Everyone felt it. It was a shockwave of wrongness that cracked through the Aethelian Empire, a physical tremor that rattled teeth in skulls and sloshed wine in cups. In the Onyx Spire, the imperial heart, dust sifted from the ceilings. It was the sound of a Scale, balanced for a millennium, snapping. And everyone, from the lowest scullion to the Archmage in his sanctum, felt the reverberation of madness, and knew the price for restoring sanity in the ensuing chaos would be a river of blood.
"Fuckers!" The roar echoed down the corridor, raw, untamed and heavy on the ears. "I swear by Jolene's singed tits: I will grind the testicles of the one responsible into paste by dusk. If I fail, let her deny me all pleasure."
Archmage Quintus was a man transformed. His generic, forgettable face was now a contorted mask of rage, making him utterly memorable. Mage Arnius hurried behind, his own Heartwood Oak staff tapping a frantic rhythm on the polished obsidian floor. He didn't question the how; in a world where words could warp reality, a man like Quintus could make such a threat literal but the anger and power in his voice assured him it would be done.
A gust of wind, a chilling slipstream of the Archmage's leaking power, hit Arnius from the left, making the right side of his face go numb. His robes fluttered violently in the power of his betters while a chilling sensation spread on his left side. He twitched his fingers, a superstitious gesture to ward off the creeping cold that threatened his dexterity. To lose the fine control of his hands now would be deadly—one he'd never live to explain by just how much.
"These are fucking children!" Quintus snarled, not breaking stride. "What the fuck do they know about the realm? They see a god trying to stand up and think it's a ladder for their own ambition. Protecting the realm? No one gives a rat's ass about any of that." He slammed the butt of his Silverwood staff down, and the engravings of the Words of the Voiceless glowed faintly. "And yet they still use it as an excuse to wage a war! And the Concord of Scales! Philosophers counting coins while the mint burns!"
Archimage Quintus was a common man no longer. The hand clutching his staff was a map of scars and power, each finger laden with a heavy, enchanted ring. The staff itself, precisely shoulder-high, radiated an ancient, patient menace. He gripped it harder, and a sulphurous yellow flashed in his eyes, a sign of loss of control.
He forced a slow, controlled exhale, and the steam of his breath plumed in the suddenly frigid air. As if his breath had become the world's, a thunderous boom echoed over the capital of Aethelgard. Quintus's face tightened into a grimace. The elements were eager. They felt his wrath, his desire to scour the land clean, and they *rejoiced*. This eager compliance was the final confirmation. The raven's message was true. The attempt on the Emperor's life in the Onyx Spire had not failed. It had succeeded just enough to create a vacuum, and now the vultures were diving.
They emerged onto the high battlements of the Onyx Spire, and the wind, now a physical force, whipped at their robes. The city of Aethelgard lay spread below them, a testament to imperial ambition now trembling on the brink of chaos.
It was a city of tiers, each level a chronicle of the empire's rigid soul.
The Highest Tier, where the Spire anchored itself, was a district of stark, fortified mansions and soaring temples of pale granite. Here, the air should have been scented with incense and privilege. Now, it was thick with panic. The Sun-Singer's Plaza, a vast circle of fused moonstone, was a chaotic press of gilded palanquins and household guards as the nobility scrambled for the Spire's perceived safety. Their silks and jewels looked absurd against the backdrop of fear, like painted faces on a corpse. This was the realm of his "lord," Baron Theron, and the other high-born who waged war from maps in warm rooms.
Beneath it, the Merchant's Ring clung to the mountain's shoulders, a tangled web of slate-roofed warehouses, guildhalls boasting intricate wooden facades, and cobbled streets that were usually choked with commerce. Now, they were choked with a different kind of traffic: carts laden with possessions, merchants barricading their strongrooms, and the first, desperate flickers of looting in the side alleys. The fabled Argentum Mirrors—massive, polished silver disks mounted on towers to catch and reflect sunlight into the lower city—stood dark and blind against the storm-lit sky.
And lowest of all, spilling into the valley like a wound, was The Warrens. A sea of sodden timber, thatch, and crumbling mud-brick, veiled in the constant smoke and stench of tanneries, foundries, and too many people living on top of one another. The Sump, the city's open sewer, glittered unpleasantly as it carved through the slums, a ribbon of filth leading to the rust-stained outer walls. From this height, the people were ants, already scattering as the shadow of Hamus's power began to bleed over their districts.
It was this entire, teeming, stratified organism that Quintus's gaze swept over—not with a ruler's concern, but with a strategist's cold assessment. His eyes fixed not on the panicking nobles, but on the distant horizon, beyond the walls, where the sky was bruising with the unnatural colours of the enemy's own gathering power.
