I opened the letter, expecting a tome. Instead, it held a single line:

  “Maybe some other time.”

  No signature. No mark. Just that.

  This woman.

  She had just saved my life in the most public, dramatic way imaginable—bent the rules of an Empire, spun a courtroom to silence, and vanished with a cryptic note like a ghost in lace. I had three hundred questions lodged in my throat. And she had disappeared.

  I stared at the ink until it meant nothing anymore. Then folded the letter, slipped it into my coat, and followed the paladins out.

  The steps of the Parliament were dead silent. Not a whisper left. No crowd. No scorn. No applause. Just cold stone and the weight of something unspoken.

  Either they didn’t want to witness their Chancellor’s fall... or they were ashamed of what they'd allowed to grow under their own roof.

  The ride back to the temple was smooth—almost too smooth. Like the world had gone numb. For the first time in days, I could exhale. That courtroom victory, that moment of release... it tasted good. Like the cold air after a thunderstorm. I allowed myself a brief illusion of peace.

  Manach. That was my focus now. My companion. Our journey. Our mission. I would get back to it. We had lost days—maybe more. But the road still waited.

  At the temple gates, priestesses greeted us with faint bows, their expressions unreadable. I stepped inside with the paladins at my sides. And then—

  I saw her.

  She didn’t belong here. Not in this world of soft robes and whispered prayers.

  She looked carved from myths and moonlight—an apparition given form. Her piercing ice-blue eyes held the chill of ancient glaciers and the weight of centuries. Her stare cut through me, slicing through thought like a blade through silk.

  Silver-white hair flowed down her back, braided slightly at the crown like a queen preparing for war. Her armor—sleek and runed—shimmered with enchantment, shadowed with pale opalescence. The kind of craftsmanship you only read about. Maybe dreamt of.

  And her staff.

  Latched behind her back like it belonged there since the beginning of time—black obsidian, veined with frost, capped with ice that had never melted. Spikes at both ends, perfectly balanced. A weapon of scholars and conquerors.

  She turned to me.

  “Koch. I hope your trial went in order,” she said.

  Not loud. Not stern. But heavy. Measured. Like a verdict.

  I bent my knee immediately, bowed my head.

  “Everything went in order, Lady Houra,” I said.

  That name. Houra. That wasn’t just nobility. That was legend. That was raw power made flesh.

  “You may rise. We have much to discuss,” she said.

  Her voice was calm. But it coiled with restrained energy—like a dam holding back a sea. “I trust my message reached you?”

  “It did. I anticipated your arrival,” I replied, standing but keeping my tone respectful. “I’m honored that someone of your stature has taken interest in me.”

  To the side—barely seen until now—Leliana stood, frozen. Her eyes darted between us, bewildered. She looked like someone watching two storms meet.

  “I will follow you,” Houra said to me. “Take me somewhere private.”

  Then, turning sharply to the paladins: “Bring his gear. All of it. We will need it.”

  They didn’t hesitate. Even if she didn’t rule within their faith, they moved like men who’d just met a higher order of gravity.

  Because Lady Houra wasn’t just a mage. She was the mage. The one whispered about in towers and feared in courtrooms. Her presence twisted the air, bent the room around her.

  She followed me freely, like it was her temple. And I walked not like a prisoner anymore—but not quite free either.

  Because deep down, I knew.

  The trial was over.

  But the real questions had only just begun. And today... I wasn’t the one asking them.

  We entered the room. The door closed behind me with a muted thud—then froze shut from the inside, a sheet of ice sealing it with a hiss. No hand movements, no words. Just a blink.

  Houra moved with unceremonious precision, as though she'd lived here her whole life. She set her obsidian staff against the mahogany table, the runes in its core pulsing faintly, then let out a breath and tapped a sigil along her armor’s collarbone. A shimmer of energy unwound, and the plated shell loosened, sliding away from her body with a near-silent glide, like stone being exhaled.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Beneath it, a simple tunic—worn leather straps fitted to her form like a second skin. Functional. Beautiful, somehow. Her posture never faltered. She was still power, still command. But now… more real. Still flawless.

  I hated that I noticed.

  “You do not mind if I relax?” she asked with a smirk, her voice a deliberate note of teasing.

  I blinked, words lost in my throat. “Y–no. Sure.”

  Smooth, Koch. Very smooth.

  “Would you mind getting me something to drink?” she said.

  I turned toward the sideboard, grateful for the excuse to look away. That’s when the knock landed. Then a sharp crash outside the door.

  The ice melted instantly. Houra stepped out and returned with the chest—my chest—under one arm. She placed it on the bed like it weighed nothing.

  “This is all I’ve got here,” I said as I handed her a glass of blueberry juice. She accepted it, nodding once.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking a slow sip.

  Then she straightened. Her tone shifted.

  “Now. Get yourself armored up.”

  I obeyed without hesitation, slipping back into my gear with practiced ease. No questions. Not yet.

  “Now,” she said, gaze narrowing on the obsidian blade lying within the chest, “tell me about this weapon. Dullness.”

  I did.

  I told her everything—how it sang in my head, how I knew its name, how it responded when I touched it. The hum. The warmth. The unexplainable weight in my chest, like it had found me before I had found it. I left nothing out.

  Houra listened in absolute silence. No flicker of doubt. No interruption.

  “I believe you,” she said at last. “Every word.”

  I met her gaze. “How did you know I had it? It’s been—what, hours?”

