said. “Hugh here is a crazy person.”

“Utterly insane,” Roland said.

“Questionable grasp on reality,” Gram said.

“Probably dangerous to be around,” Leon said.

“Not probably, definitely dangerous to be around,” Rafe said.

“You’re in good company, is what we’re trying to say,” Tristan said.

As the six brothers converged in a group hug on Hugh, all he could do was sigh in exasperation and fantasize about spending some time alone, in his room, with just a good book. Not Mackerel. A better behaved, inanimate book.

To Godrick’s delight, along with several of their tattoo artists for Talia’s ward armor project, Clan Castis had brought a scent mage with them, solely because Talia had offhandedly mentioned Godrick’s difficulties finding a teacher for his scent affinity.

Godrick only got a moment to speak to the woman, Ranna of Clan Derem, but his mind was already racing with possibilities. He’d never match or surpass his Da by simply following in Artur’s footsteps— he lacked the raw power and mana reservoirs to do so.

He’d spent the months since Imperial Ithos desperately trying to find a way around that lack. Hours every day dedicated to practicing lithification spells, growing different types of stone to increase his control. Late nights and weekends spent researching mana techniques or anything else that might give him an edge.

His scent affinity, however, was the one thing he had that his father lacked. Trying to figure out how to cast spells with it had been frustrating him for years— he’d found a moderate number of spellforms, but they were all bizarrely specific. Spells to enhance the smell and flavor of particular spices in soup or spells to absorb body odor. A single— albeit highly effective— combat spell. On top of that, all the spellforms seemed gratuitously complex.

The most useful part of his scent affinity had been his affinity sense— effectively, just an enhanced sense of smell.

Godrick was shaken from his reverie by another of his father’s hugs. He’d just finished speaking to one of the council members, and Godrick couldn’t help but notice the grim expressions on their faces.

“What happened, Da?” Godrick asked.

Artur sighed, and stepped back from the hug. “Nothin’ good. The northern front collapsed completely. Ah managed ta’ lead the Havathi forces away from the Skyhold mages under mah command and inta the Endless Erg, but ah don’t know what’s happened ta’ my team since. Ah snagged a ride back on the ship here— ah guess Alustin was scryin’ fer me and sent a message through one a’ his little books fer this ship ta’ come pick me up.”

“And Headmaster Tarik’s forces?” Godrick asked.

Artur shook his head. “They’re not doin’ much better. Their retreat’s a bit better organized, from what ah heard— Tarik’s been carving a brand new mountain pass ta’ retreat through, and then closin’ it right behind them. Still retreatin’, though.”

“How long until Havath gets here?” Godrick asked.

“Four days, if we’re lucky,” Artur said. “The day after tomorrow, if Havath decides ta’ take a risk.”

Godrick tried to think of something to say, but Artur broke the awkward silence first.

“So ah hear yeh had a bit of an adventure at Dragonclaw Yardang,” Artur said.

“It was a bit more exciting than planned,” Godrick replied. “Oh, before ah tell yeh the story, ah’ve got a list a’ mana techniques ah was wanting ta’ go over with yeh, if that was alright?”

“’Course it’s alright,” Artur said. “Let’s see what yeh got.”

As they pored over his list, neither of them noticed several nearby members of Clan Castis move a little closer to listen.

The entire mountain erupted into last-minute preparations after that.

The thirty-seven members of Clan Castis had to be housed and integrated into Skyhold’s defensive plans, but that was the least of the jobs facing Skyhold— the mountain always had more empty rooms and halls than ones in use.

The last of the supply ships had to be unloaded in a hurry to depart Skyhold— only a few warships would be permitted to remain in the docks.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of last-minute messages were sent out on the departing ships. Some of them were official Skyhold business, but many more were personal letters.

An unknown but certainly immense number of messages were transmitted by more surreptitious, magical means.

Rescue missions were dispatched to search for the remainders of Artur’s forces, and to aid Tarik’s forces in returning.

Recall orders had to be sent to all the remaining scouting and raiding parties.

And, somehow, classes still went on.

By twilight on the second day, the battered remnants of Skyhold’s raiding forces had returned or been given up for lost. The damage was severe, but less so than many had feared it would be. Artur’s retreat and delaying action had allowed his forces to disperse and return to Skyhold in small groups or flee north, where they might be able to find shelter in Sydapsyn or Highvale. Tarik’s forces had managed to stay together, but hadn’t slept for days keeping up a relentless fighting retreat.

Just after midnight on the second day, Skyhold raised its wards.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Wardrise

The moon was almost full, bright enough to read by, when the wards activated.

The first traces were hardly visible to the naked eye— just faint wisps of orange, like little puffs of smoke in mid-air.

Hugh could feel the terrifying amount of mana running through the wards, though. Just a few heartbeats in, it dwarfed the mana that had run through his stormward in Theras Tel.

Most of Skyhold had chosen to watch the wards rise on the western side of the mountain, overlooking the Erg. Hugh and his friends, however, had chosen the eastern side, overlooking the Skyreach Range. They were actually in, of all places, the ballroom where they’d attended the dance last Midwinter. The room was dark now, its orbiting glow crystals unlit, and it was entirely empty save for them. Even Mackerel was behaving himself, sitting quietly on the railing of the ballroom balcony.

Hugh was glad it was just the four of them and his spellbook. He felt spread thin, wrung out like a dishrag. He’d hardly had a moment to himself since they’d returned from Dragonclaw, and the constant social interaction was far more exhausting than any amount of training or study.

The wisps of orange smoke began to glow brighter, then slowly congealed into lines. Those lines spread, then merged into an immense grid of triangles, rising over Skyhold in a colossal dome.

Then the air between the lines began to waver and blur until it resembled poorly-blown glass, the mountains beyond barely visible.

Talia scooted a little closer to Hugh, and he wrapped his arm around her.

The orange began leaking out from the lines into the blurred triangles between them until the entire dome over Skyhold was a brilliant, glowing orange, blocking out anything beyond it, and casting far more light than the moon had.

Then, slowly, the dome began to fade. The moon became visible again through it, followed by the mountains. Soon, all that was left was a faint smear in the air that was barely visible to the others. Even Hugh, with his sphinx eyes, had to struggle to see it.

“That’s it?” Talia asked.

Hugh shook his head. “Not yet.”

Even as he spoke, the process started all over again, a little farther out. A few ship-lengths or thereabouts. Once that barrier had faded, it started up a third time, even farther out.

By the time the third ward barrier had faded, the smears in the air were easily visible to everyone, and it was easy to glimpse the uneven triangular grids of the ward from the corner of your eye— though it faded when looked at directly.

Then the testing began. A few groups of mages had been stationed outside the ward, and began hammering it with lightning bolts, flying boulders, storms of metal shards, gouts of flame, and in one notable case, what appeared to be a floating battering ram, covered in brightly glowing spellforms.

Whenever an attack impacted the wards, that section would light up orange again in a rippling pattern, then fade rapidly. None of the impact ripples spread far, even though some of the attacks were fairly impressive.

After a few moments, the test bombardment ended, and the various battle mages re-entered the wards. Triangular sections of the grid faded to allow them through, then resealed behind them.

Then the archmages stepped forward, taking the battle mages’ places. It said something about the sheer size of the mountain that they could only see two of them, despite the fact that there were a dozen of them spread out surrounding the ward.

One of those two archmages was a ceramic mage named Eddin Slane, who controlled a swarm of thousands of ceramic hexagons the size of a human hand, which he could reassemble into defensive walls, armor, or simply use as projectiles. Slane apparently used a bizarre, heavily mathematical method of spellform design to manage so many discrete objects at once with his magic. He wasn’t a member of the Librarians Errant, but he’d long been an ally of Kanderon’s. He’d been appointed to the Skyhold Council to replace one of the dead council members from Midsummer, and Kanderon had gifted him a storage tattoo of his own.

The other archmage, however, was Artur, who was the other big reason they’d chosen this vantage, apart from the lack of crowds on this side. His armor was as tall as Hugh had ever seen it and considerably bulkier— Godrick’s father was far more skilled working with granite than any other stone, given how much of his life he’d spent living in Skyhold.

Each archmage took turns battering the wards. Some of their assaults were impressive enough that the orange impact ripples rolled into Hugh’s line of sight from a quarter of the way around the mountain. Eddin Slane’s swarm of ceramic tiles didn’t produce particularly large impact ripples, but the sheer number of them was absolutely astonishing— thousands of strikes in just heartbeats, scattered across a good chunk of the dome.

Then it was Artur’s turn. His massive suit of armor rolled its shoulders, hefted his colossal iron hammer, then charged at the dome.

The hammer blow actually smashed entirely through the first two layers of the ward, though it halted against the innermost and strongest layer.

The impact ripple in the outer layer swept across the entire eastern hemisphere of the dome, the one in the second traveling nearly as far. The innermost impact ripple didn’t travel nearly as far, but between the three, the entire mountainside was bathed in orange light for a few heartbeats.

“That’s me da,” Godrick said with a proud smile.

Hugh wasn’t sure whether to be more amazed by the fact that the hammer blow had punched through two layers of the ward, or by the fact that the third layer had survived Artur’s blow at all.

The ward healed the instant Artur pulled back his hammer, but soon opened back up again to allow all the archmages back inside the ward.

As the others chatted excitedly about the ward, Hugh found his eyes drawn to the horizon. At first, he couldn’t tell what had drawn his attention, but as the smears shifted across the dome, his eyes focused in on movement over the mountains.

Dragons. Multiple flights of them. Not heading straight towards Skyhold but curving far to the north and the south.

Maybe they were just some local flights being forced into Skyhold territory by the Havathi.

Hugh doubted it, though.

There were only a handful of residents of Skyhold who didn’t watch Skyhold’s wards rise. A few unlucky enchanters and alchemists stuck monitoring ongoing projects. Guards on duty watching sensitive areas, including the enchantment and alchemy wings. A few reclusive scholar mages, buried in their lairs so deep inside the mountain, so caught up in their esoteric studies that some of them likely weren’t even aware that Skyhold was at war.

Them and one other.

In his office, behind a battered old desk, surrounded by diagram-covered chalkboard walls, Alustin repetitively cast spells, again and again. Not paper spells, nor scrying spells, but spells of a third affinity entirely.

And, again and again, the spells failed.

He’d been invited to several parties and get-togethers, and even had an invitation from Kanderon to join him as her attendant for the evening atop the mountain, in the Skyhold Council Chamber.

Alustin had offered his excuses to all of them, even Kanderon. Simply implying he had romantic plans for the evening had been enough to dissuade the sphinx’s interest— even after most of a millennium of life, she still grew uncomfortable at discussions of human mating.

He’d seen the ward go up before in test runs, and he was too close to the culmination of six years’ worth of work to have the patience for anything else.

Into the small hours of the morning, long after most of the mountain had gone to sleep, Alustin kept casting spells that failed. Again and again, his frustration only tempered by years of effort.

Until, when his eyes were struggling to stay open, one of the spells didn’t fail.

Alustin almost missed the fact that the spell had succeeded for a moment, already starting to move on to the next casting.

Then he froze and looked down at the effects of his spell.

He didn’t allow himself time to gloat, knowing what was coming next. He threw himself out of his chair and stretched himself out on the floor, so he wouldn’t injure himself.

Moments later, he began to convulse. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he thrashed across the floor in pain.

The seizure ended as quickly as it arrived, but it was several minutes before Alustin could pick himself up off the floor and laboriously climb back into his battered, over-stuffed armchair. He barely managed it, and his head throbbed with pain the whole time.

Congealing a mana reservoir for an artificial affinity was a dangerous, painful affair. He should have done this under the supervision of healers, but in the years Alustin had been developing his third affinity, he hadn’t told anyone of his project, not even Kanderon. He wasn’t about to change that now.

Despite the pain, Alustin was smiling in his chair as he drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Great Powers

Hugh and his friends were on the long promenade balcony just over the sandship docks, eating a late breakfast, when the first Havathi great power arrived at Skyhold.

It wasn’t just the four of them. Over a dozen members of Clan Castis, including all of Talia’s brothers, had dragged other tables over to them. Artur had joined them as well, as had, to Hugh’s mild surprise, Emmenson Drees and Grennan the healer, who were locked in conversation with a couple of late-rising members of Clan Castis. They barely even noticed Hugh and the others long enough to greet them, they were so deep in conversation.

Captain Bandon walked by next, and Sabae and Godrick insisted that he join the group. They hadn’t seen him since they’d returned from Dragonclaw. Bandon clearly had been off on errands of his own, but he allowed himself to be persuaded into eating with them, then promptly got involved in a truly ridiculous argument with Luthe over whether his hair was redder than Clan Castis’, with Gram’s tall wife, Haela, judging. Haela was, apparently, an oil mage, which Hugh found interesting— he’d never talked to an oil mage before, though they weren’t particularly rare.

The argument wasn’t going anywhere, of course, because Skyhold’s ward was casting just the slightest orange tint on everything. It was hardly noticeable otherwise, but it made accurate judging of whose hair was reddest impossible.

To Hugh’s mild chagrin, Thaddeus and the other young warlocks spotted him, and of all people, Sabae invited the four to join them. Thankfully, Thaddeus was sitting between Talia’s brothers Tristan and Leon, who were more than happy to regale the first year with stories. The two of them were as talkative as the young warlock, so it seemed a relatively safe seating arrangement. Peltia and Kanna ended up sitting across from Godrick and Rafe, the most scholarly of Talia’s brothers, and got dragged into their conversation about obscure mana techniques, though neither seemed to mind.

Hugh couldn’t help but notice that Sabae was quite insistent on Venta sitting next to her. She seemed rather pleased about being crammed in close with the gorgon.

Alustin was the last to show up, looking thoroughly exhausted and even more thoroughly pleased with himself. He slid in between Bandon and Talia’s brother Roland, the latter of whom seemed half asleep.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Talia said from beside Hugh, pointing at Alustin.

He gave her a wounded look. “Say anything about what?”

“I know that look,” Talia said. “You were about to start bragging about your most recent conquest.”

“I would never brag about something like that,” Alustin said. “I’m an utter gentleman.”

“Yeh’re right,” Artur said. “Yeh’re not a braggart. Yeh’re a gloater.”

“I could stand to hear some gloating,” Tristan said, waggling his eyebrows.

“And no flirting with my brothers, Alustin,” Talia said.

Tristan stuck his tongue out at her, but Hugh couldn’t help but notice the redhead still turned away from Alustin and back to his conversation.

He also couldn’t help but notice that Emmenson was glaring over at Alustin. A thought suddenly struck Hugh. Had the two of them used to?…

Hugh nudged Artur, who was sitting next to him with Luthe’s daughter Yolanda sitting in his lap. The toddler was obsessed with the stone mage’s beard. Artur didn’t seem to mind the yanking on the beard or the toddler getting bits of egg and bread in his beard— he’d spent half of brunch smiling and making nonsense noises at the little girl.

Artur might not mind the mess, but Hugh most certainly did mind that the little girl kept slipping Mackerel eggs under the table. He absolutely hated having to clean food out of his spellbook, and he had to do it far too often.

When Hugh got Artur’s attention, he gestured at Alustin and Emmenson, neither of whom were paying attention. He was careful not to say anything out loud because the sound mage would almost certainly overhear, but he did his best to communicate his question with significant looks.

Artur rolled his eyes and nodded, then turned back to Yolanda.

Hugh shook his head. He had absolutely no idea how Alustin managed his ridiculous dating life, nor did he particularly feel a need to understand.

Hugh was halfway through breakfast when he realized that he was feeling none of his usual stress and anxiety about being in a crowd. Nor was he feeling as overwhelmed as he had been the last few weeks. This was… actually kind of nice. It was almost like the crowd of people he knew were acting as a buffer against the rest of the crowd bustling around the tea shops, bakeries, and restaurants of the promenade balcony.

It was too bad Kanderon wasn’t there, too. The balcony was just the right height for her to have been able to sit on the docks below and talk to them at face level.

Then again, Hugh supposed most people were more intimidated by Kanderon than he was, and her presence would hardly be good for business.

One of the two dragons that had enrolled in Skyhold this year was curled up on a wide part of the balcony, though, and there was a whole crowd around it. It didn’t seem quite fair to Hugh— Kanderon wasn’t that much more intimidating than a dragon, even if it was less than half of her size.

Hugh was shaken out of that line of thought by someone yelling. Then more people started yelling and pointing.

Hugh turned to look out across the Endless Erg, and there, flying in low over the sand, was a flight of dragons.

These ones were most certainly not half Kanderon’s size.

There was less panic than Hugh would have expected. Plenty of shouting and nervousness, but no panic. The exhibition of archmages the night before seemed to have done its job convincing the residents of Skyhold of their safety behind the wards.

He couldn’t help but notice Artur passing the toddler in his lap back to Luthe’s husband Sven, though, or the sudden serious looks on Alustin, Emmenson, and Bandon’s faces.

Talia’s brothers just looked excited.

The flight of dragons— seven in all— came in for a landing just outside the sandship harbor, only a few ship-lengths past the ward. The only exception was the center dragon, who hovered a dragonlength or so above the sand. He must have had some sort of flying affinity, because normal dragons didn’t hover. Dozens of mages in Havathi white and bronze flew around the dragons or clambered off their backs.

All save the hovering dragon, who no-one came near.

These dragons looked little like Indris and her brood. They were sleeker and more colorful by far— around half were green, but no two were the same shade. The rest ranged from sky blue to orange-spotted red.

The hovering dragon in the middle was ash grey, and had to be half again Kanderon’s size, though he was still smaller than Ataerg had been.

“Krakat Ambrin,” Artur said. “The self-proclaimed fire god. Though he doesn’t have a cult— Havath doesn’t allow them.”

That got the attention of everyone in Clan Castis. Then, oddly, they all turned their attention to Luthe.

“He’s a fire mage?” Luthe asked.

Artur shook his head. “Worse. He’s got a dragonfire affinity, on top of a wind affinity. He was the Havathi great power who harried my forces through the mountains. He couldn’t get through my armor, but he wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to get him either.”

“That’d be an impressive entry in your ledger,” Tristan said to Luthe.

Luthe didn’t say anything, he just watched the grey dragon as the various human mages moved into formation.

“Or maybe Talia wants to be a dragonslayer just like Luthe?” Leon said.

Talia turned a little red at that but didn’t say anything. Hugh gave her a bit of a puzzled look— was she afraid of dragons? He hadn’t thought she was afraid of anything.

The conversation was cut off by the grey dragon, Krakat Ambrin, who spat out a massive plume of dragonfire. The viscous liquid ignited on contact with air, but none of it reached Skyhold’s ward. Instead, it curved back in mid-air, then attached itself to Krakat’s wings.

Krakat rose farther in the sky as his wings grew. In heartbeats, they’d become wings of liquid flame, hundreds of feet from wingtip to wingtip. The Havathi mages below had raised domed windshields to protect themselves from the heat, and Skyhold’s ward had begun to glimmer orange from the heat hitting it in waves.

“Kanderon Crux!” Krakat shouted. “Come face me, you overgrown, mangy cat! Quit hiding behind your ward, and bring me the Exile Splinter!”

Hugh tensed up, suddenly worried for Kanderon. Dragonfire was far worse than regular fire— it was hot enough to melt some metals and could even burn underwater. If you got it on your skin, the most commonly accepted solution was chopping off that body part before the flames spread.

It was bad enough from a regular dragon, but from a dragon with a specific affinity for the hyper-flammable liquid?

The crowds on the balcony were dead silent. Even Skyhold’s dragon student had curled up more tightly into a ball, looking terrified.

“Well, he’s an idiot,” Alustin said into the silence. “Hugh, could you pass the eggs?”

Alustin’s voice seemed to echo much farther than it should have, and everyone turned to look at him. The entire crowd on the balcony, the crews of the few remaining ships in the dock, and even the Havathi flight of dragons outside the ward.

Hugh passed Alustin the eggs.

“You dare?” Krakat said, then floated closer to the ward.

“Well, yes,” Alustin said as he scraped more eggs onto his plate. “You’re terrifying and mighty, and well worth the title of great power, but… there are great powers, and then there are the truly great powers. You’re not getting through this ward anytime soon, and worse, you’ve just called out one of the truly great powers. Without any backup.”

Alustin’s voice was still echoing more than it should, but it didn’t take Hugh long to spot sheets of glyph-inscribed paper scattered around the balcony. The paper mage must have been projecting his voice through them.

“I need no backup,” the dragon proclaimed. “I am Krakat Ambrin, God of Flame! None may stand against my…”

They never had a chance to find out what he was about to say, however. Hugh only had a heartbeat’s warning from his affinity senses. From his crystal affinity, a feeling of something shifting beneath the sand. From his planar affinity, the feeling of something immense breaching into the world from above.

Then Krakat Ambrin, his whole flight of dragons, and every mage that had arrived with them were impaled on hundreds of crystals.

From above, immense spears of blue crystal, shards of Kanderon’s wings, impaled each dragon. From the sands below, immense clusters of quartz had grown out of the sand at impossible speed, piercing each and every Havathi dozens of times over, both dragon and mage.

Hugh suddenly had his suspicions confirmed about why Kanderon had ordered the sand composition altered by Skyhold’s sand mages, why she wanted it almost entirely quartz.

She’d turned the sand fields near Skyhold into ammunition for her crystal spells.

Krakat’s dragonfire wings held intact for a moment, then simply fell from mid-air all at once.

As the dragonfire splattered against the sand, more crystals began to grow upwards, enveloping first the burning liquid, and then the Havathi. Kanderon’s blue wing crystals withdrew, shrinking as they flew upwards. Or… not shrinking, no. Withdrawing from the universe, into some extraplanar space of their own.

Soon Krakat’s body was the only one not entirely enveloped by the mass of quartz. Then the whole mass began to sink, the sand swirling around it.

The self-proclaimed flame-god’s body was still only half-enveloped in crystal by the time it sank noiselessly beneath the sand.

Then a shadow passed over the balcony, and Kanderon passed noiselessly out of Skyhold’s ward. Her immense bulk touched down gracefully on the sand, and she bent her head down to sniff the spot where the Havathi great power had sunk. There was no trace of the Havathi, nor of Krakat’s dragonfire.

Then she turned and kicked sand over the spot a few times with her legs, like any cat might do with its waste.

The balcony was completely silent, for a moment, save for the noises of Alustin eating, and Yolanda burbling happily and reaching for the sphinx. Hugh could feel the crystal mass slowly sinking the hundreds of feet down towards bedrock with his affinity sense.

Then one of Talia’s brothers starting cheering and clapping, followed immediately by the rest. The applause quickly spread across the balcony, and Kanderon turned to face it with what, if Hugh didn’t know better, he would have sworn to be surprise.

Her eyes met Hugh’s for a long moment. Then, with the sound of a hundred chimes, she flapped her crystal wings and launched herself into the air.

Hugh glanced at Alustin, who was smiling oddly.

“Kanderon’s used to being feared as the evil mastermind behind the curtains, the dread monster from children’s tales,” Alustin said. “Being cheered isn’t exactly a common experience for her.”

“That was incredible!” Thaddeus shouted.

“You think that’s something, you should see her starfire sometime,” Sabae said. “I saw her incinerate a dragon with it this summer.”

Thaddeus immediately started demanding more details, and Hugh did his best to not pay attention.

“If… if Kanderon’s that powerful,” Venta said, “why are the Havathi even daring to attack Skyhold?”

“That,” Artur said, “is the question, isn’t it? Not a single one a’ their great powers should be able ta’ survive a head ta’ head fight with Kanderon, let alone beat her. Maybe three or four together could do it, and they’re bringing far more than that. Well, one less, now, but ah still wouldn’t bet against Kanderon. Especially given her alliance with Indris and Ilinia, both of whom are on nearly the same level she is.”

“So why bother?” the gorgon asked.

“Greed and politics,” Emmenson said from down the table. “This war’s been brewing for decades. An empire claiming to be the legitimate heir to Ithonian hegemony can’t simply ignore Kanderon— their claim means nothing while the Doom of Ithos still lives. Nor can they allow the Exile Splinter to be possessed by anyone else, for much the same reason.”

“And they just want it for themselves,” Alustin interjected.

“I said greed, didn’t I?” Emmenson snapped.

“Still, it seems like a stupid move on their part,” Talia said.

“Unless somethin’s changed,” Artur said.

“Somethin’ like what?” Godrick asked.

Artur and Alustin exchanged significant looks, but neither responded.

“Somethin’ like what, Da?” Godrick repeated.

Artur sighed. “Somethin’ like one of the few other great powers at that scale joinin’ Havath or them makin’ another one. But yeh can count on yer fingers the number of great powers on Kanderon’s scale who aren’t liches or monsters like the Sleeper or the Listener, and makin’ a mage that powerful is a risky business.”

There was a brief bubble of quiet at their table, surrounded by the celebrating mages across the rest of the balcony.

The quiet was promptly interrupted by Thaddeus, who Venta seemed to have forced to stop harassing Sabae.

“What’s Kanderon going to do with all the dragon bones?” Thaddeus asked.

“Krakat’s not the first great power to become a part of Kanderon’s larder,” Alustin said.

Hugh honestly wasn’t surprised to hear that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Heart of the Splinter

The Grand Library was unusually busy that afternoon when Hugh entered it. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of librarians and other mages in sight.

It was still pleasantly quiet and uncrowded, though— a crowd of hundreds wasn’t even close to enough to filling the miles-wide, seemingly bottomless chamber. It was large enough that it couldn’t possibly fit inside the mountain without magic. Bookshelves hung in immense rows in mid-air in the center of the room, alongside dozens of floating islands containing study desks, book-repair stations, and one, inexplicably, with a frog-filled pond. Great flocks of spellbooks dodged and weaved through the bookcases and harassed librarians.

The library contained millions of books. Nearly two-thirds of them were spellbooks and journals donated, purchased, or otherwise acquired from various mages over the years, but the acquisition of spellbooks had long since been outpaced by other volumes, as ink and paper mages developed faster and more efficient means of copying books. Alikean and Tsarnassan mages mass-produced volumes in great workshops, each mage producing a dozen copies of a page at a time. Sican mages had developed an enchanted printing press decades ago, and though it was still outpaced by the ink mage workshops, most onlookers expected it to surpass them sooner or later.

There were far stranger books than mere spellbooks or mass-produced grimoires in Skyhold’s library, however, including some from other worlds entirely.

Hugh scribbled in one of the Index Nodes, then stepped back as the page tore itself out of the book and folded into the shape of a phoenix. He then followed the origami golem past several floating cobblestone paths leading out into the center of the great chamber before it selected one with small, widely-spaced cobbles.

He didn’t need to look down when crossing these paths anymore, his crystal affinity sense more than keen enough to handle that, allowing Hugh to skip the normal dose of vertigo.

The cobbles descended like a staircase between two immense floating bookshelves, then curved out and went straight above the island with the frog pond. To Hugh’s surprise, the bottom of the pond appeared to have a number of full bookshelves lying flat, filled with oddly glimmering volumes.

Bit of a puzzle, that. So far as Hugh knew, all the library’s volumes that needed to be kept underwater were meant for saltwater readers— he wasn’t aware they kept any freshwater books, or know who could possibly need them. And he definitely wasn’t aware of any saltwater frogs, so they were almost certainly freshwater books.

Bizarre.

As Hugh ducked through a flock of spellbooks, he briefly regretted not bringing Mackerel with him— his spellbook loved playing with the books in the library. And, of course, Alustin wouldn’t be too pleased if he’d found out Hugh had entered the library alone— it was, save for the labyrinth, the most dangerous part of the mountain. It killed quite a few people every year.

Hugh still wasn’t entirely sure what brought so many of the grimoires in the library to life— while countless volumes were enchanted, they certainly weren’t enchanted for that purpose, nor were they brought to life by the complex spells that animated origami golems.

Alustin’s only explanation had been, for once, short on detail and particularly unsatisfying. Apparently, magic “gets a bit weird in high enough densities, and when you involve magic from multiple worlds.” Then he’d gotten pulled into a tangent on why they didn’t ever go into a destructive resonance cascade, like personal enchantments could.

Hugh passed a librarian on a different cobblestone path through mid-air and waved cheerfully. Possibly his favorite thing about the library was the fact that small talk and non-essential conversation weren’t only unnecessary but discouraged. Hugh didn’t have to talk to anyone he didn’t want to, even on those rare occasions when he actually met someone else in here.

Finally, the origami phoenix came to a halt, deep in mid-air. Hugh waited patiently as a couple dozen other cobblestones all converged on the two he stood on, forming a broad octagonal platform. When they’d all locked together, the origami golem unfolded itself and flew away, and the platform began to sink.

Hugh descended past floating bookshelf after floating bookshelf, past more odd floating islands. The balconied library levels along the sides of the immense room switched wildly from floor to floor. One especially notable floor had nothing but glass and crystal volumes, another floor was intended for the care, lighting, and watering of living bark books with leaves for pages, while others were dedicated to stone books, especially old and fragile books, and more. The bulk of the floors were still dedicated to more traditional books, of course, but traditional was a word with a lot of flexibility in Skyhold’s Grand Library.

As the platform sunk towards the cloud of glowing mist below, the shelves grew emptier and emptier, until Hugh traveled past floors entirely empty of books. There hadn’t been this many empty floors last time Hugh had come down here— the library must have deepened again.

Finally, the platform entered the mist, and the blue glowing shapes resolved themselves into the immense blue crystal gears, axles, notched rotating drums, and other parts of the Index, the semi-sentient construct governing the library. Kanderon had somehow instilled a segment of her own mind into the massive device, by means Hugh didn’t understand, allowing it to manage the multi-million volume collection of the library. She could also enhance its capabilities by linking with it.

Then Hugh was through the mist, descending into Kanderon’s lair.

Kanderon’s lair was a series of immense floating crystal daises, made of the same blue aether crystal as the Index and Kanderon’s wings. This crystal felt… different, though, to Hugh’s affinity senses. Much less alive than either of the others— especially the wings.

Below the platform was a seemingly bottomless drop into a murky void.

Hugh didn’t spend long observing the platforms as he descended, however. Instead, his attention moved directly to Kanderon. Or, more precisely, his attention gravitated towards the object of Kanderon’s attention.

The Exile Splinter.

It was a massive shard of jagged blue aether crystal, three times the height of even Artur. It was absolutely filled with convoluted spellforms grown into the crystal’s structure. Deep within its depths was contained a massive heart, that, so far as Hugh could tell, appeared to be made of pure shadow. The whole thing was utterly opaque to all his aether senses, and the only difference between now and the last time he’d seen it was the fact that the heart was no longer beating.

As his platform descended, Kanderon’s attention switched to him, and for a moment, a snarl crossed her face as though she didn’t recognize him. It was rapidly replaced with a confused look before Kanderon’s face went blank.

“I was not expecting you, Hugh,” Kanderon said. “How did you get down here without my permission?”

Hugh shrugged. “I just asked an Index Node for a path down.”

Kanderon sighed, then glared up at the Index. “Idiot construct. Not even properly sapient, and you’re trying to meddle in my social schedule. I’m over eight centuries old, I don’t need a filing system worrying about me getting lonely.”

The Index didn’t respond in any way.

“Isn’t it an extension of you?” Hugh asked.

“I should have stuffed a pigeon’s mind in there instead,” Kanderon muttered.

The Index continued to not respond in any way.

Kanderon sighed and fixed her attention back on Hugh. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Hugh shook his head. “No, I just wanted to come check on you after this morning’s, uh… excitement. Make sure you were alright.”

Kanderon snorted. “That vain dragonling never stood a chance of injuring me, Hugh. No need to worry on that front.”

Hugh shook his head again as his cobblestone platform landed on Kanderon’s crystal dais. “I wasn’t worried about you getting hurt. I just figured it probably wasn’t a very pleasant surprise.”

Kanderon sighed. “Thank you, Hugh. And no, it wasn’t an especially pleasant way to start my day. Still, Krakat’s idiocy in confronting me alone has already set Havath back.”

The sphinx seemed ready to say something else but then trailed off as her gaze fell on the Exile Splinter again.

Hugh waited a few awkward moments before speaking. “Kanderon?”

The sphinx shook her head in surprise, then turned her gaze to him again. “Yes, Hugh?”

“Maybe you… shouldn’t have that out right now,” Hugh said. “I don’t think it’s very good for you to be staring into it like that.”

Another angry look flashed onto Kanderon’s face, and Hugh took a step backward. The snarl vanished, and Kanderon looked immediately regretful.

“I did not mean to frighten you, Hugh. I… no, you are absolutely correct, I should keep the Exile Splinter contained. It’s far too dangerous, even to me. Especially its heart. I just… I keep thinking that it might hold the secret to regaining my lost memories, but every time I stare into it, I start to lose myself again. It’s so tempting, Hugh— the idea of abandoning the weight of centuries, turning back into the feral monster I was in the decades after the fall of Ithos, becoming the Mad Sphinx again.”

The sphinx sighed. “But I cannot afford it. I have too many plans, too many responsibilities. Too much at stake, and too many people I’m responsible for. On Midwinter, the Splinter goes into the Vault and stays there for good.”

Hugh breathed his own sigh of relief as Kanderon tucked the Exile Splinter into some extraplanar space. Something about the Exile Splinter’s presence, especially the heart, made him deeply uncomfortable.

Kanderon stretched out fully onto the dais. When she didn’t say anything else, Hugh slowly approached, then clambered up onto her outstretched forearm, then lay back and made himself comfortable.

The sphinx watched him but didn’t say anything.

Hugh wasn’t sure how long they remained like that. He just stared up into the Index, watching its slow revolutions in the mist.

He was starting to drift off to sleep when Kanderon spoke next.

“How… how are you, Hugh?”

He blinked himself awake, then looked up at Kanderon.

“What?” Hugh asked.

“Your… How are events treating you?” Kanderon asked. “How are, ah… you and your friends doing?”

“Well enough,” Hugh replied, a little puzzled. “This is all a little overwhelming, but then, everything in my life is these days. I’m pretty sure I’d be a complete mess without my friends around, but then that’s nothing new either.”

“That… is good. I am glad you have your friends, then,” Kanderon said. “It is normal for a… it is normal to ask about your health now, yes?”

“My lungs are getting a lot better,” Hugh said, thoroughly bemused by this line of questioning. “I still get tired easily and can’t run as far as I used to, but they’re improving steadily. It’s really frustrating, but the healers keep telling me I just need to be patient.”

“And, ah… now I’m supposed to ask you how your classes are going?” Kanderon said.

“They’re going well, I guess,” Hugh said. “I’m kinda getting to a place of diminishing return with my ward studies— I’ve basically covered most of the general theory on the topic, so most of what Loarna is teaching me now is either highly specialized or highly debated. So outside of my armor project, I’ve been focusing a little more on my spellform construction— I’ve let that fall behind a bit this year.”

“That’s a sensible plan,” Kanderon said. “We should begin work proper on those soon, as well as your storage tattoos.”

“Speaking of spellform construction, I’m not actually as good at spellform construction as you claimed I was the first time I came down here,” Hugh said. “Nor is it quite as difficult as you and Alustin made it out to be.”

To Hugh’s surprise, Kanderon actually turned a little red at that. “You… well, you were such a skittish creature, I thought you needed a little bit of a confidence boost. And it might have been exaggeration, but only a little bit. You are still quite good at it, and it is still very much a difficult discipline, little one.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows at that, and Kanderon got a little redder. Finally, Hugh turned away and leaned back against Kanderon’s fur.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Kanderon grumbled a little bit, but when he glanced back, he was fairly sure he could see a hint of a smile on her face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Cloud Formations

Sabae performed her first full-body test of her new armor technique with a healer present. Given how badly bruised her arm had been when she accidentally created it at Dragonclaw Yardang, the damage would likely be far worse if it went wrong in full-body mode.

Even with the risk, Sabae would still rather be doing this than practicing her lightning magic.

“Explain how this works again?” Talia said.

“Basically, both Alustin and I were completely wrong about how I’d use wind and water together in my armor,” Sabae said, poking her foot in the pool of water next to her. “Alustin thought I’d need to layer them; I thought I could weave them together. We were both being idiots and missing the obvious, though.”

“Speak for yourself,” Alustin said.

The four of them, Alustin, and the healer were congregated in one of Skyhold’s smaller underground reservoir rooms, one often available for water mages to reserve for training purposes. There had been some talk of not allowing this for the siege, but the water supply wasn’t particularly a concern. The aquifers supplying Skyhold were buried deep, far below where the granite of the mountain ended and were refreshed regularly by snowmelt deeper in the Skyreach Range. Magically pumping the water up through the granite put a few toxins into the water, but nothing mages couldn’t purify.

“We should have simply thought about how water and air interact in nature,” Sabae said. “That is to say—”

“Clouds,” Godrick interrupted. “Yeh’re combinin’ them inta clouds.”

Sabae smiled and nodded at him.

“So… you’re just going to try and repeatedly detonate your armor again, like you did at Dragonclaw?” Hugh asked.

Sabae shook her head. “It should be hypothetically possible to combine the wind and water armor without detonating them first.”

“Hypothetically?” Hugh asked.

“Well, that’s why we have a healer here,” Alustin said.

The healer in question didn’t even glance up from her book.

Alustin rolled his eyes at her, then turned back to Sabae. “Ready?”

Sabae nodded, stepped into the pool of water up to her knees, and then began spinning up her armor, from her feet up. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on replicating the feeling of her armor from Dragonclaw Yardang, trying to shape wind and water together from the start, rather than combining them once they were already moving. She did her best to keep her mind off all her failed attempts at merging the two before— Alustin’s layered armor idea, and her own woven armor, and as she continued upwards, her mind started to calm down and focus.

Her magic came together, and for a moment, Sabae thought she’d succeeded. She could feel the wind carrying the water freely throughout it, and it hadn’t detonated or fallen apart yet.

Then the others started laughing.

Sabae opened her eyes and saw nothing but fog. She scowled, then lowered her magic away from her face.

Her body was entirely covered in thick, fluffy clouds.

“You look absolutely ridiculous,” Talia said.

Sabae rolled her eyes and released her armor entirely, save for around her calves. The clouds rolled away from her on the surface of the reservoir. Mackerel darted in from Hugh’s side and began flying through the drifting clouds.

She waved most of the clouds away, then looked down at her calves.

They were entirely surrounded by a whirling storm of bubbles. Sabae frowned, then pulled her left leg out of the water.

“Now that,” Alustin said, “is not what I expected.”

The armor around her legs didn’t remotely resemble the storm clouds from Dragonclaw, nor her regular armor.

Instead, it…

Well, it was layered, like Alustin had been trying to get her to do. But the two layers were comprised of woven threads of water and wind, as she’d thought had been the right way to do it before Yardang.

“It’s not what I expected either,” Sabae said. “I was genuinely trying to replicate the storm armor again.”

“Can you extend it over the rest of your body?” Alustin asked.

Sabae carefully extended the pattern upwards, and the new armor slid up her body effortlessly.

The laughter of the others had changed to excited looks.

“What was different that time?” Alustin said. “Was it trying to generate the cloud armor underwater, or?…”

Sabae dropped her armor, stepped out of the pool entirely, and started again.

Only to cover herself in fluffy clouds from head to toe.

Sabae frowned, stepped back into the pool, and tried again.

Cloud armor again, this time underwater as well. Clouds looked bizarre underwater.

Of course, Mackerel darting through the clouds underwater looked even weirder.

“Bizarre,” Alustin said.

“Maybe instead a’ tryin’ ta’ replicate the cloud armor, yeh should just try ta’ replicate that, uh, woven armor.”

“It’s woven and layered, not just woven,” Alustin said.

“Oooh, let’s call it stormweave armor,” Talia said. “And the other…”

“We really don’t need to name the fluffy cloud thing,” Sabae said. “I promise, it’s not going to be something I’m going to use much in the future.”

“What if you need to blend in with a cloud?” Hugh asked. “On top of a mountain, for instance.”

“Ah vote tideweave, not stormweave,” Godrick said. “Tideweave works better, ah think, and yeh did say the armor from Dragonclaw looks a lot more like an actual storm cloud.”

“Oooh, yeah, tideweave is definitely better,” Talia said. “What about the fluffy cloud mode, though?”

“Fluffy cloud mode works,” Hugh said.

“I hate it, and I’m not going to be using it,” Sabae said. “I’m certainly not going to be wandering around through cloud banks anytime soon.”

“You know that mistform labyrinths are one of the most common sorts, right?” Alustin asked. “Your, ah… fluffy cloud mode would blend in perfectly with the walls of fog.”

Sabae groaned.

“Try again,” Alustin said.

Sabae started to try and spin up her armor again, then stopped.

Instead of trying to replicate the process that had created the tideweave armor the first time, Sabae instead started trying to directly replicate the tideweave armor from the beginning— weaving and layering it, rather than creating it by accident.

And, with shocking ease, it worked.

Once Sabae explained what happened, Alustin frowned. “This… makes no sense. How did the tideweave armor form that first time, then?”

The two of them spent several minutes bandying about theories, trying to ignore Mackerel splashing them from the pool, when Talia spoke up.

“Maybe Sabae just got distracted and did it by accident, thinking of the previous strategies?”

Sabae started to protest, then groaned. “Storms, I think that is what happened.”

Alustin chuckled at that. “It happens more than you’d think. I’ve discovered more than a few new types of paper folds by accident while trying to achieve something else.”

“So… layering and weaving aren’t stable on their own, but they work together,” Sabae asked. “At least, so long as I start the armor up that way.”

“Apparently,” Alustin said. “Your methods of doing magic are almost entirely novel— at this point, I’m guessing as much as you are. Given how well your affinities work together traditionally, it doesn’t surprise me that we’ve already found three new ways to combine them. The only real surprise is that we’ve found them so close together.”

Sabae frowned at that. “I’m going to try and replicate the armor from Dragonclaw, again. I’m going to do it the way I did then.”

Alustin gestured, and the healer’s book magically snapped shut. She looked up to protest, but the paper mage cut her off. “Going to need you to actually pay attention for this test.”

Sabae took a deep breath, then attempted to construct the layered armor on her arm again.

It immediately detonated, but rather than letting it fly off, she yanked the wind and water back in again.

The armor from Dragonclaw Yardang formed far more quickly this time, but the repeated explosions still hurt, and Sabae was fairly confident it would bruise soon.

“Yeah, we’re definitely calling that storm armor,” Hugh said, staring at the dark, whirling clouds surrounding her arm.

Sabae just nodded. It looked even more ominous and aggressive than she remembered, with none of the absurdity of… she refused to call it fluffy cloud mode.

Alustin spent a few moments examining it up close, then stepped back and summoned a sheet of paper out of his tattoo. It had a massively complex spellform glyph on it, one no larger than a thumbnail that repeated again and again across the page. He sent it flying slowly into the storm armor around her arm.

It shredded the paper into tiny bits.

For a moment, Sabae thought her armor was just that powerful, until she realized that the paper had shredded precisely into rectangles containing the repeating glyph, each of which was now glowing. Alustin had been the one to shred the paper, not her.

Alustin stared at her arm for a while, rubbing the back of his neck. Finally, the glyphs stopped glowing, and he sighed.

“Try extending it across your body,” he said.

The storm armor didn’t extend quite as easily as the tideweave armor had, but she managed to stretch it across most of her body without too much trouble, leaving only her head.

“You can drop it,” Alustin said.

He didn’t speak for a moment, just stared off into space and rubbed his neck. Then he summoned a sheaf of pages from his tattoo, shaped them into a hovering chair, and sat in it.

“You’re mixing your mana types,” he said. “Your storm armor is being generated with wind and water mana mixed together into a solution, not being used separately.”

“Is… that a bad thing?” Sabae asked.

Alustin shrugged. “Yes and no. If you were using spellforms, it would absolutely be a bad thing— individual types of mana have unique properties analogous to viscosity, density, flow speed, turbulence, and a few others. Spellforms are, for the most part, specifically designed for the properties of a single type of mana. Spellforms that can handle multiple types of mana often produce much weaker effects, due to their inefficiency— that’s a big part of what separates a cantrip from a regular spell. Mixing mana types in a normal spellform usually makes it fail explosively— or at least start leaking mana.”

“I thought there were mages who did mix mana, though,” Hugh said. “Godrick was telling me about a mana technique that was for that purpose.”

Alustin raised an eyebrow at that.

“Me Da dissuaded me from that ‘un pretty quick,” Godrick said. “Some mages try it, but most fail, and the rest have to specially construct their spellforms for the mana mixture in question. Every mixture has different properties based on the proportions, so if they get those wrong…”

“It explodes,” Alustin said. “And with a spellform as complex as your father’s armor, you definitely don’t want that. I should also note that there are some mages that use multiple mana types in a spell without mixing them— but that’s more creating a pair of overlapping but non-intersecting spellforms. Useful, but incredibly difficult and taxing because you have to envision the spellforms in three dimensions.”

“What about my spells, since I use formless casting?” Sabae asked.

Alustin scowled and leaned on the arm of his paper chair. “I’m not sure. I know of a few other examples of mages that mix mana in formless casting, and it seems generally safer than doing so in spellforms, but there’s not enough of them to really form a reliable spellcasting tradition. And the ones I know of are different mana mixes than yours— air and fire, or mud and water. Wind and water would seem nearly as compatible as those, but I still worry.”

He sat silently for a moment. “I’ll do some research, and consider getting you started on some new mana techniques designed to help with mixing mana types. For now, let the healer take a look at your arm.”

The healer in question scowled.

“So we’ve got three different ways to merge my wind and water armors,” Sabae said. “So what now?”

Alustin smiled and leaned forward. “Testing!”

The next few hours were, to say the least, exhausting but also highly productive. The others couldn’t stay for the whole time— they all had plenty of their own studies to attend to.

Except Mackerel. Mackerel was having far too much fun swimming in the pool and making a nuisance of himself, as usual.

Alustin was technically there, but he spent rather a lot of the time talking to the grumpy healer about the book she was reading, which turned into outright flirting within an hour or two.

Sabae’s new armors turned out to have quite a few surprisingly different properties. Her tideweave armor didn’t allow for as swift movement as her wind armor, nor was it quite as strong as her water armor— but it was swifter than her water armor, and stronger than her wind armor. Its equivalent of gust strikes were shockingly powerful, but also chaotic and unpredictable. It blasted out the woven streams of wind and water, each far more powerful than a normal gust or water strike— but the individual streams were impossible to aim, and she could only guarantee that they’d fire in the general direction of her strike.

Godrick had stuck around long enough to dub that one a tide strike, which Sabae far preferred as a name to fluffy cloud mode.

Her jumps using the tideweave armor were more powerful than the other forms, but also far harder to control, and tended to damage the surface she launched off.

The only pure downside to her tideweave armor was its higher mana demands.

Unfortunately, Alustin forced her to test fluffy cloud mode next.

It proved utterly useless for anything other than generating cloud drifts. It couldn’t actually block anything. Sabae couldn’t use it to jump more than a couple of feet— less than she could unaided by magic— and attempting a strike spell just poured out more fog slowly. At one point, she managed to completely fill the chamber with clouds thick enough that you couldn’t see your outstretched arm.

Well, it did make Alustin’s paper chair soggy enough that it tore and dumped him on the wet stone floor, which was mildly entertaining.

To her delight, Alustin renamed fluffy cloud mode into fog shroud instead. It was still mostly useless, but at least it had a name that was less horrible.

Her storm armor, however, was especially intriguing. It balanced speed and strength similar to the tideweave armor but was otherwise radically different. Her storm strikes— she named that one herself since it obviously fit the pattern— were far more focused and easier to aim than any strikes save her water strikes. They were visually impressive, as well— a column of cloud hitting stone hard enough to shake it was nothing if not impressive. Not the most powerful strike in her arsenal, but useful enough.

To her surprise, it used far less mana than any of her other armors, save for the fog shroud. She couldn’t jump as far or as frequently as wind mode, but it was far more mobile than her other armors.

Interestingly, the storm armor could also extend much farther out from her body than her other armors— nearly a foot if she focused hard enough. She experimented a little with capturing objects in the storm armor and spinning them about her, though she gave that up soon. It turned out spinning Mackerel too much was a good way to make him vomit paper scraps.

Every time she rebuilt the storm armor, the process was faster and faster, and by the end of the practice session, healing wasn’t even necessary for her bruises.

The most promising part of the storm armor, however, was its potential interactions with her lightning mana.

As the training session was finishing up, Sabae caught Alustin’s attention, but waited to speak until they were away from the healer.

Well, and until they could drag Mackerel out of the water and out of the room. A book, even a magical sentient one, should not have this much love for water. Once they’d dragged it out of the room, Mackerel flapped its pages at them rudely, then flew off to cause trouble elsewhere.

The two walked side by side for a moment while Sabae tried to figure out how to ask her question. Finally, she just blurted it out.

“How many?” she asked.

“How many what?” Alustin asked.

Sabae swallowed. “How many have died in the storms my grandmother and Indris have called up, trying to seize control of the winds east of the mountains?”

Alustin gave her a long, considering look. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Sabae nodded.

“Between two and three thousand, mostly from flooding,” Alustin said. “Official Havathi figures place the number much higher, for propaganda reasons, of course. The actual numbers are fairly evenly split between Indris and your grandmother’s storms, though Kanderon shares a piece of the blame as well, for lowering the wards keeping them west of the mountains.”

Sabae stopped in the middle of the hallway and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Alustin waited patiently beside her until she felt capable of speaking again.

“I… I knew my family has done plenty of monstrous things to stay in power in the past, but this feels different,” Sabae said.

“Why?” Alustin asked.

“I don’t know!” Sabae yelled.

Alustin didn’t even flinch when she yelled.

“Perhaps it’s because it’s more visible to you, this time,” he said. “Perhaps it’s because you’ve seen those storms, because you’ve been caught in them. Perhaps you know that your grandmother and Indris can steer those storms, could have done more to prevent the deaths?”

Sabae didn’t respond.

“This is what it means to be a great power,” Alustin continued. “Once you join their games, to stop playing or to stop seeking more power is to die. All power corrupts, Sabae, but absolute personal power, ungoverned by any outside force? It corrupts absolutely and inevitably. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of failed reformers who have entered the ranks of the great powers in an effort to change things, to end the games, only to get trapped in them. Kanderon and Havath are both right about how evil the system of great powers is— their only disagreement is about how to end it. It’s a fool’s quest on both their parts, to my mind. You can use power to hold off the game for a time, but it will always come crashing back in.”

“You really think there’s no way out?” Sabae demanded.

Alustin shrugged. “I wish there were. A strong enough great power can hold all others at bay for a time, but eventually, they all fall. The siren call of personal power is too much for any nation or empire to suppress forever.”

Sabae punched the wall hard enough to split the skin on her knuckles. She didn’t bother to heal it, though, just stared at the blood.

“I doubt it will be much of a comfort, but the storms aren’t purely an attempt to seize power on the part of Kanderon, Ilinia, and Indris’ little Coven,” Alustin said, not commenting on her assault on the wall. “It’s an attack on the Havath Dominion.”

“So it’s fine if it’s Havathi civilians dying, then?” Sabae asked, glaring.

“Well, I certainly think so, but it’s not just Havathi citizens,” Alustin said. “More than half of the dead are outside their borders.”

“So how’s it an attack on Havath, then?” Sabae demanded.

“It hasn’t rained in the Havathi heartland since a few weeks after Midsummer,” Alustin replied. “Crops are failing on a colossal scale, and they’ve been having to import food from their provinces for months now. No-one’s at risk from starving, but it’s putting huge dents in the Dominion’s coffers, economy, and long-term food stores.”

“Sounds more like an inconvenience than an attack,” Sabae said.

“That’s the best way to kill an empire,” Alustin said. “Death by ten thousand cuts. You stretch their supply lines and trade routes to the brink. You force their coffers to hemorrhage gold with little raids, inconveniences, and infrastructure damage. You foment dissension at every level, even the lowest. It’s only then that you deliver the final blow.”

“Tell that to Kanderon,” Sabae said.

Alustin raised an eyebrow at that. “Do you know what would have happened to the Ithonian Empire if Kanderon and the other Skyhold founders had used the Exile Splinter a century earlier?”

Sabae just shrugged.

“It would have survived,” Alustin said. “There would have likely been chaos, civil war, plague, and famine, but it would have survived, pulled together. They would have made Tsarnassus City or any one of a half-dozen other great cities of the time into their new capital. They were still strong, then. Over their last century of rule, however, they started engaging in their monstrous experiments. Their emperors started wasting their resources on immense vanity projects, like the construction of what would eventually become Ras Andis. They began concerning themselves with short-term glory and profit over stability. Their croplands began failing all over— they’d tried to implement the same farming techniques continent-wide because it was easier to tax farmers that way, and because their hubris made them think their ways were inherently the best. I won’t bore you with the details, but you can’t simply take the farming methods from one environment and expect them not to deal long-term damage in another continent. By the time Kanderon destroyed Imperial Ithos, half the continent was in armed rebellion. The capital grew more and more important in the chaos, and when Kanderon used the Splinter, the whole edifice simply collapsed.”

“So, what, this is the early stage of Kanderon trying to destroy another empire?” Sabae asked.

Alustin scowled. “I genuinely wish it were so. In the years after Helicote’s destruction, I begged her often enough to destroy Havath. There are at least a half-dozen weapons in the Skyhold Vault that could do it. For that matter, she might be able to do it single-handed. She has no intention of compounding her past sins that much, however. She’s content sponsoring new liches and otherwise making the terrain more difficult for Havath. She’ll weaken them for others to assault, but she’s held back for decades now.”

“Is it out of remorse for Imperial Ithos?” Sabae asked.

“In great part, I think,” Alustin said. “But at the same time… there are bigger games being played right now, Sabae. Games just out of sight. Games that dwarf any great power. Be careful where you dip your foot in.”

Alustin turned and walked away, and Sabae watched him go. Then she turned her attention to her injured knuckles, and, with a sigh, she began healing them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Needles

Sightings of the Havathi in the distance became common over the next week, but they never came much closer than the horizon. There was, apparently, an attempt by Havathi sand and stone mages to burrow underneath Skyhold, but Hugh hadn’t found out about it until later. It had ended horribly for the Dominion— not only were there a terrifying number of wards and enchanted traps underground, but Skyhold’s main wards also extended underground.

Worst for the Havathi, though, they’d managed to draw Kanderon’s attention— she crushed the tunnel using her crystal magic without even leaving her lair, even against the opposed efforts of dozens of Havathi mages.

Hugh and his friends didn’t have much time to worry about the Havathi, though— they had a lot more on their plate.

“So… blue and green are our only color choices?” Sabae asked. “Will there be any significant differences between the two?”

Mackerel gave Sabae a dirty look, but Kanderon kept the spellbook firmly pinned beneath one claw. Hugh shrugged apologetically at him.

“None, ” Kanderon said. “Either my wings or this accursed book’s pages will serve adequately as a base material for your tattoos. Both are planar mana-attuned aether crystals, their other properties will have negligible effects.”

“Could you please lower your wing?” Talia asked.

Kanderon gave Talia a mildly irritated look but lowered the hovering crystals of her wings into reach so Talia could compare their blue with her tattoos.