With a sharp gesture, he drew a sigil in the air that flared with the pale silver of his power. The very stone of the battlements flowed upwards, forming a bridge that shot out from the Spire, arcing through the storm-charged air towards the distant, mammoth ring of the city's outer defenses. This was the Ghost-Walk, a permanent, dormant spell of the Spire, activated only by an Archmage's will. The wind screamed around the insubstantial-looking bridge, but its surface was solid as ironwood under their feet.
They crossed in seconds, a journey that would have taken an hour through the chaotic streets. They landed on the broad fighting top of the Argent Wall, a bastion of pale, magically-fused stone wide enough for a dozen wagons to ride abreast. From here, the city of Aethelgard was a stark map of desperation.
A figure leaned against the ramparts, shrouded in a robe the colour of a week-old corpse. This was Hamus. To Quintus, he was a creature, an abomination. Though undeniably a human mage, Hamus had consorted with the Primordial of Decay, the Blight-Father. His power was undeniable, but it left its mark; the skin around his eyes was tight and grey, his nails were blackened and thick, and the air around him carried the faint, sweet scent of loam and rot.
"Theurgist Quintus. Warden Arnius," Hamus said, his voice a dry rustle. "The Arbiter opens its eye upon a broken world. Your vigil is noted, but it will not mend the Scale."
"Archmage Quintus. Mage Arnius," Quintus corrected.
"The difference?" Hamus's rustling voice was infuriatingly calm.
Quintus blinked once then tilted his head. At that moment, his free hand flicked signs in quick succession, and a phantom materialized behind him—a mouth with lips grotesquely sewn shut, dripping fresh blood. It began to emit a soothing, high-pitched note that plucked at the soul, promising solace and purpose. All who heard the note felt a desperate ache to hear more.
Then the engravings —the Words of the Voiceless— on Quintus' staff flared with a pale silver light. His eyes turned to liquid mercury.
"Who cares about the difference?" Failing to control his power, the words boomed, amplified by the phantom. Lightning streaked across the sky, once, twice, then again in a frantic, strobing pulse. "We are not scribes debating titles. We are the furnace that will melt this history down and forge a new one. The winner will name us all."
"Stress does not become you, Archmage," Hamus rasped, unimpressed.
A light brown hand, desiccated like ancient bark, emerged from his robe, holding a small, corroded bronze bell. He shook it gently.
The sound was not a ring, but a void. A black miasma poured forth—not smoke, but a spill of liquid shadow, silent and heavy. It poured over the battlements like a waterfall of nothingness, devouring the light and sound of the courtyard below. Within heartbeats, it had swallowed the entire outer bailey. From within the expanding darkness, hundreds of pairs of glowing green eyes blinked open.
"Mage Arnius," Quintus commanded, his voice the calm eye of his personal storm. "Record. Let the Arbiter acknowledge."
"Aye." Arnius's fingers, thankfully still nimble, pulled a simple bronze coin from his pocket. On one side, the Scales of Balance tilted right; on the other, left. He spoke the Words of Assertion, and the metal grew warm. When done, he saw that a third engraving—a single, unblinking eye— had etched itself onto the surface over the tilted scales.
"He watches the imbalance," Arnius intoned, the words feeling heavy as lead on his tongue.
The miasma was now a lake of churning darkness, a kilometre across. Abominations were stirring within. This was open war. The cost in spent power and spoken Words on both sides would be astronomical.
Quintus drew a breath, and the wind itself stilled, waiting for his command. He was not asking anymore. His silver eyes glowed like molten ore. When he began speaking the Words of Assertion that would initiate the spell, the phantom's lips tore themselves free, ripping through flesh and thread, spraying black blood. With the phantom's ruined mouth moving in sync, each syllable Quintus made became a crack of thunder that shook the very foundations of the Onyx Spire.
An Archmage had decided to unleash his full power. The elements supplicated, the wind screeched to a halt only to arise with a stronger momentum while the stones he was standing groaned under the power. The air around Quintus crackled and grew hazy, prostrating itself. Arnius was forced back a step, his own staff feeling like a dead branch in his hands. The wind now flowed in ebbs and flows, matching Quintus's own breathing.
His gaze swept down and locked onto a single figure who had emerged from the edge of the miasma—a man in immaculate green robes, who looked up and met Quintus's gaze without fear. So, this is the Bemoaner? He was man who had gazed upon the Order and the Order had met his gaze with disgust.
Still, at the end of the day, it was not who had the most monstrous army that won wars involving the Mages. It was who would wield the Words of Assertions to a devastating degree. The enemy had made the first move. It would be unbecoming of him if he did not respond.
He raised his staff. The snaking forest of lightning that had illuminated the sky gathered, coalescing into a single, focused spear of incandescent white above his head. The smallest tendril was the size of a man's waist. The air screamed, the elements cheered and all traces of emotions left Quintus.
He did not shout a battle cry. He simply pointed his staff downward.
And brought the storm home.