  “A magical surge,” she replied calmly, “struck the arcane flow like a hammer to glass. I had time, and I followed its wake. It showed me a vision—of you, the blade, your surroundings. I erased it afterward. I was the only one who saw.”

  She said it like she’d stepped across the stars and back, like it was nothing.

  I nodded. “Thank you. For the explanation.”

  Houra turned her gaze back to the blade. “These runes. Do you know what they are?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t read them.”

  “Look at the first one,” she said.

  I leaned in.

  It was shaped like an M, fractured through the middle by a jagged line, like lightning frozen mid-strike.

  “It’s unlike anything I’ve seen,” I murmured.

  “That,” she said, “is a rune of blood magic.”

  I stiffened.

  “Forbidden magic. The engraving means healing through the blood of victims. When the blade strikes, it transfers vitality to the wielder. I imagine it’s already done so.”

  “It has,” I said quietly. “Even before I knew it.”

  “Clever blade,” Houra murmured, fingers gently tracing the air above it. “Efficient. Old. Dangerous.”

  “I’ve never seen blood magic firsthand,” I said. “I once had a mission to find a blood mage. Never did.”

  She smiled faintly. “Most don’t. Now, the second rune.”

  This one was stranger. A spiral of three half-moons circling around a single twisting line.

  “It looks alive,” I said. “But it doesn’t move.”

  Houra’s expression darkened. “That’s the one that made you feel uneasy.”

  “It did. At first. Not anymore.”

  “Exactly. That rune,” she said, “is the mark of Negative Magic.”

  I froze.

  “That’s not… real,” I said.

  “Supposedly,” she replied. “No school officially forbids it because no school believes it exists. But it does. Negative Magic nullifies all others. Creates an aura of absence—wrongness. A void.”

  She raised her hand. Ice formed instantly in her palm, and then splintered toward the blade. The shards vanished inches from it. Gone. Erased.

  “Fascinating,” I whispered.

  “A mage-killer’s rune,” Houra said. “And that’s not all. The blade’s obsidian. Resistant to all magical elements, including elemental ones. Fire, frost, arcane force… useless.”

  “An anti-mage weapon,” I said.

  “Precisely. And now, the third rune.”

  This one…

  This one always looked back.

  A spiraling eye, not engraved but present. Staring.

  “An eye,” I said. “But it’s not carved. It’s just… there.”

  Houra’s voice dropped low.

  “That is the mark of the Old God A’iee.”

  A chill ran down my spine. I had heard the name. The Manipulator. The Knower.

  “What does it do?” I asked, unease mounting.

  “That,” she said, “is something only you can answer.”

  I hesitated. “Maybe… maybe it’s why the blade speaks. Why I feel more clear-headed. My thoughts are sharper. More precise. As if my mind is—shielded.”

  Houra nodded slowly. “Mind protection. Perhaps even a form of passive manipulation. The hum you hear, the clarity—that’s A’iee’s mark. The blade protects your thoughts… or steers them. It was likely forged by his followers.”

  Her eyes sparkled like cold starlight.

  “When. Why. How—those are the questions.”

  "Wasn't it mentioned,” I began, my voice low as the weight of it hit me, “in one of the old tomes in the Grand Library at Wolf’s Bane... about a Mask who wielded a blade that killed magic?"

  Houra turned her head slightly, just enough for one glacial-blue eye to settle on me. A flicker of approval danced across her features.

  "It was," she said. "Good of you to remember."

  The word Mask carried weight. Not a name, but a title. A mantle passed through silence and blood. The personal agent of A’iee. There was always one. There was always a Mask. A harbinger who never left the world untouched—wars, collapses, revelations. Always something big.

  I hesitated. “Do you think this is that blade?”

  “I do.” Her tone was measured, absolute. “There is no reason to believe otherwise.”

  A silence stretched between us, thick with implication. The obsidian blade lay on the table, its runes now familiar to me—deadly and old, humming with quiet power, like the breath of something ancient waiting.

  “After all I’ve observed,” Houra continued, voice smooth as still water, “I see no harm in this weapon—so long as it is wielded by one of our own.”

  I straightened. “Then… it will be sent to the Citadel? Presented to the Council?”

  Houra shook her head, just once.

  “No. You will keep it. I will report the findings to the Council myself. I’ll tell them the blade chose you, and that your will remains untouched by its influence. They will not contest that.”

  I frowned. “But… what if they do? What if A’iee is influencing me somehow? What if I don’t see it?”

  Her answer came without delay.

  “The Council will not object. Trust me on that. As for A’iee—he never controls. He offers. Always a choice, always whispered in a voice that sounds like your own. That is his way. He manipulates, yes. But he does not bind. And if he is present within the blade’s rune, it’s only a sliver—an echo. Not his full will. You, Koch, are strong-willed. You will not bend unless you choose to.”

  Her words hit me harder than I expected. Not because they were reassuring—but because they were believable.

  “I… I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.

  “You don’t have to say anything. Just carry the blade. Use it wisely.”

  She moved toward the door, touched the frozen seal, and the ice vanished like frost under a morning sun. She glanced back at me with the faintest of smiles.

  “Let’s go help your friend,” she said. “So I can finally take my leave.”

  I nodded. Took the blade. Dullness.

  Strapped it to my back, its weight familiar now. Balanced. Heavy, but not burdensome. I sheathed my Coldian blade at my hip—a relic of a previous self, still useful, still me.

  As we stepped into the hall, I realized something.

  This conversation… it had gone better than I ever anticipated.