The four of them, along with Alustin, Artur, Grennan, and Talia’s brother, Rafe, were meeting with Kanderon in the Grand Library, on a wider balcony halfway down that Kanderon easily fit into. There weren’t a huge number of places Kanderon could fit her bulk within Skyhold, and neither the docks nor the council chamber were particularly appropriate places for this, nor did Kanderon want that many people down in her lair for hours.

“Close enough,” Talia said, comparing the blue of her tattoos to the blue of Kanderon’s crystals.

“It’ll only be visible when you’re actively using it,” Alustin said. “The color doesn’t matter that much.”

Talia gave him an affronted look.

Kanderon began removing various crystal needles, a mortar and pestle, and other miscellaneous supplies from some extraplanar space or other.

“I…” Hugh started.

“You’re getting a green tattoo,” Kanderon said. “It doesn’t matter so much for the others, but your planar storage space will grow ever so slightly faster if it’s made of your own attuned aether crystal. Not by a huge amount, but it’s foolish to give up even incremental advantages. Also, it will match your eyes.”

Alustin sighed in exasperation at that, which was cut off by Artur jabbing a finger at the paper mage.

“None a’ that, yeh’re as vain as they come, Alustin. Ah seem ta’ recall yeh complainin’ plenty when yeh couldn’t get the color yeh wanted fer yer tattoo.”

“What color did he want?” Godrick asked.

“Yellow,” Artur said. “Fer the best he was stuck with blue. Yellow woulda’ looked ridiculous on him.”

Kanderon ignored them as she prepared the ingredients.

“I think I’ll go with green as well,” Sabae said. “I like it more, and it might be a bit awkward for a Kaen Das to have a tattoo in your colors, no offense.”

“None taken, I quite understand,” Kanderon said. “Godrick?”

Godrick gave her a slightly panicked look. “Uhhhhh…”

“This isn’t a hard decision,” Talia said. “You have green, and you have blue.”

Godrick’s expression grew from slightly to moderately panicked, and he looked between everyone as if for an answer.

“I’m pretty sure Mackerel wants you to pick blue,” Hugh offered, pointing to the spellbook, who was still desperately trying to escape Kanderon. It was probably for the best that he’d removed Mackerel’s enchanted shoulder strap earlier.

“Let’s go with blue, then,” Godrick said, seeming relieved.

“You’re going to base your decision on what this nuisance wants?” Kanderon asked.

“Good a reason as any,” Godrick said.

Kanderon sighed, then pulled a tattooer’s chair out of an extradimensional space.

“Wait, won’t Talia’s existing tattoos interfere with getting this one?” Sabae asked. “Where is?…”

“Around my mouth, no tattoos there,” Talia said, pointing. “It’ll be great, I’ll be able to pull swords out of it and pretend I pulled them out of my mouth.”

“That’ll work alright?” Sabae asked, looking uncertain.

“Rafe says it will,” Talia said.

The redhead in question looked up from the book he’d been reading. “What?”

“Getting the storage tattoo on my mouth?” Talia asked.

“Oh, yeah, it should. Probably won’t explode,” Rafe said, then went back to his book.

“Probably?” Hugh asked.

Talia just smiled at him.

Hugh rolled his eyes, then turned back to Kanderon, just as she tore a pair of pages out of Mackerel. The instant the sphinx let the book go, he shot away from her and buried himself in a nearby bookshelf.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Talia said, then followed Mackerel over to the shelf.

Kanderon rolled her eyes as she levitated the pages into the mortar and pestle, which began grinding the pages on its own without being touched.

“Who do you think is going to complain the most?” Alustin asked.

Grennan just chuckled.

Hugh ignored them both and followed Talia over to check on Mackerel.

Hugh ended up going last, giving him time to get nervous about his tattoo. He’d wanted to go first, but Mackerel had needed a good bit of attention and spine scratches to pull him out of his sulk over having pages yanked out.

To his surprise, it wasn’t actually as painful as he’d expected. The jabs, delivered with a half-dozen blue crystal needles longer than his hand, were individually much less painful than a bee sting. The flying needles hovered and darted around Hugh’s arm, each dancing and jabbing into his skin almost faster than his eyes could follow. They followed a pre-planned path around his arm, perfectly executing the spellform design he and Kanderon had been working on for weeks. Every one of the storage tattoos had to be individually calculated— no two planar spaces were identical, after all. It was the biggest reason planar magic was so difficult— you could never simply replicate the same spellform over and over. Rather, you had to individually do the math and create a brand new spellform for each planar magic spell.

Even though he’d helped Kanderon design the spellforms for their tattoos, Hugh still only understood part of how they worked.

The actual tattooing didn’t take very long for each person. The bulk of the time was dedicated to cleanup, Grennan healing the tattoo, and Kanderon casting the spells to attach the extraplanar spaces. The tattoos actually served as anchors for the spaces, which would grow continuously, albeit slowly, over time. Kanderon was always growing and harvesting a certain number of extraplanar spaces for various projects, including the Librarian Errant storage tattoos.

“Can our storage spaces be destroyed?” Talia asked. Grennan had already healed her face, but the new tattoo hadn’t faded into invisibility yet. Her new tattoo was just barely a darker shade of blue than her old tattoos, and the spellforms were wildly different in construction.

“By me, yes,” Kanderon said. “To my knowledge, there isn’t anyone else on this continent who can easily do so, however. There are a couple of great powers on Gelid and Cloudspine who might be able to, and I’m not sure about the more distant continents. Then there are about a dozen archmages here on Ithos with planar and spatial affinities who might be able to achieve it given a few weeks or months to work on it, but I trust you won’t give them that kind of time.”

“Oh, you can definitely count on me there,” Talia said.

Kanderon actually smiled a little bit at that. Just barely— Hugh would have missed it if he didn’t know her as well as he did— but it was there.

“What happens if we set off an explosion inside the space?” Talia asked.

The sphinx’s smile promptly disappeared. “The planar space will undergo catastrophic collapse. I’d recommend against that, if you enjoy living.”

Kanderon kept spellcasting as Grennan healed Hugh’s tattoo, so close Hugh could have reached out and touched her. The others had been visibly uncomfortable being so close to Kanderon— or, more specifically, her mouth, Hugh imagined— but Hugh was mostly annoyed at her breath ruffling his hair.

Finally, Kanderon exhaled, then leaned back on her haunches. “Done. You can go ahead and try them out, now.”

“Really?” Godrick asked.

Kanderon rolled her eyes. “No, I’m playing one of those pranks and jokes I’m so well-known for. Me and my famous sense of humor. Yes, you can try them out. The tattoos should turn invisible in about an hour— until they do, you’ll need to stay here, where anyone and everyone can’t observe them.”

Hugh took a deep breath, then reached out, as though trying to use a new affinity sense.

And there, lying in a direction at a different angle from the rest of reality, was his new storage space. It was about the size of a large cabinet or small closet and was completely empty. It didn’t have walls, as such— rather, the direction that the space extended in simply stopped being a direction at the edges.

Hugh reached into his belt pouch, pulled out a piece of chalk, then shoved it into his storage space.

Or, he tried to, at least. Instead, the piece of chalk just fell on the floor.

“Try casting a spell into the space first,” Alustin said.

Hugh nodded, then cast a basic light cantrip into the space.

And it worked.

The cantrip was still drawing mana, and he could feel it using that same odd new sense he used to look into his storage space, but he couldn’t see any light.

“It worked!” Hugh said.

Alustin just smiled.

Around him, the others were carrying out their own experiments. Hugh picked the piece of chalk up again, then tried to replicate the feeling from casting the spell into the space.

This time, he was able to effortlessly drop the chalk in.

“Now take it out again,” Alustin said.

It took Hugh quite a few failed attempts to get it— he kept wanting to move his tattooed arm in real directions to try and grab the chalk, but he needed to move his arm in the brand new artificial directions of his storage space to grab the chalk.

Finally, clumsily, Hugh managed to pull the chalk out again. He definitely was going to need a lot of practice to get the hang of this. Still, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

He was going to have fun with this.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Scent of Magic

Godrick was practicing his lithification spells when Ranna of Clan Derem found him.

Admittedly, he was always practicing his lithification spells these days when he had time. The increase in control over various rock types was a slow and arduous process, but now that Godrick had his own storage tattoo, he could actually practice lithification inside it without others realizing.

The others had teased him a little about using his incredibly rare magic tattoo to store rocks, but they hadn’t quite realized the extent of it. The entire closet-sized space was absolutely packed. Not just with rocks and materials Godrick intended to turn into rocks, but also with his hammer and other gear. Godrick doubted he could fit his head in the amount of space there was free in there.

He didn’t have to worry about things spilling out of it, thankfully— the tattoo wasn’t some sort of magical hole in space. Rather, it was… more of a brand new direction all of its own, like up or down, save that it was anchored to his new tattoo, and only Godrick could perceive or move things in that direction. So he could grab anything from any part of the storage space.

It was definitely quite a bit of a headache, though.

Godrick had been converting sand into sandstone, then metamorphosing the sandstone through pressure, when Ranna found him on an empty balcony overlooking the Endless Erg.

“Weren’t we supposed to meet an hour ago?” Ranna asked.

“Ah’m so sorry, ah totally forgot,” Godrick said. “Ah got distracted, and ah… actually, how did yeh find me?”

The middle-aged woman tapped her nose, then leaned against the railing beside him.

“Yer sense a’ smell is that good?” Godrick asked.

“Yours can be too,” Ranna said. “It’s honestly the most useful tool in a scent mage’s toolbox, and it’s surprisingly easy to train. The most difficult part is actually learning to tell the different scents apart.”

“Talia’s told me a few stories about yer clan,” Godrick said. “Yeh’re supposed ta’ be a terrifyin’ bunch, one a’ the only two clans Castis fears enough not ta’ raid.”

Ranna chuckled at that. “Clan Castis is full of goatshit, there. Clan Derem is tiny, poor, and the main reason no-one raids us is that Clan Castis comes down like a hammer on anyone that even thinks about us. Absolutely no idea why, but they’re always talking us up to others. They are simultaneously some of the most loyal and the most ridiculous allies you can have.”

Godrick thought about Talia for a moment and smiled. “Yeh’re not wrong there.”

They stared out over the Endless Erg for a moment, watching it waver in the distortions of Skyhold’s defensive wards. Godrick could see quite a few Havathi ships and dragons moving around near the horizon, but couldn’t make out any details.

“Who’s the other clan?” Godrick asked.

“Other clan?” Ranna said.

“The other clan that Castis is afraid of,” Godrick said.

Some unknown expression passed over Ranna’s face, too fast for Godrick to make sense of. “I’d prefer not to talk about that. Let’s just say there is a very good reason you seldom get great powers seizing control of any of the clans against their will, and why the clans have never been fully conquered, even by the Ithonians. We should get started on our lessons, though. Tell me what you know about scent magic already.”

Godrick considered pressing the matter, but decided to ask Talia about it later.

He spent a few minutes discussing the spells he already knew, listing them off and showing Ranna those sections in his spellbook. He also described the scent-absorbing marble he’d helped make for Hugh, which Ranna seemed a little more interested in than his spells.

After a while, Ranna interrupted him. “So, basically, you don’t know anything, and you’re just accumulating random spellforms.”

Godrick opened his mouth to protest, then closed it and nodded instead.

Ranna frowned in thought for a moment before speaking. “Scent affinities require a certain grounding in theory to really become effective. You need to understand how they work before you can really start to use them effectively. Let’s start with the basics. What, exactly, is a smell?”

“What?” Godrick asked.

“What is a smell?” Ranna repeated.

“Ah mean… it’s something that you… smell?” Godrick said. He frowned. “It’s… some sort a’ gas some things give off that yer nose can taste?”

“Almost completely wrong,” Ranna said, “but better than the answer I usually hear the first time I ask someone that question. You included taste in your answer, which is better than most.”

Godrick frowned but didn’t interrupt.

“First of all— scents aren’t a gas. Or, rather, they can be, but they aren’t necessarily. They can also be tiny drops of liquid or minuscule solid particles carried on the wind. Scent is a body’s means of identifying different substances in the air, essentially, just like taste is the body’s means for identifying different substances in what we ingest. Though, really, scent and taste work together more often than not— it’s somewhat silly to divide them into different senses. Conversely, scent isn’t a single sense in the way most people describe it. It’s a combination of hundreds of different tiny senses, each attuned to certain substances carried into our noses. They work together in combination to identify those scents. There are, however, many substances normal humans lack the ability to smell or taste, like water or certain gases— scent mages can teach themselves to smell or taste those things.”

“So… ah’ve got an affinity fer bits a’ stuff that drift inta’ mah nose?” Godrick said. “And how can ah make myself able ta’ taste new things?”

Ranna laughed. “You’re… sort of on the right track. There are multiple types of scent affinity, and one of them is for the actual substances floating in the air. I suspect that’s the one you have, in fact, based on what you’ve told me about your friend’s scent absorbing marble. It doesn’t matter too much for basic spellcasting— the overlap between the known types of scent affinity is incredibly close, up until you get to highly specialized applications.”

“What type is yers?” Godrick asked.

“That’s… a bit of a personal question,” Ranna said. “I’m willing to share, so long as you promise not to spread it around. Not, you know, that it’s incredibly likely to get back to clan territories from this far south, but…”

“Ah promise,” Godrick said.

“I have… well, my affinity, instead of manipulating the actual substances you’re smelling in mid-air, actually triggers senses of smell on its own,” Ranna said. “Think of it as scent illusions, rather than scent manipulation.”

Godrick frowned. “Wait, then how is yer own sense a’ smell enhanced?”

Ranna shrugged. “There doesn’t seem to be much variance in the affinity senses of scent mages— they all manifest as improved senses of smell. Even, interestingly, for anosmic scent mages. Why, I don’t know— that’s a question for a philosopher.”

“Anosmic?” Godrick asked.

“Someone without a sense of smell,” Ranna said. “Which, believe it or not, I am.”

Godrick just gave her a confused look.

“Anosmia runs heavily in Clan Derem,” Ranna said. “More than half of us are born without senses of smell and only develop them along with our magic. The vast majority of anosmic people develop scent affinities, bizarrely. We’ve done plenty of research over the years as well— sound affinities are more common among the deaf or those with bad hearing than among the general population. Light affinities, on the other hand, are rather rare among the blind. It’s definitely a bit of a puzzle. Again, though, a question for philosophers, not me.”

Ranna didn’t teach him any spells on the balcony, but in the next few hours, Godrick learned more about scent affinities than he’d learned since he’d first developed his.

The largest amount of it was dedicated towards scent mage etiquette— there was a whole set of rules for scent mages interacting, for what was considered rude or polite in altering the scents in your environment, and the like.

Godrick would have expected scent mages to purify themselves of just about every scent around one another, but Ranna just laughed when he suggested that. Apparently, that was considered somewhat rude, like sneaking around in a disguise.

Also, his worries about enemies using perfume bombs or the like to incapacitate him if it became common knowledge that he had a scent affinity were unfounded. Scent mages developed high levels of tolerance to intense smells over time, rather than becoming more susceptible to them.

There was, it turned out, an entire language of scents, only usable by scent mages. It was fairly crude, with fewer than a hundred words represented by various smells— outside of Clan Derem, you didn’t have enough scent mages clustered anywhere on the continent to develop the language more deeply. Ranna wasn’t going to teach him Clan Derem’s scent language, but she was prepared to teach him the common scent language.

There were three big surprises in the lesson.

The first was the revelation that there were, in fact, proper scent mages in Skyhold already— at least three of them. Or, at least, there had been— all of the scent messages were weeks or months old. Ranna didn’t know who they might have been, nor had she tried particularly hard to find out. By the scent messages they’d left scattered throughout the mountain, she was guessing that it was some espionage nonsense, and wanted absolutely none of it.

Godrick made a note in his mind to report that to Alustin after this lesson— based on the timeframe, he was guessing the scent mages had left in response to the Havathi raiding in the Endless Erg. He didn’t know whether that was more or less likely to make them Havathi spies, someone else’s, or whether Ranna was just wrong about them being spies, and they had just fled to avoid the siege.

The second surprise had been the eavesdroppers. The first stars were starting to come out when Ranna detected them. She had been sniffing the air oddly for a couple of minutes, and in the middle of one of Godrick’s questions, she walked back to the entrance to the balcony.

Then she reached out past the empty door frame and dragged two of Talia’s brothers out onto the balcony by their ears.

“You could have just asked!” Rafe said, rubbing his ear.

“Very rude of you,” Tristan said.

“Oh, look,” Ranna said. “The bookworm and the smoke mage.”

“I’m a fire mage who happens to also have a smoke affinity,” Tristan said. “I’m not a smoke mage. Also, you should be introducing me as the cute brother.”

He winked at Godrick, who felt his cheeks burn a bit.

“Ow,” Rafe said, still rubbing his ear.

“You’re not cute, you’re just a menace,” Ranna said to Tristan. “I’ve known you since you were an infant, and in any other family that didn’t have Talia and Leon in it, you’d be the nightmare child. What do you two want, and why were you eavesdropping?”

Rafe sighed. “Tristan here wanted us to burst in with appropriate dramatic timing, so he was waiting for one of you to say something he could cleverly interrupt.”

Godrick snorted at that. Yep, definitely Talia’s brother.

“That doesn’t actually answer my question,” Ranna said.

“Well…” Rafe started.

“Shush,” Tristan said. “You’re going to be boring about it.”

“I…” Rafe started.

“Shush, I’m telling it.”

“I really hate you.”

“No you don’t, I’m your favorite brother.”

“Pretty sure that’s Luthe, or maybe Roland. You’re my least favorite.”

“I am deeply wounded, brother. Deeply.”

“I weep for you.”

“Wait. You like Leon more than me?” Tristan asked.

Rafe seemed to consider that for a moment, then shook his head. “Alright, fine, you’re my second least favorite brother.”

“Leon really is the…” Tristan started, only to be interrupted by Ranna clearing her throat irritably.

The two brothers immediately fell silent, and both gave the scent mage looks like guilty children.

“I don’t care who explains it,” Ranna said, “I just want it explained.”

The brother exchanged looks, then Tristan spoke.

“So, just maybe, we might have heard something of a rumor,” Tristan started. “And, just maybe…”

Ranna interrupted again. “Actually, no, I do care. Rafe, say it the boring way.”

Tristan sighed heavily and gave Godrick a long-suffering look.

“A couple members of Clan Castis overheard you talking to your father about mana techniques,” Rafe said. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re looking for a way to get more power. If I had to guess, there’s something holding you back from becoming as powerful as your father.”

Godrick’s cheeks started to burn again, this time in shame and irritation. When he opened his mouth to speak, though, Tristan interrupted.

“See, this is why I should have told it, you just managed to offend him, Rafe,” Tristan said. “What he should have led with is that we’re offering to help.”

“Ah don’t…” Godrick said, then he trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

“How, precisely,” Ranna asked, “are you intending to help him? He’s a stone mage, you’re fire mages. Are you going to try teaching hydra to juggle, next?”

“What do you know about elementals?” Tristan asked.

“Not very much, why?” Godrick replied.

“Well…” Tristan said, but Rafe cut him off and explained.

The idea was utterly and completely insane. It was dangerously irresponsible, highly risky, and frankly a bit stupid. It was everything he expected from Clan Castis.

Godrick absolutely loved it.

It was, at that point, that the third and biggest surprise occurred.

The Havathi raised their own ward.

It erupted just on this side of the horizon, leagues out into the Endless Erg, in an enormous pillar of white light. It speared up into the sky— higher than the Skyreach range. Higher than any dragon could fly.

Then it began to spread.

The column raced across the desert sand in an immense arc, trailing behind it a colossal wall of light, filled with harsh, angular spellform patterns that rippled with oil-like smears of color. In just a few heartbeats, the column raced into the Skyreach range north of Skyhold. Godrick lost track of it for a moment, then it emerged, still trailing its wall of light, back into the Endless Erg south of Skyhold.

Then it connected to its origin point, leaving Skyhold and the leagues around it surrounded by an impossibly huge ward wall. It was translucent, and Godrick could make out the Endless Erg beyond it to a small degree, but it was far harder to see through than Skyhold’s ward.

“Well, that doesn’t seem good,” Ranna finally said.

“So that’s what they’ve been up to out there,” Tristan said, from right next to Godrick. His face didn’t have any trace of his usual good humor.

Godrick jumped a little at that. He hadn’t even noticed Tristan approach.

“They’ve got to be running even more mana through that thing than Skyhold’s ward,” Tristan continued. “How are they even maintaining that?”

“At that size?” Rafe replied. “The amount of space that they’re drawing from is so big that they’re not having to put too much demand on any one segment of the aether. More, I’d imagine they’ve built mana taps stretching far out into the desert and mountains as well.”

The two started bickering about how the Havathi ward had been constructed, Ranna getting involved a moment later. Godrick tried to tune all three of them out, focusing on the sands just inside the ward.

He really wished Hugh with his sphinx eyes was here right now, because Godrick was fairly sure he could still see quite a few Havathi dragons and sandships on the inside of the Havathi ward.

Godrick opened his mouth to say something, just in time for the second ward to erupt. This time, it did so half a league closer to Skyhold. Within moments, Skyhold was surrounded by a double ward wall.

He couldn’t make out the desert sands beyond the outer wall anymore— the distortion from the two wards was too much. He could make out the movement of Havathi forces between the ward walls, however.

“I’m starting to regret coming here,” Ranna muttered.

“I’m not,” Tristan said, nudging Godrick with his elbow. “This is going to be fun.”

Godrick just sighed.

Definitely related to Talia.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Spirits and Elementals

Hugh tried not to snap at Thaddeus as he looked over Peltia’s newest suggestions from Galvachren’s Bestiary. The first year had been even more difficult than usual today, interrupting everyone else in the room constantly until Hugh finally just ordered him to be quiet while he went over the potential patrons the others had found.

Stilvarak Steelchitin: A gargantuan centipede, well over two hundred feet in length. Despite their horrific appearance, Stilvarak is quite peaceful, unless you pose a threat to their subjects. Stilvarak rules over a small fleet of sandships, essentially a mobile town that travels between seasonal oases and springs in the far northwest of the Endless Erg. Stilvarak possesses a chitin affinity, which they use to make their shell nigh-indestructible. They are not a native of Anastis and are rumored to possess magic from their homeworld. Stilvarak ‘speaks’ by rubbing their legs against their armor, and is able to adequately mimic speech with the rasping noises.

Krai the Poet: A massive desert viper, more than a hundred and twenty feet in length, with affinities for sand and venom. Quite peaceable unless attacked, eats almost entirely sunlings and sunmaws. While her species is moderately common in the south of the Endless Erg, only perhaps one in a hundred of them are sapient, presumably due to past draconic meddling with their species. Non-sapient members of her species seldom surpass thirty feet in length. Krai is highly social, and books of her poetry sell reasonably well in many cities.

The Thunderclaw: A massive crab, twice the size of a ship. Technically sapient, but makes most human toddlers look like wise sages. Despite the name, The Thunderclaw— who always refers to itself in the third person— does not have sound or lightning magic, but rather seems to use some variant of a pressure affinity to fire destructive shockwaves from its claws. Dwells in a massive cavern in the mountains near Yldive, is largely ignored as a nuisance, and is occasionally brought tributes of meat to keep it pacified. Another one of the Endless Erg’s refugees from the depths of the ocean.

“You actually have one that isn’t some sort of bug,” Hugh said.

“The other two aren’t bugs either,” Peltia said. “Centipedes aren’t insects, nor are crabs.”

“Well, bug-like things,” Hugh said.

“Arthropods,” Peltia said, sighing. “They’re arthropods. And I know it’s weird, I just like them.”

Hugh shrugged. “I’ve heard weirder. The first two are good choices, add them to the list. The Thunderclaw… I suppose you should add to the possible list. I don’t actually know anything about him, I’ll have to ask around.”

Kanna’s list of potential warlock patrons was, well…

She didn’t have one.

“I’ve been looking, I just haven’t found any potential patrons that appeal to me,” Kanna said.

“Well, keep looking,” Hugh said. “Venta?”

Thaddeus twitched in his chair, obviously struggling not to interrupt.

Venta’s list was, as usual, full of various sea powers and water mages. The gorgon seemed oddly nervous as Hugh read through the list, though.

“Do you think your friend Sabae might have some suggestions, since she’s a water mage?” Venta asked.

“Sabae?” Hugh asked.

“The one with the scars?” Venta said.

“I know which of my friends Sabae is,” Hugh said. “I was just surprised at the suggestion.”

Hugh didn’t know if gorgons could blush, but he’d be willing to bet it was a sign of embarrassment that the snakes on her head trying to bury their heads in their coils.

“Sorry, I just thought… never mind,” Venta said. “What do you think of my list today?”

Hugh shrugged. “I’ve only heard of a couple of these, I’ll have to do some more research. And I think asking Sabae is an excellent idea.”

Venta started to respond, when Thaddeus finally reached his limit on keeping quiet.

“Hugh,” Thaddeus started to interrupt, but Venta automatically reached out to cover his mouth.

Hugh shook his head at the gorgon. “No, it’s okay. He actually managed to stay quiet long enough to let me look over all three of your lists.”

Thaddeus gave him a wounded look. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

Hugh suddenly felt deeply awkward as the first years all stared at him. He took a deep breath before responding.

“It’s more that I find you overwhelming. I’m not good with people. I’m honestly pretty uncomfortable with this whole mentoring situation, and you, uh… you’re pretty challenging for me, Thaddeus. It takes a lot of energy to handle you, and I just don’t have much energy when it comes to dealing with people.”

Thaddeus looked away, a slightly miserable look on his face, and Hugh felt like he’d messed up somehow. He wasn’t exactly sure how, though.

“I… I’m sorry,” Thaddeus finally said. “I know I’m difficult to deal with, and I don’t want to be, but I don’t know how not to be.”

Hugh smiled a bit at that. “I… for different reasons, I definitely understand that feeling. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to know what your problems are than to actually solve them.”

Thaddeus smiled a little, but Hugh could tell he was still upset.

“What did you want to ask?” Hugh said.

Thaddeus immediately brightened up. “Oh, right! I wanted to know why you only ever refer to magical affinities, not attunements.”

“I used to, but attuning isn’t really a thing for affinities,” Hugh said. “It’s an extra-arbitrary way to refer to getting better at magic. It makes sense, for, say, attuning to an enchanted item so others can’t activate it, but not for regular magic. It’s just unnecessary. Artur especially doesn’t like it— he has a whole rant about it. Alustin still uses it sometimes, but doesn’t seem to have strong feelings about it either way.”

Thaddeus gave him a dissatisfied look. “That… that seems weird. Everything else in magic seems so… logical and orderly.”

Hugh chuckled at that. “Oh, not in the least. Maybe magic is in theory, but in practice, it’s as messy as anything else in nature.”

He spent the next half-hour or so relaying some of Alustin’s lectures about magical theory and the weird linguistic nature of affinities. To his surprise, Thaddeus didn’t interrupt a single time.

Hugh only paused the lecture when he sensed Mackerel returning. A moment later, Mackerel burst into the chamber, an irritated Alustin in tow.

“Hugh, could you tell your ridiculous book to return my shoe?” Alustin demanded.

“You stole his shoe?” Hugh asked Mackerel.

The crystal spellbook gave him an innocent look.

“Did you deliver my note to Alustin?” Hugh asked the book.

Mackerel paused, swiveled in mid-air, and spat a wadded up sheet of paper at Alustin. Then he turned back to Hugh, and bobbed in mid-air to confirm he had.

Hugh sighed. “Give Alustin back his shoe.”

He crossed his arms and glared at the book until he spat a battered shoe out of his internal storage space.

“What did you want to ask me about?” Alustin asked, looking over the crumpled note.

“They were asking about spirits as contract partners,” Hugh said, waving to the first years, “and I don’t actually know anything about spirits.”

Alustin brightened up immediately. “Oh, they’re absolutely fascinating. They’re sort of similar to liches but also completely different.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow at that completely unhelpful statement.

The paper mage sat down between Venta and Kanna, then started putting on his shoe. “They far, far predate the first liches, which only appeared… maybe a thousand years ago? Twelve hundred? It’s hard to say, the records are pretty spotty. Spirits, though, definitely go back much farther. They probably started as an attempt to preserve life beyond death, but it… doesn’t actually work. They exist mostly inside the aether, and individual minds aren’t really capable of surviving that intact.”

Alustin seemed about to say something else, then scowled. Hugh suspected he’d been about to mention the Cold Minds, who migrated to the aether as an entire civilization partially for the same reason.

For the sake of the first years not having nightmares, Hugh was glad Alustin had thought better of it.

“Anyhow,” Alustin said, “as for what spirits actually are… they’re… hmmm. It’s hard to explain. They’re… basically living mana structures jutting out of the aether, able to manipulate the affinities they had in life. A wind spirit, for instance, would often take on the appearance of a whirlwind, maybe with a few human-like features, depending on how well bits of the person carried forward. A flame spirit would usually take the shape of a person made of flames. Spirits can be made of non-solid materials, unlike liches, though I know of a few stone spirits and such.”

“Somewhat like elementals?” Kanna asked.

Hugh noticed that Mackerel was sulking, so he rolled his eyes and waved him over. Mackerel settled down into Hugh’s lap, where Hugh started scratching his spine.

“There are a few types of elemental,” Alustin said, “but one type is just a spirit where next to nothing of the mage’s mind carried over, but the construction of their spirit still succeeded. It’s the most common and stable type of elemental by far. Elementals from other worlds, operating by totally different laws, wander into our own every now and then, like Asterion the minotaur spirit. The only other native Anastan type of elemental, living spells, seldom last longer than a few hours, and they’re vanishingly rare. I don’t know much about them.”

“So… are spirits a type of elemental, then?” Thaddeus asked.

Alustin shook his head. “No, they’re overlapping categories. It would be more sensible if they didn’t overlap, but most categories people come up with aren’t invented systematically. They just kind of messily grow on their own.”

“Speaking of elementals, did you hear what Godrick and Clan Castis are working on?” Hugh asked.

Alustin rolled his eyes. “I think it’s an absolutely terrible idea, but Artur thinks it’s worth the risk.”

“Talia was really surprised her family shared that information at all,” Hugh said. “I guess it’s been one of their clan secrets for a while now?”

“I imagine Clan Castis has a lot more secrets than just that,” Alustin said. “Anyhow, back to spirits. The strangest part about them is what the mages have to give up to become spirits. Namely… well, most of their minds. It’s only possible to preserve limited aspects of one’s intelligence during the process. There are different ways to become a spirit, each with their own purpose. I know of mages who made themselves into knowledge spirits, so that their descendants could tap into their knowledge, but they gave up their sapience and free will, leaving themselves drifting, barely sentient masses. Others become creatures of distilled purpose, who carry little memory of their lives, and exist only to carry out their last purpose— defending a mountain pass from monsters, for instance. Almost identical limitations seem to apply to the spirits that wander in from other worlds, regardless of what world they originate from.”

Mackerel was starting to relax in Hugh’s lap. Hugh wasn’t sure how, exactly, since his covers were utterly inflexible aether crystal, but he was definitely pulling it off somehow.

“Spirits tend to be much, much rarer than liches, largely because few mages want to become partial husks of themselves in that way. The failure rate is also a lot higher among those who do try, hence the larger numbers of elementals than spirits,” Alustin said.

“That actually sounds good as a warlock partner to me,” Kanna said. “I don’t really like the idea of making a pact with some great power that might upend my life entirely on a whim, so I was thinking about trying to pact with an enchanted item like the Sacred Swordsmen, but pacting with a spirit based around a purpose I agree with sounds pretty good to me.”

Hugh gave Kanna a surprised look— she was by far the quietest of the four first years and rarely spoke except to clarify some obscure point or ask a question.

As the younger warlocks began bombarding Alustin with questions, Hugh removed a quartz crystal the size of his fist from his storage tattoo, one that came to a point on both ends of the column. He did his best to tune out the others, then started working on the intricate spellforms he was growing inside the crystal.

He was so sick of feeling vulnerable, but his armor was so close to being ready to test.

So close.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Nesting Instincts

To Talia’s disappointment, the rise of Havath’s twin ward walls didn’t signify the onset of a major assault. Instead, the Havathi simply started magically constructing a series of fortresses and towering sand castles within the ring. Then just waited.

When Talia complained about it, Artur reminded her that it was called a siege for a reason.

Most of Talia’s free time lately had been absorbed by her bone ward project. She’d spent months now researching, proposing and revising spellform designs, and doing tests on bones other than hers.

She’d been rather disappointed when she’d asked where the human bones came from. She’d been hoping they were enemies of Skyhold or something of the like, but it turned out, unfortunately, to be a much more boring answer. It was quite common for residents of Skyhold to donate their bodies to magical research. Most of the bodies were used for student healers to practice dissection on, but there were always more available for researchers who had need of them— especially bone mages and enchanters.

Once her clan members had arrived, the work on Talia’s bone ward tattoos had accelerated exponentially. No less than three of Clan Castis’ many tattoo artists had come with the expedition, including her brother, Rafe. They’d constructed and tested five full-size replicas in the last week alone, and only the first two had exploded.

It was, in fact, the first time Talia had been able to magically interact with bones without causing them to explode or catch on fire. They’d had to put quite a few mana-denaturing spellforms into the bone wards to make it safe for her to use her mana, but they’d finally stopped exploding.

Talia still felt weird about wanting fewer explosions in any situation.

When combined with her overloaded class schedule, her sessions with the alchemists working on designing new bone weapons, and her sessions helping the enchanters with their project, she barely got to see Hugh or the others compared to what she’d prefer.

So when Hugh missed one of their classes together one morning, she noticed immediately.

Especially because it was cryptography, and the only parts of that class she actually enjoyed were annoying Hugh and encoding messages that made him blush.

So far as she could tell, passing notes was a surprisingly common activity in cryptography class, especially since their weird, anonymous, cloak-wrapped teacher didn’t seem to care in the least if people passed messages, so long as they were in code.

And somehow, they always knew when a message wasn’t in code, without even looking at it.

Hugh’s absence was even more noteworthy due to the fact that today was the day work on Talia’s actual bone wards began.

When cryptography class ended, Talia headed straight towards the library. She cut through the open sections, filled with confused first years who still hadn’t mastered the index node system. Alustin and the other librarians were constantly complaining that the index nodes in the outer library hadn’t been upgraded with the same origami golem function to lead patrons to books as the Grand Library index nodes had. The ripped-out pages could still turn into golems, but only to return to the index nodes after the books were retrieved, making the whole system far more confusing.

Talia worked her way through the stacks, passing large numbers of origami golems reshelving and retrieving books, a few harried librarians, and several couples trying to use the stacks as a place to make out in private.

Eventually, she found herself in an utterly forgettable little nook of the library, a little side-room stuffed with entirely too many shelves, mostly dry law tomes from across the continent. Some of them were clearly from governments that had fallen generations ago, so weren’t exactly the most useful, even by dry law tome standards.

It was hard to even tell that Talia had mostly destroyed this chamber on Midsummer.

Talia slipped behind one particularly large, over-stuffed shelf, then slid behind it to the hidden door there.

If she hadn’t already known it was there and hadn’t already been built in as an exemption to the wards concealing it, she could have spent hours browsing the shelf in front of the door without ever seeing it.

She knocked.

“Go away!” Hugh yelled, a moment later.

“It’s me!” Talia replied.

Hugh made a muffled noise.

“Can I come in?” Talia asked.

“I said yes,” Hugh muttered.

Talia rolled her eyes and entered Hugh’s room.

“You don’t need to ask before coming in,” Hugh muttered, face down on his bed. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off.

“I’m always going to,” Talia said.

She took a moment to look around Hugh’s room. A pile of fist-sized quartz crystals, filled with spellforms, rested atop Hugh’s desk, but she ignored them for now. Something rustled under the bed, and she looked below it to see Mackerel building what looked like a nest out of paper scraps. In place of eggs, three pinecones were sitting in the middle of it.

Lying next to the nest was Hugh’s copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary.

Talia rolled her eyes, moved the Bestiary to Hugh’s desk, then flopped down on Hugh’s bed perpendicular to him, using his back as a pillow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

Hugh mumbled something inaudible into his pillow.

Talia waited patiently. Finally, Hugh turned his head to look at her.

“It’s too much,” he said.

“What is?” Talia asked.

“Just… everything,” Hugh replied. “People. I feel like I don’t have any time to myself anymore, and nowhere near enough time for us or Godrick and Sabae. Just… I’m constantly in classes, or training, or mentoring the first years, or… it’s just too much. I sometimes find myself missing the days when nobody ever paid attention to me. Now, I’ve got random people I hardly know starting conversations with me, or wanting advice about wards, or whatever. I feel like I’m being pulled in a thousand directions at once.”

Talia slipped a hand into Hugh’s, and took her time to organize her thoughts before speaking. “When we first met, you flinched every time someone spoke to you. I can’t remember the last time I saw you do that. And… I don’t think you do want to go back to the way things were. They were safe and predictable, but you weren’t happy then, were you?”

Hugh buried his face back in his pillow for a moment, then sighed and rolled over entirely so he could look at Talia, though almost pushing her off the bed in the process.

“No, I wasn’t,” Hugh said. “I just wish… I dunno. I wish I had more time to just… be me. When’s the last time the four of us did something just for fun?”

Talia just shook her head.

“And I also feel so… powerless all the time, these days,” Hugh said. “A lot of it is just my lungs and never feeling like I’m getting enough air, but… also, it’s just like nothing I’m doing really matters in the face of this siege. I never really feel like there’s enough I can contribute to compensate for all the resources and time Kanderon is putting into me— especially in comparison to you. I feel like I’m just a burden, and that there’s no way I can do enough to protect the people around me— the people I care about— and I… I wish it was just you three again, sometimes. It’s too much now.”

“Hugh,” Talia said, “I seem to recall offering you quite a few ultimatums over the last couple years about what I’d do if I caught you calling yourself a burden again.”

Hugh frowned. “Well, that was just me feeling sorry for myself, this is different. I…”

“Nope,” Talia said. “Don’t care.”

Then she started tickling him.

Hugh tried to wrestle his way free, but Talia didn’t let him out so easily, even when Hugh levitated them up into the air. She only eased up on him when she noticed that he was having a little trouble breathing from laughing.

“Talia, I was trying to be serious,” Hugh said, after he’d caught his breath. He slowly lowered them back to his bed.

“So was I,” Talia said. “No one’s allowed to say bad things about you, not even you. And it’s entirely reasonable that you’re feeling powerless right now— we’re in the middle of a siege! More importantly, you’re recovering from a severe, traumatic injury— if you didn’t feel vulnerable after that, I’d be worried. And on top of everything, you’re starting to let more people in your life, Hugh. When you do that, it stops being possible to pretend you can protect everyone and everything you care about. There has never been— and will never be— a mage powerful enough to do that.”

“Why take such a risk, then?” Hugh asked. “Why let more people into your life?”

“You know why,” Talia said.

Hugh sighed. “Yeah, I do. Because it’s not about protecting everyone or being one of the heroes from your novels. It’s about having a community of people that look out for each other because no-one can hold the weight alone.”

Talia kissed him, then smiled.

“Actually,” she said, “I was going to say that if you withdrew from the world again and stopped yourself from getting close to people, I’d beat you up. Your reason sounds better, though.”

Hugh smirked at that. “Yours is probably more persuasive, though.”

They lay there quietly for a few minutes, with Mackerel’s shuffling around under the bed the only noise in the room.

“When all this is over, do you want to go on an adventure?” Talia asked.

“An adventure?” Hugh asked.

“Yeah, after this siege and the school year are over. Just you, me, Sabae, and Godrick. You could come see Hold Castis, then maybe head east to Tsarnassus.”

“Then sail south to Sica from there?” Hugh said.

“Just drift wherever we feel like,” Talia said. “We can pick up odd jobs to pay our way— there’s always a market for wardcrafters. Actually, you could pay for all of us to travel in style, then you can complain about how we’re being burdens on you.”

“I’d never complain about you being a burden,” Hugh said. “Any of you. You’re my family, in every way that matters.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “Right, now try flipping that exact same sentiment around to come from us instead of you.”

At that, a genuine smile crept onto Hugh’s face.

Followed immediately by a nervous look. “Talia, I…” He paused before continuing. “Thank you. For everything.”

Talia kissed him again, then rolled off his bed.

“Let’s get some lunch,” she said. “Then you know what time it is?”

Hugh gave her a puzzled look.

“Time for more needles!” Talia said, excitedly.

Hugh groaned and covered his face with a pillow. “I forgot that was today,” he said.

“I’m getting my skeleton tattooed!” Talia sang out, off-key.

“You are a crazy person, and you terrify me,” Hugh muttered.

Talia smiled even wider. Hugh always knew the right things to say to her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Scrimshaw

Hugh would honestly have preferred not to have to watch Talia get her bone ward armor. Their storage tattoos were one thing— it was a little uncomfortable to watch, but it wasn’t really that bad.

Watching Talia get her bones tattooed was, frankly, nauseating.

Kanderon was the one doing the actual tattooing, again— she’d had centuries of experience creating storage tattoos, and her control over the hovering crystal needles was flawless. More importantly, she could actually perceive Talia’s bone minerals clearly via her crystal affinity senses— something Hugh still had trouble with. Bones outside of a living body were much easier for his affinity senses to perceive than bones within a living body, for whatever reason.

The bone tattooing operation was happening in a massive empty hall between the library and the hospital wing, big enough to fit Kanderon’s bulk, though Hugh could have sworn the door was too small for her to fit through.

This time, Kanderon had grown a series of longer, even thinner needles, each the length of an arm, but almost too thin to see. Each was filled with an ink specially designed to soak into the crystalline structure of Talia’s bones— one that wouldn’t be harmful to her body over the long run. Once the needle had punched into the outer layer of bone, Kanderon would squeeze out some of the ink to inject it into the bone.

And there were hundreds of the needles floating in the air above Talia, awaiting their turns. There was also a complex sterilization ward for them to pass through before being refilled with ink by a complex crystal mechanism.

There were no less than a dozen healers attending the operation. Not all of them had healing affinities, interestingly— there was a marrow mage to enhance Talia’s blood production, Skyhold’s only two pain mages to make the procedure bearable for Talia, and even a flesh mage who also had a mirage affinity. That last was projecting an illusion of Talia’s skeleton and major blood vessels, to help Kanderon insert the needles without hitting any veins or arteries.

There were, notably, no bone mages, other than the marrow mage, who didn’t count, according to Talia.

Godrick and Sabae were also missing— Hugh was the only one of the apprentices being allowed to accompany Talia for this operation.

They couldn’t put Talia to sleep for the operation, unfortunately— performing any sort of surgical operation on a dream mage, even a weird one like Talia, was highly dangerous. So she had to stay awake the whole time, strapped down to the table so she couldn’t move, while Hugh held her hand.

The needles punching into Talia’s scalp weren’t too disturbing, but Hugh could hardly look at the needles punching deep into Talia’s arms and legs. Each only produced a single drop of blood, with the healers closing each injection site as the needle withdrew, but it would take thousands and thousands of injections to complete the process, so it added up quickly.

It took seven hours to complete the process, and Hugh was there for every minute of it, only letting go of Talia’s hand when they needed her to change positions, or when they wanted to work on the hand he’d been holding. He spent most of his time worrying about what could go wrong with the ward. If something did, he didn’t know what he’d do— Loarna had led the design, but Hugh had been heavily involved from the very beginning, and he knew he’d blame himself.

Loarna wasn’t actually there for the tattooing— her role in the design was already completed, and she’d expressed a clear disinterest in being around people for that long.

Clan Castis’ tattoo experts, including Rafe, were there as well, but most of their contributions had been during the design phase.

The healers were using spells to suppress Talia’s hunger, thirst, and certain other bodily functions during the operation— Loarna and Rafe had both agreed it was best to try and finish the ward in a single session.

Finally, the last needle withdrew from the base of Talia’s foot, and everyone in the room seemed to slump. They cleaned off Talia with spells, then Hugh helped her to her feet.

“Don’t push any mana into it tonight or tomorrow,” Kanderon said. “We’ll test it the morning after in a controlled situation. Hugh, get some food into Talia. You have my permission to skip your classes and other responsibilities tomorrow to tend to Talia.”

“Kanderon?” Talia said.

The massive sphinx turned her attention to Talia.

“I owe you for this,” Talia said.

Hugh felt his neck tighten up a bit at that— as much as he trusted Kanderon, proclaiming debt to any great power was never to be taken lightly. He could tell that the members of Clan Castis present were just as alarmed by Talia’s offer.

Kanderon gave his girlfriend a long, searching look, then nodded.

“Yes, you do,” Kanderon said. “You can pay me back by keeping Hugh safe.”

“I would have done that anyways,” Talia said, sounding almost offended. “Agreeing to do something you’d do anyways is hardly a proper way to pay a debt.”

Kanderon smiled at that. “This is a situation where your actions matter far more than your intent, Talia.”

Then Kanderon turned and slipped through a door that should have been far too small for her to fit through. Just for a moment, Hugh could feel space waver and distort around Kanderon.

“So, uh… dinner?” Hugh asked, awkwardly.

They’d returned to Hugh’s room, where it was considerably quieter, and Talia had fallen asleep instantly. Talia spent most of the next day sleeping, waking only to eat and take care of necessary functions.

Mackerel had been fussing over and cuddling with Talia almost the whole time since they’d returned to her room, even stacking several pinecones near her. It would have been ridiculously adorable if it had been coming from a cat, tree octopus, drake, or some other normal pet, but it was honestly ridiculous looking from a book. Hugh somehow managed to avoid laughing, though.

Hugh used that time to work on the designs and plans for his own armor, which was, thankfully, going to be far less gruesome to construct than Talia’s.

The others stopped by in between their classes to check on Talia or bring food, but Hugh spent most of the day just enjoying the peace and quiet.

Talia was up and moving again by the morning of the test, though she looked utterly exhausted and out of it still. Hugh was pretty sure he was more nervous than she was.

They were doing the test in one of the blast-proof rooms where Talia often spent hours exploding chunks of bone, which didn’t help Hugh’s anxiety much. The four healers present didn’t help, either.

“Alright, let’s run just a little mana through it,” Alustin called.

Talia nodded and closed her eyes. She drew in a deep breath, and Hugh couldn’t help but notice it sounded ragged and nervous.

For a moment that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, nothing seemed to happen, and then Hugh saw a faint shimmering in the air, just an inch or so above Talia’s skin.

Everyone cheered, and Hugh sagged in relief.

They spent the next hour doing tests— such as having Talia move about to make sure the ward stayed flexible, having her touch body parts together to make sure the different segments of the ward didn’t interfere with one another, slowly increasing the power running through the ward, and so on and so forth.

It was only halfway through the second hour that they actually began testing the ward’s defensive capabilities.

It started off with just a simple sheet of paper sent flying at Talia by Alustin, which bounced off with barely a reaction from the ward. They steadily increased the strength of the attacks, until Rafe was launching fireballs, but the ward held steadily against all of them.

One unanticipated side-effect of the new ward was the fact that when Talia started pushing large amounts of mana through it, it started to glow, lighting her up from the inside, giving her a particularly ominous appearance. It took a huge amount of mana running through it for that to happen, though.

The ward wasn’t perfect, of course— they’d had to make plenty of trade-offs for it to work at all. When Godrick hit Talia with his hammer, the ward stopped her from being injured, but she was still sent flying. The ward didn’t stop the gravity enchantment from pulling her towards his hammer at all.

But it worked, and the smiles in the room grew wider and wider.

“What are we going ta’ name it?” Godrick asked.

“Bone ward? Skeleton ward?” Hugh suggested.

Sabae shook her head. “Nope. Scrimshaw ward.”

“That’s perfect,” Hugh said. “Definitely scrimshaw ward. Or… scrimshaw armor? No, ward.”

“It’s not technically scrimshaw,” Alustin said. “Her bones are tattooed, not carved, and…”

“Alustin?” Sabae said.

“Yes?” the paper mage replied.

“Shush.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sacrifices

Godrick did his best to ignore Alustin’s complaints as he went over the preparations one more time with Rafe, Tristan, and his father. Headmaster Tarik sat in the background, doing paperwork at a stone desk she’d grown on one side of the chamber.

“This is dangerously experimental,” Alustin said. “Clan Castis has only ever tried this with fire spells, not stone or steel spells, and…”

“That’s why me an’ Tarik are here,” Artur said. “If something goes wrong, we’ll handle it. It’s a risk, sure, but yeh don’t need ta’ be stressin’ so much.”

Alustin sighed but nodded.

While Talia’s brothers double-checked all the spellforms and glyphs for the rituals, Godrick took a moment to look over the enchanted Havathi weapons at the center of the ritual. One was the enchanted steel warhammer Godrick had captured at Dragonclaw Yardang, while the other was an enchanted shield that had been captured from the Sacred Swordsman years ago, with a stone enchantment built into it designed to summon walls of stone.

He could faintly hear both sentient enchantments yelling in the back of his head, demanding to be returned to Havath.

Between the two weapons lay a fist-sized granite sphere.

Godrick was still a little amazed that Artur had gone for the plan— Alustin was absolutely correct about the risks.

Clan Castis had spent decades experimenting with deliberately constructing elementals.

It had, apparently, started with a dying member of their family who had tried to make herself into a guardian flame spirit for Hold Castis, only to fail and have the resulting elemental destroy a good chunk of the village before the clan could drive it off.

Of course, since it was Clan Castis, rather than ban future attempts as any sane group might have done, they started actively encouraging it.

Their activities had entered an entirely new phase twenty years ago, when Havathi Sacred Swordsmen started showing up in the clan territories in the Skyreach Range. Clan Castis had purchased many of the weapons seized by other clans cheaply— fully sapient Havathi weapons refused to work for anyone but the Havathi.

Then they’d figured out how to sacrifice the sapient weapons to create elementals.

They mostly used the process to attack their enemies— awaken a new elemental in enemy territory, leave it to rampage chaotically and cause trouble.

They did, however, experiment with more complex uses. Their original intent had been to find a way to turn an elemental into a living tattoo. That project had failed horribly, but they’d branched out into other, more esoteric uses of elementals.

Culminating in the discovery of a way to reliably create a hybrid of a living spell and a normal elemental.

“Are you ready for this?” Tristan asked.

Godrick nodded. “Ah hope so,” he replied.

“You know, if this works, you owe me,” Tristan said. “I’m thinking… dinner, maybe?”

Godrick had just opened his mouth to respond when someone interrupted from behind him. “Nope, absolutely not happening.”

Godrick turned to see Talia stalking towards them, Hugh and Sabae trailing in her wake. “No flirting with Godrick, Tristan. He’s entirely too good for you. Way out of your league. Go flirt with a bad-tempered sunmaw or something.”

Tristan gave Talia an offended look. “Too good for me? What a cruel thing to say to your own brother. Hugh, tell her she’s being cruel.”

Hugh immediately hid behind Sabae.

“Could we maybe talk about this later?” Godrick said, hoping that he was just imagining his voice being a little higher-pitched than usual. “It’d probably be best ta stay focused right now.”

Sabae smirked at Godrick, though thankfully Talia and Tristan were busy making rude faces at one another.

His Da saved the day by waving Godrick over to get started.

“I have some questions about the ethics of this,” Sabae said. “These are sapient beings, even if they’re our enemies.”

“Oh, it’s grossly unethical. Basically the next thing to human sacrifice,” Rafe said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“What?” Rafe said. “I refuse to lie to myself about what we’re doing. We’re effectively killing sentient beings to create a new one. Yes, they’re sentient beings utterly devoted to our destruction and conquest by Havath, but they’re still intelligent and self-aware.”

Everyone just stared at him for a moment, until Alustin turned to Godrick. “It’s not too late to back out.”

Artur rolled his eyes. “Yeh’re one ta’ talk. Ah doubt yeh can even count how many Havathi yeh’ve killed. Yeh’re only worried about Godrick, not the weapons.”

Alustin scowled at that.

“There is, if it makes you feel better, some debate about whether awakened weapons like this are truly sapient or merely sentient,” Headmaster Tarik said, finally paying attention to the conversation. “Since they seem incapable of changing allegiances, some philosophers believe weapons like this lack free will and as such aren’t truly people.”

“Do humans lack free will because we can’t walk on our tongues?” Rafe asked. “Loyalty to Havath is part of the fundamental makeup of who these weapons are, but that doesn’t leave them incapable of reasoning or changing their minds about other topics. Plus, non-Havathi weapons appear entirely capable of changing their allegiance if need be, so it’s clearly some artificial constraint on their part. That whole line of philosophy is nonsense, meant to smooth over upset morals. Clan Castis is hardly the first to experiment on sentient enchantments.”

“That line of reasoning was also a major justification used by the Ithonians and others since for destroying or exploiting liches,” Alustin offered.

“Doesn’t matter to me one way or another,” Tarik said. “I voted that we should destroy captured sentient Havathi weapons, not store them, so sacrificing them like this would honestly be a weight off my shoulders. Not, unfortunately, much of a weight, given how many others we’ve still got stored.”

“Ah feel like this is somethin’ we shoulda’ discussed sooner,” Godrick said. “Ah’m suddenly not so sure about this. Ah felt bad enough destroyin’ Hailstrike, and it was barely even aware.”

“Hailstrike was basically an innocent, though,” Hugh said. “Even though it was barely aware, it makes sense that you’d feel bad— it didn’t know or understand enough to be culpable for what it did in service of Havath. These weapons do, though. That’s kind of why I don’t let myself get too angry at Mackerel when he misbehaves— he’s getting smarter, but he’s still not really intelligent enough yet to understand the finer points of morality.”

“That, or he’s just naturally a little shit,” Artur muttered.

“A weapon’s a weapon,” Talia said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s intelligent or not, it’s built to hurt people. You can’t blame it for that, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it being destroyed.”

Godrick gave Talia an odd look. There’d been something weird about her tone when she said that, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Ah’m just not sure about all this,” Godrick finally said.

Artur sighed and walked over to Godrick.

“If yeh really don’t want ta’ do this, ah won’t force yeh,” Artur said, resting his hands on Godrick’s shoulders. “But this is the most promisin’ path we’ve seen ta’ makin’ yeh more powerful, and ah’d be a lot happier if it works. Ah won’t always be around ta’ protect yeh, and it would absolutely help yeh protect yerself and yer friends.”

Godrick closed his eyes, then sighed. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

His Da hugged him, then stepped away.

“I suppose we’re doing this, then,” Alustin said. “Hugh, do you mind warding the area around the ritual site? I was going to do it, but since you’re here…”

Hugh nodded, and a moment later Godrick’s affinity senses felt the granite of the floor shifting and twisting inside as Hugh recrystallized the ward.

Godrick took a moment to inspect the ward— he didn’t understand more than the broad shape of the ward, but Hugh’s detailed, angular style was immediately obvious. Most wardcrafters, even when crafting wards through magic, tended to replicate the look of a hand-drawn ward, which was how most of them learned to wardcraft first. Hugh, however, had adapted to recrystallizing stone well enough that he didn’t try to automatically mimic drawing the wards. He also tended to construct all his wards beneath the surface of the stone, to better protect them from damage, even if it wasn’t necessary.

