Across the divided ends of the kingdom, Grand Master Draconian stood atop the spiraling staircase of the Pragian watchtower, surveying the wasteland below. Once-fertile land had crumbled into dust, its cracked surface strewn with the sun-bleached remains of long-picked carcasses. In the distance, a lone farmer drove his fork into the lifeless earth, the effort futile—his strength barely enough to break the surface.

  Draconian exhaled, the afternoon sun leeching the moisture from his skin, leaving it tight and flaking.

  “I should never have left,” he murmured. “If I had sent you to fight Vasier’s wars, I’d be looking at fields of green and yellow.”

  Maneesh bowed low before his former master, tethered by a mental leash to Draconian’s strict code of discipline—a burden few others dared to uphold.

  “Grand Master,” Maneesh greeted him. “I fear complacency, not the failed harvest. Decades of plenty have left us vulnerable. Now the gods have wisely opened our eyes to a future when you are no longer with us, and it scares me.”

  “What of the omens?” Draconian inquired.

  “Dire, still dire.”

  “We will endure.” He turned his gaze back to the barren land. “Castell is aware. He will convince the queen to send aid.”

  “Even with the Vikings threat, wreaking havoc within their land?”

  “We have no reason to doubt Castell’s influence. I won him his victory. Soon, he will win us ours.”

  Draconian’s words projected a certainty not reciprocated by the less convinced Maneesh, who, amid free-flowing conversation, choked on the realization that for the first time in his service to Draconian, he had to speak his own mind. “What if there were reasons for us to side with the Vikings?”

  “Treason? No, I will not tolerate such talk.”

  “A gathering was called in your absence,” Maneesh replied, cracking his spine as he tightened his posture. “We… have Bjarke in our midst.”

  “The demon slayer? Here? In Pragian?” Draconian’s jaw clenched. “What foolishness brought him here?”

  “The omens don’t lie, Grand Master. And he bears ill tidings.”

  “I’d rather offer the queen his head than entertain his latest obsession. The goodwill alone would get us through this famine,” Draconian growled.

  Maneesh’s restraint finally snapped.

  “Am I forever your apprentice, or does my rank as wizard grant me even a shred of credibility? If I am wrong, then scald me! If I have disgraced myself, cast me out! But before you do—listen to Bjarke and tell me where I err.”

  A deep grumble escaped the Grand Master’s throat, his resolve contorting itself around Maneesh’s conviction. With a reluctant nod, he turned on his heel, his cloak trailing behind as they descended the watchtower.

  Beneath the Grand Hall, through arches etched with ancient runes, they descended into another world. The hallowed tombs of titans and warriors pulsed with fissures of glowing blue light, snaking across the constrictive walls and ceiling like veins of raw magic, their energy coursing through the stone like lifeblood. Sporadic bursts of blue flame flared along the passage, their flickering glow casting shifting shadows that clung to their every step, as though the darkness itself watched and waited.

  At last, they reached the precipice of a bottomless pit. Suspended over the abyss was a levitating platform, swaying gently as though aware of its perilous perch. Around it, stones floated like tangled threads in a spider’s web, held together by the same fissured veins of magical energy that lit their descent. The floating rocks formed a tenuous bridge between the yawning ledge and the shadowy openings that branched outward into the cavern.

  The air grew dense and oppressive, muffling the sound of Draconian’s sandals on the stone. A cold sweat trickled down his neck as the clustered wizards and their apprentices greeted him with a wary silence. Their eyes flicked briefly toward the Grand Master, acknowledging his arrival with the barest incline of their heads before retreating into stoic stillness. All but one.

  Near the open firepit of blue flame stood a scrawny, ogre-like figure, hunched over a massive, scarred battleaxe. His deformed features twisted into an expression of animalistic lethargy. Bare toes sifted lazily through the glittering ashes, scattering faint embers that spiraled upward like dying stars. An aura of uneasy permanence enveloped Bjarke, the demon slayer—a haunting presence, unrelenting, as though everyone around him had a number, and he was merely waiting for their turn to come.

  Draconian paused, his gaze sweeping the platform with cold precision before moving to Bjarke. “Don’t bother getting your feet dirty,” he said, hastily wiping the nearest bench with the hem of his gown before seating himself. “The peripheries have gone silent since the destruction of the Solis.”

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  Bjarke didn’t so much as flinch. His calloused toes sifted through the ashes once more, sending tiny sparks swirling into the air. “That not mean they no listen,” he said, his gravelly voice lingering on each word as if tasting them.

  “Well,” Draconian said with icy disdain, “feel free to join their endless silence—before I wash you from this platform.”

  “Hearrrrrr him out,” Verivix interjected, his words slithering unevenly from beneath his black-as-night hood. It concealed all but a crooked nose and a sliver of bloodshot eyes that spoke of deep distrust for those around him.

  “You without foreteller?” Bjarke asked, his broken dialect slicing through the still air, blunt and unapologetic.

  “We don’t need a foreteller to discern fiction in your premonitions,” said Draconian.

  “It not my future I protecting,” Bjarke replied. “The church… they have aberration.”

