Walden Moran had thrown enough parties to know that things were not going well, but for the life of him, he could not discover why.

  It couldn’t be the musicians, were they not the finest quartet in the city? Their melodies wound around the great room and tempted a respectable number of dancing couples to twirl each other around to polite applause.

  He tapped his chin lightly, appraising the furnishings. No one with any kind of breeding could take umbrage with the decor, surely? He had just had the entire mansion remodeled, the east wall replaced with a towering glass window that framed the crooked Sun Tower perfectly. The marble of the hearth had been carved by the dwarves at Burley and was a veritable work of art, worth its weight in, well in dwarven carved marble.

  With a snap of his fingers, he summoned a server, plucked a dainty canapé from a silver tray, and popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Simply divine. He sipped his wine and swirled the liquid around his cheeks. The vintage was an utterly perfect match. So what in all the abyssal hells was it?

  “It's the bloody long-ears, Lord Moran! This blockade of theirs has completely shut down the harbor, all business has come to a standstill,” Friar Tanner decried, his gums peeling back to reveal his large, horse-like teeth. “That’s not to say I don’t like them, many of my friends are Faelen, and they’re perfectly respectable. But even so, having so many Mazral uniforms around the city just puts people on edge, it's damn bad for business.”

  Friar Tanner was the sort to decry everything, loudly and often ignorantly, but in this case Moran realized that the walrus-faced man might have actually identified the very problem that had been eluding him.

  The two Faelen guards by the main door wore gaudy red uniforms that clashed terribly with his new drapes. How could anyone hope to enjoy an evening with such an eyesore?

  “Friar Tanner, I thank you for pointing this out. The effect of the Faelen occupation of the city is far more severe than I had previously thought,” Moran murmured.

  Tanner nodded his head, producing a hurupmph sound, as he smoothed his white pencil moustache with a fat finger. “I’m glad you agree, Lord Moran, I was hoping that–”

  “They are positively ruining my party.” Moran snapped his fingers again, and Martin scurried over and gave a shallow bow. “Marty, dear boy, run upstairs and fetch the room divider from my chambers, the large one with those wonderfully painted peacocks.”

  Martin hurried away, but Friar Tanner, regrettably remained, clearly not willing to let the matter go now that he had the bit between his large teeth.

  “Lord Moran.” The holy man took on what he must have thought was a fatherly tone. Had he met Moran’s father, he would have realized how laughable that was. A hacking cough and a mumbled curse would have been more accurate. “As a preeminent Arcanist and the first son of the city, surely you would be best placed to intercede.”

  “You’re right, Friar Tanner, something must be done.”

  “Then you will take a stand?”

  “I feel I must, or the whole evening will be ruined. You’ll excuse me.”

  The Faelen guards stood stiffly to attention at the main door, their glares made slightly less threatening by their heavily powdered faces, tightly braided gray wigs, and gold rings that hung from their elongated, pointed ears. Street actors used to don similar garb and prance around to the mocking jeers of the crowd, but none would dare now.

  As long as they don’t speak with that ridiculous accent, Moran thought as he approached the guards. “Gentle guardsmen, I would be so bold as to ask you to relocate, perhaps outside the door, or better still, down to the main gate.”

  “By the esteemed decree of Myam-tal, we are to remain steadfast.” The Faelen guard accompanied his words with an exceptionally well-executed bow.

  Muttered comments and hushed laughter arose nearby and Moran felt a spike of irritation. Myam-tal humiliated him at every turn and even the lowliest Faelen acted like knights of some damn ancient realm, speaking down to him in his own mansion!

  A labored huffing announced the arrival of Martin, leading several footmen bowed under the immense weight of the eight-foot-tall room divider.

  “Place it there, Marty, there's a good fellow,” Moran indicated.

  Once installed, the huge edifice completely blocked the main door and the two Faelen guards and Moran turned to assess the room, taking a steady breath. Dancers danced, gentlemen made bad jokes, and women laughed. But the discordant note remained, like a splinter in his senses.

