Poised beneath the screaming heavens, I worked my Sorcery. Souls writhed, coalesced, and ascended, lighting my blood like fire to oil. My eyes burned vermillion.

  The Spirits of the Dead swirled above in the High plane I’d been trying so hard to pierce for the past years, decades. Me and my scores of Sorcerers—not that I relied on them much, with their middling power—had worked long nights and even longer days, eschewing sleep, food, and rest. With such work ahead, comfort was a luxury ill-suited for me. This was more important than that.

  Than anything.

  I stood alone upon a raised platform of the Grand Observatory, of the first new Wonder of the world in centuries, of the united efforts of my people’s labor and knowledge turned into stone and metal and magic. Sweeping bronze rings above hummed with imbued Sorcery as they rotated to my intentions, amplifying my senses and cutting through the waves of chaotic Souls. My long arms were raised into the air, silk sleeves richly decorated with gold stitchings swaying as my splayed fingers manipulated invisible tendrils of magic. Like a surgeon making a precise incision, I pushed apart the troublesome layers of swirling death. Years of research and preparation for what now took only a moment of incantation. Sorcery flooded my bones, lighting my eyes a more vibrant hue of deep crimson to contrast stone grey skin. It was ecstasy, it was release, it was life itself.

  It was power. Pure and true.

  But there was a wall. An obstacle in the way yet again. Some additional, seemingly impenetrable layer that could take years to sort through. And though it wasn’t as if I lacked time, the hindrance made my jaw tighten and fingers twitch in frustration. Years of progress, and just when I was to make a breakthrough, yet another delay came to rear its monstrous head. It was an insult to Pethya, to me. Had I not sacrificed enough? Had I and those closest to me not bled enough? Did I not deserve this?

  Did she not deserve this?

  My connection to the Observatory’s arcane implements snapped, and a mental whiplash struck me through like a horse’s charge. I tottered to the side with vertigo and a skull-splitting pain, clutched at the railing atop the platform for support so I might not fall to my death. Slowly, the agony faded.

  For a novice, blundering such power would mean a grisly death as Spirits of the Dead clawed into their head and spewed forth from their writhing corpse in an explosion of necromantic energy. All unprepared living in the immediate vicinity would die, their Souls harvested and flesh turned to wrinkled leather. And this was only the most optimistic outcome. And though I was no novice, the danger did not subside for such concentration of pure Sorcery.

  I must be more careful. I took in a long breath and wrestled back control over the powers warring within, standing straight and tall once more. Try as they might, the Dead would never best me, even as ravenous as they were. I was their master. And I would have my due.

  “Day or night, it matters little,” a familiar voice came from below, “I always find you here while I am expected to put out the fires in your stead.”

  I turned, exhaling slowly. In the center of the open space, far beneath my raised platform, stood my younger sister, Maecia. The open floor’s spiraling mosaics glittered from the lamplit doorway behind. Hands on her hips, she looked up. “Come down, Daecinus, would you? I would like to talk.”

  I acquiesced, giving the mental command for the platform to descend, lowering me from immediate access to the Grand Observatory’s instruments and returning to the mundane world. Though I was tall for my people, Maecia nearly met my eyes evenly. It was an oddity of our lineage, for our parents were not so fortunate in their stature. An oddity many were quick to point to as the gods’ divine favor—even if I disagreed, it was wise to let them believe what they might, or at least that was what Maecia had argued.

  My sister had an imperial set to her features, with high cheekbones and penetrating, determined eyes the color of dried blood. Her many subordinates feared her voracious appetite for perfect work, though her conscientiousness never could make up for an innate weakness in the realm of Sorcery. It is the randomness of inheritance, not a fault of her determination, I reminded myself. And perhaps due, in part, to her foolish new ideology. Still, it wasn’t as if she were incompetent—far from it. But few in the world could match my ability, both in handling raw power and wielding it with deadly precision. Consequently, she likely resented my advancement while she, the more dutiful and civic-minded of the two of us, remained my inferior.

  I stepped from the platform onto the mosaic of the open hall that stretched wide beneath the pinnacle of the Observatory’s bronze masterworks. “I presume this visit pertains to one of these aforementioned fires?”

  “Indeed.” Maecia let out a heavy sigh. “Would you walk with me? I don’t wish to discuss such things here. You know how I feel about this place.”

