[Seven Years after Black Spire Wars]

  A young Caelthon and Macus were curled up on a rug by the hearth-fire in Aether's shop. Aether sat in his high-backed chair, a massive, leather-bound tome open on his lap.

  "Read it again, Master!" Caelthon begged. "The one about the charge!"

  Macus sighed, shifting his position. He had a different book in his lap—not a tome of war, but a tattered, colorful collection of nursery rhymes: The Pale Bride & Other Nightmares.

  "We've heard it a thousand times, Caelthon."

  "Because it's the best one!" Caelthon insisted.

  Aether’s voice was a low, solemn rumble as he read from The Martyrdom of Champions.

  ...Ride, he commanded, his voice raw. Ride for my home. Save them. I will buy you the time you need.

  Odion strapped his last, most potent elixir to his vambrace. He looked back at them one last time and whispered the words that would echo forever: "I suffer so they won't."

  ...He became a streak of living light... He broke the gates. He faced the Soulfather... But the light had burned too bright. The First Champion... fell.

  Aether slowly closed the heavy book.

  "He won," Caelthon whispered, his eyes wide with awe. "He saved everyone. I... I want to be just like him."

  Aether’s gaze snapped to Caelthon. It was not a look of pride. It was sharp, cold, and held a pure, agonizing fear.

  "No," Aether said. The word was a knife.

  Caelthon flinched. "Master?"

  Aether softened, looking past Caelthon to Macus, who was studiously ignoring the story.

  "The book... it tells you what he did. It doesn't tell you what he lost."

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  "He lost his life," Caelthon said, dismissing it. "That's the price of glory."

  "He lost more than that," Aether whispered. "That kind of power... it burns you. It burns away everything you are. The book calls him a champion. But the men who heard him in that final charge..."

  He stopped. He had said too much.

  "It leaves out the pain. It leaves out the screaming."

  "The... screaming?" Caelthon asked, confused. Heroes didn't scream.

  "Read the other one," Macus interrupted, tapping the cover of his picture book. "The rhyme about the Soulfather's daughter. Maeve."

  Aether sighed, relieved to change the subject. He took the thin book from Macus. He opened it to a stylized, frightening illustration of a pale woman sitting on a throne of bones, holding a stick.

  "Maeve," Aether read the jagged text. "The Soulless Queen. The Mother of the Apocalypse."

  Caelthon peered at the drawing and snorted. "She's wearing a dress, Master. And holding a twig. She looks like a bad bedtime story."

  "That is exactly what a monster is," Macus corrected, his finger tracing the pale face on the page. "It isn't about claws or scales, Caelthon. It's about what's missing."

  Macus looked up, his young eyes serious. "No emotion. No empathy. No mercy. A thing that looks like a human but feels absolutely nothing. Even a rabid beast kills because it is hungry or afraid; it has a reason. But something that destroys without feeling? That is the true definition of a monster."

  "And read the warning, Caelthon," Macus added, tapping the text.

  "What?"

  "She waves her stick, and the mountains crack," Macus recited the rhyme from memory, his voice grim. "She reaps the soul to feed the void. That 'twig' isn't a walking stick. It's a conduit."

  "And she isn't a witch," Macus continued, translating the fairy tale into a threat assessment. "She is a Mage."

  Caelthon looked blank. "A Mage? You mean... like the guys who pull rabbits out of hats at the harvest festival?"

  "No," Aether said gravely. "I mean she can boil the blood in your veins before you even draw your sword. Mages aren't myths, boy. They are the reason we have cautionary tales. No one ever got close to her and live to tell the tale."

  "She breaks armies with the same hands she uses to cook," Macus added, pointing to the crude drawing of the Bride throwing people into a pot. "One swing of that staff has the kinetic force of a battering ram."

  Caelthon looked at the drawing of the Queen—this storybook monster—and he grinned, flexing his grip on his practice sword.

  "A Queen from the Old Tales," Caelthon murmured. "Then she's used to people hiding under their covers. I bet she's never met a peasant who hits back."

  He looked at Macus. "You worry about the rhymes, Macus. I’m going to punch her right in the jaw—twice so that she won’t even be able to punch back."

  Macus shook his head, looking at the horrifying illustration of the burning city. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."