The clearing smoked faintly.

  Karin stood at its center, shoulders heaving, arms scorched but steady. Fire coiled up her wrist—obedient for a moment, then slipping wild again. She gritted her teeth, forced it down. Not mastered—but delayed. Contained.

  A scorch mark blackened the stone at her feet. The trees around the circle swayed, uneasy.

  Seethar leaned against a crooked trunk, arms folded. “You lasted longer.”

  “I’m not trying to last,” Karin muttered. “I’m trying to use it.”

  “You can’t sustain that level of planar output. Not yet,” Elkinu called from his perch above, dangling upside-down from a branch, peeling a soft, overripe fruit with lazy precision.

  Karin ignored him.

  Ishtania sat nearby on a flat stone, bowl in her lap, fingers stirring small circles in the water’s surface. “Your planar structure is still mortal,” she said. “What you’re drawing from—what you absorbed—isn’t.”

  “I thought that’s what the training was for.”

  “It is,” Seethar replied. “But not to help you overpower it. To help you survive using it.”

  Karin exhaled. She raised her hand again. A thin ribbon of fire curved through the air—clean, measured. She held it for a beat.

  Then released it.

  She stood there, silent.

  “I can force it,” she said. “Full output. Once. Maybe twice. But then I’m done.”

  “Then don’t,” Seethar said. “Control isn’t about how much you can release. It’s how much you can regulate.”

  “You’re working with planar density well beyond mortal norms,” Ishtania added. “You need to approach it with different expectations.”

  Elkinu dropped from the branch, landing with a quiet thud. “And preferably without leveling the forest.”

  Karin wiped her brow, her breathing uneven. “I’ve stabilized it before. But I can’t keep it there. My body… it won’t hold.”

  “That’s… something to consider,” Ishtania said. “Condensed planar like that—divine—might be more than a mortal body can hold. Yours is adapting. But we don’t know if it can catch up.”

  a pause—

  “And if it doesn’t, you burn,” came a voice—gravelly, detached. Aftree’s voice, unbidden, echoed from Karin’s throat.

  Karin didn’t flinch.

  “Still lingering?” Seethar muttered.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not lingering. I’m fading. Slowly. Eaten alive by this girl’s crude, growing latticework.”

  Ishtania raised an eyebrow. “She’s assimilating the flame.”

  “She’s contaminating it,” Aftree said.

  Elkinu chuckled. “Big talk from a dead planar ghost stuck in a girl’s ribs.”

  Karin’s jaw tightened. “He’s quieter now. Less bark.”

  “Because there’s less of me,” Aftree said. “Your structure’s consuming what’s left. I’m not used to being filtered through meat and hesitation.”

  Seethar leaned his head back. “You won’t be missed.”

  “I’ll be around long enough to watch her collapse,” Aftree muttered. “That’ll be fun.”

  Karin didn’t react. She flexed her hand once more—held a brief, dense knot of flame, then let it dissipate.

  “Before,” she said quietly, “even a spell like that left me staggering.”

  “And now?” Seethar asked.

  “I’m standing,” she said.

  Ishtania stood as well, the bowl still cradled in her hands. “Then we move forward.”

  Karin looked up. “What’s next?”

  Ishtania didn’t hesitate. “We’re leaving.”

  Karin blinked. “Now?”

  “Elkinu scouted this morning,” Seethar said. “Cloudspeak is gone.”

  Karin stilled. “Gone?”

  “Not conquered,” Ishtania said. “Not razed. Removed.”

  “One night,” Elkinu added. “Velgarth’s capital—strategically irrelevant. No clear reason to strike it first.”

  “So we go?” Karin asked. “To stop him?”

  “No,” Ishtania said. “To understand him.”

  “If this is conquest,” Seethar said, “we react one way. If it’s something else—”

  “Then everything changes,” Elkinu finished.

  Karin stared at the dark stone at her feet, then looked toward the treeline.

  “…I’ll come,” she said.

  Seethar cracked his neck. “Dusk. Pack light.”

  Elkinu was already wandering toward the edge of the woods. “Has anyone seen my boots?”

  Karin didn’t answer. She flexed her hand one last time. Flame stirred, then subsided.

  Not divine. Not hers.

