Deep inside Kar’Velaryn.
“With all due respect, father—sir,” Alicia said, drawing a deep breath for the third time, clinging to the last thread of her sanity. “This is madness. Unlike the elves, the humans haven’t looked our way even once in the last hundred years. It might be nothing to us, but it’s a lifetime to them. To declare war on them, unprovoked, is… not strategy. It is hubris.”
Caldris shifted in his throne, a set frown on his face, his voice deep and gruff. “They haven’t looked our way yet. Do you realize how desperate they are for our blood? Our bloodcraft. Our riches. Our people—”
“Only their temples, father,” Alicia cut in, leaning further onto the table. “And let them come. We will crush them, you know we can. But that doesn’t mean we must make all of mankind our enemy. Again.”
The emperor furrowed his brows, well aware of the implications. But instead of acting, he fell silent, as if it were beyond his control. He crossed his legs and looked away, refusing to meet Alicia’s eyes.
She frowned. “What is it?”
“We might not have a choice,” he said at last, slowly drawing a vial of golden liquid from a drawer and rolling it toward Alicia. “The price has been paid. We must hold up our end of the deal.”
The vial came to rest before Alicia, the gold shimmering brightly, swirling as if it were alive. She had never seen anything like it. She hesitated, fingers hovering, about to lift it—
“That’s primordial blood,” Caldris said.
Alicia’s hand snapped back. Her heart sank, farther than it ever had before. “What?!”
God’s blood. In the realm of the living. No. It couldn’t be. “How… how? Why?”
“Your brother will take it,” Caldris continued, leaning forward, resting his weight on the table. “He will humiliate every clan in the tournament tonight.” He clasped his fingers together. “He will dethrone me and take my primordial essence. He will declare himself emperor, and ensure the Velaryns keep the Sanguinar race together for another thousand years.”
Alicia blinked, disbelief crashing down on her. She sank into her seat, eyes fixed on her father, yet looking past him. He had never been a reasonable man. But he was the smartest, their progenitor. How had power blinded him so completely?
“What have you done, father?” she whispered. “You have doomed us. Our entire race—”
“We will be fine,” Caldris said, straightening as he exhaled. “Not all of us, but most will be. Those who do not adapt will perish. That is inevitable.”
Alicia was at a loss for words. You couldn’t manufacture a completely avoidable catastrophe and then invoke inevitability. Calling it fate did not absolve the choice.
She had to fix it. There was still time.
She snatched the vial from the table and gripped it tight. “Father, do you even hear yourself?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “The reign of the Velaryns has ended. The throne belongs to the Drosvens now. Let them have it. A thousand years will pass in a blink. We will earn our goodwill back. The council will choose you again, I am sure of it.”
She tried to make him see reason. “Constructing these grand schemes just to cling to a seat nobody truly respects will be the death of us. Why can’t you see it?”
Caldris only stared, crimson eyes dimming by the second. “Perhaps,” he began, his voice tight with anger, “it is you who cannot see—”
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CRACK!
The sound of a million panes shattering at once. Blinding light, in the heart of the city.
BOOM!
Alicia barely had time to stow the vial—and Caldris to thrust out a hand, activating Shield—before the shockwave tore through the chamber. Palace windows and balcony doors exploded inward, shards of glass screaming through the air. A roaring torrent followed, stripping the room bare, hurling even the massive oak table at its center against the barrier.
The floor rocked violently. Alicia braced, eyes shut, heart hammering, as Caldris forced his spell outward. It swelled until it shrouded the entire castle.
The shaking eased. Alicia snapped out of it and rushed to the balcony.
“No…” The realization struck. “…No. NO!”
The city’s invisible wardings had become visible. They were vanishing in chunks, as if the city could no longer power them— No. A massive ball of light hung in the air, absorbing them all.
Clang!... Clang!... Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Warning bells rang across the city, slow at first, then accelerating until the sound clawed into Alicia’s core. Sanguinars were sensitive to mana, and the bells were tuned to excess.
There was too much mana in the air. Unnatural. This side of the continent barely had any at all. Someone was exploiting their core weakness on a massive scale—to wipe them out. To wipe out their progenitor.
Her breath caught. The shield wouldn’t stop this. She didn’t have time.
She turned back just as Caldris stepped up beside her, and Black Knights smashed through the door.
“We are under attack!” Alicia roared. “Protect the—”
An immeasurable pressure slammed down on her, crushing inward. It felt as though something seized her heart, locked it tight, and twisted.
She choked. Her knees gave way. Blood spilled from her lips as her breath gave out, her vision spiraling. She collapsed onto her side, watching the knights fall where they stood—armor crashing, bodies jerking once, twice, blood flooding from within as limbs failed and the stone darkened beneath them.
Agony overwhelmed her. She fought to turn, to look at her father, when—
“Who are you going to protect, Alicia?” The voice rang out, vast and deafening, swallowing the bells, the screams—until there was nothing else.
Silence.
The grip on her heart loosened. The pain ebbed. Air rushed back into her lungs. Strength followed. She pushed herself upright and was on her feet in a heartbeat.
“How…”
She looked to her father. He stared straight ahead, frozen, horror carved deep into his face. His heart thundered against his ribs. Breath tore in and out of him, sweat breaking across his skin. His body trembled, strung tight on the edge of flight and collapse.
She followed his gaze into the chamber—and flinched.
There, at the center of the room, stood a man knee-deep in blood. A black cloak draped him from head to toe. He was short, his frame slight, face drawn tight against the bone. Sunken cheeks. Hollow eyes, empty of life, brimming with nothing but violence.
Those eyes—
Alicia’s breath hitched. She knew that shade of blue. Rare. Unmistakable. She had seen them before, burning with the same fury. Back when the Archmage—
“Dewald,” she whispered, the name tearing out of her throat.
She remembered the moment her father chose the Cursed one. The days they spent armoring their armies. The weeks of raids that left human settlements smoking husks. The months it took to carve away a fourth of the continent. The years that followed, when no human was spared, when rivers ran dark and the feasts never ended.
Then there was the girl. Barely fourteen. Small. Pretty. She had eyes, an impossible shade of blue. A general claimed her. She resisted, dragging a sword twice her size across the dirt, arms shaking as she swung it anyway. He burned her village for the inconvenience. Her parents with it. When she still didn’t break, he tore her apart and left what remained for the dogs.
Her brother arrived too late. But something arrived with him. The walking incarnation of death.
He was barely an apprentice then. It didn’t matter. He hunted them down—every Sanguinar who had fought in the war. One by one. He tore them apart and left their bodies for the dogs, until there were none left to find.
He came barreling into Kar’Velaryn and reduced the city to ruins in half a day. He tore through its streets, scoured the catacombs, seized the emperor by the throat, and was moments from ripping his heart out when the Primordials intervened.
They told him Caldris was blinded. That it was not his fault. They turned his fury toward the Cursed one, who by then held half the continent in blood and fire.
The boy spared the emperor. But his eyes promised he would return.
And now he had.