  Fighting off the urge to argue so I might stay to continue my work, I nodded, gesturing toward the only other exit from the central chamber. We walked in silence as our footsteps echoed across the marble walls. “I’ve been reflecting upon our last conversation,” I said as we reached the door.

  “And have you come to see the truth in my words?”

  I opened the door, revealing an outer balcony that circled the Grand Observatory’s cylindrical structure; it was perched atop the mountains dividing Pethya from the barbarous east and overlooked the fertile plains of my homeland. In the distance, just beyond the limitations of my vision, underneath the glittering stars above, was the great Kastalec Sea, bringer of vitality and fortune. Temperamental in nature but essential to our people, nonetheless. It was such a view that allowed me to remain centered in spite of my sister’s… erroneous leanings.

  “I can see how one might come to such an opinion,” I simply replied.

  “I am not a fool, Daecinus.”

  “Which is why it is so difficult for me to allow you to claim such folly.”

  “Base energy and hunger below and will from above. Will. It implies sentience! Consciousness! It is not a place to meddle in, no matter how great the intention.”

  “No?” My voice strained as I failed to avoid revealing my anger. My simmering spite. “So I should simply acquiesce? Give in? Let my loss be forgotten?”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Of course not. Never. But the solution is not in twisting fate and stealing from the untouchable Realm.”

  “Stealing? I’m righting wrongs, Maecia. And if your fate wishes to intercede, let it try.”

  “You’re not a god, and she isn’t a martyr. She isn’t just a loss,” she said, leaning forward, eyes almost pleading, voice steely and fervent. “Would she even agree to this? Would she want this?”

  I looked away, scoffing. “She did not bear your beliefs. Do not pretend she did.” Before Maecia could provide a rebuttal, I raised a hand and stopped her. “You said there was work to be done that needed my seeing. I don’t wish to argue right now. We can discuss it later.”

  Her lips bent into a rigid frown, but she nodded, glancing away to the fields far below. “The other Magistros are calling for a special meeting at Tredian Path. There is concern about the petty kingdoms in the north.”

  “They can handle it alone.”

  “They want you there, Daecinus.”

  “For protection, I would imagine. Or perhaps intimidation.”

  “You are Magistros of Sorcery, even though you do everything in your power to eschew the honorable responsibility shy of entirely abandoning your position.” She paused, glancing over with a scarcely concealed look of annoyance. “You should go. Your work can wait until you return, at the very least.”

  I sighed. “And how long will this meeting take?”

  “Longer than you would wish, I imagine. But the citizens depend on your leadership. If you won’t do it for your sense of duty to the other Magistros, do it for them.” She nodded to the fields, where the many citizens of Pethya worked with slaves and beasts of labor during the day, toiling in the dirt to sustain the vast hunger of the nation. They lived short, ignorant lives compared to me. Dying at the age of fifty, if they were lucky, while I had already surpassed a century, doing the kind of research and work that altered history. That righted monumental wrongs. Or at least got close. Again, such thoughts cast shadows over my thinking, and I felt the warring influence of sorrow and determination threaten to pull me back to my efforts inside. I stared out over the lands below, the stretch of darkness where the countless hovels sat and the normal people—my people—lived their lives. A sense of tired paternal duty weighed down on me.

  I’m already old enough to be a father to the oldest of them, I thought, leaning forward upon the railing. It was important to reflect on that. On my age, on my responsibility. Maecia was right about that, at least. “Where did all the years go, Sister? We were young, once. Fickle and reckless, full of life and na?ve energy. How did we get so old? How did we lose so much so quickly?” I turned and took in her face, unmarked by the cruelties of age, looking not a year past her early thirties. Yet her eyes told a different story. “You used to want to be a soldier once.”

  “And for a time, I got my wish. Lucky me.” A sardonic smile touched her thinned lips. “And you a voice of the people. A Poet.”

  “Far from where I stand now, quite opposite to such democratic hopes. Can you imagine me spending my days in something so pure? So simple?”

  “I can,” she said. “Quite easily. And I was not the only one who thought you might’ve been better suited toward a life of service and art.”

  I thought back to what now seemed my youth, of the great Kastalec war between Pethya and the young Vasian Princedom and its rebellious allies. Of what was stolen from me. And what I stole from them in return. Of her wishes for me, her dreams for us. I gripped the railing and let out a long sigh. “You needn’t remind me.”