  Just something in between.

  And for now—enough.

  The battlefield had gone quiet.

  Smoke drifted low across broken stone and shattered armor. Cloudspeak—once a proud fortress city—was gone. Not crumbled. Not conquered. Gone. The walls had vanished. The towers had turned to shadow and scattered on the wind. Only silence remained.

  Lucian stood at the center.

  Around him lay the bodies of Cloudspeak, Velgarth soldiers, and a few final defenders who had refused to run, and even Fyonar soldiers. Among them, some remains of Hollowbound, scattered—twisted limbs, cracked cores, faint threads of planar still leaking from shattered joints, though much of them still standing strong.

  The towering constructs, though, stood untouched. They lined the ridge like statues—silent, gleaming, unbent.

  Lucian stepped forward, slowly. He knelt.

  His fingertips touched the blackened earth.

  No glyph. No incantation.

  Only breath.

  The wind shifted—sharp and dry.

  It’s like the temperature of the land has beed sucked into where he touch.

  Nearby soldiers flinched. One clutched his coat tighter. Another stepped back unconsciously.

  Just before he stood, something in his left hand pulsed faintly.

  A dull, crystalline glow—veined like lightning, quiet but alive.

  He closed his fingers around it. The glow vanished.

  Then he turned, voice steady:

  “Burn what’s left. We march for Goldburge.”

  There was a ripple—visible, if quiet. Shock, confusion. Cloudspeak had been the capital. A prize. And he was discarding it like ash.

  He said no more.

  He walked past the bodies.

  Behind him, the soldiers began to move. Slowly. Then faster. Orders spread. The great machines hissed and shifted. Smoke and silence gave way to motion.

  The dead were left behind.

  The command car no longer hummed. Its engines had gone still. Only the low creak of metal and the scratch of boots echoed inside.

  Lucian stood at the head of the map table. The lights were dim. The red pins that once marked the rail routes blinked faintly, half of them now removed.

  Across from him stood two figures.

  Commander Rethas, gaunt-faced, blue-eyed, formerly a field engineer turned strategist. He moved like a blade—precise, cold, always cutting for efficiency.

  Beside him, Commander Solenne, taller, armored in dark-burnished steel, with a voice like hammered brass and a scar across her lips that made every word feel like a decision.

  Solenne was first to break the silence.

  “My lord, south and west are confirmed sabotaged. North is collapsed—our own doing.”

  Lucian nodded once. “And east?”

  Rethas answered, his voice clipped. “Usable. For now. But no guarantee. Scouts report track degradation near the ridge. Could be natural. Could be planned.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lucian said. “We use what remains. After that, we walk.”

  Solenne crossed her arms. “The constructs can carry the pace.”

  “They’ll do more than that,” Lucian replied. “They’ll carry the men. Sleep by shifts. March without pause.”

  Rethas flicked a page on his ledger. “And their morale?”

  Solenne gave a short laugh. “They’ll follow. Fear moves faster than comfort.”

  Lucian looked up from the map.

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  “Cloudspeak’s destruction sent the message,” he said. “Goldburge will hear it soon.”

  He turned to a new sheet—one pinned to the wall, drawn by hand. No city names. Just markers. Lines. Paths.

  He tapped once, on the eastern part, Goldburge, a kingdom close to the silent desert.

  “Next,” he said. “Goldburge.”

  Solenne’s ask. “Any explanation on why we choose Goldburge, my lord?”

  Lucian’s expression didn’t shift. “Symbol.”

  He turned back toward the door.

  The room held its breath.

  “Prepare the rails,” he said. “We move before night.”

  And then they bow, left

  The forest was too quiet.

  No birds. No insects. Only the faint creak of bark and the soft crunch of boots on moss.

  Grimoire knelt beside a deer carcass.

  No wounds. No blood. Only a hollowed chest—clean, precise, as if something had taken the heart without tearing the body. A cavity, untouched by violence. Empty.

  Ysar stood a few paces away, hand on the hilt of his blade. “That’s the fifth.”

  Grimoire didn’t respond right away. She reached forward, pressed two fingers along the ribs.

  No warmth. No thread.

  Planar energy didn’t disappear. Even in death, it echoed. Dissolved slowly. Faded like breath on glass.

