All agree: those most suited to guide the Sul Empire are rarely those best to guard it. Still, each Imperial Triumvirate bows to the oath—because the oath pays in coin no other office mints.

  The Imperial Gifts near always evolve into something unique. In doing, they purchase a private dominion after death. As [Paragon], rank is measured in the creation of one’s own craft, in ones creation of something new. To be Empress is to wager a moment of rule and a lifetime of sacrifice for an eternity of privilege.

  Tell an ambitious heart of richer wagers, if any exist.

  - Reflections on Power, as dictated by the Empress of Silver

  Aslavain: Twenty-Five Days After the Summer Solstice

  Sylva sat, measuring each breath while trumpeting elephants, hooting lemurs, and distant birds filled the air. If her eyes had been open, she was sure she would see the restless movement of Eidolons and candidates. She could smell the storm gathering as clouds condensed overhead. She might have watched the ritual, had Krinka not asked her to still herself, open to the Sulphen, and prepare—yet how could anyone find calm a heartbeat before discovering a mentor’s design?

  She inhaled for six steady beats, chest strings tightening before she released the air. With each cycle she sensed the Sulphen pulsing nearby. Only now did she grasp why the elders had drilled them so ruthlessly in stillness: days on the ramparts beneath sun and wind, hours in webbed chambers whose layered scents told their own sagas. She’d never excelled at reading those perfumed languages, yet the practice—sorting hues and timelines—had anchored her. Her breath slid into an effortless, open rhythm.

  “Good,” Krinka said.

  Sylva opened her eyes, blinking at the near-dark beneath the vast tree and the roiling clouds.

  Krinka arched a brow. “I typically give my students a choice of implement. In better—well, less chaotic—times, I might have shown you the Imperial Poetry style you uncovered in Tir Na Nog, or the sky-borne Songs Althara now sings. You might have learned wands, staves, even spellbooks.” He met her gaze. “Forgive me for skipping the preliminaries.”

  Sylva’s pulse surged, a drum against her ribs. Krinka had something better in mind for her—or did he think she wasn’t ready? She crushed the doubt; he’d said he could have taught her those arts. No reason to belittle him with her anxiety. She steadied her breathing and waited.

  “I have an implement—gifted by a former student who was… dear to me. She lived and breathed the sympathetic arts of the Silklands and spent her life weaving a single spellstring.” Krinka drew the object from his sleeve.

  Its lower half was smooth, brown-red wood, the haft wrapped in dark leather woven into web-like patterns along the grain. The upper half spilled into a dangling mass of strings. Sylva studied them as Krinka lifted the spellstring: each strand came from a different substance—silk, wool, hemp, cotton—and more she couldn’t name as the colors shifted.

  “Each string carries its own sympathies,” Krinka explained, lifting a white strand. “Wool may evoke patience, warmth, innocence.” He added, drawing out a sinew thread, “Or violence, the hunt, prey.” He let the bundle fall. “Hold your conviction, and those sympathies become precise commands to the Sulphen.”

  Krinka placed the spellstring in her hands, and for an instant his fingers lingered before letting go. She wondered what that former student had meant to him and promised herself she would ask—someday. Sylva turned her attention to the handle, the leather webbing seeming to cling to her skin, then slid her fingers along the hanging strands as Krinka spoke on.

  “You feed the Sulphen the Word using the scholar’s script and these cords. It works like a quipu for spellcasting—[Thaumaturge], [Wizard], or any craft.”

  Sylva glanced from the spellstring to Krinka. It was perfect. It was exactly what she had dreamed of. What she had thought had been denied to her. She bowed as deeply as she had to the empress herself. Casselia had secured her an audience with Althara, but Krinka had bestowed a gift greater than any she’d known. He had seen her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, letting every syllable ring true. “I swear, by my name, my clan, and my power, that I will honor your friend—and her craft.” Krinka’s expression softened. She wasn’t sure why the formal oath had slipped out; she knew the weight woven into such words. Perhaps that was the point. He would hear more than polite gratitude, and she had no fear of a promise she intended to keep. It was right.

  “Your oath is accepted,” Krinka said, and the words sent a shiver through her. Sylva felt her lifestring tighten around the pledge. “Let’s practice while Althara works her ritual, shall we? The air is dense with sky authority— which of the strings answers it?”