  “But here you are now, Magistros. That’s more power than any Poet could wish for.”

  “It doesn’t even the scales, Maecia.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest it did.”

  I nodded, offering a grim smile to her. “Worry not. Now, when is this meeting you—”

  I stopped suddenly as Maecia’s head flicked to the side, eyes darting past in alarm. “Do you feel that?”

  The Spirit energy in the air was typical of this location, slightly altered by the presence of the Grand Observatory, but not much, considering its true potential. I closed my eyes, focusing harder. She was right. There was a turbulence, a shift too sudden to be natural. “There’s a disturbance. It feels distant,” I said, cocking my head, feeling beyond the typical range of my abilities, “but someone is casting. I’m sure of it.”

  “Can you tell what is being cast?”

  “It’s messy, disturbed. It could be a simple invocation warped by distance. Or something else. It’s muted. As if… intentional.”

  “No,” she muttered, aghast. I turned back to see his sister’s face bent in violent hostility. The kind of look she wore before a battle. “Prepare yourself. This is an ambush.”

  I began to ask something when a sharp, hot pain flashed up my side—it felt like the bite of an arrow, but my calculating mind soon named it. Soul Fire. Hands moving by practiced intuition, possible only by the early warning, I drew much of the flame from my Corrupting flesh and flung it high, lighting the balcony and mountainside in a deathly glow. Like a bolt of lightning, it arced up, slashing the night with the stuff of harnessed decay. A noiseless ripple of death coursed through me. And in its ghastly light, I saw squadrons of darkly clothed men and women arrayed in helix patterns only a few hundred feet away upon the mountain’s sloped face, emerging from hiding spots. My chest thumped and lungs froze in a silenced gasp. Memories resurfaced, fearful and horrid.

  Maecia screamed my name and wrenched a hand out, returning a volley of her own Soul Fire. It blazed through the air, a black and sickly green, exploding rock in a hiss of incinerating death. Half a dozen of the casters died, flesh melted into puddles of necromantic sludge, skeletons clattering to the rocks like a seer’s tossed bones. But her victory was short-lived, for one of the helixes finished a group incantation, and I barely had time to widen my eyes in horror. It flashed through the air like captured lightning, striking my sister. I tossed up a ward of reflective death to temporarily stop any more Soul Fire and spun to face her.

  The curse had already set. Veins black as the void spiderwebbed across her skin, their progress halting near her neck as she fought it, eyes blazing a fiery red, Sorcery at work. I tried to focus through the mind-numbing pain of my own Corrupted flesh and pushed in works of Sorcery straight to her blood. Maecia screamed as my magic burrowed through her. I reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, putting my whole being into the casting. The black flow slowed, then stopped, lingering at her throat, nearly overtaking her. Together, we fought it, and we were winning.

  But this was no fool’s ambush.

  I felt my ward shatter, so I turned with one arm outstretched, channeling some freed-up power in one last desperate effort as another curse struck my being. My blood went thick and cold all along my side. Too much to shift to a non-vital location for sequestering. I was dying. My work. My lost love… She was doomed. Doomed!

  And because of these creatures!

  Seconds to act before Death met me, her skeletal hand outstretched in an eternal temptation. A brief moment. And that was all. What would be my final act in this world? What parting gift? What lasting scar? I had only one answer to such a question.

  Maecia, my dear sister… She had to live. And to live, the enemy had to be extinguished.

  From the world below, where the energy of Spirits went upon death, I beckoned their arrival. My unknown enemy shouted out in alarm, but the Dead were my specialty. Scores of them tore through the earth. Hordes of them. Legions. Men and women screamed, the helixes fragmenting to battle this new enemy as flares of Soul Fire ignited the air with screams of horror and pain. The summoned Shells were little more than bones, moving with sluggish determination, gripping and rending with inhuman strength. They tore their way from the earth, insatiable, uncountable, surrounding, enveloping my enemy.

  I turned, power a dwindling flame to its former blaze, and watched in horror as Maecia collapsed, eyes rolling back in her head, black blood snaking under her skin up her throat.

  “No!” I screamed, reaching out.

  But it was too late. To the sounds of the dying, my mind slipped into unconsciousness as the curse won. Corruption eating away all with insatiable need, all resistance futile.

  My last act had been for nothing.