  But this—this felt emptied.

  She pulled her hand back.

  “I’ve seen her use glyphs on animals before,” she said. “To test binding. Usually messier. This is…”

  “Precise,” Ysar finished.

  They moved forward. A fox this time, curled beneath the roots of a leaning pine. Same mark. Same absence. Not just the heart—no planar residue. As if whatever had lived here had been lifted whole and clean out of the world.

  Ysar crouched. “Your mother didn’t work like this.”

  Grimoire shook her head. “No. She bound into bodies. Planar needed contact. Familiarity. But these…”

  She touched the fox’s side, hesitated, then stood. “I don’t know.”

  A pause.

  Then Ysar: “The stone thing in the hut. Could this be related?”

  Grimoire looked off through the trees.

  “I don’t know how that thing moved,” she said. “It didn’t have glyphs I recognized. It didn’t feel alive.”

  Ysar watched her closely. “But it moved.”

  She nodded. “And now the hearts are missing.”

  She didn’t say more.

  Because she couldn’t.

  Because some part of her—a quiet, unwelcome part—was starting to draw lines between things she didn’t yet understand.

  Stone that walked. Corpses left clean. Silence where planar should echo.

  Not war. Not resurrection.

  Something else.

  Ysar shifted. “She’s testing something.”

  Grimoire didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the forest floor, where birds once sang and now only crows remained.

  Whatever her mother was building—it had already passed through here.

  And the forest had nothing left to say.

  The chamber hummed with old power.

  Ealden stepped in first, eyes sweeping the crystal lattice that wove through the air and stone. Glyphs flickered beneath his boots, responding faintly to his presence.

  “Well,” he murmured, “this room’s smarter than half the generals I’ve met.”

  Marrivelle spun a charm between her fingers. “Pity it can’t vote. We might actually make progress.”

  No one laughed.

  Princess Seren followed, expression unreadable. Then Zafran—shoulder bound in fresh bandages. Then Isolde, eyes cold, jaw set, steps clipped like knives across stone.

  The Archmagi were already assembled in a circle of light and silence. None stood. But every gaze sharpened when Zafran entered.

  Vaelion raised a hand. “Let’s begin.”

  Ealden stepped forward. “We’re not here to debate authority. We’re here to align it. The Academia retains its autonomy—but in matters of war, your forces report through me. Directly.”

  Tyrell scratched his chin. “Directly?”

  “Yes. No more delays. Chain of command must be clear.”

  A ripple passed—not resistance, but weight.

  Hallas exhaled. “Then I’ll serve as command liaison. I won’t have our mages treated like mercenaries.”

  “You’ll be treated like soldiers,” Ealden said flatly. “Elite ones.”

  Ronver folded his arms. “Fine. But don’t expect parades.”

  Auren nodded faintly. “We remember Velgarth. We know the cost of hesitation.”

  Vaelion spoke: “Then it’s agreed. For this war, the Crown and the Academia act as one.”

  Tyrell added, tone dry: “And we owe Sir Zafran our thanks. Not every man would leap headfirst through chaos-flame.”

  A few chuckled.

  Then the air snapped cold.

  Isolde stepped forward, and frost bloomed beneath her feet.

  “That’s how you praise him?” she said, voice like cut glass.

  Her fury was sharp, barely contained. The temperature in the room dipped—threads of planar energy stilled.

  “You watched him burn. Watched him suffer—to buy you time. And now you sit here, congratulating yourselves for an agreement you could’ve made weeks ago.”

  “Careful, girl,” Sesryn said coldly.

  “Or what?” Isolde snapped.

  “Isolde,” Zafran said quietly.

  She turned, sharp. “Silence, Ocean Tide.”

  The chamber went still.

  “You. You let them throw him out. You knew it was a lie. His father saved your life—died for you. And you just… sat there. Let the crown carve ‘traitor’ into his back like it meant nothing.”

  Seren didn’t answer.

  “And you. You watched it happen. Not a word. Not a hand lifted. And now? Now he’s back, and you send him into flame so you don’t have to.”

  “Lady Isolde, we never—”

  Seren lifted a hand. Small. Contained. Stopping him.