  Krinka pivoted the conversation, and Sylva followed. She brushed along the bundle of strings, feeling each in turn until she found a gossamer-light white strand that seemed to float of its own accord. Krinka nodded, satisfied.

  “She often used that strand high in the canopy; it was her favorite for halting lethal falls. Pair it with a cord that bears slowing associations, and you’ll match the talisman’s effect from earlier.” Krinka guided Sylva’s hands, showing how to select and weave the fibers.

  Sylva flowed through his instruction with a grace that surprised even her. Her fingers danced over the bundle, knotting strands into spiderweb patterns of meaning. [Lesser Dexterity] guided the intricate motions; [Sympathetic Intuition] drew her to the right thread and the strongest argument. She felt ready.

  High above, Althara’s song unfurled. Sylva couldn’t hear the words, not from this distance, but she saw their imprint: the Sulphen rippled across the sky in an intricate, ever-widening lattice. She witnessed clouds drawn inward, spiraling faster and faster. Sylva didn’t know how long remained in the ritual, but she was determined not to miss it for a heartbeat—not with Krinka beside her, not with a new implement humming in her hands.

  Lotem pulled in heaving breaths with every stride as he chased Alsarana across the grassland toward Dornogor. Above, the sky looked like a stew that had been stirred, foam condensing into a dense central knot. Clouds cast shifting bands of light and darkness below, and a rolling cacophony of beasts rang on every side. Alsarana offered no explanation for what was happening—only the order that Lotem run faster.

  It had been hours of marching and strain, and Lotem felt his body begin to flag. He wasn’t sure how he had made it this far—perhaps Sabel’s constant cheer on his shoulder, narrating everything she saw. Since her shock faded, the kitten had become a never-ending stream of questions and notions. Lotem was still coming to grips with what the evolution meant.

  Sabel had nearly doubled in size, her once-awkward frame stretching into something sleeker—regal, even. Her fur, no longer burnt orange, rippled in shifting reds and golds, like wind-driven waves through prairie grass or a subtle, flickering flame. Lotem was certain her coat was magical now—that she was magical now.

  “Lotem, are you listening? I’ve described three birds I intend to catch someday, and you’ve only grunted. You may look like a brute, but you needn’t act like one.” Her thoughts yanked his focus, and he glanced at his shoulder. She sat there, hind legs anchored in his cloak, licking a paw before scrubbing it across her face.

  “I’m sure we can arrange a hunt; our mentors will certainly oblige hunting birds,” he sent back. Lotem was grateful he needn’t speak—every breath was ragged. Alsarana kept glancing over, eager at the prospect of him falling behind. Lotem pushed harder; they couldn’t be much farther—could they?

  “Are those the elephants? The noises match what you called elephants. Could I hunt one someday? I heard I’ll grow big.” Sabel didn’t give him time to answer. Her thoughts leapt to the elk herd visible to the south as they crested a hill. Lotem suspected they would reach the city soon, though he doubted they would beat the ritual’s completion.

  Alsarana hissed a command as they topped yet another damnable hill. “Hurry. Hurry. We will arrive soon. We head for the tree.” Lotem doubted he could move faster after hours of running, yet, he figured Alsarana couldn’t complain so long as he kept this pace. He fixed on that thought while tackling the next rise.

  “Do you hear that? Is the sound coming from the person up there?” Sabel asked, tilting her head toward the knot of clouds. Lotem craned his neck, risking a glance skyward. He listened, trying to discern what she heard, but caught only the trumpeting and shuffle of nearby herds.

  “A person? What are they saying?”

  “They aren’t talking—they’re singing. You can’t hear it?”

  “Alsarana,” Lotem called. “Do you hear a song? Sabel says someone up there is singing.”

  “The kitten can hear the song?” Alsarana asked, slowing and fixing his gaze on Sabel. “Interesting. Interesting. I hadn’t expected so much.” He let Lotem’s longer strides draw even with him. “If you have breath to ask questions, you have breath to run. Not much longer.”

  “What does it sound like?” Lotem asked.

  “It’s like a storm before thunder; like a single raindrop falling through the sky—like triumph and ruin.” Lotem sensed her pride in the imagery, though it baffled him. How could a song resemble a raindrop? Did raindrops make any sound at all? And why triumph and ruin?

  “That is… oddly specific,” Lotem told her as they crested another hill and the colossal tree of Dornogor rose into view.

