Book 5: Epilogue

There was a chill in the northern air.

Pallisur strode through the war camp, ignoring those who stared at his Vestathi-style armor made from silk and leather, materials that would allow him to cast arcane spells without interference. In Ti Kunja, the armor was mostly used for ceremonial purposes now, a memory of earlier days, but there were enough battle wizards in Tormardar for armorers to still remember how to make the real thing.

Pallisur found Ephrenia in the command tent, looking over a map. He knew the three men with her—his oldest living priests, formerly Leonis’s bondmates—but they wouldn’t recognize him in this form. They eyed his pointed ears, glancing back and forth between him and Ephrenia. The men believed her to be seaborn, but it was rare to see seaborn away from the coast.

“Leave us, please,” Ephrenia ordered, and the priests filed out. She turned back to Pallisur, cocking her head to the side. “I don’t remember your eyes being blue.”

“They were—in this body, at least. Would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

“Someone has to deal with the side effects of your spat with Hera,” she said. “I had finally—finally!—convinced Leonis to end his war against the elderfolk, and then he went and got himself killed. His men want revenge.”

“Against Rusol? Surely they understand they don’t have a chance against Larso. You could have convinced them of that if they can’t see it for themselves.”

She sighed. “It’s not that simple. Nothing’s ever as simple as you make it out to be. Right now, the Carved Basin is united for the first time in its history. For all Leonis’s faults, he actually managed to build something here. If I don’t keep them working together for a common cause, they’ll splinter apart. It’s better to keep them focused on Rusol than to let them go back to slaughtering elderfolk villagers, but I did persuade them to wait until Larso gave us some sort of opening. I hoped you’d send them a vision—that you’d do something!”

“I told them you speak with my voice,” Pallisur said.

“That only goes so far when I regularly violate what they believe to be your teachings. You’ve let them run rampant for too long, and for what? The mages in this part of the world are hardly the sort of threat you were anticipating when you created the Order, and the ones who are a threat would never allow your little cult to take hold.”

“Perhaps my cult, as you put it, is the reason the mages here aren’t a threat,” Pallisur said. “What if there’s another dark magic incursion or demon war? What if a mortal wizard discovers the conjunction? There are futures where the Order may be needed, and I won’t have time to build them up from nothing. They stand ready until they can serve their true purpose. You need to disperse them—they’ll have to have their revenge some other day.”

Ephrenia gave him an odd look. “You haven’t heard?” she said, tapping the map. “Hera’s idiot puppet king stripped the border of most of its defenses. He pulled all his mercenaries out of the north, and a big chunk of the knights as well. The army’s spread too thin to take over—some of the crossings have no guards at all. I told Leonis’s men that we need to wait for a sign, and now Rusol has gifted it to us on a silver platter. It’s too late to stop. We march tomorrow.”

The ship Pallisur had taken had sailed past Larso, heading straight for the Basin, and the last rumors he’d heard were months old. Why would Rusol leave the region so poorly defended?

“Even if you take the border,” he said, “even if you take Northtower, what purpose would it serve? You can’t seriously believe your five thousand men are enough to face Larso’s armies. And in the meantime, you’re setting the Order against itself. You’ll get my people killed.”

“Rusol is distracted by some war to the south,” Ephrenia said. “It should be easy enough to gain a foothold. And who says we have to fight the Order? Why not reunite the two branches? Then we can eliminate Rusol, along with the snakes he and his father have put in charge of the Church. They’ve been undermining you for years.”

“I need Rusol alive for the ritual. I’m only here because we lost Leonis, and I doubt I’ll be able to convince any of the others to take Rusol’s place.”

“Then you’ll just allow him to continue working against you? You’re playing right into Hera’s hands.”

“I don’t think he’s working for Herasis,” he said. “He wields three magics now—that’s how he was able to defeat Leonis. Someone blessed him, and it wasn’t one of us.”

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Ephrenia froze. “Dark magic?” she asked.

“That’s one possibility.” Dark magic was a curious perversion, always trying to mimic one of the four true sources, but Pallisur had never seen it act as a priestly blessing before. “Herasis thinks a demon lord ascended.”

Ephrenia shook her head. “If that happened, there’d be war in the hells. We would have seen some sign of it by now.”

“I agree, but whatever Rusol’s motives may be, I can’t let you kill him. Not yet.”

Ephrenia thought for a moment, chewing on her lip. “Then we take Northtower and focus on reuniting the Order, but delay the confrontation with Telfort until you can finish the ritual. How long will that take?”

“I need at least one more warden to participate willingly. Did Kono or Hildra ever respond to Leonis’s messages?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but I did overhear him ranting about Kono. I suspect the good Emperor refused.”