  It only made Isolde’s voice colder.

  “Of course. That’s how it works with you nobles, isn’t it? You fix things by staying quiet. Coward, let someone else do the talking.”

  Her eyes snapped to the circle of Archmagi.

  “And you—” she spat, “—sitting on your high thrones, too full of your own power to see past your reflection. You could’ve ended this weeks ago. Without a drop of blood. Without him getting burned for your pride.”

  She took a step forward.

  “But no. You needed your trial. Your test. Because gods forbid you share anything you didn’t invent.”

  A breath.

  “Your egos are so high you drown in their stupidity.”

  That was too far.

  Sesryn’s hand snapped up, sharp and instinctive—a bolt of glacial water cracked through the air—

  —and froze mid-flight.

  The room temperature plummeted.

  Isolde hadn’t flinched. The ice bolt hovered inches from her cheek, caught in a bloom of darker frost erupting outward from her body, freezing the very air between them.

  Her voice dropped. Low. Furious.

  “You dare?”

  She drew her sword—slow, deliberate. But before she moved—

  Vaelion’s voice cut the air. “Enough!”

  The room stilled.

  He rose, turning to Sesryn. “Strike again, and you lose your seat.”

  Sesryn said nothing, jaw tight.

  Vaelion looked to Isolde. “Speak. No one here has more right.”

  She scoffed but didn’t lower her sword.

  Her gaze swept them all—Seren, Ealden, Vaelion, the Archmagi.

  “You say you honor him?” Her voice was ice and iron. “You don’t deserve him.”

  A pause.

  “You threw him away. Used him. Burned him. And now you raise him like some damn banner of unity?”

  She took a step closer to Zafran, sword still drawn, trembling in her grip.

  “He walked through death for you. Not because you earned it—but because he’s better than any of you.”

  Her voice cracked—not with weakness, but with fury too long buried.

  “And if you break him again…” she hissed, “I’ll bring this whole kingdom down around your ears.”

  Silence.

  The frost beneath her feet deepened—creeping toward the glyphwork. Not planar power. Not magic. Just the shape of wrath, grief, and loyalty made manifest.

  And then—

  Zafran stirred.

  A shallow breath. A step forward through the cold. He reached out and closed his good hand gently around hers.

  “That’s enough,” he said. Quiet. Not dismissive. Just… done.

  She turned to him—eyes still full of fire, jaw clenched. But something behind them wavered.

  He met her gaze. Not as a knight. Not as a soldier. Just as the man who had walked through fire, and still stood.

  “You promised,” he murmured, “you’d change my bandage.”

  She stared. Then slowly, sheathed her sword. Slipped her arm under his shoulder and steadied him.

  Together, they walked.

  Before the door, Zafran paused. He turned, just once, and bowed—low, controlled.

  Not to show fealty. Not to ask favor.

  But to close the moment.

  He made sure Isolde didn’t see it.

  Then they were gone.

  Silence stretched.

  The frost on the floor had begun to melt, but its presence lingered like breath held too long. No one moved.

  Then Ronver muttered, “Well. That was the clearest conversation we’ve had in years.”

  Tyrell gave a dry chuckle. “You call that a conversation? She nearly froze half the chamber and called us all idiots.”

  “She wasn’t wrong,” Auren said—too quietly to challenge.

  Vaelion’s eyes stayed on the ice. His face unreadable.

  Ealden shifted. “It wasn’t supposed to go that far.”

  “But it did,” Seren replied. Her voice was quiet but clear. “Because we let it.”

  Heads turned. The princess rarely spoke so plainly.

  “He could’ve died,” she said. “And I would’ve let it happen again. Just like before.”

  No one corrected her.

  Then Hallas exhaled. “He earned more than our agreement today.”

  “He earned our debt,” Auren murmured.

  “And she reminded us,” Vaelion said. “Loudly.”

  Across the circle, Sesryn muttered, “She’s not even a proper mage.”

  Marrivelle’s fingers traced her charm. “Power doesn’t need your approval.”

  “She’s dangerous,” Sesryn snapped. “Impulsive. She lost control mid-rage and froze a room full of Archmagi.”

  Tyrell raised an eyebrow. “She stabilized four elements and struck nothing but your pride.”

