Chapter 7: The Weaver's Mask
The war for his people's future would not be won in the forges or the gardens alone. Nox understood this with a chilling clarity. The true, most critical battlefield was a secluded grotto behind the Great Library, a place where sound died and light was a prisoner. Here, the victory condition was not a shattered enemy or a reclaimed artifact, but a perfectly held lie.
Under Luminous Scroll's patient, unnervingly precise instruction, Nox began the painstaking work of mastering the illusion spell. This was not the brute-force magic of shattering stone or summoning shadow; it was a delicate, demanding art of shadow and suggestion, of convincing the very air and light to betray the eyes of any who looked upon him.
"Your form is your greatest weapon and your most damning liability, Prince," Luminous Scroll intoned, his crystalline spectacles reflecting the faint shimmer of Nox's horn. "The horn marks you as a king, a sovereign, and a threat that the world has not seen for a millennium. The wings mark you as one of us—a creature of nightmare in their sun-lit tales. To move unseen in the world above, to find Sombra-Shard and walk the halls of your enemy, you must become a ghost. You must learn to wear a mask so perfect, it becomes your skin, your breath, your very soul."
Nox focused, pouring his will into the intricate spell-form Luminous Scroll had burned into his mind. His horn glowed with a faint, shimmering violet aura. The air around his majestic, leathery wings began to waver, to distort like heat rising from desert stone. For a single, heart-lifting second, the transformation was complete. Where the powerful, membranous wings had been, there were now the sleek, grey-feathered wings of a common Pegasus.
Then, with a sound like tearing silk and a flash of violet light, the illusion shattered. His true wings snapped back into existence with a tangible force, and the magical feedback buzzed unpleasantly up his horn, a sharp, stinging reminder of failure.
"Your emotional state is a crack in the foundation of the spell," Luminous Scroll observed, his voice devoid of judgment, merely stating a fact. "The illusion is a mirror of your will. It requires a placid lake of focus. Doubt, anger, fear, hatred—these are stones thrown into that lake. They will ripple out and shatter the image. To deceive the world, Prince Nox, you must first deceive your own heart. You must find a core of absolute, unshakable calm."
The challenge was a profound and bitter irony. He had to master a spell that required perfect inner peace, all while his heart was a cauldron of simmering hatred for Celestia and a frantic urgency to save his people. The next attempt lasted several minutes. He even took a few experimental steps across the grotto, the sensation of the false, unnervingly light wings a constant, grating reminder of the deception he had to embody. But then, a spike of that simmering rage—a vivid, unwelcome memory of Celestia's smiling face from his childhood, a smile he now saw as the ultimate deception—caused the delicate spell-work to unravel. The grey feathers dissolved like dark water dripping upwards, vanishing into nothingness before his true, dark wings re-emerged.
Captain Umbra observed one of these sessions from the entrance, her presence as silent and imposing as the mountain itself. "A convincing facade," she noted coolly as his illusion flickered and died once more. "But it is brittle. A single moment of surprise, a sudden surge of emotion upon seeing the sun, or the face of an Element of Harmony, and the Prince of the Vampponies will be revealed to the world. Your mission, and our future, would end in that instant. You must be better than good. You must be flawless."
The pressure was immense, a weight heavier than his own colossal body. He wasn't just learning a spell; he was learning to cage the storm inside him, to build a dam against a river of righteous fury. He practiced for hours, pushing through the mounting mental fatigue and the persistent, tingling ache in his horn that was the price of such sustained, delicate magic. He learned to visualize the feathers not as a disguise, but as a part of himself, as intrinsic as his own heartbeat. He constructed a mental fortress around his rage, walling it off into a deep, dark dungeon to create a placid, still lake of focus on its surface.
Slowly, painstakingly, the illusion began to hold. For an hour. Then two. He could maintain it while walking, while engaging in complex conversation with Luminous Scroll about Equestrian geography, while performing simple tasks that required concentration. The mask was becoming more comfortable, its weight a familiar burden.
At the end of a long cycle, he stood once more before the polished obsidian mirror. The reflection that stared back showed a tall, unassuming grey Pegasus with a neatly-combed silver mane. There was a quiet intelligence in the eyes, but no regal authority. No ancient power. He was… ordinary. Harmless. He was a pony one would pass in the street without a second glance.
"Aether Wing," he said, testing the name he would carry into the world of light. The voice that came out was lighter, more curious, devoid of the deep, resonant command of Nox Aeterna. It was the voice of a scholar, an observer, not a king.
The Prince in the Dark was learning to become a shadow in the light. It was the first, most essential step on the long and treacherous road to reclaiming his kingdom's heart and exacting his revenge. The weapon was being honed, its true edge hidden beneath a coat of dull, grey steel.