Imara pulled her heavy, deep-blue traveler's cloak tight against the piercing wind. She walked alone through the empty cobblestone alleys, searching for the boy she desperately needed to drag back from his own madness.

  A heavy layer of grey clouds hung over the kingdom. The air was thick with the threat of a freezing downpour, yet the sky refused to break.

  The Capital was completely deserted. The residents were locked inside the houses, their wooden shutters sealed shut. Even the Vanguard had abandoned the inner districts, retreating to barricade the outer gates heavily.

  "A whole kingdom playing dead," Imara muttered, her breath pluming in the freezing air. “And they aren’t even the prey."

  She stopped. Standing in the grey smog was The Augur. The tall stone tower was wrapped in a strange cloud of suffocation.

  She pushed through the wooden doors at the base.

  The stench of decaying meat and bird feathers hit her instantly. The spiraling stone staircase was lined with iron cages. At the ground level, a flock of messenger ravens were sleeping comfortably in the dark, entirely unfazed by the suffocating pressure in the air.

  Imara climbed. Her heavy boots echoed sharply against the cold stone.

  As she reached the upper tiers, the dead silence remained. Dozens of large owls sat perfectly still on their perches. Their unblinking eyes tracked her movement, reflecting her exhausted face in the shadows.

  Imara reached the heavy iron door at the apex and shoved it open. The pressure hit her immediately, the air was thick and cold.

  Eila sat on the edge of the stone boundary, his legs dangling in the freezing air. He was a silhouette against the dark, bruised sky.

  "Eila..." Imara stepped forward.

  "Leave," Eila said. His voice was a hollow and tired rasp. He didn't even turn his head to look at her. "You shouldn't be here. Travel to the Eastern Veil."

  Imara didn't reply. She just forced herself to walk forward, fighting through the suffocating gravity of his leaking Mana that threatened to crush her chest. She sat down on the cold stone beside him, leaving a cautious gap between them.

  "You remember that day, Eila?" Imara asked, gazing out into the vast dead smog. "When you got that wooden sword?"

  Eila remained perfectly still. The silence stretched.

  "It broke, didn't it?" Imara offered an exhausted smile. "And you cried and cried, until Captain Levon carved you another one."

  Inside the dark silence of the tower, three messenger ravens descended upon a sleeping white owl.

  "What are you implying, Imara?" Eila asked, his voice flat.

  "That wooden sword is long gone, isn't it?" Imara turned her face toward him. "But I saw Captain Levon yesterday. He looked hollowed out. Completely dead inside."

  "Aethelgard needs—"

  "I did not come up here to save the Kingdom, Eila." Imara stood up, her heavy cloak snapping in the bitter wind. "I came to save my childhood friend."

  Inside the spire, the ravens began aggressively pecking at the white owl. The larger bird snapped awake, violently flapping its wings to put distance between them, but the black birds relentlessly pushed it into the corner.

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  "I don’t need saving," Eila said, finally turning his face toward the grey sky. "What needed saving is already dead. The King gave his permission, the Pope gave his blessing, and the peasants cheered in the mud. A forest diseased to the roots cannot be pruned, Imara. It must be burned."

  "And who gave you the right to be the fire?" Imara challenged, taking a step toward the edge. "What about the children who burned in their beds in Oakhaven last night?"

  A raven’s sharp beak pierced the white owl’s chest, drawing a sickening screech that echoed through the stone walls.

  "I had nothing to do with that attack, other than declaring I am no longer their Hero," Eila reasoned coldly. "Besides. It saved them the burden of growing up to become monsters."

  The white owl violently lashed out. It drove its heavy talons into one raven and sank its curved beak directly into the gut of the second. The third raven panicked, frantically fleeing back to the safety of its iron cage.

  "By becoming the ultimate monster yourself!" Imara shot back, hot tears finally cutting through the freezing dirt on her cheeks. "You are doing this for Emilia, aren’t you? Tell me what she would say if she saw you right now!"

  The atmospheric pressure on the roof violently spiked.

  "She isn’t here to say anything." Eila didn't yell. His voice dropped into a low whisper, yet the sheer force of his fluctuating mana shattered the window of the tower behind them. "She is in the ground. She is cold."

  The severely injured raven jumped out of the shattered window, frantically beating its bleeding wings against the wind.

  "But YOU are still here!" Imara yelled. She stepped directly into his crushing gravity, forcing her lungs to draw breath as she slammed her warm hand directly over his freezing knuckles. She threw her arms wide open. "If you truly believe there is no good left in this world, then crush my chest right now! Prove to me that you are truly gone!"

  The bleeding raven lost its battle with the wind, plummeting heavily from the sky in a dizzying, fatal spiral.

  Eila froze. He stared at the frail Healer, watching her physically bear the agonizing weight of his CONCEPT Magic mana just to touch his hand.

  Inside the dark tower, the white owl finally collapsed, bleeding out from its wounds. The second raven freed itself from the dead talons, tilting its head to look at the corpse curiously.

  "Imara..." Eila gasped. He violently ripped his hand away from hers, wrapping his arms around his own chest as if trying to hold his ribs together. "It hurts. Every time my heart beats, it feels like I am swallowing shattered glass."

  "That means you are still breathing," Imara whispered, stepping forward and firmly pressing her hand against his trembling shoulder. "The dead don't feel the glass, Eila. Only the living do."

  The bitter wind howled over the boundary.

  "I'll go, Imara," Eila whispered to the ash. "I will leave."

  They climbed down the tower, stepping into the cold night. Eila’s head was dropped downwards.

  _________

  High in a shadowed watchtower overlooking the capital, General Thorne casually kicked open a heavy, brass-bound leather trunk. Inside, resting on scorched velvet, lay a massive cylinder of black iron, etched from top to bottom with the most complex runes in all of Aethelgard.

  "Don’t let the sight fool you, boys!" Thorne laughed loudly. He hoisted the heavy arcane bombard onto his shoulder with a grunt, treating it like a mere hunting bow. "The Ivory Tower finished forging this beauty yesterday. It is the only barrel in Aethelgard capable of containing that Core, and I am the only General with the sheer magical prowess to fire it without blowing an arm off!"

  The junior Vanguard recruits stared in absolute awe, stepping back as Thorne swung the heavy iron weapon around with a terrifying, carefree ease.

  "The core. Give it here," Thorne demanded, extending an impatient hand.

  A trembling recruit stepped forward, using thick, lead-lined tongs to present a rough iron slug. The metal was physically vibrating, bleeding a sickening, corrosive purple vapor into the cold air. It was the corrupted, highly poisonous and unstable mana of fifty S-Tier mages.

  "One shot of this, and there is no healing. No regeneration. Just death," Thorne boasted. His eyes sparkled with pure thrill as he carefully locked the volatile slug into the heavy iron cylinder. The weapon instantly hissed, the runes coming alive in a violent purple color, stopping at the barrel.

  He casually slammed the heavy weapon onto the stone windowsill, aligning the iron sights directly toward the distant tower, The Augur.

  "Tonight, boys!" Thorne declared. A smug grin stretching across his face. "By the order of His Majesty, the blessing of The Church, and the unmatched aim of yours truly... the Former Hero falls. Glory to the Vanguard!"

  "Glory to the Vanguard!" the recruits cheered in unison.