Chapter 32

  Pyrax stood in the center of his magnificent tent, his claws dug so firmly into the edges of his heavy oak map table that the wood splintered under the pressure. The reports from the northern front were an unmitigated disaster. His legionaries were being ground between the Titans and the golems of Wolfsgrund like wheat between millstones, and here, before the gates of Drymon, the situation was hardly any better. He had given the signal for betrayal in the hope that the confusion would pave his way into the capital. Instead, he now watched through the slit of his tent entrance as the massive barrels of the mana cannons on the city walls of Drymon extended. A deep, magical humming filled the air—the sound of a thousand suns being charged simultaneously.

  He waited for the impact. He expected death, or at least an inferno that would turn his camp to ash.

  But the impact did not come.

  Instead, an eerie, almost absolute silence settled over the field. Pyrax stepped out of his tent, the scales on his neck bristling, his yellow eyes wide. A dome had formed over him and his entire army. It was black, semi-transparent, and shimmered with an oily sheen that broke the light of the torches into rainbow-colored, grimy patterns.

  At that moment, the mana cannons of Drymon discharged. Blue beams of light, with the intensity of pure starfire, hurtled toward the camp. They struck the dome with a force that made the ground beneath Pyrax’s feet tremble, but the black barrier did not yield. It absorbed the energy, literally sucking the light into itself until only a faint violet afterglow danced on the surface.

  Pyrax let out a deep growl. He ran to the edge of the camp and slammed his armored fist against the black flicker. His hand bounced off as if he had struck solid steel. Sparks of dark energy flew at the contact. He was protected from the King’s attacks, yes—but he was also a prisoner. Reyn had locked him in a cage as easily as a stubborn pet.

  "That damned..." Pyrax spat. He whirled around and grabbed the ether crystal resting on a silk cushion in his tent. He activated the stone with a crude jolt of his magic. "Reyn! Answer me, you shadow-freak!"

  The crystal flickered, and the pale, almost featureless face of Reyn materialized in the mist. He seemed unmoved, almost bored by the dragon-man’s rage.

  "You have a strange way of greeting your allies, Pyrax," Reyn said calmly. His voice sounded hollow, as if coming from a deep well.

  "Allies?" Pyrax shouted, gesturing with his free hand toward the black dome. "You’ve locked me in! My men are stuck here like rats in a trap! We can’t advance, we can’t maneuver, and out there they’re charging the cannons for the second volley! What is this supposed to be? A protective shield or my tomb?"

  "It is a necessity," Reyn countered coolly. "The Arcane Guard of Drymon is more efficient than you ever were in your wildest dreams. Without this dome, your beloved Heartfire Legion would now be nothing more than a pile of scorched scales on the grass. I am protecting my investment."

  "Your investment?" Pyrax’s voice was nothing but a dangerous hiss. Flames flickered between his teeth. "I am not your property, shadow-freak. If you think I’m going to sit in here twiddling my thumbs until you finish your little games in the north, you’ve got another thing coming. I can still end all of this. A signal to Thivan, a messenger with a white flag—I’ll declare this whole betrayal a regrettable misunderstanding by my commander in the north. I’ll swear loyalty to the boy again and keep my head and my camp. Who do you think he’ll believe? Me, or the guy stamping Titans out of the earth?"

  Reyn remained silent for a moment. The flickering in the crystal intensified briefly, a sign of the magical effort he had to exert to maintain both the communication and the barrier.

  "You could try that," Reyn said finally, and there was an almost pitying gentleness in his tone. "But you know as well as I do that Thivan Sothar knows no forgiveness when it comes to the House of Wolfsgrund. You have already crossed the line, Pyrax. The moment your spears attacked the golems, you set your declaration of loyalty ablaze. If you try to return now, he will execute you just to make an example. He’ll nail your head to the battlements of Drymon before you’ve even finished the word 'misunderstanding'."

  Pyrax slammed his fist onto the table, sending maps flying into the air. "And what’s the alternative? To rot in here? How long will this dome hold? The mana cannons won’t stop firing until this barrier bursts, and then we’ll be defenseless!"

  "Trust me, Pyrax," Reyn said, and for the first time, something like urgency resonated in his voice. "The barrier feeds off the energy of Drymon itself. The more they fire, the stronger the bond becomes. I need you exactly where you are. You are the anvil. The city walls are the hammer. And in between, the King’s will shall break. Once the north is stabilized, I will open the dome from the inside. Then you will no longer be under siege—you will be the one appearing out of nowhere in the heart of the capital."