Godrick shook his head and dismissed Hugh’s ward from his mind— he was just trying to distract himself from his qualms, but he needed to focus.

He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

It would have been nice if he could have been separated from the process itself by a ward, rather than just being surrounded by one, but that would have interfered with the spellcasting. He spent a few minutes eying over all the glyphs painted on the ground and the two enchanted Havathi items, double-checked to make sure he wasn’t carrying anything enchanted in his storage tattoo for the fourth time, and cracked his neck.

Then he knelt down and placed his hands on the enchanted weapons.

Both immediately started yelling threats into his mind.

Compared to the colossal expense and immense difficulties in creating a lich demesne, creating a spirit was remarkably cheap. No special materials, alchemical reagents, or extra enchantments were necessary for the process.

All you needed was the right spellforms.

Dozens of glyphs were painted on the hammer and shield, as well as the floor underneath them. Pasted to the floor just past them was a large sheet of paper covered in an absurdly large, complex spellform.

That was one of the two parts of the ritual that most often resulted in fatalities when trying to create a spirit. The average mind’s eye simply couldn’t hold a spellform that large and intricate in mind for long, and it tended to collapse messily. Even most archmages couldn’t handle it.

That wouldn’t be a problem at all for Godrick. He’d spent years now using his father’s armor, and in its most advanced forms, the armor spellform dwarfed the elemental creation ritual. Using that spellform repeatedly had trained and exercised his mind’s eye until it dwarfed those of other mages.

The other main reason for failure had to do with willpower and focus. If your willpower or focus wasn’t strong enough, your mind would be fractured while trying to create a spirit, and your spell would, at best, fail explosively. More often, your mind would be destroyed in the process, or you’d create a rampaging elemental instead of a spirit.

Godrick, thankfully, wasn’t trying to create a spirit. He was trying to create an elemental, and he didn’t want to preserve any of the sentience of the Havathi enchantments, so his willpower and focus didn’t matter at all.

He carefully evened out his breathing, then started copying the spellform in his mind’s eye.

It was nothing like any spellform he’d used before— except for a densely packed circular core, the octagonal spellform was heavily symmetrical. Symmetry was generally avoided in most spellforms because, somewhat counterintuitively, it tended to badly unbalance the mana flows in spells.

But then, this spell wasn’t supposed to stay stable.

Godrick took a deep breath, then flooded both stone and steel mana into the spellform. Normally, that should be avoided as well, for fear of destabilizing the spellform, but again, that was the point here.

The lines of the spellform rapidly filled with mana, and he could feel its effects sinking into the two sentient weapons in front of him.

The hammer started sounding panicked in his head, while the shield started offering him particularly gruesome threats.

Godrick forced himself to ignore both, and flooded even more mana into the spellform.

Then the core of the spellform dissolved, and the spellform in his mind’s eye split apart into eight even pieces. Even though that was supposed to happen, Godrick found himself panicking and had to struggle to stay focused— the first thing that every mage was taught was that spellforms needed to be kept intact, unless you wanted disastrous results.

Godrick fought through his panic, fought through the mental threats from the weapons, and started constructing his armor spellform in between the eight loose chunks of the spellform.

The Clan Castis ritual was intended to give structure and purpose to an elemental by building it around a spell, essentially. The elemental would, if the ritual was properly cast, grow around that spellform. Clan Castis usually just used simple combat spells of one sort or another, resulting in a nearly mindless elemental bent on destruction.

His da’s armor spell, however, was quite possibly the perfect spell for this ritual. More than nine-tenths of the spellform existed to govern the behavior of the armor and to allow the caster to move freely in it without injuring themselves, while still amplifying the caster’s strength. Most attempted replicas of Artur’s armor endeavored to do this with sets of rules built into the spellform, but that generally ended with the caster crippled or killed. Artur’s armor, instead, operated off more flexible principles, heavily built off spellcasting principles from illusion magic traditions. It used the caster’s own body as a reference to base the armor off, and a heavily modular design that allowed the caster to alter the properties of the armor.

Rafe and Tristan hadn’t known any of that when they’d proposed the idea to Godrick— they’d only known that Godrick was looking for ways to get more powerful and only had a few hints about how his armor worked. There were plenty of other variants of armor out there, after all— while his da’s was almost certainly the most advanced stone armor in existence, other affinities had magic armor traditions of their own.

What had seemed like a long shot at first started sounding like a better and better idea as they had examined it— even Artur was enthusiastic about its odds.

Godrick and Artur had chosen a variant of the armor for this ritual that allowed the inclusion of steel parts, to take advantage of the fact that they had both a stone and a steel enchantment available to them. The variant was also a highly versatile one that it would be easy to add to or modify in the future. Godrick carefully, painstakingly constructed the spellform for the variant in his mind’s eye— he wouldn’t get a second chance, so he couldn’t afford to mess up.

By the time it was constructed, he was starting to feel the strain. His mind’s eye might be comparatively huge, but it was still a struggle holding both the armor and the elemental ritual fragments in it at once. Godrick couldn’t even see anything other than the spellforms— his brain seemed incapable of handling his normal sensory input as well as the spellforms, and his sight, hearing, and other senses seemed distant and unimportant.

He refused to rush, however, and took the time to double-check the armor spellform.

Then, nervously, he began to join the ritual fragments to the armor spellform.

They attached themselves seamlessly, to his relief— they’d been unable to do any test-runs of the ritual since it wouldn’t work without a target.

Then everything simply disappeared. The armor spellform, the ritual spellform fragments, and the voices of the Havathi weapons.

He blinked a few times, and the world started to come back into focus.

“Are yeh alright?” Artur called. “Godrick?”

Godrick held up one hand. “Ah’m fine. Just… give me a second.”

He shook his head to clear it a bit, then glanced down at the weapons.

They looked exactly the same, except that all the painted-on glyphs had vanished.

Godrick took a deep breath and touched both.

Nothing. He couldn’t even sense any magic in them.

Then, cautiously, he touched the granite sphere between them with one finger.

He could immediately sense that the sphere was not only awake but aware of him. It didn’t react otherwise, though, beyond offering a sense of vague curiosity.

“It worked,” Godrick said. “Ah can sense the elemental.”

Most of the room started cheering and applauding. Even Headmaster Tarik was clapping politely, which was one of the largest displays of emotion Godrick had ever seen from her. Alustin was especially enthusiastic.

Sabae, Godrick couldn’t help but notice, appeared a little conflicted still.

“It seems a bit smarter than Hailstrike did,” Godrick said after the applause had ended.

“Makes sense,” Rafe replied. “Most of the intelligence of the two weapons would have been lost, but not all of it.”

“Time to try the next step!” Tristan said with a wide smile.

Godrick looked up to his Da for assurance, and Artur nodded.

Godrick grasped the granite sphere, then reached towards it with his magic.

Immediately, without effort, the armor spellform appeared— not in his mind’s eye, somehow, but adjacent to it. Or, maybe in its own, brand-new mind’s eye? Godrick had no idea how to explain it. He had known this would happen, but it still felt absolutely bizarre to him.

He pushed mana into the spellform and started to construct his armor.

It built itself around him from the granite of the floor, faster and more easily than it had ever happened before. The granite sphere seamlessly merged in with the rest of the armor, becoming the armor.

The armor covered all of him except his face within seconds. Godrick stood, then began to move around.

His armor moved freely, bending more flexibly than it ever had before. Godrick leapt forward from a standing position, and he effortlessly cleared the ritual site.

“Ah could get used ta’ this,” Godrick said. “Ah could definitely get used ta’ this.”

“Next test,” Rafe said.

Godrick smiled and constructed another spellform in his mind. Nothing too complex— just a basic levitation cantrip, which he used on the now-empty shield.

It floated straight up into the air.

Godrick began fashioning more and more spellforms in his mind’s eye— a stone-sculpting spellform, light cantrips, even a steel-reinforcing spell.

The newly formed elemental was, in effect, his armor spellform now— meaning he didn’t need to expend willpower or space in his mind’s eye to construct it anymore.

He started smiling even harder.

They conducted test after test of his new armor. He found he was able to add modular additions to the armor spellform with ease, though they did take up parts of his original mind’s eye, while still somehow connecting with the base armor spellform that floated in its own space. The elemental could be transferred from one rock to another with ease, though it needed a certain amount of mass at minimum— a stone at least half the size of Godrick’s fist. It had no special affection for its original granite sphere— at least, so far as Godrick could tell. It could easily be kept inside his storage tattoo, so there was no risk of losing it.

The elemental also refused to work for anyone else. Godrick wasn’t pacted to it, as Hugh or another warlock might pact to something— rather, the elemental simply ignored everyone else’s existence. Artur’s armor spellform had to be extensively modified for each new person it was used for, it couldn’t simply be memorized and then used by new people. Between that highly targeted aspect of the armor spell and the fact that Godrick had been the one to create the elemental, it had absolutely no interest in anyone else.

Most astonishingly, the elemental was actually able to provide some of the mana for the armor. It had its own mana reservoirs, capable of drawing mana from the aether and converting it into stone and steel mana. The reservoirs were still small and insufficient to power the armor entirely by themselves, but even that little extra would be a huge advantage for Godrick, and it would only grow over time.

Maybe someday even enough to get his armor as large as his da’s.

The weapons, when examined, proved to have had their enchantments entirely stripped away. The physical substrate for the enchantments was still intact, however, so they would be given to Skyhold’s enchanters— it seemed likely that it would be far easier to reconstruct the enchantments than it would be to build brand-new enchantments, especially since the enchanters wouldn’t have to work with the dangerous and toxic alchemical solutions and reagents used to construct the physical substrate of the enchantment all over again.

“Your title of Hammerbreaker is definitely well-earned,” Talia said, standing atop the now-defunct steel hammer. “How many is this now?”

Godrick scowled at her and gently shoved her off the hammer.

“Artur, are you going to do this ritual too?” Hugh asked.

Artur shook his head. “Maybe someday, but not right now. As it is, this would actually be a big step down fer me in power— there’s no way an elemental that small could handle the amount a’ mana ah push through my armor without rupturing. And ah definitely can’t afford ta’ get weaker in the middle a’ this siege.”

“Does anyone else feel like this is just a bit much?” Talia asked. “I’m definitely not complaining, but I feel like it’s a little crazy that we’re all making such huge strides with our magic this year.”

Of all people, it was Headmaster Tarik who responded. “That’s what it is to enter the ranks of archmages. The invention of new magic is what sets the archmage apart from lesser mages. Not simply new spells, but new traditions of magic, new combinations of magic, and even simply creative new applications of old ways.”

“But we’re only third years,” Hugh said.

Artur shrugged. “Ah never had any formal schoolin’ in magic, and ah still managed it somehow.”

“Once you have a certain grasp of the theory and the basics of magic, you either start inventing new ways to do magic or you stagnate,” Alustin said. “You four have been pushed harder and faster down your paths than any other students currently at Skyhold, and, more importantly, your paths are shorter to start with. Godrick is only the second person in his magical tradition. Talia and Sabae are the first in theirs. Hugh is the only mage save Kanderon I’ve ever heard of to share his particular combination of affinities. There is, simply speaking, less for each of you to learn before you have to start innovating than there would be for, say, a traditional fire mage, like Talia’s brothers here. You’re all brilliant, but you’re moving into the territory of archmages not because you stand out that astonishingly far out from the crowd, but out of simple necessity. I wouldn’t call you true archmages yet, but you’re absolutely dabbling in those realms.”

Tristan gave Alustin an offended look over his comment about Talia’s brothers, but didn’t argue.

“I feel like it would take quite a few decades yet for me to catch up with Kanderon,” Hugh said.

Alustin shrugged at that. “If you were following her path exactly, centuries. You started moving down your own pathway almost immediately, however, and have shown next to no inclination to follow Kanderon directly. Not that her path would work well for you. Many of her spells take decades to cast. I don’t know of any other mage that shares your combination of affinities, so it was pretty much inevitable that your magic would go its own unique route. Same with Godrick— his affinity differences, plus his smaller mana reservoirs than Artur, basically guaranteed that he’d go down a new path.”

“Kanderon, a’ course, would just roll her eyes at all a’ this,” Artur said. “Ah asked her what her definition a’ archmages was, and her response was that anyone strong enough ta’ claim they were an archmage and force others ta’ respect it was one.”

“That’s needlessly simplistic,” Alustin complained.

“Enough lecturing,” Tristan said. “This demands a celebration!”

Even as Godrick allowed himself to be dragged off for a celebratory group dinner, he found his doubts returning about the morality of what he’d just done, whether sacrificing the weapons, even though they were his enemies, had been the right thing to do. He found himself reaching out with his doubts to the new elemental, which sat contentedly in his storage tattoo.

Its only response to his mental probe was polite confusion, which didn’t help Godrick with his doubts in the slightest.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The Crystal Crown

Hugh tried to ignore his friends as he checked over each and every quartz crystal he’d fashioned over the previous weeks.

“What should we name it?” Talia said, poking at the elemental.

Mackerel, who was also sitting in her lap, was giving the elemental a jealous look.

Godrick sighed and took the stone sphere away from her.

“We’ve got to name it something,” Talia said.

“Not just yet,” Godrick said. He sounded a bit pensive. “Anyhow, you’d just name it something terrible. Probably a pun.”

“I would not,” Talia said. “Why would you ever expect that of me?”

Sabae made a snorting noise, though she didn’t look up from her book. It was another history text detailing the endless churn of great powers overthrowing city-states, then having their rule usurped by other great powers in turn. Sabae still hadn’t made any progress in her quest to overthrow the political system of an entire continent, but that hadn’t discouraged her in the least, so far as Hugh could tell.

“See, Sabae agrees with me,” Godrick said.

Talia made fake gagging noises, and then the storage tattoo on Talia’s chin made itself visible. Hugh rolled his eyes as Talia mimed vomiting up random odds and ends she’d stored inside.

Hugh glanced over the current crystal he was checking one more time, then floated it over to Kanderon.

“How many times are you going to check those over?” Talia asked.

“As many times as it takes,” Kanderon said. “Do you really all need to be here?”

“Yes,” Talia said.

Kanderon leveled a flat look at Talia, then turned back to checking over the crystals.

The crowd was much smaller for the test of Hugh’s new armor than it had been for Godrick or Talia’s— other than the apprentices and Kanderon, it was just Loarna, Artur, and Alustin, who were all quietly working on their own projects off to the side of the immense test room.

Somewhat counterintuitively, the longer the siege went on, the more time their instructors had for them. Siege and battle preparations were largely complete, and not much else could be done until the Havathi made a move, one way or another. For now, the Havathi had been content to hunker down inside their ward walls, building fortifications from the stone of the mountains and the sand of the desert.

There was an abrupt humming noise, and Loarna and Alustin both removed their communications diaries from their storage tattoos.

“Well?” Kanderon said, not looking up from the current crystal she was examining.

“One of our Librarians embedded in Alikea just reported in,” Alustin said. “Dorsas Ine just resurfaced in the far north, seized the port city of Arsen’s Slate.”

The tension in the room eased slightly. Dorsas Ine, the Goldfeathered, was an ancient, massive phoenix— and one of the few great powers to pose a true threat to Kanderon. He had a nasty habit of conquering cities, looting them for all they were worth, then adding all the gold to his molten shell. Gold affinities weren’t usually considered very battle-worthy, but getting hit by several tons of molten gold moving faster than an arrow was enough to give anyone a bad day.

Dorsas Ine seldom ruled any city for long— he had little interest in settling down in territory, and had even been known to vacate the continent entirely for decades at a time to raid elsewhere. It had been several years since his last conquest, and the fact that he was taking another city now meant that he wasn’t working with the Havathi.

“Who was ruling Arsen’s Slate?” Kanderon asked.

“A small army of illusionists. Called themselves the Horizon Guard,” Alustin said. “Dorsas Ine simply destroyed a fifth of the city, rather than try and see through their illusions and hunt them down. At least eight thousand dead, another ten thousand homeless from the resulting fires.”

There was a moment of silence. Even Kanderon stopped her work.

“I will end Dorsas Ine one of these decades,” Kanderon said. “He may be less vile than Intet Slew, but she, at least, seldom leaves the ruins of Louthem.”

“Why haven’t you before?” Sabae challenged.

Kanderon fixed a distinctly irritated look on Sabae. “Watch your tone, stormling. You are not your grandmother, and you will speak to me with respect.”

Hugh nervously looked between the two until Sabae lowered her gaze.

“I apologize,” Sabae said. “I was angry hearing the news.”

Kanderon turned back to the pile of crystals she was double-checking. “That, I cannot blame you for. And I have tried before, many times, as have the Sican Elders, Heliothrax, and any number of now-dead great powers. I suspect it will take a Grand Hunt to finally take him down. But, just like Intet Slew, gathering that many great powers at once would open wide swaths of the continent to Havathi ambition.”

The room quieted, everyone tending to their own work— though Hugh couldn’t help but notice no one appeared to be turning many pages or writing many words.

With Dorsas Ine crossed off the list, that didn’t leave many options left. It would be insanity for Havath to move against Skyhold without someone to challenge Kanderon, and they would have to almost entirely strip their territory of lesser great powers to challenge her, especially with the Coven at their backs. Unless, of course, Indris or Ilinia had betrayed Kanderon.

The most powerful of the Havathi great powers, the Puppet, certainly wasn’t enough to take Kanderon on her own.

Other than that… the archmages and dragons of the Alikean Parliament hated the Havathi almost as much as they hated Tsarnassus. The Tsarnassan Champions were in much the same boat. The Sican Elders, immense, once-human wooden constructs, who towered over any living creature on the continent, would never go so far from the great tree city. Intet Slew rarely left her lair and never allied with anyone. Heliothrax never allied herself with any nation, keeping herself strictly neutral, and Rhize Greenheart would be a decade yet regrowing his body after his most recent battle with Heliothrax. There were a number of liches that posed a real threat to Kanderon, but they were all clearly out of the question.

Which left few good options. Andas Thune had conquered an immense territory in the north Skyreach Range in the last five years, but was still largely untested save against other dragons. Iris Mooneye despised Kanderon, but had never before abandoned her stargazing to move against the sphinx. Solintus the Patient, for all his seeming indestructibility, would take months to reach Skyhold, dragging his castle-sized rocky bulk south from his territory near Keayda’s Library. Of course, Havath had already had months.

A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Hugh. “What about the Sleeper in the Sands?” he asked. “Could the Havathi be trying to wake it?”

Everyone turned to look at him. The city-sized sunmaw was a creature even the Ithonian Empire had feared— seemingly unkillable, it had descended on countless towns and cities from the sky in the past, denuding them of all life.

“Not even the Havathi would be that insane,” Alustin said. “There’s no way it could be put down again before the Sleeper devoured thousands, if not millions. Even if they wanted to, they’d either have to kill the Tomb Guards and wake it directly or use the Reviled Emperor’s Chime, and that was destroyed by Heliothrax centuries ago.”

“Why hasn’t anyone killed the Sleeper, since, you know, it’s asleep?” Talia asked.

“Even apart from its size, durability, and magic disrupting field? It’s an Endling,” Kanderon said.

“A what?” Hugh asked.

“An Endling,” Kanderon repeated. “A terminarch. The last of its species. We call it a sunmaw, but it is to a sunmaw as a dragon is to a snake. In all my centuries of life, I have found no meaning, no greater purpose to the multiverse, save one fact. Endlings do not age, do not die naturally, and they tend to be absurdly hard to kill, as though the multiverse means for them to be a living memorial for their kind. It is never absolutely impossible to kill them, but sometimes, as with the Sleeper, the possibility is just a cruel jape.”

“What would it take to kill the Sleeper?” Talia asked.

“The Sleeper’s life is tied to our sun,” Kanderon said. “It possesses the ability to draw on the starfire of the sun to restore its body, even if you were to annihilate its body entirely. To kill it would be to quench the sun, and no being save the Cold Minds have that power.”

“Well, ah don’t think ah’ll ever sleep again,” Godrick said. “How many Endlings are there?”

Kanderon snorted. “Thankfully few, but at the same time, depressingly many. Or, perhaps, the other way around, depending on how you look at these things. You should fear their power, but also mourn their existence. So far as I know, the Sleeper is the mightiest of their number on Anastis.”

She paused, then continued. “There is another hypothesis about the Endlings. I have heard it claimed that there is another Endling, one older than worlds, who roams the universe preserving other lonely individuals like it.”

The sphinx shook her head, then turned back to the crystals.

It took several more hours to complete all the necessary inspections of Hugh’s crystals.

It should have gone faster, but Loarna, not having a crystal affinity or other affinity useful for inspecting the spellforms inside the quartz crystals, had to wait on the sidelines, doing her own work. Which, so far as Hugh could tell, seemed to be designing some sort of blood filter ward designed for Skyhold’s healers— they were building a device meant to drain blood out of the body, filter out specific poisons, then pump the untainted blood back in. According to Kanderon, the idea got retried every couple of decades— no one had managed to make it work so far without unintended consequences, but it came closer and closer every time. Having Loarna attached to the project was a huge mark in its favor this time.

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing slowing them down. There was a constant influx of visitors into the test chamber as well— clerks carrying reports for Kanderon and other councilors wanting to request favors or argue about an upcoming vote with her, for the most part. Artur wandered in halfway through the process, having finished with whatever work he had been doing in Skyhold’s depth, fortifying the mountain’s roots.

The most disruptive visitors, however, were members of Clan Castis.

Tristan wandered in to flirt with Godrick, only to be chased off by Talia. Roland and Gram wandered in— they’d apparently been drafted into watching Luthe’s daughter, so Luthe and his husband could have some time to themselves, and the toddler managed to escape and climb halfway up Kanderon, much to the sphinx’s alarm. Gram and Haela wandered in to visit with Talia, and Alustin promptly began interrogating Haela about her oil affinity— something to do with long-term food storage methods.

Finally, however, the assorted visitors had left them, and Hugh and Kanderon finished double-checking all the crystals. To his amazement, only five had proven unusable— there had been errors in a half-dozen more, but those had been easily correctable on the spot. He’d expected the number to be much higher, which was part of the reason he’d constructed far more than were actually necessary.

“When you came to me wanting to build yourself armor, I was expecting you to be planning some sort of crystal equivalent of Artur’s armor,” Kanderon said. “Honestly, that was rather what I’d originally hoped for with your aether crystal, rather than that aggravating book of yours.”

Mackerel clattered his pages angrily at Kanderon from the safety of Talia’s lap.

Hugh shrugged, then began establishing the proprioceptive link with the first of the fist-sized crystals. It snapped into place easily, and he could suddenly feel the crystal, as though it were an extension of his own body. A significant chunk of the intertwining spellforms inside the crystal were built to empower the proprioceptive link— which said a lot, because the spellforms didn’t just include the visible ones. They repeated and iterated in a pattern that descended to the smallest scales within the quartz, almost down into the base-level pattern that made the crystal a crystal.

The crystal hovered into the air, and with just a thought, he shifted it to hover over one shoulder. It didn’t take a spellform, just an effort of will and a tiny amount of mana.

Hugh repeated the process with two more crystals, bringing one to float over the other shoulder, the third to float above and behind his head.

“Try moving them around your body with your eyes closed,” Kanderon said.

Hugh did so, finding he could easily send them dodging around his limbs at high speeds, with no risk of them slamming into his body or each other.

“This is boring,” Loarna interrupted. “This was the easy part— we knew it would work. Let’s test what we came here to test.”

Hugh almost expected Kanderon to snap at Loarna for her tone, but Kanderon merely snorted in irritation. Loarna’s impatience with things outside her narrow interests was something of a precondition of working with her.

Hugh shifted the crystals away from his body. Beyond twenty or so feet, the mana drain started to pick up, but it was still low enough that he could probably keep them suspended indefinitely if he wanted. At fifty feet, his mana reservoir slowly started to empty faster than they refilled, and he found that his proprioceptive link with the crystals simply wouldn’t let him extend them beyond two hundred feet.

Kanderon shifted her immense bulk, raising her wings forward and above them all. If this test failed, she could drop her wings in a fraction of a heartbeat and shield everyone in the room from any resulting explosion. A ward would be better, but there was too much of a risk of interference.

“ Alright, Hugh, connect the crystals together,” Kanderon said.

Hugh nodded.

He was honestly a bit surprised that no-one had ever thought of the idea before— it seemed like such a basic combination of planar magic and wardcrafting. But then, planar and spatial mages seldom bothered with wardcrafting— spatial distortions, asymmetric distance gradients, and pocket spaces made far better defenses than just about any ward. And many of the wardcrafting advances Hugh was leaning on were only a few decades old, or even younger.

Hugh was immensely proud of his wardcrafting abilities, but if he’d been living fifty years earlier, even, he doubted he could have made this idea work. For that matter, without Loarna checking his work on the wardcrafting end of things, and without Kanderon checking his work on the planar magic end of things, he never could have pulled this off.

Hugh pushed mana into the next set of spellforms inside the crystal, and a ward sprung up between the three crystals— a faintly shimmering triangle, suspended in mid-air between them.

It wouldn’t have seemed so astonishing to someone who didn’t know much about wards, but Hugh had just violated the most basic law of wards.

A ward only worked if it was contiguous. You couldn’t just put up a series of spellform inscribed posts in the ground and have a ward form between them— you had to draw the ward itself.

Or you could draw the ward vertically on each side of the posts, and have it project between them. There were plenty of clever tricks to get around the contiguous ward restriction, but Hugh had, so far as he knew, come up with one of the first true ways to break the rule entirely, using some basic parts of planar magic.

Loarna had beat him to the punch a couple of years ago in a collaboration with a shadow mage, but that was hardly a surprise.

Planar spells, in order to work, required precise calculations of location built into their spellforms. You needed to describe where they were— or, at least, where they started— in order to work. It was the same for every application of the two related affinities, ranging from teleportation to planar storage spaces.

Hugh couldn’t perform any other aspects of planar magic, but Kanderon had been teaching him the precursor math for describing those locations for years, and now that he had that down, the actual spellform notations were relatively straightforward to learn. Not easy, but straightforward.

Hugh’s idea was simple in theory, but horribly convoluted in practice. He wanted to use those location-notation spellforms to trick a noncontiguous ward into thinking it was contiguous.

And it had worked.

Hugh shifted the crystals, watching the triangular ward shift in size and shape.

“I’m going to try the final set of spellforms,” he said.

Kanderon nodded.

Hugh pushed mana into the final, and least mana-intensive, set of spellforms. These ones were… a bit esoteric. He’d stumbled across them last fall, and hadn’t thought too much of them at the time. He wasn’t the first wardcrafter to also be capable of will imbuing, by any means— quite a few wardcrafters in the past had deliberately taught themselves the technique to use with their wards over the years. The ability to alter the function of one of your wards with just your will, not with complex spellforms, was absolutely a useful one, and some of those wardcrafters had developed spellforms to increase their control and their ease of imbuing their will into their wards or to modify their will imbuing after the ward was already active. Hugh had mostly forgotten about them until he started work on this project— he’d wanted to develop his actual ward skills as much as possible without using his will imbuing, for fear that it would become a crutch from him over the long term, lowering the ceiling on his ability as a wardcrafter.

For this project, however, will imbuing and the related ward spellforms were perfect. Hugh had managed, with his spellform construction skills, to insert those spellforms into the design as well, though he’d needed to consult Emmenson Drees a few times on that part.

“May I do the honors?” Alustin asked.

When Hugh nodded, Alustin sent a paper bird speeding towards the triangle. It impacted hard enough that it would have cut straight through a wooden beam, but the paper just crumpled on Hugh’s ward, merely draining a bit of his mana.

Talia let out a cheer and hugged Hugh, and soon everyone was celebrating. Loarna seemed especially pleased if overwhelmed by the noise, and even Kanderon permitted herself to smile.

The obligatory testing went almost perfectly— their months of checking and double-checking their designs had paid off in spades. There were a few mana inefficiencies to be ironed out, a curious tendency of the wards to refuse to coalesce in five-crystal formations, though four and six crystal ones worked fine, and a few other issues, but those issues could probably be fixed without having to rebuild the crystals from scratch.

Everything else went perfectly. Hugh could alter the properties and sizes of the wards with a thought, letting some materials pass through but not others— or some people and not others. He could adjust the shapes, form polygons, cages, walls, and domes.

Soon he actually formed it into armor, a dozen fist-sized crystals orbiting him, another dozen hovering near each of his major limb joints. Yet another dozen formed a slowly-rotating halo behind his head, ready to be thrown about and assembled into wards away from his person.

And, not that he’d admit it out loud, the halo of crystals looked really cool.

The whole set-up could be pulled in or out of his storage tattoo in a heartbeat, leaving him with ward armor that could be assembled faster than anyone’s armor but Talia’s scrimshaw ward, which could be activated in a blink of the eye.

The whole time, his friends and teachers were bandying about names for his new armor.

To everyone’s surprise, it was Kanderon who named his new armor.

“The Stormward’s Crown.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Census

Sabae was recovering from a lightning magic practice session and reading a history of Imperial Ithos when her friends stormed into her room.

Since the Exile Splinter’s spell had failed, writings and histories of Ithos had started to appear across the continent. The books of Logistus of Tsarnassus, an Ithonian historian who wrote a century before Ithos’ fall, started to include whole sections on the history of the city. According to Alustin, it seemed the information and passages hadn’t been destroyed, but simply made impossible to remember— and whenever someone copied the books, they also copied the hidden passages, then simply forgot about all of it.

Sabae didn’t quite understand how that worked, or how books located off-planet could have survived the effect when returned to Anastis, but Kanderon had no interest in explaining much of the Exile Splinter’s workings to anyone.

The founding of the Ithonian capitol was simultaneously impressive and horrifying. They’d shipped the orange-and-pink granite more than two hundred nautical leagues, and had constructed the entire city according to a grand architectural plan, forming the entire city into a colossal defensive spellform. The Ithonian Empire had already conquered half the continent when construction began, and attacks on the original capital in the eastern foothills of the Skyreach Range by desperate nations and displaced great powers were happening almost weekly. It was, in many ways, an inspiring achievement— until you learned how it had been done.

The horrifying part showed up the instant Logistus started talking about the construction process. About the thousands of slaves who died quarrying the stone, dredging the rivers up to Lake Nelu, and building the city. About the dozens of sunken ships, overburdened with stone blocks. About the purges in the jungles near Lake Nelu, where the entire local population was forcibly relocated or killed for security reasons.

Logistus conveyed all of it in a dry list, clearly unbothered by any of it.

Sabae genuinely didn’t understand why Havath claimed to be the legitimate heir to Ithos’ legacy— Ithos was far more monstrous than Havath had ever been. The Havath Dominion was an aggressive, expansionist state, yes, and they’d done some horrible things, but nothing on the scale of the Ithonian Empire.

But then, nations often seemed to think they needed some historical justification for their rule beyond mere power, and she’d heard far more absurd and tenuous claims to legitimacy before.

Eventually, she just dropped the book, picked up the deck of cards Alustin had given her after Kanderon’s coup, and shuffled it repeatedly, thinking about throwing away her copies of Logistus’ histories.

When her friends burst into her room wishing her a happy birthday, she just stared at them in confusion.

“Did you forget your own birthday again?” Talia asked.

“No,” Sabae said.

She had.

“Yeh forgot yer own birthday fer the second year in a row,” Godrick said. “How… how is that even possible?”

Sabae shrugged.

“Wait, what about birthdays before these two?” Hugh asked. “Did you forget your birthdays before Skyhold?”

Sabae crossed her arms and refused to answer.

Their presents for her were, unsurprisingly, books. Hugh had, with Kanderon’s help, found her several books by philosophers who hated the great powers— not easy finds since many of the powers, including Sabae’s own family, banned or even destroyed copies. Godrick had commissioned copies of some of his father’s journals for Sabae— nothing particularly secret, but rather a collection of research on various magical armors Artur had delved into over the years. For all Artur liked to claim he was uneducated, he was more widely read and knowledgeable than most scholars Sabae knew.

Talia had gotten her a pile of romances. Sabae took one look inside the top one and promptly slammed it shut, blushing.

Which, of course, only made Talia laugh uproariously.

Her friends couldn’t stay very long— they all had classes— but they’d apparently planned a big celebration dinner that evening. Hugh, with a slight smile on his face, asked her if it was alright that he’d invited the first year warlocks he was mentoring.

“Of course,” Sabae said, keeping her face as blank as she could and doing her best not to think about Venta.

As the others filed out the door, Sabae stopped Hugh. “Hey, these books— I’m guessing you told Kanderon about my whole insane goal?”

Hugh nodded. “I hope that’s alright— I figured it was safe enough to ask her, since weakening the great powers is ultimately her goal too, what with sponsoring liches and everything.”

“It’s fine,” Sabae said. “But, uh… do you think you could set up a meeting with Kanderon for me to talk to her about it? I feel like I’m too likely to just retread grounds that other people have already covered if I don’t talk to someone about it.”

“I’m actually going to meet with Kanderon now if you want to come,” Hugh said. “If you can skip class, that is.”

Sabae nodded. “It’s just one of my basic healing classes. We’re covering common rashes right now. I’m more than happy to skip.”

While Sabae had sat in on any number of Hugh’s lessons with Kanderon, she’d never actually been down into Kanderon’s lair before. It felt strange, somehow— she was used to seeing the throne rooms of great powers, not their inner sanctums. Her family’s Stormseat, Indris’ throne room, the Skyhold Council Chamber, even the Herdsman’s now-destroyed hall of carved bone— they all featured grand views and vistas for great powers to overlook, to put the world beneath the ruler.

Kanderon’s inner sanctum, however, made the sphinx appear small. Sabae logically knew, as their platform descended through the mist surrounding the gears of the Index, that Kanderon’s floating crystal dais, and the other blue crystal platforms around it, were all immense, but they were dwarfed by the murky abyss they floated over.

The mist surrounding the index also put Sabae on edge. Whatever it was, it was not water vapor.

“Hugh,” Kanderon said, as they stepped onto her dais. “Sabae.”

“I hope it’s okay I brought Sabae,” Hugh said. “She wants to ask you some questions about her project if you have time.”

Kanderon scowled, but there wasn’t any real heat in the expression. “It could be worse, I suppose,” the sphinx muttered. “You could be bringing in flea-bitten stray dogs and asking if we could keep them.”

Sabae waited awkwardly for a few minutes as Kanderon set Hugh up with a series of planar affinity sense exercises meant to help him detect illusions— even sphinx eyes couldn’t penetrate all illusions. Planar affinity senses weren’t the most useful for penetrating illusions, but it was best to have a wide range of tools and tricks for dealing with illusionists.

Once that was done, Kanderon gestured with her chin for Sabae to follow her. One of the other crystal daises drifted over, and Sabae had to run to keep up with Kanderon’s slow saunter over to the other platform.

“So,” Kanderon said, once she’d settled down on the platform. “You want to overthrow the political system of an entire continent.”

“It sounds a bit insane when you put it like that,” Sabae said. “One girl against hundreds of beings each capable of leveling cities single-handedly.”

“It still sounds insane to me when I admit that same goal to myself,” Kanderon said, “and I’ve been at it for four centuries now. Do you know, though, what aspect of the great powers is both our greatest advantage and disadvantage?”

Sabae shook her head.

“The great powers fundamentally cannot work together for any great length of time, save against a large enough threat,” Kanderon said. “Give them a large, concrete threat, like the Sleeper in the Sands or an empire, and they will inevitably band together and crush it. I hold no delusions that my alliance with Indris and your grandmother will outlive Havath, but it is this very tendency of the great powers that will doom any empire or other blatant threat. On the flip side, if a threat remains nebulous enough, the squabbling of the great powers renders those very powers vulnerable to it.”

“That’s why you sponsor so many liches,” Sabae said.

Kanderon nodded. “No one lich is a threat to the system, but a hundred liches, a thousand? You cannot conquer a lich without destroying its demesne, which renders it unappealing as a potential conquest to any but the most violent of the great powers. The system of the great powers, as much as a political system can desire anything, desires to spawn more great powers. There are, however, only so many spaces for great powers in the political ecosystem. Four centuries ago, the great powers once ruled four-fifths of this continent, and much of the remainder was Emblin. Now, between my liches, the increasingly stable and powerful nation-states, the schemes of a half-dozen other powers like myself who hate the current system, and the Havath Dominion, that number is down to just over half.”

Sabae sagged. “So there’s not much point to me throwing in my hat too, then, the war’s already being won.”

“Nonsense,” Kanderon said. “It will take decades or centuries to finish yet, and it would be hubris even for me to think I could win it alone. Likewise, it’s foolish to think that my liches, the periodic culling of the worst great powers that Heliothrax and I engage in, or any of the other strategies used against the system would be enough to end it on their own. It will take countless mages, thinkers, and merchants to end the system, with a thousand different strategies. The games of the great powers must be undermined from a thousand directions with a thousand different tools to fall. You are young, yes, but you show promise. Besides, now that Havath has been foolish enough to attack me directly, their fall will come sooner rather than later, and there will be a great surge in the numbers of great powers for a time. It is a small price, to my mind— empires are a cure worse than the disease.”

Sabae noticed that the dais they were on was slowly drifting away from the one Hugh was practicing on.

“Why do you hate empires so much?” Sabae asked. “I mean, I get why you hate Ithos, and why you’d hate Havath as their self-proclaimed heirs, but…”

“For the same reason I oppose the great powers, only moreso,” Kanderon said. “Might is no worthy justification for conquest. Worse, all empires are fundamentally tools of extraction. They exist to enrich their heartlands— and most especially their capitals and their upper classes— by exploiting their conquered territories. Empires will claim any excuse to justify their rules, pointing to roads and dams they have built, but all those roads and dams exist only to further resource extraction in the first place. No one starves in Havath, but none improve their lot, either. Fewer than one in ten thousand ever rise from their laborers, craftsmages, and merchants to join the upper crust of Havathi society, and yet those few get paraded in front of the masses, pointed to as something to aspire to, as the ultimate goal of anyone hard-working enough. But just like the game of the great powers, Havath’s game is rigged. More, the good times only continue so long as an empire keeps expanding. When the Ithonian Empire began to run low on territory to conquer, on resources to extract from new conquests to subsidize more central territories, the people began to feel hunger more often and the boot on their necks more strongly. To stop expanding as an empire is to collapse, and no cunning stratagem on the part of the Havathi or their… advisers… will ever change that.”

Sabae noted Kanderon’s near slip and wondered who Kanderon meant by Havath’s advisers, or what she’d meant to say instead.

“And believe me,” Kanderon continued, “Havath has so many little strategies meant to keep themselves from suffering the fate of past empires. They instituted the duarch system to prevent the endless succession crises of a monarchy. They have a thousand checks and balances on their military and their great powers, to prevent coups. They have not, however, solved the need for an empire to expand, nor have they solved the inevitable ecological crises any empire faces. The solutions aren’t even that difficult, to be honest, yet they’ve proven impossibly out of reach for every empire in Anastis’ history.”

“And what’s the solution?” Sabae asked.

“To simply stop expanding and be content with the territory you have,” Kanderon said. “To accept that nothing is eternal, cities will rise and fall, and that trade routes and rivers will shift. The harder and longer you fight to delay these things, the more crippling the consequences will be when you inevitably lose control of the situation.”

Kanderon smiled, a little cruelly. “But, I suppose, they wouldn’t be empires if they could accept these things. They crave a monolithic, holistic answer to bring stability to the world, but those sorts of simplistic answers are a delusion, self-serving motivated reasoning of the highest order. The only true solutions to complex systemic problems are piecemeal, multi-pronged answers, and they will vary wildly from forest to desert, from city to city, and even between neighborhoods within a single city. Life is messy and civilization even messier. If your answer is ever any less messy, you’re fooling yourself. And also…”

Kanderon paused, seemingly lost in thought.

“And what?” Sabae asked.

“Hmmm?” Kanderon replied. “Ah, right. Parades. Another reason I hate empires. There’s little I despise more than military parades, but empires are obsessed with them. Ceaseless, obnoxious parades, dedicated to their own overblown sense of importance and glory.”

Sabae just stared at Kanderon.

“What?” Kanderon asked. “Yes, it’s petty, but when despising something, it is important to cultivate both high-minded and low-minded reasons to do so. Over the centuries, I’ve found that petty spite is one of the few joys that never fades.”

Sabae gave the sphinx a skeptical look, then cleared her throat. “I… think I still find the great powers to be a more problematic system in general, but I certainly don’t need convincing that Havath needs to fall— if for no other reason than they’ve tried repeatedly to kill me and my friends.”

“See, you’re starting to get it,” Kanderon said. “It’s important to have petty reasons too.”

“I’d hardly call someone attempting to kill me a petty motivation,” Sabae said.

Kanderon shrugged, which was a truly impressive motion from a being as large as her. “You will someday, once it happens often enough.”

“I just… don’t know where to go from here,” Sabae said, deciding to ignore that line of reasoning. “I’ve read dozens of works of philosophy, political theory, and history over the last few months, and I feel as though I’m coming up blank, though.”

“Have you read about the Radhan trade route manipulation, intended to economically advantage stable nations and city-states over great powers and empires?” Kanderon asked. “They consider both of the latter to be a danger to them— they’re a people endlessly paranoid over persecution, and not without reason, especially after the Ithonians almost destroyed their language with the Tongue Eater.”

“I’ve read speculation that they were doing that, but most scholars simply seem to think they were just trading where they felt safest, not enacting some sort of grand scheme,” Sabae said.

Kanderon shrugged again. “A little of both. They have long memories, but also plenty of enemies in the here and now. The Radhan tend to be remarkably well-behaved citizens and visitors, but the powerful often distrust them— they tend to carry new ideas with them, and empires always despise anyone nomadic. Hmmm. Have you read Nevin the Scrivener’s essay?”

Sabae nodded. “Alustin managed to find me a copy when I asked. I suppose the idea of building countless enchanted wheels to drain the aether and turn the world into a mana desert like Emblin would solve the problem of the great powers, but I think it’s another cure that’s worse than the disease. Life without magic would be dreary and miserable. For one thing, I can’t imagine how bad poverty would get in the great cities if no-one could cast contraceptive cantrips.”

Kanderon looked slightly uncomfortable at that. “Yes, it’s a fairly crippling issue with his proposal, but it’s an excellent example of lateral thinking to solve the problem. You shouldn’t neglect magical solutions to the problem— my sponsorship of liches is as much a magical solution as it is a political solution. Still, perhaps…”

The sphinx’s tail switched back and forth a few times. Sabae could feel the vibrations through the crystal below her whenever it hit the platform. Then Kanderon turned in place and stalked over to one side of the platform. A segment of crystal rose up and after a moment Sabae realized it was a bookshelf.

Kanderon levitated a thin volume, small enough to fit into a belt pouch, over to Sabae. The nondescript leather cover was blank, as was the spine. She gave the sphinx a puzzled look, but Kanderon just watched her patiently.

Sabae opened the book up to the first page, then dropped it with a gasp and scrambled backward away from it.

“It doesn’t bite,” Kanderon said.

“I thought this was a myth or at least that all the copies had been destroyed!” Sabae said.

“No, there are a few still floating about. I’ve collected a dozen or so copies over the years— that one is the most accurate and complete text, and I’ve even added a few pages of notes of my own over the years,” Kanderon said.

“There are countless great powers who would kill me if they even knew I’d touched this book, let alone read it,” Sabae said.

“So don’t tell anyone you’ve read it,” Kanderon replied.

“Just someone knowing you had a copy of this would start a war!” Sabae said.

“So don’t tell anyone you’ve read it,” Kanderon repeated.

“This is why you moved us out of earshot of Hugh, isn’t it?” Sabae asked.

“That, and I didn’t want him getting distracted from his practice,” Kanderon said. “Read it, it won’t take long. I’m going to go work with Hugh on his lessons.”

With that, Kanderon lifted into the air, not bothering to flap her wings this time, hardly generating a breeze. Sabae idly tried to figure out whether there was a reason why Kanderon flapped sometimes when she flew, but other times seemed to forget to flap entirely. For that matter, Sabae still wasn’t entirely sure how Kanderon flew at all— it certainly wasn’t by wing or wind.

If Sabae had to guess, the flapping was totally unnecessary, and that Kanderon did it instinctively. She’d once had real, flesh-and-blood wings, after all.

Then she realized she was distracting herself. She sighed, pulled a pillow out of her storage tattoo, then sat down and picked up the book, opening to the title page again.

Davragam’s Census .

There had been shadow wars fought over this book— or so the rumors claimed. Sabae had never really believed them before.

According to the rumors, Solit Davragam had been a nobody. A minor scholar at Lemannen’s fabled university, he’d been a clever, though not brilliant, mathematician, and a devoted amateur historian. He was no mage of note— he’d only had a weak dust affinity that he used to tidy his office.

The voice of Sabae’s healing instructor popped into her head, reminding her that most dust affinities were actually affinities for dead bits of skin that fell off people constantly. Sabae shook her head— she had no interest in thinking about lectures on rashes at the moment.

Davragam had, for no discernible reason, decided to write a work of history. No one had taken any notice at first— he’d commissioned the university’s ink and paper mages to make a couple dozen copies to give to friends and correspondents.

He was dead within twenty-four hours, supposedly killed either by the dragon that funded the university or one of the Champions of Tsarnassus. Everyone who knew Davragam personally was hunted down and killed, and every copy of the Census was tracked down and destroyed. Heliothrax and Dorsas Ine actually both participated in the project, and the two rival great powers had never been known to cooperate in anything before.

In the century and a half since, even a rumor of a copy of Davragam’s Census emerging was enough to bring a great power down on your head. Whatever the scholar had uncovered, it had been enough to bring down the wrath of half the continent.

Storms, even talking about Davragam was dangerous. Sabae had only heard a few quiet rumors while she was living in Stormseat, but most people thought Davragam had never even existed. There was no hard evidence of him, his book, or the purges, and the idea of Heliothrax cooperating with Dorsas Ine was as unlikely as Kanderon cooperating with the Havath Dominion— Heliothrax had spent centuries fighting a one-dragon crusade against the most monstrous great powers. She considered herself humanity’s defender, and Dorsas Ine was the definition of rapacious greed. They’d fought one another to a standstill dozens of times.

There was no way that the Census could be real, no secret that could possibly warrant the collaboration of so many great powers for so long.

Yet there it was, sitting in her hands.

Sabae took a deep breath, turned the page, and started reading.

Sabae had time to read the thin volume twice before Hugh’s lesson was over. It wasn’t difficult— the book was mostly just tables of dates, numbers, and facts, with a few conclusions and notes on methods added in. Kanderon’s notes at the end extended the census forward from the date of authorship to about ten years ago, without adding any commentary.

She probably could have read it a third time, but she was too busy trying to wrap her head around what she’d just learned.

“That’s it?” she asked Kanderon when the sphinx returned and took the Census from her. “That little volume…”

“Shows how fragile the whole edifice really is, how easy it would be to end most of the great powers,” Kanderon said.

“Why… haven’t you acted on it, if that’s your goal?” Sabae asked.

“Because it might also result in the rise of empires or simple mass chaos with nothing to replace the great powers,” Kanderon said. “I want to replace the great powers with a less brutal system, not replace it with something worse.”

“We don’t know it would be that bad,” Sabae said.

“No,” Kanderon said. “We don’t. And I’m unwilling to take that risk yet. You understand what an act of trust this is on my part, don’t you? Endeavor not to disappoint me.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Sabae said. “I almost wish you hadn’t shown me this.”

Kanderon started to respond, then clacked her mouth shut and looked upwards. Sabae could see her pupils narrowing into slits.

The Census shot over to the crystal bookshelf, which lowered itself back into the dais. Abruptly, Sabae felt herself levitating into the air. She started to panic for a moment, thinking Kanderon regretted showing her the Census and had decided to dispose of her until she saw Hugh floating up into the air as well.

Then both lurched over to Kanderon’s back. She and Hugh crashed into Kanderon’s fur side by side, just behind the sphinx’s head.

“Hold on tight,” Kanderon said and launched herself straight upwards.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Bombardment

Hugh desperately clung to Kanderon’s fur as the sphinx accelerated upwards at absurd speeds, Sabae holding on just behind him.

They raced through the Index, the gears, axles, and levers folding away from them, then erupted from its mist into the library.

Hovering shelves and floating islands above them slid out of the way, leaving a massive, empty column of air leading straight upwards. Even the roving flocks of grimoires frantically flapped out of the way. Kanderon raced past level after level of books, giving Hugh a few glimpses of startled faces and tottering piles of books knocked off-balance by the rapid movement of everything floating in the center of the library.

Then they were hurtling straight towards the ceiling, and Hugh found himself screaming, sure that Kanderon had gone mad and was about to smash into the stone.

Then a crack in the ceiling seemed to simply open wide and swallow them, and they were flying upwards through a pitch-black rocky tunnel.

Hugh didn’t understand what his affinity senses were telling him for an instant. His crystal affinity sense was telling his body that the walls were closing in on him, that he should already have been smashed to a pulp, while his planar affinity sense was also telling him something else entirely.

Then, as the tunnel bent slightly, he abruptly understood.

The crack hadn’t opened up at all. It was a tiny, hair-thin crevice, in fact. A gnat would have trouble fitting into it.

But there was also a pocket space folded into it, a tunnel that Kanderon could fit her massive bulk through. This was how Kanderon entered and exited the library, and Hugh suspected she had similar planar tunnels running throughout the mountain.

Then they erupted into the sunlight, and Hugh was momentarily blinded in the glare.

When he could see again, they were in the air above the mountain, swinging in for a landing atop the council chamber. Hugh could feel the asymmetric distance gradient barrier around the flat top of the mountain ease as Kanderon flew through it, and his stomach shifted uncomfortably as they passed through.

Four members of the Skyhold Council were already there, talking business. Headmaster Tarik, the former traitor Anders vel Siraf, the ceramic mage Eddin Slane, and a woman Hugh didn’t recognize. They seemed startled by Kanderon’s arrival.

“You seem alarmed, Kanderon,” Headmaster Tarik said. “What’s going on?”

“The Havathi are sending an envoy,” Kanderon said. “We have a few minutes. Send for any of the council members in their chambers below.”

Eddin Slane nodded and flew down the stairs, standing on a pair of ceramic plates hovering a foot or so off the ground.

Hugh and Sabae climbed off Kanderon’s back and levitated down to the flattened mountain-top as Kanderon conferred with Tarik and Anders.

“Should we head below?” Sabae asked.

Kanderon turned to consider them, then shook her head. “No, you may stay. You may find this rather educational. Stay next to Anders— this shouldn’t turn violent, but just in case. Hugh, if things go wrong, set off a starfire beacon and run for the stairs with Sabae.”

“Who are they sending?” Tarik asked.

“Amalda Veil,” Kanderon replied.

Hugh and Sabae exchanged confused looks as they walked over to Anders.

“Who’s Amalda Veil?” Hugh asked Anders.

“Havathi archmage,” Anders replied. “Absurdly hard to kill but an honorable sort. She’s got a crystal affinity like you and Kanderon, paired with a greater shadow affinity.”

The next few minutes were a blur of movement as Council members and clerks assembled. Hugh took that time to observe the siege works around them.

He struggled to make out all the details, but the Havathi had completed a series of impressive fortresses between their two ward-walls, and there was quite a lot of activity between the forts. It was also strange seeing the desert so empty— there were no ships sailing to or from Skyhold, with the Havathi in the way.

Soon, though, a total of nine Council members were lined up facing north, four to each side of Kanderon. Hugh and Sabae stood behind Anders, gathered with a small group of clerks.

There weren’t any guards. They simply weren’t necessary. You didn’t make it to the Skyhold Council without being a frankly terrifying archmage. Any one of them could crush Hugh and Sabae simultaneously in a straight fight.

It wasn’t long before Hugh caught sight of a dot flying towards them, right above the dividing line between the desert and the mountains.

The dot soon resolved itself into a pitch-black figure standing atop a floating disc, who paused when they reached Skyhold’s dome ward.

Kanderon twitched one of her forepaws, and a triangular segment of the ward dissolved into orange light. It reformed a moment later as the figure passed through, then the process repeated itself twice more.

Then the figure came to a halt in front of them, hovering in mid-air just outside the distance gradient barrier. The disc they were hovering on was an enchanted bronze hovering platform, and they were completely covered in some dark, non-metallic armor.

Hugh only took a moment to recognize what the material their armor was made of.

Aether crystal, just like Kanderon’s wings or Mackerel. Rather than green or blue, it was a deep, smoky palette of different shades of black.

The helmet split apart after a moment, and revealed a kind-faced woman in her late forties.

“Kanderon,” the mage’s voice rang out— not from her, but from the shadows of the people assembled on the mountain-top.

Kanderon didn’t respond, but her pupils narrowed dangerously.

“Kanderon Crux, High Librarian of Skyhold, Duarch Locke sends his greetings,” Amalda continued.

The sphinx’s pupils relaxed slightly, but only slightly. “Veil. I’m surprised Icola let Locke off his leash enough to lead your little siege.”

Amalda visibly struggled not to get angry at that. “The Duarch sent me to offer you a peaceful way out of this. For all that you are outnumbered, we recognize that we cannot take this mountain without significant loss of life. Your time will come eventually, but it needs not be this day. All you need to do is hand over the Exile Splinter.”

To Hugh’s surprise, it was Headmaster Tarik who responded. “The Splinter goes in Skyhold’s vault, and it’s never coming out. It’s far too dangerous to be used again by anyone.”

“I think the world would breathe a little easier if it were held in trust by someone who hadn’t already used it,” Amalda said.

“We’ve never used any of the other city-destroying weapons in our trust,” Tarik said. “Why would this be any different?”

“The others can all be defended against,” Amalda said. “There is no defense against the Exile Splinter, and its very existence is a threat to our whole world. The Dominion knows what the Splinter almost brought to our world. The Duarchs intend to remove it from our world entirely, rather than risk a repeat.”

“I know precisely what you intend to do with it,” Kanderon said, “and I will not allow it. Even if Havath’s masters don’t use it here on Anastis, they will either use it elsewhere or threaten its use for their own gain.”

“Havath has no masters!” Amalda shouted. “I will not listen to your slander. We exist to free the peoples of this world from the tyranny of monsters like you!”

Kanderon smiled cruelly at that. “It seems the Duarchs don’t tell you everything, do they? No matter. Tell Locke I refuse his demands, and that I look forward to your forces dashing themselves uselessly against Skyhold’s wards.”

Amalda Veil snarled, and for a moment, Hugh was convinced the woman was going to attack, even as outnumbered as she was, even facing Kanderon. Then she mastered her expression and nodded. “On your head be it, Kanderon.”

Before she flew off on her bronze platform, she ran her gaze across the assembled crowd, and Hugh could have sworn her gaze rested on him for a moment longer than the rest.

Then her helmet reformed, and she flew back out of Skyhold’s ward, which opened to let her pass.

The crowd erupted in arguments the instant she’d passed outside the third barrier, only to be interrupted by Kanderon.

“Silence. Wait and watch.”

Everyone promptly settled down, though Hugh was a little shocked that none of the council-members protested. Kanderon was by far the most powerful member of the Skyhold Council, but she wasn’t a despot— she still had to maneuver through the politics inside the mountain.