  His eyes were drawn to the portrait above the mantelpiece. The dusty painting had been unearthed during the renovation, cleaned and mounted that very morning.

  Moran approached, swirling the wine in his glass as his grandfather glared down at him with frosty disapproval. The old man's gray arcanist robes were covered in medals, and the customary library background was adorned with various sharp pieces of weaponry.

  Was the painting the problem? For the life of him he couldn’t see why, it was a proud heritage. His grandfather had made the citadel of Morbian what it was today, the bulwark that had protected the Arcanum lands for a hundred years, cutting off the ocean passage to any would-be invaders.

  “He was a right bastard he was,” came a syrupy voice behind him that was followed by a wet cough.

  Moran gave an involuntary shudder and turned to the weasel-faced man behind him. “Odred, what are you doing here, you horrible little man?”

  “Wanted to see your fancy party.” Odred looked about, his face scrunched up in disapproval. “Bit dull, ain’t it?”

  Odred had the stench of a victim of some terrible curse, and Moran tried to shut down his sense of smell. Nearby, the cello player gagged and missed a note.

  “Get out of here before I have you thrown out,” Moran hissed, signaling to Martin across the room.

  “You’d throw me out? Your granda’d turn over in his grave. Specially if he saw you let the long-ears into his house. Why don’t you go show 'em who’s boss?” Odred extended his hands, cackling as he hopped from foot to foot, miming power shooting from his grubby palms.

  “I leave the fighting to the mercenaries, the praying to the missionaries, and magic to the mystics,” Moran replied.

  “That sort of talk pass for being clever around here, does it?” Odred sneered. “That’s yer problem Waldy, too clever by half. Always got yer nose in a book, yer skin and bone!” Odred looked up at the portrait, sniffing and wiping a mock tear from his eye. "Look at him, the old bastard. He went out in the world and toughened himself up, made a name for himself.”

  Martin arrived trailing two burly footmen and gave Moran an expectant look.

  “The Sun Tower was feared back then oh yes.” Odred went on. “Without him there would be stone-eyed, copper-haired bastard children all over the place. You can forget the long-ears, we’d all be eating cats and bowing and scraping to the Erudoran King.”

  Moran blinked. “Cats?”

  “Well known fact, your average stone-eye can’t resist a bit o cat.” Odred hacked up something into his mouth and after a thoughtful moment of investigation, swallowed it.

  Moran shuddered. “Marty. Take him out through the kitchens, and if he touches anything, burn it. When you’re done, come back and get rid of the painting.”

  Odred raised his hands in mock surrender, unleashing a nauseating wave of living stink. “All right, all right, I’m going. Only came to give you this,” he sniffed, reaching a hand into a pocket and producing a rusted key.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Guests held delicate lace handkerchiefs to their noses as Odred was escorted out, but Moran didn’t care a wit for them now. He weighed the small key in his palm, his gaze drawn inexorably to the dark stone tower that reared up over the citadel like a gnarled giant's finger. How many years had it been since he had been inside?

  As much as he hated what it had become, he felt its alluring pull.

  The nightfall bell rang out as Moran strode through the empty streets of the citadel of Morbian, the cold drizzle soaking through the hood of his gray cloak and into the soft leather of his dancing shoes.

  The spectre of war hung over the city, pulling on its nerves like a bow drawn tight, long-eared occupiers and inhabitants alike careful to draw shallow breaths, lest the fragile peace be disturbed.

  Two guards wearing green and gold tabards huddled in an alcove. Not that the place needed guards. When enough people who won’t be missed go missing, people start to notice. How safe the citadel has become, they say. Then a few might wonder what happened to the beggars frequenting the quayside? Some ask what of the orphans that used to roam in gangs? Others ask after the women who plied their trade in dank taverns and dismal alleyways? Though this last group are mostly men of a certain age and they only ask each other, in hushed tones.

  Whispers spread and rumors abound, and the Sun Tower darkens and becomes a fell place to be avoided.