  That drew every gaze to the frost again.

  It wasn’t ordinary ice. The edges shimmered with a dark hue—subtle, dense, like the echo of something far more intricate. Not stronger than theirs—just more intricate. More delicate. A convergence of multiple threads, shaped in the heat of fury.

  The kind of planar convergence that marked third-tier magic— Hallas’s dark flame had been second-tier: The magical tier here is not about how strong it is but how complex it is.

  Third tier magic is something anyone in this room could easily perform. But not without training.

  Vaelion’s gaze lingered.

  Sesryn says. “Any one of us could have cast that.”

  Then a pause.

  “But no one expected her to.”

  “She’s a second-tier practitioner at best,” She scoffed.

  Ronver shrugged. “Any second-tier student of ours pull off third-tier stabilization mid-emotion like that?”

  “Are you confusing second-tier mages with Archmagi nominees?” Marrivelle asked.

  Sesryn blinked. Stiffened.

  Vaelion’s tone was flat: “What she did—holding chaos, water, wind, and order together, under pressure—that’s more than most Archmagi would dare.”

  “She’s still not a mage,” Sesryn muttered. “She’s a swordswoman.”

  “Exactly,” Ronver said. “And that’s what makes it worse.”

  A pause.

  Then Marrivelle smiled faintly. “Remind me not to spar her.”

  Hallas sighed. “The girl has fury. Loyalty too. Dangerous things, if pointed right.”

  Ealden looked to Seren. “We’ll need to speak with her.”

  Hallas scoffed. “Speak with her? Who here would dare?”

  But Seren finally spoke—voice grave, soft with regret.

  “She’s right.”

  They turned to her.

  “We failed him,” she said. “And now we lean on him again.”

  No one argued.

  Hallas shifted, his robe whispering against the cold floor. “Well then. War waits for no tantrum.”

  Vaelion closed the meeting with a single line:

  “We’ve made the chain clear. Let’s not need another trial to remember who bleeds for whom.”

  The glyphs dimmed. The chamber softened.

  But none of them left quickly.

  The cold lingered.

  The doors sealed shut behind them with a muted thud.

  Zafran leaned slightly heavier on her than before. The frost in his veins seemed to linger even outside the chamber.

  They walked in silence for a few steps. Then—

  “You shouldn’t have said all that,” he murmured.

  Isolde didn’t look at him. “I meant every word.”

  “I know.”

  He slowed, and she caught his weight with practiced ease. His breath hitched on the edge of pain.

  “Still,” he said, quieter. “I don’t need you fighting for me.”

  She stopped walking. Turned toward him. Her voice low, edged.

  “You don’t get to say that.”

  He blinked.

  “You walk into fire. You let yourself be tested like some disposable pawn just to keep the peace. You keep quiet so no one else has to get burned.”

  She stepped closer.

  “Someone has to fight for you. Because you sure as hell won’t.”

  Zafran was silent a moment. Then, softly:

  “You think I care about pride?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s the problem. You care about duty. About doing what’s right. Even if it kills you.”

  He looked at her then. Eyes tired, bandaged shoulder stiff, but gaze steady.

  “…And you?”

  She exhaled. Some of the frost left her voice. “I care about you.”

  They stood there. The wind stirred dust along the stone floor. The silence between them wasn’t empty—it pulsed, full of things that didn’t need to be said aloud.

  Then—

  Zafran’s brow lifted slightly.

  “I never expected you to be this romantic.”

  Isolde blinked. “Romantic?”

  He smiled—barely. “Threatening a room of Archmagi. Declaring vengeance against the kingdom. Making dramatic speeches about loyalty and grief.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll leave you bleeding next time.”

  “Worth it.”

  She rolled her eyes, muttering, “Idiot.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  They walked on. Slower.

  After a moment, he glanced at her.

  “So… do I get a kiss, or—?”

  “Absolutely not,” she snapped. “We’re in public. And I’m still furious.”

  He winced—not from pain. “What a letdown.”

  Then, lighter: “You’re still going to change my bandage, though… right?”

  She didn’t answer immediately.

  Then, with a sideways glance: “I’m still deciding.”

  But her hand didn’t leave his side.

  And neither did he.