  “I tried to think of how Sylva would phrase it,” Sabel said proudly. “Now that I’m officially smart, I should act like it. Sylva’s the smartest person I know, and she sometimes speaks all formal and poetic. I see why—being cryptic feels mysterious!”

  “So the song doesn’t actually sound like that?”

  “Well—” Sabel’s enthusiasm dimmed. “It kind of reminds me of a thunderstorm. The words shiver through the air, and I can almost smell the wind change. She sounds triumphant, as though it were a grand achievement she’s eager for—but the animals and birds—they sense the song and the sky as a coming calamity.”

  “You can tell all that?” Lotem asked, slowing his pace. Was this a side effect of her evolution? She could not only hear the melody but interpret it—understand it. How? Lotem knew that Sylva could find similar associations; she had explained very primly that sympathetic magic was all about understanding the undercurrents of meaning behind a thing. Sylva had made it sound like herding wild elk with nothing but footprints and a prayer they followed true. It was not the type of skill he expected Sabel to simply have.

  “It’s not that difficult anymore, Lotem. Everything I see, hear, and smell comes loaded with meaning, like sudden understanding. Those birds”—Sabel tapped a still-damp paw at a cluster of Axebeaks glaring around them—“feel like weapons long since unsheathed. Any wrong move would cut me. And that bison”—she gestured with the limb toward a lone guardian ahead of a ring of calves—“reminds me of you: protective, unbending. It would defend its own despite the cost.”

  “These associations—they just come to you?”

  “It’s hard to explain. Before I changed, I somehow knew what was safe to eat without knowing why—this is like that. A matter of instinct. Do you think all Dreamlight Prowlers feel this way?”

  “I’m—not sure,” Lotem replied hesitantly. He was still trying to understand what Sabel was telling him. She had an entirely new set of instincts and, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t figure out why. Was this because of the Dreamweaver Frogs she ate?

  He pulled his thoughts from Sabel’s revelations when Alsarana slowed and motioned for him to do likewise. They neared the city, drawing stares from Eidolons tending their herds and candidates gazing at the churned sky. Alsarana kept on, but at a calmer, almost casual pace. Lotem matched the naga, lungs still rasping. Together they wove through streets, crowds gaping skyward, and whirlwinds of panicked birds scattering before Alsarana.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Alsarana slowed, then stopped as the field at the tree’s base came into view and the black-armored guards holding back a throng of Eidolons and candidates. Beyond them Casselia and Hadrian sparred, unfazed by the spectacle. Hadrian lunged with wooden daggers until Casselia halted and corrected him. Nearby, Krinka and Sylva sat engrossed in a lesson. Lotem sighed—of course they were training.

  “Sealbearers,” Alsarana hissed, drawing the word out like a curse. “I haven’t seen a Sealbearer in far too long.”

  “Lotem, what is a Sealbearer?” Sabel asked, a tremor of fear in her thoughts. “Alsarana usually feels like bones long forgotten in the earth; now he feels like venom and hate. I… I don’t like it.”

  “The Imperial Guard?” Lotem ventured. “Do you have a history with them?”

  “Oh, I do. Those bastards took my arms—sealed my magic—bound me.” Alsarana slithered forward without waiting for Lotem. The Sealbearers stiffened; one guard’s hand slid to the wand at his belt while the other muttered under her breath. Lotem prayed Alsarana kept his temper. The Order of the Black Seal was not known for mercy—they struck first and asked later.

  “Stop,” the wand-bearing Sealbearer intoned. His blue eyes flicked between Lotem and Alsarana. Lotem obeyed, but Alsarana kept gliding. “Stop,” the man repeated, louder now; authority filling the air causing nearby Eidolons and candidates to fall silent and look at him. Alsarana slowed but didn’t stop his advance.

  “I have been summoned by none less than Althara Vandros, the Tempest, Empress of our Empire. I have been summoned at the behest of the Crownless herself as a member of her sworn Triumvirate. I come as a member of the [Triumvirate of the Broken Crown]. Do you contest my right to be here?”

  Alsarana’s phrasing was civil, yet the venom beneath made it a clear challenge. The Sealbearers stiffened at the statement, and two more black-armored figures emerged to observe. Lotem spotted Casselia watching as well.