There weren’t many choices left. Shayliel wasn’t an option—not that she ever had been, but Badru had made certain of it. Rusol was too unpredictable. Yelena was mostly an unknown, though her dislike for demons might make her a possibility. And then there was the newest one. Hera’s pawn, so Pallisur had planned to avoid him, but she’d left the young man to his own devices. He could, perhaps, be persuaded. Or lied to.

Pallisur stared down at the map. The initial push into Larso might go as easily as Ephrenia said, but once the northern lords learned of the incursion, they’d fight back, whether they believed the invading forces had the backing of the Church or not. And not all of Ephrenia’s soldiers would be available for the war. At least half would be needed to protect the Carved Basin, or else the barbarians would do to Blue Vale what Ephrenia was attempting to do to Larso.

But it had been a long time since Pallisur had had the opportunity to plan a war.

“You’ll still support the ritual, then?” he asked.

Ephrenia looked away for a moment before meeting his gaze. “How did Zachal die?” she asked.

Pallisur scowled. “Has Arodisis been after you again?”

“Just tell me, Pallis. No more lies; no more prevaricating. If we go through with the ritual, we’ll all have to put a lot of trust in you. Tell me I’m not making a mistake—that you’re still the same man I followed into war.”

She meant the Second Demon War, when she’d fought by his side on the front lines, along with the rest of his and Arodisis’s bondmates. Only those who’d been there could understand the deep links forged by two hundred years of battle.

The fifteen years of the Third Demon War seemed laughable in comparison, even if the conflicts had been larger and more frequent. The younger wardens like Herasis had no idea what it was like to watch generation after generation grow old and die, never knowing anything but fighting.

When the second war began, there had been only seven thousand of The People, and they’d barely advanced beyond the magical experiments they’d been created as.

By the end of the war, nearly two hundred thousand Chosar had populated Van Kir. A mix of lab-born and natural-born, but all bred for fighting prowess and forced into mandatory military service to defend their creators. The rebellion had been inevitable—the Chosar overthrowing those who’d enslaved them, then destroying all record of it so their children could grow up unaware of the blood on their hands.

Ephrenia and Pallis had fought together in that war as well.

“You want the truth?” he said. “Zachal betrayed us! He sabotaged the ritual with a necromancy spell. He’s the reason why the people in the undercity were doomed. He’s the reason we failed! If I hadn’t killed him, everyone in Tir Yadar would have died!”

The story sounded ludicrous even to Pallisur, who’d witnessed it, but Ephrenia seemed to believe him.

“That’s the big secret you’ve been holding onto all these years?” she said. “Why not just tell us? Why let everyone think the worst for all this time?”

“Because it doesn’t make any sense! Zachal helped us develop the ritual. He hoped the new power would raise his people out of barbarism. Why would he try to stop it? What if I was wrong?”

Zachal wasn’t known for using necromantic magic. Could Pallisur have misinterpreted the other warden’s spell somehow?

Even with the truth out, he couldn’t tell Ephrenia the real reason he’d never explained himself. If Zachal hadn’t sabotaged the ritual, then by killing him, it was Pallisur himself who had. If they’d worked together instead, perhaps they could have prevented the wild magic from escaping. Either Zachal had caused the Burning … or Pallisur had.

Ephrenia didn’t seem to make the connection. “Wrong about what? Necromantic magic in the middle of a ritual spell? I doubt you’d make that sort of mistake, and Zachal’s loyalties were always … questionable.” She was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll support the ritual, but I want something in return. Leave the elderfolk to me. Exempt them from the ritual—don’t take away their magic.”

“The elderfolk? Why?”

“I didn’t come north to babysit your priests, Pallis. I came looking for new Mage Knights. Once we deal with Rusol, I’d like to get back to it. Besides, the elderfolk are our descendants just as much as the stormborn are.”

“Since when do you care about bringing back the Mage Knights?” Pallisur asked. “You were barely one of them. You only joined the order there at the end because Argyros wanted to fill out the ranks.”

She looked away, not answering for so long that Pallisur thought she’d forgotten the question. Then she spoke. “What are we anymore?” she asked. “There are so few of our people left—we’re lost in history. After Thedan … after he died, I finally realized what he was up to with those battle wizards in Matagor. They might not have been Mage Knights, but they were something. I’m tired, Pallis. I need that something.”

The long history between them went both ways. “One last war,” Pallisur said. “And then I’ll leave the elderfolk to you.”

(Author's note: I hope you enjoyed Book 5. There'll be a bit of a break before Book 6. I'm still outlining it, and then I need time to build up some chapters on Patreon before I can start posting here.)