None of the councilors made a peep in protest, though.

Amalda Veil dwindled in the distance until even Hugh’s sphinx eyes couldn’t make her out. The wait dragged on for long minutes after that.

And then, in the distance, the Havathi ward rippled as something bright passed through it.

A fireball, one that must have been the size of a horse, at least, to be visible from this distance in the day.

It flew towards them, rapidly growing in size, then hammered against the outer ward with a roar. It didn’t even punch through the outermost and weakest barrier.

Then, in the distance, the Havathi barrier began to ripple all around the immense ring. Dozens, then hundreds of projectiles began to arc across the leagues separating the Havathi wards from Skyhold. More fireballs arced into the air alongside great chunks of stone. Canvas-winged ballista bolts rode wind-currents towards Skyhold. Lightning bolts seared over the surface of the desert, leaving fulgurite crusts leading between the two wards. Immense shards of ice, moving faster than the eye could track, shattered against Skyhold’s wards.

Within moments, the entire mountaintop echoed with the noise of the bombardment. Shattering stone competed with thunderclaps and the clang of metal against the wards. Most of the siege spells failed to penetrate past the first barrier, but a few punched through to the second or third barriers. Each hole quickly healed itself back up, and even concentrated bombardments in one spot failed to get through.

Hugh expected the bombardment to end after a few minutes— siege mages could only fire off a small number of spells before exhausting their mana reservoirs. The most powerful could only fire a single, obscenely powerful spell that would empty their mana reservoir entirely.

“How many siege mages do they have?” Hugh asked.

“I can’t hear you!” Sabae shouted.

“How many siege mages does Havath have?” Hugh yelled back.

Anders, apparently having overheard Hugh yelling over the din, turned to face them. “Hundreds, if not thousands! Their army and mage corps out there outnumber the entire population of Skyhold!”

Hugh exchanged terrified glances with Sabae at that. He’d known the forces assailing them were impressive, but that was… something else entirely.

He glanced over at Kanderon and wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or terrified by the hungry smile on her face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Slingstones

Sabae’s birthday feast was a muted affair. They’d planned to have it out on one of Skyhold’s balconies, overlooking the Endless Erg and the lower slopes of the mountain, but they had to move it inside to a small feast hall instead— they would have had to shout over the bombardment.

Even inside the mountain, they could hear the rumble of the bombardment, like thunder just before a storm rolled in.

Hugh did his best to stay cheerful for Sabae’s sake as the small crowd mingled and waited for the food to arrive, but it was a struggle.

Sabae did cheer up considerably when Venta arrived, though, breaking away from her conversation with Hugh, Gram, and Alustin to go greet the gorgon girl.

“So… do you think she has a chance?” Gram asked.

“Look, the other first years are moving away from them to let them talk,” Alustin said.

“That’s a good sign,” Gram said. “Though… can humans and gorgons actually, you know…”

“Oh, yes,” Alustin said with a broad smile. “Yes, indeed.”

“You sound as if you have personal experience there,” Gram said.

Hugh rolled his eyes and wandered off to try and find Talia.

He passed Artur, Luthe and Luthe’s husband, and Gram’s wife, Haela, who were all trying to distract Yolanda from the bombardment. It was working fairly well— the toddler was utterly engrossed with the dancing bubbles of oil Haela was levitating in the air. Hugh actually found himself staring at the oil for a minute or two before he tore himself away.

Godrick was over by one wall, cornered by Tristan— his friend seemed a little overwhelmed by the redhead’s obvious flirting. Godrick caught Hugh’s eye, then said something to Tristan and slipped away.

“Thanks fer the rescue,” Godrick said. “Definitely needed a breather fer a minute.”

“Not interested in him?” Hugh asked.

Godrick shrugged. “Tristan’s cute, and he did help me with mah armor, but ah just find him a bit overwhelmin’ in large doses. He’s almost as big a flirt as Alustin, and ah think ah’m lookin’ fer somethin’ a little more serious than just a fling at the moment.”

“I could run interference if you need me to,” Hugh offered. “Come over, start a conversation about wards or something.”

“Ah didn’t say ah wasn’t interested,” Godrick said. “Ah just haven’t made up mah mind, yet. Ah’ll keep that in mind just in case. Definitely appreciate it, though— ah know how little yeh like ta’ get involved with social complications.”

“You could just tell him all that,” Hugh said.

Godrick shrugged. “Easier said than done. Yeh know most people don’t flirt like yeh and Talia, by just throwing yer emotions straight at the other person, right?”

“No we don’t,” Hugh said.

“Yeah, yeh definitely do,” Godrick said. “Most people don’t just honestly list out all their feelin’s like they’re trying ta’ bludgeon the other person ta’ death with them.”

“It’s not that weird,” Hugh said. “More people should try it, it’s a lot easier and less stressful.”

“Never has something less true been said,” Godrick replied. He patted Hugh on the back. “Ah’m goin’ back in, wish me luck!”

“It’s really not that weird,” Hugh said as Godrick headed back over to Tristan.

“Yes it is!” Godrick called back.

He wandered through the crowd for a little longer, then stopped when he realized he was taking a strange detour that he didn’t need to around an empty spot in the crowd.

Hugh frowned and focused, and Loarna abruptly popped into view, surrounded by her usual thin cloud of chalk dust.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Hugh said.

“You sent me an invite,” Loarna said quietly.

“Well, yes, but you’re famously reclusive,” Hugh said.

Loarna shrugged, not looking at him. “I like being around people, they’re just… hard to talk to.”

“I definitely understand that,” Hugh said with fervor. “People are too much for me all the time.”

Loarna nodded.

“I’m glad you came,” Hugh said.

Loarna smiled faintly and actually met his eyes for a moment. “Thank you.”

Then there was a faint shimmering in the air around her, and she vanished again.

Hugh smiled into the empty air, then turned to look for Talia again.

He finally found Talia sitting at one of the tables by herself, drawing in Mackerel’s pages. He leaned over her shoulder, then blinked in surprise.

“Talia, are you teaching my spellbook how to draw obscene images?” Hugh asked.

“They’re not that obscene,” Talia said, smiling.

He rolled his eyes, then leaned in to kiss Talia.

He chose to ignore the rude images Mackerel was flickering across its pages.

“That’s new,” Talia said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. It was getting long enough again that Talia would have to start tying it back soon. “You’re usually too embarrassed for a proper kiss in public.”

“I guess it just doesn’t seem like that big a deal, compared to, you know,” Hugh said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the bombardment.

“Maybe I should have found a way to provoke the Havathi into attacking sooner,” Talia said. “You know, I… Hold on, is that a pinecone?”

Hugh blinked at Talia’s change of topic, then looked down at Mackerel.

He’d covered his pages with drawings of people with pinecones for heads.

“Alright, seriously, what is your obsession with pinecones about?” Hugh asked his spellbook.

Mackerel sent a long series of confusing images into Hugh’s mind. It took Hugh a minute to sort them all out, but when he did, he sighed heavily.

“What?” Talia asked.

“I’m pretty sure Mackerel thinks that people are a type of tree,” he said.

“What?” Talia asked.

“He never really saw many trees until this summer,” Hugh said. “And, uh, I guess he thinks that pinecones are people eggs? I’m having a lot of trouble following his reasoning.”

“That is utterly and completely insane, and I think it’s probably best if we just ignore it,” Talia said. “What were we talking about?”

Hugh smirked, then leaned in to kiss Talia again. Then he saw something from the corner of his eye, and turned to see Thaddeus huddled in one corner, half-tucked behind a statue of a dragon on its haunches.

“Can I get back to you in a few minutes?” Hugh asked Talia.

She gave him a confused look, then turned to follow his gaze. “What… oh. Of course.”

Hugh sighed, gave Mackerel a quick scratch, then strode over to Thaddeus.

“Not a fan of the bombardment?” Hugh asked.

Thaddeus shook his head, then cringed at a particularly loud impact against the wards. “During Ataerg’s coup, a piece of rubble crashed through our neighborhood— it tore our neighbor’s house free from the cliff, sent the ledge it was carved into plummeting down to the desert.”

“Skyhold’s wards can handle the bombardment just fine,” Hugh said.

“I know,” Thaddeus said, not looking at Hugh.

There was an awkward pause for a moment as Hugh tried to think of a way to comfort the first year.

“What happens if the Havathi make it into the mountain?” Thaddeus burst out. “Me and the others don’t have affinities, and there’s no way we can defend ourselves without them. Venta, maybe, but…”

Hugh started to open his mouth to assure Thaddeus that there was no way that would ever happen when a thought occurred to him. Instead, he reached into his storage tattoo and pulled out a long strip of leather and handed it to Thaddeus.

“A sling?” Thaddeus asked, looking skeptical. “What’s that going to do against mages?”

Hugh reached into his tattoo again and pulled out a bulging belt pouch. He levitated his drink in the air next to him, popped the pouch open, and pulled out a quartz marble, engraved with elaborate ward spellforms.

“This,” Hugh said, “is a wardstone. Nasty little thing I first designed before I pacted with Kanderon. Launch this out of the sling, it’ll explode with enough force to break bones and send a grown man flying, if not worse.”

He put the wardstone back in the pouch, buttoned it shut, then tossed the whole thing to Thaddeus. The first-year almost fumbled it, then gave Hugh a panicked look.

“Relax,” Hugh said. “Dropping it isn’t enough to set them off. I built a function into the ward that makes it resistant to breaking unless it’s traveling faster than a certain speed— easy with the sling, but there’s no way you could even throw it fast enough for that.”

“Are… are you sure you can part with this?” Thaddeus asked.

Hugh shrugged. “I don’t really need the sling anymore— I can use my crystal affinity to launch wardstones, and they don’t take long for me to make anymore. You know how to use a sling, right?”

Thaddeus nodded. “I used to hunt sparrows with my brothers on Theras Tel’s rooftops.”

“If you want to test a couple of those out, make sure to use a proper test room,” Hugh said.

“Thank you,” Thaddeus said, quietly. “I’ll… leave you alone and let you get back to your friends.”

Hugh snagged his drink out of the air, then paused. “I think I’m going to build a noise-canceling ward to block out the bombardment. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

“That would… be really nice,” Thaddeus said.

Hugh shrugged. “Want to watch me craft the ward?”

Thaddeus actually smiled at that and nodded eagerly. To Hugh’s surprise, Thaddeus actually stayed focused as Hugh crystallized the ward in the surface of the floor around the edges of the ballroom, listening attentively as Hugh pointed out the different parts of the ward and their functions. And when he did ask questions, they were all relevant, thoughtful ones.

Hugh decided, then and there, that the next mentorship session he had with the first-year warlocks wasn’t going to just be more looking over potential pacting partners.

He was going to be bringing chalk and a pile of beginner’s wardcrafting books.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Endless Cacophony

The bombardment never let up, just kept battering against the wards in an endless cacophony. Day and night, the Havathi siege spells kept hammering against Skyhold’s wards, unanswered by Skyhold’s own mages. Skyhold had a handful of siege mages, but there had been little demand for siege mages from Skyhold in the past. Hiring normal Skyhold mercenary mages was easily excused by a nation— they could be easily claimed to be for defense, construction, or for hunting monsters. Hiring siege mages, however, was an immediate recipe for suspicion from your neighbors— it was practically an invitation for attack.

So thanks to a simple absence of economic demand, Skyhold lacked the ability to exchange siege spells with Havath. Their few dozen siege mages were powerful, but simply didn’t measure up to Havath’s. Some of Skyhold’s archmages could produce spells on par with siege mages— notably Headmaster Tarik and Kanderon— but they needed to stay ready for a serious attempt on the mountain, rather than this morale-damaging exercise.

And damage morale it most certainly did. The confidence instilled in the mountain dwellers by the wardrise ceremony and by Kanderon’s annihilation of Krakat Ambrin was rapidly draining away.

Half the inhabitants of Skyhold were staggering around fatigued with bags under their eyes, and many others were twitching neurotically every time another spell impacted— the noise could be heard in all but the deepest, most fortified levels of Skyhold, but there was no room to move the inhabitants there, because those levels contained Skyhold’s enchanters, alchemy labs, and other secure magical facilities.

Wardcrafters found themselves badly overworked crafting noise wards. The endless project was just made worse by the fact that all but the most skillfully crafted sound wards degraded rapidly. Wards dealt poorly with sound and vibration.

Hugh put in all the time he could to crafting and repairing sound wards throughout the mountain, but it was never enough. He found himself looking forward most to Emmenson Drees’ classes— the sound mage could easily suppress the noise of the bombardment.

In the meantime, other attempts on Skyhold redoubled. They all failed, but their sheer frequency and the variety of strategies used prevented their failure from offering too much of a morale boost to Skyhold’s defenders.

Several more attempts by burrowing mages similar to the one weeks back were made, but they all ended as horribly for Havath as the first. A group of illusionists attempted to sneak close to Skyhold’s ward and plant a series of alchemical explosives next to it, but Skyhold’s own illusionists detected the attempt, and Headmaster Tarik dropped a boulder the size of a large dragon on them.

Hugh was particularly amazed by that one— Artur couldn’t have easily even lifted a boulder that size. Even Kanderon seemed mildly impressed.

There were at least a dozen other ideas attempted by the Havath. A high-altitude bombardment overflight by dragons carrying siege mages was burnt out of the sky by Kanderon, who simply cut them down with a thick beam of starfire bright enough to outshine the sun for a few moments. Alchemical-explosive packed sandships were sailed at high speed towards Skyhold, only to be annihilated by Skyhold’s handful of siege mages.

Most impressive, however, had been the tornado summoned by Havath’s weather mages.

Hugh had been cuddling with Talia in his room when the roar of the tornado replaced the sounds of the bombardment. Without a word, they both moved over to his window, unsure of what was causing the noise.

He’d had seen dust devils and water spouts before, but this was something on a different scale altogether. This tornado spanned at least a quarter of a league in width, and it roared like some unimaginably huge beast with bottomless lungs, never needing to take a breath. It was the golden shade of the sand it carried on the edges, but shaded to almost black in the center, even in broad daylight. It slowly rumbled across the sands, leaving a massive trough in its wake.

Hugh and Talia exchanged glances, then wordlessly got dressed.

In retrospect, they probably should have retreated deeper inside the mountain, just in case, but instead they leapt out of Hugh’s window levitating down past the largely-empty section of rock down to a more heavily-inhabited segment of the mountain, packed with windows, balconies, and other structures. They eventually landed on a small empty balcony that appeared not to have any door opening inside the mountain— Hugh suspected that some stone mage who could also fly had carved it for themselves in the past.

The tornado slowly crept closer in fits and starts. Skyhold’s wind mages were clearly trying to hold it back, but it wasn’t working very well. Hugh and Talia must have stood on the balcony for a solid twenty minutes, watching the tornado slowly battle its way towards Skyhold.

Then a section of Talia’s tattoos, just over her left wrist, started to light up blue.

“Talia, what are you…” Hugh started.

“It’s not me,” Talia said. “If I were using that much magic, all my tattoos would be igniting, not just this one segment. This one lights up when…”

“When what?” Hugh asked.

“When someone’s using a lot of fire mana,” Talia said. “Way more than a normal fire mage can handle.”

“How much is that?” Hugh asked.

“That much,” Talia said, then pointed upwards.

Hugh followed her finger upwards. Nothing happened for a moment until Hugh realized he could see a faint shimmer in the air high above them.

Then that shimmer erupted in an absolutely massive column of fire, stretching from the top of Skyhold to the tornado. It passed straight through Skyhold’s ward without disrupting it.

Even two-thirds of the way down the mountain, Hugh could feel the heat of the fire pounding against his skin. The twisting, writhing column of fire was at least a ship’s-length in width and looked hot enough to melt steel.

It impacted the tornado about three-quarters of the way up, and all the flame was immediately sucked into the funnel. The twisting column of flame dragged itself upwards until it was punching into the amorphous cloud of sand atop the funnel.

Then a fiery glow erupted from inside the tornado, and a heartbeat later it simply started to fall apart. Sand began falling back to the desert like rain, and the great column of flame simply cut out at the source.

“How…” Hugh started, then gulped. “No, who did that?”

Talia smiled at him. “Isn’t it obvious? Clan Castis.”

Hugh gaped at her. “ How ? That was practically a great power level spell!”

“Well, yeah,” Talia said. “Probably took every member of Clan Castis other than me here in Skyhold, but I’ve seen bigger fire spells from my clan before. There’s a reason Clan Castis has a reputation as the most powerful fire mages on the continent, Hugh.”

“Are you saying your clan is some kind of communal great power?” Hugh demanded. “That’s… there’s no such thing as a communal great power. It doesn’t work that way.”

Talia scowled at him. “Well, clearly it does. Did you think I was lying about the stories I told you about my family?”

Hugh felt his heart drop at Talia’s angry expression, and he tried to think of some way to explain that he hadn’t thought she was lying, that he just hadn’t understood exactly the scale of Clan Castis’ magic.

Hugh felt himself starting to panic, felt part of his brain insist Talia was about to break up with him.

Then Hugh realized he was being ridiculous, and forced himself to calm down. “No, I didn’t think you were lying. I guess I just didn’t really try hard enough to understand. I’m sorry, Talia.”

Talia’s frown remained on her face for a few moments longer, then slowly faded. “I guess it’s one of those things you kind of have to see to believe.”

“So how did your family destroy a tornado with fire, exactly?” Hugh asked. “I thought air magic generally beat fire magic in a direct fight.”

“Whirlwinds require hot air below and cold air above, along with a few other things,” Talia said. “The hot air wants to rise, the cold air wants to sink. The hot air spins upward along the outside, the cold air sinks down the middle. Heat up the air above a whirlwind enough, the air currents collapse. Wind mages controlling them are often hovering in the middle as well, so if there were any in there, they got incinerated, though that’s secondary— once wind mages start a tornado, it stays self-sufficient for quite a while, they’re only there to steer it.”

“So, your family’s really a communal great power?” Hugh said.

“Well, not my family, but my clan, sure,” Talia said. “When Alustin first chose me, I thought that was the reason why, especially when I found out about Sabae’s grandmother— at least until you told us your story.”

“So out of the four of us, I’m the only nobody,” Hugh said. “Everyone else comes from proper power.”

“You’re not a nobody,” Talia said. “You’re Hugh bloody Stormward, and you’re well on your way to becoming a legend. I ever hear you calling yourself a nobody again, I will get angry at you.”

Hugh smiled, then hugged Talia.

They spent the next hour together quietly watching the Havathi siege spells break against Skyhold’s wards.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Midwinter Approaches

By the time Godrick’s birthday arrived, a couple of weeks after Sabae’s, everyone in the mountain was exhausted, their nerves shot. Skyhold would be a pile of rubble from the bombardment if it weren’t for its defensive ward, and the other attempts at breaching the shield continued unabated as Midwinter approached.

Not once did Havath send their great powers against the mountain.

Godrick’s birthday was, by any standards, a bust. Even with Hugh crafting a fresh ward to block out the ceaseless noise of the bombardment, everyone was exhausted, stressed, and on edge.

Godrick’s presents were all fine— Sabae and Talia both got him books, his Da got him a collection of rare and unusual minerals to practice his magic with, and Hugh had crafted him a new faceplate for his armor. This one was also grown out of quartz, but included wards not only for filtering out dust and toxins, but also contained structural wards along the edges that protected the faceplate from direct impacts. It also was built to cause minimal interference with Hugh and Talia’s wards— Hugh was modifying all their wards to play nice together.

No, it was the people that were the problem. Everyone was being short with one another, prone to taking everything the wrong way. Tristan’s flirting just came across as annoying, rather than flattering. Jokes all seemed to fall flat, and the night ended depressingly early.

Hugh, Talia, and Sabae stayed later than everyone else, trying to put on a bit of good cheer, but it was clear they were faking it for Godrick’s sake. After they’d left, it was just Godrick and his father.

“Night’s still young, yeh want ta’ get some trainin’ in?” Artur asked. “We can test yer elemental some more, run it through its paces?”

Godrick shook his head. “Not tonight, Da, not really feelin’ it.”

Artur eyed him for a moment, then gestured for him to follow him out onto the balcony.

Hugh’s sound ward ended at the edge of the balcony, and the noise of the bombardment was already leaking through, there. The view of the mountains was half obscured by the flames and poison gases of the Havathi bombardment, though it was worse on the desert side of the mountain.

“Ah’m sorry if ah’ve been pushin’ yeh too hard,” Artur said.

Godrick shrugged. “Ah’ve been pushin’ mahself just as hard.”

“Ah just want yeh and yer friends ta’ be able ta’ take care a’ yerselves and each other,” Artur said.

“Not much we could do against that,” Godrick said, gesturing towards the bombardment.

“Not much ah could do against that either,” Artur admitted. “Ah doubt ah could fight mah way halfway ta’ the enemy wards. Siege mages are a bit a’ a weakness a’ mine. But, then, neither a’ us will have ta’. Come Midwinter, the Exile Splinter will be locked away and this will all be over.”

“They’re goin’ ta’ attack fer real before then, aren’t they?” Godrick asked.

Artur tugged on his beard. “Ah’d be shocked if they didn’t.”

“Can we hold them off?” Godrick asked.

“With Kanderon on our side? Unless Havath has a big surprise waitin’, without a doubt,” Artur said.

“Is she really that powerful?” Godrick asked.

“Yeh haven’t seen the real great powers fight yet, Godrick,” Artur said. “Ah’m not the only one in Skyhold who could claim the title if ah wanted— Aedan, Tarik, and a couple others as well. Sulassa could have, before she got killed. None a’ us could hold the title long on our own, though. Most great powers die young. There are always new ones ready ta’ take their place when they die. Monsters like Kanderon or Ilinia, though… they’re on a whole different level. Ah saw Kanderon fight fer real once— she’s a force a’ nature. At mah best, ah’d only last heartbeats in a fight against her or someone like her. Even they don’t operate on their own— Ilinia is the product a’ generations a’ Kaen Das plannin’.”

The two of them stood silently for a while, watching the siege spells break against the wards. In its own terrifying way, it was actually rather beautiful.

“Did yeh ever think about teachin’ someone else yer armor, instead a’ just me?” Godrick asked.

“With our armor,” Artur interrupted. “Not mine. Ours. Ah expect yeh ta’ keep workin’ on the armor, makin’ it better. Findin’ yerself an apprentice someday, passin’ it on. And ah never even considered lookin’ fer another apprentice.”

“Ah’m not as smart as yeh are, though,” Godrick protested. “Ah’m… Yeh’re brilliant, Da. Ah’m not. Ah’m not even on the same level with mah friends— they’re all pushin’ inta archmage level experimentation, and ah’m just havin’ everythin’ handed ta’ me, by yeh and Clan Castis.”

Artur glowered at him. “Son, yeh’re bein’ daft right now. Yer friends have had every bit as much support as yeh have, if not more. Hugh wouldn’t be the Stormward without the support a’ two different great powers. Talia wouldn’t have her powers if not fer the combination a’ generations a’ Clan Castis magical research and Alustin’s genius. Sabae’s a scion a’ one a’ the most dangerous families in the world, with an education ta’ match. And a’ yeh all, yeh’re easily the hardest workin’. Do yeh think ah haven’t seen how many hours yeh put inta practicin’ yer lithification spells? Yeh’ve grown so much these past few years— yeh’re nothin’ like the flighty, distractible kid yeh used ta’ be. Ah’m proud a’ yeh, son.”

“Thanks, Da,” Godrick said.

He wasn’t sure if he entirely believed the praise, but it was good to hear.

“Is that why yeh’re ignorin’ Talia’s brother? ‘Cause yeh feel like yeh owe him somethin’?” Artur asked.

“What?” Godrick asked, perplexed by the abrupt change of topic.

“Ah’ve seen the way Tristan flirts with yeh, and yeh don’t seem entirely disinterested,” Artur said. “Yeh’re not doin’ anythin’ about it, though. Is it because yeh feel like yeh owe him fer the elemental?”

“Ah feel a little weird talkin’ about mah love life with me da,” Godrick said.

Artur rolled his eyes.

“Ah guess,” Godrick admitted. “Ah just don’t understand why Clan Castis would just give away a secret that valuable.”

Artur shrugged. “It’s a useful trick, but it’s not that impressive until yeh combine it with our armor or somethin’ like it. Ah assure yeh, they’ve got plenty a’ other tricks, most a’ which are much more valuable.”

“Still,” Godrick said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Seems pretty obvious ta’ me,” Artur said. “They’re doin’ it fer Talia. Not much ah wouldn’t do fer yer friends, given how loyal they’ve been ta’ yeh, and ah can’t see Clan Castis feelin’ any different. Alustin made Talia a proper mage, and yeh and the others have had her back through thick and thin.”

“I guess, but that’s still not enough ta’ make them feel like they owed me magical secrets,” Godrick said.

“Family’s worth a far sight more than any magical secret, son,” Artur said. “If ah had ta’ choose between yeh and our armor, ah’d give up those secrets in a heartbeat.”

Godrick smiled at his da, and Artur wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

The two of them stayed and watched the bombardment for a long time before calling it a night.

Most battle mages didn’t consider a haircut an essential piece of battle preparation. Talia certainly hadn’t until she realized that her hair tended to drift out of her scrimshaw ward, so she’d asked Gram’s wife to cut it for her. Somehow, that had turned into a family gathering, with almost all her brothers there.

“Are you sure you want me to cut it this short?” Haela asked.

Talia nodded. “I don’t want it giving enemies something to grab onto in a fight.”

“You’re not worried Hugh’s not going to like it?” Tristan teased.

“Hugh likes my hair short,” Talia said.

“Maybe we should shave you bald, then,” Tristan said.

“Maybe we should shave you bald, Tristan,” Rafe muttered, not looking up from his book.

“His taste in hairstyles aside, Hugh’s a good kid,” Roland said.

“Apart from being crazy enough to date Talia,” Gram said.

“That’s a pretty big exception,” Rafe said.

“Quit teasing Talia about Hugh,” Luthe said, “or I’ll have Haela strip all the oils from your hair, make all of you go bald.”

“She’s my wife, she wouldn’t do that to me,” Gram said.

“Really want to test that?” the oil mage asked as she worked on Talia’s hair.

“No, dear,” Gram said.

Talia smirked at that. Gram had chosen well with Haela— she was a quiet, shy sort most of the time, but when she decided to join in with the family banter, she could dish it out as well as anyone.

“Where’s Leon?” Talia asked. “I feel like I’ve barely seen him since you all arrived.”

Rafe lowered his book. “I never thought I’d see the day where you actually missed Leon.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “He’s not that bad.”

Everyone just stared at her.

“Alright, fine, he’s at least as annoying as Tristan is, but he’s still our brother. You’re just all jealous he’s more dangerous than you are,” Talia said.

“He is not!” Tristan said.

“Not even a little,” Roland said.

“Well, maybe in some situations,” Gram said. “Very specific ones.”

“Quite a few situations, really, but there are others where we’re more effective,” Rafe said.

Luthe rolled his eyes. “Even if he didn’t have an ice affinity on top of his fire affinity, he’s faster with a spell than any of us.”

Talia coughed deliberately.

“Oh, you think you can out-cast us, with your ugly vomitfire?” Tristan asked.

“It’s dreamfire, not vomitfire,” Talia protested.

“It… does look a little vomity sometimes,” Luthe said. “It’s still amazing, though.”

Talia rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be mollified. Her brothers had been appropriately excited by her affinities— they’d spent hours and hours getting her to destroy things with dream and bonefire, when they were supposed to be helping her design her scrimshaw ward.

Not, admittedly, that she’d needed much encouragement.

“Oh, does anyone want my old, enchanted dagger?” Talia said, pulling the dagger out of her storage tattoo around her mouth. She could actually feel the tattoo tingle into visibility, and the tingling faded once the tattoo turned invisible again.

“Hold still, unless you want me to accidentally cut your ear off,” Haela said.

“Wasn’t that a present from Hugh?” Luthe asked.

Talia grimaced a little, eying the dagger. “It was, and I feel kinda bad about giving it away, but I already talked to him about it, and he’s fine with it. I don’t need it anymore, and I don’t want to risk another explosion from carrying too many enchanted items.”

“I’ll take it, if no one else wants it,” Roland said.

“You’ll just use it to carve wooden horses for your kids!” Tristan said.

“I am entirely fine with that,” Talia said, handing the dagger to Roland. “It’s enchanted not to go dull, along with the kinetic anchor effect. Make lots of toys for my nephews. And for Yolanda, too.”

“I’m actually excited to test out the kinetic anchor for wood-carving purposes,” Roland said.

“You are absolutely ridiculous,” Tristan said.

Talia rolled her eyes, but before their argument could escalate anymore, Haela interrupted. “And we’re done. How does it look?”

Talia picked up a hand mirror to examine her hair as Haela used a cantrip to pull all the scattered hair clippings off her. Haela had cut it to half a finger-length on the top and a little shorter to the sides. It still jutted up wildly, but Haela had actually managed to force at least a little order to her hair.

“Looks absolutely terrifying,” Rafe said.

“Like you’re ready to murder someone,” Tristan said.

“Preferably not one of us,” Luthe concluded.

“Perfect,” Talia said.

When the floating cobblestone platform delivered Hugh to Kanderon’s lair, he strode straight over to the sphinx, climbed on top of her foreleg, and sprawled out.

“Are you alright, little one?” Kanderon asked.

“Just tired,” Hugh muttered. “Loarna took me to check the defensive ward again this morning, and when I got back, I found that Mackerel had finally managed to eat a copy of Galvachren’s Bestiary. He’s vomiting paper scraps all over my room right now, and I’d just rather not be around him, in case, you know, he explodes violently.”

Hugh didn’t know how Loarna could handle daily inspections of the giant ward. They couldn’t actually enter the long tunnel proper— there was so much mana running through the ward’s spellforms that they’d likely get incinerated, so they had to inspect different areas using the access tunnels, making for a far longer walk than usual.

The grand ward was holding up for now, but it wouldn’t last forever. Even the best-designed, most robust ward was going to struggle being maintained for months without a break— let alone weeks of constant assault by siege spells. The colossal amounts of mana running through the ward alone were slowly degrading it, and they couldn’t do repairs while it was active.

Hugh wasn’t sure if he was more exhausted by the walk or by the thought of the ward failing.

As for Mackerel… well, Hugh was long used to the book’s nonsense. He was worried about him exploding, but he didn’t even seem as sick as he had from the communications diary this summer, so it probably wasn’t happening.

Kanderon didn’t press him to talk more, she simply let him rest on her fur as she performed calculations with her floating grid of crystals. He even fell asleep briefly, dreaming of endless ward spellforms.

“Feeling better?” Kanderon asked when Hugh awoke.

“A bit,” Hugh said. “I’m just so tired all the time, I want this siege to be over and done with already.”

“Just three days until Midwinter, now,” Kanderon said. “At noon on Midwinter, the vault will open, the Exile Splinter will be locked away, and Havath’s justification for the siege will be meaningless.”

“Do they even really need a justification?” Hugh asked. “What’s to say they won’t just keep the siege going then?”

“Perhaps, but the longer this siege lasts, the better for us. This siege inconveniences Skyhold, yes, but we have enough supplies to last years. Longer, if we’re willing to take the risk of harvesting monsters from the labyrinth. We are no nation that will fall apart if our capital is besieged too long. To maintain this siege, the Havath Dominion is stretching their supply lines an absurd distance, across the biggest mountain range on the continent. Each day it continues is a colossal expense on their treasuries. Each day is another day they remain short-handed in their own territory, unable to threaten their neighbors with conquest. Each day it continues is another day Ilinia and Indris continue their climatic warfare against the croplands of the Dominion. I would love nothing better than to see Havath continue this siege past Midwinter, Hugh. I mean for this war to cripple them, and for…”

Kanderon’s monologue was interrupted by an odd buzzing noise. She frowned, then pulled a communications diary out of the air. Her frown swiftly turned into a scowl.

“What’s wrong?” Hugh asked.

“Havath just attacked Lothal and Sydapsyn with teams of great powers,” Kanderon said. “Karna Scythe and the gorgons drove off their three attackers without much of a fight, but their attackers are still lurking at their borders. The battle in Lothal was much bloodier— Ampioc killed the two Havathi great powers that attacked him but was badly injured in the process and lost one of his arms. He can regrow it, but it will take quite some time. The city itself took significant damage.”

“That means they can’t attack us then if they sent great powers from the siege towards our neighbors, right?” Hugh asked.

“All of the great powers reported at both attacks were ones our intelligence had indicated had remained behind in Havath,” Kanderon said. She was writing something in the communications diary with a levitating crystal pen.

“So…”

“Havath is going to attack soon. They’re making sure our neighbors can’t interfere. Considering Ampioc was neutral before, they’ve basically declared their intent to stay in the Endless Erg. Havath is beginning their first war of conquest since before the fall of Helicote.”

Kanderon snapped her communication diary shut, then pushed it back into an invisible fold in space.

“I’ve called a meeting of the Skyhold Council, so I can’t stay down here with you any longer, I’m afraid,” Kanderon said. “I won’t have much free time before Midwinter, so if I don’t get to see you again before then… be careful, Hugh. I can’t… I’ve put too much time and effort into you to lose my investment now.”

Hugh climbed to his feet, then levitated upwards, coming to a halt in front of Kanderon’s forehead.

“You be careful too,” Hugh said, looking Kanderon right in the eyes.

Kanderon seemed startled for a moment, then smiled. “I will, little one.”

Hugh modified his levitation spellform to push him forward through the air, then pressed his forehead against the sphinx’s.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, but Kanderon began purring, deep inside her throat. The vibrations felt like they would rattle Hugh’s skull apart.

A few heartbeats later, Kanderon gently pulled back, beat her crystal wings twice, then launched herself up into the air and towards the top of the Library.

Hugh slowly let himself descend back to the crystal dais below him. Without Kanderon, it felt vast, lonely, and empty.

He wrapped his arms around himself, then went to activate the lift to take him back up out of Kanderon’s lair.

Sabae was trying to work up the nerve to go find Venta and ask her out when the rumors about Lothal and Sydapsyn arrived.

Though if she was being honest, that really meant she was lurking in the library, working her way through an old Tsarnassan military treatise on how to fight a great power without a great power of your own.

The advice mostly boiled down to “don’t”, but there were plenty of good tips in there, ranging from discussions of luring great powers into low aether density areas to discussions of the best way to find the weaknesses of any given great power’s affinities.

There were not, sadly, any tips in the book on asking out a gorgon who had both half again your height and half again your confidence.

She usually made a point of ignoring the other students in the library, but when their usual whispering and gossiping grew louder and louder, she finally looked up to see what was going on.

The librarians weren’t even bothering trying to quiet the students and were busy gossiping among themselves. It didn’t take Sabae long to hear what was going on, though many of the rumors were contradictory.

To Sabae’s irritation, her first concern wasn’t about Havath’s plans, but that asking Venta out right after news arrived that her home city had been attacked probably wasn’t a great plan.

She scowled, then set off for Alustin’s office, tucked back into the administrative area of the library.

When Sabae got there, she pounded on the door for several minutes, but Alustin must not have been there— or in his rooms above his office.

He’d probably already heard the news and was attending meetings about it.

As Sabae turned away from Alustin’s door, she felt a breeze in her hair and froze.

It had been blowing in the opposite direction from Skyhold’s ventilation, which always traveled from the heart of the mountain outwards.

A smile slowly crept across Sabae’s face.

CHAPTER FORTY

Clash of the Powers

At dawn on Midwinter, the Havathi bombardment ceased.

Despite their vastly greater capabilities than a normal student, the four of them had at first been assigned to stay with the other students, hidden away in one of a number of shelters, buried deep within the mountain. There had even been space for Skyhold’s two dragon students inside the shelters. After much protest on their part, Hugh and his friends had been assigned a minor guard post. They were given a deeply recessed balcony to guard, one nowhere near anything vital, nor anywhere near where Havath would logically attack the mountain. The four of them had a limited view of the battlefield around them, overlooking the mountains and a little bit of the Endless Erg to the south.

Hugh crafted a full set of defensive wards on the balcony, but he was genuinely hoping they wouldn’t be needed.

There had, of course, been a price to pay in order to be allowed to participate in the defense. Alustin had forced them all to accept paper armbands, covered in intricate spellforms, which were supposed to let him keep track of their location even through Mackerel’s anti-scrying defenses, and he told them not to take them off until he told them to.

Hugh didn’t admit it out loud, but even that limited protection was something of a relief to him.

Somehow, despite the first real quiet the mountain had known in weeks, Skyhold was tenser than ever. An hour passed, then two, before the Havathi finally sent a messenger. Even Mackerel sensed the gravity of the situation and was being remarkably well-behaved.

The spellbook had also recovered from eating Galvachren’s Bestiary. Hugh had no idea how his spellbook had managed to choke down the much larger book, but some things probably weren’t worth knowing.

Hugh had no idea what the Havathi messenger had to say, but everyone in Skyhold heard Kanderon’s response, echoing down through the mountain.

“Your army is no threat to me— it’s a feast, served right to my door. You will never have the Exile Splinter, nor Skyhold. I’ve no more wish to negotiate with fools, nor to play with my food. Leave, now.”

There was no response Hugh could hear, just a long, uncomfortable silence. It dragged on for long minutes afterward.

“I think we should armor up now,” Sabae said.

Talia’s scrimshaw ward activated faster than any of the other three’s armor. Her bones lit up inside her, casting an eerie red light across the hallway. The spellforms in her bones faded a heartbeat later, leaving behind a faint shimmer a short distance over her skin. She didn’t stop there, however— she removed a set of four thick leather bracers, each stitched with complex spellforms, and strapped them to her shins and forearms. They just barely fit under her ward.

Hugh reached into his storage tattoo with his crystal affinity. There, stacked in a neat pile, lay the Stormward’s Crown. He took a deep breath and flooded mana into it.

Hugh’s storage tattoo bloomed into visibility on his arm, the exact green of Mackerel. The fist-sized, spellform-filled crystals— Crown nodes, he’d taken to calling them— emerged from thin air in an orderly chain, then one by one flew up his arm, past the paper armband Alustin had given him, and distributed themselves around his body. Twelve crystals hovered alongside his major joints. Twelve more revolved around his body in slow loops. Yet another twelve hovered behind his head in a revolving spiral halo.

Then the air began to shimmer faintly between the crystals as the ward between them sprang to life.

Stone flowed up from the floor at Godrick’s feet, covering him completely. Short steel spikes floated out of his storage tattoo, embedding themselves into Godrick’s armor. Hugh could, in the same way he could tell that Mackerel was alive, feel the elemental in Godrick’s armor watching its surroundings.

Sabae lowered her goggles over her eyes, then took her spear and shield out of her storage tattoo. She spun up her wind armor, rather than one of her newer armor modes.

Then they just waited in silence.

To Hugh’s surprise, the tense silence was interrupted not by the Havathi, but by Thaddeus.

“Hugh!” Thaddeus called.

He whirled around to see all four of the first year warlocks.

“What are you doing here?” Hugh demanded.

“We’re here to help you!” Thaddeus said, brandishing the sling Hugh had given him.

Hugh groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “You’re supposed to be safely tucked away in one of the shelters with the other students!”

“You’re not,” Venta pointed out.

“We’re a special case, and the four a’ yeh don’t even have affinities yet,” Godrick pointed out.

“We can still help,” Thaddeus insisted. “Hugh’s been teaching us wards, and Venta can punch through solid wood, and…”

Thaddeus quieted as Talia stalked towards him.

“You little idiots,” she growled. “You are nowhere near ready for any of this. Get back to the shelter. Now.”

“But…” Venta started.

“No,” Talia said. “No arguing, no delaying, get back to the shelters now. ”

Venta gave a pleading look to Sabae, who just shook her head at the gorgon.

“I feel obligated to point out that Kanna did warn us they’d react like this,” Peltia said.

“You didn’t listen to her either,” Thaddeus said.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” Hugh said. “Just… get back to the shelters where it’s safe.”

The first years seemed to want to argue more, but withered under their collective glares and retreated down the hall.

“Hold on a second,” Hugh called, walking towards the first years.

Thaddeus turned, a hopeful look on his face.

Hugh took Mackerel off, then set the strap over Thaddeus’ shoulder.

“Mackerel, make sure they head straight to the shelter, and don’t let them get into any trouble,” Hugh said. “Reach out to me if anything goes wrong, and I’ll come running.”

Mackerel sent Hugh a mental image of a pinecone wearing a hat, which… was probably agreement on his part.

Hopefully.

“Hey, Hugh?” Thaddeus said, in a quiet voice.

“Yes?” Hugh asked.

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Thaddeus said.

“You just wanted to help,” Hugh said. “It was stupid, but you meant well. Right now, you’re probably in more danger from Talia than the Havathi.”

“Definitely in more danger from me than the Havathi,” Talia muttered.

“Be careful,” Thaddeus said.

Hugh nodded, then patted the younger warlock on the shoulder. “Get going.”

Once the first years were well out of earshot, Talia smiled. “You know, I really like them. They remind me of us.”

“They’re less trouble than we were,” Hugh said. “But yeah, they kinda remind me of us too.”

“Right?” Sabae said. “You got lucky getting assigned a group like them to mentor, Hugh.”

“Yeh just like them cause yeh’ve got a crush on Venta,” Godrick said.

“Well, yes, but also because they remind me of us too,” Sabae said.

“Venta does remind me a bit of me,” Talia said.

“No, Venta’s more like Godrick,” Sabae said. “Thaddeus is definitely the Talia of the group.”

“You take that back,” Talia said. “Hugh, tell her she’s wrong.”

“They’re their own group with very distinct personalities and an entirely different dynamic from us,” Hugh said.

“See?” Talia said.

“Ah’m pretty sure Hugh’s just trying ta’ avoid trouble,” Godrick said. “And he never actually said Sabae was wrong.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hugh said. “I’m going to double-check my wards now.”

Their good-natured bickering lasted a bit longer than usual, and they laughed a little harder than the jokes warranted. For all that it felt a little forced, it genuinely helped take the edge off the wait.

At least, until it was interrupted by a whistling sound in the far distance.

Hugh ran to the balcony door, in time to see a wave of siege spells launch.

One that dwarfed every wave of the bombardment so far. The Havathi must have had every single siege mage in their army fire off their spells all at once, and the glow of the combined spells outshone even the sun.

No, they must have held half their siege mages back this whole time. They’d underplayed their strength.

Behind the spells came hundreds of dragons and sandships, all racing towards Skyhold.

“It’s… it’s still not going to make it through all three layers of the ward, right?” Talia asked from behind Hugh.

“I… I think we should move farther inside,” Hugh said. “ Now. ”

As the siege spells reached the top of their arc and began descending towards Skyhold, they turned and took off running down the hallway.

Kanderon did her best to ignore the colossal wave of siege spells racing towards Skyhold— the Havathi great powers would be making their move the instant the siege spells struck. She probably could have deflected many of the spells, especially the great chunks of stone tumbling through the sky, but they were the lesser threats compared to great powers. Likewise, she entirely ignored the mages, war dragons, and sandships racing towards Skyhold.

Instead, she prepared for battle against other great powers, facing eastward towards the mountains.

None of the archmages atop Skyhold had the audacity to comment on the fact that Kanderon preparing for battle remarkably resembled a housecat spotting a mouse.

Not that Kanderon would particularly care if they had.

Most of her true preparations happened out of sight, hidden in extraplanar spaces.

Aedan Dragonslayer floated in the air to her right, surrounded by a swarm of flying swords. Anders Vel Siraf floated to her left, in a multi-hued cloud of silk scraps. Half the archmages of Skyhold stood in a great arc around the top of the mountain, including the full membership of the Skyhold Council, save for Headmaster Tarik and Eddin Slane, who held command in the harbor below. Directly to her rear, facing out towards the Endless Erg, Artur Wallbreaker stood motionless, cloaked in granite armor fifty feet high.

And, in the exact center of the mountain’s flat peak behind her, Kanderon could feel gargantuan enchanted mechanisms, lurking in extraplanar spaces of their own, begin to move. The locks of Skyhold’s vault.

They were sealed away so that not even she could interfere with them, nor even activate them save at Midwinter and Midsummer. Just a few short hours, and the Vault would open. At noon, Kanderon could be rid of the Exile Splinter for good.

The Havathi great powers launched themselves out of the Havathi wardwall just as the siege spells reached the top of their arc.

Shining Tarsynax, a draconic steel mage easily the size of Indris’ deceased mate, Ataerg, looked as though she wore an immense suit of armor over her own scales, but it was nothing of the sort— the lightning dragon had fused the steel into her scales over the years. Down her back ran the double row of tall, metallic quills that all lightning dragons carried, bolts of lightning crackling between them, from the crown of her head to the tip of her tail. Instead of spitting flammable liquid, lightning dragons fired their lightning from the two foremost quills, which pointed straight forward from each side of their jaw. Lightning dragons were no product of nature— like gorgons and naga, they were products of the long-fallen draconic empire, which had spanned a hundred worlds before it collapsed, millennia even before Kanderon’s birth.

Grandyn the Traitor didn’t look like much as he raced forwards towards Skyhold— he was only human and wouldn’t even be visible at this distance without sphinx eyes. The former Tsarnassan Champion only had wind and lightning affinities, but both were astonishingly powerful— Kanderon suspected he’d been the one to initially generate the tornado that had attacked Skyhold, though other wind mages had guided and contained it.

Ityn the Gardener was easy to mistake for a dragon at a distance, but a closer examination revealed the dragon to be a construct grown entirely out of living vines and other plants. The plant mage would be hidden somewhere deep inside the construct, but his plant construct was freakishly difficult to damage, and even if you hurt it, it could heal itself in moments.

An impossibly huge hydra slithered out of the Havathi wards out in the desert. The beast was easily six hundred feet long. Kanderon hadn’t seen one that huge since the days of the Ithonian Empire. Hydras grew disproportionately harder to kill as they grew larger. She hadn’t the slightest clue where Havath had found this one— most of the older great powers made a point of culling hydras before they got too large.

More and more great powers reared their heads, many of whom Kanderon didn’t even recognize. She could feel them moving through the aether. Great powers created ripples in the aether whenever they acted, and though those ripples were too subtle for most mages to feel, Kanderon had learned to feel them over the centuries.

Nine great powers in total, though only eight moved towards Skyhold. The ninth remained lurking in the Havathi warcamp, presumably guarding their command post. Along with the five powers that had attacked Lothal and Sydapsyn, this was far more than her intelligence indicated Havath should have been able to levy in this war. To her knowledge, Havath only had a dozen great powers outside their liches, and she knew for a fact that quite a few of them remained in Havath itself. Even accounting for a handful of mercenary great powers, she’d badly underestimated Havath’s strength.

Kanderon cut off that line of thought, and focused her attention on the two great powers flying straight towards her.

Dana Brumma, better known as Dana the Puppet, flew toward the mountain faster than any of the other Havathi great powers, entombed in her giant bronze sarcophagus, cast in the shape of an immobile suit of armor even bigger than Artur’s. Dana, the daughter of a prominent Havathi family, had been paralyzed by illness as a child, beyond the repair of any healer. As a teen, she developed an incredibly powerful force affinity. She quickly learned to manipulate her surroundings with her affinity, and even her own body, well enough that anyone who didn’t know better would never notice anything unusual about the way she moved. In battle, however, she didn’t bother with such delicate manipulations. Instead, she simply battered any threat aside with force magic more powerful than any Kanderon had ever encountered, with mana reservoirs that never seemed to run out. She suspended the immense weight of her bronze sarcophagus with raw force magic alone. The young woman was by far the most dangerous of Havath’s current crop of great powers, and the only one that stood any chance against Kanderon. Not a good chance, but a chance, nonetheless.

Trailing behind Dana was something that immediately made Kanderon’s hackles rise.

A hollow glass sphere, twice the size of Kanderon herself. The inside of the spellform-covered glass sphere was filled with an elaborate lattice-work of yet more glass, and there were dozens of mages inside— glass and gravity mages, Kanderon suspected. Using her affinity senses, she could feel the sand far below it shift and rattle as it passed. Countless blades and shards of glass danced in the air around the immense sphere.

The huge construct was clearly an attempt at a communal glass great power. Kanderon had no idea how Havath had managed it— or how they’d built it without her spies discovering it. For all their lethality, most glass mages died in a few short years from lung damage unless they were incredibly cautious craftsmen who avoided battle entirely. Kanderon had no intention of taking this sphere lightly.

Kanderon whistled. The whistle wasn’t especially loud, at least by her standards, but it seemed to pierce through every other noise on the battlefield. Kanderon knew for a fact that it could be heard in the Havathi camp, and far beyond its ward walls out into the Endless Erg, as it resonated with various of Kanderon’s thousands of crystal constructs hidden in the territory near Skyhold.

As the immense volley siege spells descended towards Skyhold, Kanderon launched herself into the air with a roar. Before she’d even passed through the council chamber’s distance shield, she opened her planar storage spaces, and her aether crystals erupted out of them, racing along her limbs and flanks.

By the time she’d passed through Skyhold’s defensive ward with only the slightest of ripples, she was entirely covered in crystal armor the exact blue of her wings. There wasn’t a hole or seam anywhere— her air came entirely from planar spaces she’d prepared over the centuries for this exact purpose, and her eyes had no difficulty seeing through the crystal. She flew so swiftly that the siege spells seemed to crawl in comparison.

When Kanderon and the Puppet collided— before the first siege spell even struck Skyhold’s wards— the collision knocked siege spells off-course for half a league around them. The great glass sphere and every nearby war dragon were sent flying away like toys, and the two great powers were sent tumbling away from each other.

Both recovered immediately, their respective armors seemingly unaffected.

Kanderon scowled to herself inside her armor. Even with the Puppet’s force spells protecting it, Kanderon’s impact should have done some damage to the sarcophagus. Dana was considerably more powerful than she’d expected, it seemed— or, perhaps, the Havathi had used enchantments or some other sort of trickery on the coffin.

The Puppet’s unexpected power wasn’t why Kanderon was scowling, however.

No, she was scowling because it wasn’t powerful enough. Havath’s national ego was vastly over-inflated, but their masters should know perfectly well how dangerous Kanderon was. And unless the unknown glass sphere was even more lethal than it appeared, it wasn’t the reason Havath had grown the courage to attack her either.

Havath was still holding back. There was, hiding somewhere in the desert, a tenth presence— one that felt far more powerful than the rest.

Kanderon shook off those thoughts and lunged at the sarcophagus. Behind her, Aedan emerged from the ward, charging at one of Havath’s draconic great powers.

In the distance, far beyond Havath’s ward walls, a wind started to rise in the desert.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Wardfall

Before Hugh and the others had even made it all the way down the hallway leading away from the balcony, the din coming from outside was almost unbearable. The first shockwave of sound, from some unknown source, had almost thrown them off their feet, and ripped huge holes in the outermost layer of Skyhold’s ward.

Then the siege spells had struck, and Hugh stopped worrying about anything other than running.

They just barely turned the corner leading into the hallway when the whole mountain shook, and all of them were thrown off their feet, save for Godrick, who fused his armor with the stone of the hallway.

Hugh felt his wards on the balcony snuff out all at once.

Debris from the ceiling rained down on the four of them, but simply bounced off their armor. The shaking probably only lasted a few seconds, but felt like far longer.

When it ended, Hugh forced himself to his feet and walked back around the corner towards the balcony.

He immediately stopped in his tracks.

Great rifts had been torn into Skyhold’s defensive wards— ones that weren’t healing. Worse, an immense bite had been taken out of the side of the mountain right where their post had been— if they hadn’t fled it to go deeper into the mountain, they would have been annihilated by the siege spell that had struck.

In the distance, the war dragons and sandships of the Havathi armor were rapidly closing the distance towards Skyhold. The air suddenly seemed thin, and his lungs struggled to take in air.

Hugh closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

Then he opened his eyes and walked down to the end of the ruined hallway.

Whatever sort of siege spell had hit them had ripped a broad divot out of the side of Skyhold, the width of three or four sandships end-to-end. Theirs was the only tunnel exposed, but Hugh could see numerous other impact craters scattered across Skyhold’s slopes, some of them in far more architecturally crowded sections of the mountain.

That wave of siege spells was far beyond what they’d thought Havath capable of. Hugh hoped most of the mages in the other strike zones had fled as they had.

He forced himself not to look for bodies in the other impact sites, forced himself not to watch the enemy dragons approaching, and instead, he did his best to focus on building a new ward.

“What kinda ward is that?” Godrick asked.

“Attention ward,” Hugh answered.

“Doesn’t feel very strong,” Godrick said.

“It’s not, but more powerful isn’t always better with attention wards,” Hugh said. “When there’s plenty of distractions around, a gentle nudge away is often more effective than a more powerful attention ward. With enough training, it’s actually easier to feel the effects of more powerful attention wards on the mind.”

“I’d definitely say there are plenty of distractions around,” Sabae said, poking her wind armored head out to look at the damage.

“Why don’t we just have Godrick close off the hallway entirely?” Talia asked. “Plenty of other entrances to Skyhold have been closed by stone mages, right?”

“This hallway’s actually a major outflow in the Skyhold ventilation system,” Godrick said. “Closin’ it off would mess up airflow in a big chunk of the mountain. That’s why we’re here to guard it.”

“Huh. I thought they just put us here to keep us out of the way,” Talia said. “Though actually, come to think of it, I’ve never actually encountered an entrance where the air flowed in, instead of out.”

“That’s because there aren’t any,” Godrick said. “Air only flows out of the mountain, not in. One a’ Skyhold’s many mysteries.”

“Then how would closing up this tunnel mess up the ventilation?” Talia demanded.

Hugh was ignoring their argument and finishing up the attention ward when something colossal and blue slammed into the mountain across from them, sending boulders cascading down the mountainside. A few seconds later, a massive crystal statue tore itself out of the debris and launched itself into the air.

“Was that Kanderon?” Talia asked.

Hugh nodded.

“Did you know she could completely armor herself?” Sabae asked.

Hugh shook his head.

“Ah think yeh’re all missin’ the important question,” Godrick said. “Who could throw her against a mountain like that?”

No one had an answer to that.

Past the still-broken ward, the Havathi war dragons rapidly approached Skyhold.

Skyhold’s wind mages were largely concentrated at the Skyhold docks, so when the massive Havathi bombardment ripped through Skyhold’s wards, the majority of spells that would have hit the docks were deflected by a powerful wind shield. A couple of lightning bolts passed through, but thankfully, they only did minimal damage.

The rest of the mountain, however, took far more damage. Lava bombs tore into balconies, airborne boulders cracked cliff faces, and lightning bolts charred the mountain’s slopes. Several rockslides started, though nowhere near the more heavily built-up areas— Skyhold’s stone mages had done good work reinforcing the mountain’s slopes.

Alustin immediately cast a scrying spell to check on his students, targeting the arm bands he’d made them wear. To his relief, they all appeared unharmed.

With that worry relieved, Alustin focused on the oncoming Havathi forces, using his farsight affinity to carefully gauge their progress.

