Ironwill arrived at the capital beneath a sky the color of hammered steel. The towering gates of Valenford rose before him—grand, imposing, and crowned with the gold-marked sigils of the Imperial Line—yet none of it stirred awe in him.
He strode through the crowds like a shadow that refused to blend with anything around it. His cloak trailed behind him, wet from the morning drizzle, and his steps left a quiet pressure in the air, as though the cobblestones themselves recognized the weight of the man walking on them.
Weeks had passed since he left the citadel. Weeks filled with travel, coded letters, silent trails, and whispers that spoke of shifting loyalties in the empire.
Elder Marath's instructions rang in his mind still—find answers, find the traitors, tear the roots out if you must. He had accepted those orders without hesitation. Now, as he entered the capital's inner districts, he could feel the tension beneath the city's polished facade.
The empire was sick—its emperor sicker still—and like vultures circling above a dying beast, the nobles had begun moving. Factions rose and split. The Sun Church tightened its influence. Prince Harlen's supporters grew bold. And somewhere in the east, a Sun Church priest had moved with deliberate obscurity, erasing every trace of his passing.
Ironwill was determined to trace him anyway.
He began with the citadel's old allies—merchants, minor nobles, informants, and craftsmen who once pledged support but whose silence in recent months was far too conspicuous. The first few houses offered nothing but polite greetings layered atop trembling fear. The political wind had shifted, and those with weak spines had shifted with it.
But Ironwill wasn't here for polite conversations.
On the fourth day of his search, he arrived at a merchant's office in the lower noble districts. The building was pristine—marble steps, carved wooden doors, and banners signifying trade rights with several noble courts. Yet faint mana residue lingered around the edges of the threshold. Fear had been here recently. He could almost smell it.
Ironwill waited.
At dusk, the merchant finished a meeting with two clients—wealthy men judging by their rings and fine cloaks. They exchanged firm handshakes, rehearsed smiles, and polite bows before the merchant ushered them out. Once the door clicked shut, he exhaled sharply and rubbed his temples, clearly exhausted from whatever lies or negotiations he had just survived.
He turned.
Ironwill stood inside the office as though he had always been part of the room.
The merchant froze, mouth parting in a soundless attempt at a greeting.
Ironwill's hood cast his face in shadow, but the air around him prickled with the faintest metallic crackle. Sparks curled off his shoulders in thin, harmless arcs—harmless now, but the message was unmistakable.
"Your loyalty to the citadel," Ironwill said. His voice carried no anger, just cold weight. "Where does it stand?"
"T–t-to the citadel," the merchant stammered instantly. "I still serve—I still stand with—"
Ironwill took one step closer.
The man nearly tripped over his own feet trying to back away.
"Then tell me what you know," Ironwill continued. "The political situation. The nobles' movements. The emperor's health. The Sun Church's hidden hands. And a priest—one who was operating east. His name. His location."
The merchant swallowed hard, sweat building instantly along his brow. "I—I swear I'm still loyal," he said, voice shaking but urgent. "The situation in the capital… it's worsened. The emperor's illness grows more severe—rumors say he can hardly rise from his bed now. And with the emperor fading, the nobles are flocking to Prince Harlen." He licked his lips nervously. "The Sun Church supports him. That much is certain."
Ironwill's silence pressed him to continue.
"I—I don't know the high priest's name. Or where he is. Truly." His hands trembled as he raised them defensively. "But I heard that one of the citadel's old allies… changed sides months ago. He might know more. He—he held private meetings with Sun Church envoys."
Ironwill's eyes narrowed beneath the hood.
The merchant scrambled for paper, nearly knocking over a glass ink vial in the process. His handwriting came out crooked and rushed, letters stumbling over each other as though trying to flee from Ironwill's presence.
He finished, thrusting the note forward with both hands.
Ironwill took it without looking at him. Only when his eyes brushed the list did he pause for a moment. Familiar names. Trusted names.
Or once trusted.
He folded the paper.
The air around him thickened. Sparks gathered at his forearms, curling like faint serpents of silver-white light.
"Good," he said quietly. "If I discover that you've changed your allegiance… or harmed the citadel in any way…" His voice dropped to something soft, almost polite. "I will visit again."
The merchant collapsed to his knees in terror, babbling promises he could no longer articulate.
Ironwill turned, reached the door, and stepped into the street as the rain began to fall. He glanced once more at the list of names—his cloak stirring as mana pulsed faintly at his fingertips—then pulled up his hood.
"I will find you," he said under his breath, voice low and final. "And when I do… there will be punishment."
The city swallowed his silhouette as he disappeared into the evening haze.
---
Far from the capital, months passed quietly within the walls of the citadel.
The distant tension spreading across the empire didn't reach this place in open form, but it lingered like the taste of approaching storm. Everyone felt it. Everyone worked harder. Everyone prepared.