  Pyrax breathed heavily. The alliance between them was as shaky as a bridge of glass during an earthquake. He didn’t trust Reyn further than he could throw a full-grown Titan. But the shadow’s logic was compellingly cruel. He was already a traitor in the eyes of the King. There was no way back into the warm light of Sothar’s mercy.

  "You’re playing with my life, Reyn," Pyrax murmured, the rage in his eyes giving way to a cold, calculating glint. "If this dome develops even a single crack before you give me the order to attack, I will use my final breaths to ensure your name appears in the history books only as a footnote of failure."

  "Your threats are as tiresome as they are predictable," Reyn replied, and his face in the crystal was already beginning to fade. "Stay in your dome. Gather your troops. Be ready. The storm in the north will soon reach its peak, and when it subsides, the world will be a different place. Do not try to contact me again because of your nerves. I have Titans to lead."

  "Reyn! Wait—" Pyrax called out, but the ether crystal went dark with a dry snap. The reddish glow vanished, leaving only the cold stone on the shattered table.

  Pyrax stood alone in the silence of his tent. Outside, he heard the dull thud of the next mana salvo hitting the black barrier—a sound like distant thunder that never wanted to end. He looked at his hands, which were still trembling. He was the leader of the Heartfire Legion, a warrior of noble blood, and yet in this moment, he felt like a pawn being pushed back and forth on a board whose rules he was only just beginning to grasp.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He stepped outside again and looked up at the black, semi-transparent dome. His soldiers were also staring upward, their faces pale in the unnatural light. They were safe. For now. But Pyrax knew that safety behind walls one did not control was just another word for imprisonment.

  He crossed his arms behind his back and looked toward the walls of Drymon, which appeared like distorted shadows through the dark glass of the dome. He would wait. He would follow the order to trust, not because he believed Reyn, but because he had no other choice. But he swore to himself that he would be the one presenting the bill when the dust had settled.

  The distant humming of the cannons grew louder, and Pyrax closed his eyes to drive the echo of Reyn’s voice from his head. He was locked in, yes. But a caged predator was only all the more dangerous once the cage finally broke open.

  -

  “Any ideas, Gravor?” I asked my inner tenant, unable to tear my eyes away from the astral transmission flickering in the center of the room.

  The projection showed the walls of Drymon from a bird's-eye view. Directly in front of them, where just moments ago the magnificent, albeit treacherous, camp of the Heartfire Legion had shone in the torchlight, this monstrosity of a shield now loomed. A pitch-black, semi-transparent hemisphere that didn't just reflect the surrounding light but literally devoured it. Thivan stood at the very edge of the light-map, his fingers dancing over the runes of the war table as he attempted to crack the shield's energetic signature. He was cursing under his breath—a rare sight for a king who usually possessed the composure of a marble statue.

  “Is this shield based on Tainted Mana?” I followed up mentally. It looked like the corrupted energy Reyn usually used to feed his Titans—that poisonous violet that spread over reality like mold.

  Gravor shook his head in my mind-space, almost condescendingly. He was lounging in a corner of my consciousness, arms crossed behind his horned skull. “If only, Pal. Tainted Mana is like a bad beer—it stinks, but you know what it’s brewed from. That thing out there? That’s Cosmic Mana. The third kind. The stuff that floats between the stars and isn't supposed to be in the hands of mortals who are still sucking their thumbs.”

  I rolled my eyes. Gravor loved being cryptic, especially regarding the fundamental structure of magic. Cosmic Mana was rare, dangerous, and hardly responded to conventional arcane defense mechanisms. No wonder Thivan’s cannons were dissipating uselessly.

  “As long as my friends don't start calling me that...” I muttered to myself, hoping the stupid nickname “Pal” wouldn't diffuse beyond the King’s lips. But the silence in the room was deceptive.

  “Hey, Pal? King Sothar?”

  I flinched involuntarily, as if struck by lightning, and whirled around. Maira was still standing before the Rift, but her posture had changed. She no longer looked like an absent observer. She was pale, paler than usual, and her fingers were clutching her neck amulet so tightly that her knuckles stood out white. The symbol of Erebos, the Plague Father, seemed to pulse in an unhealthy, sickly green.

  Thivan paused mid-gesture and immediately gave her his full attention. He knew that Maira’s connection to the Lower Realms was our most vital source of information at this moment.