Farsight affinities were rare and often thought to be some oddball affinity akin to a dream affinity. It was, however, simply a close relative of light and vision affinities. There were plenty of downsides to it compared to scrying methods, but for his current purpose, it was absolutely perfect. He set his vision to peer straight down towards the sand in front of Skyhold and waited for the Havathi war dragons to pass a certain point.

He did his best to ignore the battle raging in the sky, between the Skyhold Council and the great powers of the Havath Dominion.

Then the first war dragons crossed the invisible line in the sand, and Alustin signaled to Headmaster Tarik and the ceramic mage Eddin Slane, both standing beside him.

“Siege mages, fire!” bellowed Eddin Slane, his voice amplified to fill the whole harbor by Emmenson Drees.

Skyhold’s siege mages, long frustrated by their orders not to engage the Havathi bombardment, let loose with a terrifying variety of spells. There were only a couple dozen of them, but they launched clouds of toxic smoke, rippling spheres of molten nickel, immense wooden spears the size of ship’s masts, and even a swift-moving cloud of countless bits of copper wire. The siege spells passed easily through the remnants of Skyhold’s wards with faint ripples— Skyhold’s wards were easily permeable to spells exiting it.

The siege spells tore into the wings of war dragons like a knife through butter. More than a dozen dragons fell out of the sky, carrying hundreds of Havathi battlemages and soldiers to their death in the sand below.

There were, unfortunately, well over a hundred more dragons heading for the docks alone.

Alustin signaled again as the dragons passed another invisible line.

“Battlemages, fire!” bellowed Eddin Slane again.

Alustin had long disparaged Skyhold’s preferred teaching methods— they generated endless ranks of mediocre battle mages who specialized in extraordinarily unoriginal projectile attack spells. They were next to useless on their own, and lacked precious adaptability to changing circumstances.

There was one area, however, in which Alustin had grudging respect for them.

The mass volley.

There were over two thousand battle mages in and around the Skyhold harbor, as well as overlooking it from balconies and windows above. When Eddin Slane yelled his order, every single one of them cast at the same time.

And then they kept casting.

The entire harbor shook from the sheer number of projectile spells being fired at the enemy dragons. Lightning bolts, blasts of raw force, and shards of ice filled the sky. Wooden spears rocketed forward, propelled by magic across the sands. Boulders the size of a man’s head tumbled through the air.

Before the first spells even hit the dragons, many of the battlemages had already fired their second or even third spells.

Individually, most of the spells wouldn’t have done much damage to the dragons. Collectively, however, they fell like rain, and a heartbeat later, so did the dragons. More than a third of the remaining dragons fell to the assault.

Well, a third of the dragons attacking the harbor head-on. There were hundreds more dragons attacking Skyhold from every other direction.

Then the dragons reached the wards, and the battle dissolved into chaos. They fought their way in through the huge rips in the ward, under the constant assault of the battlemages below, and Havathi battlemages began exchanging fire with Skyhold’s mages. Gouts of dragonflame struck the harbor wind shield Skyhold mages had spun up and were caught in its currents. Dragons began landing Havathi battlemages in the sand just inside the ward, who assembled into well-organized battle lines.

Stray Havathi siege spells began filtering in again, but only in a trickle, and they only targeted the very top of the ward, to avoid Havath’s own forces.

Alustin ignored all of it. When a dragon descended on their position, he ignored it entirely as Slane caught its burning venom by summoning a wall of ceramic tiles to protect them, then swatted the dragon out of the sky with a massive swarm of tiles. When a squadron of flying mages came for them, Alustin paid them no more attention either, letting Emmenson knock them out of the sky with a burst of sound that killed them instantly. When more dragons circled around and began climbing through the broken ward from other directions, Alustin ignored them as well.

Alustin just kept watching the battlefield from above, waiting for the hundreds of sandships to cross the first line. The Havathi fleet was a bit of a mess— Havath was far from a naval power. Their entire sand fleet had either been built in the past few months, stolen from desert-dwellers, or hired as mercenaries.

The instant they crossed that line, Alustin signaled to Headmaster Tarik.

A moment later, he was marveling once again that the stone mage had never claimed the title of great power.

Hundreds of boulders ripped themselves from the side of Skyhold, the smallest the size of a horse-drawn carriage, many the size of a house. Tarik launched them all in a colossal volley out into the Endless Erg.

Dozens of sandships instantly exploded into clouds of splinters as boulders slammed into them. Others lost masts or had great rents gouged into their sides. One rather flat boulder cut a small sandship in half lengthwise, then lodged itself into the prow of the ship behind it.

Countless boulders missed entirely, but the initial volley wasn’t even close to the worst part of Tarik’s attack. Ship after ship shattered their runners on boulders embedded in the sand and went tumbling. The sands outside of Skyhold had become a deadly, high-speed obstacle course for the enemy fleet. Immense pileups of sandships claimed thousands of lives in seconds.

With a single spell, Tarik had just taken more lives than in the entirety of the war so far.

It only got worse from there.

Behind each and every one of the boulders Tarik had just launched were tunnels leading farther into the mountain, each containing massive ballistae. They’d been pre-aimed just inside the same imaginary line in the sand that Alustin had been monitoring, and within heartbeats of Tarik ripping away the boulders blocking off the tunnels, a massive volley of ballista bolts hammered into the fleet. Firing blind meant that countless of the ten-foot bolts buried themselves in the sand instead of ships, but that wasn’t much of a concern.

A three-count after the bolts landed, they started detonating.

Not just any sort of explosion, either— the bolts detonated in a very specific, familiar way.

Bonefire.

Talia had spent months volunteering her services to Skyhold’s enchanters in preparation for this moment. Each and every one of the bolts in the first volley had a hollow core filled with shards of bone, surrounded by bone enchantments using Talia’s magic. Most of the bone shards were discards from Skyhold’s kitchens, but mixed in were fragments of Ataerg’s skeleton.

The initial blasts ripped holes in dozens more ships, but the worst damage came from the shards of dragonbone. Those were sent scything across the ruined fleet by the explosions, burning hot enough to soften metal. They sliced through sails and buried themselves in hulls and masts, spreading fire throughout the fleet.

The individual blasts didn’t do as much damage as one of Talia’s would— the bone shards weren’t growing in the same way as her spells— but it was still absolutely devastating collectively.

Alustin doubted even a fifth of the Havathi fleet would make it to Skyhold’s wards.

The ballistae were already reloading with more conventional magical and alchemical ammunition, the process sped up by enchanted crankwheels, when Alustin dropped his scrying spell. Dozens of dragons and hundreds of Havathi battle-mages had already made it inside the harbor— it wasn’t his farsight that was needed any longer.

Though, just to satisfy his own curiosity, he did quickly scry out into the desert, past the Havathi lines, and smiled at what he saw.

The wind was picking up in the desert, and it was starting to lift sand up into the air.

Then Alustin had no more time for scrying as he sent a volley of folded paper triangles slicing into the ranks of a group of Havathi battle mages.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Among the Ranks of the Mighty

Artur hated waiting during a battle. If he could fly, he’d be outside the ward with Kanderon and Aedan.

He couldn’t, though, so he was stuck waiting up here atop the mountain for the right moment to strike.

He launched the occasional boulder into the swarm of dragons and great powers circling the ward and climbing through holes in it, but he left off when Anders told him to stop ripping up the council chamber.

So when Ityn the Gardener’s draconic plant armor began ripping its way into one of the holes in Skyhold’s ward, Artur smiled in delight. He’d always wanted to test himself against the Havathi plant mage— there weren’t many other armor mages operating at his level on the continent.

Of course, there were more powerful armor mages than either of them, namely Kanderon and Dorsas Ine, but Artur felt absolutely no need to challenge them. That would just be suicidal.

Artur sealed up the window in his armor he’d been using to watch the battle, then retreated deep inside his armor, depending on his affinity sense and the dust clouds drifting through the battle to see. The stone of his armor crept up around his body, but stayed in an almost liquid form— it was difficult and mana-hungry to achieve, but it protected him both from being thrown around inside his armor and from shocks passing through the stone.

Then he leapt off the top of the mountain.

He felt his colossal hammer twist and jump in his gauntlets as he passed through Kanderon’s distortion field protecting the council chamber— the hammer contained its own dimensional storage space, full of a small mountain’s worth of iron, and it didn’t especially like other space-distorting magic. Artur ignored it, however, as he landed with one foot on a large outcropping a ways down from the peak.

Artur bounded hundreds of feet with each jump, crashing down on balconies and ledges and doing a considerable amount of damage to the mountain itself. He got in position just as Ityn forced his plant armor into a gap in the innermost ward, then hurled himself out into mid-air. He pushed off so hard from the mountain behind him that his armor left an impact crater on the bare stone of the slope.

Artur slammed into Ityn just as the plant mage forced the entirety of his dragon armor through the too-small gap in the ward. Artur sent them both tumbling through the air as they tangled together— for all Ityn’s armor was two or three times as large as his, Artur’s stone armor far outweighed the plant mage’s. Artur slammed Ityn’s dragon into the ward’s inside curve, then the two of them went tumbling into freefall.

Artur managed to roll in mid-air and keep himself atop Ityn, at the cost of allowing Ityn’s armor to start wrapping his in hundreds of vines. Artur could feel plant roots start burrowing into his armor, but he ignored them entirely. Instead, he focused on using his iron affinity sense to find Ityn within the armor, then he activated his breathless aura— a spell that made it harder for the iron in blood to carry air. Its use was perfect for panicking foes and keeping them from thinking clearly. Like his ability to see using dust clouds, it was a product of Artur’s affinity-sense enhancing ring.

Half the vines ripped off Artur when they slammed into the stone to one side of the harbor. The rest ripped when Artur rolled free of Ityn’s armor, which was smashed half out of shape by the impact. Artur was pretty sure the two of them had probably shaken the whole mountain when they hit.

By the time Artur forced his armor back to its feet, Ityn’s armor was already regaining its original shape, regrowing the damage from the impact.

Artur lunged at the plant dragon, burying the fingers of one gauntlet in his shoulder. He ripped a huge chunk of vines loose, throwing them off to one side. Through his affinity sense, he could feel Ityn’s location within the armor shift farther away from him.

Ityn’s armor whipped its head at him, and Artur was sent rolling into the sand of the Endless Erg. For all that his stone armor was heavier, Ityn’s plant dragon was freakishly strong. The stone mage pulled himself back to his feet as quickly as possible and charged back towards the base of the mountain— Artur had an advantage fighting on stone as opposed to sand.

The Havathi great power was clearly aware of that, however, and lunged to try and cut him off.

Artur managed to plant one foot on the stone before Ityn reached him, and he found himself grappling with hundreds, then thousands of vines, all digging their roots into his armor.

Artur reared back, swinging his hammer up into the air. Before he could bring it down on Ityn, however, half the dragon armor erupted into vines, completely trapping Artur’s armor.

The Gardener’s voice echoed out of his armor, amplified by some unknown magical means. He sounded polite and unconcerned, entirely unbothered by Artur’s breathless aura. “I always wondered whose armor was superior, Artur Wallbreaker, and I suppose now we know.”

Artur didn’t bother to respond as the vine roots began to rip and tear at his armor. Instead, he put in a last, single effort to swing his hammer.

It only moved the hammer a few feet, but that was all he needed— it brought the shaft of his hammer straight into line with Ityn. Not just with his armor, but actually with Ityn himself, hidden deep within, only faintly visible through Artur’s iron affinity sense.

He reached out into the extraplanar space of his hammer, and pulled more iron out into the world, shaping it at the same time. In the blink of an eye, the hammer shaft extended itself, piercing all the way through the plant dragon and into the stone below it.

The vines grasped onto Artur for a few heartbeats longer, then Ityn’s armor slumped down to the ground and began to unravel.

Artur scowled at the mass of vines as he began to tear himself free. For years, now, he’d done his best to avoid the label of being a great power, to spare Godrick the enemies that would bring them. That was over and done with, though. He’d just brought down a great power before an audience of thousands— for better or worse, he’d just entered their ranks.

And he certainly wasn’t going to actively deny, like Aedan, that he was one. Artur had never had much patience with Aedan’s ridiculous political maneuvering.

Once Artur had finished freeing himself from the vines and repairing his armor, he retracted the shaft of the hammer, then strode towards the harbor.

The battle wasn’t even close to over.

Hugh felt utterly useless, watching the battle rage below and around them, unable to contribute beyond protecting this single, pointless passageway.

He felt an especially strong surge of worthlessness when he saw Aedan Dragonslayer go flying by in the midst of his swarm of swords, pursuing a lightning dragon that appeared to have scales made of steel. The dragon turned its head back to blast lightning at Aedan, only to have Aedan redirect the bolt into a nearby flight of dragons, sending them plummeting from the sky.

Most of his past idolization of Aedan was long gone, once he’d learned about the way the Tsarnassan mage had manipulated and lied to Rhodes, but a small part of Hugh still remembered dreaming of apprenticing to the mage.

A minute or two later, Artur came crashing out of the sky, grappling with some sort of colossal vine monster, and Hugh suddenly didn’t feel bad about sitting out the fight in the slightest. He was quite relieved, in fact.

When Artur killed the giant plant dragon he was fighting, Godrick started cheering and applauding. “That’s me da!”

Hugh turned his head to rub his ear— stone gauntlets clapping was obnoxiously loud.

That motion was the only thing that let him spot their shadows shifting behind them.

Hugh whirled, bringing four Crown nodes from the halo behind his head out in front of him.

“Very fast response, but unnecessary,” a voice said. A figure coalesced out of the shadows in the hallway. For a moment Hugh thought the figure was made out of darkness until he understood what his crystal affinity sense was trying to tell him.

Not darkness— black aether crystal.

Amalda Veil.

“Let me guess, you’re going to try and persuade us to join Havath, just like half the other Havathi who have tried to attack us,” Talia said, summoning dreamfire bolts above her hands.

“Well, yes,” Amalda said. The crystal of her helmet turned transparent, showing the mage’s kindly face. “I specifically tracked you down to speak with you.”

“When are you lot going to get it through your head that we’re never going to join you, no matter how many fancy speeches you offer us?” Sabae asked.

Amalda shrugged. “Quite a few factions of the Dominion already believe that, and have kill orders out for all of you. Others do believe there’s still a chance. I personally think I’m unlikely to persuade you, but I feel the need to try regardless.”

“Why? Ah’m not complainin’, it puts yeh at a tactical disadvantage,” Godrick said, “but it just seems foolish ta’ me.”

“Because you’re children, ” Amalda said. “Your teachers have forged you into weapons, putting your lives at risk to further their own goals again and again. It’s monstrous, and if we are to even attempt to claim to be better than the monsters we’re trying to supplant, we can’t simply kill children because they’re obstacles in our way. Sacrificing the tactical advantage to do the right thing is the only righteous path here.”

“We’re not children,” Hugh said, but it sounded petulant even to him.

“I’m not even asking you to join us, or even surrender.” Amalda said. “I just want you to sit this battle out, out of harm’s way. You have my word, I’ll personally escort you past our lines after this battle, let you go wherever you want. I’ll get you on a ship to Lothal, Theras Tel, or Ras Andis— wherever you want to go. I’m not asking you to believe that we’re on the right side of history. I’m begging you not to make us fight children.”

“Quite a few of your allies don’t feel quite so bad about it,” Sabae said.

Amalda shrugged. “I can’t lie to you and pretend the Dominion doesn’t have a lot of vicious, bloodthirsty bastards working for it. We’re not perfect, and we’ve done plenty of monstrous things in the past. We do, however, endlessly seek to do better and make the world a better place for those in our territories.”

“I have an alternate theory,” Talia said. “You’re all constantly yammering at us because you know you don’t stand a chance against us.”

Amalda shook her head sadly. “Child, you’ve only ever faced the Sacred Swordsmen before now. Disposable shock troops— few of whom survive more than one or two missions. I am a full archmage, and I have served the Havath Dominion in battle for decades. Please, don’t make me fight you.”

They all stared at Amalda for a moment, then Sabae sighed loudly enough for it to be heard over the thrum of her armor. “I actually believe you. At least, that you don’t want to fight us.”

“Then accept my offer, please,” Amalda said.

“Can we confer about it for a moment?” Sabae asked.

“Of course,” Amalda said.

“Thank you,” Sabae said and began to turn towards the others.

Then, without warning, she hurled her inertial spear straight at the Havathi archmage.

It should have passed straight through Amalda’s chest, but the mage seemed to blur into the shadows for a moment, then reappear a foot to the left. Sabae’s spear rocketed down the hall, then buried itself in the stone wall at the end, leaving a vast crater. Only a hand’s breadth of the shaft even protruded from the stone.

“Must we really do this?” Amalda said.

“Do you really think we’re just going to walk away and let you threaten the people we care about?” Sabae demanded.

“I suppose it does sound a bit foolish when you put it like that,” Amalda said.

The archmage sighed sadly, and her helmet went black again.

An instant later, the hallway’s shadows and stones erupted into spikes.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Precarious Footing

Godrick flinched as the shadow-spikes flew at him, but they never even came close— a ward snapped to life between Hugh’s floating crystals, and the shadows dashed themselves apart against it.

The stone spikes Amalda was launching from the stone around them with her crystal magic were easy for Godrick to deflect— stone magic was more than a match for crystal magic when it came to controlling rock.

Amalda seemed to be startled by the failure of her attack— at least, Godrick thought she was, given the way her armor drew back. He used her momentary pause to launch forward, pumping mana into his force boots to accelerate himself.

The shadow mage simply vanished as he swung his hammer at her, and a moment later Godrick felt a massive impact against his side, sending him crashing to the ground.

As he tried to climb to his feet, the stone under his feet collapsed into dust, sending him sprawling. Via his stone affinity sense, he could feel Amalda ripping and tearing at the crystal structure of the tunnel’s granite.

Godrick rapidly sketched a stone stabilization spellform in his mind’s eye and pushed mana into it. It was intended to prevent rockfalls or to reinforce collapsing stone buildings during evacuations, but it worked perfectly well at stopping a crystal mage from messing with stone— in a direct contest, the greater versatility of crystal affinities put them at a disadvantage against stone affinities.

It was still strange having so much room in his mind’s eye to draw spellforms, now that his armor could maintain itself.

The elemental gave off a quiet sense of satisfaction at that thought.

By the time he clambered to his feet, the hallway was filled with flickering shadows, slicing and smashing against his friends’ armors. He could only make out his friends by the glow of their magic— Talia’s tattoos were especially visible as she fired dreamwasps at the flickering shadows, and whenever her scrimshaw ward got hit, her bones underneath it would light up along with the ward itself.

“Hugh, flare beacon!” Talia yelled.

“No, don’t!” Sabae yelled. “Talia, light the hallway with dreamfire!”

A moment later, hovering candleflames of purple-green dreamfire began to fill the hallway, and the entire space took on a twisting, hallucinatory feeling. Shadows began twisting and writhing, and Amalda’s attacks dissolved into mid-air.

Of Amalda herself, there was no sign.

“How did yeh know that would work?” Godrick asked.

“I didn’t,” Sabae replied. “I knew dreamfire messed with the shape of shadows, and I was guessing that the flare beacon might overwhelm the attention ward.”

“That, uh… doesn’t actually matter now,” Hugh said. “She already broke the attention ward, when she attacked, and there’s a dragon heading our way now.”

Godrick pointed at a patch of shadows that was starting to congeal again. “And ah think she’s startin’ ta’ get a handle on the dreamfire.”

“Storms,” Sabae said. “Talia, Godrick, hold off Amalda for as long as you can. Hugh, we’ve got the dragon.”

Godrick exchanged glances with Talia, then tightened his grip on his hammer.

Sabae nodded at Hugh, then windjumped out the mouth of the tunnel.

For a moment, panic shot through Sabae’s mind at the thousand foot drop straight below her, but then all twelve Crown nodes from Hugh’s halo shot out past her. Three of them formed a triangular ward platform right along her trajectory, and Sabae windjumped off it straight at the approaching yellow dragon.

It was a younger one, maybe forty feet long, carrying a half-dozen Havathi battlemages on its back. Two more flew in its wake.

The mages looked shocked at her approach, but the dragon responded immediately, its throat swelling to breathe fire.

Sabae forced more mana into her wind armor, and it began to swell out of control.

The instant the dragon spat its jet of burning venom at her, she detonated her wind armor. The shockwave slammed into the dragonfire, sending it splashing back over the dragon, the mages on its back, and one of the fliers.

Sabae was already reaching into the air around her and into her storage tattoo with her magic, pulling out water from one of the water barrels she kept in there to join with the air around her. With a crack like thunder, her storm armor burst into being, barely stinging her skin.

By the time Sabae hit the next of Hugh’s ward platforms, half the mages were dead, and the others were screaming and flailing uselessly at the dragonfire splattered across them. One actually tumbled off the dragon’s harness, falling into mid-air.

The dragon was already turning to make another pass at her, and the uninjured mage was flying straight at her, swinging a whip made of braided wires.

Sabae stormjumped to the next of Hugh’s ward platforms, barely dodging the whip, which bent unnaturally in her direction.

“Hugh, a little cover!” she yelled.

Then she took a deep breath and reached for her lightning mana reservoir.

It wasn’t safe to do formless casting with lightning like she could with wind and water, but the spellform she needed right now wasn’t difficult. It was known as a galvanic anchor, and it was a fairly obscure spell most lightning mages didn’t have much use for. It was only a little bit more complicated than its cousin spell, the galvanic beacon.

Sabae leapt again as the mage pursued her, but this time, she left a faint trail of distortion in the air behind her as she did so, the end of which latched onto the mage’s whip.

She doubted either the dragon or the flier saw it, given that Hugh had just hit the dragon with a starfire bolt. Sabae’s enchanted goggles automatically filtered out the glare of the blast, and to her surprise, she saw that the starbolt had actually cracked through the scales on its flank, leaving a nasty-looking burn.

Sabae intercepted the next of Hugh’s ward platforms— actually one of the earlier ones, disassembled and moved again for her— still trailing the distortion trail behind her. She turned to launch herself at the blinded dragon, only to catch unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye.

She desperately stormjumped, but a second dragon, around the same size as the first, still slammed into her hard enough to almost collapse her storm armor. Thanks to her quick reaction, she thankfully hit its neck instead of being caught in its jaws.

Sabae slammed her shield down against the dragon and pumped mana into it, sealing it to the dragon. Then, almost without looking, she let loose a storm strike with one leg, right along the dragon’s spine.

Several of the mages on the second dragon’s back were blown off entirely by the explosion of wind and cloud, and Sabae took a moment to cast the galvanic anchor again, affixing it to the dragon’s neck this time. Then she released the shield’s adhesive grip on the dragon, falling right through the crowd of mages. She ignored the fire-mage bathing her in flames— fire was next to useless against her storm armor.

She affixed yet another galvanic anchor to the dragon’s tail as she fell past it, then stormjumped wildly into the air. Hugh just barely managed to get another ward platform under her. Sabae killed her momentum with a cloud-filled storm strike, then took a moment to rebuild her storm armor before jumping again.

She had to dodge attacks from the second dragon and its remaining mages three more times, skipping from ward platform to ward platform, Hugh’s Crown nodes darting wildly through the air to keep up with her. The faint distortion trail still spooled out in the air behind her, shifting to stay connected to the galvanic anchors she’d cast so far.

The whole time, Hugh hurled rocks torn from the cliffside at the Havathi, saving his limited stellar mana.

Sabae tried to ignore the sheer insanity of what she was doing— bouncing around a thousand feet in the air, without the ability to fly, while a colossal battle raged around her. Even if the dragons didn’t get her, one of the thousands of battle spells pouring out the windows and balconies of Skyhold might, or another siege spell, or…

Sabae brushed all those doubts away when she spotted an opening. She blasted her way back towards the first dragon, which looked to be recovering from Hugh’s starbolt already. The second dragon belatedly snapped at her, but she passed right by its jaws, then skipped across the first dragon’s back between patches of dragonfire, pausing only long enough to affix the final galvanic anchor.

Then she leapt one final time onto another of Hugh’s ward platforms and cast her first-ever lightning spell in a real battle.

The spellform was wildly different than the spellform for a normal lightning bolt— specifically, it was far smaller and simpler. It didn’t have any functions for aiming and targeting in the slightest, nor for even trying to control the bolt.

None of those functions would have worked in the slightest, of course.

She didn’t need them now, though. Instead, her lightning bolt was built to work with the galvanic anchors.

Lightning erupted from her storm armor in a dozen places, just as it had every time she’d used it in one of Skyhold’s practice rooms. The individual tendrils snapped together in mid-air, and the resulting bolt shot straight for the barely-visible distortion that had trailed behind her since she’d cast the first galvanic anchor.

Alustin had never found a way for her to cast lightning at a distance. He’d spent countless hours researching, but he’d never found a way for her to extend her magic more than a short distance beyond her body.

She didn’t need to extend her magic at all to affix galvanic anchors or carve pathways for lightning behind her as she moved. That was what the distortion trail was— just a magical path for lightning to flow down.

And flow down it the lightning bolt did. Sabae poured all of her lightning mana into the bolt, and it raced down the distortion trail to the wounded dragon, then to the second dragon’s tail, then up its back, branching out to the mages still firing spells at her. From there, the lightning jumped off the dragon’s neck, then raced straight through the air to the very first galvanic anchor, the one affixed to the metal whip of the flying mage.

The lightning bolt burned for almost three heartbeats, then fizzled out, all of Sabae’s lightning mana used up. It was by far her smallest mana reservoir, but it was enough.

The dragons and mages plummeted out of the sky, convulsing.

Sabae caught her breath from her perch on Hugh’s ward platform for a few moments as she watched them fall. One of the dragons actually managed to regain control of its wings, to her surprise.

Not, however, in time to stop its fall.

Sabae couldn’t wait to tease Talia and Godrick about her and Hugh being dragonslayers before them.

Sabae turned to face the tunnel mouth, which was filled with flickering shadows, eruptions of dreamfire, and clouds of rock dust behind Hugh, who was standing at the entrance.

She dropped her storm armor, then spun up her wind armor and began leapfrogging back to the tunnel as Hugh formed and reformed ward platforms for her.

Sabae had just launched herself off the last one, towards the tunnel, when a solid wave of shadow came rolling down the tunnel, carrying Talia, Godrick, and Hugh with it.

Then it erupted out of the tunnel, and all four of them began to fall.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Snakes and Sandstorms

“This is boring,” Leon said.

Luthe rolled his eyes. “Have a little patience, maybe? I’m fairly sure it won’t be long.”

“Patience is a moral weakness,” Leon insisted.

“I will tell my husband not to bake you any more sweet rolls if you keep complaining,” Luthe said.

“Patience is the highest of virtues, and I am practically made of it,” Leon said.

Luthe glanced around at the assembled Clan Castis mages. There were thirty-two of them assembled— the other five members of the expedition were noncombatants and were hidden safely away in Skyhold’s shelters.

Most of them were either bickering cheerfully or eagerly watching the battle outside. A small group of them were actually playing cards.

They had, to their irritation, been placed away from the main battle in the harbor and instead been situated in a large amphitheater. It had a great opening instead of a wall behind the stage, facing east into the Skyreach Range. It was less vertigo-inducing than it might sound— there was a wide ledge with a sturdy railing just below the stage, out of sight of the seats. If an actor on the stage fell off the back, they’d suffer a twisted ankle at worst.

The fighting was still fierce over on this side of the mountain, but Luthe was under strict orders to hold Clan Castis’ mages in reserve until they had an opportunity to inflict mass damage or to challenge a great power.

So Clan Castis waited, watching the mages of Skyhold cast thousands of spells at the Havathi forces clambering in through the holes in the ward. Havathi fliers were hard-pressed to fire back at the balconies and windows of Skyhold, between dodging the flying boulders, spell-propelled arrows, and razor-discs of ice.

One Skyhold mage even appeared to be launching fishing nets with hundreds of metal hooks dangling from them. Luthe wasn’t sure whether they were a steel mage, some sort of rope mage, or what, but he was glad he wasn’t their target. Nasty way to go, that.

And, while Clan Castis waited, Luthe had to deal with endless complaints from clan members wanting to get involved in the battle.

He took a moment to feel the currents in the aether— they were utter chaos, with who knew how many great powers and archmages, not to mention thousands and thousands of battlemages, all drawing in mana. He’d never felt it so turbulent in his life. Somehow, it never seemed to run out, and the faster mana was pulled from the aether, the more seemed to rush out from the labyrinth deep in Skyhold’s heart.

Luthe glanced around, then cast a fire spell. Lines of fire began to race across the ground, sketching out the lines of an anti-scrying ward.

Fire wards were tricky to draw and hard to maintain, but they worked just fine if you knew what you were doing.

“You sure this is enough?” Leon asked.

“Probably don’t even need this much,” Luthe said. “It seems pretty unlikely anyone is watching us in the middle of all this chaos. How many?”

“Seventy-six,” Leon said, patting his belt pouch. “Best be worth me not getting much time to spend with our little sister.”

“It is,” Luthe said. He collapsed the fire ward with a puff of smoke around them.

Clan Castis hadn’t been lying about wanting to come help their sister with her tattoos, repaying Skyhold for teaching her, or even for wanting to oppose the Havath Dominion before they grew to threaten the clans.

They had, however, decided not to mention their plans to infiltrate Skyhold’s library and “borrow” a few volumes on fire magic they didn’t already have.

The trickiest part had been finding some sort of way to smuggle the volumes out of Skyhold— extraspatial storage spaces were the traditional means of doing that sort of thing, but that famously didn’t work in Skyhold, home of the greatest planar mage alive.

Leon’s belt pouch, however, was the perfect solution to that. It was enchanted by a shadow mage, so that in the dark, the pouch’s opening led to a far larger shadow-space. Shine a light into the pouch, and you’d only see whatever Leon normally kept in his belt pouches.

Freshwater octopus jerky and lint, Luthe was guessing. Probably a letter from his brother’s wife, too. Leon was his brother, and Luthe loved him, but he had no idea how Helga put up with Leon sometimes. Leon had been an incorrigible pest and complainer since he was little, and it was impossible for him to stop fidgeting.

Kanderon’s affinity senses would be of little use detecting Leon’s shadow magic pouch, which meant that the most difficult part had been for Leon to find a way to sneak into and out of the hidden part of the library and steal as many useful books as possible without getting caught. It had taken Leon most of the time they had been here to do, and it had driven Luthe crazy, not being able to ask Leon about his progress.

He felt a little bad not telling Talia about the heist, but what she didn’t know couldn’t get her in trouble.

“Luthe, look!” Gram called.

There, slipping through a tiny rent in the wards around Skyhold, was a stream of water. It didn’t fall to the ground but instead pooled just above it.

The rent began to widen, and the stream turned into a torrent, then a river.

Then the floating pool of water began to change shape, and within seconds, the water had shaped itself into a massive serpent, a frilled adder longer than any tree.

The Riversnake— a naga water mage of incredible power. One of the few great powers that sold their services as a mercenary. She’d be hidden somewhere inside the great bulk of the snake-shaped water golem, protected from any harm.

“This is it, people!” Luthe called. “Form up!”

The members of Clan Castis abandoned their conversations and the card game, then lined up in two long rows— one at the edge of the stage facing out into the mountains, the other on the balcony just below. Luthe took the end position on the far left of the upper line.

Then, as one, they hurled streams of fire into the air, converging in the sky outside their amphitheater.

Luthe rapidly assembled the complex spellforms in his mind’s eye to seize control of the fire spells. It was fiendishly tricky, and the casters had to be completely willing to allow it— no amount of will would let him seize control of a fire spell from an unwilling mage. It was one of the reasons large-scale collaborative casting was so difficult.

Then, once he had control of the huge mass of fire, he directed it down towards the Riversnake, in a jet of flame thicker than a house.

The Riversnake barely even let off any steam at the impact, but it immediately turned to face them, swimming upward through the air towards them.

Even as Luthe finished redirecting the spell, he could feel Gram taking control of the fire spell from him, and Luthe forced himself to allow it— a task easier said than done. Then he felt Roland take it from Gram, then Tristan from Roland, and so on and so forth down the line of fire mages. With each mage it passed through, the great jet of fire’s shape became better and better defined, slowly taking the form of another snake— a flayscale viper, with the scales that seemed to stick out jaggedly from its body, letting the snakes easily climb the sheer rocks of the Skyreach range.

The two colossal snakes twined about one another in mid-air, biting and squeezing. Steam gushed out now, though the Riversnake’s frilled adder clearly still had the upper hand.

But Clan Castis just kept feeding their snake with great plumes of fire, their spellform tattoos blazing blue. Luthe could feel the heat of the fire on his skin, and he knew that if it wasn’t for the defensive aspects of Clan Castis’ tattoos, he’d be struggling to breathe, his skin charring from the heat. It was a shockingly effective defense— no one but an ice, fire, frost, or other temperature mage could safely approach Clan Castis in the midst of casting one of their grand spells.

Thankfully, the tattoos protected their clothing as well. Some of the earlier iterations, generations past, hadn’t, and Clan Castis had once had a reputation for going into battle naked.

Then control of the spell arrived at the fire mage just below Luthe in the lower line, and Luthe seized it back.

This time, however, he cast a new spell. One closely related to the elemental-birthing spell he’d ordered his brothers to share with Godrick, but far more complex— and a far more closely held secret.

The most recent— and most powerful— iteration of their living spell elemental birthing technique. The living spell elemental it birthed would be short-lived, but incredibly powerful.

Luthe’s head was pounding by the time he finished it— the spell was fiendishly complex, and put a severe strain on a mage’s mana reservoirs, as well as the other parts of a mage that extended out into the aether. You needed a long rest period between each casting of the spell unless you wanted to hurt yourself or even rupture a mana reservoir, something that wasn’t possible under normal circumstances— there was no amount of mana that could do it.

But creating intelligence, creating a living spell that could draw from the aether on its own— that was a strain all of its own.

Luthe finished the spell, and the burning flayscale viper began burning even brighter, its scales taking on a sharper, more defined experience.

The mages of Clan Castis let their fire plumes end, but the flame viper kept burning on its own. It would likely only live a few minutes or hours at most, even if the Riversnake didn’t kill it, but that would be more than enough.

Luthe climbed down to the ledge below, and the whole line shifted over one space, the mage at the other end climbing up. Gram moved into the spot Luthe had vacated, and then Clan Castis, as one, began firing plumes of fire into the air again.

A great eagle of flame began to form in the sky, above the great cloud of steam enveloping the fight between the two snakes.

Luthe grinned. He could only safely birth one living spell during this battle, but there were thirty-two Clan Castis fire mages here.

This was going to be fun.

As Talia tumbled out into the air, thrown out of the tunnel by the shockwave of shadow and stone, she pushed mana into the bracers on her arms and legs.

All the long hours of work she’d put into assisting the enchanters of Skyhold with their project, along with all the dragon-bone she’d given them, had been repaid with these bracers.

And oh, was it a more than adequate repayment. She’d originally wanted a pair of dragonbone daggers enchanted with kinetic anchors, but the enchanters had proposed a far more ambitious project instead.

Sewn inside the magically reinforced leather bracers were plates of dragonbone, making them strong enough to deflect a sword blow, even without her scrimshaw ward.

Tucked inside the arm bracers were a pair of extendable dragonbone daggers— when she tucked her fists down and mentally activated that part of the enchantment, the daggers would stab out and lock in place, then ignite into flames.

The bracers were also among those rare enchantments with their own mana reservoirs, meaning Talia could use them without using any of her own mana, at least until they emptied out. And despite being separate pieces, the bracers technically counted as a single enchantment, meaning Talia could safely start using an additional enchantment along with them and her boots, if she wanted. For now, she just held onto her original dragonbone dagger, though.

Most pertinently at the moment, they had kinetic anchor enchantments like Talia had wanted. They were, however, far superior to her old kinetic anchor— rather than just being able to activate or deactivate the anchor, Talia could control the degree of its strength, which opened up some fascinating possibilities. She could use gradually increasing amounts of power while she was exercising for strength training. Or, for that matter, just make it a little harder to walk around during the normal course of her day for exercise. More relevant, at the moment, they allowed her to fall at a controlled pace.

Talia gradually brought her fall to a halt, so as not to hurt her shoulders or knees. She found herself upside-down and relaxed the kinetic anchors on her legs enough to let them fall, and the ones on her arms enough to let them swivel. She locked her bracers in place again once she was right-side up.

It had taken long hours of practice to get used to manipulating the anchors, but Talia had eventually mastered the trick of it.

She sighed with relief as she looked around her— Godrick and Sabae had both made it back to the cliff, some distance below the tunnel. Sabae was clinging to it with her shield, while Godrick appeared to have sunk partway into the stone of the cliff. Hugh, meanwhile, was standing on a ward platform constructed with the Stormward’s Crown in mid-air a little ways below Talia.

Talia weakened her kinetic anchors and slowly drifted down towards Hugh. She varied their strength intermittently to angle her fall.

She hadn’t even made it to Hugh when a shadow-spear hammered into her scrimshaw ward. It threw her to one side, the motion pulling painfully at her bracers, but it didn’t break through her armor.

Hugh promptly launched several Crown nodes to guard her with a ward from further shadow-spikes.

Talia landed on Hugh’s ward platform a moment later, then spun towards the cliff, summoning a dreambolt above her palm.

Even as she did so, Sabae was torn from the cliff and sent flying, but the taller girl immediately began wind jumping towards the platform, so Talia turned her attention towards Godrick.

The enormous youth stood horizontally on the cliff, his legs buried up to the shin in stone, walking around seemingly as comfortably as he might have on the ground. As Amalda battered him with shadow-spears from hiding, Godrick used his magic to rip stone from the cliffside, launching them at every pool of shadow he could see. The Havathi archmage occasionally launched a few stones back at Godrick, but Godrick easily deflected or even threw those back.

Talia started throwing dreambolts at the rapidly shifting shadows as Sabae landed beside them on the ward.

“Should I try a flare beacon?” Hugh asked.

“Not yet,” Sabae said. “Godrick, throw us your hammer!”

Godrick didn’t even pause to consider, he just magically launched the hammer in their direction. Talia reached forward and grabbed it out of mid-air, using her bracers to bring its momentum to a halt, then handed it to Sabae.

“On my mark, Hugh, you summon a pair of flare beacons. Talia, you try to do something similar with dreamfire,” Sabae said. “Hugh, can you make a cage around us with the Crown? Permeable to our spells but not hers and to people going in but not out.”

“Right,” Hugh said.

Sixteen free-floating crystals from Hugh’s spiral halo and his storage tattoo rapidly circled around them, then activated into a ward. No, a pair of wards— two interlocking cubes. One resting flat, the other with its corners sticking through the middle of the first cube’s sides. The result was an oddly shaped room, twenty feet across.

The instant the cage closed itself off, Sabae shifted from her wind armor to tideweave armor.

Several shadow-spears smashed into the outside of the cubes, but most of Amalda’s attention was clearly focused on Godrick, who was fighting back with sprays of nails and shards of stone ripped from the cliff-side.

Talia cast an anti-glare cantrip to protect her eyes. She couldn’t keep it up longer than a few seconds without the spell-distorting properties of her tattoos burning her eyes, but she only needed a few seconds.

“Now!” Sabae shouted.

Talia summoned hundreds of dreamfire candleflames floating just off the cliff at the same time as Hugh summoned a pair of flare beacons to either side of Amalda and Godrick’s battle.

The shadows on the cliff simply vanished, revealing Amalda clinging to the rock where one pool of shadow had been.

Then the spellforms on the gravity hammer Sabae was holding began to glow, and Amalda was falling horizontally through the air towards them. A moment later, Godrick released his legs from the stone of the cliff, and fell towards the sphere after the archmage.

Then Amalda and Godrick tumbled to a halt inside the floating ward-cage, a thousand feet above a raging battlefield.

Dragons swarmed around the outside of Skyhold’s ward in vast numbers, crawling in gaps, and attacking Skyhold’s defenders. More than a few had started to land on the mountain, disgorging their mages onto balconies. Tens of thousands of battle spells slammed against the mountain, or flew from the windows of Skyhold at the attackers. The scene made the battle for Imperial Ithos look like a minor skirmish at best.

Talia bent her fists down and mentally triggered a spellform in her bracers, and two dirk-length dragonbone blades descended out of them. A heartbeat later, they ignited.

Then she smiled and charged the black-armored archmage.

It was pure luck Alustin didn’t die alongside Bandon Firehair and Headmaster Tarik. The Theran illusionist was mid-sentence, relaying a report to the archmage, when a storm of glass shards annihilated both of them and the dozen mages closest to them.

If Alustin had been standing a foot closer, he would just be a stain on the harbor ground as well. All his future plans for vengeance, his hopes for his students— they came within a single foot of ending right then and there, and there would have been nothing Alustin could have done about it.

He found himself briefly hoping that had been one of Bandon’s illusions, but he didn’t have any convincing reason to believe Bandon would add blood to an illusion.

Alustin shot his gaze upwards, revealing the massive floating glass sphere hovering just outside a hole in the ward. It was already lining up another shot from its orbiting swarms of glass shards when Kanderon’s blue-armored form dove in out of nowhere, tackling the glass sphere into the sand of the Endless Erg. They carved a trench hundreds of feet long into the desert, sending a wave of sand crashing ahead of them.

The giant glass sphere, somehow, remained completely unscratched by the impact, though its golden spellforms ignited a painfully bright red. The glass mages inside the construct didn’t even seem to have been staggered by the impact, implying some sort of inertia or force-dampening spell protecting them.

Artur staggered past the harbor entrance, his armor crumbling under the assault of Grandyn the Traitor and some sound affinity-wielding dragon. He staggered through a unit of Havathi mages without even noticing them, crushing them into the sand.

Outside the ward, Kanderon launched herself back up into the air, forcing the glass sphere deeper into the dune they’d come to a halt against. The instant Alustin saw her wings begin to grow, he whirled away, closed his eyes, then protected them with both his arm and a glare protection cantrip.

Even with all of those precautions, the light from Kanderon’s spell still almost blinded him. It kept growing brighter and brighter for a ten-count, and painful waves of heat washed over the battlefield. Alustin couldn’t see it, but he knew what Kanderon was casting. A starbeam, the same spell Hugh had instinctively cast deep in the labyrinth after he’d first pacted with Kanderon.

Kanderon’s starbeam was to Hugh’s, however, what a forest fire was to a candle.

Abruptly, the light cut out, though the waves of heat kept radiating out over the battlefield. Alustin could feel the mana in the aether rushing to refill Kanderon’s mana reservoirs.

For that matter, Alustin could feel more aether moving than he’d ever felt in his life. He didn’t even know how many great powers and archmages were on the field, but it was shocking that his mana reservoirs could even manage to absorb any mana from the aether, given how turbulent it was currently.

Alustin turned, blinking his eyes, to reveal a wasteland of molten glass. For hundreds of feet around the impact trench, the sand of the Endless Erg had been melted into glass. The only remnant of the immense sphere was an oddly shaped, sagging lump of glass where it had been.

Almost everyone else on the battlefield had been taken by surprise. Only a few mages or soldiers on either side did more than clutch at their eyes and stagger around.

One of those mages was Artur, who didn’t use his eyes to see in battle. He’d used the opportunity granted by Kanderon’s spell to knock the dragon he was fighting out of the sky with his hammer and was pummeling it with his giant stone gauntlets, even as the dragon’s sound magic dissolved them into dust. Grandyn the Traitor was nowhere in sight.

Kanderon’s wing shards shrank down to their normal size, and the sphinx let out a roar that shook the battlefield.

A heartbeat later, the Puppet’s colossal bronze sarcophagus hammered into Kanderon, sending her crashing into Skyhold’s wards and ripping even more holes in them.

Alustin jerked his attention away from the dueling great powers. There was nothing he could do to affect the outcome of those battles.

There were, however, plenty of Havathi mages just staggering around blind right now. The primary wind shield protecting the ranks of the Havathi who had made it down to the sand of the harbor had collapsed, the Havathi wind mages as blinded by Kanderon’s spell as everyone else.

The paper mage shot into the air and began firing entire reams of paper into the enemy lines. A few sheets were blocked by wind shields, enchanted armor, wards drawn in sand, and flame shrouds, but the overwhelming majority of the glyph-inscribed sheets tore into the enemy lines. Many of them bore various exploding glyphs, but the majority simply sliced into the Havathi mages.

Alustin cut down dozens of mages in seconds. It likely would have been even more, but a massive gust of wind hammered into him, sending him tumbling through the air.

When he regained his balance, he drew his sword from his storage tattoo, ready to face his new foe. He hated fighting wind mages.

There was no one there, though. Just an impossibly strong wind, blowing in through the gaps in the ward.

In the distance, looming above the Havathi ward wall, was a sandstorm, unlike any sandstorm Alustin had ever seen before. It reached higher than the ward-wall, higher than the mountains, higher than any storm had a right to reach.

The Coven had arrived.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Cage Match

Amalda Veil reacted faster to her situation than Hugh thought possible. Even as Talia and Sabae launched themselves at her, shadow-spears shot out of her armor, striking all four of them.

Everyone but Godrick was thrown back against the walls of the ward cage. Their armor blocked all the strikes, but Hugh could feel mana drain from his reservoirs to keep his ward intact against the attack. The crystals hovering around his body glowed from the mana rushing through them.

Hugh had no idea where she’d gotten the shadows from, though. They were hovering in mid-air a thousand feet above the ground in broad daylight, with no surfaces to cast shadows on. She…

Hugh narrowed his eyes in realization. “It’s her armor! Her aether crystal’s special ability lets it grow new shadows for her, somehow!”

“Clever, but cleverness isn’t enough right now, I’m afraid,” Amalda said.

She launched herself at Hugh, a sword formed entirely of shadows congealing in one fist.

Hugh launched four more Crown nodes from his storage tattoo to craft a ward to block her attack, but Amalda never even came close to him. Halfway through her shadow-propelled leap, she began falling to one side.

Right into Godrick’s gravity hammer. While Sabae and Talia had attacked Amalda, the stone mage had gone for his hammer instead.

The Havathi archmage went flying with an audible crack and slammed against the wall of the ward holding them. Hugh’s mana drained a little more in response to the impact, but he found himself smiling.

There was a crack in Amalda’s armor.

The crystal healed itself up a moment later as Amalda stepped to her feet.

“You don’t know how much I’m going to regret this,” Amalda said. “I really wish…”

Hugh never found out what Amalda would have wished, because Godrick yanked her off her feet with the gravity hammer again. As he did so, Hugh yanked the four extra Crown nodes back to his halo.

This time, Amalda caught herself with a framework of shadows, then wrapped several more like ropes around Godrick’s hammer, arms, and helmet.

The light from the opal in Godrick’s pendant tore through the shadows around his helmet at the same time as a starbolt, a dreamfire bolt, and a tide-strike all hammered into the archmage.

“Hugh, make her float!” Sabae yelled.

Hugh constructed a leviation spellform to counteract the effects of gravity on Amalda.

A moment later, Godrick struck Amalda with another hammer blow, and she went flying into the far wall. She bounced off, hardly slowing down at all.

More shadow-spears went launching out of Amalda’s armor, but Hugh yanked his two flare beacons over from the cliffside, positioning them at different angles from the sun outside the ward cage, and half of Amalda’s shadows collapsed.

“I can’t keep this up long, my mana’s draining fast,” Hugh shouted.

“We don’t need long,” Talia said, then struck Amalda with one of her burning wrist-blades as Amalda bounced past her.

Then everything blurred together in a storm of shadow-spears, tide-strikes, dreamfire, and moving figures. While Hugh’s friends unleashed a relentless assault on the archmage, Hugh focused on dodging shadow-spears and doing his best to keep the ward cage intact. It had been smart of Sabae to make the cage permeable to their attacks— Hugh would have burnt through mana at a prodigious rate if his ward didn’t let his friends’ spells pass through harmlessly when they missed Amalda.

Whenever Amalda could orient herself, she repeatedly targeted her shadow-spears at the Crown nodes forming the cubical wards, but Hugh had positioned the two cubes so that all the corner nodes of each cube jutted out of the center of the faces of the other cube.

Each of the individual Crown nodes possessed their own internal protective wards as well, but there were limits on how powerful he could make those, thanks to ward-stacking constraints, so best not to risk it.

With each dreamwasp, hammer blow, and tide-strike, new cracks formed in Amalda’s armor. They all healed within heartbeats, but Hugh could feel it take just a little bit longer with each blow.

The dreamwasps and dreambolts did less direct damage than the other strikes— aether crystal seemed remarkably resistant to dreamfire’s warping effects— but Hugh could feel a tiny amount of the crystal’s substance being burnt off with every bit of dreamfire. And unlike Mackerel or Kanderon’s wings, Amalda didn’t seem to be storing any additional aether crystal in extra-dimensional spaces.

Even bouncing and spinning around the ward cage wildly, being repeatedly battered with attacks, and lacking any proper shadows to teleport through, Amalda was putting up a remarkable fight. Her shadow-spears were more accurate than not, and they were absolutely relentless.

The shadow-spears only got worse when Hugh released his flare beacons— they were using up far too much of his stellar mana to sustain any longer.

Hugh and the others kept doing their best to dodge, though. All four of them were soon bouncing around the cage almost as much as Amalda. Sabae handled it easily, and the other three fought to keep up by launching themselves off the wards with their force boots.

As they fought, Hugh caught glimpses of titanic struggles in the distance. Kanderon dueling with some kind of massive bronze statue in mid-air. Artur being hammered from above with immense lightning bolts. A hydra slithering through the dunes towards Skyhold, bigger than any living animal he’d ever seen before save for Ephyrus. Some sort of flying squid made entirely of fire wrapping its arms around several Havathi dragons.

And, in the distance, an impossibly huge sandstorm crashing over the Havathi ward walls.

Then Sabae tide-jumped straight at Amalda, shield first. The shield glued itself to Amalda’s arm as the two passed each other, and Amalda’s arm was jerked back behind her. There was an audible crack, and when Sabae released it a moment later, he realized Amalda’s arm was dangling loosely by her side, even with the armor still intact.

“Enough!” Amalda bellowed, and Hugh felt her crystal magic force itself against the Crown nodes of the cage.

There was no way she could force them to deactivate or seize control of them entirely from Hugh, but she didn’t try either.

Instead, Amalda spun the whole cage. Well, she actually tried to spin one of the two cubes separate from the other, but Hugh had locked all the Crown nodes in the ward cage to their relative positions, so she ended up spinning the whole cage.

Hugh and his friends were all swept off their feet as they all began tumbling wildly. The drain on Hugh’s mana reservoirs increased massively— moving the wards while holding weight disproportionately increased the Crown’s mana consumption. The wards moving while holding Hugh himself burnt more mana yet— the wards were easier to move relative to himself, rather than with him.

The Crown nodes designed for his personal wards were much more tolerant of being moved— there were trade-offs to be made for the power and mana efficiency of the free-floating nodes.

Amalda, meanwhile, had somehow canceled Hugh’s levitation spell and stood in the center of the spinning cage on a floating platform of shadow, launching shadow-spears at the apprentices.

The Stormward’s Crown dulled the impacts as he tumbled, and the crystals all performed as they were intended, shifting as needed around his body to avoid hitting him, but that very motion pulled them out of optimal formation, which meant his ward needed increased mana to protect him from Amalda’s shadow-spears.

Hugh caught glimpses of his friends as they all tumbled wildly around the cage. Godrick’s armor had developed huge cracks of its own. The weaves of water and wind in Sabae’s armor were visibly fraying. Talia’s scrimshaw tattoos were glowing so brightly inside her body that he could see her skeleton through her flesh, even in the light of day, and her spellform tattoos were almost as bright.

Hugh briefly considered using his wardstones, but in this enclosed space, the explosions would be just as likely to injure his friends as the Havathi.

Hugh levitated himself into the air, then launched himself straight at Amalda using his force boots.

He slammed into her hard enough to knock them both off her platform, and the two of them went tumbling into the spinning cage. Before they even hit the ward walls, Hugh sent the four remaining crystals in his halo behind Amalda. He didn’t bother building a ward with them, just used them to pin her between them and his personal ward. Hugh followed that up with a leg lock around Amalda’s waist, one he’d learned from Alustin for hand-to-hand combat.

Mundane physical combat was mostly useless against mages— but never entirely useless. It felt weird grappling through his personal ward, but it worked.

Amalda almost immediately shifted her focus away from the Crown nodes, which started to slow to a halt, and focused on trying to push his Crown nodes away from her back.

Ignoring her efforts, Hugh assembled a starfire spellform. One of the first ones he’d ever learned, in fact, but had never used in battle.

A narrow jet of starfire blasted out in front of his hand. He stripped the spell of its containment shield aspects, counting on his ward to protect his hand, and he forced the jet against Amalda’s helmet.

Shadow-spears and ropes of shadow tried to force Hugh off the archmage as they tumbled. Amalda battered at Hugh’s ward with her unbroken arm, but Hugh had deliberately used the hand on the side of her broken arm to summon the jet of starfire. The two of them tumbled wildly with everyone else around the chamber as it slowed to a halt, but Hugh just kept his legs locked around her waist and the jet of starfire pressed against her helmet.

Hugh could feel the heat of the starfire pushing through the Crown into his hand, but he ignored the pain.

“I surrender!” Amalda finally yelled.

Hugh felt her completely release her remaining grip on the Crown nodes, and the spinning finally came to a halt.

He didn’t release the jet of starfire, though.

“Hugh, I surrender!” Amalda said as they stopped tumbling.

“I don’t believe you,” Hugh snarled. “You tried to kill my friends.”

“You have my word as an archmage of the Havathi Dominion, I surrender unconditionally and offer my parole,” Amalda said.

“You tried to kill my friends,” Hugh snarled.

“I offered you a choice!” Amalda said. “I didn’t want to hurt you!”

Nearby, Hugh could hear one of his friends retching, while the other two climbed to his feet, but he ignored them.

“You called us children, said you didn’t want to hurt us, but you made a point to deliberately track us down,” Hugh said. “Then you tried to kill my friends.”

“Not by choice!” Amalda cried. “Those were my orders!”

“Why?” Hugh demanded.

“Because of you!” Amalda said. “Because of your pact with Kanderon! You’re a vulnerability for her, a weakness she’s never had before. The Duarchs believe it’s possible to find a way to use you to attack Kanderon. I’ll answer any questions you have truthfully and fully, I promise! Just, please…”

“You tried to kill my friends,” Hugh said.

The jet of starfire punched through Amalda’s helmet.

A moment later, Hugh let the starfire dissolve, then staggered to his feet. He did his best to ignore the smell.

Then he fell back to his knees and vomited.

With an effort of will, he made the ward permeable to vomit, then pulled his scent-absorbing marble out of his storage tattoo to protect his nose.

A moment later, huge stone gauntlets lifted him to his feet, and then Godrick wrapped him in a cautious stony hug.

“Are yeh gonna be alright?” Godrick asked.

Hugh nodded absently.

Godrick let him go, and Sabae hugged him next. Talia was still climbing to her feet, wiping off her mouth with a cloth she must have pulled from her storage tattoo. Her tattoos— both the ones on her bones and the ones on her skin— were beginning to dim again.

