After a few months.
Aegis stood on a balcony overlooking the bustling port city of Kaelth, the jewel of the Free Southern Cities. The air was thick with the scent of salt, spices, and a thousand different human ambitions. In his guise as the noble, enigmatic emissary from the "Ashen Kingdom," he had become a respected, if mystifying, figure in the city's complex political landscape. His bronze mask, projecting an aura of serene strength, had earned him access to councils and private audiences that would take other diplomats years to secure.
But for the past month, his serene strength had been a lie.
The silence from his ring was a constant, gnawing pressure behind his eyes. He and the other four members of the Order were adrift. Their reports went into a void. Their King, the center of their new universe, was silent. Labyrinthos's last report before the connection died had been chilling: The Hegemony and the Theocracy, ancient enemies, were forming a "Purification Pact." Veritas, in the capital, had gone completely silent shortly after trying to investigate it.
Aegis feared the worst. He imagined the combined might of two empires falling upon the Blackwood, a war so catastrophic it had severed their King from them. He pictured the Spire in ruins, the forest ablaze. He had continued his mission—to build their kingdom's reputation, to be a bastion of its power—but he felt like a priest tending a cold altar.
His breakthrough came through a channel he had not expected. The Magus Circle of Cyrene, furious at the Hegemony for abandoning their Arclight Initiative and its astronomical costs, had begun quietly leaking information to rival powers, hoping to undermine the Archon. Aegis, with his reputation for quiet neutrality, was a favored recipient of these whispers.
A disillusioned Cyrene adept, eager to trade secrets for a guarantee of asylum in the "Ashen Kingdom," granted him a meeting.
"It is not a war of armies," the mage hissed, his eyes darting around the smoky tavern. "It is far worse. They call it the Rite of Consecrated Fire. The Pontifex himself oversees it. They are not planning to fight the Warden. They plan to burn his entire forest from the face of the world."
The adept described the ritual in horrifying detail. The gathering of holy relics, the months of prayer required to build the power, the synchronized chanting of thousands of priests along the Hegemony's border. They were building a magical firebreak, a wall of holy flame that would incinerate everything—trees, soil, rock, magic—leaving behind a miles-wide scar of sterile, glassed earth, effectively killing the Terra-Geist by destroying its body.
"They are almost a month away, perhaps half a year," the mage concluded. "But the ritual has already begun. They are gathering the faith of a continent to throw at your king."
Aegis felt a cold dread seize him. This was not a battle they could win through guerilla tactics or psychological warfare. This was an existential threat, an apocalypse aimed at the very heart of their world. He had to warn the others. He had to warn his king, even if he was only shouting into a void.
He left the tavern and returned to his private chambers. He closed his eyes, held his silver ring, and focused his entire will, his entire being, into a single, desperate message. It was not a report. It was a prayer, a scream.
'My King! Lord Elias! Can you hear me? The Theocracy builds a fire to burn the Blackwood! A ritual! They mean to unmake the forest!'
He pushed and pushed, his mind straining against the silence. He felt nothing, only the cold emptiness that had plagued him for weeks. He sagged, the last of his hope beginning to crumble.
And then, he felt a flicker.
A faint warmth bloomed from the ring. The connection, once a clear and powerful channel, was now faint, hesitant, like a distant star reappearing in a cloudy sky. A presence returned. It felt… different. Vaster. Older. And laced with a profound, bone-deep sorrow that he had never felt from the King before. But it was him.
'Aegis,' the voice of Elias echoed in his mind, quiet, weary, but unmistakably present. 'Report.'
A wave of dizzying relief washed over Aegis, so potent it almost brought him to his knees. "My Lord! You live! The Theocracy—"
He was cut short. Faintly, through the psychic link, riding on the carrier wave of Elias's own consciousness, came another sound. A sound so alien and unexpected in that context that Aegis's mind faltered.
It was the sound of children laughing.
Not a vision, not a memory, but a clear, bright, ambient sound from wherever his king was. It was followed by the strange, melodic chiming of what sounded like a hundred tiny metal bells.
Aegis froze, his urgent report dying in his mind. Children?
The contrast was staggering. He was standing in a southern city, holding news of impending magical armageddon. And his King, the dark, solitary lord of a haunted forest, the monster who commanded armies of the dead, was… in a place filled with the laughter of children and the sound of strange music.
'What were you saying?' Elias's voice came again, a hint of distraction in it. 'A ritual?'
In that single moment, everything re-contextualized for Aegis. The King's silence, his absence—it hadn't been defeat. It had been... something else. He had weathered the Hegemony's assault. The deep sorrow Aegis felt from him was not the sorrow of a beaten god, but of a grieving father. He hadn't been fighting a war for his kingdom. He had been tending to its heart.
A fierce, protective loyalty, purer and stronger than any he had felt as a Templar, swelled in Aegis's chest. Their king had faced his apocalypse and had chosen not to answer with rage, but with... this. With building a future. A sanctuary.
The Rite of Consecrated Fire was still a threat. A terrible one. But it was no longer a threat Aegis felt he could lay at his weary king's feet. Not now. Not while he was healing, while he was shepherding the last hopes of his people. The King had been the shield for too long. Now, it was time for his Order to be a shield for him.
Aegis stood a little straighter. His purpose, which had been adrift, snapped into sharp, brilliant focus.
A slow smile spread across his own lips, hidden by the noble bronze of his mask.
'It is nothing, my Liege,' he sent back, his mental voice now filled with the calm, unshakable conviction that his mask was made to project. 'A minor political squabble in the south. We have it under control.'
There was a long pause from Elias's end. A sense of questioning, of deep analysis. But he was distracted. Tired. He chose to trust his agent.
'Very well,' Elias finally replied. 'Keep me appraised. The Spire… is busy.' The connection faded, leaving Aegis once more in the silence of his room.
He stood alone, his heart hammering with the enormity of the decision he had just made. He had lied to his king. He had intentionally kept him in the dark about an existential threat. It was an act of profound insubordination and the greatest act of loyalty he could conceive.
He immediately opened a channel to the other three active rings, sending out a single, urgent summons. Labyrinthos. Noctua. Malleus.
'This war is not over for now. . A fire from the Theocracy that will burn the Blackwood. And he will not know of it. Because we are going to stop it. The Ashen Canopy is no longer just his eyes and ears. As of today, we have become his sword and shield.'
He would use the resources, the reputation, the contacts he had built. He would gather soldiers, mages, anyone who hated the Theocracy more than they feared the unknown. He would build an army in the south. Not to serve the Ashen King's legend, but to protect the man himself.
His King was busy teaching children. So Aegis would go to war in his name.