  “One that you, more than any other, have provoked.”

  “I am what I am. But the church… they eat their own, in search of supremacy. Cross lines never meant to cross.”

  “Enough with the nebulous!” Draconian barked.

  The Grand Master shifted in his seat, his frustration clear as he gripped the bench’s edge, preparing to rise. A faint, almost pleading “please” escaped Maneesh’s lips as he gently pressed a firm hand to his shoulder, keeping him in place.

  Bjarke’s face flushed red with mounting frustration. With a low growl, he let the heavy-headed blade of his battleaxe fall. His rough hands slid deliberately down the haft, his grip tightening as he wrenched the weapon back with a sharp, controlled motion, twirling it as though it weighed no more than a twig. Then, with a force that seemed to rattle the air and stone alike, Bjarke struck the ground.

  The collision sent a shockwave of cold, burning embers spiralling outward. Green sparks hissed and danced as they emanated from the harmless blue flame, twisting in defiance of the room’s oppressive calm.

  Then came the screams.

  Low-pitched and guttural, they rose from the flames, curling and whipping around the firepit like a swarm of angered spirits. The green sparks coalesced into a shadowy form, writhing and undefined. An enraged silhouette of something otherworldly. A demon in its primitive state, confined within the magical flame—a realm none present could enter, but whose sinister presence could be felt all the same. Goosebumps prickled on the skin of young and old alike.

  “An ancient demon…” one wizard murmured, his voice trembling.

  “Aye,” Bjarke rumbled. “Dark demon, devouring demon. A demon of cross and church.”

  “Did we not eradicated such demons centuries ago?” Maneesh countered, his voice steady, but his unease was betrayed by the slight tremor of his hands.

  “Beasts of this nature live dormant lifetimes,” Bjarke said, his bare toes still idly stirring the sparkling ashes. “Then they awaken… to unleash destruction.”

  Draconian shook his head sharply, as though dispelling a spell, his mind clearing from the hypnotic fear that had momentarily overtaken him. “They’re matters of the church,” he said, reinstating his authority over the gathering. “If this demon’s real, good luck to them, but it doesn’t concern us.”

  “After what they’ve done to us?” Verivix hissed, his snake-like snarl cutting through the room. Slowly, he tilted his hooded head, revealing his grotesque, dagger-scarred face. Burnt flesh stretched from his chin to his ear to his cranium, leaving one side barely capable of speech. He averted his ruined face, his eyes trailing downward, drawing an invisible line across the floor at their feet, as though containing the worst of his deformities.

  “With all due respect,” Verivix continued, “respect no one else here has given… we are scapegoats for their ill fortunes, their failures. If we allow this sickness to grow it will eventually turn the churches against us.

  Draconian rose to scan the room. “Does anyone else feel this way?”

  The gathering murmured its response, each voice emerging with cautious deliberation. “Aye… nay… nay… aye…”

  An even split, six to six, their answers as divided as their loyalties. Their apprentices silently deferring to their master’s better judgement. Verivix withheld his verdict, though his twisted visage made it plain. Ravenna, as always, remained silent, her eyes distant and disengaged, betraying no allegiance.

  “Decision split. What you, Draconian?” Bjarke pressed.

  “There is no decision but my decision,” Draconian replied coldly. “But I will offer you this: there are two exits—Pragian and banishment. Now take your pariah and pray I never see you again.”

  “You make enemy of your own people.”

  “I am the law,” Draconian retorted, his voice sharp with finality. “And I will apply it thoroughly—justified or not.”

  “So it is,” Bjarke declared loudly. “Stay and victim, or resist and die martyr. That be ultimatum.”

  The chamber erupted into endless quarrels of second-guessing and indecision. Wizards exchanged furtive, tilted glances, searching one another’s eyes for courage, for consensus, for anything that would absolve them of having to choose first. The tension mounted as the room spiraled into impotence.

  It was Verivix who finally broke the cycle, his voice cutting through the noise like a whip. “In the words of Coble: may we never live to see a Grand Master Wizard by title only.”

  The declaration cemented the schism, and slowly, the wizards divided, crossing paths toward their chosen destination.

  Draconian’s sharp gaze swept the room before settling on Ravenna, who stood apart, her detachment unmistakable. “What of you, Ravenna?” he asked, his annoyance clear at her absence from both the debate and the decision.

  She turned her head slightly, her expression calm, untouched by the tension around her. “I refuse to play games I cannot win.”

  “You’re abstaining?”

  “The afterlife does not discriminate. There are no sides worth taking, no divide and conquer. Only lost souls clinging to their pointless existence.”

  “They say a nihilist sees a world of achievements and shrugs, while the rest of us burn our souls in service to a utopia we will never know. But don’t believe that’s pointless. It’s standing on hallowed ground, pledging one more brick to our ancestors’ foundations.”

  Ravenna gave him a faint, almost pitying smile. “Well, may death thank you with a bed of roses.”

  Without a backward glance, she turned and departed, her steps graceful and unhurried, as though the chaos behind her never really mattered. Draconian’s scowl tightened further, his fingers curling at his sides as he watched her choose exile over the fractured remains of their order.