“Hugh saves the day again,” Sabae said. She took his hand in hers and started healing the burns on it— his whole fist was red, puffy, and shiny.

In a vaguely detached way, Hugh found it ironic that it was one of the worst burns he ever remembered getting— he’d been completely unconscious for his volcanic ash wounds over the summer. This burn wasn’t even that bad, really.

Hugh shook his head. “None of us could have handled her without each other. I just… maybe I should have…”

“Absolutely not,” Talia said. “She would have teleported away the instant we got somewhere with shadows and attacked us again.”

“We don’t know that,” Hugh said. “She…”

Sabae shook her head. “Talia’s right. Even a normal archmage is next to impossible to imprison, even with specialized affinities. Amalda Veil would be impossible for us to contain outside specialized circumstances like this. Taking an archmage prisoner in the middle of a battle is an absurd risk— one we couldn’t afford.”

“Besides, yeh were right,” Godrick said. “If she really meant what she said, about us being child weapons, and she still attacked us…”

“I… I suppose so,” Hugh said.

“Besides, have you asked yourself why the Havathi are attacking on Midwinter, rather than sooner?” Sabae said.

Hugh shook his head.

“It’s because they’re not just after the Exile Splinter,” Sabae said. “Havath wants everything in Skyhold’s vault, and they can’t open it themselves. They’re not being nearly so honorable as they pretend, Hugh.”

Talia pushed Sabae out of the way as the taller girl finished healing Hugh’s hand, then wrapped her arms around Hugh. “It’s good to know you care about us so much. I’d kiss you, but, you know, we both were just vomiting, so…”

Hugh laughed despite himself.

Godrick bent down and picked up Amalda’s body, then seemingly shoved it into thin air, where it vanished.

“That’s going to stink up the inside of your storage tattoo,” Sabae said.

Godrick gave her a wry look through his helmet, then snapped his gauntleted fingers.

The awful smell vanished from the air.

“Oh, right,” Sabae said.

“Attuned aether crystals are crazy valuable,” Godrick said. “No sense leavin’ her armor behind. We can, ah, peel her out of it later.”

Hugh felt his gorge rise at that image, but he forced it down again. He tucked away his scent-absorbing marble now that it was no longer needed.

“Now what?” Talia asked.

“Back to the tunnel,” Sabae said.

Hugh nodded, and with an effort of will, he forced the cage to start rising in the air. Deliberately moving the ward while active took a massive amount of mana, but he could handle it now that Amalda wasn’t attacking them at the same time.

Hugh took a moment to look around them as the ward cage slowly ascended.

It was utter chaos below them. Havathi dragons were landing all over the mountain, disgorging troops onto balconies and through windows. The battle that raged at the peak of the mountain hadn’t abated in the slightest, with dozens of dragons and countless mages besieging the council chamber, even through Kanderon’s distance distortion field. If Hugh had to guess, most of Havath’s archmages were concentrating their efforts there.

In the distance, the giant sandstorm had ripped through Havath’s outer wardwall, and the inner one was starting to flicker.

“The battle’s not going exactly well, is it?” Talia asked quietly. “How many Havathi do you think have entered the mountain already?”

“Hundreds, if not more,” Sabae said.

Hugh grinned. “Good.”

Everyone gave him confused looks.

“I’ve been helping Loarna with Skyhold’s wards, remember?” Hugh asked. “There was no way we could keep the Havathi out, even if the stone mages closed every single entrance. So instead, Skyhold’s wardcrafters have spent the last few months turning the mountain into a deathtrap for invaders. We were always planning to retreat inwards if the wards fell.”

“Why didn’t yeh say anything?” Godrick asked.

“Wasn’t allowed to,” Hugh said. “Kanderon’s orders.”

“I’m not complaining,” Sabae said. “That’s definitely what I would call a good surprise.”

The ward cage reached the height of the tunnel they’d been assigned to guard, and Hugh unfolded the cage into a pathway to the tunnel mouth.

Just as the four of them stepped back into the tunnel, a piercing warble filled the air.

Kanderon’s signal klaxon to retreat into the depths of the mountain.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The Hidden Power

Kanderon snarled as she, the Puppet, and that damnable sound dragon circled one another in the air above the Endless Erg, all of them battered by the winds of the massive sandstorm.

The sphinx had badly misjudged Havath, in far too many ways.

She’d underestimated how many troops Havath would commit to the battle. She’d thought they had enough mages to match Skyhold’s population, but they were fielding tens of thousands more mages and soldiers even than that, dwarfing Skyhold’s thirty thousand or so. And of Skyhold’s thirty thousand, less than eight thousand were battle-ready mages. Tarik’s monstrous assault on the Havathi fleet had probably killed as many Havathi soldiers and battle mages as were in the entire mountain of Skyhold, but they were still severely outnumbered.

She’d even more seriously underestimated their artillery capabilities. They’d brought far more siege mages than her spies had indicated— they had to have smuggled in the vast majority of the Dominion’s total siege mages. Skyhold’s defensive ward, the central of the three great underground wards, had taken a colossal beating from that last volley. Given how badly its spellforms had been strained by weeks of ceaseless bombardment, many of them must have ruptured— few of the rifts in the dome were healing.

She’d underestimated how many dragons the Havathi would bring. There were hundreds of them swarming Skyhold’s wards, crawling through gaps, and spraying dragonfire all over the wards. Each of them carried battlemages and Sacred Swordsmen, flying in to attack the mountain. Some of the dragons had made three or four trips.

She’d underestimated how much mana the battle would use, and could sense the innermost of Skyhold’s grand wards, the one built to govern the mana emerging from its labyrinth, straining to pull out more and more mana into Anastis’ aether. It was holding together for now, but if Skyhold survived, it would absolutely need maintenance.

She’d underestimated the numbers of great powers— she’d expected six or seven at most, and now she was facing no less than nine, and she still suspected there was a tenth hidden somewhere, waiting for their time to strike. That wasn’t even counting the ones Havath had brought to bear against Lothal and Sydapsyn. Kanderon had thought Havath only had a dozen non-lich great powers, but now it seemed possible they might have twice that many. That shouldn’t be possible, but only a handful of the great powers that had crossed the mountains numbered among Havath’s known forces.

Most of all, she’d underestimated the strength of the Havathi great powers. They’d only taken down two so far, Ityn the Gardener and that damnable glass sphere. Others were embattled but surviving. Even Tarsynax was somehow surviving Aedan’s pursuit, and the Dragonslayer was freakishly skilled at dragonslaying. Artur had almost killed the sound dragon, but Grandyn the Traitor had rescued the awful thing. The Puppet’s strength was by far the biggest surprise for Kanderon— it had been decades since another great power had been able to stand up to her for this long.

The last time had been thirty years ago when she slew Yasald the Manic, a human spatial mage who wanted to seize Skyhold from her. It had turned into a cat-and-mouse game through the extraplanar spaces of Skyhold, an hours-long battle that had been largely undetectable to the residents of Skyhold. Before that, it had been her last clash with Dorsas Ine forty years ago, which only ended when Kanderon had scattered a considerable quantity of the phoenix’s molten gold armor across leagues of the Endless Erg, forcing him to withdraw to collect as much of it as he could.

Kanderon pulled her mind away from past battles and crystallized thousands of quartz spears in the sands below them. She sent them streaking up towards the sound dragon from all directions.

The vast majority of them exploded into dust as they approached the dragon, dissolved by the defensive sound field the dragon had erected around herself. A few slivers made it through, stabbing into the dragon, but the dragon’s body immediately began forcing them out and healing the injuries, just like the dragon had healed her injuries from Artur.

Kanderon hated fighting great powers with healing affinities. It took forever, and you could only defeat them by either killing them with a single stroke or by doing so much damage that you drained their healing mana reservoir entirely.

Of course, one of Havath’s great powers was a tame adult hydra, which was going to be an even bigger pain in her haunches to kill. The only small blessing was that it was as slow as the rest of its kind and hadn’t even come close to Skyhold’s ward yet.

The dragon spat fire at Kanderon in retribution for her assault, but Kanderon just ignored it as she lunged at the Puppet’s gargantuan sarcophagus again. Common dragonflame was no threat to the sphinx’s armor.

Unfortunately, sound magic was a threat to her aether crystal armor, so she couldn’t close the gap to attack directly. She’d need to wait until her stellar mana reservoir refilled enough to fire another starbeam, or for the rest of the Coven to break through the Havathi ward walls.

Rather than simply crash into the Puppet’s sarcophagus again, Kanderon latched onto it this time and began clawing at the bronze with her back legs. The magically reinforced sarcophagus was aggravatingly strong, and there were no less than a dozen other mages floating inside there with the Puppet just to maintain its magical functions. Kanderon wouldn’t be surprised if most of the Puppet’s attendants were archmages themselves— Havath had hundreds of them. They were reinforcing the sarcophagus’ bronze far beyond its normal strength.

Even so, it was no match for Kanderon’s crystal-capped claws, and they dug deep into the outer layers of the sarcophagus before being forced to a halt by the heavily enchanted inner layers.

Kanderon didn’t even bother to try breaking through. Instead, she made sure all four of her paws were secure and then wrapped her wings around the sarcophagus. She could feel Dana’s force magic pushing at her with obscene strength, hard enough to throw Kanderon across the sky if she let go, growing steadily more powerful with every heartbeat.

Under her thick faceplate, Kanderon smiled. Then she ended the crystal spell that was keeping her flying and rededicated all that mana to forcing her immense bulk closer to the sarcophagus, resisting Dana’s force.

The sarcophagus immediately dropped, falling at least a hundred feet before Dana managed to catch their fall. The sound dragon flew by uselessly overhead, their attempted sneak attack missing due to the unexpected drop.

Kanderon began to chuckle as she started to draw more of her wings from the extraplanar storage space they resided in. The crystal shards swelled to twice their normal size, then three times, cocooning the sarcophagus in a massive crystal fist. As the gravity of Anastis clutched at the emerging segments of the crystals, Dana began to sink once more.

The sound dragon frantically circled back, desperate to rescue the Puppet, only to be intercepted by a vast web of lightning, directed and amplified by a swarm of floating swords.

Aedan Dragonslayer had arrived.

“Did you kill Tarsynax?” Kanderon demanded.

“No, but I trapped him in the mountains— threw him against a slope, trapped him under a landslide. Should take him a minute or two to break free,” Aedan said, his arrogant voice amplified with a cantrip.

Kanderon didn’t bother to respond— she made it a point to speak with the obnoxious mage as little as possible. Aedan only worked for Skyhold because he’d been refused a post as a Tsarnassan Champion for political reasons, and declaring himself an independent great power would permanently bar him from serving as such.

Instead, as the Puppet sank through the air, desperately launching force strikes against Kanderon’s armor, the sphinx turned her attention to the massive sandstorm battering the Havathi wardwall. The outer wall was already flickering as wind and sand tore into it and poured over the top, and the storm had begun wrapping itself into the mountains, all the way around the colossal ring of wards and fortifications. Kanderon’s crystal sensors, littered throughout the mountains, were having trouble even measuring the wind’s force.

A moment later, the outer wardwall collapsed as the rest of the Coven arrived. Kanderon would never admit it to anyone, but she felt a deep sense of relief as an elderly woman, carved from lightning-riddled storm-clouds taller than a mountain, punched her way through the ward.

Ilinia Kaen Das. Not animating her storm giant from afar, either— the sheer power involved indicated she was either close by or actually animating the giant from within.

A moment later, an immense whirlwind opened horizontally from within the storm, and dozens of dragons began pouring out, led by a colossal elder wyrm more than two hundred feet in length. They flew unhindered by the storm, bathing the Havathi sand castles in dragonfire.

Indris Stormbreaker and her brood.

Behind them arrived what few of the desert great powers the Coven had managed to persuade to join them.

Chelys Mot, a sea turtle larger than any ship of the desert, swam through the sand like it were water and began ripping through the sand castles like paper, even though they were built to resist assault by great powers and siege spells. He was no match for Kanderon or the other two members of the coven, but few other great powers of the Endless Erg could match him.

Mot had been relatively easy to convince— he had no desire for territory of his own, but so long as his right to wander freely through their territories was respected, he’d gladly take up arms against Havath— who were definitely not the type to let an independent great power roam freely through lands they seized.

In Mot’s wake ran Ramyl the Chained, a reclusive power of the deep desert. He resembled nothing so much as an emaciated, skeletal ape, twice the height of Artur’s armor and covered in dozens of dangling chains, each link larger than a man. There was something unpleasant about the way his joints moved as he loped through the sands.

Ramyl’s price had been steep, to put it mildly, but well worth it, to Kanderon’s mind. He was a relatively recent immigrant to Anastis out of a labyrinth, and his alien magic would be unfamiliar enough to be a severe challenge for the Havathi powers.

And, last and most certainly least, the Great Destroyer.

Kanderon hated the Great Destroyer. A praying mantis big enough to pick up a ship, she was a complete idiot, who had only survived the decades she had because of her absurd healing affinity. Her self-proclaimed title was idiotic, and Kanderon was confident she’d just wander around eating Havathi soldiers until she was full, then amble off somewhere to sleep.

Still, Kanderon wouldn’t turn away the aid of any great power, no matter how ridiculous. She would have brought a dozen more to battle if she could have, but most either wanted nothing to do with this battle, feared irritating the winner if they chose the wrong side, or feared that leaving their territories would provoke their rivals into invading.

Short-sighted fools, the lot of them.

She did allow an exception for the Sleeper’s Tomb Guards, of course. Their mission was the most important in the desert, and even Dorsas Ine and his ilk, the representatives of the worst the system of great powers had to offer, didn’t interfere with it.

Kanderon turned her attention back to the Puppet’s sarcophagus, and tore at it with her hind legs again, ripping deep gouges in the bronze as she kicked at it repeatedly. The sarcophagus slowly continued sinking as Kanderon brought more and more of the bulk of her wings into the world.

Overhead, Aedan hammered the sound dragon with webs of lightning and dancing swords, interfering with its flight with bursts of wind and twisting gravity fields, while slowly softening the dragon’s scales with his scale affinity. In the distance, Kanderon could sense Tarsynax flying towards them, but she’d give even odds whether Aedan would kill the sound dragon before Tarsynax arrived.

If she could force the Puppet down into the sand for long enough, she could grow an entire mountain of quartz around the sarcophagus, enough to put the force mage out of commission for some time. She didn’t need to kill Dana Brumma just yet— even a few minutes of having to fight out of a crystal prison would let Kanderon hunt down at least one or two of the lesser Havathi great powers and turn the tide in their favor.

In the distance, Ilinia and Indris bathed a particularly large Havathi fortification in lightning, dragonflame, and winds blowing sand hard enough to dissolve stone. Flurries of snow were appearing out of nowhere around the fortification, and the winds seemed to jerk up and down wildly.

Kanderon knew, abruptly, exactly which great power had remained behind enemy lines— Symon the Shaper. He had gravity, frost, pressure, and friction affinities, which he combined to create a massive destructive aura around him. The man could level a city or annihilate an army in minutes, while leaving his allies within the aura completely undamaged.

Duarch Locke must have chosen him as his personal bodyguard. Locke was an idiot— Symon, for all his power, would have been far more useful against Skyhold itself. His powers were more suited towards mass destruction than battling other great powers head-to-head. Locke should have chosen Grandyn the Traitor or Ityn the Gardener as his guard instead. Even the Riversnake would have been a tolerable choice.

Well-connected idiots like Locke inevitably rose to power in every government, unfortunately. At least this idiot was benefiting her.

Before Kanderon and the Puppet even landed among the dunes below, Symon’s destructive aura vanished under the onslaught of the two storm mages, and Duarch Locke’s fortress collapsed into a heap of rubble a moment later.

It was then that Kanderon finally felt the hidden power begin to move. As Symon the Shaper and Duarch Locke died, as the inner Havathi wardwall began to collapse under the Coven’s assault, something took flight deep in the mountains. As Clan Castis summoned fire elemental after fire elemental, pushing the Riversnake to the brink of destruction, Kanderon felt a terrifyingly huge draw on the aether. A great power making itself known, one every bit as powerful as her own.

The sphinx recognized it immediately.

Even as the Puppet’s sarcophagus touched down on the sand, Kanderon launched herself away from it, retracting the bulk of her wings back into their extraplanar spaces. She didn’t bother trying to trap the Puppet— that wasn’t important any longer. She resumed the spells that allowed her to fly, the ones that repelled her aether crystals from the crystals in the bedrock far below the desert sands.

Kanderon raced for altitude as she felt the tenth Havathi great power wing towards Skyhold.

The one power she’d never have imagined would work for Havath.

A power almost as old as her, one that had never, under any circumstances, worked for any nation before, though she’d often proclaimed herself humanity’s defender.

A power that had, across a lifespan almost as long as Kanderon’s own, and far beyond that of normal dragons, held herself perpetually above the games of the great powers.

A power that Kanderon had always circled warily, neither sure who would win a clash between them, both preferring not to chance it.

Heliothrax was coming.

Heliothrax, the Sunwyrm. Heliothrax, the slayer of more great powers than even Kanderon herself. Heliothrax, the Kraken-Eater, the Lich-Melter, the Invincible.

For the first time since the siege began, for the first time since she felt Hugh’s life weak and flickering through their warlock pact during the battle for Imperial Ithos, Kanderon felt fear.

She activated the crystal constructs in Skyhold that would sound a full retreat into the mountain and desperately ascended farther into the sky.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

In Full Retreat

Alustin was being chased by a dozen Havathi fliers in between the layers of Skyhold’s defensive ward when Kanderon’s retreat klaxon sounded. The fliers were rather irritated with him for some reason— most likely to do with the fact that he’d dropped alchemical explosives on the decks of several Havathi ships that had escaped the dead headmaster’s assault.

For all the seriousness of the situation, Alustin had to admit, he hadn’t had this much fun, or gotten to kill this many Havathi, in years.

The two were basically the same thing, of course.

The paper mage scowled at Kanderon’s interruption. He’d been periodically scrying the battlefield this whole time. Nothing should have changed to warrant a full retreat just yet. Their entire plan was built around delaying Havath. Slow them so Kanderon had time to hunt down their great powers. Slow them to give the rest of the Coven time to arrive. Slow them so they had time to store the Exile Splinter in the vault and close it again.

Something must have gone severely wrong to have forced Kanderon to sound the retreat this early.

Alustin shot upwards along the orange curve of the defensive ward, narrowly dodging a lava bomb hurled by one of his pursuers. A lightning bolt from one of the others almost hit him, but got yanked off-course by one of the pieces of paper fluttering in Alustin’s wake— a galvanic beacon. Glyph-form galvanic beacons were far weaker than enchanted ones, with a far shorter range, but they did the trick in a pinch.

The paper mage vented what looked like a great mass of thread from his storage tattoo— thousands and thousands of pale threads, hardly visible in the flickering chaos of the battle, each no longer than a forearm. They shone orange in the light of the layers of the wards— the orange shade was far more overwhelming in between the wards despite barely making it to the mountain, for whatever reason. Hugh would probably know.

Then Alustin cast a spell on the threads, and the strands of paper, sliced to the width of a hair, stiffened and came to a halt in a great cobwebby cloud.

The Havathi fliers couldn’t stop or dodge in time, cutting themselves to ribbons on the paper threads with their own velocity. Suddenly, a dozen pursuers were down to three.

A wind-shielded storm mage, an armored gravity mage with a bow who had been running along the curve of Skyhold’s ward, and a force mage who had been bouncing between the wards.

Alustin found it vaguely amusing that his remaining pursuers would be evenly balanced between the three most common types of fliers.

Ahead of him, a Havathi dragon tore through the outer layer of the two wards Alustin was between, then turned to snap at him.

Alustin accelerated the beat of his four paper wings, blurring them almost into invisibility. He let a few sheets of paper trailing him fall behind, pushing his mana into his wings instead. He barely rose over the snapping jaws, then actually ran over the scales of the dragon’s head. He drew his sabre and slashed the dragon’s eye as he sprinted past it, then launched himself off the other side of the dragon’s head.

Not up or forward, but straight down.

His sabre pierced straight through the wind shield of the pursuing Havath wind mage, who’d dodged under the dragon— it was far inferior to Sabae’s shield. Alustin kicked off the mage’s corpse as the wind shield collapsed and launched himself straight back towards the other two mages as the dragon flailed its head, bellowing in pain.

The force mage struck Alustin with a focused blast straight to his chest, but Alustin ignored it. The outer layers of his paper armor collapsed, dispersing the force throughout his armor, then promptly popped back out, restoring it once again.

The force mage panicked as Alustin shot towards him, and sent a widely-dispersed pulse of force his way. It forced the Librarian Errant to a halt, but that didn’t matter.

One of the sheets of paper Alustin had let fall behind as he accelerated past the dragon had finally caught up with the force mage from behind.

Then there was only the gravity mage.

Alustin felt his own weight begin to increase drastically, but he easily counteracted that with a levitation spell and dodged one of the gravity mage’s arrows.

Then he fired three volleys of paper out of his tattoo.

The largest volley was a series of ward segments, which Alustin rapidly formed into the shape of a pipe with a funnel at the top.

The middle-sized volley of paper was just a series of cutting sheets, which Alustin sent, not at the gravity mage, but into the dragon’s mouth, right into its venom glands.

Gallons of unignited venom poured out of the dragon’s mouth, and Alustin shifted the ward pipe to catch it as he dodged another arrow.

The dragon venom flowed down the pipe, straight at the gravity mage, who tried to dodge.

Alustin just moved the pipe.

The gravity mage tried to force the dragon venom back up the pipe with a gravity spell, but Alustin closed off the upper end of the ward, then collapsed the ward pipe from the top down, forcing the venom out the lower end, where it sprayed all over the gravity mage.

Then the third volley of paper Alustin had fired slammed into the gravity mage.

Well, not really a volley— it was just a single sheet of paper.

A single sheet of paper with a fire-starting glyph on it.

Alustin turned and flew away from the burning torch that had been a Havathi mage a moment ago, smiling.

He honestly could have taken down the mage more simply, but coming up with inventive new ways to kill Havathi was one of his greatest joys in life. What fun was vengeance if it wasn’t a little creative, after all?

The paper mage finished off the wounded dragon with a burst of paper knives, leaving it dangling from the rift in the ward.

Alustin located a rift back inside of the innermost ward a short distance away. While he flew towards it, he took a moment to scry the battlefield, to try and determine what had alarmed Kanderon enough to sound the retreat early.

To his surprise, the only major change was Kanderon herself. She was ascending straight up into the sky, far higher than he’d ever seen her before.

There was a glint in the sky, above even Kanderon.

Then a dozen beams of blinding golden light, each thicker than a tree, descended from the sky.

Alustin cast the most powerful farsight spell in his arsenal, dividing his scrying to watch all the beams at once. He could only keep it up for a few heartbeats before it gave him a splitting headache, unfortunately.

One beam cut Aedan Dragonslayer from the sky, moments before he could slay the sound dragon. When it slammed into the ground, a shockwave of molten glass erupted from the sand, flying hundreds of feet into the air.

Half a dozen of the hellish beams targeted the Coven’s forces, out among the ruined Havathi fortifications. Three of Indris’ children were burnt to a crisp in an instant by the precisely targeted beams. Two of the beams slammed into the the Great Destroyer. The giant mantis had been digging its way into a Havathi sand castle, but was vaporized entirely by the beams. One beam struck Chelys Mot’s shell. The immense sea turtle immediately dove underneath the sand, seemingly unharmed— no surprise, since Alustin wasn’t actually sure what possibly could damage the turtle’s shell.

The beams started to cut towards further targets, leaving immense troughs of molten glass in the desert sands, but Indris and Ilinia forced their immense sandstorm forward.

The beams cut into the storm, melting the wind-blown sand into a rain of burning glass.

Four more beams ripped through Skyhold’s ward like it wasn’t even there. One slammed into Artur, ripping off one arm of the massive suit of armor, before the stone mage grew his hammer into a colossal iron shield.

Which promptly began to weep molten iron.

Another two slammed into Skyhold’s peak. Alustin didn’t even bother trying to scry their impacts— there were more anti-scrying defenses up there than nearly any other location in the world.

He hoped at least some of the archmages up there survived.

The fourth began slicing across the lines of Skyhold mages, incinerating dozens of mages, as well as setting fire to one of the docked ships.

A vast swarm of hexagonal ceramic tiles immediately accelerated into the air, forming a great dome over the Skyhold lines. To Alustin’s shock, while the ceramic tiles turned cherry red, they actually held back the pillar of light.

Alustin supposed he’d underestimated Eddin Slane, the exact same way people often underestimated his paper magic. It seemed pottery affinities could be much more powerful than Alustin had thought.

Knowing about an error in thinking hardly made you immune to it, though. That took constant effort and introspection.

The final pillar of light slammed into Kanderon herself.

Or it tried to. It dissolved, as though splashing off an invisible shield, just short of the sphinx’s crystal armor.

Then an almost invisible shockwave erupted from Kanderon, spreading across the entire battlefield in an instant. Alustin only felt a slight tingle when it passed through him, but the twelve columns of golden light dissolved into the air.

Alustin let his vision-splitting spell lapse.

He’d only held it for perhaps two or three seconds. He hadn’t even made it to the rift leading back inside that ward. But in that time, the entire course of the battle had changed, and not for the better.

Alustin sent his vision ranging up again, past Kanderon this time.

And caught sight of an elder wyrm. Longer and leaner than Indris. Covered in shimmering, mother-of-pearl scales, with four graceful wings erupting from her back, rather than the usual two.

He recognized her instantly.

Heliothrax.

Knowing what was coming next, Alustin pushed even more mana into his wings, shooting through the rift in the ward at dangerous speeds.

He passed over hundreds of embattled Skyhold mages, but he didn’t bother to slow down to help them. Any of them not already retreating inside the mountain, or sheltered underneath Eddin Slane’s ceramic canopy, were as good as dead.

Above him, the sun started to shine brighter, and patches of Alustin’s paper armor began to smolder as the rays of the sun intensified. Skyhold’s shadow began to shrink unnaturally.

The outermost layer of his armor was completely on fire by the time he made it to Skyhold’s shadow. He shot inside Skyhold’s main entrance, then detonated it off him. Alustin launched a dozen sheets of blanket-sized paper in front of him. He tore through each one in succession, slowing his speed, then hit the ground with a somersault.

Then he forced himself to turn and look outside.

Eddin Slane had expanded his canopy even farther, and hundreds of Skyhold mages were retreating into the mountain at a dead sprint, but at least two hundred Skyhold mages had been caught outside.

Those that hadn’t made it under the canopy or into the shrunken shadow of the mountain were dead or dying. Even if they’d managed to block the rays of the sun, the very air was growing hot enough outside that many mages were simply catching on fire.

The only reason the boiling air didn’t flood inside was thanks to Skyhold’s ventilation system— air only flowed out of the mountain, never in. There was a whole gate into the labyrinth that Kanderon had converted into an air supply for the mountain centuries ago, to protect Skyhold from external poison gas attacks.

The heat from the rays of the sun had intensified to the point that the sand in the harbor was starting to glow red. It wasn’t melting, but touching it would give you horrific burns.

The spell had been given countless names over the centuries. The Gaze of Justice. The Punishing Sun. Skyfire.

One name had stuck above all others.

The Eye of Heliothrax.

The ancient solar mage could amplify the light of the sun, making it hot enough to burn flesh, or even to melt steel if she so wished.

Heliothrax clearly hadn’t desired to melt steel this time, and the reason was immediately obvious.

The Havathi battle lines were reforming, completely untouched by the Eye of Heliothrax. They’d raised a massive windshield around their forces to protect them from the rapidly advancing sandstorm and Skyhold’s battle spells.

Above them, Skyhold’s defensive ward, abused beyond its limits, finally collapsed completely.

The Eye of Heliothrax winked out a moment later, the sunlight weakening to its normal strength. The Havathi forces began to advance, frost and ice mages cooling the sands ahead of their lines.

Honestly, it could have been worse. If it had been closer to noon, the shadow of the mountain would have been small enough that the Sunwrym could have shrunken it to nothing, and the Eye of Heliothrax would have killed far more Skyhold mages than it had.

Alustin began reforming his paper armor, as the sandstorm and the Havathi army descended on Skyhold.

Far above the sandstorm, the sky erupted in light as Kanderon and Heliothrax threw themselves at one another.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Wardmaster

Hugh was keeping watch in the tunnel entrance when Heliothrax attacked. They weren’t sure why the alarm klaxon had gone off, so they were all on edge.

Godrick was helping Sabae remove her spear from the stone wall, and Talia was watching the hallways leading farther in, so Hugh was the only one to see the attack. The Stormward’s Crown automatically darkened as the golden rays descended from the sky, shielding his eyes. For a brief instant, Hugh thought it was Kanderon attacking the Havathi.

Then he caught up with what his affinity senses were trying to tell him, and he realized the golden rays weren’t starfire.

It was sunfire.

Hugh already knew there was only one solar mage on the continent that powerful, but part of him tried to resist the idea as Kanderon disrupted the sunfire’s containment spell with some sort of colossal energy pulse. He was fairly sure it was a variant on a starfire containment field meant to disrupt other containment fields.

When a shimmering, four-winged dragon came into view, far enough away that even his sphinx eyes could barely spot it, Hugh had to admit the truth to himself. Heliothrax was the only dragon he’d ever heard of with four wings.

“We need to move!” Hugh yelled at the others, sprinting down the hallway.

“What is it?” Sabae asked as she and Godrick finally got the spear out of the wall.

“Heliothrax,” Hugh said. “Havath somehow recruited Heliothrax.”

Sabae didn’t even question him. “You heard Hugh, move! We need to get far away from any windows!”

Hugh surrounded all four of them with the Stormward’s Crown as they retreated deeper into the mountain— configured not as a defensive ward, but as an attention ward. Havathi forces had already made it inside, so the element of surprise was their best bet. Besides, everyone had armor now— it wasn’t solely up to Hugh to protect them from attacks anymore.

Attention wards also used far less mana than defensive wards— a good thing, since Hugh’s mana reservoirs needed some time to recover after the battle with Amalda.

When the Eye of Heliothrax ignited outside, Hugh’s stellar affinity sense lit up like a bonfire, and he almost tripped. They were far enough inside the mountain that they didn’t even feel the heat from the spell, though.

Hugh came to a halt, panting. The back of his head was pounding from the exertion. He noticed the others weren’t even breathing hard.

Before his lungs were injured, he wouldn’t have been, either.

“Are you alright, Hugh?” Talia asked.

He nodded, but even as he caught his breath, the pounding in his head got worse, and he stumbled to his knees.

“Hugh? Focus on your breathing, Hugh!” Talia said.

He shook his head and immediately regretted it. “It’s not my lungs.”

“What, then?” Talia asked.

Hugh started to say it was his head, then stopped.

No, it wasn’t his head.

“It’s my warlock pact,” he said. “I’m feeling pain through it. Lots of pain.”

“Kanderon’s been injured?” Sabae demanded.

“No, not Kanderon,” Hugh said. “Mackerel.”

“Which way?” Godrick asked.

Hugh climbed back to his feet, then did his best to feel for Mackerel through the bond. Opening the bond even further just made the pain worse, but he kept going.

“Those idiot first years had better be safe,” Talia said. “If only so I can beat them senseless.”

“Yeh’ll have ta’ wait in line,” Godrick muttered.

“This way,” Hugh said, pointing.

He took off running down the hall, ignoring his lungs and the pain in his head.

Loarna of the Vault knew she should be angry at the Havath Dominion for attacking Skyhold, for trying to conquer them, and for…

There were plenty of good reasons to be angry at them, but none of them were what made Loarna angriest.

Instead, she was angriest at them for the noise. They’d been making a horrible racket for weeks now. Loarna hadn’t been able to sleep at all, save in the middle of a half-dozen wards with cotton shoved in her ears.

And today, the noise was worse than ever.

But oh, Loarna was paying Havath back for every last bit of noise.

All through the mountain, she felt Havathi troops cross her wards as they invaded.

And oh, they suffered for it.

Her wards set them on fire, cut them, and hurled them against ceilings. Subtle attention wards redirected them into choke points where the retreating Skyhold mages could take them to pieces from cover. Other wards altered the senses so that when Havathi mages saw one another, they thought each other Skyhold mages and died to friendly fire.

Loarna was quite proud of her wards. She was proudest of her solution for getting them to target solely invaders, though.

There was no way to ward for a particular nationality. One could ward against specific species or individuals, but not for something as intangible as allegiance. Countless wardcrafters had tried that in the past— a ward against the disloyal would be the ultimate tool for rooting out spies and traitors.

Loarna hadn’t even tried. Instead, she’d trained her wards to recognize anyone in Skyhold. Anyone who had crossed over one of her wards between when the great defensive ward had risen and this morning was remembered by all the rest of the wards and left unaffected. And she’d scattered so many new wards throughout the mountain over the last few months that everyone had crossed over dozens, at the least.

Of course, new people would need to be able to enter the mountain eventually, so the wards were all rigged to collapse themselves after a day or so after battle activation. Leaving old combat wards lying around was monstrous, foolish, and just asking to have some child wander over one and injure themselves.

For now, though, the Havathi were paying for every inch of tunnel they invaded. They were slowly breaking through and defeating her wards, but at a steep, steep cost.

Loarna wasn’t just sitting on her behind, enjoying her labor, though.

No, she was going to personally help root out every Havathi mage and soldier, to pay them back for all the awful noise.

She strode through the halls, surrounded by a thick, choking cloud of chalk dust. None of it went into her lungs, for it all obeyed her magic precisely.

And in that chalk dust were thousands of intricate patterns. Wards layered over and over and over again. Only the outer two layers were active at any moment. The outermost were attention wards, preventing any of the Havathi from seeing her as she walked through their ranks.

Most of the Havathi never even saw her before her enchanted weapons, a pair of flying daggers controlled by her will, got to them. Sometimes, when they could defend themselves from her daggers, she asphyxiated them with choking clouds of chalk dust, but she hated doing that.

Every now and then, a Havathi mage would notice her, even through her attention wards, and try to attack her.

The instant the attacks passed through the attention wards, they hit the second layer of chalk dust wards.

The second layer couldn’t even stop a fly. All it did was register the type of attack that passed through it, passing that information on to the inner layers, activating the next layer in.

The third layer, and every layer underneath, would immediately and automatically shift to block whatever sort of attack was coming through. The attack would still pass through the third layer— there was hardly any mana running through it, after all. It might be incrementally weakened, at best.

But then the third layer would pass on even more information about the attack, and the inner wards would get even more specific with their defenses, and the third layer would block a little more of the attack, with the same tiny amount of mana.

With each layer, the wards would modify themselves to be more specific against the affinity used, the composition of the attack, its angle, its temperature, and dozens more variables.

As with affinities, wards grew more efficient the more specific they were. As attacks passed deeper and deeper into Loarna’s cloud of chalk dust, the wards became more specifically targeted against the spell she was warding against.

Few spells made it past the seventh layer, only an inch or so into the cloud of wards. Loarna could block a thrown boulder the weight of a horse with a fraction of the mana needed to throw it.

And the cloud had hundreds of layers. To her knowledge, no other wardcrafter in history had replicated her feat. She could only have so many of them active at once, but she didn’t need many active at once. She hardly even needed to pay attention to maintain her defensive cloud. Loarna wasn’t one to brag, but she was fairly sure she could defend herself from one of the great powers, if she needed to.

The masses of Havathi troops she met didn’t stand a chance.

As much as she enjoyed making the Havathi pay, she did wish she could be in the Council Chamber, watching Skyhold’s Vault open. It was a truly magisterial design, the envy of every bank on the continent.

Many assumed that Loarna had something to do with Skyhold’s Vault, due to her name, but she didn’t. Rather, orphans were often adopted by Tsarnassan banks and called the Children of the Vault. It was a good life, and made for loyal bankers unlikely to steal.

Loarna was always vaguely puzzled by the fact that she’d ended up working in Skyhold instead of Tsarnassus, but then, Kanderon so seldom demanded she interact with people she didn’t know, unlike the bank’s bureaucracy.

She frowned as she felt more of her wards collapse a few floors up. Someone had been tearing through huge numbers of the wards on that floor. She supposed she should go do something about that.

It only took her ten minutes at a brisk walk to reach the area in question, and she eliminated two Havathi squads on the way, without them ever even noticing her. One of the squads had been ordinary soldiers, not even mages. Loarna was utterly baffled what the point of non-mage soldiers was— did Havath think they could win by making Skyhold exhaust all their mana against soldiers? Or perhaps they wanted the soldiers dead?

She wasn’t really sure, but then, she didn’t understand why most people behaved the way they did.

Loarna reached the floor in question to find a squadron of Skyhold mages lying scattered across the floor. Some of them appeared to have been burnt to death, others thrown against walls hard enough to kill them.

Almost a third, however, appeared to have been asphyxiated.

Thunder rang out in the distance, and Loarna scowled and set off in that direction.

She passed broken doors, great burns in the granite of Skyhold, and even more corpses of Skyhold mages.

Then the outside of her ward cloud began to drift in a new, unexpected breeze.

Loarna easily stopped the chalk from drifting, but the wind only intensified as she walked onward.

Then she turned a corner, and there, in the middle of one of Skyhold’s dining halls, surrounded by an immense wind shield and dozens of corpses, was Grandyn the Traitor.

Grandyn the Traitor, the only Tsarnassan Champion ever to turn on his family and his nation in battle.

Grandyn the Traitor, who had cut down a third of Tsarnassus’ gryphon riders in the battle when he’d sided with Havath. Riders he’d trained alongside. Riders who trusted him.

Grandyn the Traitor, who had sold his family’s honor to Havath.

Loarna might not understand many of the reasons why people behaved as they did, and she might not have been back to Tsarnassus more than a handful of times in decades, but she absolutely understood why every Tsarnassan hated Grandyn.

She hated him just as much.

It didn’t help that he was attacking her adopted home.

Both of her enchanted daggers went lancing straight towards the tall, whipcord-thin man.

Both were harmlessly deflected away from his wind shield.

Grandyn whirled, searching for whoever had attacked him. Loarna’s daggers danced around him, stabbing again and again at his wind shield to no avail.

Loarna’s eyes narrowed, then she set trails of chalk dust snaking low to the ground, far to either side of Grandyn.

“Illusionists,” Grandyn said, his voice ringing out clearly. “I hate illusionists. I have a neat trick for taking care of them, though.”

With that, a colossal gust of wind erupted from the man in every direction. Tables, chairs, and corpses were sent flying towards walls faster than arrows. Loarna’s two creeping tendrils of chalk dust were dispersed into the air.

The winds, and several chairs, slammed into Loarna hard enough to injure a dragon. To her mild surprise, it actually broke through to the ninth layer of her wards, and she lost a good bit of chalk dust.

“There you are,” Grandyn said as her attention wards collapsed.

Loarna immediately summoned a glare protection ward over her eyes, knowing what Grandyn would do next. Then she reached into her storage tattoo. The inside was the size of a large warehouse after so many decades of growth, and much of that was filled with chalk. Huge blocks mined hundreds of leagues away, little sticks of chalk, buckets and barrels full of dust.

She probably didn’t need quite so much, but she enjoyed having a wide selection.

Loarna selected a slightly coarser chalk, one that she found especially effective for wind wards. She luxuriated in the feeling of the tiny fossils the chalk was made of as she drew it into her cloud.

Then Grandyn hit her wards with wind and lightning. Even with the wards over her eyes, the lightning was still bright enough to hurt, almost as bright as one of Kanderon’s starfire spells.

Grandyn’s attack easily punched through ten layers before it began slowing. The attack didn’t come to a halt until the sixteenth layer.

She cracked her knuckles, then began venting the coarse chalk dust out into the air.

“How are you blocking me?” Grandyn demanded.

Loarna ignored him, ostentatiously looking to one side.

“Is that… is that dust?” Grandyn asked.

Then he smiled. “No, that’s chalk, isn’t it? You’re Loarna of the Vault. Our intelligence reports mentioned you.”

The lightning increased in strength and punched through a seventeenth layer.

“Let me guess,” Grandyn said. “You’ve come to get revenge for my sins against Tsarnassus, just like so many before you.”

The traitor had stopped blasting wind in every direction, just focusing on Loarna, so she began shifting the loose chalk dust in the room in tiny, almost invisible streams to encircle him.

“You know, I spotted Aedan Dragonslayer himself outside of the mountain,” Grandyn said. “I know he saw me as well, but you know what? He didn’t even try to come after me. He knew he didn’t stand a chance, and you’re no Aedan Dragonslayer. You’re a one trick mage with a gimmick. A crafter who thinks they can stand up to true battlemages.”

Loarna finished constructing the ward around Grandyn. It had taken longer than usual because she’d included attention-diverting spellforms and mana shunts to prevent any glowing or other visible signs of the ward. She took her time about it, as the wind and lightning punched through an eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth layer. Only when she was satisfied with the ward did she begin to pump mana into it.

It wasn’t any sort of normal battle ward.

It was a valve ward.

Air could leave the confines of the ward, but not enter it.

Grandyn’s wind and lightning punched through three more layers of her wards, then four. Grandyn’s lightning was powerful enough to rip apart a sandship in moments, and even with her wards specifically tuned for them, she couldn’t hold out forever.

“You’re oh so clever, I know,” Grandyn said. “The wardcrafters of Havath rave endlessly about you, claim you could revolutionize the Dominion’s defenses.”

Loarna assembled a new set of wards in her cloud of chalk dust, these right up against her. She’d crafted this type of ward often enough, but never around herself.

It was an attention ward, but rather than an attention-diverting ward, it was an attention-attracting ward.

The more closely Grandyn’s attention stayed on her, the longer it would take him to notice that even as he battered her with wind, the air around him was thinning, that he was weakening his wind shield to batter her wards.

The lightning punched through ten layers of wards in a heartbeat, before they stabilized again.

“Do you know what the weakness of every ward is, though?” Grandyn asked.

“Yes,” Loarna said, making eye contact with Grandyn for the first time. It was as unpleasant as always. Other people’s eyes felt like… like spikes driven in the back of her mind, into the part of her that told her where she stood in relation to the rest of the world. They made the world crinkle up around them, and it hurt.

This time, though, the pain of eye contact was worth it.

Grandyn gave her a look of… mild surprise, maybe? She wasn’t sure.

She also didn’t care.

“Raw power,” Loarna said. “It’s the same speech every battle wardcrafter gets, again and again and again. It is infinitely tiresome.”

Grandyn scowled at her as his lightning punched through another pair of wards. His gusts of wind were steadily decreasing in strength, and he was cannibalizing his wind shield to accomplish even that much.

The valve ward would normally have stopped letting air out ages ago, the pressure differential far too much for a ward alone to overcome.

Grandyn’s absurd power, however, was doing all the work for Loarna.

And he hadn’t even noticed yet.

The traitor smiled, but even Loarna could tell it was forced.

“Yes, well, you’ll never have to be bored by that speech again,” Grandyn said.

Loarna could feel the traitor’s mana flood into his spell, in greater quantities than she could ever hope to wrangle. The lightning grew in intensity until even her wards struggled to protect her eyes from the glare, and it began to punch through layers of chalk wards by the dozen.

Then, with a great shudder, Grandyn’s wind shield simply fell apart, the air pressure inside the valve ward too low for it to stay stable.

Before Grandyn could even react, Loarna’s daggers had stabbed into him. One into his throat, one into his heart.

Loarna smiled to herself as the great power collapsed.

Then the room lurched around her, and she found herself staring up at the ceiling.

She couldn’t help but think it was rather odd that the room had decided to shift like that.

Loarna forced her head up and realized she was lying on the ground. She looked towards her feet and saw a charred, blackened hole in her abdomen.

She slowly lowered her head and smiled.

That lightning bolt should have incinerated her entirely. It had been the sort of attack that great powers used against one another, the sort that even archmages couldn’t stand against.

And Loarna, with her mana reservoirs smaller than many first-year students, had stopped it almost entirely.

Loarna of the Vault, the greatest wardcrafter in the world, died with a smile on her face.

It was finally quiet again.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Glass Rain

Artur could see perfectly inside the sandstorm when it rolled over Skyhold a few moments after its defensive ward fully collapsed. The wind outside his armor was filled with choking sand, which he could easily perceive via his stone affinity sense.

He’d used its cover to drag his damaged armor back over to the mountain, then used Skyhold’s granite for repairs. Once that was done, he hefted his hammer, restored to its usual size, and stalked towards an empty space in his senses, a gap where the air was sand-free.

A wind shield filled with Havathi troops preparing to enter the mountain.

The shield was a powerful one, to survive against this freakish sandstorm, but Artur was known as the Wallbreaker for a reason. He tore through it without even slowing down, plunging straight into the enemy ranks. A few scattered lightning bolts and lava bombs flew his way, but he ignored them and began swinging his hammer in a great circle, just above the sand, sending dozens of mages flying off into the storm.

Then the Havathi wind shield collapsed entirely, and Artur began hunting down the scattered Havathi troops in the darkness of the storm.

There were hundreds of them, scattered around him, blindly staggering through the flesh-tearing sandstorm. Only a few were even heading in the right direction towards Skyhold.

Artur targeted those first. Most of them didn’t even see his armor loom up in the storm before he sent them flying with his hammer or simply stepped on them.

He almost felt a little worse for those few who saw him in time to try to fight or flee.

By the time he’d finished them off, the hundreds of remaining Havathi staggering around in the sandstorm were scattered. More were dropping all the time, just from the winds, and it would take ages to individually hunt down all the survivors.

He shook his head, then turned to enter the mountain. He’d have to shed most of his armor’s bulk to move around in there, but since the majority of the fight had already moved inside, he didn’t have much of a choice.

Then Artur paused, feeling a void in the sandstorm approaching him at high speed.

A dragon.

Deep inside his armor, Artur smiled, then extended his senses.

For a moment, he hoped it was that aggravating sound dragon that had escaped him earlier, but this one was too large, and his iron affinity sense was going crazy.

Shining Tarsynax.

Lightning dragons almost always attacked ground-based prey by blasting them with lightning, then swooping down to attack at close range. It might be predictable, but it was nothing if not effective, especially for a dragon as durable as Tarsynax.

Artur, however, had a countermeasure.

He reached into the extradimensional space of his hammer with his iron affinity and began searching around. The mass of iron inside was immense— the size of a small mountain. He moved his senses towards the outside, where the iron was covered in weird, twisted iron spines.

He found one that was almost straight, and a good bit taller than his armor, and pulled it out of the extradimensional space. He snapped it off at the base, planted it in the sand next to him, then shrank his hammer down to a ring, which he absorbed into his armor.

Almost immediately after he’d done that, Tarsynax fired a massive lightning bolt at Artur from the spines alongside her jaw.

The lightning was pulled harmlessly into the iron spine, then into the sand. A moment later Tarsynax struck at Artur.

Rather than hitting an incapacitated or off-balance opponent, however, Artur crouched, ready for the impact.

Artur ducked through the dragon’s claws and grabbed Tarsynax right around the torso. One of his gauntlets brushed against one of the dragon’s back spines, and lightning discharged into it, shattering off some of the stone, but Artur ignored it.

Tarsynax’s momentum shoved Artur backward through the sand, plowing huge furrows in the dunes. Artur didn’t travel nearly as far back as he should have, though— he was firming the sand behind him with a stone spell.

As they slid, Artur threw himself bodily to the side, and the two of them went rolling through the sand.

The stone mage came out on top, and he began hammering at the dragon’s collarbone with his gauntlets. Break a dragon’s collarbone, and you leave it unable to fly.

Of course, breaking even a normal dragon’s collarbone was difficult enough. Artur could feel the steel coating Tarsynax’s scales, reinforcing her bones, even layered throughout her body in protective meshes.

Artur had no idea how Tarsynax prevented her lightning from traveling through the steel coating and filling her body. She clearly achieved it somehow, but he certainly didn’t understand the trick of it.

The lightning dragon flailed wildly at Artur with her wings and forelegs, but even though the dragon was far larger, Artur’s armor outweighed nearly any dragon shy of elder wyrms like Indris and Heliothrax, and he had Tarsynax pinned at a terrible angle.

Then he felt another dragon diving at him through the sandstorm.

Artur hurled himself off Tarsynax, but the sound dragon still sent him a glancing blow hard enough to send him rolling across the dunes. Sonic shockwaves emitting from the sound dragon’s talons tore huge gouges in his armor.

He was already fixing the damage as he sunk a gauntlet into the sand to slow his tumble, but Tarsynax hit him with a lightning bolt before he even stopped, tearing a chunk of granite loose from his helmet.

As Artur forced his armor back to its feet, droplets of molten glass began raining down through the storm.

Indris Stormbreaker, dragon queen of Theras Tel, was developing a marked dislike for being chased through the air by someone a fraction of her size.

No matter what she did, though, she just couldn’t seem to get the Puppet’s bronze sarcophagus off her tail.

She’d battered the thing with winds strong enough to shatter castle walls. She’d coated it in dragonflame. She’d hammered it with spears of fused sand.

And it just kept pursuing her.

She snarled, then banked to intercept a Havathi dragon. Hundred-and-forty-footer— probably thought herself on the top of the food chain.

Indris caught the smaller dragon’s neck in her mouth, then shook her like a dog, not even slowing down in her wind-propelled flight.

Then she threw the smaller dragon, neck broken, at the bronze sarcophagus.

The Puppet just swatted the smaller dragon aside with a blast of force and kept coming.

The entire sandstorm flickered with light from Kanderon and Heliothrax’s battle, far above the storm. Indris felt the Eye of Heliothrax reactivate, far more powerful than before, and spread across the entire storm.

The sand at the top of the sandstorm began to melt into glass.

Indris snarled again, then redoubled the strength of the winds pushing her forward, and the ones slowing the Puppet down.

She sent her senses racing out along the winds, checking the state of the battlefield.

Her children were keeping together in a loose flight, ripping apart Havathi fortifications and sand castles one by one.

Ilinia’s storm giant, along with Ramyl the Chained and Chelys Mot, were harrying the hydra. The three of them together struggled to do much more than annoy the beast. The damn snake was more than three times longer than Indris, and each of its dozen heads were the size of her torso. She hadn’t heard of one this big in centuries— most living adult hydras weren’t much larger than she was, save for a couple in the jungles of Southeast Ithos, but they still weren’t close to the size of this behemoth.

The absurd monster was even bigger than one of the Sican Elders and likely weighed nearly as much Solintus the Patient, as hard as that was to believe.

Every time Chelys Mot struck the hydra with a tsunami of sand, it just plowed right through it. Every time Ramyl the Chained battered it with its floating chains, each link hot enough to melt stone, the burns healed in seconds.

The hydra was barely paying the three of them any attention, besides occasionally snapping at them or spitting venom.

Ilinia was burning all twelve of its heads with lightning bolts powerful enough to destroy palaces, and they were barely digging past the hydra’s scales in their perpetual race against the hydra’s regeneration.

Hydras might be slow-moving and stupid, but the older and bigger they got, the more indestructible they became. The effect was even more exaggerated than it was among dragons.

Indris had no idea where the Dominion had found the awful thing, nor how they had tamed it, but if they couldn’t stop the slow-moving behemoth before it slithered to Skyhold, the mountain was as good as lost.

She really hated her ancestors for creating hydras, sometimes.

The Puppet sent a burst of force at her, but Indris felt it coming through the storm and casually rolled out of its way, not even needing to stop scrying the battlefield through the winds.

A small fleet of Dominion ships were making a break out of one of their sand castles, protected by wind mages. Indris waited a moment to see whether they’d make for Skyhold or try to flee— she’d destroy them either way, but it gave her important information about the status of Havathi morale.

They turned towards Skyhold. Not close enough to breaking, yet.

Indris spat an immense stream of dragonfire, then immediately seized the burning liquid with the winds, dividing it into hundreds of spinning globes of fire. She sent them shooting through the storm, where they ripped through the Havathi fleet, leaving only burning rubble on the dunes. The storm quickly began covering it with sand.

She began moving her senses about the battlefield again.

She quickly stumbled across Artur Wallbreaker, being harried from the air by Tarsynax and that annoying little sound mage dragon.

She knocked both out of the sky with downbursts and used her sand affinity to fuse cages of sandstone around them. She suspected she’d broken a few of the sound mage’s bones— including, to her amusement, in its tail. It would heal rapidly, but ideally, Artur would use the delays well.

A fight between a dozen monstrous flame elementals and a water golem half the size of the hydra caught her attention next, and she smiled.

Indris hadn’t thought she’d get to use her water magic in this battle. She began ripping and tearing water from the Riversnake’s control.

It was only moments before she’d stripped it of enough of its water for the elementals to fall on the naga mage inside.

“Send your elementals against the hydra,” Indris whispered through the wind.

She didn’t bother waiting for a response. She knew Clan Castis would have heard through one of their flame seers.

The dragon queen gathered up the Riversnake’s water and levitated it through the air to Ilinia.

“You’re welcome, you old biddy,” Indris said through the old winds.

“Aww, you do care, you old hussy,” Ilinia replied, seizing control of the water.

Indris snorted. The Kaen Das family had been a thorn in her side for the entirety of her rule in Theras Tel. If it weren’t for their alliance, she wouldn’t give a scale for what happened to her rival.

Well, that, and with the two of them controlling close to half of the Ithos’s winds between them, the death of one of them would throw the climate into utter chaos for years, which would be quite the inconvenience.

And, if Indris were to be honest, which she wasn’t going to be, Ilinia was by far the more powerful and skilled water mage.

Came from living by the ocean, Indris imagined. You’d never catch her doing that— she far preferred sand.

And, Indris supposed, she’d miss having a proper rival to keep her on her toes.

Indris swept her senses over the battlefield one more time. She threw a few Havathi mages, wandering lost through the storm, up into the sky to be incinerated by the Eye of Heliothrax.

The whole time, droplets of molten glass continued to rain down. Most were knocked back up into the sky again, but each time they were knocked back up, they merged with other droplets of glass, then others, until great hailstones of glass began raining down on the sands of the desert.

Heliothrax was a monster. She was barely even a dragon anymore, so far as Indris was concerned. The Sunwyrm had modified herself with her magic beyond even what their common ancestors had done to dragonkind, tens of millennia ago.

Indris shuddered, then turned her attention back to the Puppet, still pursuing her.

She idly tried a few more experiments on the sarcophagus, but all of them failed. When she sealed a great mass of sand into sandstone around the sarcophagus, the Puppet ripped it apart. When Indris tried to cut it open with a focused stream of sand, propelled faster than sound by her wind and sand magic, it shredded the surface of the sarcophagus for a moment before the Puppet summoned some sort of absurd force shield.

Indris growled, deep in her chest. If she’d had Ilinia’s lightning, Kanderon’s starfire, or Heliothrax’s sunfire, she could do something about this damn thing, but instead…

Indris blinked her outer eyelids, then her scaled lips pulled back in a smile.

She DID have Heliothrax’s sunfire, in a sense.

The dragon queen reached into the storm and ripped a hole in it.

One straight over the Puppet.

Indris began to laugh to herself as the bronze sarcophagus began to heat up, far more swiftly than the Puppet’s attendant mages could vent the heat from the metal. At this rate, it would only be minutes until…

The eye cut out over the Puppet, but nowhere else, then a beam of sunfire lanced down through the storm. Indris barely threw herself out of the way with a powerful gust of wind in time.