  “Ron, someone’s coming,” one of the guards hissed.

  “What? Oh. You there. Uh, halt!” the second guard called, with an expression he thought appeared threatening but looked like he was recalling a troublesome trip to the privy.

  “Open the gate,” Moran commanded.

  “Lord Moran! Sorry I didn't recognise you there,” the older guard replied, sticking a finger in his ear and waggling it. “Terrible thing to go deaf, I thought for a moment there, you said you wanted to open the gate.”

  “I did,” Moran confirmed.

  The chuckle of laughter died on the older man's lips. “You’re going inside?”

  “The gate if you please, guardsman,” Moran repeated.

  The clang of the metal gate slamming shut echoed off the roughly cut stones that made up the curved edifice of the tower. The whole thing looked to have been rammed together almost haphazardly and by any law of the natural world a brisk wind should bring it tumbling down. But arcanist towers didn’t operate according to anything so mundane as natural laws.

  There were no windows and only a sturdy wooden door at the base. Moran inserted the small rusted key, and the clunk of the lock reverberated.

  Inside, collections of priceless artifacts had been broken apart and left to collect dust on the shelves. At his feet, filthy ashes spilled from a cold fire grate were trodden into priceless rugs.

  Shattered glass lay on the floor in front of a display case that held an ancient hedron. It was likely one of the first ever created to power the great floating citadels of the Arcanum that used to rove the skies. Now it was broken open, his inheritance plundered.

  Up the winding spiral staircase, he passed doors at every level that led, quite impossibly, to multitudes of rooms and chambers. If even half of the rumors were true, then those rooms should be sealed up forever, hiding whatever torturous memories had seeped into their walls.

  Though the tower was only fifty feet tall, the top floor was at least a hundred and fifty feet above the city. Its open sides affording sweeping views across the ocean, the coast, and the hills, yet admitting neither breath of wind nor drop of rain.

  Two fat warships sat in the harbour below, the flag of the so-called Mazral Emperor hanging limp atop their masts. In the channel Moran saw the hazy lamps of a score of more ships. The Faelen had played their hand well. Blockading the channel to prevent aid coming to the Arcanum, occupying the city and ensuring that the Sun Tower would remain neutral.

  “You’re late,” Sumner Nixton wheezed as he shuffled out of the gloom, his robe trailing in the dust on the floor.

  “I was hosting a party. I see you hired Odred as a cleaner,” Moran countered. “And a cook,” he added, seeing the moldy crusts that littered the table.

  Sumner gave a wet cough that could have been a laugh. The years had not been kind to his father. He had always been short, with a slightly crooked back and a shuffling gait, but now there was a musty smell to him, like the wardrobe of somebody long dead.

  “Climb down off of your bloody high horse, you’re going to need to show some humility to negotiate with the Arcanum and the wikkan.”

  Moran blinked in disbelief. “Now you want to negotiate? You chose a side for all of us when you invited the Faelen into the city. Their ships block the passage. They’re in my house!”

  His father waved a hand dismissively and muttered to himself. Along with the remains of old meals, the large table was piled high with books, and he rummaged among them, finally producing a thick sheaf of papers. “You can’t see past your own doorstep. You think too small! I invited the Faelen here to force the hand of the Arcanum and the wikkan. Now they’ll have to give in to my demands. You’ll need this.”

  Moran took the papers and flicked through them. They were demands for obscure parcels of land, gold, titles, treaties, alliances, and pardons for names he had never heard of. “Why would you want any of this?” Moran asked.

  Sumner gave a sly grin. “Is this you telling me you wish to work with me? Sick of your dancing and prancing and polite society? Ready to get your hands dirty?”

  Moran suppressed a shudder at the thought of the filth that lay on his father’s hands, and the horrible stains in the stones of this tower might never be scrubbed clean. “No, the people of this city need not fear the entire family.”

  Sumner gave a great hacking cough and spat a lump of phlegm onto the dusty floor. “You have too much of your mother's misplaced idealism, and that’s no good to me.”

