“Not of me,” he said then, his voice low and steady. “No, I am but ash to her. But the flame she carries is beginning to remember its true shape. What she fears is what the fire remembers. The fire was never meant to be carried alone. But she saw to that, didn’t she?”
The silence that followed those hollow words was so tangible I could have cut it with my blade. I sheathed it slowly, searching his expression with my eyes, but he gave nothing away.
“Flames and fire and ashes.” I sighed, but the sharp crackle of magic in the air silenced me. The acrid scent of sulphur prickled my nose, and the temperature dropped sharply.
There was a faint rustle at the doorway of the makeshift prison, and I heard the voice of the same Sergeant who had been tasked to fetch me from the hill before.
“General… I hate to interrupt… But it’s the Queen. She calls for you.”
I already knew that my Mother had entered the camp. Not physically, of course. She would not leave the comfort of her quarters in Irongate, not for a blood-stained battleground. No, it was her presence that had come, in the mirrors she had conjured her spells into.
The Scrying Glasses, carried and tended by her Acolytes, were probably worth more than my entire army or most of the riches thatpassed through Haedor in a year. Invaluable, ancient magical tools that allowed her to contact me whenever she wanted, from wherever she wanted. A few select words would connect the two glasses to each other and allow those looking through them to see each other. Of course, I would have had to be able to channel magic myself to be able to contact her – if I needed to get a word to her, I would have to send a raven, and even those enchanted by my Mother were not as fast as the mere flicker of her tongue when she commanded my attention.
But I could always feel when she connected the Scrying Glasses. I could feel it in the air, and I could smell the brimstone. Sometimes, I thought I could hear her voice in my head.
“It appears you have been granted some more time, old man.” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose to try and hide my frustration.
“Alaric.” He said, plainly and softly. “My name is Alaric.”
The name landed heavily into the air, unfamiliar yet unshakeable, as though I should know it – or at leastof it. The old man’s name coiled in my chest like a shadow, stirring a faint unease I couldn’t place. I didn’t understand why it gripped me, why it carried weight, but it did. The feeling lingered, like the faint memory of a dream or a whisper just out of reach.
I hated it.
I looked at him for a moment and nodded before gathering myself and pushing the canvas covering the tent entrance out of my way.
The Sorcerer Queen did not like to be kept waiting.
Chapter Three: Frejara
Isaw my Mother’s Acolytes from afar, their skeletal forms swaying like reeds, pale arms outstretched to beckon me toward the tent where they had so lovingly prepared the Scrying Glass. Even from a distance, their faint, rasping whispers reached me, like leaves scraping over stone. I’d always loathed these creatures, who looked neither living nor dead and existed only to do my Mother’s bidding.
At Irongate, they catered to her every need: tending to spell ingredients, meticulously caring for her library of every book the Sisterhood of Sorcerers had written over hundreds of years, and scrubbing the floors of her halls and ritual rooms. Like wraiths, they were never sleeping or eating, yet always so present it sent shivers down my spine.
As I approached, the flickering flames cast shifting shadows across their gaunt, haggard faces – so far gone they barely resembled human. Their whispers had merged into a rhythmic chant that clawed at the edges of my mind, and their sunken eyes glimmered faintly in the firelight, a cruel reflection of the magic they could never wield.
On the slope behind the tent, I caught sight of a ruined shrine half-swallowed by the earth, its stones cracked and bleeding moss. Red ribbons fluttered from its fractured arch – old prayers, tied in hope and left to rot. A clutch of Acolytes swarmed over it, their skeletal limbs snatching at the fabric like carrion birds. I slowed, watching their frenzy with a prickle at the base of my neck. Why tear down what had long since been abandoned? The Old Gods had not listened to the prayers left on their shrines for countless generations. Let others cling to hope in hymns – prayers were for those who couldn’t hold a sword.
“Come, daughter of the Queen. She awaits you,” one Acolyte whispered, its voice dry and cracked. It reached out to me as I drew closer, fingers trembling, flesh clinging to bone as though the effort of existence itself was too much. Then, with a hiss, it added, “You should hurry.”
I stopped and stared at the cloaked creature, trying to find its eyes, but they were lost beneath the tattered folds. All I caught was a brief, unearthly glimmer when it pushed back the fabric at the tent’s entrance and the firelight inside reached the hollow where its face should have been. I fought back a shudder, reminding myself that these creatures were just people—seduced by the proximity of magic, its destructive power, and the desperate hope of wielding it themselves. How many years had it served my Mother, dreaming of a power it would never taste? How many times had she spun promises into chains, binding them to her will? These pitiable creatures, grasping at the impossible, were doomed by their ignorance – magic was never earned; it was inherited.
I wondered if Mother had ever told them that only those of the Sisterhood’s bloodline could wield magic – before she accepted their lives into her servitude. I doubted she had. She would have only told them what she needed them to believe. Nothing more. Truth, to her, had always been a currency – spent carefully, never freely.
As the Acolyte pulled back the fabric, the smell of brimstone and burning herbs hit me like a lash. It was her signature – a scent that clung to her sorcery, woven through every spell she cast. The Scrying Glass pulsed faintly, its surface still, yet vibrating with a quiet hum. The air around it felt thick, charged, as though the tent itself was holding its breath in the presence of my Mother’s magic.
I stepped inside, and the light of the fire danced strangely on the polished glass. For a moment, the room was silent, save for the distant sounds of the camp —the clattering of swords and the murmured voices of soldiers. Then her image flickered to life, sharp and vivid, as though she stood before me rather than hundreds of miles away in Irongate. So clear, I could almost see the bright yellow circle of Dragon Fire roaring around her pupils.
She stood there in that familiar, impossible regality—skin as pale as bone, black hair gleaming like the night sky and all its stars. Her eyes, burning with that cursed fire, locked onto mine the moment her image fully formed. There was no softness in her gaze, no warmth.
I had not expected any.
“Daughter.” She said, her voice low and deliberate. It wasn’t a greeting; it was an insult.
And so it starts before we have even begun, I thought, tilting my head.The game we play.
“Mother,” I replied.
“My Acolytes tell me that the battle has been won. Haedor, at last, on its knees. I am pleased.”