  “Erebos has spoken to me,” she said, her voice trembling almost imperceptibly. She looked at both of us, but her gaze seemed to pass through us, straight into a grim future. “He is restless. He senses the shifts in the lower planes. As long as the main force of the Heartfire Legion is trapped in that dome, they are the least of our problems. They are a lure, a distraction meant to force us to fix our resources on Drymon.”

  I took a step toward her. “What do you mean, distraction? Pyrax has thousands of soldiers out there. If that dome falls, they’ll overrun the city.”

  “But it won’t fall, Luken,” Maira countered gravely. “Reyn is holding them there to lull us into a sense of security. Reyn’s more dangerous reinforcements are coming from the southwest. Something far hungrier than a few disgruntled dragon-men.”

  Thivan frowned and stepped closer to the table. He shifted the astral map, away from the north, away from Drymon, toward the southwestern border of the realm where the jagged wastelands began. “There is nothing there but ash and desolation. No army could march there unobserved.”

  “No army of ordinary soldiers,” Maira corrected. “The Scar-Horde has mobilized. Erebos sees them like a dark stain crawling across the land. Tens of thousands, maybe more. Orcs born from the pain of displacement. It will take them a week at most to reach the border. And they will strike exactly when Wolfsgrund has fallen. Reyn isn't just planning a victory in the north; he’s planning a total pincer maneuver.”

  The room went deathly silent. The only sound was the distant hum of the portal. The Scar-Horde. The name alone was enough to make the hair on the back of one's neck stand up.

  Thivan stared at the empty expanse in the southwest of the map. You could see the gears turning in his head. He was not a king who succumbed to panic; he was a strategist calculating losses.

  “If Wolfsgrund falls, our entire defense network in the north collapses,” Thivan analyzed quietly. “The golems are our strongest weapon. If Reyn ties them down there and simultaneously sends the Scar-Horde from the southwest while we stand here at Drymon staring at the dome... then Caleon will be crushed between three fronts.”

  He looked at me, and for a moment, there was a new earnestness in his blue eyes. “We must not wait until they reach the border. We must reinforce the defenses in the southwest immediately.”

  Thivan activated the long-range communication crystals with a targeted strike on the table. “Establish a another connection to the Gray Lords. Now! And send a priority dispatch to House Ironbrand. I want their firewalkers and golem reserves ready to march within twenty-four hours.”

  “The Gray Lords will hesitate,” Vin interjected, having left her spot on the crate and now standing worriedly beside us. “They listen to you, but as long as their own land isn't burning, the Gray Lords are stubborn... at least according to what I’ve learned.”

  “Then I’ll make sure they feel the heat before the fire breaks out,” Thivan replied harshly. “Pal, Maira... you’ve heard what’s ahead of us. We have no more time for minor skirmishes. Reyn has increased the tempo.”

  I nodded slowly. The information from Erebos had changed the entire picture. The Heartfire Legion was no longer the dagger at our throat, but merely the finger pointing at us while the true sword was being forged in the southwest.

  “We have to hold Wolfsgrund,” I said. “No matter the cost. If Sk?ll and Burnar fall there, the southwest is lost anyway.”

  Thivan nodded in agreement and began frantically issuing orders to the surrounding officers. The Gray Lords in the border mountains were known for their tough infantry and stone fortresses, but against the Scar-Horde, they would need every bit of help House Ironbrand could offer with its flaming weapons.

  I stepped back and watched as the focus in the room shifted. The fear of the dome before Drymon’s gates had given way to a grim determination. We knew now from where the true storm would come.

  “Scar-Horde...” Gravor murmured in my head. “That’s going to be a feast, Luken. When we get there, I hope your sword is sharp enough. This Cosmic Mana of Reyn’s is just the beginning of a very long evening.”

  I ignored him. I looked at Maira, leaning exhausted against the wall, and at Vin, who was already beginning to organize her gear. We were no longer students marvelling in the corner. We were the center of this maelstrom.

  Thivan gave the final instructions to the Arcane Guard on the city walls: the cannons were to cease fire on the dome to stop wasting energy. The Legion would be monitored, but the priority was now to secure the southwestern flank of the kingdom before the Scar-Horde reached the fertile plains.

  The portal cellar of Drymon was now an anthill of activity. Messengers dashed off, generals consulted maps, and the light of the Rift seemed to flicker almost impatiently. The warning of the Plague Father had been received. The calm before the storm was officially over.

  I took a deep breath and placed a hand on the hilt of my sword. One week. That was all the time we had to prepare Caleon for what Reyn had summoned in the shadows of the southwest.