  “Lord Harbinger,” the Sealbearer began, with more respect than Lotem expected, “the Empress gave no warning of your arrival, and she was clear; we are to keep this area—”

  “Enough,” Casselia snapped, cutting off the Sealbearer. She strode forward, exasperation plain. Lotem caught a flash of annoyance from the female Sealbearer and wondered at their history. “Als, thank you for your haste; I can see it cost you,” she added, noting Lotem’s reddened face. “The Empress charged me to summon you, and you have obeyed. Surely”—her gaze pinned each guard—“that grants him the right to stand on this ground while she performs the First Breaking of Ysaril.”

  “Without direct authorization—” the female Sealbearer began, but Casselia silenced her with a furious slash of her hand.

  “If you deny the Harbinger entrance, we shall leave—Empress’s orders or no. Frankly, we’d see the ritual better outside this canopy. We stay at her behest, but if you won’t honor her words, why should we?”

  The guards shifted under Casselia’s glare, suddenly less certain. The lead Sealbearer eased his hand from his wand and gestured Alsarana and Lotem forward.

  “Mordain!” the female Sealbearer began. “We don’t have proper authorization—”

  “Seranth,” Mordain cut in, harsh. “I lead here, and you’ve already made one poor decision out of my sight—don’t make me report a second. Did Althara summon the Harbinger? I don’t know; we weren’t privy to the Crownless’ words with the Empress. But I won’t question a [Venerate] with the Empress’s ear just to follow protocol.”

  “The Sealkeeper—”

  “Enough,” Mordain sighed, turning back to Alsarana and Lotem. “We will not stop you. Accept my apologies; we sometimes take our oaths too literally.”

  “Als, enough,” Casselia warned as Alsarana straightened, ready to retort. “Mordain, thank you for your consideration; we won’t complicate your duties while following the Empress’s will.” Mordain nodded and waved them on before turning back to the crowd. Alsarana and Lotem advanced past the guards toward Hadrian, Sylva, and Krinka.

  “The song—it’s changing,” Sabel said to him as Alsarana, Krinka, and Casselia all glanced skyward. Lotem followed their gaze as the cloudbanks accelerated, dissolving into the churning mass above. “I can feel it—the magic in the air. Lotem, do you smell that? Like the moment after lightning.”

  “The ritual nears completion, but we have a few minutes yet. Als, we need to talk. Krinka—learn what happened to Sabel and field Lotem’s questions. When the ritual ends, we’ll have much to discuss.”

  Althara hovered just below the crucible of clouds that hung centrally over Dornogor, her Fog Robe a thunderhead billowing beneath as she sang. Each note braided her authority into the Sulphen, and she could feel as the Sulphen responded to her will. Thin wisps spiraled around her voice, drawn from the vapor above and spun into the mist-lattice she had been shaping since she rose from the canopy of the tree. The spell arrays lattice quivered, its condensation threads straining to break formation—and the crimson hue of late afternoon already brushed the rim of the sky.

  She envied mages who worked with more accommodating elements. Had she mastered the patient Barzaminian tradition—carving glyphwork into gemstones—she could have lingered over every angle of the pattern. Her crown, when she deigned to wear it, bore six stones carved with some of the most intricate arrays she had ever seen. Each jewel was a relic on its own, capable of unleashing Sulphen in cataclysmic displays. She was certain that even the greatest cloud mages to have ever lived—even the founders of Ysaril itself—wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same type of ritual array using their element.

  Clouds were meant to drift, to sway, and—eventually—to dissipate. Every ritual Althara attempted, great or small, became a sprint against that surrender. She remembered arriving at the shrine in Steinmoos, the City Within the Clouds, for her own entrance into Aslavain; she had watched rivers of fog pour from Fologian boughs and run inexorably westward. That memory salted her tongue now, metallic and urgent.

  Fog never rested in the Fologian Forest; it bowed to gravity, drifted earthward, and marched toward the great inland sea west of the Brood. Perhaps, when the crown at last slipped from her brow and she felt ready to become a [Paragon], she would chase that pilgrimage herself. She had long wondered where the vapors she had watched for hours finally dispersed. Her own life had mirrored those tendrils: the mist swept ever westward, she eastward, into the Empire’s hard core—into everything she once thought she desired.