“Not going to make this easy, are you?” Indris muttered.

Once she was confident that Heliothrax had turned her attention back to Kanderon, the dragon queen launched herself skyward.

The Puppet immediately shot up after her, and Indris smiled, then dedicated her attention and her magic to the sand below them.

She led the Puppet on a long, winding chase through the upper regions of the storm as she manipulated the desert sand. It was pitch-black even this high, the only light coming from the flickers of Kanderon and Heliothrax’s battle above.

Finally, her sand mana more than half spent, Indris dove straight down, propelled by a downburst at speeds far beyond what she would ever risk normally. She shut her outer eyelids entirely— the nictating membranes of an elder wyrm could stop anything short of a lightning strike or a ballista bolt, but even they weren’t enough to protect her eyes at the speed she was diving.

The Puppet immediately followed her and got swept along in the same colossal downburst.

Indris held her breath, hoping that the Puppet wouldn’t notice the fact that the downburst was laden with far more sand than the rest of the storm. That the Puppet wouldn’t notice that the downburst was actually ripping a hole in the top of the storm with its sheer power. That she wouldn’t notice that they were diving far past the point when they should have met the dunes of the Endless Erg. That they were plummeting into a colossal crater in the sand, like an upside down mountain had been carved out of the desert.

Every one of Indris’ hopes were granted. The Puppet was so focused on Indris that she never even varied her course.

Of course, the force mage’s affinity sense was hardly as well suited to the storm as Indris’ senses, so she likely didn’t even notice the walls of the crater around them until they’d reached the bottom.

At the last moment, Indris broke her dive, racing across the bottom of the crater. Her wing bones were stronger than almost any metal on Anastis, yet they would have shattered under the strain if the dragon queen hadn’t drained a quarter of her immense wind mana reservoir to reduce the strain.

Dana Brumma detected the bedrock at the bottom of the crater at the last moment, and the high-speed dive of her sarcophagus began to falter, but it was too little, too late.

As Indris flew into the tunnel she’d magically carved in the sand of the crater’s side, the bronze sarcophagus embedded a third of its height into the bedrock, crumpling in its base and its sides.

It was entirely possible that the Puppet had survived the impact. Indris had never encountered nor heard of a force mage that powerful in her life.

There was absolutely no chance, however, that the Puppet or her attendants survived when the main body of the downburst hit the bedrock, carrying the entire contents of the crater. More than a mountain’s worth of sand, levitated up into the storm winds by Indris, struck the sarcophagus like the world’s biggest hammer, the bottom of the immense mass of sand fused into sandstone by Indris.

As the dragon queen fled up her collapsing tunnel in the sand, she felt the bronze sarcophagus crumple and flatten like paper.

The corners of Indris’ scaled lips turned up in a wide smile as she allowed herself a few seconds to gloat.

As she erupted out of the sand and back into the storm, she forced herself to focus again.

Indris had a giant hydra to help kill.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Helicotan Waltz

Alustin was in the process of slaughtering a group of Havathi fire mages in a large training hall when Valia tracked him down.

Fire mages always laughed at Alustin’s paper, but Alustin kept a whole stack of blank journals just to deal with fire mages. Fire mages would burn off the covers and edges of the journals when Alustin shot them their way, but the fire mages clearly hadn’t burnt enough books in the past. Fire would never penetrate the center of the pages in time to prevent them from hammering into the mages hard enough to shatter bones.

The Librarian Errant’s floating ward, a ring fashioned out of hundreds of sheets of paper, easily blocked their fireballs and flamestrikes against him until the last one fell.

Alustin wouldn’t want to try that trick against Clan Castis, but the overconfident Havathi fire mages didn’t even try to dodge.

He was already tracking Valia with his farsight, so he wasn’t taken by surprise when she burst into the room, followed by dozens of flying Sacred Swordsmen. In fact, he’d spent the last minute or so scattering sheets of paper around the room to prepare.

She opened her mouth to speak, probably to offer him one last chance to surrender, but Alustin sent the assorted sheets of paper scything into the Sacred Swordsmen, cutting four of them down in an instant.

Then he flew out the other entrance of the training hall, laughing maniacally.

He made sure to amplify the laughter with a cantrip for Valia’s sake.

Valia couldn’t help but follow him, and her Swordsmen followed behind her.

Alustin led them on a looping chase, through Loarna’s wards and dozens of traps he’d set already, cutting down one Swordsman after another.

Of course, he couldn’t make the chase go on too long, or Valia would wise up to what he was planning.

Still, he rather imagined the laughter and mockery he trailed behind him helped keep Valia angry and focused on him. The gruesome trail of Havathi corpses probably helped with that too.

She’d always been relentless and prone to focusing on her goals above all else, ever since they were children. It had served her well throughout her life— she’d outdone Alustin in literally everything when they’d been young. He’d never minded, though, because it was never a competition to her— she’d always made sure he was right there with her.

Right now, though, that relentless focus was working against her.

Even here, in the heart of Skyhold, he could barely keep her from catching up with him. She effortlessly cut through wards, dodged exploding origami golems, and disrupted the sword echoes he left in his wake. She even easily navigated a series of falling stone blocks he’d cut out from the ceilings with paper a few minutes earlier and rigged to fall with exploding glyph papers wrapped around the narrow stone stems still holding them up.

As the chase neared its end, he took a few heartbeats to check for his apprentices, easily locating them using the spellform-inscribed paper armbands he’d given them. They were running through the halls, looking a bit panicked, but otherwise, they seemed fine.

By the end of Alustin’s little pre-planned chase, he was convinced he could have gotten Valia to follow him even farther, but the trip had served his purpose. Only about twenty or so of the Sacred Swordsmen had survived the trip, less than two-thirds of their original number.

As he flew through the final door and soared out into open space, he finally came to a halt and faced Valia. The Swordsmen darted in after her, then surrounded Alustin in a globe formation.

“It’s over, Alustin,” Valia said. “I’ve tried and tried, but there really is no hope for you, is there?”

“Nope,” Alustin said cheerfully. “I’ll fight Havath until my dying day.”

“This is your dying day,” one of the Sacred Swordsmen said, but Alustin and Valia both ignored him.

“You know you can’t win,” Valia said. “You’ve never faced this many Sacred Swordsmen at once before. You’ve never once beaten me , and I’ve always held back before, in hopes I could one day convince you to see sense.”

Several of the Sacred Swordsmen shot Valia dirty looks— it couldn’t feel good to hear your leader admit to valuing the worst enemy of your order over the lives of you and your fellow members.

“There is no wiggling out of this one, Alustin,” Valia said. “I offer you one final chance to surrender. Skyhold is being overrun even as we speak. Kanderon will fall to Heliothrax soon. There is no stopping our hydra from ripping the mountain to shreds unless we command it to halt. It’s over, Alustin. You’ve done more with paper magic than anyone ever thought possible, but there’s nothing more you can do. You’re out of tricks.”

Alustin couldn’t help himself.

He burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Valia demanded.

“You’ve never changed,” Alustin said. “Always so very focused on your goal, never letting anything distract you. Just this once, you really should have let yourself get distracted.”

Alustin gestured grandly at the open space around them, and Valia looked away from him for the first time since she’d entered.

Looked away from him and around the impossibly huge room they were floating in the middle of. A room larger than Skyhold itself, one that couldn’t possibly fit inside the mountain.

A room filled with the greatest collection of knowledge on the entire continent. Thousands of bookshelves, filled with over twelve million books.

“Welcome,” Alustin said, “to the Grand Library of Skyhold.”

The empty suit of paper armor floating in the middle of the sphere of Sacred Swordsmen dissolved into fluttering paper golems. Even Alustin’s sabre dissolved into foil-coated paper.

“And Valia?” Alustin said, through the floating page with the voice relay glyph on it. “I’ll never run out of tricks.”

Paper golems began launching themselves from the shelves by the thousands, completely blocking the entrance they’d used.

Valia Warwell had dreaded Midwinter Day for months. Not because she thought there was a chance Havath would lose, but because she knew that, one way or another, the saga of Helicote truly ended today. Alustin would finally have to give up his crusade, or Valia would have to finally stop taking it easy on him and end the threat he posed to peace for good.

And Valia knew, in her heart, that there was no chance Alustin would ever surrender his mad vendetta. As much as she still… as much as she still remembered their childhood together fondly, she could no longer justify letting him rampage across Ithos, delighting in the murder of Havath’s servants.

She’d slept poorly during this whole siege, waking from nightmare after nightmare of being forced to kill the last living connection to her home. When she’d entered Skyhold with her warlocks, ready to finally end this long dance, she hadn’t been entirely sure it wasn’t just another of her nightmares.

Now, though, Valia found herself in an entirely different nightmare than she’d expected.

She’d rolled her eyes in exasperation when Alustin had pulled yet another of his vanishing acts in the middle of her warlocks, then turned and flew towards the oncoming swarm of origami golems, summoning a wind shield around herself. This swarm was bigger than usual, but hardly a new trick on Alustin’s part. She assembled an atthuema spellform in her mind’s eye, the act of drawing the strange curves an almost meditative one.

She flooded the spellform with mana, then hacked through the first origami golem, a beautifully detailed paper gryphon flying far ahead of the rest of the swarm.

Alustin had tried taking her down with great swarms of paper more times than she could count, but with an atthuema sympathy spell, she could easily cut apart the entire swarm just by cutting a single member of the swarm.

When she cut apart the paper gryphon, however, the rest of the swarm just kept coming.

“Oh, very nice effort, Valia,” a nearby origami heron told her as it began to spin around her. “But sympathy spells need a certain degree of similarity between the targets to work, and, unfortunately for you, every single golem in this swarm is a unique design, each on different types of paper. I’ve been preparing this trick for years, just for you. I hope you enjoy it.”

Valia cut the heron golem out of the air.

Thousands of origami golems rushed towards her, and Valia’s eyes widened. “Run!” she ordered.

She fled back towards her troops, most of whom immediately followed her.

The handful that hesitated were overrun by the swarm, and patches of red bloomed in the cloud of white.

Valia summoned a wind wall behind them, as wide as a dragon’s wingspan. A few origami golems were torn apart by it, but the rest of the swarm reacted instantaneously, dodging around the sides of the wind wall.

That gave them precious moments to build their lead on the swarm, at least. A group of flying mages together could use their magic on one another to aid their flight, and accelerate to speeds beyond any of them alone.

Alustin’s voice rang out from the swarm and echoed, again and again, thousands of times over. “Did you think that the Librarian in the title of Librarian Errant was just for amusement’s sake, Valia? Nothing but an amusing cover story? I can assure you, the Librarian part of our title is no joke, no cover. It is, in fact, the most important part.”

Valia’s mages assaulted the swarm with cinders, acids, and seed bombs that erupted into grasping vines, but though the golems went down easily, it barely made a dent in their numbers.

“There, I see an exit!” Valia’s second in command, Kenson, shouted.

In a single, well-trained movement, the Swordsmen pivoted in mid-air and dove for the door.

Her wind affinity sense only gave her a moment’s worth of warning that something was in the air, and she barely dodged out of the way. A razor-sharp sheet of paper, suspended in mid-air, slid past her in her dive, slicing off a lock of hair. Valia could barely see the sheet of paper, which was slowly shifting colors to match the background.

Some sort of camouflage glyph, perhaps?

Then her wind sense went off again, and Valia had to dodge and weave through the air to avoid a whole swarm of the camouflaged pages. She cast her sympathy spell again and hacked one of the sheets apart, and this time, to her relief, it affected the entire cloud of pages around her.

Not in time, unfortunately, to stop two of her swordsmen from cutting themselves to ribbons.

Valia didn’t spare any time to watch their bodies fall towards the churning blue mist miles below her.

She dodged past a flying iceberg the size of a house, covered in shelves where books made of ice rested, and her warlocks followed her around its curve.

Only to spot a second golem swarm coming their way, cutting off their route to the exit.

Valia swerved without hesitating, diving into the great floating stacks to her left. She raced between the towering bookshelves that were hovering in great rows in empty space, her remaining warlocks behind her.

If she could get out of the library and back into the tunnels of Skyhold, Alustin wouldn’t stand a chance. Valia would be willing to confront him anyways, but in the wide open spaces of the library, she’d likely lose most of her warlocks.

How was Alustin possibly controlling this many golems at once? The amount of mana it would take was far beyond even his impressive mana reservoirs. If she could figure out the trick…

Her train of thought was interrupted by a burst of movement in front of her. Books began rocketing off the shelves, darting back and forth at high speeds. Valia barely dodged one, then cut the next one in half.

Which she immediately regretted. She could feel the books on the shelves fix their attention on her, and she knew two things immediately.

First, that while the golems might be his, it wasn’t Alustin controlling the books.

And second, that she’d just made those books very, very angry.

“Faster!” Valia shouted.

The books erupted off the shelves behind them in a huge swarm, spiraling towards the warlocks.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Alustin’s voice said, echoing out of nowhere. “This library has rules, you know, and you’ve gone and broken an important one. Don’t kill books. Now you’re going to have to pay a fine.”

Valia heard a scream and looked back to see one of her warlocks had been grabbed by the books, and was being hauled towards one of the shelves. Then the warlock vanished among the books, and the screaming ended with a crunching noise.

The rest of the books broke off their pursuit.

“A life for a life, and the fine is paid,” Alustin said. It almost sounded like he was right beside her.

Valia looked down and saw that a page with a remote-speaking glyph had plastered itself to her stomach. She snarled, and ripped it off.

The Sacred Swordsmen erupted out from between the towering shelves. They’d pulled farther ahead of both swarms, now, and the exit was in sight.

Then Alustin’s paper armor shot out from behind a floating island with a study desk, and two of her warlocks moved to engage before she could shout at them not to.

The armor was wielding a paper sword, not a real one.

One of her men swung his glaive at the life-sized golem, and the golem simply unfolded in the path of the weapon, then folded back together in its wake, slicing once with its paper sword.

The paper sword turned red, and the warlock plummeted from the sky.

Valia screamed and swung her own sword, scattering a trio of echoes in the air. She seized control of them with a spell, then sent them lancing into the life-sized golem before it could cut down the other warlock that had engaged it.

The warlocks flew on, the pieces of the golem fluttering downward after their dead comrade.

Valia carefully checked their pace against the two golem swarms. One approached from above them, the other was coming straight behind them, but if they kept this speed, they should be able to get to the exit.

“I’m sorry,” Alustin said in ten thousand voices from the swarms, “but this exit is closed.”

The shelves by the entrance began to slide shut.

“Faster!” Valia ordered again.

For a moment, she thought they would make it. Then the shelves accelerated and slid shut with a clack.

Valia cursed, and dove straight down, hoping all her warlocks could make the tight turn.

Most of them did, but at least one of them slammed head-first into the shelf with a crash. Valia glanced back to see a new recruit falling limply in a shower of books behind their group, and forced herself to look away.

They dove straight down floor after floor, dodging through shifting shelves, flocks of grimoires, and floating study spaces until Valia spotted a likely side-route underneath a balcony that protruded far into the center of the library.

“Here,” she called, then landed on a narrow balcony with several aisles leading away from the open central part of the library.

Her warlocks darted in after her, and they all ducked behind shelves blocking them from the open space of the library.

Valia counted her warlocks as they passed her and realized, to her shock, that another one had vanished, and she hadn’t even noticed.

Then she tucked herself behind a shelf and waited.

A moment later, she heard the swarms of origami golems fly past. It was so loud that it sounded like some mad thunderstorm.

Then it passed, and the library was quiet again. Valia held her breath and didn’t move.

“Are you hiding from me, Valia?” Alustin called with ten thousand voices.

She stayed silent.

This wasn’t how their story was supposed to go. Alustin wasn’t supposed to turn into a monster from a children’s tale. He was just a broken child himself, lashing out at the world that had hurt him. He was sick, and he deserved pity, not fear.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Alustin’s chorus of voices called, but it sounded farther away, this time.

Valia let herself breathe a quiet sigh of relief, then turned to Kenson.

In time to see him reach out as if possessed and touch an odd, flesh-colored book.

He immediately yanked his hand away and hissed, leaving a drop of blood behind on the cover, where it was immediately absorbed. Valia tensed and looked back towards the center of the library, fearing Alustin had heard him, but long seconds passed without hearing the rustling of golem wings.

She turned back to Kenson to glare at him for being an idiot, then froze.

Kenson’s whole body was shaking, and he was staring at his hand in horror, as were all the Sacred Swordsmen around him.

Words had started to write themselves on his flesh. They were creeping up his wrist in great streams of letters, glistening with fresh black ink. They writhed and danced on his skin, and Valia’s mind struggled to make sense of them. Every time she thought she could understand one of the words, her mind lost her grip on it, and its meaning just slipped away.

Kenson’s trembling redoubled, and Valia looked up in horror. His skin had gone unnaturally pale, and he was in clear pain.

Her second in command locked eyes with her, and she shook her head desperately.

Kenson opened his mouth and screamed. It went on and on, louder and longer than his lungs could possibly maintain.

Then the words rushed into his mouth, and he went silent.

Then, silently, Kenson began to twist and fold in on himself, and in moments, where her lieutenant had stood, a pale, flesh-colored book rested on the floor.

In the distance, Valia heard the beating of thousands of paper wings coming their way.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Skyhold Overrun

The halls of Skyhold were filled with chaos as Hugh and the others ran through them, hidden by Hugh’s attention ward.

They ran across ten dead Havathi troops for every dead Skyhold mage, but that wasn’t much comfort— Havath could afford the deaths far more easily than Skyhold.

They passed by the noise of a dozen smaller battles in the halls, but most of the conflict appeared to have moved away from their route for the moment.

Hugh embraced the pain coming from Mackerel— the more he buried himself in it, the more clearly he could sense his spellbook’s direction.

He ignored the pain from his lungs as he sprinted, accelerating far beyond his normal running speed using his force boots. Ignored his increasingly ragged breathing, his narrowing vision.

Until, at least, Godrick physically put himself in Hugh’s path.

“Hugh, yeh’re gonna kill yerself!” Godrick yelled. “Stop runnin’ and listen ta’ us already!”

Hugh glared at Godrick, but when he tried to argue, he just burst out coughing.

Sabae put her hands on his chest, and Hugh felt the weird tingling of healing magic rush through him. His coughs subsided a moment later, but his lungs and throat still felt raw and aching.

Sabae silently handed him a waterskin, and Hugh drank greedily.

“There’s no point in rushing to save them if you kill yourself doing it,” Talia said. “We need to be smart about it.”

Hugh scowled, but Talia was right. He nodded.

“Could you levitate yourself there on your wards?” Sabae asked.

Hugh shook his head. “Uses too much mana,” he croaked, his voice ragged and hoarse.

“Godrick’s carrying you, then,” Sabae said.

Hugh wanted to argue, but forced himself to stop. Even if it meant becoming a burden for his friends in the most literal sense, he didn’t have time to indulge his own esteem issues. Mackerel and the first year warlocks were in danger.

Godrick was already kneeling down, hand and foot-holds carved into the back of his armor. Hugh climbed on, then pointed.

Godrick took off running, Talia and Sabae close behind.

Hugh logically knew being carried was the smarter course of action, but a big part of him absolutely detested it. He forced his thoughts away from his petty irritation and focused on his link with Mackerel instead.

They only made it three turns down the hall before running into a battle.

Straight into the middle of it, in fact.

Hundreds of Skyhold and Havathi mages had formed battle lines across a hall large enough for dragons to fly through, and their route took them straight between the two lines.

Under the weight of so many gazes, Hugh’s attention ward collapsed immediately, and Havath’s mages immediately started targeting them.

Hugh reconverted the ward into a defensive one, and they took off running straight through the middle of the fight.

“What do you say we help out our side a little?” Sabae asked.

“Way ahead of you,” Talia said. She yanked a trio of bone pendants off her necklace and tossed them to Sabae.

The taller girl hurled the bones over the Havathi lines with a windstrike. They were already growing as they rose and were each the size of a person’s head by the time they reached the top of their arc.

Even before the bones had landed, Talia was already blasting the Havathi lines with dreamwasps and dreamfire bolts. Most were blocked by wind shields or other defenses, but the raging battle had left enough holes in their defenses for Talia to do considerable damage.

One Havathi wood mage suffered a particularly weird fate— nothing seemed to happen for a moment, and then he started screaming and simply fell through the floor as though it were air.

Hugh took a moment longer to join in the battle— he compulsively felt the need to run his senses over his wardstones first, to make sure they were safe to use.

Then he began levitating his wardstones out of his storage tattoo and firing them at high speed into the Havathi lines using his crystal affinity.

The wardstones had come so far from the simple rocks with wards carved into them he used to launch from his sling. His new wardstones were quartz spheres covered in wards designed only to break above a certain speed, each containing massively more energy than the earlier generations of wardstones.

And using his magic instead of a sling, Hugh could fire several of them every second. The resulting explosions tore great holes in the Havathi magical defenses and battle lines.

Godrick, meanwhile, launched rocks at the Havathi. No matter how complex or advanced magical warfare grew, rocks moving at high speed would always be relevant. He didn’t stop there, though— a steady stream of steel nails went flying into the Havathi lines as well. He also used his enchanted items to great effect— his opal scattered blinding lights across the Havathi lines, making them cover their eyes and miss with many of their spells, while his hammer repeatedly pulled mages out of the battle formation.

Sabae didn’t cause as much damage as the others, but what she did was far more targeted. She launched her inertial spear straight through the thickest Havathi windshield, right into the leader of the Dominion unit. Then she summoned it back to hurl again and again.

The Havathi didn’t let their attacks go unanswered, however. While most of their attention remained focused on Skyhold’s battle line, plenty of attacks were turned their way. Wood mages fired impossibly over-size bows their way, obsidian mages launched lethally sharp razors of brittle volcanic glass at them, and gravity mages tried to crush them with enhanced gravity fields.

The last almost got them before Hugh managed to alter the Crown to protect them— gravity was absurdly difficult to ward against, and the ward had to be aimed below them, even though Hugh’s first instinct was to aim it above.

The Stormward’s Crown deflected most of the projectiles with ease, but a few projectiles managed to punch through— especially the obsidian razors. Thankfully, all of them shattered against their personal armor. Hugh almost fell from Godrick’s back when one shattered against his personal ward right in front of his face— not from the impact, just from flinching. After that, Godrick raised a series of intermittent stone walls to run behind along the way to give them cover, which helped considerably.

Then the bonefire projectiles exploded behind the Havathi lines. One sent burning oil geysering into the air along with flaming bone shrapnel, while the second was a fossilized bone that sent heavy chunks of burning fossils flying instead of lightweight bone shards. The third appeared to be an utterly standard bonefire explosion, save for the flames being green.

“I added powdered copper to that one, to make it look cooler!” Talia shouted.

Hugh started to roll his eyes, then stopped himself. Just because he was angry about having to be carried didn’t mean he needed to take it out on the others.

“You know what?” he shouted back. “It did look way cooler!”

Talia’s smile stretched all the way across her face at that.

Then she hit a tin mage with an especially large dreamfire bolt, turning him into bees.

The four of them only managed to take down a relatively small fraction of the Havathi forces by the time they passed out of the hall, but they’d thrown them into chaos, and it was clear the tides had turned in favor of Skyhold’s mages.

They only ran into one more small squad of Havathi forces as they drew closer to Mackerel, most of whom appeared to be common soldiers. Hugh had already reconfigured the free-floating nodes of the Crown into an attention ward around them, and Sabae launched herself out of it at the soldiers in her tideweave armor.

The squadron was broken and scattered across their path in moments, and Hugh found himself bizarrely angry at the Havathi for sending non-mages into their paths. Hugh, Godrick, and Talia hadn’t even needed to lift a finger to help Sabae.

Each step Godrick took after that sent shooting pain through Hugh’s head— they were getting close to Mackerel, now.

Hugh hopped off Godrick’s back, then gestured for the others to be silent. He didn’t know what they’d find when they reached Mackerel, but he doubted it would be good.

As they advanced through the last few hallways, they passed repeated signs of battle. Apart from large numbers of Havathi killed by Loarna’s wards, there was plenty of other damage. Frost-covered craters were scattered in the halls, obvious products of Mackerel’s enchanted strap. Crude chalk wards were scattered through the hall, and Hugh recognized them as ones he’d taught to the young warlocks. There were a number of charred spots on the walls and floor that Hugh recognized as being from his own wardstones— presumably the ones he’d given to Thaddeus.

They also passed no less than seven dead Havathi soldiers and a dead Havathi plant mage, wearing woven vine armor covered in thorns, which hadn’t saved her from a broken neck.

Hugh waved his hand in front of Godrick’s faceplate when he felt them drawing near to Mackerel.

“Can you get Mackerel to show you what’s going on?” Sabae whispered.

Hugh tried to reach out to Mackerel to get a picture of his surroundings, but Mackerel seemed insensate with pain.

He shook his head.

“Alright, then,” Sabae said. “Head in when I say go. Three.”

Hugh took a deep breath.

“Two,” Sabae said.

Hugh summoned a wardstone from his storage tattoo into his hand.

“One,” Sabae said.

Next to him, Talia’s tattoos had both started glowing— blue spellforms on her skin, and red ones deep beneath it. Godrick’s armor bulked up, growing steel spikes all over.

“Go,” Sabae hissed, and her tideweave armor collapsed, then snapped back into storm armor.

The four of them charged around the corner into one of Skyhold’s many cafeterias, only to stop immediately.

Mackerel and the first years were imprisoned in the dead center of the cafeteria. Mackerel was suspended in a massively complex column of wards, made of green string floating in mid-air. Hugh could tell the ward column was what was hurting Mackerel, and he could see tiny cracks in his spellbook’s surface where the green crystal came closest to the wards.

The first years were tied up on the floor in front of the ward column. Venta had a huge thorn sticking out of one shoulder, while Peltia was unconscious, her face covered in blood. Thaddeus was struggling wildly and fruitlessly against his bonds, and Kanna looked like she was trying to curl up into a ball.

Standing in between the first years and Hugh’s group was a single Havathi mage, surrounded by hundreds more floating wards, all fashioned of the same thin green string. The light they cast scattered across the room, forming thousands of overlapping shadows and rays of light across the room, making it look like everything was covered in dancing spellforms.

“Hugh of Emblin,” the man said. “I knew if I put enough pressure on your little book, you’d show up soon enough, and I’d claim the bounty on your head. Kanderon is a fool to let a vulnerability like you wander around openly like this.”

Hugh exchanged glances with Godrick, and they exchanged shallow nods.

“I can’t lie,” the string mage said. “I’ve looked forward to this confrontation for a while now. I’ve grown sick of hearing legends of Hugh Stormward, as though you’re the only wardcrafter who’s ever taken wards into battle.”

More wards began to shape themselves out of string in mid-air, advancing towards them menacingly.

“You don’t know how much I’m looking forward to teaching you some real wardcrafting,” the mage said. “I imagine you won’t…”

The mage was interrupted by tons of rock falling on his head, as Hugh finished weakening the crystal structure of the ceiling above him, and Godrick yanked it downwards with his stone magic.

The string mage didn’t even have time to realize something was wrong.

“Was he actually for real?” Talia asked. “That was some absurd melodrama, right there. I genuinely wouldn’t buy it if I came across it in a book.”

“Ah’m pretty sure someone in Havath City has ta’ be teachin’ classes on how ta’ give over-the-top monologues,” Godrick said. “Only reasonable explanation, if yeh ask me.”

Hugh ran forward, using his force boots to jump over the pile of broken stone. The string mage’s wards were already collapsing out of the air, and Hugh only just reached Mackerel in time to catch him before he hit the ground.

“I’ve got you,” Hugh said.

Mackerel cuddled against him for a moment, the cracks in his cover already healing. Then Hugh slung him over his shoulder and set to freeing the first years.

To Hugh’s surprise, Sabae didn’t go for Venta first, instead running straight for Peltia, collapsing her storm armor and running her hands over the first-year’s head wound.

“Just a scalp wound and a mild concussion,” she said a moment later. “No dangerous swelling or brain damage I can detect, though we’re going to want a more capable healer than me to take a look at her soon, since she got knocked out.”

Sabae got up to take a look at Venta’s shoulder, while Hugh cut Thaddeus free.

“Seems like you put up a pretty impressive fight back there,” Hugh said, as he removed Thaddeus’ gag.

Thaddeus, to Hugh’s surprise, didn’t say anything, just shot Peltia and Venta guilty looks.

“It’s not your fault, Thaddeus,” Hugh said. “You didn’t hurt them.”

“Yes, it is,” Thaddeus said. “If I hadn’t thought that we could somehow help you defend Skyhold, none of this would have happened.”

“It was stupid of all of you, no question,” Hugh said. “But stupidity isn’t the same thing as malice. Stupidity can be forgiven.”

Thaddeus nodded, but he didn’t look entirely convinced.

Hugh sighed, recognizing the look. He doubted there was anything that he could say to convince Thaddeus that he shouldn’t be beating himself up over this stuff.

After all, Hugh was pretty sure he’d worn that exact same look of self-loathing often enough— and most likely would wear it again often enough in the future.

“You all survived, and that’s the important thing,” Hugh said.

Next to them, Venta gasped as Sabae removed the huge thorn from her shoulder to heal the wound, but Hugh ignored it, along with the hissing of her snakes.

“Besides, it looks like the four of you did a decent job helping to protect Skyhold out there,” Hugh said.

Thaddeus smiled weakly, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it.

“I’m glad you all made it out safely, Thad,” Hugh said. “That’s all that really matters right now.”

Thad nodded, then tackled Hugh in a hug and started crying.

Hugh froze for a moment, unsure how to respond. He awkwardly patted the first year on the back.

Behind Thaddeus, Talia rolled her eyes and pantomimed a hug.

Hugh hugged the younger warlock back, and held him as his friends checked over the other warlocks.

Finally, Thad pulled away from Hugh and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m…”

“I think you’re a friend, and I think I’m getting pretty tired of you apologizing,” Hugh said.

Thad looked like he wanted to start crying again, but he forced it down a moment later. “Thanks, Hugh.”

Hugh patted him on the shoulder, then turned to check on Peltia and Kanna. Peltia had already woken up but was still visibly groggy, while Kanna flinched at every noise she heard.

Talia was doing something to Kanna’s head with her dream magic, though. Hugh didn’t really understand much about how the non-destructive part of Talia’s dreamfire worked, but Kanna seemed to be growing steadily calmer.

Hugh could swear that he saw dreamfire flickering inside her eyes.

“So…” Sabae awkwardly said to Venta, who was inspecting her freshly healed shoulder.

The gorgon stared at Sabae for a moment, her striped face blank. If Hugh didn’t know better, though, her snakes seemed… nervous.

Then Venta picked up Sabae by the waist and kissed her.

Sabae squeaked, seeming terrified for a moment, then wrapped her arms around Venta’s neck and leaned into the kiss.

“Finally,” Thad muttered.

“Yeh all know there’s still a battle goin’ on, right?” Godrick asked when Sabae and Venta finally pulled away from each other. “We should get movin’, find yeh all somewhere safe.”

“Also, just so you all know, I’m still going to be beating your happy childhood memories out of you for doing something so stupid,” Talia said. “Though it’s going to be in the form of combat training because I’m pretty sure I can’t stop you all from being just as stupid in the future.”

The first years gave her awkward looks. Thad and Peltia actually started laughing weakly, as though they thought Talia was joking.

“It was nice knowing you,” Hugh said, clapping Thad on the shoulder.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

War in the Air

Ilinia Kaen Das was bored.

It was a bit of a shock to her, really. She was engaged in the biggest battle of great powers in at least a century, with more great powers taking the field at one time than even during the Havathi wars of expansion. And even so, Ilinia was still bored.

It was the storming hydra’s fault, really. She had been stuck here for what felt like hours, blasting lightning bolts into the horrible thing’s dozen heads, fighting its unimaginably tough flesh and hyperactive regeneration abilities.

Despite all the fanciful stories about head-chopping and burning the stumps, the only reliable way to kill a hydra was to simply do so much damage to it that its metabolism began to cannibalize its own body.

Ilinia was fairly sure that she’d hit the hydra with enough lightning to kill even Kanderon ten times over, and yet the beast still wouldn’t go down. She impaled the thing on thousands of ice spikes, created vacuums around its heads to stop it from breathing, and battered it with enough wind to tear apart a mountain, and yet the damn thing wouldn’t die. Its body heat rose, melting the ice spikes. It grew dozens of scaly nostrils running down its spine to breathe with in order to counter the vacuums, and it just ignored the bloody winds.

A dozen of Clan Castis’ huge fire elementals had gnawed at its flanks at one point, but they’d wasted all their power on it and dissolved, unable to make a serious dent in the colossal beast.

Even more frustratingly, Ilinia and Indris, with all the power of the storm behind them, couldn’t do much more than slow the monster down. If it weren’t for the two of them— along with Chelys Mot and Ramyl the Chained, to a lesser degree— the hydra would have long since reached the mountain and begun tearing it apart. They couldn’t do anything to stop it, though, and at this rate, killing it would take days. Ilinia had actually dispelled her storm giant after a time— it just wasn’t worth the mana investment at the moment.

They’d poured enough power to turn away a hurricane into the beast, and it still kept coming.

Of course, you couldn’t actually force a hurricane to move— there wasn’t enough magic in the world for that. You had to persuade it to turn, instead, and those skills were what divided a good weather mage from a great weather mage.

Unfortunately, Ilinia had no idea how to persuade a hydra of anything.

So they just kept slowing it down, which didn’t seem to do much besides cleaning the molten glass off it.

Meanwhile, the Eye of Heliothrax kept beating down on the top of the storm, and the rain of molten glass just kept growing thicker and thicker as the sun’s burning rays melted the sand at the top of the storm.

The inside of the storm had gone from pitch-black, only lit by lightning and the explosions of light from the battle above, to a deep, angry red, lit by the hellish rain of molten glass.

Oh, and Heliothrax sometimes sent rays of sunfire down into the storm seeking Ilinia’s lightning, but she kept herself far away from the source of her lightning— it had been decades since Ilinia had needed to be anywhere close to the source of her lightning, unless she wanted to be.

Ilinia sighed in her bubble of clear air, then sent her wind senses roaming the battlefield, just like she could feel Indris doing, as the dragon sliced great rips in the hydra’s scales using immense saws of whirling sand. All of which, of course, healed back up in seconds.

Ilinia’s roving senses searched fruitlessly for more targets. There had been hundreds of Havathi dragons in the storm a while ago, but at this point, all of them had either crawled their way inside the mountain or been annihilated by Ilinia and Indris.

She especially liked using wind to slay the Havathi dragons. Their terror when the sky betrayed them never ceased to amuse her. Inflating their lungs with wind until they exploded was a classic Kaen Das move, but it was rather crude and brutal for Ilinia’s taste. But then, her ancestors had been a crude and brutal bunch.

Instead, she preferred lowering the air pressure beneath the dragons, rendering their wings unable to hold them up. Their terror as they fell out of the sky always gave her a good chuckle.

She was out of dragons now, unfortunately. Even Indris’ brood had retreated to the edge of the sandstorm to evade the molten rain. Not that Ilinia would harm any of Indris’ children, but it was entertaining to mess with them every now and then.

The Protector of Ras Andis sighed in boredom and unscrewed the lid of her flask. She took a long sip of the foul-tasting, penny-for-a-gallon rotgut in it, then took a moment to listen to the howling of a different storm coming from inside the flask.

Then she sealed it back up and kept roving with her senses. Past the corpse of the sound dragon, slain by Artur with Indris’ help. Past the battle between Artur and Tarsynax, which had been raging back and forth through the ruined Havathi fleet. The shattered fleet was already burning from the molten glass rain, so them crushing it beneath their feet was just adding insult to injury.

Both of them were covered in countless streaks of cooling glass, which shattered and broke as they wrestled with one another.

Ilinia could kill Tarsynax for Artur, but then he’d surely come try to aid them against the hydra, which would get him killed in moments. If she thought there was even a chance he would listen to her and go fight within Skyhold instead, she’d crush the lightning dragon, but Ilinia had known too many mages like Artur to trust that he would.

And her granddaughter would be rather upset if her friend’s father died. Artur had been something of a surrogate parent for Sabae, and Ilinia was quite grateful to him for that.

And…

Ilinia’s senses shot back to the sound dragon. Artur had to have broken half the bones in its body and crushed its head to a pulp. There was no way even a self-healing great power should be able to survive that, but there was no mistaking it— its wounds were healing again. She hadn’t the slightest clue how the dragon was pulling off that trick. Maybe it had modified its insides with magic and moved its brain into its torso? Something ridiculous like that, probably.

Well, healing wouldn’t do it much good without air.

Ilinia evacuated the air around the sound mage dragon, then sealed it in a vacuum bubble.

The partially healed dragon stopped playing dead and started flailing wildly. It was still too badly damaged to drag itself out of the vacuum, however.

She felt it frantically reach out with its sound magic, but sound was useless to it without air. It managed to vibrate the dunes underneath it a bit, but that quickly faded away.

She’d keep it sealed in its bubble for a few minutes, make sure it stayed dead this time.

No need to tell anyone about it, though. Artur had finally just stepped up into the realms of the great powers, she didn’t want to take away his self-confidence. Great powers needed a little boldness if they wanted to survive long in the game.

Ilinia turned her attention back to the hydra in time to see Chelys Mot die. He was helping Indris try and sink the hydra beneath the sands again to slow it down when he got a little too close, and several of the hydra’s heads lashed out at him, far faster than the hydra’s slow undulations through the sand.

The hydra lifted the great sea turtle out of the sand with ease. It couldn’t bite through Mot’s shell— even Heliothrax’s sunray hadn’t done much more than char it a bit— but it was more than strong enough for Chelys Mot’s softer bits.

They were only softer by comparison, of course— a ballista bolt couldn’t even scratch Mot’s scales. But Ilinia could only look on helplessly as the hydra bit off her old ally’s head.

She scowled, then took another long drink from her flask. There had to be some way to kill this thing. Forget one hurricane, they’d put enough mana into this thing to turn away three hurricanes.

The hydra paused to eat Mot, reshaping one of its heads so it could fit inside the shell. It was, to Ilinia’s fury, the longest they’d managed to get the beast to hold still. The hydra utterly ignored everything they could throw at it while it ate— winds mightier than anything natural, sand blowing hard enough to dissolve stone, endless lightning, and even Ramyl’s superheated chains.

Eventually, it finished its meal and simply threw Mot’s immense shell away like trash. Ilinia watched the shell tumble through the baleful red glow of the storm, and then embed itself deep in the sand, jutting straight up and down.

Above, as the sun rose closer to noon, Ilinia felt the power of the Eye of Heliothrax increase again, and the rain of molten glass redoubled.

She went to drink from her flask again, then stopped. She carefully tucked it away, then snagged one of the raindrops of glass with the wind.

She carefully brought it inside her bubble of still air. Watched the burning red liquid twist and seethe in front of her.

Ilinia Kaen Das, the Krakenbane, started to smile.

Then she reached out and used the wind to seize uncountable millions of falling red droplets, holding them still in the air.

Time to see how the beast felt about being drowned in molten glass.

The red rain began to fall in a great spiral towards the hydra.

Valia’s last gravity mage died at the bottom of the library, devoured by blue mist, and then they were down to four.

Valia had thought that perhaps the moisture of the blueish fog would weaken the swarms of origami golems. She’d ordered the others ahead of her and held back to cover their downwards retreat.

She’d begun spinning as she dove, leaving behind a trail of hundreds of sword-echoes in a spiral in her wake.

Then she seized control of them with an atthuema spell and linked their movement to her own.

The hundreds of sword echoes began spinning wildly, expanding out behind her in ever-growing loops. They danced by each other, again and again, but none of the echoes even brushed together, let alone collided.

The origami golems hit the expanding cloud of sword echoes, and thousands of them were shredded before the rest of the swarm pulled away.

“Oh, that’s a new trick,” Alustin said, his voice mocking. “Should buy you at least a few extra seconds.”

Valia didn’t respond. Her vision was swimming, and she could barely fly straight as she pulled out of the spin. The anti-vertigo cantrips she’d used to counteract the effects of the spin on her inner ears had barely been able to keep up with it, she’d been twirling so quickly.

That was probably why she didn’t notice the odd movements of the fog until it was too late.

Gravity mages were often the fastest mages in a dive, and her last one hit the fog head-first.

He simply dissolved, and Valia and her three remaining warlocks had to desperately pull up to avoid sharing his fate.

As she leveled out, mere feet above the cloud, she realized, to her horror, that it wasn’t made of water vapor at all, that the blue tint didn’t come from the fabled index, floating inside it.

The cloud was made of innumerable millions of tiny crystals, each no bigger than a grain of dust.

Valia wished she could claim it was particularly horrifying, but it wasn’t even in the top three of the worst deaths she’d seen since Alustin had lured them into the library. Death at the hand of Alustin’s golem swarm was clean and kind, compared to what the library had to offer. The things she’d seen in here defied every rule of magic, every bit of reasonable sense.

It was no wonder Kanderon hadn’t left any defenders in here to guard the library. It was a deathtrap, more than capable of handling itself.

All the shelves along the wall at this depth were empty, which Valia considered a blessing as she darted in among them with her two remaining warlocks.

No. There’d been three a second ago. Where had…

It didn’t matter. Anyone who couldn’t keep up was dead.

Valia dodged and weaved through rows of empty bookcases, looking for staircases leading back up. With so few of them left, they couldn’t maintain enough speed to stay ahead of the origami swarm for long, so staying out in the open was death.

The three of them ascended ten levels in relative peace before Alustin’s swarm tracked them down again.

It didn’t immediately dive at them, however, just kept pace with them, out in the open air.

“Oh, you’re not going to like where you’re heading,” Alustin said, in his endless chorus of voices.

“Why are you doing this to us?” Valia demanded.

“Killing you?” Alustin asked. “Revenge, obviously. It’s kind of my whole purpose in life, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Not that!” Valia snapped. “Why are you taunting us, dragging this out, torturing my warlocks? Do you take some sick pleasure from it?”

“Well, maybe a little bit,” Alustin said, “but to be honest, it’s mostly just mental warfare. Keeps you off-balance so it’s easier to hunt you down. And, if I’m going to be honest, this isn’t exactly easy. You’re proving remarkably difficult to kill. Oh, and you really should have listened when I mentioned that you wouldn’t like where you were going.”

Valia and her two remaining warlocks emerged out of the stairwell onto the next level as Alustin said that, right into a thick, cobwebby material.

She raised a windshield around herself on instinct, but both of her remaining warlocks crashed into the webbing face first. They tore through it easily, to Valia’s relief.

They kept up with her for a few seconds, tearing the web-like material out of their faces, but then their skin started turning grey, and both crashed to the ground.

“Poison mold,” Alustin said. “Nasty stuff. We have to bring in special teams of custodial mages to clean it up when an outbreak occurs. Thankfully, it doesn’t spread very fast, so we can usually keep well ahead of it. And if you’re paying attention to where you’re going, it’s no threat at all.”

Valia screamed in rage.

“I’m not really sure where to go with that, conversationally,” Alustin said.

Valia ignored him, then accelerated.

She was by far the swiftest flier in the Sacred Swordsmen, and now that she didn’t have any underlings to try and keep alive, there was no reason to go slow anymore.

Though she doubted her top speed now would be able to match her speed when she was in a whole group of fliers that were cooperating, as she’d been when they entered the library.

“You know, there’s something I’ve always wondered,” Alustin said. “Is the reason you’re so profligate with the lives of the Sacred Swordsmen some hidden resentment against Havath for destroying our home? Do you throw them away so pointlessly as an act of spite and petty revenge? Or is that just you doing your duty? It’s not like warlocks have ever been anything but disposable to Havath.”

Valia took a deep breath, then formed an atthuema spellform in her mind’s eye. She’d only ever tested it under controlled circumstances, and it failed more often than not. Most tests ended up requiring her to see a healer.

“I’m actually not taunting you at the moment,” Alustin said. “I’m genuinely curious if there’s still a spark of loyalty to your home in you.”

“Havath is my home!” Valia shouted back at the swarm of origami golems. “It’s not perfect, and it’s done terrible things in the past, but at least it has a dream of being better, of surpassing the endless bloody muck of the rest of civilization. I’m fighting for peace, Alustin, for the right side of history! You’re just perpetuating the same hideous cycle with your revenge.”

Alustin didn’t respond to that for a moment, and Valia wondered whether she’d finally gotten under his skin. She used his hesitation to double, then triple-check the convoluted spellform in her mind’s eye.

“You’re right,” Alustin said, finally. He sounded pensive, though it was hard to be sure, with his voice replicated a thousand times over. “I am perpetuating the games of the great powers. It’s something I’ve struggled with emotionally over the years, I have to admit. I lost any hope for something better years ago, though. That old, tired saying about power corrupting is absolutely true. So long as the laws of nature grant such disproportionate magical power to a few individuals, the games of the great powers will never end. Power turns us all into monsters, Valia. Kanderon’s efforts to end it won’t turn out any better than Havath’s, in the end. And it breaks my heart, but even my own students have dedicated themselves to the same foolish cause of ending the games.”

For a moment, Valia considered engaging with him, talking it out. He wasn’t making any aggressive moves at the moment, and he seemed… not vulnerable, but thoughtful, at least.

Then she shook her head. She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d thought she was reaching him, really making him listen, only for him to pull some horrible trick.

No more. She was done being a hopeful fool.

Valia shot out into open space, then pumped mana into the atthuema spellform.

Specifically, into the ripple-form atthuema spell. By far the most difficult application of her affinity— one that she’d spent years trying to master.

It let her amplify the effects of spells and other physical events, like making a ripple in a pond grow out of control.

Valia felt the force of her summoned wind grow wildly stronger, disproportionate by far to the amount of mana she was spending on it, and she rocketed up into the sky. All her blood rushed to her feet, and she blacked out for a moment.

When she came to, she was tumbling wildly through the air, still ascending, though her upward rise was starting to slow. She was near the top of the miles-tall chamber now and far below her she could see the swarm of origami golems, scattered by the massive shockwave she’d left in her wake.

She found an unblocked exit and flew toward it.

Then she stopped and looked back down towards the swarm one last time.

“Goodbye, Alustin,” Valia whispered.

Then, for the first time in their history together, she fled in defeat.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Under the Light of the Sun

Kanderon was losing.

It was not something she could confess easily, even to herself, but Heliothrax was slowly wearing her down.

The two of them had been fighting for control of the sky since Heliothrax’s arrival, and Heliothrax wasn’t slowing down in the slightest.

Kanderon most certainly was.

She banked in a league-wide circle, dodging another of Heliothrax’s sunrays, which lanced harmlessly down into the sandstorm below.

The sphinx had to admit, at the least, that her storm mage allies had outdone themselves. The sandstorm that Ilinia and Indris had summoned was absolutely colossal, stretching from horizon to horizon, and towering above all but the highest peaks of the Skyreach range.

Skyhold immediately drew the eye. The mountain wasn’t tall enough to poke out over the storm, but the asymmetrical distance barrier Kanderon had placed around its peak created a bizarre weather effect— a massive whirlpool in the top of the storm, leading down to the peak. When the winds tried to blow through the barrier, they could just keep going for countless leagues in their effort to break into the council chamber. In effect, it mimicked some sort of ultra-low-pressure zone.

The barrier itself was filled with wind-borne sand at the moment, to the point where Heliothrax’s sunrays couldn’t penetrate down into the Council Chamber. Once the sandstorm ended, the winds blowing out from inside Skyhold would clear up the bubble quickly enough, but for now, it appeared to be a solid sphere of shifting sand.

The other thing that stood out most, aside from Skyhold, was the top of the storm itself.

The Eye of Heliothrax, shining down on it relentlessly, was melting the wind-blown sand into glass. Great rivers of molten droplets rippled and swept together, eventually congealing and raining down into the storm below. At times, the top of the storm looked like a sea of molten glass.

Kanderon rolled in mid-air to dodge another sunray, then blasted a half-dozen crystal shards from her wings at Heliothrax, each the length of a sand-ship.

The four-winged dragon dodged most of them, but two struck home. One ripped straight through one of her wing membranes, while a second slammed right into her ribcage.

The tear in the wing-membrane healed itself in seconds, while the second shard just slid off Heliothrax’s mother-of-pearl scales.

Not, unfortunately, very surprising. The modifications Heliothrax had done to her own body surpassed even many of the ones done to dragonkin and dragonkind by the ancient draconic empire.

Most people considered Heliothrax’s solar magic the most terrifying part about her, and there’d been entire books written debating the relative merits of her sunrays, the Eye of Heliothrax, or her ability to accelerate her flight by using her sunfire containment shields to push off against the planet’s magnetic field.

They were all wrong, though. It was Heliothrax’s second affinity that was her most terrifying.

She had a dragon affinity.

Mages with animal affinities for their own species were always terrifying, but they were thankfully rare, and most died either in battle or by failed experiments on their own bodies. The rare few that succeeded in their experiments tended to make alterations far beyond what the Herdsman had done to his pets with his chameleon affinity.

Heliothrax had taken it farther than any other such mage in history. She’d somehow stumbled on a collection of texts from the ancient draconic empire when she was young— ones detailing the process behind many of their modifications to their species, to humans, and to others. They’d increased the adult size of dragons three-fold across the species, created lightning dragons, poison gas dragons, and other breeds from scratch. They’d made dragon elders grow more powerful and durable with age, to prevent revolts among their young. They’d increased their lifespan, fertility, and disease resistance. Dragons before and after their ancient empire were hardly even the same species.

The ancient draconic empire had used alien magics from other worlds to make their changes, but a dragon affinity made a perfectly reasonable substitute tool for that purpose. The basic anatomy and physiology remained the same, after all.

The ancient dragon empire, though it spanned a hundred worlds and more, had eventually fallen to far deadlier foes. Its legacy lived on, however, in the creation of the gorgons, the naga, the hydra, and the dragons themselves. Heliothrax had gained insights from all those modifications that she’d used to alter her own body.

The Sunwyrm had the durability and regeneration of a hydra, the reflexes of a naga, and a thousand other modifications. She’d given herself an extra pair of wings and far longer, more dexterous talons. Her scales were the next best thing to indestructible. Her bones were even stronger yet, and Heliothrax had rearranged and reshaped her entire skeleton inside of her to better reinforce her body. She never tired, flew more swiftly than anything else that relied on wings, even ignoring her magnetic propulsion spell, and was immune to just about every known poison. Those rare few that Heliothrax couldn’t make herself immune to, like yellowstone, she simply overcame with biological filtration mechanisms that cleaned toxins out of herself. She even had dozens of additional senses, ranging from thermal vision to the ability to perceive electromagnetic fields.

And Kanderon was sure there were countless more modifications that couldn’t even be guessed at. It begged the question of whether Heliothrax even truly counted as a dragon anymore— her mating flights hadn’t produced any viable eggs in centuries, now.

Body modification was more common than not among great powers— there were plenty of other ways to do it other than having an affinity for your own species. Bone mages and healers tended to indulge quite heavily in it, but there were countless other paths towards it. Kanderon had indulged in quite a bit of it herself, resulting in her anomalous size for a sphinx, as well as her wings and a few other modifications, but Heliothrax had taken it to extremes.

The sphinx’s fired crystal shards returned to her, and a moment later she deflected another sunray with a stellar construct, but didn’t bother firing back. Her stellar affinity was strong enough to deflect solar spells, just barely, but solar magic was easily the more powerful of the two affinities, and Heliothrax wouldn’t even have to exert much effort to block Kanderon’s spells.

Kanderon didn’t know how she was going to win this one. She’d already been worn down by her battle against the Puppet, but even fresh, this would have been a struggle. The heat from the Eye of Heliothrax was even starting to slowly seep through her armor.

Heliothrax was faster in the air, her attacks more powerful under the sun, and…

Kanderon blinked.

She was an idiot.

She’d spent decades looking down on dragons for treating their magic as secondary to their physical strength more often than not, and now she’d fallen into the opposite trap. She’d been trying to take down Heliothrax purely as a mage.

But Kanderon, while fully armored, outweighed the dragon significantly. Heliothrax might be enormous, but her modifications had significantly reduced her weight to increase her flight capabilities.

A plan began to take shape in the sphinx’s mind. She’d need to get above the Sunwyrm for it to work, however, and Heliothrax was far swifter than she was, and would never willingly let her gain the height advantage in this fight.

Kanderon sighed, and detached a nascent spatial gradient from inside her armor with her planar magic. Without having time to carefully do the math for the location she was about to place it in, the spatial gradient would collapse in fractions of a second, wasting years of work for a single, momentary advantage.

Kanderon began to ascend, then placed the spatial gradient in front of her, shortening the space she traveled through.

In a heartbeat, she’d almost doubled her height, to where the air was far too thin for anything to fly normally. Even her ability to repel the crystals in the bedrock with her wings struggled to keep her bulk aloft this high up. The feeling of the spatial gradient shattering grated on her planar affinity sense, but she ignored it.

Kanderon reached the top of her ascent, and was, for a brief moment, weightless in free-fall.

Then she rotated to face the ground and began to dive straight towards Heliothrax. She turned off the crystal spells that let her fly, only keeping a few active to let her control her dive.

The sphinx fired off a volley of a dozen crystal shards, purely as a distraction from her real intent.

Then she began to draw more of her armor into the real world.

She rapidly swelled, until her armor became a malformed, jagged behemoth, half again the size of Heliothrax or Indris.

For all Heliothrax’s obscene speed, dodging the crystal shards distracted her for a few vital moments.

Then Kanderon crashed into the dragon like a meteor.

They plunged down together through the rivers of glass droplets, and down into the shrieking winds of the sandstorm. Heliothrax desperately struggled to free herself, but she’d only half managed it when the two of them slammed into the side of a mountain, ripping a massive crater in its side.

Kanderon let her armor shrink back to a manageable, albeit huge, size— one that put her almost on par with Heliothrax.

The dragon tore herself out of the stone rubble at the bottom of the crater, heavily injured. Three of her wings were broken in multiple spots, and one of her legs was broken severely. The interlocking bone mesh that Heliothrax had replaced her own femurs with was jutting out of her leg in a dozen places.

Even as Heliothrax stumbled to her feet, however, those injuries were already starting to heal.

Kanderon roared, then launched herself at the dragon.

Heliothrax sunk her jaws into Kanderon’s armor even as the sphinx’s crystal claws dug into the dragon’s underbelly. Their momentum took them rolling off the edge of a cliff. They plummeted downwards, sent tumbling through the air by the gale winds.

Then they slammed into the ground below and went rolling apart.

Kanderon’s armor was riddled with cracks and gouges, and she began pushing her magic towards healing it. She then began to assemble a crystal spellform in her mind’s eye, a variation on the eternally useful pattern linking spellform.

“Why, Heliothrax?” Kanderon bellowed, struggling to make herself heard over the storm. “Why, after all these centuries, have you finally decided to bow your head before your lessers?”