  “And you are delusional. The Arcanum might give in, the gods know they have nothing to lose, but the wikkan do not negotiate, and the Erudorans–”

  Summer slapped his hand on the table, sending empty bottles and old plates crashing down to shatter on the flagstones. “None of them have a choice! Without me, without the tower, the Mazral army will eviscerate them all. They know it, and I know it. Even those black-eyed witches will have to give me what I want.”

  As distasteful as he was, Moran admired his father's cunning. He had contrived to place himself at the convergence of the great powers, and whoever won him as an ally would gain a huge advantage.

  “You will be breaking your word to the Mazral, to Myam-tal.”

  “You and he both disappoint me, with your honor, your lineage and your poxy heritage, your Arcanum pin, and your politics. Nixtons do not hunt in packs, we are lone wolves, we answer to no one!” The old man's ranting descended into another round of wet coughing.

  Walden tossed the papers onto the table. “I am otherwise occupied.”

  “Yes, I hear you’ve been dueling again. How can you stand all that bowing and taking turns? Shaking hands at the end? Bah!”

  “I understand that you grapple with the concept of honorable conduct.”

  Sumner gave a sly grin. “The best attack is when your enemies don’t even know it was you that struck them. Admit it, you’re bored, or you wouldn’t have come. You’ve more of me in you than you care to admit. You want a real fight? It's a long way through the hills to Helgan’s Rest from here, a journey like that would put some hair on your balls.”

  “Go yourself.”

  “You know I can’t go near them after what I did to your grandfather, they still worship the old fool, and Roveran would likely have me killed. You’re one of them, they’ll trust you, and they need the ships gone.”

  It was a bold move to change sides so late in the conflict, potentially a fatal one. Moran glanced over at the tarnished mechanism that haunted the far end of the tower. “Does it even function?”

  Sumner shuffled over and pulled some cobwebs from the wooden frame. . “Function? Your mother’s father's father made this. He was as much a fool as any noble, but as a craftsman, this continent may never again see his like.” Sumner beat the large metal dish with his fist and it produced a low gong and a shower of dust fell to the floor. “It sent the bones of fifty thousand stone-eyes down to the bottom of the passage. It's a masterpiece, though since then most have been too weak to use it, a curse of your mother's bloodline that I fear you have inherited.”

  Moran took a moment to turn the information around in his head, half watching his father move around the chamber, kicking empty wine bottles across the floor as he gathered various books.

  It wasn’t the Faelen guards that had been the problem this evening. It wasn’t even that damn portrait. It was him, he realized. He was bored. Bored of Friar Tanner's religious hypocrisy and the pathetic manoeuvring of the others, bored of his mansion and the endless parade of parties. Here was a chance for adventure—a journey into the wilds. He’d been a middling student, but now he could return to the Arcanum from a position of power.

  His father watched him carefully, always calculating.

  “So, what do you want, boy?”

  There should be a price, but there was only one thing Moran had ever wanted, and they both knew it.

  “I want the Sun Tower,” Moran stated.

  A wet laugh bubbled up from Sumner's throat. “So sentimental. You’ll need more than elbow grease to get some of the stains out of this pile of rocks. You have a deal, but you must go now, tonight.”

  Three bells rang out to proclaim the midnight hour and the Faelen guard on the gate shivered and peered into the fog. Behind him, warm yellow light and laughter leaked from the edges of the gatehouse door. There was a small stove in there, likely a card game, something to drink even.

  The mists swirled in every direction, and the guard decided that only a fool would be out in such miserable weather. Not being a fool himself, he muttered an oath and retreated inside.

  Some time around the tenth bell, the gatehouse was shaken by the clattering of hooves on the causeway.

  The half dozen guards ran outside, but they were too late to stop the thundering horsemen. They argued, and bickered and blamed each other, but in the end failed to choose who would go into the hostile city and make a report.

  After all, the night was cold, and their rations were poor, and how much damage could a group of horsemen do anyway?