  Althara focused on the heavy mass of clouds above as the sky at the edges of her influence began to run out of clouds she could pull. When no more vapor remained, she would have to loose the ritual—but not yet. Each fresh plume she summoned, she skimmed for meaning, authority, the very marrow of Sulphen, and threaded the thin strands of more powerful mist that each cloud contained into her design. Cloud banks broad enough to drown cities buckled inward as thin, almost threadlike coils were syphoned downward with every verse of her song to join her weaving.

  Steinmoos was a Kiel city to its core, and her teachers had done their best to teach a provincial girl from Mehrdad, the City of Masks, their ways. Althara had never found the tying of strings or the weaving of grand incantations suited her, much as she had tried those first years. So she relied on the earliest lesson her parents gave her: sing. She had crooned to fog and dew long before her voice could move them. They called her the Songbird of Steinmoos well before the courts learned to fear the Tempest, and between those names she still stretched—one foot in the clouds, one in the melody.

  And so Althara hung above Dornogor, singing mist into filaments she guided the way master weavers once guided her hands. She drew strand after strand of cloud into a dizzying three-dimensional knot that pulsed against each fickle gust. She had sung for hours; the iron taste of blood edged her breath as she fed the final vapors into the growing matrix. Her voice guttered to a whisper, but her will held the pattern suspended, and for one heartbeat the world waited in breathless hush.

  The cries of whirling birds, the trumpeting elephants—even the sounds of the city—fell silent as every eye tilted skyward. Althara drove her will into the work, feeling each interlocking sigil shiver into motion. The Sulphen she had teased down, filament by filament, ignited as the Word of her design directed the surge. She flexed her Will and, with a single, crystalline note wrenched from the depths of her resolve, set the heavens in motion.

  The clouds condensed. They shifted like a panicked crowd and roiled like a cauldron on the verge of boiling over. The sphere of vapor shrank, shivered, and churned as the seconds slipped by. The clouds wanted freedom.

  Althara didn’t need to do anything more. She could have drifted to the ground and watched like the crowds below. She could return to Casselia and demand the first of her lessons with the woman, or deliver her first lesson to the [Venerate’s] pupils. Once her array had been activated and the sacrifice expended, all that was left was to watch.

  The clouds billowed outward. The barrier that compressed them was suddenly gone. Like a popped balloon, the trapped vapors expanded in every direction. The wave of dense water and vapor should have blown Althara from the sky, drowning her beneath their sheer weight. The liquid, the fog, the air itself refused. They were Althara’s subjects, as much as anyone in the Empire.

  Althara began to sing. Not the working song that would guide and ease the Sulphen, nor the gentle song that brought her peace in moments of chaos. Althara sang with the voice of an Empress of the Sul Empire, the [Singer of State and Storm]. She activated her skills, one by one, until she knew that history would hear this song.

  The clouds condensed. The fastest to escape the roiling mass slowed and were drawn back. They were pulled and compacted until the mass was even denser than before. The clouds yearned for freedom.

  The First Breaking of Ysaril was a tragedy. The death of something beautiful. The destruction of something irreplaceable. It was the story of how underestimating the races born of the Blood Wars and the Tul-Tul-Tar ended in ruin. The First Breaking of Ysaril was a wake-up call.

  The clouds billowed outward—all restraint gone as their cage fell away. In a heartbeat, Althara was surrounded, her normal vision obscured. The clouds tried to escape. They raced away, desperate to be free.

  Althara sang the tale of the First Breaking of Ysaril, and her voice rode the wind so perfectly that every ear for miles heard each note as if it were whispered to each of them alone. She began with Ysaril’s splendor: ivory spires spiraling sky-high, their tapering tips piercing the cloud-banks. In festival season, those towers wove silver filaments of vapor, unfurling bridges of living cloud that knit themselves into a lattice of mist-tunnels and weightless arches. Each arch revealed marvels that shimmered and shifted like half-remembered dreams.

  The clouds condensed. They fought and struggled as the magic drew them back. Althara could almost hear the screams of rage, and despair from the clouds as their escape was foiled once more. The clouds screamed for freedom.

  She sang of the rise of the Bloodmarked, of the endless raids by blood-drinkers and the horrors suffered as civilians were turned into thralls and hurled against the city. She sang of the breaking of the Eternal Domicile of Clouds. Of shards of alabaster skyglass forever lost to the word. She sang of the rain that drenched the continent for weeks.

