The clang of steel echoed through the training yard of Cindercrest. General Marcellus stood in the ring, helm discarded, sweat streaking his brow. His gauntlets locked against a recruit's blade, sparks jumping.

  "Again," Marcellus barked, shoving the boy back. "If you can't hold against me, you won't last a breath out in the Wastes."

  The recruit adjusted his tembling stance. Around them, soldiers drilled in rhythm. The air smelled of ash and hot iron. Cindercrest lived on discipline, and Marcellus demanded more of it than anyone.

  A runner appeared at the entrance, breathless, crimson cloak flapping. He froze at the edge of the ring, waiting until Marcellus disarmed his opponent with a twist of the wrist.

  "Spit it out," Marcellus said, handing the blade back.

  "A message from Fort Magnus. Straight from Captain Drakath, General."

  The yard quieted. Marcellus's jaw tightened. He stripped off a gauntlet and motioned for the runner to lead the way.

  They cut through the inner streets, past braziers burning atop blackstone posts. Above the rooftops, pale plumes of mist drifted from the cooling towers.

  The towers were the city's pride. Iron-ribbed structures that ringed the districts, their glyph-furnaces driving the air. Every few seconds, a deep thrum rolled across the boulevards as the towers exhaled, sending a clean wind sweeping through the city to keep the ash and heat at bay.

  Marcellus paid no mind to sensation; he had grown used to it over the years. Without them, Cindercrest would choke. With them, it endured.

  Cindercrest's Command Tower loomed over the inner ring, scarred basalt and iron rising like a clenched fist. They passed beneath its gate and descended into the lower halls. The Ash Channel lay here, a slab of volcanic glass etched with thousands of fine lines.

  Marcellus took the report, scanning the markings. His jaw tightened. He turned and climbed the stairs toward the war room.

  At the top, the iron-banded door loomed. Two chamber guards stood watch, their armor gleaming with ceremonial sharpness that made Marcellus cut a stark contrast in his sweat-darkened tunic, soot smudging his forearms from the morning's forge-checks.

  The guards snapped to attention. One swung the door open, offering a shallow bow.

  The heart of the Command Tower opened in a blaze of emberlight. High Chancellor Rodric waited at a granite table, hands folded behind his back. His ash-gray robes held a trim of magma orange, authority without ornament.

  Rodric's eyes flicked over the general's soot-streaked tunic. "You've dragged half the yard into my war room, Marcellus. Couldn't spare a moment to make yourself presentable?"

  Marcellus gave a dry smile, holding up the stone tablet. "Drakath sent this himself through an Embercask. I figured you'd prefer the news over the smell of jasmine water."

  That drew Rodric's full attention. "Fort Magnus has been quiet. As it should be, since it's nearing completion." He took the tablet and scanned the etched marks. His frown deepened instantly. "Movement at the Restricted Zone? Deep-tracks heading into the ruins of Nethervale?"

  "A massive column of tracks heading East, from within Nethervale. Fresh." Marcellus confirmed, his tone grave.

  Rodric set the tablet down, his gaze lingering on the map sprawled across the table. His voice remained steady, but a flicker of irritation sparked in his eyes.

  "Nethervale is a graveyard, Marcellus. A restricted zone," Rodric tapped the tablet. "The Emperor's law is absolute. Who were the damned fools who broke the barrier and got close enough to see these tracks?"

  Marcellus didn't blink. He knew the names of the fools, but he wasn't about to hand Drakath's men over to a Chancellor's inquiry.

  "I'll handle the disciplinary measures myself, Rodric," Marcellus said, his voice firm. "The soldiers involved are mine. What matters is the intelligence. If the ruins are showing signs of life, we can't ignore them."

  Rodric's eyes narrowed. "Chaos does not return to Nethervale by accident." He straightened. "Go to the Obsidian Spire. Speak to Archmagister Ignivar. Their records of Nethervale go back further than our city's foundations."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Marcellus hesitated. "The Spire isn't fond of soldiers asking questions about restricted history."

  "Then don't ask as a soldier," Rodric replied. "Ask as a General who needs to know if he's preparing for a skirmish or a resurgence. Tell Ignivar the seal of Nethervale has been disturbed. That should open even his dusty doors."

  He gestured toward the door. "Go. And for the Spire's sake, Marcellus, clean yourself. They don't tolerate soot on their marble, and I won't have the military looking like coal-scrappers while we're asking for the Archmagister's secrets."

  - - -

  Marcellus cut across the inner ring toward the looming shadow of the Obsidian Spire. It stretched like a blade across the market quarter. Unlike the Command Tower's blunt strength, the Spire exuded silence.