Arden spent most of his days in the alchemy chambers with Elder Marath. Books, formulas, mineral jars, spirit-infused components, and half-evaporated concoctions cluttered the long marble table in front of him.
He stirred his fifth mixture of the day.
It hissed.
It spat.
Then it exploded in a puff of pale-green smoke.
He could almost hear Elder Marath's voice guiding him—a memory from earlier lessons.
"Alchemy is not stubbornness, Arden. It listens. It reflects your intent. Control your mana, calm your breath, and decide the shape of the outcome before the ingredients touch."
Arden inhaled slowly, steadying his mana flow the way he had been taught. His next attempt fared better; the liquid settled rather than exploding.
But he paused, wiped sweat from his brow, and stepped away to take a break. His feet carried him—almost without thought—to one of the quieter hallways, then toward the room where his mother lay.
Mariel rested on a cushioned bed surrounded by soft light. She barely woke these days. The curse robbed her strength, dulled her senses, left her drifting in and out of fragile awareness. Arden approached softly, kneeling beside her.
"I brought something," he whispered.
He placed a small vial near her hand—pain-easer, high-grade, something he'd one day learn to brew himself. Not a cure. Nothing was. But it softened the agony the curse inflicted on her nerves.
When her fingers twitched toward his, Arden gently took her hand.
"I'll take care of you," he murmured. "I promise."
His voice cracked, but only once.
---
At the same hour, Miran trained in the courtyard.
He gripped his heavy steel staff—the one he had used since he was old enough to hold it—and began moving through the advanced Sentinel forms. Each technique demanded balance, precision, reflex, and a deep instinct for mana flow.
Wind curled when he shifted his stance.
Stone cracked when he struck the ground.
Sentinel arts were not gentle. Nor elegant. They were raw expression of Vaelorian discipline, passed only to those who completed their vocation task. Miran had earned this right, and he trained with a devotion that bordered on unshakeable fervor.
Sweat slid down his back. His breaths came sharp, controlled. His eyes were unwavering.
"One day, " he often thought, " I'll master all of this. One day… I'll be strong enough to protect what family I have left—and maybe build one of my own."
The staff whirled around him with thunderous force, its weight nothing in his hands.
---
In another wing of the citadel, Lira sat surrounded by glowing sigils and parchment sheets. Elder Rhyden stood beside her, instructing her in the master-tier healing tome. The diagrams were complex. The mana requirements high. The mental discipline required nearly brutal.
But Lira persisted.
She read. She practiced. She cast until her fingers trembled. Elder Rhyden corrected her posture, refined her mana flow, adjusted every minor movement. And slowly—slowly—the healing light she manifested became sharper, more refined, more controlled.
She was growing into a healer worthy of the master path.
---
Nale, in a separate chamber, was submerged in a sea of ancient arcane text. His eyes scanned lines of forgotten runes while several objects—quills, candles, small stones—hovered around him in steady orbit. His mental focus split effortlessly across multiple tasks.
Ancient arcane arts demanded both brilliance and madness.
Nale possessed both in equal measure.
The deeper he studied, the more his understanding expanded. The more dangerous his spells became. And yet his expression was always calm—an eerie calm that mirrored Ironwill's terrifying composure, though for entirely different reasons.
He turned a page, murmuring a forgotten incantation that flickered faintly across the air like fading starlight.
---
On the citadel's lower grounds, Kael stood in the warehouse with a clipboard in hand. Workers moved crates, re-shelved supplies, replaced tools, and sorted shipments as he pointed them around with sharp, precise gestures.
"No, not there—move it to storage room three," he said. "You—take this to the northern hall. And you—bring the guard captain to me, I need to update the patrol routes."
Kael's voice carried leadership refined not by age, but by necessity. He worked tirelessly, balancing logistics, security, training schedules, and daily operations. The citadel ran smoother than ever, every task executed with swift efficiency.
---
High above all of them, Elder Marath stood alone on the meeting hall balcony.
The wind brushed his long robes as he stared toward the inner sanctum—toward the silent, dormant guardian that had always been the citadel's most formidable omen.
Something was wrong with it.
He could feel it in the mana currents—subtle distortions, quiet tremors, unnatural stillness. The invisible cloud that shrouds the citadel,The guardian slumbered deeper than it should. And Marath did not know why.
Not yet.
He turned his gaze outward, toward the ocean.
Far on the distant horizon, the magical barrier shimmered faintly—a radiant line of shifting gold, like sunlight trapped beneath the waves.
Marath's eyes narrowed.
"Rough years ahead…" he murmured. "Very rough years indeed."
The wind carried his voice away as the shimmer faded back into distant stillness.
The empire moved toward upheaval.
And far across the capital, Ironwill stepped into the night with a list of names and a quiet vow of retribution.
The storm had only begun.