  The clouds erupted in a shockwave, a series of concentric rings as strata stretched in every direction like ripples on a pond. They flashed with blinding light—first pure white, then splintered into color as though the sky itself were a prism shattering the sun. The release was deafening, a groan of thunder louder than thought itself that only grew as the clouds spread. The sound filled her to her bones, a low, chest-shaking rattle that shuddered in tune with the storm.

  Althara felt her senses expand—[Cumulus Curiosity], [Eyes of the Rainveil], [Perception of the Witch of Silteranin]. She let the abilities of her true class bloom as the first drops of rain began to fall. She sang of how the skies grieved for Ysaril—crying, weeping for the child it lost. Despite the thunder that smothered every thought, all beneath the clouds could hear the Empress’s song.

  The rain fell with a grace completely at odds with the scene. The drops hit the watching crowds and panicking beasts with no more force than a gentle spring shower. The drops were fat and steady, but they lacked any power to harm. She didn’t worry about lightning; she would allow her ritual to injure none of her subjects, nor anyone else within Aslavain.

  A bolt of lightning split the sky to her south. A second flashed to her east. She sent her senses to the strikes, swallowing a distant worry. The ritual should never have needed lightning—not in Aslavain. Not unless…she felt her song falter.

  Her senses reached the strike point moments after the energy dissipated: a smoking corpse, ruined by the bolt, fleeing rats—dozens diving into burrows. Her awareness flared wider with sudden urgency. It swept through the demesne of Tir Na Nog, flickering across the bone forest and obsidian spires, then raced over the Diontel, sweeping the hills as the storm’s rain began to fall. With every flash of lightning her understanding grew.

  Rats. So many rats. Most were the size of hunting dogs, with long, curled teeth jutting from panting, panicked jaws. Her attention flashed with every bolt of lightning, and she began to see more. She saw humanoid rats striding on two legs as they herded their beast-like kin into warrens. Some of the beasts were as large as horses, ridden by the bipedal riders as they sought shelter.

  She returned to herself as her senses drew back. Only then did she notice her voice—silent, the song broken. She knew these creatures. She knew what they were, and the truth shocked her to the core. Rats across the Diontel—information the Empire had possessed all along, yet rats were not Ratlings and Ratlings had been extinct since the Carrion Wars.

  “Candidates, Eidolons, [Venerate] of the Sul Empire—this is Althara Vandros, the Tempest. I speak with the authority of Rhaethan Blackblade and Eseldra Ironbloom, on behalf of the Sul Empire heed my words as command. Enemies have entered Aslavain.”

  Her words rode the clouds themselves, filtering down through rain and wind. She was sure every candidate in Aslavain would hear them by day’s end. As the clouds traveled, so would the news.

  “Allies of the Tul—known as Ratlings have breached Aslavain. They have long been thought extinct; it has been nearly three thousand years since they were last seen. I declare them enemies. Slay on sight. Give them no more mercy than you would a Tul. They are beasts.”

  She knew she should wait—should speak with Eseldra and Rhaethan. They were her partners, and much as they grated on one another, they were friends. But the ritual was already in motion; the die had been cast. It was now or never, and they would understand. She spoke with iron in her voice, a resolution as sharp as a blade forming with each word.

  “Any near Dornogor—hear this. I declare a Revelry of Stone and Bone to begin three days hence. For twelve days and twelve nights, we will hunt. The Triumvirates who contribute most to our efforts will be rewarded—I swear this on my crown. Those farther from the Diontel, prepare for war. I summon you. Our newest legions will march within the month, and the best of Aslavain will join them. Stand. Fight. Grow.”

  Althara took a deep breath and roared as lightning began to truly fall across the Diontel. This time, her words were carried into every warren and burrow touched by wind and rain. They were heard by every rat and Ratling she could sense beneath her clouds.

  “Flee. Flee. Flee. For the Sul march to war. Hide in your burrows. Cower in your warrens. Flee to wherever you call home. We will find you, and this time we will ensure the job is done properly. I swear this on my crown, on my name, on my reputation: we will eradicate you. This is war.”

  Althara only prayed that she had realized the danger before it was too late. Five years. They had received the first reports of the rats more than five years ago. Had they eaten their way in? Could they bring the Tul into Aslavain? She resolved herself, they would need to end the threat as soon as possible. There had never been a Revelry of Stone and Bone in Aslavain, none before her had needed to declare one. She hoped the candidates could rise to the occasion.