  At the gate stood a pair of Pyroclastic mages. Their armor was hardened black leather, scored with runes that pulsed like veins of fire. The weapons in their hands thrummed with heat, tools to channel fire as easily as to crack bone.

  "State your business."

  "General Marcellus," he said, puffing his chest out. "On behalf of High Chancellor Rodric. I need immediate access to the Pyroclastic Order's archives."

  The guards exchanged a glance before one raised a horn. A low note thrummed in the air. Stone shifted, revealing a narrow door. A young novice stepped out.

  "Follow me," the boy said.

  Marcellus stepped into cool air. Ember-glyphs pulsed across the obsidian walls, refracting light. The Spire was no fortress; it was a reliquary. Marcellus wore his polished armor now, cloak brushed clean, yet he still felt out of place, a soldier among sacred fire.

  They climbed spiral staircases until the city's noise vanished.

  "Apologies," Marcellus muttered as he bumped into the novice. "I don't remember the last time I was here. Truth be told, I avoid it."

  The novice smirked. "A shame. Much to learn here."

  "I'm not big on reading."

  "Oh yes. I could tell."

  Before Marcellus could bark back, the novice stepped aside, vanishing into the shadows. In his place stood a tall figure robed in burnt orange. The air around him shimmered, heat held in check by will alone.

  "I am Archmagister Ignivar," the man said, his voice sharp as flint. "You bring questions of the Wastes."

  Marcellus squared his shoulders. "Word travels fast."

  "The Spire works as fast as fire spreads," Ignivar said. He didn't look back as he crossed the room toward a towering bookshelf carved from blackened oak. He began to move with a restless, precise energy, his fingers ghosting over the spines of ancient books. "Come."

  Marcellus followed, his heavy boots echoing against the stone floor, a sharp contrast to the Archmagister's silent, gliding gait.

  "The Chancellor has concerns about the report from Drakath's Embercask," Marcellus said, stopping a few paces behind the mage. "The scouts found a frenzy in the ash. Chaotic tracks all converging on the Restricted Zone."

  Ignivar pulled a small, obsidian-handled brush from a table and began to meticulously clear dust from a row of crystal vials. He didn't turn around. "And then a unified track left the ruins, heading East?"

  "A singular column," Marcellus confirmed. "The madness stopped at the gates. Whatever walked out did so with the discipline of a legion."

  "Unnatural indeed," Ignivar murmured. He set the brush down and turned to the shelves, his fingers twitching in complex patterns. A heavy, iron-bound scroll at the top of the rack shivered and drifted down into his waiting hand. Ignivar broke the rusted seal on the scroll, the sound like a bone snapping in the quiet room.

  "The Dreadfire Campaign concluded over a century ago in those very ruins. It was the only time humans and demons stood on the same side of a blade. We fought together to destroy a pair of liches who sought to crown themselves over the Infernal Wastes."

  "The liches were burned," Marcellus countered. "My ancestors' records say they were buried in tombs of reinforced stone, sealed with the most potent firecraft wards Cindercrest could forge."

  Ignivar unrolled the parchment across a cluttered workspace, pinning the corners with heavy brass weights. "They were," he whispered, breaking the seal on the scroll. "The earth was salted, the stone was enchanted, and the seals were deemed unbreakable. The thought of them rising is statistically impossible."

  "Yet, if these tracks are moving with intent, someone is disturbing the silence of Nethervale. But we cannot march directly into that graveyard. Not yet."

  "You want to wait until they're at our gates?"

  "I want to avoid a suicide mission into a Restricted Zone," Ignivar snapped. "If something is stirring, it needs followers. A leash requires a hand to hold it." He tapped a cluster of markers on the map just outside the Nethervale perimeter. "The cannibals. These encampments are the closest living things to the ruins. They are the eyes of the valley."

  "You want me to hunt scavengers instead of the source?"

  "I want you to investigate the closest encampment," Ignivar said, closing the scroll with a snap. "Find out if they are worshipping something new. If the cannibals are working with demons, they aren't doing it out of love. They’ve been intimidated or bribed. Capture one. If the seals of Nethervale have been breached, the scavengers will be the first to know what crawled out of the dirt."

  He turned away, his robes whispering across the floor. "Tell Rodric I will scour the deep archives for any sign of ward decay. But until we know what we face, Nethervale remains closed. Deal with the encampment first."

  Marcellus exhaled hard. "Pleasant," he muttered to the empty room.

  He turned, ready to storm out and return to the sanity of his barracks. But as he faced the circular chamber's three identical archways, his momentum stalled. The novice was long gone. The glyphs hummed with indifference, offering no direction.

  He glared at the twisting staircases, his hand twitching toward a sword hilt that wasn't there.

  "Where is the exit in this blasted place..."