Heliothrax cocked her head as if deciding whether it was worth her time to answer. Likely just to give herself more time to heal, she deigned to answer. “I’ve come to believe that Havath is right, that the forces of history do rest on their side.”

Kanderon snorted. “Drakeshit. You and I? We ARE those forces of history they’re speaking of. Besides, you’re perfectly well aware of who Havath serves, who uses them as puppets for their ideas. Why are you really serving them?”

One of Heliothrax’s wings restored itself back into its proper shape with an echoing snap. “You’re no better than they are, Kanderon. You serve the same masters they do.”

Kanderon snarled, but forced herself not to attack just yet. Far above them, she could feel the Eye of Heliothrax begin to weaken, with the dragon no longer in the direct sunlight to manipulate it. Kanderon’s own spell was nearing completion in her mind’s eye. Her crystal armor was still putting itself back together.

And she had to know the truth.

She began circling the wounded dragon.

“I serve no masters,” Kanderon said. “I’ve allied myself with a different faction of their organization, just as Keayda and others have done. You, though— you survived the Ithonian Empire just as I did, and yet you’re willing to serve the exact same faction who guided that empire.”

The protruding bone mesh began to sink back into Heliothrax’s leg. “They’ve learned their lessons, Kanderon. Havath is imperfect, but it’s not the monster that Ithos was. Or that Ithos forced you to become.”

“The monsters that Ithos forced both of us to become, Heliothrax! I’ve kept your secrets all these centuries, but you bear as much responsibility for the creation of the Exile Splinter as I do. You were the one who retrieved the oblivion stone from off-world for the Splinter’s heart! So tell me, why have you really joined them?”

Heliothrax growled at her. “Kept it a secret, then blurted it out in the middle of your allies’ storm, meaning it is a secret no longer. I have no reason to spare those two upstart storm mages, now.”

Kanderon narrowed her eyes. “Are the rumors true, Heliothrax? Has Andas Thune really driven you from your own lair? I knew he impinged upon your territory, but I never thought him a true threat to you.”

Heliothrax roared at her, but Kanderon didn’t even flinch, just waited. The molten glass had begun to build up on both of them, drying into great streaks that shattered whenever one of them shifted.

The dragon finally mastered herself. “He hasn’t driven me out of it, merely hidden it away with his illusions. Havath’s illusionists have promised to restore it for me, in exchange for your head and the Exile Splinter.”

Kanderon sighed. “That’s really it, then. You’ve violated our centuries-long truce, offered a weapon that should never have been made to those who cannot help but exploit it, all for such petty, venal reasons.”

Heliothrax opened her mouth to respond, but Kanderon didn’t give her a chance. She hurled herself against the Sunwyrm again and activated her spellform.

Even as they rolled and tumbled across the stone, shattering boulders the size of houses beneath them, the sand carried by the wind began to stick to Heliothrax’s scales, crystallizing into every crack between her scales. Not just quartz, but crystals of feldspar, olivine, and a half-dozen other minerals, everything carried in any reasonable amounts in the wind of the sandstorm. They mixed and interwove with the streaks of glass scattered across Heliothrax’s scales.

The crystals shattered and broke as the two great powers tumbled across the stone, but more and more kept building on Heliothrax, until her wing membranes were sagging from the weight of the great crystal stalactites growing off them.

The dragon heaved, throwing Kanderon off, then shook her wings and body, shattering many of the growing crystals. They just kept sprouting, though.

“Enough!” Heliothrax bellowed. “I have had it with you, I have had it with your pestilent minions, and I have had it with this accursed storm!”

Kanderon’s eyes widened as she felt Heliothrax cast a solar spell, one that consumed far more mana than any other she’d ever felt. Heliothrax actually ended the Eye of Heliothrax, the mana demands of her current spell clearly too powerful to sustain both at once.

Hundreds of rays of sunfire shot up into the sky, and Kanderon braced herself for impact.

None of them struck her, however. They didn’t even aim for her.

Kanderon reached out her stellar affinity sense, sure Heliothrax was targeting her allies, but the sunrays weren’t going anywhere near them, either.

Just on general principle, Kanderon pushed stellar mana into a magnetic pulse, the sort she’d used to collapse the magnetic containment fields for Heliothrax’s sunrays dozens of times today.

The sunrays lost a little of their sunfire in flares and prominences, but were otherwise entirely unaffected as they began to weave a colossal spellform across the sky.

It only took a moment for Kanderon to recognize it.

A stormward, one that made Hugh’s in Theras Tel, the one she was so proud of him for, look tiny in comparison.

Just as the current storm dwarfed the one he’d faced then.

Then the stormward flared to life, and the colossal sandstorm simply… ended.

The winds simply dispersed in one final, destructive gust. The wind-born sand and glass dropped straight down, in a rain that coated the mountains in several feet of sand. Skyhold was exposed, its slopes a ruin of battle damage, as was the colossal hydra, her allies circling it.

Heliothrax slammed into Kanderon, sending both of them tumbling off a cliff and back out into the Endless Erg.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

The Mountain of Thorns

Godrick was in the process of kicking a tree mage into a hole in the wall when Hugh looked straight up with a look of surprise.

Well, there hadn’t been a hole in the wall before, but after enough kicks to the tree mage’s armor, he’d battered a hole in it. The tree mage was almost certainly a Sican defector to Havath, but living Sican tree armor was definitely inferior to his da’s armor.

“What’s wrong?” Godrick asked Hugh when the wall finally collapsed, and the tree mage landed unmoving in the next room.

“The Eye of Heliothrax just ended,” Hugh said. “And I feel… something else, too. I’m not sure what.”

“Well, let’s go look,” Talia said.

“No, the fight’s not over yet,” Sabae said. “We need to…”

She stopped, then started staring up as well.

“What is it?” Talia demanded.

“The sandstorm just ended too,” Sabae said.

“Ah’d say this seems worth checkin’ out,” Godrick said.

Sabae sighed, then yanked her spear out of a Havathi friction mage, who’d been a serious hassle for the group to handle.

“Fine, but we’re taking a route through Dominion lines,” she said.

Godrick nodded and crouched down so that Hugh could climb onto his back— which Hugh did with considerable grumbling.

Mackerel seemed more than entertained by the whole thing— he already seemed to have forgotten his ordeal with the string mage.

Or, maybe not forgotten, given how aggressive he’d been towards the Havathi troops they’d run across. It had been somewhat horrifying to watch a book rampage through a whole squad of mages with a mixture of frost and force blasts, dropping them from great heights, and simple bludgeoning, but it certainly seemed to have been cathartic for Mackerel.

Godrick set off at a run down the hallway.

They’d dropped off the four young warlocks with Clan Castis a while ago— the main shelters were all locked down until the battle was over, and leaving them with Clan Castis seemed like a better idea than rigging up some sort of ward shelter for them.

The fact that they’d found the members of Clan Castis surrounded by the charred corpses of hundreds of Havathi mages and soldiers had made it a fairly easy sell to the first years.

Tristan, of course, had immediately started flirting with him, even as he suffocated several Havathi soldiers with a cloud of smoke. Godrick still didn’t entirely know what to think of the little redhead.

He was distractingly cute, but he seemed even more like trouble than Talia.

Now was hardly the time to worry about that, though.

Godrick focused his attention back on the run and marveled once again at how smoothly his armor moved with the elemental guiding it. It felt almost as natural as running without the armor on.

He’d also shocked himself with how many other spells he could run at once, in the newly free space in his mind’s eye. In one earlier battle, he’d levitated several Havathi, while launching boulders at others, binding the steel of their weapons together, and ripping up the stone beneath their feet. All that on top of yanking them off balance with his hammer and blinding them with his opal.

Godrick’s armor might never get as powerful as his da’s, but now he had the chance to train himself in whole new styles of combat magic as well.

The four of them met little resistance on their way out to the nearest balcony, save for a bronze mage wearing an impressive suit of bronze full plate, wielding a bronze sword that had to be longer than the man was tall and likely weighed more than he did. It was ridiculous, and clearly, none of it would work without magic.

Talia’s dreambolt hadn’t seemed to do anything to him for a moment, other than stopping him from moving.

Then they realized that he’d been transmuted into a bronze statue inside his armor.

“Yeh sure yeh aren’t subconsciously influencin’ what yer dreamfire does ta’ people?” Godrick asked Talia, as they set off again.

“Despite an absurd amount of philosophical reading Alustin’s assigned to me on the topic, I honestly have no idea,” Talia replied. “I don’t really care, though, because that was amazing!”

Godrick just chuckled at that.

Other than that, they hardly saw anyone, save for a few roving Skyhold patrols.

He tried to restrain his expectations, but it was hard not to feel like Skyhold was winning.

When they finally made it out to a balcony overlooking the Endless Erg, Godrick barely recognized the landscape in front of them.

The dune fields were almost completely covered in glass, making the desert look like it had been frozen over. Hundreds of dragon-corpses littered the desert and the sides of the mountain. Sand and glass coated much of the outside of Skyhold, and the few parts of the mountain that remained exposed bore countless craters and burns. In the distance, the sandstorm still raged, but it was held back by an impossibly large ward crafted out of brilliant beams of light, towering up into the sky in a great cylinder.

Godrick barely paid attention to any of that, however.

Because right in front of them, in the late morning sunlight, were six battling great powers.

Six great powers, and there, in between them and the mountain, his immense armor covered in steel scales and dragonblood, stood his da.

Artur finally killed Tarsynax after the fall of the storm.

Their battle had raged back and forth through the Erg for what felt like hours. Both of them had been covered with molten glass, drying on them in countless streaks and stalactites. The sheer weight of the glass had grounded Tarsynax, and their fight had turned into a brutal slugfest. Tarsynax’s spines were coated in thick layers of the raining glass, rendering him incapable of blasting Artur with lightning.

It would have been easier if he’d been able to use his hammer, but while Tarsynax’s steel magic wasn’t enough to stop Artur’s iron hammer, it was enough to make Artur’s stone gauntlets the more effective weapon.

Artur barely even noticed the storm end, save for the fact that it grew harder to see at a distance through his affinity. His fight against the steel-coated lightning dragon kicked up enough dust that he didn’t even need to raise a dust cloud around them to see.

In the end, his victory was a graceless, brutal thing. It simply boiled down to Tarsynax running out of steel mana before Artur ran out of stone mana. The dragon, unable to reinforce his steel scales and bones with his magic any longer, began to bend and break.

When Artur finally stopped smashing his gauntlets into the dragon’s unmoving form, he stepped back and took a deep breath. The air inside his armor was thick and choking, so Artur decided to take a chance and opened up his bubble for new air.

The fresh air was hardly any better.

The scene outside was nightmarish. The desert had been turned into a wasteland of glass as far as the eye could see, and the ruined Havathi fleet turned into some bizarre, psychedelic graveyard.

The dragon at his feet didn’t even look like a dragon anymore— instead, it looked like an immense scrap heap of steel, somehow bleeding over the glass of the desert.

None of that held Artur’s attention for long.

The hydra was approaching, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached the graveyard of ships. It was half-covered in glass, enough to build a whole palace, and yet it still moved, as though the impossible burden meant nothing to it. Even as he watched, three of its heads grabbed some sort of skeletal ape, covered in chains and twice his armor’s size, off the ground. The hydra didn’t even slow down as he tore the monster apart.

Above the hydra, the Coven battled Heliothrax.

And they were losing.

Even as he watched, Indris Stormbreaker fell from the sky, a great smoking burn across her right side. The dragon queen managed to turn her fall into something of a controlled descent, but her impact into the ship graveyard was nothing less than a crash. It sent a great wave of sand, glass, and charred wood flying in front of her before she came to a halt.

A moment later, Heliothrax struck Kanderon from above, bringing her down to the sand in an even greater explosion of debris. Ilinia Kaen Das rained lightning down on the hydra and Heliothrax from above, but both simply ignored it.

Artur took a deep breath of the hot desert air, then turned his armor to face Skyhold.

Somewhere inside, probably battling for his life against Havathi mages, was his son. If either the hydra or Heliothrax made it to the mountain, Godrick didn’t stand a chance.

Artur sealed his armor, turned back towards the battle of great powers, and began to run.

With each bounding stride, Artur’s stony boots crushed through a thick layer of glass, plunging down to the ground below.

It wasn’t fast enough.

Even though his stone mana reservoir was running perilously low, Artur used it to firm up the sand beneath each of his steps, so he didn’t sink deep with each step.

It still wasn’t fast enough.

Artur cut the great stone head free from his armor, letting it fall behind him to the desert floor. It had no use other than as bait for attackers who thought him foolish enough to hide his body inside it. Then he detonated the outer layer of stone off his armor, taking the accumulated glass with it.

His pace redoubled again, and Artur hoped it would be enough.

His feet tore through the glass-covered ships of the Havathi fleet, and he raced past Indris without checking to see whether she still lived.

The run through the desert couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity to Artur.

Then, with every bit of force he could summon, Artur tackled Heliothrax off Kanderon.

He hadn’t even tumbled to a halt when he felt something huge slam into his chestplate, and a moment later, his whole suit of armor rose off the ground.

Heliothrax had picked up his armor with just one of her clawed hands. Scythe-like talons, far longer than any other dragon he’d ever encountered, began slicing into his armor.

Artur assembled a voice amplification cantrip in his mind’s eye.

“Kanderon, RUN!” Artur shouted.

Kanderon immediately took off and began flying at high speed away from Artur and Heliothrax.

Heliothrax’s claws began cutting deep into his armor.

Artur smiled. “Hey, yeh oversized scaly idiot. Ah got somethin’ ta’ say ta’ yeh.”

Heliothrax snorted in disdain. “Useless bravado, I assume? I’ve heard so many last speeches from would-be great powers that they just run together in my memory now. You haven’t even saved your master, you’ve just put off her death a few minutes longer.”

Artur wrapped his suit’s limbs around Heliothrax’s foreleg. “Not exactly,” he said. “Ah just needed ta’ make sure Kanderon had time ta’ get clear. And ta’ let yeh know that ah stole this trick from mah son.”

The battle against Tarsynax had left his iron mana reservoir almost full, and Artur pumped every last drop of it into his hammer’s enchantments.

Specifically, the otherworldly extraplanar enchantments that held in an entire mountain of iron, one covered in colossal, twisted spines.

As Heliothrax’s claws tore deeper into his armor and the enchantment on his hammer collapsed, Artur Wallbreaker began to laugh.

All Talia could do was watch as Artur Wallbreaker died.

Where Heliothrax had stood, clutching Artur in her talons, now stood a mountain of iron, nearly half of the size of Skyhold itself. Thousands and thousands of twisted iron thorns jutted upwards from it, like some horrible, wicked forest.

The iron mountain had exploded from Artur’s hammer with a hellish wind, a shockwave that had knocked down all four of them, slamming them against the mountain behind them. Talia had no doubt it would have broken every bone in her body if it weren’t for her scrimshaw ward, and maintaining it took almost every drop of mana she had left.

The tsunami of sand and glass the mountain produced washed over the desert at its feet, and Indris barely launched herself into the sky in time to evade it. She was battered and broken, with a horrible burn along her right side and a ship’s mast coated in glass sticking out of her right hindleg. Talia suspected she flew more with her magic than her wings.

Kanderon and Ilinia had barely gotten out of the emerging mountain’s path in time, and the hydra hadn’t been able to react in time. It hung, unmoving, from the hundreds of immense iron thorns impaling it, the remains of the skeletal ape monster and its chains still hanging from its mouths.

In the distance, the sunfire stormward collapsed, and the storm rolled towards them again.

And there, impaled at the very peak of the mountain, was Heliothrax herself.

And then there was silence, save for the sound of Godrick on his knees, screaming.

Talia and the others went to him immediately, wrapping their arms around his armor. Even Mackerel climbed onto his knees.

Godrick’s incoherent screams had turned to sobs when Sabae gasped.

Talia looked up and blinked away her tears. She didn’t even know when she’d started crying, but they ran so thick she couldn’t see for a moment.

Then she wiped them away, and there, at the top of the iron mountain, Heliothrax was moving.

Then, with a screech of metal tearing, Heliothrax threw herself into the sky. A dozen iron spines still jutted out of her, but they barely seemed to slow her down.

Talia climbed to her feet and pushed mana into her bracers, forcing the blades out. Even if it was pointless, she intended to die fighting.

The Coven flew in between Heliothrax and Skyhold.

Kanderon Crux, the Crystal Sphinx, with her immense blue armor cracked and broken.

Indris Stormbreaker, the Queen of Theras Tel, bleeding and exhausted, barely staying in the sky.

Ilinia Kaen Das, the Protector of Ras Andis, hovered in the sky, surrounded by a simple sphere of wind, instead of her usual storm giant of clouds and lightning.

Heliothrax the Invincible, the slayer of hundreds of great powers, the hero of more stories than any other living being in history, turned and fled.

Talia started to sag to the ground and then froze when she saw yet more movement.

The hydra was also still alive.

It tore itself loose from the mountain in a deafening cacophony of tearing iron, and before it even fell to the ground, its body was already spitting out the massive thorns.

It didn’t advance towards the mountain, though. Instead, it began to flex and stretch, as though waking up from a long sleep.

Then all twelve of its heads turned to face the Coven, and Talia noticed immense chains hanging like hair from the back of each skull.

“This new body is far more magnificent than the one you promised me, Kanderon,” the hydra said. “I owe you a future favor. I apologize for taking so long to seize control of it, however.”

“Thank you, Ramyl,” Kanderon said. “Wherever you go, go knowing you have earned my friendship.”

The hydra nodded slowly with all twelve heads, then began slithering through glass back towards the open desert.

Ramyl didn’t even pause to glance at the shredded remains of his former, apelike body.

The Coven descended to the desert floor, and in the distance, the great sandstorm began to dissolve.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

The Bloodstained Stones of Skyhold

Sabae finally got to meet with her grandmother an hour shy of noon.

“This place has seen better days,” Ilinia said, kicking a hunk of glass off the balcony to shatter on Skyhold’s slopes below.

Sabae just stared at her grandmother, trying to think of what to say.

Ilinia took a drink from her flask and stared out at the apocalyptic desert.

Sabae sighed and joined her at the railing. She used a small gust of wind to blow the railing mostly free of debris, save for the glass melted onto it, then leaned on the rail and watched healers swarm around Indris Stormbreaker, resting in the ruins of the harbor.

She was a little shocked they’d managed to spare any healers for the dragon at all, considering how brutal the battle had been.

The war inside the mountain had already been turning in Skyhold’s favor when Artur’s sacrifice tipped the scales outside in the Coven’s favor, and the rest of the battle ended swiftly when Ilinia and Indris’ winds began hunting Havathi through the mountain.

Sabae didn’t know how they’d ever get Skyhold clean again.

Thankfully, none of Skyhold’s shelters had been breached during the battle, but there had, unquestionably, been thousands of deaths among Skyhold’s defenders. It would likely be days if not weeks before they had an accurate count, but in a mountain of only thirty thousand people, that was a colossal blow.

The Havathi force had been almost entirely annihilated. A few stragglers had managed to escape as they were purging the mountain, but Sabae would be shocked if more than a hundred Havathis had survived, out of a force tens of thousands strong. Kanderon had sent out most of the surviving Librarians Errant to hunt down the escapees.

There were still patrols and seers hunting for stragglers inside the mountain as well, but the battle was unquestionably won, if at a horrific price.

Ilinia took another sip, then offered the flask to Sabae.

She took a drink and immediately regretted it, promptly handing the flask back to her grandmother. Sabae had no idea how her grandmother drank the vile rotgut.

“Alright, out with it, girlie,” Ilinia said. “You’ve had something you wanted to say to me ever since I arrived.”

Sabae took a deep breath. “I know about all the deaths of innocents from your storms.”

Her grandmother nodded. “Yep. Awful lot of dead farmers and drowned villages. There’s going to be a lot more over the next few years, too— Indris and I won’t be letting a drop of rain into Havath’s heartlands. Between that and their defeat today, I give them five years left as an empire. Ten, tops.”

“How can you be fine with that?” Sabae demanded. “How can you be so callous about thousands of innocent deaths on your hands?”

Ilinia gestured across the desert. “Same way I shrug off the tens of thousands of Havathi I helped kill today. I’m a monster, dear.”

Sabae blinked in surprise. She’d expected elaborate justifications, not… a simple statement like that.

“I have two choices in life,” Ilinia said. “I can either be a monster, just like the rest of the great powers, or I can act with my conscience and Ras Andis falls.”

“It can’t be that simple,” Sabae protested.

“It is that simple,” Ilinia said. “I thought differently when I was young. I thought I could find a third way when I claimed the Stormseat, that I could be less of a monster than our ancestors. I was wrong. Once you’re a great power, there is no breaking out of their games. The very act of gaining so much power locks you inextricably into the whole horrible, bloody cycle. The bloody games are an inevitable product of the inequality of power in our world, Sabae. I can either sacrifice my conscience or sacrifice my city and my family. Why do you think I drink so storming much?”

Sabae tried to find the words to argue, to convince her grandmother there was another way.

All she could do was slam her hands down on the railing in rage. Bits of glass broke off in her palms, but she ignored them.

“I’m going to break it,” she said. “I’m going to find a way to tear up the rules of the game, to flip the table and end it forever, and I’ll break anything and anyone who stands in my way.”

Her grandmother gave her a long, considering look as she took yet another sip of her horrid rotgut.

“Fair enough, dear,” Ilinia said. “I still want great-grandbabies to spoil someday, though.”

“You’re not taking me seriously,” Sabae growled.

Ilinia screwed the lid back onto her flask, then snapped her fingers.

The two of them shot up into the sky, so fast Sabae blacked out for a few seconds.

When they came to rest, Skyhold looked like a toy below them. A colossal circle of destruction stretched out around it, glass coating the Endless Erg and the mountains like a shining coat of paint for leagues in every direction.

Then Ilinia snapped her fingers again, and a sphere of wind rose up around them, spinning faster than Sabae had ever felt air move before. If Sabae were to stick her finger in it, the only question would be whether it would rip just the finger off, or her whole arm.

Ilinia snapped her finger again, and lightning began dancing across the sphere in crackling spellforms. Sabae recognized it as a powerful anti-scrying ward that Hugh had once shown her. He’d described it as an inefficient, brute-force solution for preventing mages from spying on you.

Her grandmother had brute force in ample supply.

“Dear, I take you absolutely seriously,” Ilinia said. “I have no doubt that you’ll succeed or die trying. And, either way, I’m sure you’ll manage to plunge the world into more chaos than it already is. The fact that I can’t make you my heir is one of the greatest regrets of my life.”

“Because of my messed-up magic,” Sabae said.

“No, dear,” Ilinia said, shaking her head. “Because I won’t have an heir at all.”

Sabae froze.

“With each Kaen Das that has sat upon Stormseat, our throne’s power has grown greater and greater,” Ilinia said. “With each league of the world’s winds our family has seized control of, Stormseat has likewise grown more powerful. And I’ve added more to Stormseat’s power than any member of our family before me. I’ve gotten a good measure of Indris’ full strength these past few months, and I can now say that if I were to truly dedicate myself to the task, I could crush her. I can comfortably say that with the power of Stormseat behind me, I am quite likely the most powerful storm mage on the continent since the Ithonian Empire, and I’d happily test myself against their storm mages too, if it were possible.”

Ilinia began to reach for her flask again, but stopped herself. “But, as Stormseat’s power has grown, so has the difficulty of transferring its power between each new heir. Taking its bonds onto myself from my own mother almost killed me, and Stormseat’s power now dwarfs its power back then. I kept up my hopes for a long time, but I refuse to delude myself any longer. When I die, there is no one who can successfully seize control of Stormseat. The Kaen Das dynasty’s power ends with me.”

Sabae opened her mouth, trying to find something to say. Her grandmother just watched her quietly as they hovered in the sky.

“Why are you trusting me with this?” Sabae finally asked.

“Because I want you to know what’s at stake,” Ilinia said. “If you can end the games of the great powers, maybe you can stop Ras Andis from falling into chaos once I die.”

“I… this…” Sabae stammered.

“Oh, quit stammering!” Ilinia snapped. “I’ve got decades yet. So long as I don’t die in battle, the healers should be able to keep me alive until I’m a hundred and twenty— if I’m willing to put up with living in constant agony.”

“Well I guess I’ll speed up my whole plot to upend the global order, just so as not to inconvenience you!” Sabae snapped.

Ilinia chuckled. “That’s my girl. Now let’s get down from here. I need to go speak with Indris, and I imagine your friends need you right now.”

At precisely noon, the Vault of Skyhold opened.

It wasn’t the first time it had opened in Alustin’s lifetime— it had opened twice since he joined Skyhold. This was, however, the first time he actually got to see it open.

He’d expected the great metal seal atop the council chamber to split open or maybe descend down into the mountain, but instead, it rose up into the air.

The Skyhold Council Chamber was half in ruins. Half the council and other archmages up here had died, most of them from Heliothrax’s opening bombardment. The majority of the thrones had been broken into rubble.

The distance distorting bubble had finally cleared itself of sand, at least.

As the metal seal rose, it trailed a whole different place in its wake.

Under it stood a thick column, leading into a vast, blue-walled hall. Dozens of display plinths, each topped by a transparent crystal case covered in spellforms, stood in view, warped by the curve of the column Alustin was looking in through.

The paper mage began walking around the column, and as he did so, his view rotated with him, bringing different locked-away, forbidden items into view.

One transparent crystal case held a spear that seemed made of a hole in reality, filled with alien stars.

Another held a haphazard collection of dozens of enchanted items, strapped together crudely with their spellforms tied together with wires that plunged in and out of all of them.

A third held a floating orb of mist that made Alustin’s mana reservoirs vibrate and ache just to look at. He turned his eyes quickly away from it.

The half-dozen surviving council members up here with Alustin and Kanderon were striding around the outside of the vault much as he was, taking in the horrific collection of weapons.

A statue that seemed to shift poses every time you blinked or looked away, crafted out of wax and filled with tens of thousands of spellforms.

A sword of red aether crystal, surrounded by flames. Alustin knew of that one— and knew it had claimed a city’s worth of lives, once. It couldn’t be controlled or destroyed, only contained.

The last egg of an Issen-Derin queen.

An oversized, fancy hat, covered in feathers, sitting next to a pair of grubby old leather boots. The boots shifted slightly, and Alustin could tell they were watching him.

“Any one of these would be enough to destroy Havath City,” Alustin finally said. “To punch right through their defenses.”

“Not all of them, but many, yes,” Kanderon said.

An acorn the size of a man’s head, floating in a hellish brew of alchemical poisons that just barely kept it from sprouting.

A silently screaming child made entirely of teeth pounded at the inside of her case with her gnawing fists.

An ugly lump of spellform-inscribed ice, all that remained of an iceberg lich that had once terrorized the far north. If you were to provide it enough water, it could regrow in minutes, but merely as a near-mindless, rampaging monster. The brilliant mind that it had contained in the times of the Ithonian empire was long gone.

“So choose one,” Alustin said. “Pick Havath City’s fate.”

“For the thousandth time, no,” Kanderon said. She didn’t look at him as she removed the Exile Splinter from one of her extraplanar spaces. “Between today’s losses and my allies’ manipulation of their climate, Havath is doomed as an empire within a decade.”

A vat of a horrific alchemical poison, a few drops of which could render the soil of a village inimical to all plant life for generations.

Frozen vials of a dozen different plagues.

An inscrutable glass casket, filled with swirling wisps of greyish gas.

“For the thousandth time, why?” Alustin demanded. “For once, I beg you, be honest with me, instead of giving me your usual justifications. Why can’t we finally avenge my home, my family? The literal hundreds of thousands that have died in or as a result of Havath’s expansion already?”

Kanderon sighed and looked up from the Exile Splinter at him. Then she seemed to make a decision.

“I’m old, Alustin. Far older than I have any right to be. Old, tired, and full of regrets. If I were to level Havath now, I’d be giving birth to a whole new generation of mages dedicated to revenge, just like you. Most of all, though…”

Kanderon trailed off, and Alustin kept pacing around the entrance to the vault. The assembled archmages weren’t even pretending not to eavesdrop.

As Alustin waited for Kanderon to finish, he came across a new section of the vault.

One filled with books.

Few of them seemed magical in the slightest. Most were simple, plain volumes, each resting in their own sealed case. Alustin had never been able to find any record of the information most of them contained, not even a hint of a title.

One particularly thick, ancient-looking book, covered in beautifully detailed embroideries, caught his eye. They weren’t spellforms, but rather intricate illustrations. He couldn’t make them out from here, but he knew better than to try and scry inside the Vault, even with its seal open.

He could, however, see that the book was quivering and vibrating within its case.

“Most of all,” Kanderon finally said, “I refuse to repeat my great sin. I will not do to any other city what I did to Imperial Ithos, even if my life depends on it.”

Alustin whirled to face her. “Is that really it, Kanderon? Or is it really just that destroying Havath City would break the rules of your centuries-long game against Havath’s masters for influence on that damn Council you both sit on? The one I’m not supposed to know about.”

Kanderon didn’t speak as she levitated the Exile Splinter into the entrance to the vault and then onto a plinth of its own, one that seemed to have been specifically designed for it.

As a crystal case folded over the Exile Splinter, Kanderon turned to face Alustin, rage in her eyes. Her voice when she spoke, however, was perfectly calm. “I’ve given you my answer, Alustin. Because I know from personal experience how it feels to crave vengeance as badly as you do, I will forgive your words this one time, and this one time only. Now leave, before you say something you’ll truly regret.”

Then she turned back to the Exile Splinter.

Alustin choked back his rage, forcing himself to calmness as he spun away from Kanderon.

He took one deep breath, then another, and another.

The rage was still there after the tenth, but he had control of himself again.

Then, without a word, Alustin began to sculpt a spellform in his mind’s eye.

It wasn’t a particularly complicated one. It was, in fact, a fairly basic sort of shaping spellform, one meant to allow the caster to reshape the material of their affinity with their will.

There were only three unusual things about this particular spellform.

The first was the fact that it was meant to affect its material at a significant distance. Halfway down the mountain, in fact.

The second was the fact that it was built to link with a very specific individual spellform at that great distance, one that Alustin had designed with great care.

The third unusual thing about the spellform was the fact that it was cast using Alustin’s newest affinity. The one he’d spent years and years developing, never once telling anyone else or even hinting at.

The reservoir was still tiny, the size of a first year’s mana reservoir just recently arrived at Skyhold.

It didn’t need to be any bigger to cast this one spell though.

Alustin’s will reached out through the spellform as his mana rushed into it and connected with the paper armband he’d given Hugh, the one still wrapped around his apprentice’s arm.

And Alustin, with his brand-new ink affinity, reshaped the spellforms on Hugh’s armband into a new, malevolent configuration.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The Price of a Pact

Hugh and the others left Godrick’s rooms a few minutes before noon.

Godrick had finally collapsed into exhausted sleep, barely having said anything coherent since he’d witnessed his father’s death. Hugh, Sabae, and Talia had stood around awkwardly as Godrick slept for a few minutes before they left to tend to other things.

Just in case there were any Havathi still in the mountain, Hugh left a new set of protective wards outside Godrick’s room.

Talia kissed Hugh, then left to go spend time with her brothers and her clan, and Hugh and Sabae walked silently for a time. Even Mackerel, slung over Hugh’s shoulder, was quietly behaving himself.

“So what now?” Hugh asked.

“We help rebuild Skyhold, I guess,” Sabae said.

“No, I mean… that doesn’t seem like enough, somehow,” Hugh said. “Thousands and thousands of people are dead. Artur is dead. Who knows how many other people we know have died as well? I don’t just want to rebuild, I want to… do something that really matters.”

“Rebuilding matters, Hugh,” Sabae said. “Every year, countless people have to do it when their homes are destroyed in battles between the great powers. It’s the only way to keep going.”

“I know,” Hugh said. “It’s just… I want to do more than that. I don’t just want to repair the damage, I want to do more, actually change things. I don’t want Artur’s death to just be another casualty of the endless game of the great powers. Sabae, I was serious about wanting to help you end their games before, but now… I can’t imagine anything else I want to do more.”

“You’re sure?” Sabae asked. “Because I actually have an idea we can do right now. Fair warning, it could get us both in a lot of trouble.”

Hugh nodded and opened his mouth to speak.

Then he felt a curious itching sensation from his arm. He turned his head to look and saw that the ink spellforms on the paper armband Alustin had given him were shifting, altering themselves.

Before he could react, Hugh found himself on the floor, writhing in pain.

The pain tore through his head, down his spine, and burned fiercely at the tips of his fingers and toes. His insides clenched like they wanted to force themselves into a tiny ball.

Worst of all, though, was the skin on his back. It burned like fire, it ached like ten thousand needles were stabbing into him, it seemed to push into his back with the force of a hammer blow.

And then the terms of his warlock pact with Kanderon forced themselves into his mind’s eye, and the pain grew even worse, and he knew the pain in his back came from that very pact.

Deep in the back of his head, where his warlock bonds connected with Mackerel and Kanderon, he felt that same pain echoed twice over. He could feel Mackerel shaking convulsively on the ground beside him, and he could feel Kanderon writhing on the stone floor of the Council Chamber atop Skyhold, trying desperately to climb to her feet.

And the pain just went on, and on, and on.

He knew Sabae was speaking to him, but he couldn’t make out a word she was saying.

Through the pain, Hugh managed to force his hand up to his arm and desperately tried to tear the armband free, but he couldn’t seem to make his fingers work.

Then he felt Sabae’s fingers on his arm, and a moment later she tore the armband loose.

It made no difference. The pain just kept coming, and Hugh thought it would never stop. He could feel horrible pain in his throat from screaming, but he couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything but the terms of the warlock pact.

And every single drop of that pain kept echoing back and forth through his pact, growing each time it passed from him, to Kanderon, to Mackerel, and back to him in an endless, torturous loop.

And then, out of nowhere, the pain simply ceased.

“Hugh? Hugh? Can you hear me?” Sabae said, from some great distance.

“Kanderon,” Hugh whispered, his voice a rasping whisper. “Council chamber. Kanderon.”

“I need to take you to the healers,” Sabae said. “I need to…”

Hugh forced his hand up and grabbed Sabae by the wrist. “No. Kanderon… Kanderon’s hurt. Something’s wrong. Take me… council chamber.”

“Hugh…” Sabae said.

“Please,” Hugh forced out.

Sabae sighed, and he felt her pick him up and start walking.

“Faster,” Hugh said. “Fast as you can. Please , Sabae.”

Hugh felt himself shift around, felt Sabae stick him to her back with her adhesive shield. Felt her wind armor spin up around him.

And then they were blasting through Skyhold’s hallways at incredible speeds.

He only caught glimpses of their madcap flight through the inside of the mountain. A few glimpses of startled faces. Piles of corpses and debris from the battle. Empty hallway after empty hallway.

The glimpses got more frequent as they progressed, and Hugh found his mind slowly clearing, found it easier to focus. As the world grew clearer around him, he felt Mackerel at his side regain coherency as well.

Finally, finally, they reached the top of the council chamber, and Sabae let him down, though she held onto him to make sure he wouldn’t fall.

The Council Chamber was full of corpses.

Anders Vel Siraf’s memorable silk robes draped a body without a head. Eddin Slane lay cut down among a pile of his ceramic tiles. Four other bodies Hugh didn’t know lay sprawled around a glowing column rising from the center of the Council Chamber. The column was some sort of portal to another place, slowly closing as the great metal seal of Skyhold descended.

Hugh paid attention to none of it, nor to the immense vista of destruction below that the council chamber overlooked. He only had eyes for Kanderon.

For a long, horrible moment, he thought she was dead. She lay motionless, her eyes closed, and the crystals of her wings lay scattered about the stone floor. There were deep, vicious gashes scattered across her body, and Hugh caught flashes of blue from deep within some of them.

Then her flank rose in a great, shuddering breath, and Hugh ran straight for her.

He tried to shout her name, but it came out as a rasping, unintelligible mess.

He tried again and failed again and then stumbled. The only reason he didn’t fall was Mackerel, who barely managed to hold him upright.

When he recovered his balance, Kanderon’s unnaturally blue eyes were open, watching him.

“Hugh,” Kanderon whispered. Her voice sounded almost as bad as his.

Hugh tried to speak and couldn’t. His throat ached, and nothing would come out.

Sabae stepped up beside him and handed him a waterskin from her storage tattoo, and Hugh started drinking greedily, hoping the water might give him words again.

“What happened?” Sabae demanded.

“Alustin,” Kanderon said.

Sabae took a step back, shook her head in denial.

“Alustin wanted… wanted revenge,” the sphinx rasped out. “Revenge on Havath. Wanted to use a weapon from the Vault to destroy Havath City. I wouldn’t… I refused.”

“How could he possibly stand up to you?” Sabae asked, her voice sounding desperate.

“He didn’t,” Hugh managed to choke out. “It was our warlock pact. Alustin used the armbands he gave us to attack Kanderon through our pact. It’s my fault.”

“No!” Kanderon yelled out, then started coughing. “No, it wasn’t, Hugh. It was my fault. My fault from the beginning. I should never have… I built our pact wrong. Alustin had… a new affinity. One I didn’t know about. Took advantage of the flaw.”

Hugh gave Kanderon a confused look, and took a step forward.

“I was afraid,” Kanderon said. “I didn’t know you when you wrote to me from the Labyrinth. Thought it could be a trick, a trap. I made our pact far longer than it needed to be, included two dozen more clauses than it needed, all to protect myself from you. But doing so made the pact itself brittle, made it vulnerable to a third party who knew how to attack it. I knew Havath was looking for the method to do so, but I didn’t think anyone actually knew how. I never… I never even considered that Alustin knew how to exploit the vulnerability, or that he’d attack me through you. I never even considered him attacking me at all. I should have… I should have trusted you sooner, Hugh.”

Hugh felt tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, he staggered over to Kanderon, and did his best to wrap his arms around her forehead.

“You need to stop him,” Kanderon said. “Alustin… he stole it. He stole it, and he’s planning on using it against Havath.”

“The Exile Splinter,” Sabae said, terror in her voice.

“No,” Kanderon said. “The Tongue Eater. He stole it from the Vault, and he plans to destroy the Havath Dominion with it.”

Hugh knew he should be terrified by that, but his mind was entirely focused on Kanderon.

“That’s… that’s insane,” Sabae said. “The Havathi speak Ithonian, just like everyone else on the continent. If he uses the Tongue Eater to devour the Ithonian language, he’ll wipe out civilization on the whole continent!”

“He doesn’t plan to use the Tongue Eater,” Kanderon said. “He plans to break it. He actually gloated to me over his plans, can you believe it? He’s going to set free every single language it ever devoured and drive every single citizen of Havath permanently insane.”

“I thought the Tongue Eater was a ritual, not an object,” Sabae said.

“It was both,” Kanderon replied. “A ritual to eat the languages, and a stomach to store them in. I have kept the latter hidden away for centuries, and now Alustin’s going to use it to inflict the cruelest vengeance he can imagine.”

“That’s monstrous,” Sabae whispered. “That’s… that’s worse than anything Havath has ever done.”

Kanderon let out a long, pained sigh. “Yes. And there’s no telling how far the effect will spread. Maybe the languages will stop with Havath. Maybe they’ll just keep going, keep spreading across the whole continent. You have to stop him. Do whatever it takes, but tell no one what he stole. The Tongue Eater is more valuable and more dangerous than even Alustin suspects, and there are monsters out there far more dangerous than I that would rip this continent apart to get their hands on it. The Ithonians never truly understood what they’d stolen.”

The sphinx trailed off, her breaths weak and rasping.

“I’m sorry, Hugh,” she finally said. “I should have trusted you. I should have told you the truth about our bond, and I should have modified it to fix the vulnerability long ago. I was… I was afraid to hurt you. I couldn’t bear the thought that you might think I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“I could never hate you,” Hugh whispered.

Hugh could feel Kanderon’s face move beneath his arms and knew she was trying to smile.

“I love you, little one,” Kanderon said.

“I love you too,” Hugh whispered.

Then he felt himself levitate into the air, away from Kanderon.

“No!” Hugh shouted.

“I’m sorry, Hugh,” Kanderon said. “I’m so sorry to put this burden on you.”

“No!” Hugh shouted again, his voice starting to break again.

The scattered shards of Kanderon’s wings began to lift off the ground.

“Kanderon!” Hugh shouted.

The sphinx smiled as she gently set Hugh down next to Sabae, and then the shards of blue crystal closed around her. They began to grow and merge together, to rise.

Kanderon’s eyes seem unfocused, barely taking in the world around her.

“I’m so sorry,” Kanderon said. Her voice sounded thin and drawn out.

By the time Hugh managed to stumble back, there was only a perfect blue sphere of crystal lying where she’d been. It nestled gently in the depression Kanderon had worn into the stone of the Council Chamber, sitting there for centuries of meetings.

Hugh pounded on the crystal sphere, but it didn’t respond in the least.

He tried to rip it open with his crystal magic, but his mana just seemed to drain away and wouldn’t enter his spellform.

“Kanderon!” Hugh shouted, and beat against the sphere with his fists.

Behind him, the great metal seal finished descending, coming to a halt with a heavy, dull thud, and sealing off the Vault of Skyhold once more.

Sabae cautiously approached Hugh, who was slumped against the curve of the gigantic sphere. If Sabae strained her eyes, she could vaguely make out a huge shadow resting in its center.

“Is… is she still alive?” Sabae asked.

“I don’t know,” Hugh said. “The bond is still there, in the back of my head, but I can’t… I can’t feel anything through it. I don’t know. I don’t…”

Sabae rested her hand on Hugh’s shoulder, not knowing what to say.

Then she felt a breeze on her neck and looked up.

There, outside the spatial barrier around the council chamber, floated her grandmother, a horrified look on her face.

“What happened? What is this?” Ilinia demanded.

“Alustin betrayed us,” Sabae growled. “He attacked her through her pact with Hugh, he killed the rest of the storming Council, and he stole a weapon from it to destroy Havath.”

“What did he steal?” her grandmother demanded.

“Half a dozen plague vials,” Sabae lied, remembering Kanderon’s warning. Her grandmother’s wind-scrying was one of the only scrying magics she knew of that could penetrate the Council Chamber’s defenses. If she hadn’t been paying attention, there was a decent chance they could still keep the secret.

“Is he insane ?” Ilinia bellowed. “There’s absolutely no reason a plague would stop with Havath!”

“Grandmother…” Sabae swallowed, then forced herself to go through with the lie. “One of them is a vial of the Blue Death.”

Ilinia paled, and Sabae knew she was reliving horrific memories of the disease that had killed half of the Kaen Das family and thousands of others in Ras Andis a decade ago.

Including Sabae’s own father.

“Find him, Grandmother,” Sabae said. “Before it’s too late.”

Ilinia nodded, then vanished in a thunderclap of wind.

Somehow, though, Sabae didn’t have any hope that Alustin would be caught so easily.

“Hugh,” Sabae said.

He didn’t respond.

She bent down to hug Hugh from behind. “I’m sorry, Hugh.”

Hugh’s hand reached up and gently latched onto Sabae’s wrist.

“She was my family, Sabae,” he said. “She was my family, and I never told her.”

“You didn’t have to,” Sabae said. “She knew. And I promise you that she felt the exact same way about you. She was… is… every bit as much your family as Godrick, Talia, and I are. As Artur was.”

Hugh’s spellbook gave her an affronted look.

“And Mackerel,” Sabae added.

Hugh turned to look at her, tears streaking down his face. “I thought Alustin was too.”

Sabae’s heart wrenched at the broken expression on Hugh’s face, and she hugged him again. “He’ll pay for what he did, Hugh.”

Hugh hugged her back, hard enough to hurt, but Sabae didn’t complain.

Then she gently pulled away. “We need to go now, alright?”

Hugh gave her a blank look.

“I… I want to stay here,” Hugh said.

“It won’t be long until the rest of the mountain discovers what’s happened up here,” Sabae said. “And trust me, you don’t want to get caught up in it, unless you want to spend days being interrogated. I doubt you’ll be blamed, but people are going to get really paranoid soon- especially once it gets out that Alustin did this, which it most certainly will. Best no one finds us up here.”

Hugh started to shake his head.

“I need you to trust me, Hugh,” Sabae said. “That idea I was about to propose to you? We need to pull it off now , before news of Kanderon’s death spreads through the mountain. I know this is hard, but please, please trust me.”

Hugh wiped some of the tears off his face, then nodded.

Sabae pulled Hugh to his feet. “You’ll have time to mourn soon, I promise,” she said. “And Mackerel, I need you to do that thing where you block scrying, alright?”

The spellbook twitched his cover in assent, and a moment later Sabae felt the tingling sensation that accompanied his anti-scrying field pass over her.

Sabae took off at a run, pulling Hugh behind her.

He didn’t look away from the crystal sphere encasing Kanderon until it passed out of sight as they descended into the mountain.

Alustin was almost entirely out of mana when he touched down on the prearranged meeting site, on the rocky shoulder of a mountain twenty leagues from Skyhold, well out of the circle of devastation.

He was honestly shocked his betrayal had worked. Part of him had never believed he’d actually be able to use Hugh to destroy Kanderon, even with a new affinity she didn’t know about. He hadn’t developed the ink affinity for anything like this purpose— his original intentions for it had been entirely different— but it had been the perfect tool for this job.

Even with Kanderon out of the picture, he’d been dealing with far more power than he could handle in a straight fight. Thankfully, only Eddin Slane had noticed his betrayal in time to react. Unfortunately for the ceramic mage, Austin had been able to fit a few sheets of paper into the cracks between his hexagonal clay tiles before the barrier sealed around him.

The mountain’s shoulder appeared empty, but Alustin strode forward confidently as he collapsed his wings and armor back into his tattoo, and when he stepped over a ward, an encampment of mages appeared out of nowhere.

The Librarians Errant. At least, the ones Alustin trusted. They hadn’t even attempted their mission of hunting Havathi survivors, instead heading straight for this meeting place.

Alustin tried not to wonder whether Valia was among the Havathi escapees.

“Did anyone follow you?” Emmenson Drees called, stalking towards him.

“Not a chance,” Alustin said, pulling a pendant out from under his robes. Socketed into it was an orange and red stone, just like the one in Mackerel’s cover.

A labyrinth stone.

It had been surprisingly easy to find one— Skyhold, it turned out, had half a dozen of them tucked away in case of a labyrinth-related emergency, or in case they needed to grow a new labyrinth over an emerging mana well. They should really be called labyrinth seeds, not stones, despite their composition.

The hard part had been figuring out how exactly to mimic Mackerel’s anti-scrying capabilities, but he’d succeeded eventually.

Now Alustin was, for all intents and purposes, completely invisible to every seer on the continent. Hugh didn’t have the slightest idea of how valuable his spellbook really was— Mackerel was worth more than half the items in Skyhold’s Vault.

At the thought of Hugh, Alustin felt a pang of guilt. He knew that Hugh— that all his students, really— would hate him for what he’d done, and Alustin wished, more than anything, that there had been a way to accomplish all this without betraying his students’ trust so horribly.

But it had to be done.

Kanderon had placed her multiversal ambitions above the good of the Ithonian continent. She’d let herself lose sight of what was truly important.

The Havath Dominion needed to die.

“Did you get a weapon capable of penetrating Havath’s defenses?” Emmenson demanded.

Behind him, a crowd of Librarians Errant gathered.

For decades, the leading cause of death among their order had been at the hands of Havath’s agents. There was no group of people alive who hated the Dominion more than the Librarians Errant.

When they’d discovered Kanderon’s betrayal a year and a half ago— discovered that she intended to merely neuter Havath, not destroy it— they had turned against her almost as one.

There had been a few who had refused, but their deaths had been easy to conceal as enemy action. True loyalists, like Grennan and Loarna, they’d never even tried to approach.

Alustin still had no idea who had sent him that letter outside Theras Tel in the night. It had been delivered by Captain Bandon, invisible on the back of a young dragon, but even he hadn’t known who had sent the message, just that it had been smuggled to him with the correct codes, with instructions to deliver it to Alustin in utmost secrecy.

And it revealed Kanderon’s plans, her centuries-long struggle to penetrate the shadowy multiversal organization meddling in Anastis’ history.

Alustin had long known that Kanderon was involved with multiversal powers, but to find out that she was holding back from punishing Havath merely for her own advancement? To betray the memories of the dozens of Librarians Errant who had died in battle against the Dominion, all for more influence?

It was beyond anything Alustin could excuse or forgive.

It had been agonizing to conceal his rage at the contents, to not show his betrayal to his students. To hide it from Kanderon, for all this time.

Alustin was sure that whoever had provided the information was an enemy of Kanderon’s who had intended for him to act upon it— quite likely through Hugh. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it made perfect sense— and every avenue of information he pursued after receiving the letter just confirmed it.

Like his ink affinity, he’d never intended to use Hugh as a weapon against Kanderon. Never planned for him to pact with the sphinx at all.

“Alustin?” Emmenson repeated. “Did you get a weapon?”

“Yes, I did,” Alustin said.

Gently, he drew a delicate chitin wand out of his storage tattoo, forcing himself not to feel any guilt when the blue spellforms of his tattoo appeared on his skin.

The wand, about the size of his forearm, was covered in tiny, inscrutable markings. They vaguely resembled spellforms, but Alustin knew they far predated civilization on Anastis. It predated humanity itself, and even the dragons.

This wand was one of the last relics of the ancient Labyrinth Builders, and it was an unbelievable miracle that it had survived through the eons.

It was also the very weapon that Bakori had sought when he made his attempt to break into Skyhold’s Vault at Midsummer.

The Librarians Errant crowded around silently, staring at the wand in his hands.

“This will rip Havath City in half,” Alustin said.

Emmenson locked eyes with him. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Alustin.”

Alustin tucked the chitin wand back into his storage tattoo. “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

Emmenson finally nodded.

“They’re going to be looking for us soon if they aren’t already,” Alustin said. “We need to get to our allies in Sydapsyn before they find us. We leave at sundown.”

The Librarians Errant immediately set about packing for departure.

While his mana reservoirs refilled, Alustin turned to face Skyhold once more.

It had been his home for longer than Helicote had ever been, and he doubted he’d ever see it again. Even if he survived what was to come, he’d never be welcome back.

Deep within his storage tattoo, Alustin felt the book with the embroidered cover rock and shift.

He doubted the other Librarians Errant would agree with his plan to use it. They would all be content with merely destroying Havath City, but Alustin knew that wouldn’t ever be enough.

Havath’s dream of order had to be wiped from the face of the planet, the multiversal manipulators behind its plans taught an absolute lesson. They’d failed horribly with the Ithonian Empire, and he was going to make sure their failure was even more complete with the Havath Dominion.

As Alustin brooded over his revenge, the Tongue Eater whispered to him in a thousand dead languages.

Afterword

Thank you so much for reading The Siege of Skyhold, Book 5 of Mage Errant! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review online- reviews are essential to the success of any book, especially for indie authors like myself.

If you haven’t seen the announcement online, Mage Errant is now officially planned at 7 books and a short story collection. During the writing process for this book, I realized that I simply couldn’t fit everything I wanted to do before the end of the series into 6 books.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at john.g.bierce@gmail.com, on Twitter (@john_bierce), or on Reddit (u/johnbierce). For news about the Mage Errant series, other upcoming works, and random thoughts about fantasy, worldbuilding, and whatever else pops in my mind, check out www.johnbierce.com. 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 and my other books on the r/MageErrant subreddit!

I also have a Patreon, which can be found at patreon.com/johnbierce. There, I post monthly Mage Errant short stories.

Edited by Paul Martin.

Cover art by Aaron McConnell and Lee Moyer.

Thanks to all my friends and family members who put up with me asking them bizarre, seemingly random questions at odd hours of the night.

Special thanks to my beta readers Jacob Perkins, Travis Riddle, Sarah Lin, Sundeep Agarwal, Francis James Blair, Katrine Buch Mortensen, and Charissa Williams.

Also special thanks to my Patreon subscribers Andy Marx, Harrison Hogan, Lucian von Brevern, Kwane Ricks, Zeyaad Pandy, Udy Kumra, Connor Brennan, Ramsey Hufford, Ryan Cosgrove, Eric Rood, Daryl Piffre, David Mckenzie, ziv plotnik, Timothy Felker, Colin Huber, Clyde Williams, Doom, Holly Edge, Oliva Kendall, Chris Ironside, Elizabeth Callaghan, Jesse Boles , March Chang, Timothy Lombardi, Marcus Thomas, Dylan Alexander, David Kidd, Zachary Tilson, Justin & Leah Treptow-Miller, Anika Howard, Andrew Alves, Jeremy Miller, Joseph Lee, Robert I Rodabaugh, Florian Kotnik, Mikal Hofstad, Jeff Chang, Jacob William Perkins, Cory Leigh Rahman, Andrew Cogan, Jeff Petkau, Stephen Neville, Paolo Ruiz, Daniel Williams, Andreas F. Sørensen, Kyle Matthews, Andy Barnett, Otto Schloegl, Josh Fink, Reudiger Pakmor, James Titterton, Cortney Railsback, and Ryan Campbell. If you’d like to join their ranks, and get access to Mage Errant short stories and previews, go to www.patreon.com/johnbierce.

The 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. (The Aetheriad’s still in the early days, so the list is still a bit short.)

Mage Errant: Magic school, kaijucratic governments, the works. You’re reading it right now, so I hope you know what it’s about.

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.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed this book, here are a few others you might enjoy:

Sarah Lin’s Soulhome (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 1) : Cultivation fantasy series that breaks away from the Taoist cultivation tropes common in the subgenre. Instead, magic users called soulcrafters construct buildings inside their souls to give themselves power. The series is an absolute blast so far, and I’m intensely jealous I didn’t come up with the magic system and setting, they’re so ridiculously cool.

Katrine Butch Mortensen’s The Spark (Patron Wars Book 1): This Norse-inspired progression fantasy series follows a civil war in a civilization of shapeshifters and their gods. It’s got a brilliant high-magic setting, a neurodiverse protagonist, and some truly cool set-pieces.

Alexander Darwin’s The Combat Codes (The Combat Codes Saga Book 1): High octane science-fantasy series featuring martial artists who battle each other in exhibition matches to settle international conflicts. The protagonist Cego, unusually, is a grappler rather than a striker. Reminiscent of dystopian 80s films in the best possible way.

Bryce O’Connor and Luke Chilmenko’s Iron Prince (Stormweaver Book 1): Progression science fiction that follows students training to use alien tech that upgrades their bodies and transforms into high-tech melee weapons for a war against aliens. The protagonist, Reidon Ward, is a victim of a painful genetic disease, and enters military academy as their weakest student ever— but one with unlimited potential for growth. This one’s a load of fun.

Travis Riddle’s Flesh Eater (Houndstooth Trilogy Book 1): The fox Coal Ereness is on the run from the Dirt King’s soldiers for the crime of flesh-eating. When he comes across a blackmarket means to clear his record, he enters into a high-stakes spiderback race to try and raise the funds needed. Little does he know, however, that he’s about to get drawn into a morass of dangerous magic and mutated abominations. Flesh Eater is reminiscent of nothing so much as a gritty industrial noir Redwall, and I highly recommend it.